The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett

So long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush. ~ The Master Koot Hoomi

The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett is a collection of letters published as a book in 1923. They were written between 1880 and 1884 by the Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya to A. P. Sinnett. They are important to students of Theosophy due to their discussions on the cosmos and spiritual hierarchy.

An inexperienced seaman is apprehensive when boarding a ship, but after ten voyages he astonishes those around him by his calmness. Our actions are full of calmness.

To the slave discipline of spirit will be a prison; to the liberated one it will be a wondrous healing garden. So long as the discipline of spirit is as fetters the doors are closed, for in fetters one cannot ascend the steps.

Quotes

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Introduction

(A. Trevor Barker, Fellow of the Theosophical Society. London, September 1923)

• It is well known, among students of Theosophy and Occultism, that the philosophical doctrines and ethics which were given to the world through the Theosophical Society during the 16 years immediately following its foundation in 1875, emanated from certain Eastern Teachers said to belong to an Occult Brotherhood living in the trans Himalayan fastnesses of Tibet. H. P. Blavatsky who, together with Colonel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society, acknowledged these Eastern Brothers as her Teachers, stating not only that They existed, but that she herself had received training and instruction at Their hands during her sojourn in Tibet, and was therefore able to speak from her own knowledge and personal experience. It was not until 1880... that... the late A. P. Sinnett, then living in India, was enabled through the agency of Madame Blavatsky, to enter into correspondence with her own Teachers, whom she referred to variously under the terms, The Brothers, The Mahatmas, and later The Masters of the Wisdom.

• During the course of this correspondence which extended over the years 1880 to 1884 Mr. Sinnett received many letters from The Mahatmas M. and K.H., the Teachers in question, and it is these original communications which are published in the present volume under the title of " The Mahatma Letters." The circumstances attending their receipt were fully dealt with by Mr. Sinnett in his Occult World and they need not therefore be restated here.

• The Masters are what they are; what they have written — they have written, and neither they nor their doctrines need the acclamation or apology of lesser minds. It is almost impossible to arrive at the facts, or even to form a trustworthy opinion upon a subject so far reaching, by studying an edited book of extracts. Therefore, that the members of the Theosophical Society and the world at large, should be enabled to study the truth for themselves concerning The Masters and their doctrines as set forth in these letters signed by their own hands, has been the aim of the compiler. To this end, the whole of the Mahatma Letters left by Mr. Sinnett have been transcribed verbatim from the originals and without omission.

• Many theories which have become the accepted dogmas of modern Theosophical doctrines, are clearly shown to be inaccurate and misleading, and it may therefore be profitable if the principal points of difference are indicated to the reader.

• There has been an increasing tendency in the Society during the last twelve years, to place an undue reliance on ceremonial, orders, Churches, creeds and their equivalent, thereby sacrificing the virility of individual effort and freedom of thought, which was so noticeable in the early days of the movement.

• The Master K. H. writes in very clear terms on this subject, and it may be well to quote his own words. "And now after making due allowance for evils that are natural and cannot be avoided . . . I will point out the greatest, the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power. It is religion under whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the Churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity, and that almost overwhelms mankind. Ignorance created Gods, and cunning took advantage of the opportunity." (Letter No. X.) And again "Far from our thoughts may it ever be to erect a new hierarchy for the future oppression of a priest ridden world." (Letter No. LXXXVII.) The inference and the message of these words in our own times is sufficiently clear.

• It is remarkable, more than thirty years after her death, how Madame Blavatsky is justified at almost every point in these letters. Few people have been more unjustly reviled, and even some of those who knew her intimately preferred to believe that she had committed every kind of error rather than admit for an instant that they themselves could be in the wrong.

• How far she was ever the deceiver depicted by Mr. Sinnett in his posthumous publication "The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe," may be judged by the reader if he will study the letter from Master K.H. in which he gives his own opinion on her delinquencies. Those who love the memory of H. P. Blavatsky for her work and the gifts she gave them, cannot but feel after reading that letter that after all she was worthy of their high regard; and those who have tried to blacken that memory and minimise the value of the work she did, will rise to heights indeed if the prayer be granted — that they may never deserve worse condemnation.

