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The Mahatma
Letters
to A P Sinnett
Letters 1 to 25
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The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
Letter No. 1
Received Simla about
Esteemed Brother and Friend,
Precisely because the test 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.
And such is not surely your object?
Madmen are they, who, speculating but upon the
present, wilfully shut their eyes to the
past when made already to remain naturally
blind to the future! Far be it from me, to
number you with the latter -- therefore will I
endeavour to explain. Were we to accede to
your desires know you really what consequences
would follow in the trail of success?
The inexorable shadow which follows all human
innovations moves on, yet few are they,
who are ever conscious of its approach and
dangers. What are then to expect they, who
would offer the world an innovation which,
owing to human ignorance, if believed in,
will surely be attributed to those dark
agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and
dread as yet? You say -- half
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
believed true, -- the least that could happen
would be the loss of your reputation and good
name, -- for propagating such ideas.
The success of an attempt of such a kind as
the one you propose, must be calculated and
based upon a thorough knowledge of the people
around you. It depends entirely upon the
social and moral conditions of the people in
their bearing on these deepest and most
mysterious questions which can stir the human
mind -- the deific powers in man and the
possibilities contained in nature. How many,
even of your best friends, of those who
surround you, who are more than superficially
interested in these abstruse problems? You
could count them upon the fingers of your
right hand. Your race boasts of having.liberated
in their century, the genius so long
imprisoned in the narrow vase of dogmatism
and intolerance -- the genius of knowledge,
wisdom and freethought. It says that in their
turn ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry,
bottled up like the wicked Jin of old, and
sealed up by the Solomons of science rests at
the bottom of the sea and can never,
escaping to the surface again, reign over the
world as it did in days of old; that the public
mind is quite free, in short, and ready to
accept any demonstrated truth. Aye; but is it
verily so, my respected friend? Experimental
knowledge does not quite date from 1662,
when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of
their "
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 Race"
was the common property of races now extinct. And, as
the very existence of those gigantic ancestors
of ours is now questioned -- though in the
Himavats,
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 Akas
-- as we call it -- is looked upon as an impossibility, a
myth. And, without a thorough knowledge of Akas,
its combinations and properties, how
can Science hope to account for such
phenomena? We doubt not but the men of your
science are open to conviction; yet facts must
be first demonstrated to them, they must
first have 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
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.
So far for Science -- as much as we know of
it. 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. What then would be the results
of the most astounding phenomena, supposing we
consented to have them produced?
However successful, danger would be growing
proportionately with success. No choice
would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo,
or to fall in this endless struggle with
prejudice and ignorance killed by your own
weapons. Test after test would be required.
and would have to be furnished; every
subsequent phenomenon expected to be more
marvellous than the preceding one. Your daily
remark is, that one cannot be expected to
believe unless he becomes an eye-witness.
Would the lifetime of a man suffice to satisfy
the whole world of skeptics? It may be an easy
matter to increase the original number of
believers at Simla to hundreds and thousands.
But what of the hundreds of millions of
those who could not be made eye-witnesses? The
ignorant -- unable to grapple with the
invisible operators -- might some day vent
their rage on the visible agents at work; the
higher and educated classes would go on
disbelieving as ever, tearing you to shreds as
before. 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
Copernican 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.
The ablest mathematician at the Court of
Edward VI -- Robert Recorde -- was left to
starve in jail by his colleagues, who laughed
at his
discoveries "vain phantasies." Wm.
Gilbert of
died poisoned, only because -- this real
founder of experimental science in
has had the audacity of anticipating Galileo;
of pointing out Copernican's fallacy as to the
"third movement," which was gravely
alleged to account for the parallelism of the earth's
axis of rotation! The enormous learning of the
Paracelsi, of the Agrippas and the Deys
was ever doubted. It was science which laid
her sacrilegious hand upon the great work
"De Magnete" -- "The Heavenly
White Virgin" (Akas) and others. And it was the
illustrious "Chancellor of
won the name of the Father of Inductive
Philosophy, permitted himself to speak of such
men as the above-named as the
"Alchemicians of the Fantastic philosophy."
All this is old history, you will think.
Verily so; but the chronicles of our modern days do
not differ very essentially from their
predecessors. And we have but to bear in mind the
recent persecutions of mediums in
sorcerers in
the only salvation of the genuine proficients
in occult sciences lies in the skepticism of
the public: the charlatans and the jugglers
are the natural shields of the "adepts." The
public safety is only ensured by our keeping
secret the terrible weapons which might
otherwise be used against it, and which, as
you have been told became deadly in the
hands of the wicked and selfish.
I conclude by reminding you that such
phenomena as you crave, have ever been reserved
as a reward for those who have devoted their
lives to serve the goddess Saraswati -- our
Aryan
Many of your suggestions are highly reasonable
and will be attended to. I listened
attentively to the conversation which took
place at Mr. Hume's. His arguments are perfect
from the standpoint of exoteric wisdom. But,
when the time comes and he is allowed
to.have a full glimpse into the world of esoterism,
with its laws based upon mathematically
correct calculations of the future -- the
necessary results of the causes which we are
always at liberty to create and shape at our
will but are as unable to control their
consequences which thus become our masters --
then only will, both you and he
understand why to the uninitiated our acts
must seem often unwise, if not actually foolish.
Your forthcoming letter I will not be able to
fully answer without taking the advice of
those who generally deal with the European
mystics. Moreover the present letter must
satisfy you on many points you have better
defined in your last; but it will no doubt
disappoint you as well. In regard to the
production of newly devised and still more
startling phenomena demanded of her with our
help, as a man well acquainted with the
strategy, you must remain satisfied with the
reflection that there is little use in acquiring
new positions until those that you have
already reached are secured, and your Enemies
full aware of your right to their possession.
In other words, you had a greater variety of
phenomena produced for yourself and friends
than many a regular neophyte has seen in
several years. First, notify the public of the
production of the note, the cup and the sundry
experiments with the cigarette papers, and let
them digest these. Get them to work for an
explanation. And as except upon the direct and
absurd accusation of deceit they will
never be able to account for some of these,
while the skeptics are quite satisfied with their
present hypothesis for the production of the
brooch -- you will then have done real good
to the cause of truth and justice to the woman
who is made to suffer for it. Isolated as it
is, the case under notice in the Pioneer becomes
less than worthless -- it is positively
injurious for all of you -- for yourself as
the Editor of that paper as much as for anyone
else, if you pardon me for offering you that
which looks like advice. It is neither fair to
yourself nor to her, that, because the number
of eye-witnesses does not seem sufficient to
warrant the public attention, your and your
lady's testimony should go for nothing.
Several cases combining to fortify your
position as truthful and intelligent witness to the
various occurrences, each of these gives you
an additional right to assert what you know.
It imposes upon you the sacred duty to
instruct the public and prepare them for future
possibilities by gradually opening their eyes
to the truth. The opportunity should not be
lost through a lack of as great confidence in
your own individual right of assertion as that
of Sir Donald Stewart. One witness of well
known character outweighs the evidence of
ten strangers; and if, there is anyone in
-- the Editor of the Pioneer. Remember
that there was but one hysterical woman alleged
to have been present at the pretended
ascension, and that the phenomenon has never been
corroborated by repetition. Yet for nearly
2,000 years countless milliards have pinned
their faith upon the testimony of that one
woman -- and she not over trustworthy.
TRY -- and first work upon the material you
have and then we will be the first to help
you to get further evidence. Until then,
believe me, always your sincere friend,
Koot' Hoomi Lal Singh..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------
Letter No. 4
Apparently received 5th November {1880}.
Madam and Colonel O. arrived at our house,
Allahabad, on December the
1st, 1880. Col. O. went to
11th. Both returned to
Amrita Saras, Oct. 29.
My Dear Brother,
I could assuredly make no objection to the
style which you have kindly adopted, in
addressing me by name, since it is, as you
say, the outcome of a personal regard even
greater than I have as yet deserved at your
hands. The conventionalities of the weary
world, outside our secluded
"Ashrums," trouble us but little at any time; least of all now,
when it is men not ceremony-masters, we seek,
devotion, not mere observances. More
and more a dead formalism is gaining ground,
and I am truly happy to find so unexpected
an ally in a quarter where, hitherto there
have not been too many -- among the highly
educated classes of English Society. A crisis,
in a certain sense, is upon us now, and must
be met. I might say two crises -- one, the
Society's, the other for
in confidence, that
country under the pretext of a Chinese War. If
she does not succeed it will be due to us;
and herein, at least we will deserve your
gratitude. You see then, that we have weightier
matters than small societies to think about;
yet, the T.S. must not be neglected. The affair
has taken an impulse, which, if not well
guided, might beget very evil issues. Recall to
mind the avalanches of your admired
remember that at first their mass is small and
their momentum little. A trite comparison
you may say, but I cannot think of a better
illustration, when viewing the gradual
aggregation of trifling events, growing into a
menacing destiny for the Theos. Soc. It
came quite forcibly upon me the other day as I
was coming down the defiles of Kouenlun
--
chief to submit Mr. Hume's important offer,
and was crossing over to Lhadak on my way
home. What other speculations might have
followed I cannot say. But just as I was taking
advantage of the awful stillness which usually
follows such cataclysm, to get a clearer
view of the present situation and the
disposition of the "mystics" at Simla, I was rudely.recalled
to my senses. A familiar voice, as shrill as
the one attributed to Saraswati's
peacock -- which, if we may credit tradition,
frightened off the King of the Nagas --
shouted along the currents "Olcott has
raised the very devil again! . . . The Englishmen
are going crazy. . . . Koot Hoomi, come
quicker and help me!" -- and in her excitement
forgot she was speaking English. I must say,
that the "Old Lady's" telegrams do strike
one like stones from a catapult!
