Meditation

Charles Johnston (1867-1931) was an Irish writer, journalist, theosophist, linguist, naturalist, and Sanskrit scholar. Johnston He wrote numerous books on Indian philosophy, translating works from Sanskrit as well as on Theosophy. He was married to the niece of Madame Blavatsky and was involved in the development of the Theosophical Society in the United States.

Johnston translated several works from Sanskrit and Russian. As an author, he devoted himself primarily to philosophical and theosophical topics, and wrote a great number and variety of articles and books, ranging from scholarly writings on scriptures to popular volumes of humor, travel, and history.

The Johnston’s essay Meditation, which we propose to our readers today, was published in August 1898 in the Theosophical Forum.

According to Johnston, each of us could shrewdly guess at some one thing to be done, without any prolonged meditation. It is not the insight we lack, so much as the nerve to try if it will work; to make experiments, even at the risk of upsetting our comfortable lives. Our blood runs chill and thin, and no amount of Meditation will warm it. A little action will clear things up, more than a great deal of mediation. The real matter is the question of our wills. The later Indian schools exalted the intellect and its perceptions, and almost forgot the will. And from these schools come the maxims of meditation which are retailed to us.

Nothing, whether in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, can save us at all, except the valor of our own souls.