• In nothing is Madame Blavatsky more completely vindicated than in the explanation and refutation she gave in The Secret Doctrine, of the misconceived theory in regard to Mars and Mercury, which was originally published in Esoteric Buddhism.

• If Master K.H. has said that, the Society can never perish, though Branches and individuals in it may," the words of that other Teacher must also be remembered, that new wine cannot be poured into old bottles and that he who would find his life must first lose it. Be on your guard against hypocrisy, for nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed, and nothing concealed that shall not be made known; and all that has been uttered in darkness shall be heard in the light, and what has been whispered in chambers shall be proclaimed from the house-tops... There are days that are coming when one stone shall not be left upon another without being torn down. Take care that you are not deceived, for many shall come in My Name saying, I am He, and the time is near "—but do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be scared. These have to come first, but the end is not yet. There will be signs in the Sun and Moon and Stars, while on Earth there will be dismay and bewilderment at the roar of the sea and the waves, men's hearts failing them for fear and foreboding of what is to befall the universe. For the orbs of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. When these things begin to happen, look up — for your release is not far distant.

SECTION I. THE OCCULT WORLD SERIES

Letter No. I

• Esteemed Brother and Friend, Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the skeptics — it is unthinkable. See it in what light you will — the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment if not development, hence—unprepared. Very true, we work by natural not supernatural means and laws. But, as on the one hand Science would find itself unable (in its present state) to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the phenomenon in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the results would be deplorable. Believe me, it would be so—especially for yourself who originated the idea, and the devoted woman who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, would prove very soon a trap — and a fatal one indeed for her.

• You say — half London would be converted if you could deliver them a Pioneer on its day of publication. I beg to say that if the people believed the thing true they would kill you before you could make the round of Hyde Park; if it were not believed true, — the least that could happen would be the loss of your reputation and good name,—for propagating such ideas.

• Experimental knowledge does not quite date from 1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of Chester transformed under the royal charter their "Invisible College" into a Society for the promotion of experimental science. Ages before the Royal Society found itself becoming a reality upon the plan of the 'Prophetic Scheme' an innate longing for the hidden, a passionate love for and the study of nature had led men in every generation to try and fathom her secrets deeper than their neighbours did.

• Roma ante Romulum fuit — is an axiom taught to us in your English schools. Abstract enquiries into the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction and by men separated from his days by as long a period—and far longer—than the one which separates you from the great Syracusian. The vril of the "Coming Age" was the common property of races now extinct. (Note: Roma ante Romulum fuit is Latin for "Rome existed before Romulus/the founder of Rome).

• And, as the very existence of those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned — though in the Hiniavats, on the very territory belonging to you we have a cave full of the skeletons of these giants — and their huge frames when found are invariably regarded as isolated freaks of nature, so the vril or Akds — as we call it — is looked upon as an impossibility, a myth.

• We doubt not but the men of your science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them, they must first become their own property, have proved amenable to their own modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts. If you but look into the Preface to the "Micrographia" you will find in Hooke's suggestions that the intimate relations of objects were of less account in his eyes than their external operation on the senses —and Newton's fine discoveries found in him their greatest opponent. The modern Hookeses are many. Like this learned but ignorant man of old your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connexion of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in nature, as to provide a convenient 'classification of scientific experiments' so that the most essential quality of an hypothesis is not that it should be true but only plausible—in their opinion.

• As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a million of years ago: Prejudice based upon selfishness; a general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought—and occult study requires all that and much more—; pride and stubborn resistance to Truth if it but upsets their previous notions of things,—such are the characteristics of your age, and especially of the middle and lower classes.

• In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature for the experience of long centuries—aye, ages—has taught us. And, we know, that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush.

• As hoary antiquity had more than one Socrates so the dim Future will give birth to more than one martyr. Enfranchised science contemptuously turned away her face from the Copernian opinion renewing the theories of Aristarchus Samius—who "affirmeth that the earth moveth circularly about her own centre" years before the Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to the Bible.