What could I do but come? Argument through
space with one who was in cold despair,
and in a state of moral chaos was useless. So
I determined to emerge from the seclusion
of many years and spend some time with her to
comfort her as well as I could. But our
friend is not one to cause her mind to reflect
the philosophical resignation of Marcus
Aurelius. The fates never wrote that she could
say: "It is a royal thing, when one is doing
good to hear evil spoken of himself." . .
. I had come for a few days, but now find that I
myself cannot endure for any length of time
the stifling magnetism even of my own
countrymen. I have seen some of our proud old
Sikhs drunk and staggering over the
marble pavement of their sacred
against Yog Vidya and Theosophy, as a
delusion and a lie, declaring that English Science
had emancipated them from such "degrading
superstitions," and saying that it was an
insult to
mysteries of nature; or that any living man
can or ever could perform any phenomena! I
turn my face homeward to-morrow.
The delivery of this letter may very possibly
be delayed for a few days, owing to causes
which it will not interest you for me to
specify. Meanwhile, however, I have telegraphed
you my thanks for your obliging compliance
with my wishes in the matters you allude to
in your letter of the 24th inst. I see with
pleasure, that you have not failed to usher me
before the world as a possible
"confederate." That makes our number ten, I believe? But I
must say, that your promise was well and
loyally fulfilled. Received at Umritsur on the
27th inst., at
minutes later, and had an acknowledgment wired
to you from
same afternoon. Our modes of accelerated
delivery and quick communications are not
then, as you will see, to be despised by the
Western world, or even the Aryan, English-speaking
and skeptical Vakils.
I could not ask a more judicial frame of mind
in an ally than that in which you are
beginning to find yourself. My Brother, you
have already changed your attitude toward
us in a distinct degree: what is to prevent a
perfect mutual understanding one day!
Mr. Hume's proposition has been duly and
carefully considered. He will, no doubt, advise
you of the results as expressed in my letter,
to him. Whether he will give our "modes of
action" as fair a trial as yourself -- is
another question. Our Maha (the "Chief") has
allowed me to correspond with both of you, and
even -- in case an Anglo-Indian Branch
is formed -- to come some day in personal
contact with it. It now depends entirely on
you. I cannot tell you more. You are
quite right as to the standing of our friends in the
Anglo-Indian world having been materially
improved by the Simla visit; and, it is also
true, though you modestly refrain from saying
so, that we are mainly indebted to you for.this.
But quite apart from the unlucky incidents of
the
possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown
by
your people toward ours. There is so very
minute a point of contact between the two
civilisations they respectively represent,
that one might almost say they could not touch at
all. Nor would they but for the few -- shall I
say eccentrics? -- who, like you, dream
better and bolder dreams than the rest; and
provoking thought, bring the two together by
their own admirable audacity. Has it occurred
to you that the two
not influenced, may at least have not been
prevented, by those who might have done so,
because they saw the necessity for that much
agitation to effect the double result of
making a needed diversion after the Brooch
Grenade, and, perhaps, of trying the strength
of your personal interest in occultism and
theosophy? I do not say it was so; I but enquire
whether the contingency ever presented itself
to your mind. I have already caused it to be
intimated to you that if the details given in
the stolen letter had been anticipated in the
Pioneer --
a much more appropriate place, and where they would have been handled to
better advantage -- that document would not
have been worth anyone's while to purloin
for the Times of
Colonel 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, fraternise with
any outcast, endure any privation for the
cause. . . . I admit that his connection with
an A. I. Branch would be "an evil" -- hence, he
will have no more to do with it than he has
with the British, (
connection will be purely nominal, and may be
made more so, by framing your Rules
more carefully than theirs; and giving your
organization such a self-acting system of
Government as would seldom if ever require any
outside interference. But to make an
independent A.I.B. with the self-same objects,
either in whole or apart, as the Parent
Society and with the same directors behind the
scenes would be not only to deal a mortal
blow at the Theos. Soc. but also put upon us a
double labour and anxiety without the
slightest compensating advantage that any of
us can perceive. The Parent S. has never
interfered in the slightest degree with the
British T.S., nor indeed with any other Branch,
whether religious or philosophical. Having
formed, or caused to be formed a new branch,
the Parent S. charters it (which it cannot now
do without our Sanction and signatures),
and then usually retires behind the scenes, as
you would say. Its further connection with
the subject branches is limited to receiving
quarterly accounts of their doings and lists of
the new Fellows, ratifying expulsions -- only
when specially called upon as an arbitrator
to interfere on account of the Founders'
direct connection with us -- etc., etc.; it never
meddles otherwise in their affairs except when
appealed to as a sort of appelate court.
And the latter depending on you, what is there
to prevent your Society from remaining
virtually independent? We are, even more
generous than you British are to us. We will
not force upon, nor even ask you to sanction a
Hindu "Resident" in your Society,
to.watch the interests of the Parent
independent; but will implicitly trust to your
loyalty and word of honour. But if you now
so dislike the idea of a purely nominal
executive supervision by Col. Olcott -- an
American of your own race -- you would surely
rebel against dictation from a Hindu,
whose habits and methods are those of his own
people, and whose race, despite your
natural benevolence, you have not yet learnt
to tolerate, let alone to love or respect. Think
well before you ask for our guidance. Our
best, most learned. and highest adepts are of
the races of the "greasy Tibetans";
and the Penjabi Singhs -- you know the lion is
proverbially a dirty and offensive beast,
despite his strength and courage. Is it certain that
your good compatriots would more easily
forgive our Hindu solecisms in manners than
those of their own kinsmen of
this was doubtful. National prejudices are apt
to leave one's spectacles undimmed. You
say "how glad we should be, if that one
(to guide you) were yourself," meaning your
unworthy correspondent. My good Brother, are
you certain, that the pleasant impression
you now may have from our correspondence,
would not instantly be destroyed upon
seeing me? And which of our holy Shaberons has
had the benefit of even the little
university education and inkling of European
manners that has fallen to my share? An
instance: I desired
Yog Vidya, and our natural mystics, one, whom -- without disclosing
myself to him too
much I could designate as an agent between
yourself and us, and whom I was anxious to
dispatch to you, with a letter of
introduction, and have him speak to you of Yoga and its
practical effects. This young gentleman who is
as pure as purity itself, whose aspirations
and thoughts are of the most spiritual
ennobling kind, and who merely through self-exertion
is able to penetrate into the regions of the
formless worlds -- this young man is
not fit for -- a drawing-room. Having
explained to him that the greatest good might result
for his country if he helped you to organize a
Branch of English mystics by proving to
them practically to what wonderful
results led the study of
guarded and very delicate terms to change his
dress and turban before starting for
Allahabad -- for, though she did not give him
this reason, they were very dirty and
slovenly. You are to tell Mr. Sinnett -- she said -- that you bring
him a letter from our
Brother K., with whom he corresponds. But, if
he asks you anything either of him or the
other Brothers answer him simply and
truthfully that you are not allowed to expatiate
upon the subject. Speak of Yog and prove to
him what powers you have attained. This
young man who had consented wrote later on the
following curious letter: "Madam," he
said, "you who preach the highest
standards of morality, of truthfulness, etc., you would
have me play the part of an imposter. You ask
me to change my clothes at the risk of
giving a false idea of my personality and
mystifying the gentleman you send me to. And
what if he asks me if I personally know
Koot'hoomi, am I to keep silent and allow him to
think I do? This would be a tacit falsehood,
and guilty of that, I would be thrown back
into the awful whirl of transmigration!"
Here is an illustration of the difficulties under
which we have to labour. Powerless to send to
you a neophyte before you have pledged
yourself to us -- we have to either keep back
or despatch to you one who at best would
shock if not inspire you at once with disgust!
The letter would have been given him by
my own hand; he had but to promise to hold his
tongue upon matters he knows nothing
about and could give but a false idea of, and
to make himself look cleaner. Prejudice and
dead letter again. For over a thousand years,
-- says Michelet, -- the Christian Saints.never
washed themselves! For how long will our
Saints dread to change their clothes for
fear of being taken for Marmaliks and the
neophytes of rival and cleaner sects!
