Question: What is your view of theosophy and spiritualism?

Sri Chinmoy: I have nothing to say against theosophy; it helps seekers in its own way. Only we know that there is something deeper which theosophy cannot touch. The theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant is not wrong. But we have to know whether they are truly God-realised souls.

In Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine and also in other writings of Annie Besant, they have caught a portion of the truth. But this truth has not come directly from the highest realm of consciousness. It was in the vital world that this truth originated and got its expression. I am not saying anything against their offering. But at the same time we have to know that the truth they offer is different from the truth that comes from a spiritual Master who has entered into the plane called Sat-Chit-Ananda: Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. This plane is infinitely higher than the plane which theosophy has approached or achieved.

There is a great difference between spirituality, real spirituality, which is Yoga, and spiritualism. Spiritualism involves mediums; it involves spirits in the vital world or vital beings that are not purely connected with the soul and our inner being. If we are too interested in spiritualism, we give too much importance to the beings that move around in the vital world and in other worlds which are not at all illumined. They are only frightening, threatening, quarrelling and fighting. They satisfy a kind of curiosity plus a destructive quality in human nature.