Letter No. II

• We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has been made entirely plain that occult science has its own methods of research as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis physical science are in their way. If the latter has its dicta so also has the former; and he who would cross the boundary of the unseen world can no more prescribe how he will proceed than the traveller who tries to penetrate to the inner subterranean recesses of L'Hassa—the blessed, could show the way to his guide.

• The mysteries never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal. At no time have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men possessed nature's secret, though multitudes have witnessed the practical evidences of the possibility of their possession.

• The adept is the rare efflorescence of a generation of enquirers; and to become one, he must obey the inward impulse of his soul irrespective of the prudential considerations of worldly science or sagacity.

• Your desire is to be brought to communicate with one of us directly, without the agency of either Mad. B. or any medium. Your idea would be, as I understand it, to obtain such communications either by letters —as the present one—or by audible words so as to be guided by one of us in the management and principally in the instruction of the society. You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have not found "sufficient reasons " to even give up your "modes of life"—directly hostile to such modes of communications. This is hardly reasonable.

• He who would lift up high the banner of mysticism and proclaim its reign near at hand, must give the example to others. He must be the first to change his modes of life; and, regarding the study of the occult mysteries as the upper step in the ladder of Knowledge must loudly proclaim it such" despite exact science and the opposition of society. '

• Having then expressed.. my opinion that the world in general was unripe for any too staggering proof of occult power, there but remains to deal with the isolated individuals, who seek like yourself to penetrate behind the veil of matter into the world of primal causes, i.e., we need only consider now the cases of yourself and Mr. Hume.

• The first and chief consideration in determining us to accept or reject your offer lies in the inner motive which propels you to seek our instructions, and in a certain sense—our guidance.

• Now, what are your motives? I may try to define them in their general aspect, leaving details for further consideration. They are : (i) The desire to receive positive and unimpeachable proofs that there really are forces in nature of which science knows nothing; (2) The hope to appropriate them some day—the sooner the better, for you do not like to wait—so as to enable yourself—(a) to demonstrate their existence to a few chosen western minds; (b) to contemplate future life as an objective reality built upon the rock of Knowledge —not of faith; and (c) to finally learn—most important this, among all your motives, perhaps, though the most occult and the best guarded—the whole truth about our Lodges and ourselves; to get, in short, the positive assurance that the Brothers —of whom everyone hears so much and sees so little—are real entities—not fictions of a disordered hallucinated brain.

• To our minds then, these motives, sincere and worthy of every serious consideration from the worldly standpoint, appear—selfish... They are selfish because you must be aware that the chief object of the T.S. is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow men...

• Perhaps you will better appreciate our meaning when told that in our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness if, in the mind of the philanthropist there lurks the shadow of desire for self benefit or a tendency to do injustice, even when these exist unconsciously to himself. Yet, you have ever discussed but to put down the idea of a universal Brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the T.S. on the principle of a college for the special study of occultism. This my respected and esteemed friend and Brother—will never do!

Letter No. IV

• Olcott is doubtless out of time with the feelings of English people of both classes; but nevertheless more in time with us than either. Him we can trust under all circumstances, and his faithful service is pledged to us come well—come ill. My Dear Brother, my voice is the echo of impartial justice. Where can we find an equal devotion? He is one who never questions, but obeys; who may make innumerable mistakes out of excessive zeal but never is unwilling to repair his fault even at the cost of the greatest self-humiliation ; who esteems the sacrifice of comfort and even life something to be cheerfully risked whenever necessary; who will eat any food, or even go without ; sleep on any bed, work in any place...

• There is a tone of complaint in your question whether there will ever be a renewal of the vision you had, the night before the picnic day. Methinks, were you to have a vision nightly, you would soon cease to treasure them at all. But there is a far weightier reason why you should not have a surfeit—it would be a waste of our strength. As often as I, or any of us can communicate with you, whether by dreams, waking impressions, letters (in or out of pillows) or personal visits in astral form—it will be done. But remember that Simla is 7,000 feet higher than Allahabad, and the difficulties to be surmounted at the latter are tremendous. I abstain from encouraging you to expect too much, for, like yourself, I am loathe to promise what, for various reasons, I may not be able to perform.