But these, our difficulties, ought not to
prevent you from beginning your work. Colonel
O. and
Mr. Hume, if you yourself are ready to answer
for the fidelity of any man your party may
choose as the leader of the A.I.T.S., we are
content that the trial shall be made. The field
is yours and no one will be allowed to
interfere with you except myself on behalf of our
Chiefs when you once do me the honour to
prefer me to the others. But before one builds
the house he makes the plan. Suppose you draft
a memorandum as to the constitution and
policy of management of the A.I. Society you
have in mind and submit it for
consideration? If our Chiefs agree to it --
and it is not surely they who would show
themselves obstructive in the universal onward
march, or retard this movement to a
higher goal -- then you will at once be
chartered. But they must first see the plan; and I
must ask you to remember that the new Society
shall not be allowed to disconnect itself
with the Parent Body, though you are at
liberty to manage your affairs in your own way
without fearing the slightest interference
from its President so long as you do not violate
the general Rules. And upon this point I refer
you to Rule 9. This is the first practical
suggestion coming from a Cis and Trans-Himalayan
"cave-dweller" whom you have
honoured with your confidence.
And now about yourself personally. Far be it
from me to discourage one so willing as
yourself by setting up impossible barriers to
your progress. We never whine over the
inevitable but try to make the best of the
worst. And though we neither push nor draw
into the mysterious domain of occult nature
those who are unwilling; never shrink from
expressing our opinions freely and fearlessly,
yet we are ever as ready to assist those who
come to us; even to -- agnostics who
assume the negative position of "knowing nothing
but phenomena and refuse to believe in
anything else." It is true that the married man
cannot be an adept, yet without striving to
become "a Raja Yogi" he can acquire certain
powers and do as much good to mankind and
often more, by remaining within the
precincts of this world of his. Therefore,
shall we not ask you to precipitately change
fixed habits of life, before the full
conviction of its necessity and advantage has possessed
you. You are a man to be left to lead himself,
and may be so left with safety. Your
resolution is taken to deserve much: time will
effect the rest. There are more ways than
one for acquiring occult knowledge. "Many
are the grains of incense destined for one and
the same altar: one falls sooner into the
fire, the other later -- the difference of time is
nothing," remarked a great man when he
was refused admission and supreme initiation
into the mysteries. There is a tone of
complaint in your question whether there ever will
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
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 try 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. If it be a
dream, it is at least a noble one for mankind
and it is the aspiration of the true adept.
Yours faithfully,
Koot' Hoomi Lal Singh..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------
Letter No. 5
{Received November 1880}
My Dear Friend,
I have your letter of November 19th,
abstracted by our special osmosis from the envelope
at
postman just now. I am sorry to see that she
has once more proved inaccurate and led you
into error; but this is chiefly my own fault,
as I often neglect to give her an extra rub over
her poor sick head, now, when she forgets and
mixes up things more than usual. I did not
ask her to tell you "to give up the idea
of the A.I. Branch as nothing would come of it,"
but -- "to give up the idea of the
Anglo-Indian Branch in co-operation with Mr. Hume, as
nothing would come of it." I will send
you his answer to my letter and my final epistle
and you will judge for yourself. After reading
the latter, you will please seal and send it
to him, simply stating that you do so on my
behalf. Unless he asks the question you better
not let him know you have read his letter. He may
be proud of it, but -- should not.
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 national feature.
And, you must not confound your own private
views -- especially those you have now --
with those of your countrymen in general. Few,
if any -- (of course with such exceptions
as yourself, where intensity of aspirations makes
one disregard all other considerations) --
would ever consent to have "a
nigger" for a guide or leader, no more than a modern
Desdemona would choose an Indian Othello
nowadays. The prejudice of race is intense,
and even in free
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. Nor would a Hindu
be likely to have such a lack of "refined
ways" disregarded in him were he "an adept"
twenty times over again; and this very same
trait appears prominent in Viscount
Amberley's criticism on the "underbred
Jesus." Had you paraphrased your sentence and
said: -- "a foreigner but no gentleman"
(according to English notions) you could not have
added as you did, that he would be thought the
fittest. Hence, I say it again, that the
majority of our Anglo-Indians, among whom the
terms "Hindu" or "Asiatic" is generally
coupled with a vague yet actual idea of one
who uses his fingers instead of a bit of
cambric, and who abjures soap -- would most
certainly prefer an American to "a greasy
Tibetan." But you need not tremble for
me. Whenever I make my appearance –
whether.astrally or physically -- before my friend
A. P. Sinnett, I will not forget to invest a certain
sum in a square of the finest Chinese silk to
carry in my chogga pocket, nor to create an
atmosphere of sandal-wood and cashmere roses.
This is the least I could do in atonement
for my countrymen. But then, you see, I am but
a slave of my masters; and if, allowed to
gratify my own friendly feeling for you, and
attend to you individually, I may not be
permitted to do as much for others. Nay, to
tell truth, I know I am not permitted to do so,
and Mr. Hume's unfortunate letter has
contributed much to it. There is a distinct group or
section in our fraternity who attend to our
casual and very rare accessions of another race
and blood, and who brought across the
threshold Captain Remington and two other
Englishmen during this century. And these
"Brothers" -- do not habitually use floral
essences.
So the test of the 27th was no test
phenomenon? Of course, of course. But did you try to
get, as you said you would, the original MSS.
of the
but plethoric friend, Mrs. B., were even
proved to be my multum in parvo, my letter-writer,
and to manufacture my epistles, yet, unless
she were ubiquitous or had the gift of
flying from
she have written for me the dispatch in my own
hand-writing at
after your letter was received by her at
said you would send for it, for, with this dispatch
in your possession, no "detractors"
would be very strong, nor even the sceptical
logic of Mr. Hume prevail.
Naturally you imagine that the "nameless
revelation" -- which now re-echoes in
-- would have been pounced upon far more
eagerly than even it was, by the Times of
printed the account, the T. of I. could
never have published "A day with Madame B.,"
since that nice bit of American
"sensationalism" would not have been written by Olcott at
all. It would not have had its raison
d'etre. Anxious to collect for his Society every proof
corroborative of the occult powers of what he
terms the 1st Section, and seeing that you
remained silent, our gallant Colonel felt his
hand itch until it brought everything to light,
and -- plunged everything into darkness and
consternation! . . . "Et voici pourquoi nous
n'irons plus au bois," as the French song
goes.
Did you write "tune"? Well, well; I
must ask you to buy me a pair of spectacles in
adopt my old fashioned habit of "little
lines" over the "m's." Those bars are useful, even
though "out of tune and time" with
modern caligraphy. Besides, bear in mind, that these
my letters, are not written but impressed or
precipitated and then all mistakes corrected.
We will not discuss, at present, whether your
aims and objects are so widely different
from those of Mr. Hume's; but if he may be
actuated by "a purer and broader
philanthropy," the way he sets to work to
achieve these aims will never carry him beyond
pure theoretical disquisitions upon the
subject. No use now in trying to represent him in
any other light. His letter that you will soon
read -- is, as I say to himself, "a monument
of pride and unconscious selfishness." He
is too just and superior a man to be guilty of
petty vanities; but his pride climbs like that
of the mythical Lucifer; and, you may believe.me –
if I
have any experience in human nature -- when I say, that this is Hume -- au
naturel. It is no hasty conclusion of mine based upon any personal feeling, but
the
decision of the greatest of our living adepts
-- the Shaberon of Than -- La. Of whatever
question he touches his treatment is the same:
a stubborn determination to make
everything either fit his own foregone
conclusions or -- sweep it away by a rush of
ironical and adverse criticism. Mr. Hume is a
very able man and -- Hume to the core.
Such a state of mind offers little attraction,
as you will understand, to any of us who
might be willing to come and help him.
No; I
do not and never will "despise" any "feeling" however it
may clash with my own
principles, when it is expressed as frankly and
openly as yours. You may be, and
undoubtedly are, moved by more egotism than
broad benevolence for mankind. Yet as
you confess it without mounting any
philanthropical stilts, I tell you candidly that you
have far more chances than Mr. Hume to learn a
good bit of occultism. I, for one, will do
all I can for you, under the circumstances and
restrained as I am by fresh orders. I will
not tell you to give up this or that, for,
unless you exhibit beyond any doubt the presence
in you of the necessary germs it would
be as useless as it would be cruel. But I say --
TRY. Do not despair. Unite to yourself several
determined men and women and make
experiments in mesmerism and the usual
so-called "spiritual" phenomena. If you act in
accordance with prescribed methods you are
sure to ultimately obtain results. Apart from
this, I will do my best and -- who knows! Strong
will creates and sympathy attracts even
adepts, whose laws are antagonistic to their
mixing with the uninitiated. If you are willing
I will send you an Essay showing why in
Europe more than anywhere else a Universal
Brotherhood, i.e., an association of "affinities" of strong
magnetic yet dissimilar forces
and polarities centred around one dominant
idea, is necessary for successful
achievements in occult sciences. What one will
fail to do -- the combined many will
achieve. Of course you will have -- in case
you organise -- to put up with Olcott at the
head of the Parent Society, hence -- nominally
the President of all the existing Branches.
