contemplative study of a theosophical classic
The Voice of the Silence
First published in 1891 and never out of print, The Voice of the Silence is the last book penned by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. This small book, a spiritual classic, has been regarded by a number of prominent Buddhists as containing the higher lamaistic teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
In 1925, the Ninth Paṇchen Lama, Tubten Chokyi Nyima was visited by a prominent Theosophist, Alice Cleather. He requested of her to have a new edition of The Voice of the Silence published, exactly as Madame Blavatsky had written it. It was, he said, ‘the only true exposition in English of the doctrine of the Mahāyāna and its noble ideal of self-sacrifice for humanity’(Jean Overton Fuller).
D.T. Suzuki believed that H.P. Blavatsky had in some way been initiated into the deeper Mahāyāna teaching. Until Suzuki brought Mahāyāna Buddhism and Zen to the West in about 1907 only the Hinayāna or Southern Buddhist texts had been studied, so when he came across The Voice of the Silence in 1910 Professor Suzuki was really surprised, remarking to his wife: ‘Here is the real Mahāyāna Buddhism’ (cited in Cranston 1993, p.84).
There is a great deal in The Voice of the Silence that might evoke such a response, including its references to the Bodhisattva ideal of forsaking Nirvāna for the salvation of others.
Find out more at our regular members meeting on the 4th Tuesday of the month March to November.