• The term "Universal Brotherhood" is no idle phrase. Humanity in the mass has a paramount claim upon us, as I tried to explain in my letter to Mr. Hume, which you had better ask the loan of. It is the only secure foundation for universal morality... it is the aspiration of the true adept.

Letter No. V

• My dear, good friend, you must not bear me a grudge for what I say to him of the English in general. They are haughty. To us especially, so that we regard it as a natural feature. And, you must not confound your own private views—especially those you have now—with those of your countrymen in general.

• The prejudice of race is intense, and even in free England we are regarded as an inferior race. And this same tone vibrates in your own remark about a man of the people unused to refined ways and a foreigner but a gentleman," the latter being the man to be preferred.

Letter No. VI

• Plato was right: ideas rule the world, and, as men's minds will receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world will advance: mighty revolutions will spring from them; creeds and even powers will crumble before their onward march crushed by the irresistible force. It will be just as impossible to resist their influx, when the time comes, as to stay the progress of the tide. But all this will come gradually on, and before it comes we have a duty set before us; that of sweeping away as much as possible the dross left to us by our pious forefathers.

• New ideas have to be planted on clean places, for these ideas touch upon the most momentous subjects. It is not physical phenomenon but these universal ideas that we study, as to comprehend the former, we have to first understand the latter. They touch man's true position in the universe, in relation to his previous and future births; his origin and ultimate destiny; the relation of the mortal to the immortal; of the temporary to the eternal; of the finite to the infinite; ideas larger, grander, more comprehensive, recognising the universal reign of Immutable Law, unchanging and unchangeable in regard to which there is only an Eternal Now, while to uninitiated mortals time is past or future as related to their finite existence on this material speck of dirt.

• And now it is your province to decide which will you have: the highest philosophy or simple exhibitions of occult powers. Of course this is by far not the last word between us and—you will have time to think it over. The Chiefs want a Brotherhood of Humanity," a real Universal Fraternity started; an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds.

Letter No. VIII

• While the facilities of observation secured to some of us by our condition certainly give a greater breadth of view, a more pronounced and impartial, as a more widely spread humaneness... we might justly maintain that it is . . . the business of magic to humanise our natures with compassion for the whole mankind as all living beings, instead of concentrating and limiting our affections to one predilected race — yet few of us (except such as have attained the final negation of Moksha) can so far enfranchise ourselves from the influence of our earthly connection as to be insusceptible in various degrees to the higher pleasures, emotions, and interests of the common run of humanity. p. 32-33

• Until final emancipation reabsorbs the Ego it must be conscious of the purest sympathies called out by the esthetic effects of high art, its tenderest cords to respond to the call of the holier and nobler human attachments. Of course, the greater the progress towards deliverance, the less this will be the case, until, to crown all, human and purely individual personal feelings—blood-ties and friendship, patriotism and race predilection—all will give way, to become blended into one universal feeling, the only true and holy, the only unselfish and eternal one—Love, an Immense Love for humanity—as a Whole! For it is humanity which is the great Orphan, the only disinherited one upon this earth, my friend. And it is the duty of every man who is capable of an unselfish impulse to do something, however little, for its welfare. Poor, poor humanity! it reminds me of the old fable of the war between the Body and its members: here, too, each limb of this huge "orphan"—fatherless and motherless—selfishly cares but for itself. The body uncared for suffers internally, whether the limbs are at war or at rest. Its suffering and agony never ceases. . . . And who can blame it — as your materialistic philosophers do— if, in this everlasting isolation and neglect it has evolved gods, unto whom "it ever cries for help but is not heard! p. 33

• Yet I confess that I, individually, am not yet exempt from some of the terrestrial attachments. I am still attracted towards some men more than toward others, and philanthropy as preached by our Great Patron— the Saviour of the World—the Teacher of Nirvana and the Law ... has never killed in me either individual preferences of friendship, love—for my next of kin— or the ardent feeling of patriotism for the country—in which I was last materially individualized.