But he will be no more your "leader
" than he is the leader of the British Theos. Society,
which has its own President, its own Rules and
Bye-laws. You will be chartered by him,
and that's all. In some cases he will have to
sign a paper or two -- 4 times a year the
accounts sent in by your Secretary; yet he has
no right to interfere either with your
administration or modes of action, so long as
these do not clash with the general Rules,
and he certainly has neither the ability nor
the desire of being your leader. And, of course,
you (meaning the whole Society) will have
besides your own President chosen by
yourselves, "a qualified professor of
occultism" to instruct you. But, my good friend,
abandon all notion that this
"Professor" can bodily appear and instruct you for years to
come. I may come to you personally --
unless you drive me off, as Mr. Hume did -- I
cannot come
to ALL. You may get phenomena and proofs, but even were you to fall into
the old error and attribute them to
"Spirits" we could but show you your mistake by
philosophical and logical explanations; no
adept would be allowed to attend your
meetings.
Of course you ought to write your book. I do
not see, why in any case it should be
impracticable. Do so, by all means, and any
help I can give you I will. You ought to put
yourself immediately in correspondence with
Lord Lindsay, and take the Simla.phenomena
and your correspondence with me as the
subject. He is intensely interested in
all such experiments, and being a theosophist
and upon the General Council is sure to
welcome your overtures. Take the ground that
you belong to the T.S., that you are the
widely known Editor of the "Pioneer,"
and that, knowing how great an interest he takes
in the "spiritual" phenomena you
submit to his consideration the very extraordinary
things which took place at Simla, with such
additional details as have not been published.
The best of the British Spiritualists could,
with proper management, be converted into
Theosophists. But neither Dr. Wyld, nor Mr.
Massey, seem to have the requisite force. I
advise you to confer personally with Lord
Lindsay upon the theosophical situation at
home and in India. Perhaps you two might work
together: the correspondence I now
suggest will pave the way.
Even if Madame B. might "be induced"
to give the A.I. Society any "practical
instruction" I am afraid she has remained
too long a time outside the adytum to be of
much use for practical explanations. However,
though it does not depend upon me, I will
see what I can do in this direction. But I
fear she is sadly in need of a few months of
recuperative villagiatura, on the
glaciers, with her old Master before she can be entrusted
with such a difficult task. Be very cautious
with her in case she stops with you on her
way down home. Her nervous system is terribly
shaken, and she requires every care. Will
you please spare me needless trouble by
informing me of the year, date, and hour of Mrs.
Sinnett's birth?
Ever yours sincerely,
Koot' Hoomi..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 6
Received at Allahabad about December 10th,
1880.
No -- you do not "write too much." I
am only sorry to have so little time at my disposal;
hence -- to find myself unable to answer you
as speedily as I otherwise would. Of course
I have to read every word you write: otherwise I would make a fine mess of
it. And
whether it be through my physical or spiritual
eyes the time required for it is practically
the same. As much may be said of my replies.
For, whether I "precipitate" or dictate them
or write my answers myself, the difference in
time saved is very minute. I have to think it
over, to photograph every word and sentence
carefully in my brain before it can be
repeated by "precipitation." As the
fixing on chemically prepared surfaes of the images
formed by the camera requires a previous
arrangement within the focus of the object to
be represented, for otherwise -- as often
found in bad photographs -- the legs of the sitter
might appear out of all proportion with the
head, and so on, so we have to first arrange
our sentences and impress every letter to
appear on paper in our minds before it becomes
fit to be read. For the present, it is all I
can tell you. When science will have learned more
about the mystery of the lithophyl (or
lithobiblion) and how the impress of leaves comes
originally to take place on stones, then will
I be able to make you better understand the
process. But you must know and remember one
thing: we but follow and servilely copy
nature in
her works.
No; we need argue no longer upon the
unfortunate question of a "Day with Mad. B." It is
the more useless, since you say, you have no
right to crush and grind your uncivil and
often blackguardly opponents in the "Pioneer"
-- even in your own defence -- your
proprietors objecting to the mention of
occultism altogether. As they are Christians it is
no matter of great wonder. Let us be
charitable and hope they will get their own reward:
die and become angels of right and Truth --
winged paupers of the Christian heaven.
Unless you join several, and organize somehow
or other, I am afraid I will prove but of
little help for you practically. My dear
friend, I have my "proprietors" also. For reasons
best known to themselves they have set their
foot upon the idea of teaching isolated
individuals. I will correspond with you and
give you proofs from time to time of my
existence and presence. To teach or instruct
you -- is altogether another question. Hence
to sit with your lady is more than useless.
Your magnetisms are too similar and -- you
will get nothing..I will translate my Essay
and send it to you as soon as I can. Your idea of corresponding
with your friends and fellows is the next best
thing to do. But do not fail to write to Lord
Lindsay.
I am a little "too hard" upon Hume,
you say. Am I? His is a highly intellectual and, I
confess, a spiritual nature too. Yet, he is
every bit of him "Sir Oracle." It may be that it is
the very exuberance of that great intellect
which seeks issue through every chink, and
never loses an opportunity to relieve the
fulness of the brain, which overflows with
thought. Finding in his quiet daily life too
meagre a field with but "Moggy" and Davison
to sow upon -- his intellect bursts the dam
and pounces upon every imagined event, every
possible though improbable fact his
imagination can suggest, to interpret it in his own
conjectural way. Nor do I wonder that such a
skilled workman in intellectual mosaic as
he, finding suddenly, the most fertile of
quarries, the most precious of colour-stores in
this idea of our Fraternity and the T.S. --
should pick out ingredients from it to daub our
faces with. Placing us before a mirror which
reflects us as he finds us in his own fertile
imagination he says: "Now, you mouldy
relics of a mouldy Past, look at yourselves how
you really are!" A very, very
excellent man our friend Mr. Hume, but utterly unfit for
moulding into an adept.
As little, and far less than yourself does he
seem to realize our real object in the formation
of an A.I. Branch. The truths and mysteries of
occultism constitute, indeed, a body of the
highest spiritual importance, at once profound
and practical for the world at large. Yet, it
is not as a mere addition to the tangled mass
of theory or speculation in the world of
science that they are being given to you, but
for their practical bearing on the interests of
mankind. The terms "unscientific,"
"impossible," "hallucination," "impostor," have
hitherto been used in a very loose, careless
way, as implying in the occult phenomena
something either mysterious and abnormal, or a
premeditated imposture. And this is why
our chiefs have determined to shed upon a few
recipient minds more light upon the
subject, and to prove to them that such
manifestations are as reducible to law as the
simplest phenomena of the physical universe.
The wiseacres say: "The age of miracles is
past," but we answer, "it never
existed!" While not unparalleled, or without their
counterpart in universal history, these
phenomena must and WILL come with an
overpowering influence upon the world of
sceptics and bigots. They have to prove both
destructive and constructive -- destructive
in the pernicious errors of the past, in the old
creeds and superstitions which suffocate in
their poisonous embrace like the Mexican
weed nigh all mankind; but constructive of
new institutions of a genuine, practical
Brotherhood of Humanity where all will become
co-workers of nature, will work for the
good of mankind with and through the
higher planetary Spirits -- the only "Spirits" we
believe in. Phenomenal elements, previously
unthought of -- undreamt of -- will soon
begin manifesting themselves day by day with
constantly augmented force, and disclose
at last the secrets of their mysterious
workings. 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 phenomena 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. This is what we
study and what many have solved.
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. I will send you my
Essay. Will
you be my co-worker and patiently wait for minor phenomena? I think I
foresee the answer. At all events the holy
lamp of spiritual light burning in you (however
dimly) there is hope for you, and -- for me,
also. Yes; put yourself in search after natives
if there are no English people to be had. But
think you, the spirit and power of
persecution gone from this enlightened age?
Time will prove. Meanwhile, being human I
have to rest. I took no sleep for over 60
hours.
Ever yours truly,
KOOT' HOOMI..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 8
Received through Mad. B. About February 20th,
1881.
{Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett and their young son were
on their way to England.
During the trip Sinnett wrote and published The
Occult World. he returned
alone July 5, Mrs. Sinnett being too ill to
travel.}
My dear friend, you are certainly on the right
path: the path of deeds and actions, not
mere words -- may you live long and keep on!.
. . I hope this will not be regarded by you
as an encouragement to be "goody
goody" -- a happy expression which made me laugh --
but you indeed step in as a kind of Kalka
Avatar dispelling the shadows of "Kali-yug" --
the black night of the perishing T.S. and driving
away before you the fata morgana of its
Rules. I
must cause the word fecit to appear after your name in invisible but
indelible
characters on the list of the General Council,
as it may prove some day a secret door to
the heart of the sternest of Hobilgans. . . .
Though a good deal occupied -- alas, as usual,
I must contrive to send you a somewhat
lengthy farewell epistle before you take up a
journey that may have most important
results -- and not alone for our cause. . . .