SECTION II PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEORETICAL TEACHINGS 1881-1883

Letter No. IX

• It is one of the unfortunate necessities of life that imperial needs do sometimes force one apparently to ignore the claims of friendship, not to violate one's word, but to put off and lay aside for a while the too impatient expectations of neophytes as of inferior importance. One such need that I call imperial is the need of your future welfare; the realization of the dream dreamt by you in company with S.M. That dream—shall we call it a vision?—was, that you, and Mrs. K.—why forget the Theos. Soc. ?—"are all parts of a large plan for the manifestations of occult philosophy to the world." Yes; the time must come, and it is not far—when all of you will comprehend aright the apparently contradictory phases of such manifestations; forced by the evidence to reconcile them.

• When our great Buddha—the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and the codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth, he became a Planetary Spirit; i.e.—his spirit could at one and the same time rove the interstellar spaces in full consciousness, and continue at will on Earth in his original and individual body. For the divine Self had so completely disfranchised itself from matter that it could create at will an inner substitute for itself, and leaving it in the human form for days, weeks, sometimes years, affect in no wise by the change either the vital principle or the physical mind of its body. By the way that is the highest form of adeptship man can hope for on our planet. But it is as rare as the Buddhas themselves, the last Khobilgan who reached it being Sang-Ko-Pa of Kokonor (XIV Century), the reformer of esoteric as well as of vulgar Lamaism.

Letter No. X

• Our ideas on Evil. Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering and death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering. The butterfly devoured by a bird becomes that bird, and the little bird killed by an animal goes into a higher form. It is the blind law of necessity and the eternal fitness of things, and hence cannot be called Evil in Nature. The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source of evil. Evil is the exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and greediness.

• Ambition, the desire of securing happiness and comfort for those we love, by obtaining honours and riches, are praiseworthy natural feelings but when they transform man into an ambitious cruel tyrant, a miser, a selfish egotist they bring manifold misery on those around him; on nations as well as on individuals. All this then—food, wealth, ambition, and a thousand other things we have to leave unmentioned, becomes the source and cause of evil whether in its abundance or through its absence. Become a glutton, a debauchee, a tyrant, and you become the originator of diseases, of human suffering and misery. Lack all this and you starve, you are despised as a nobody and the majority of the herd, your fellow men, make of you a sufferer your whole life. Therefore it is neither nature nor an imaginary Deity that has to be blamed, but human nature made vile by selfishness.

• The greatest, the chief cause of nearly two-thirds of the evils that pursue humanity ever since that cause became a power,, is religion under whatever form and in whatever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood and the churches. It is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind. Ignorance created Gods and cunning took advantage of opportunity. Look at India and look at Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism. It is priestly imposture that rendered these Gods so terrible to man; it is religion that makes of him the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief in God and Gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who deceive them under the false pretence of saving them. Is not man ever ready to commit any kind of evil if told that his God or gods demand the crime? ... To-day the followers of Christ and those of Mahomet are cutting each other's throats in the names of and for the greater glory of their respective myths.

Letter No. XIII

• The present mankind is at its fourth round (mankind as a genus or a k.ind not a race nota bene) of the post-pralayan cycle of evolution; and as its various races, so the individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly seven-fold cycles—hence the vast difference in the degree of their intelligence, energy and so on. Now every individuality will be followed on the ascending arc by the law of retribution—Karma and Death accordingly. The perfect man or the entity which reached full perfection (each of his seven principles being matured), will not be re-born here.

Letter No. XIV

• A few drops of rain do not make a monsoon though they presage it.
• The fifth round has not commenced on our earth and the races and sub-races of one round must not be confounded with those of another round. The fifth round mankind may be said to have commenced when there shall not be left on the planet which precedes ours a single man of that round and on our earth not one of the fourth round. You should know also that the casual fifth round men (and very few and scarce they are) who come in upon us as avant couriers do not beget on earth fifth round progeny. Plato and Confucius were fifth round men and our Lord a sixth round man (the mystery of his avatar is spoken of in my forthcoming letter) not even Gautama Buddha's son was anything but a fourth round man.