You understand, do you not, that it is no fault of
mine if I cannot meet you as I would?
Nor is it yours, but rather that of your life-long
environment and a special delicate task I
have been entrusted with since I knew you. Do
not blame me then, if I do not show myself in
more tangible shape, as not you alone, but I
myself might desire! When I am not permitted
to do so for Olcott -- who has toiled for us
these five years, how could I be for others
who have undergone none of his training as
yet? This applies equally to the case of the
Lord Crawford and Balcarres, an excellent
gentleman -- imprisoned by the world. His is a
sincere and noble, though may be a little
too repressed nature. He asks what hope he may
have? I say -- every hope. For he has that
within himself that so very few possess: an
exhaustless source of magnetic fluid which, if
he only had the time, he could call out in
torrents and need no other master than himself.
His own powers would do the work and his own
great experience be a sure guide for him.
But, he would have to guard against, and avoid
every foreign influence -- especially those
antagonistic to the nobler study of MAN as an
integral Brahm, the microcosm free and
entirely independent of either the help or
control of the invisible agencies the "new
dispensation" (bombastic word!) calls
"Spirits." His Lordship will understand my
meaning without any further explanation: he is
welcome to read this if he chooses, if the
opinions of an obscure Hindu interest him.
Were he a poor man, he might have become
an English Dupotet, with the addition of great
scientific attainments in exact science. But.alas --! what the peerage has
gained psychology has lost. . . . And yet it is not too late.
But see, even after mastering magnetic science
and giving his powerful mind to the study
of the noblest branches of exact science, how
even he has failed to lift more than a small
corner of the veil of mystery. Ah! that
whirling, showy, glittering world, full of insatiable
ambition, where family and the State parcel
out between them a man's nobler nature, as
two tigers a carcase, and leave him without
hope or light! How many recruits could we
not have from it, if no sacrifice were
exacted! His Lordship's letter to you exhales an
influence of sincerity tinged with regret.
This is a good man at heart with latent capacity
for being a far better and a happier one. Had
his lot not been cast as it has, and had his
intellectual power all been turned upon
Soul-culture, he would have achieved much more
than he ever dreamt. Out of such material were
adepts made in the days of Aryan glory.
But I must dwell no longer upon this case; and
I crave his Lordship's pardon if, in the
bitterness of my regret I over-stepped in any
way the bounds of propriety, in this too free
"psychometrical delineation of
character" as the American mediums would express it . . .
full measure only bounds excess" but -- I
dare go no further. Ah, my too positive and yet
impatient friend, if you but had such latent
capacities!
The "direct communication" with me
of which you write in your supplement note, and
the "enormous advantage" that it
would bring "to the book itself, if it can be conceded,"
would be so conceded at once, did it depend
but of me alone. Though it is not often
judicious to repeat oneself, yet I am so
anxious that you should realize the present
impracticability of such an arrangement, were
it even conceded by our Superiors, that I
will indulge in a brief retrospect of
principles stated.
We might leave out of the question the most
vital point -- one, you would hesitate
perhaps to believe -- that the refusal
concerns as much your own salvation (from the
standpoint of your worldly material
considerations) as my enforced compliance with our
time honoured Rules. Again I might cite
the case of Olcott (who, had he not been
permitted to communicate face to face -- and
without any intermediary -- with us, might
have subsequently shown less zeal and devotion
but more discretion) and his fate up to
the present. But, the comparison would
doubtless appear to you strained. Olcott -- would
you say -- is an enthusiast, a stubborn,
unreasoning mystic, who goes headlong before
him, blindfolded, and who will not allow
himself to look forward with his own eyes.
While you are a sober, matter-of-fact man of
the world, the son of your generation of cool
thinkers; ever keeping fancy under the curb,
and saying to enthusiasm: "Thus far shalt
thou go and no farther." . . . Perhaps
you are right -- perhaps not. "No Lama knows where
the ber-chhen will hurt him until he
puts it on," says a Tibetan proverb. However, let that
pass, for I must tell you now that for opening
"direct communication" the only possible
means would be: (1) For each of us to meet in
our own physical bodies. I being where I
am, and you in your own quarters, there is a
material impediment for me. (2) For both to
meet in our astral form -- which would
necessitate your "getting out" of yours, as well as
my leaving my body. The spiritual impediment
to this is on your part. (3) To make you
hear my voice either within you or near you as
"the old lady" does. This would be
feasible in either of two ways: (a) My chiefs
have but to give me permission to set up the
conditions -- and this for the present they
refuse; or (b) for you to hear my voice, i.e., my
natural voice without any psycho-physiological tamasha being
employed by me (again as.we often do among ourselves). But then, to do this,
not only have one's spiritual senses to
be abnormally opened, but one must himself
have mastered the great secret -- yet
undiscovered by science -- of, so to say
abolishing all the impediments of space; of
neutralising for the time being the natural
obstacle of intermediary particles of air and
forcing the waves to strike your ear in
reflected sounds or echo. Of the latter you know as
yet only enough to regard this as an
unscientific absurdity. Your physicists, not having
until recently mastered acoustics in this
direction, any further than to acquire a perfect (?)
knowledge of the vibration of sonorous bodies
and of reverberations through tubes, may
sneeringly ask: "Where are your
indefinitely continued sonorous bodies, to conduct
through space the vibrations of the
voice?" We answer that our tubes, though invisible,
are indestructible and far more perfect than
those of modern physicists, by whom the
velocity of the transmission of mechanical
force through the air is represented as at the
rate of 1,100 feet a second and no more -- if
I mistake not. But then, may there not be
people who have found more perfect and rapid
means of transmission, from being
somewhat better acquainted with the occult
powers of air (akas) and having plus a more
cultivated judgment of sounds? But of this we
will argue later on.
There is still more serious inconvenience; an
almost insurmountable obstacle -- for the
present, and one, under which I myself am
labouring, while even I do no more than
correspond with you, a simple thing that any
other mortal could do. It is my utter inability
to make you understand my meaning in my
explanation of even physical phenomena, let
alone the spiritual rationale. This is not the
first time I mention it. It is, as though a child
should ask me to teach him the highest
problems of Euclid before he had even begun
studying the elementary rules of arithmetic.
Only the progress one makes in the study of
Arcane knowledge from its rudimental elements,
brings him gradually to understand our
meaning. Only thus, and not otherwise, does
it, strengthening and refining those
mysterious links of sympathy between
intelligent men -- the temporarily isolated
fragments of the universal Soul and the cosmic
Soul itself -- bring them into full rapport.
Once this established, then only will these
awakened sympathies serve, indeed, to
connect MAN with -- what for the want of a
European scientific word more competent to
express the idea, I am again compelled to
describe as that energetic chain which binds
together the material and Immaterial Kosmos,
-- Past, Present, and Future -- and quicken
his perceptions so as to clearly grasp, not
merely all things of matter, but of Spirit also. I
feel even irritated at having to use these
three clumsy words -- past, present and future!
Miserable concepts of the objective phases of
the Subjective Whole, they are about as ill
adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine
carving. Oh, my poor, disappointed friend, that
you were already so far advanced on THE PATH,
that this simple transmission of ideas
should not be encumbered by the conditions of
matter, the union of your mind with ours --
prevented by its induced incapabilities! Such
is unfortunately the inherited and self-acquired
grossness of the Western mind; and so greatly
have the very phrases expressive
of modern thoughts been developed in the line
of practical materialism, that it is now next
to impossible either for them to comprehend or
for us to express in their own languages
anything of that delicate seemingly ideal
machinery of the Occult Kosmos. To some little
extent that faculty can be acquired by the
Europeans through study and meditation but --
that's all. And here is the bar which has
hitherto prevented a conviction of the
theosophical truths from gaining wider
currency among Western Nations; caused.
theosophical study to be cast aside as useless
and fantastic by Western philosophers. How
shall I teach you to read and write or even
comprehend a language of which no alphabet
palpable,
or words audible to you have yet been invented! How could the phenomena
of
our modern electrical science be explained to
-- say, a Greek philosopher of the days of
Ptolemy were he suddenly recalled to life --
with such an unbridged hiatus in discovery
as would exist between his and our age? Would
not the very technical terms be to him an
unintelligible jargon, an abracadabra of
meaningless sounds, and the very instruments
and apparatuses used, but
"miraculous" monstrosities? And suppose, for one instant, I
were to describe to you the hues of those
colour rays that lie beyond the so-called "visible
spectrum" -- rays invisible to all but a
very few even among us; to explain, how we can
fix in space any one of the so-called
subjective or accidental colours -- the complement,
(to speak mathematically) moreover, of any
other given colour of a dichromatic body
(which alone sounds like an absurdity), could
you comprehend, do you think, their optical
effect or even my meaning? And, since you see
them not, such rays, nor can know them,
nor have you any names for them as yet in
Science, if I were to tell you: -- "My good
friend Sinnett, if you please, without moving
from your writing desk, try search for, and
produce before your eyes the whole solar
spectrum decomposed into fourteen prismatic
colours (seven being complementary), as it is
but with the help of that occult light that
you can see me from a distance as I see
you" . . . . what think you, would be your answer?
What would you have to reply? Would you not be
likely enough to retort by telling me in
your own quiet, polite way, that as there
never were but seven (now three) primary
colours, which, moreover, have never yet by
any known physical process -- been seen
decomposed further than the seven prismatic
hues -- my invitation was as "unscientific"
as it was "absurd"? Adding that my
offer to search for an imaginary solar "complement"
being no compliment to your knowledge of
physical science -- I had better, perhaps, go
and search for my mythical
"dichromatic" and solar "pairs" in Thibet, for modern
science
has hitherto been unable to bring under any
theory even so simple a phenomenon as the
colours of all such dichromatic bodies. And
yet -- truth knows -- these colours are
objective enough!
So you see, the insurmountable difficulties in
the way of attaining not only Absolute but
even primary knowledge in Occult Science, for
one situated as you are. How could you
make your self understood -- command in
fact, those semi-intelligent Forces, whose
means of communicating with us are not through
spoken words but through sounds and
colours, in correlations between the
vibrations of the two? For sound, light and colours
are the main factors in forming these grades
of Intelligences, these beings, of whose very
existence you have no conception, nor are
you allowed to believe in them -- Atheists and
Christians, materialists and Spiritualists,
all bringing forward their respective arguments
against such a belief -- Science objecting
stronger than either of these to such a
"degrading superstition"!
Thus, because they cannot with one leap
over the boundary walls attain to the pinnacles
of Eternity; because we cannot take a
savage from the centre of Africa and make him
comprehend at once the Principia of
Newton or the "Sociology" of Herbert Spencer; or
make an unlettered child write a new Iliad in
old Achaian Greek; or an ordinary painter
depict scenes in Saturn or sketch the
inhabitants of Arcturus –
because of all this our.very existence is
denied! Yes; for this reason are
believers in us pronounced impostorsand fools,
and the very science which leads
to the highest goal of the highest
knowledge,to the real tasting of the Tree of Life
and Wisdom -- is scouted as a wild flight of
Imagination!
Most earnestly do I ask you not to see in the
above a mere ventilation of personal feeling.
My time is precious and I have none to lose.
Still less ought you to see in this an effort to
disgust or dissuade you from the noble work
you have just begun. Nothing of the kind;
for what I now say may avail for as much as it
can and no more; but -- vera pro gratis -- I
WARN you, and will say no more, apart from
reminding you in a general way, that the
task you are so bravely undertaking, that Missio
in partis infidelium -- is the most
ungrateful, perhaps, of all tasks! But, if you
believe in my friendship for you, if you value
the word of honour of one who never -- never
during his whole life polluted his lips with
an untruth, then do not forget the words I
once wrote to you (see my last letter) of those
who engage themselves in the occult sciences; he who does it "must either reach the goal
or perish. Once fairly started on the
way to the great Knowledge, to doubt is to risk
insanity; to come to a dead stop is to fall;
to recede is to tumble backward, headlong into
an abyss." Fear not, -- if you are
sincere, and that you are -- now. Are you as sure of
yourself, as to future?
But I believe it quite time to turn to less
transcendental and what you would call less
gloomy and more mundane matters. Here, no doubt,
you will be much more at home.
Your experience, your training, your
intellect, your knowledge of the exterior world, in
short, all combine to aid you in the
accomplishment of the task you have undertaken. For,
they place you on an infinitely higher level
than myself as regards the consideration of
writing a book, after your Society's "own
heart." Though the interest I take in it may
amaze some who are likely to retort on me and
my colleagues with our own arguments,
and to remark that our "boasted elevation
over the common herd" (our friend Mr. Hume's
words) -- above the interests and passions of
ordinary humanity, must militate against our
having any conception of the ordinary affairs
of life -- yet I confess that I do take an
interest in this book and its success, as
great as in the success in life of its future author.
I hope that at least you will
understand that we (or most of us) are far from being the
heartless, morally dried up mummies some would
fancy us to be. "Mejnoor" is very well,
where he is -- as an ideal character of a
thrilling -- in many respects truthful story. Yet,
believe me, few of us would care to play the
part in life of a dessicated pansy between the
leaves of a volume of solemn poetry. We may
not be quite the "boys" -- to quote Olcott's
irreverent expression when speaking of us --
yet none of our degree are like the stern hero
of Bulwer's romance. 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 -- for answering
Addison, 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. 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 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 away,
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 eternally, whether the limbs are
at war or at rest. Its suffering and agony
never cease. . . . 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!" . . . Thus --
"Since there is hope for man only in
man
I would not let one cry whom I could
save! . . ."
Yet I confess that I, individually, am not yet
exempt from some of the terrestrial
attachments. I am still attracted toward 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.
And, in this connection, I may some day,
unasked, offer a bit of advice to my friend
Mr. Sinnett, to whisper into the ear of the
Editor of the PIONEER En attendant --
"May I beg the former to inform Dr. Wyld, the
Prest. of the British T.S., of the few truths
concerning us as shown above? Will you
kindly undertake to persuade this excellent
gentleman, that not one of the humble "dew
drops" which, assuming under various
pretexts the form of vapour, have at various
periods disappeared in the space to congeal in
the white Himalayan clouds, have ever
tried to slip back into the shining Sea of
Nirvana through the unhealthy process of
hanging by the legs or by making unto
themselves another "coat of skin" out of the sacred
cow-dung of the thrice "holy cow"!
The British President labours under the most original
ideas about us, whom he persists in calling
"Yogis," without allowing the slightest
margin to the enormous differences which exist
even between "Hatha and Raj Yog." This
mistake must be laid at the door of Mrs. B. --
the able editor of "The Theosophist"; who
fills up her volumes with the practices of
divers Sannyasis and other "blessed ones" from
the plains, without ever troubling herself
with a few additional lines of explanation.
And now, to still more important matters. Time
is precious and material (I mean writing
material) is still more so.
"Precipitation" -- in your case having become unlawful; lack of
-- whether ink or paper -- standing no better
chance for "Tamasha," and I, being far away
from home, and at a place where a stationer's
shop is less needed than breathing air, our.correspondence threatens to break
very abruptly, unless I manage my stock in hand
judiciously. A friend promises to supply me in
case of great need with a few stray sheets,
memento relics of his grandfather's will, by
which he disinherited him and thus made his
"fortune." But, as he never wrote
one line but once, he says -- for the last eleven years,
except on such "double superfin
glace" made at Thibet as you might irreverently mistake
for blotting paper in its primitive days, and
that the will is drawn upon a like material --
we might as well turn to your book at once.
Since you do me the favour of asking my
opinion, I may tell you that the idea is an
excellent one. Theosophy needs such help, and
the results will be what you anticipate in
England as well. It may also help our friends in
Europe -- generally.
I lay no restrictions upon your making use of
anything I may have written to you or Mr.
Hume, having full confidence in your tact and
judgment as to what should be printed and
how it should be presented. I must only ask
you for reasons upon which I must be silent
(and I am sure you will respect that silence) not
to use one single word or passage from
my last letter to you -- the one written after my long silence, no date, and the
first one
forwarded to you by our "old lady."
I just quoted from it at page 4. Do me the favour, if
my poor epistles are worth preserving, to lay
it by in a separate and sealed envelope. You
may have to unseal it only after a certain
period of time has elapsed. As to the rest -- I
relinquish it to the mangling tooth of
criticism. Nor would I interfere with the plan you
have roughly sketched out in your mind. But I
would strongly recommend you in its
execution to lay the greatest stress upon
small circumstances -- (could you oblige me with
some receipt for blue ink?!) which tend to
show the impossibility of fraud or conspiracy.
Reflect well, how bold a thing it is to
endorse phenomena as adeptic which the Spiritsts.
have already stamped as proofs of mediumship
and skeptics as legerdemain. You should
not omit one jot or tittle of collateral
evidence that supports your position, something you
have neglected doing in your "A"
letter in the Pioneer. For instance, my friend tells me
that it was a thirteenth cup and the
pattern unmatchable, in Simla at least. (1) The pillow
was chosen by yourself -- and yet the word
"pillow" occurs in my note to you, just as the
word "tree" or anything else would
have been substituted, had you chosen another
depository, instead of the pillow. You will
find all such trifles serving you as the most
powerful shield for yourself against ridicule
and sneers. Then you will of course, aim to
show that this Theosophy is no new candidate
for the world's attention, but only the
restatement of principles which have been
recognised from the very infancy of mankind.