SECTION III PROBATION AND CHELASHIP

Letter No. XXVIII

• The aspiration for brotherhood between our races met no response—nay, it was pooh-poohed from the first—and so, was abandoned even before I had received Mr. Sinnett's first letter. On his part and from the start, the idea was solely to promote the formation of a kind of club or "school of magic."... It was Mad. B.—not we, who originated the idea; and it was Mr. Sinnett who took it up. Notwithstanding his frank and honest admission to the effect that being unable to grasp the basic idea of Universal Brotherhood of the parent Society, his aim was but to cultivate the study of occult Sciences, an admission which ought to have stopped at once every further importunity on her part, she first succeeded in getting the consent—a very reluctant one I must say—of her own direct chief, and then my promise of co-operation—as far as I could [legally] go. Finally, through my mediation, she got that of our highest Chief, to whom I submitted the first letter you honoured me with. But, this consent, you will please bear in mind, was obtained solely under the express and unalterable condition that the new Society should be founded as a branch of the Universal Brotherhood and among its members, a few elect men would, if they chose to submit to our conditions, instead of dictating theirs—be allowed to begin the study of the occult sciences under the written directions of a Brother." p. 209

Letter No. XLLX

• Fasting, meditation, chastity of thought, word, and deed; silence for certain periods of time to enable nature herself to speak to him who comes to her for information; government of the animal passions and impulses; utter unselfishness of intention, the use of certain incense and fumigations for physiological purposes, have been published as the means since the days of Plato and lamblichus in the West, and since the far earlier times of our Indian Rishis...

Letter No. LXV

• You must have understood by this time my friend, that the continual attempt made by us to open the eyes of the blind world — has nearly failed: in India — partially, in Europe — with a few exceptions—absolutely.

• Let the eyes of the most intellectual among the public be opened to the foul conspiracy against theosophy that is going on in the missionary circles and in one year's time you will have gained your footing. In India it is: "either Christ or the Founders (! !) Let us stone them to death!" They have nearly finished killing one—they are now attacking the other victim—Olcott. The padris are as busy as bees.

SECTION IV THE PHOENIX VENTURE AND THE CONDITION OF INDIA

Letter No. LXXVIII

• My dear friend :—do not accuse me—after having started it myself—of indiiference to, or oblivion of, our little speculation. The Chohan is not to be consulted every day on such worldly matters, and that is my excuse for the unavoidable delay. And now, I am permitted by my venerated Chief to convey to you a memorandum of His views and ideas upon the fortune and destinies of a certain paper upon which his foresight was asked by your humble friend and his servant. Putting them into business shape I have noted his views as follows. I. The establishment of a new journal of the kind described is desirable, and very feasible—with proper effort. II. That effort must be made by your friends in the world, and every Hindu theosophist who has the good of his country at heart, and not very afraid to spend energy and his time. It has to be made by outsiders—i.e. those who do not belong to our Order irretrievably ; as for ourselves. III. We can direct and guide their efforts and the movement, in general. Tho' separated from your world of action we are not yet entirely severed from it so long as the Theosophical Society exists. Hence, while we cannot inaugurate it publicly and to the knowledge of all theosophists and those concerned, we may, and will so far as practicable, aid the enterprise. In fact, we have begun already to do so.