The historic sequence ought to be succinctly
yet graphically traced through the successive
evolutions of philosophical schools, and
illustrated with accounts of the experimental
demonstrations of occult power ascribed to
various thaumaturgists. The alternate
breakings-out and subsidences of mystical
phenomena, as well as their shiftings from one
centre to another of population, show the
conflicting play of the opposing forces of
spirituality and animalism. And lastly it will
appear that the present tidal-wave of
phenomena, with its varied effects upon human
thought and feeling, made the revival of
Theosophical enquiry an indispensable
necessity. The only problem to solve is the
practical one, of how best to promote the
necessary study, and give to the spiritualistic
movement a needed upward impulse. It is a good
beginning to make the inherent
capabilities of the inner, living man better
comprehended. To lay down the scientific
proposition that since akrshu (attraction)
and Prshu (repulsion) are the law of nature,.there can be no intercourse
or relations between clean and unclean Souls -- embodied or
disembodied; and hence, ninety-nine hundredths
of supposed spiritual communications,
are, prima facie false. Here is as
great a fact to work upon as you can find, and it cannot
be made too plain. So, while a better
selection might have been made for the Theosophist
in the way of illustrative anecdotes, as, for
instance, well authenticated historical cases,
yet the theory of turning the minds of
phenomenalists into useful and suggestive channels
away from mere mediumistic dogmatism was the
correct one.
What I meant by the "Forlorn Hope"
was that when one regards the magnitude of the task
to be undertaken by our theosophical
volunteers, and especially the multitudinous
agencies arrayed, and to be arrayed, in
opposition, we may well compare it, to one of
those desperate efforts against overwhelming
odds that the true soldier glories to attempt.
You have done well to see the "large
purpose" in the small beginnings of the T.S. Of
course, if we had undertaken to found and
direct it inpropria persona very likely it would
have accomplished more and made fewer
mistakes, but we could not do this, nor was it
the plan: our two agents are given the task
and left -- as you now are -- to do the best they
could under the circumstances. And much has
been wrought. Under the surface of
Spiritualism, runs a current that is wearing a
broad channel for itself. When it reappears
above ground its effects will be apparent.
Already many minds like yours are pondering
the question of occult law -- forced upon the
thinking public by this agitation. Like you,
they are dissatisfied with what has been
hitherto attainable and clamour for better. Let
this -- encourage you.
It is not quite accurate that by having such
minds in the Society they would be "under
conditions more favourable for
observation" for us. Rather put it, that by the act of
joining other sympathisers in this
organization they are stimulated to effort and incite
each other to investigate. Unity always gives
strength: and since Occultism in our days
resembles a "Forlorn Hope," union
and co-operation are indispensable. Union does
indeed imply a concentration of vital and
magnetic force against the hostile currents of
prejudice and fanaticism.
I wrote a few words in the Maratha boy's
letter, only to show you that he was obeying
orders in
submitting his views to you. Apart from his exaggerated idea about huge
fees,
his letter is in a way worth considering. For
Damodar is a Hindu -- and knows the mind
of his people at Bombay; though the Bombay
Hindus are about as unspiritual a group as
can be found in all India. But, like the
devoted enthusiastic lad he is, he jumped after the
misty form of his own ideas even before I
could give them the right direction. All quick
thinkers are hard to impress -- in a flash
they are out and away in "full cry," before half
understanding what one wants to have them
think. This is our trouble with both Mrs. B.
and O. The frequent failure of the latter to
carry out the suggestions he sometimes
receives -- even when written, is almost
wholly due to his own active mentality
preventing his distinguishing our impressions
from his own conceptions. And Missus B.'s
trouble is (apart from physical ailment) that
she sometimes listens to two or more of our
voices at once; e.g., this morning while the
"Disinherited," whom I have accommodated
with space for a footnote -- was talking with
her on an important matter, she lent an ear to.
one of ours, who is passing through Bombay
from Cyprus, on his way to Thibet -- and so
got both in an inextricable confusion. Women
do lack the power of concentration.
And now, my good friend and co-worker -- an
irremediable paperless condition obliges
me to close. Farewell, until your return,
unless you will be content, as hitherto, to pass
our correspondence through the accustomed
channel. Neither of us would prefer this. But
until authority is given to change it must be
even so. Were she to die to-day -- and she is
really sick -- you would not receive more than
two, or at most three more letters from me
(through Damodar or Olcott, or through already
established emergent agencies), and then,
that reservoir of force being exhausted -- our
parting would be FINAL. However, I will
not anticipate; events might bring us
together somewhere in Europe. But whether we
meet or not, during your trip, be assured that
my personal good wishes will attend you.
Should you actually need now and again the
help of a happy thought as your work
progresses, it may, very likely be, osmosed
into your head -- if sherry bars not the way, as
it has already done at Allahabad.
May the "deep Sea" deal gently with
you and your house.
Ever yours,
K. H.
P.S. -- The "friend" of whom the
Lord Lindsay speaks in his letter to you, is, I am sorry
to say, a true skunk mephitis, who
managed to perfume himself with ess-bouquet in his
presence during their palmy days of
friendship, and so avoided being recognised by his
natural stench. It is Home -- the medium, a
convert to Roman Catholicism, then to
Protestantism, and finally to the Greek
Church. He is the bitterest and most cruel enemy
O. and Mad. B. have, though he has never met
either of them. For a certain time he
succeeded in poisoning the Lord's mind, and
prejudiced him against them. I do not like
saying anything behind a man's back, for it
looks like back-biting. Yet in view of some
future events I feel it my duty to warn you,
for this one is an exceptionally bad man --
hated by the Spiritualists and mediums as much
as he is despised by those -- who have
learned to know him. Yours is a work which
clashes directly with his. Though a poor
sickly cripple, a paralysed wretch, his mental
faculties are as fresh and as alive as ever to
mischief. He is no man to stop before a
slanderous accusation -- however vile and lying.
So -- beware.
K. H.
FOOTNOTE:
1. So, at least, Mrs. S. says; I myself did
not search the crockery shops; so too, the bottle
filled with water I filled with my own hand --
was one of the four only that the servants
had in the baskets, and these four bottles had
but just been brought back empty by these.peons from their fruitless search
after water, when you sent them to the little brewery
with a note. Hoping to be excused for the
interference and with my most respectful
regards to the lady.
Yours, etc.
The "Disinherited" (return to text).The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 9
From K.H., first letter received on return to
India, July 8th, 1881, while
staying with Madame B. at Bombay for a few
days.
Welcome good friend and brilliant author,
welcome back! Your letter at hand, and I am
happy to see your personal experience with the
"Elect" of London proved so successful.
But, I foresee, that more than ever now, you
will become an incarnate note of
interrogation. Beware! If your questions are
found premature by the powers that be,
instead of receiving my answers in their
pristine purity you may find them transformed
into yards of drivel. I am too far gone to
feel a hand on my throat whenever trenching on
the limits of forbidden topics; not enough to
avoid feeling myself -- uncomfortably so --
like a worm of yesterday before our "Rock
of Ages." My Cho-Khan. We must all be
blindfolded before we can pass onward; or else, we have to remain
outside.
And now, what about the book? Le
quart d'heure de Rabelais is striking, and, finds me, if
not quite insolvent, yet quasitrembling at the
idea that the first instalment offered may be
found below the mark; the price claimed --
inadequate with my poor resources; myself
led pro bono publico to trespass beyond
the terrible -- "hitherto shalt thou go, and no
further," and the angry wave of the
Cho-Khan's wrath swamping me blue ink and all! I
fondly hope you will not make me lose "my
situation."
Quite so. For, I have a dim notion that you
will be very impatient with me. I have a very
clear notion that you need not be. 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. The
case not being so at present, meanwhile --
remember: it is because we are playing a risky
game and the stakes are human souls that I
ask you to possess yours in patience. Bearing
in mind that I have to look after your
"Soul" and mine too, I propose to do
so at whatever cost, even at the risk of being
misunderstood by you as I was by Mr. Hume. The
work is made the more difficult by my
being a lonely labourer in the field, and
that, as long as I fail to prove to my superiors
that.you, at least -- mean business; that you
-- are in right good earnest. As I am refused
higher help, so will you fail to easily find
help in that Society in which you move, and
which you try to move. Nor will you find, for
a certain time much joy in those directly
concerned. Our old lady is weak and her nerves
are worked to a fiddle string; so is her
jaded brain. H.S.O. is far away -- in exile
-- fighting his way back to salvation --
compromised more than you imagine by his Simla
indiscretions -- and establishing
theosoph. schools. Mr. Hume -- who once
promised to become a champion fighter in that
Battle of Light against Darkness -- now
preserves a kind of armed neutrality wondrous to
behold. Having made the mirific discovery that
we are a body of antidiluvian Jesuits of
fossiles -- self-crowned with oratorial
flourishes, he rested but to accuse us of
intercepting his letters to H.P.B.! However,
he finds some comfort by thinking "what a
jolly argument he shall have elsewhere (Angel
Linnean ornithological Society, perhaps)
with the entity which is represented by the
name "Koothoomi." Verily has our very
intellectual, once mutual friend, a flood of
words at his command which would suffice to
float a troop ship of oratorious fallacies.
Nevertheless -- I respect him. . . . But who next?