Letter No. LXXXIII

• It is premature as yet to tell you more of the secret influence that has brought it on, but you may hear of it later. Nor may I forecast the future, except so far as to draw more than ever your attention to the black clouds that are gathering over the political sky. You know I told you long ago to expect many and great disturbances of all kinds as one cycle was closing and the other beginning its fateful activities. You already see in the seismological phenomena of late occurrence some of the proof; you will see a great many more and shortly. And if we have to regret the blasting of a humanitarian project, it should at least mitigate the severity of your disappointment to feel that in a bad time like this one has to contend against seen and unseen influences of the most hostile nature. p. 394

SECTION V THE LONDON LODGE OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

Letter No. LXXXIV

• The recent occurrences in which you have borne a part not altogether pleasant, may be distressing to some and tiresome to others, yet it is better so than that the old paralytic calm should have continued. An outbreak of fever in the human body is nature's evidence that she is trying to expel the seeds of disease and perhaps death anteriorily absorbed. As things were, the London Branch was but vegetating and the vast possibilities of psychic evolution in Britain were completely untried. Karma evidently required that the repose should be broken by the agency of the one most responsible for it

• My desire is that you should be gathering together all the reserve forces of your being so that you may rise to the dignity and importance of the crisis. However little you may seem to achieve—psychically—in this birth, remember that your interior growth proceeds every instant, and that toward the end of your life as in your next birth your accumulated merit shall bring you all you aspire to.

• It is not politic that H. S. Olcott should be exclusively your guest during his whole stay in Britain; his time should be divided between yourself and others of various opinions—should they wish to invite him for a short time.

Letter No. LXXXV

• Every Western Theosophist should learn and remember, especially those of them who would be our followers—that in our Brotherhood, all personalities sink into one idea—abstract right and absolute practical justice for all. And that, though we may not say with the Christians, return good for evil—we repeat with Confucius— return good for good, for evil—justice.

SECTION VI SPIRITUALISM AND PHENOMENA

Letter No. LXXXVIII

• My good friend—it is very easy for us to give phenomental proofs when we have necessary conditions. For instance— Olcott's magnetism after six years of purification is intensely sympathetic with ours—physically and morally is constantly becoming more and more so. Damodar and Bhavani Rao being congenitally sympathetic their auras help —instead of repelling and impeding phenomenal experiments. After a time you may become so—it depends on yourself. To force phenomena in the presence of difficulties magnetic and other is forbidden. As strictly as for a bank cashier to disburse money which is only entrusted to him. Mr. Hume cannot comprehend this. And therefore is "indignant" that the various tests he has secretly prepared for us have all failed. They demanded a tenfold expenditure of power since he surrounded them with an aura not of the purest—that of mistrust, anger, and anticipated mockery. Even to do this much for you so far from the Headquarters would be impossible but for the magnetisms O. and B. R. have brought with them—and I could do no more.

Letter No. LXXXIX

• Good friend, I will not, in sending forth the letter, reiterate again the many remarks that might be made respecting the various objections which we have the right to raise against Spiritual phenomena and its mediums. We have done our duty; and, because the voice of truth came through a channel which few liked, it was pronounced as false, and along with it—Occultism. The time has gone by to argue, and the hour when it will be proved to the world that Occult Science instead of being... a superstition itself, as they may be disposed to think it, will be found the explanation and the extinguisher of all superstitions—is nearby.

• All things being are in mystery; we expound mysteries by mysteries"—you may perhaps say. Well, well; to you as to one forewarned it will not be one; since, for several reasons—one more plausible than the other—I take you into my confidence. One of them is,—to save you a feeling of involuntary envy (the word is queer isn't it?) when you hear of it. As he will see somebody quite different from the real K.H., though it will still be K.H.— you need not feel like one wronged by your trans-himalayan friend. Another reason is, to save the poor fellow from the suspicion of boasting; the third and chiefest, though neither least nor last, is, that theosophy and its adherents have to be vindicated at last.

Letter No. XCVII

• Common people, are the masses as different from those who are distinguished. Your methods were not abandoned, it was only sought to show the drift of cyclic change no doubt that is helped by you too. Are you not man of the world enough to bear the small defects of young disciples. In their way they also help—and do greatly. In you is also concealed a power to help from your side for the poor Society will even yet need all the care it can get. It is good that you have seen the work of a noble woman, who has left all for the cause. Other ways and times will appear for your help. For you are a single witness and well knowing the facts that will be challenged by traitors.

• We cannot alter Karma my "good friend" or we might lift the present cloud from your path. But we do all that is possible in such material matters. No darkness can stay for ever. Have hope and faith and we may disperse it. There are not many left true to the original programme! And you have been taught much and have much that is and will be useful.

SECTION VII MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS

Letter No. XCVIII

• I realized it perfectly. But however sincere, these feelings are too deeply covered by a thick crust of self sufficiency and egoistical stubbornness to awaken in me anything like sympathy.

• For centuries we have had in Tibet a moral, pure hearted, simple people, unblest with civilization, hence—untainted by its vices. For ages has been Tiibet the last corner of the globe not so entirely corrupted as to preclude the mingling together of the two atmospheres—the physical and the spiritual. And he would have us exchange this for his ideal of civilization and Govt.! This is pure self peroration, an intense passion for hearing himself discuss, and for imposing his ideas upon every one.
• Now really, Mr. H. ought to be sent by an international Committee of Philanthropists, as a Friend of Perishing Humanity to teach our Dalai Lamas—wisdom. Why he does not straightway sit down and frame a plan for something like Plato's Ideal Republic with a new scheme for everything under the Sun and moon—passes my poor comprehension!

• This is indeed benevolent in him to go so far out of his way to teach us. Of course, this is pure kindness and not a desire to over-top the rest of humanity. It is his latest acquisition of mental evolution, which, let us hope, will not turn in—dissolution....Now just listen to the man jabbering about what he knows nothing. No men living are freer than we when we have once passed outside of the stage of pupilage. Docile and obedient but never slaves during that time we must be; otherwise, and if we pass our time in arguing we never would learn anything at all.

Letter No. C

• If you care anything about our future relations, then, you better try to make your friend and colleague Mr. Hume give up his insane idea of going to Tibet. Does he really think that unless we allow it, he, or an army of Pelings will be enabled to hunt us out, or bring back news, that we are, after all, but a "moonshine" as she calls it. Madman is that man who imagines that even the British Govt: is strong and rich enough and powerful enough to help him in carrying out his insane plan ! Those whom we desire to know us will find us at the very frontiers. Those who have set against themselves the Chohans as he has—would not find us were they to go L'hassa with an army. His carrying out the plan will be the signal for an absolute separation between your world and ours. His idea of applying to the Govt : for permission to go to Tibet is ridiculous. He will encounter dangers at every step and will not even hear the remotest tidings about ourselves or our whereabouts.

Letter No. CVIIP

• The man sent by me last night was a Ladaku chela and had nothing to do with you. What you just said about initiation is true. Any Fellow who truly and sincerely repents ought to be taken back. As you see I am with you constantly.

Letter No. CXXIII

• Do not be impatient—good friend, I will answer to-morrow. When you learn one day the difficulties that are in my way you will see how mistaken you are at times in your notions about my movements. K. H.

Letter No. CXXVIP

• One of your letters begins with a quotation from one of my own . . . Says Buddha " you have to get rid entirely of the subjects of impermanence composing the body that your body should become permanent. The permanent never merges with the impermanent although the two are one. But it is only when all outward appearances are gone that there is left that one principle of life which exists independently of all external phenomena. It is the fire that burns in the eternal light, when the fuel is expended and the flame is extinguished; for that fire is neither in the flame nor in the fuel, nor yet inside either of the two but above beneath and everywhere—(Darinirvana Sutra kwnen XXXIX).

• You want to acquire gifts. Set to work and try to develop lucidity. The latter is no gift but a universal possibility common to all. As Luke Burke puts it "idiots and dogs have it, and to a more remarkable degree often than the most intellectual man. It is because neither idiots nor dogs use their reasoning faculties but allow their natural instinctive perceptions to have full play.

See also

• The Masters Koot Hoomi and Morya

Theosophical Teachers

• Annie Besant
• H. P. Blavatsky
• Geoffrey Hodson
• William Quan Judge
• C. W. Leadbeater
• Henry Steel Olcott
• A. P. Sinnett
• Theosophy

Related

• The Ageless Wisdom Teachings
• Agni Yoga
• The Reappearance of the Christ, by Alice A Bailey
• Esotericism
• Masters of Wisdom