C. C. Massey? But then he is the hapless
parent of about half a dozen of illegitimate
brats. He is a most charming, devoted friend;
a profound mystic; a generous, noble
minded man, a gentleman -- as they say --
every inch of him; tried as gold; every
requisite for a student of occultism,
but none for an adept, my good friend. Be it as it
may, his secret is his own, and I have no
right to divulge it. Dr. Wyld? -- a christian to the
back bone. Hood? -- a sweet nature, as you
say; a dreamer, and an idealist in mystic
matters, yet -- no worker. S. Moses? Ah! here
we are. S.M. has nearly upset the theosoph.
ark set afloat three years back: and, he will
do his level best to do it over again --- our
Imperator notwithstanding. You doubt? Listen.
His is a weird, rare nature. His occult
psychical energies are tremendous; but they have
lain dormant, folded up within him and unknown
to himself, when, some eight years or
so, Imperator threw his eye upon him and bid
his spirit soar. Since then, a new life has
been in him, a dual existence, but his nature
could not be changed. Brought up as a
theological student, his mind was devoured by
doubts. Earlier, he betook himself to
Mount Athos, where, immuring himself in a
monastery, he studied Greek Eastern
religion, and it is there that he was first
noticed by his "Spirit guide" (!!) Of course, Greek
casuistry failed to solve his doubts, and he
hurried on to Rome, -- popery satisfying him
as little. From thence he wandered to Germany
with the same negative results. Giving up
dry christian theology he did not give up its
presumable founder with all that. He needed
an ideal and he found it in the latter. For
him Jesus is a reality, a once embodied, now a
disembodied Spirit, who,
"furnished him with an evidence of his personal identity" -- he
thinks, -- in no less a degree than other
"Spirits" -- Imperator among the rest -- have.
Nevertheless, neither the religions of Jesus
nor yet his words, as recorded in the Bible and
believed by S.M. authentic -- are fully
accepted by that restless Spirit of his. Imperator,
on whom the same fate devolved later on, fares
no better. His mind is too positive. Once
impressed it becomes easier to efface
characters engraved upon titanium than impressions
made upon his brain.
Whenever under the influence of Imperator --
he is all alive to the realities of Occultism,
and the superiority of our Science over
Spiritualism. As soon as left alone and under the.pernicious guidance of those
he firmly believes having identified with disembodied Souls
-- all becomes confusion again! His mind will
yield to no suggestions, no reasonings but
his own, and those are all for Spiritualistic
theories. When the old theological fetters had
dropped off, he imagined himself a free man.
Some months later, he became the humble
slave and tool of the "Spirits"! It
is but when standing face to face with his inner Self that
he realizes the truth that there is something
higher and nobler than the prittle-prattle of
pseudo Spirits. It was at such a moment that
he heard for the first the voice of Imperator,
and it was, as he himself puts it: "as
the voice of God speaking to his inner Self." That
voice has made itself familiar to him for
years, and yet he very often heeds it not. A
simple query: Were Imper. what he believes,
nay -- knows him to be, he thinks, -- would
not he have made S.M.'s will completely
subservient to his own by this time? Alone the
adepts, i.e. the embodied spirits --
are forbidden by our wise and intransgressible laws to
completely subject to themselves another and a
weaker will, -- that of free born man. The
latter mode of proceeding is the favourite one
resorted to by the "Brothers of the
Shadow," the Sorcerers, the Elementary
Spooks, and, as an isolated exception -- by the
highest Planetary
Spirits, those, who can no longer err. But these appear on Earth but at
the origin of every new human kind; at
the junction of, and close of the two ends of the
great cycle. And, they remain with man no
longer than the time required for the eternal
truths they teach to impress themselves so
forcibly upon the plastic minds of the new
races as to warrant them from being lost or
entirely forgotten in ages hereafter, by the
forthcoming generations. The mission of the
planetary Spirit is but to strike the KEY
NOTE OF TRUTH. Once he has directed the
vibration of the latter to run its course
uninterruptedly along the catenation of that
race and to the end of the cycle -- the denizen
of the highest inhabited sphere disappears
from the surface of our planet -- till the
following "resurrection of flesh."
The vibrations of the Primitive Truth are what your
philosophers name "innate ideas."
Imperator, then, had repeatedly told him that
"in occultism alone he should seek for, and
will find
a phase of truth not yet known to him." But that did not prevent S.M. at
all from
turning his back upon occultism whenever a
theory of it clashed with one of his own
preconceived Spiritualistic ideas. To him
mediumship appeared as the Charter of his
Soul's freedom, as resurrection from Spiritual
death. He had been allowed to enjoy it only
so far as it was necessary for the
confirmation of his faith: promised that the abnormal
would yield to the normal; ordered to prepare
for the time when the Self within him will
become conscious of its spiritual, independent
existence, will act and talk face to face
with its Instructor, and will lead its life in
Spiritual Spheres normally and without
external or internal mediumship at all. And
yet once conscious of what he terms "external
Spirit action" he recognised no more
hallucination from truth, the false from the real:
confounding at times Elementals and
Elementaries, embodied from disembodied Spirit,
though he had been oft enough told of, and
warned against "those spirits that hover about
the Earth's sphere" -- by his "Voice
of God." With all that he firmly believes to have
invariably acted under Imper's direction, and
that such spirits as have come to him came
by his "guide's" permission. In such
a case H.P.B. was there by Imper's consent? And
how do you reconcile the following
contradictions. Ever since 1876, acting under direct
orders, she tried to awake him to the reality
of what was going on around and in him.
That she must have acted either according to
or against Imper's will -- he must know, as.in the latter case she might
boast of being stronger, more powerful than his "guide" who
never yet protested against the intrusion. Now
what happens? Writing to her from Isle of
Wight, in 1876, of a vision lasting for over
48 consecutive hours he had, and during
which he walked about, talked as usual, but
did not preserve the slightest remembrance of
anything external, he asks her to tell him
whether it was a vision or a hallucination. Why
did he not ask + I-r? "You can tell me for
you were there," he says. . . . "You -- changed,
yet yourself -- if you have a Self. . .
. I suppose you have, but into that I do not pry." . . .
At another time he saw her in his own library
looking at him, approaching and giving him
some masonic signs of the Lodge he knows. He
admits that he "saw her as clearly as he
saw Massey -- who was there." He saw her
on several other occasions, and sometimes
knowing it was H.P.B. he could not recognise
her. "You seem to me from your
appearance as from your letters so different
at times, the mental attitudes so various, that
it is quite conceivable to me, as I am
authoritatively told, that you are a bundle of
Entities. . . . I have absolute faith
in you." In every letter of his he clamoured for a "living
Brother" to her unequivocal statement
that there was one already having charge of him,
he strongly objected. When helped to get free
from his too material body, absent from it
for hours and days sometimes his empty machine
run during that period from afar and by
external, living influence, -- as soon as back, he would begin labouring
under the
irradicable impression of having been all that
time the vehicle for another intelligence, a
disembodied not embodied Spirit, truth never
once flashing across his mind. "Imperator,"
he wrote to her, "traverses your idea
about mediumship. He says there should be no real
antagonism between the medium and the
adept." Had he used the word "Seer" instead of
"medium" the idea would have been
rendered more correctly, for a man becomes rarely
an adept without being born a natural Seer.
Then again. In September, 1875, he knew
nothing of the Brothers of the Shadow -- our
greatest, most cruel, and -- why not confess
-- our most potential Enemies. In that year he
actually asked the old lady whether Bulwer
had been eating underdone pork chops and
dreaming when he described "that hideous
Dweller of the Threshold." "Make
yourself ready," she answered -- "in about twelve
months more you will have to face and fight
with them." In October, 1876, they had
begun their work upon him. "I am
fighting" -- he wrote -- "a hand to hand battle with all
the legions of the Fiend for the past three
weeks. My nights are made hideous with their
torments, temptations and foul suggestions. I
see them all around, glaring at me,
gabbling, howling, grinning! Every form of
filthy suggestion, of bewildering doubt, of
mad and shuddering fear is upon me . . . I can
understand Zanoni's Dweller now . . . I
have not wavered yet . . . and their
temptations are fainter, the presence less near, the
horror less. . . ."
One night she had prostrated herself before
her Superior, one of the few they fear,
praying him to wave his hand across the ocean,
lest S.M. should die, and the Theos. Soc.
lose its best subject. "He must be
tried" was the answer. He imagines that + Imper. had
sent the tempters because he S.M. was one of
those Thomases who must see; he would
not believe
that + could not help their coming. Watch over him he did -- he could not
drive them away unless the victim, the
neophyte himself, proved the strongest. But did
these human fiends in league with the
Elementaries prepare him for a new life as be
thought they would? Embodiments of those
adverse influences which beset the inner Self
struggling to be free and to progress, they
would never have returned had he successfully.conquered them by asserting his
own independent WILL, by giving up his mediumship,
his passive will. Yet they did.
You say of + -- "Imperator -- is
certainly not his (S.M.'s) astral soul, and assuredly, also,
he is not from a lower World than our own --
not an earth-bound Spirit." No one ever said
he was anything of the kind. H.P.B. never told
you he was S.M.'s astral soul, but that
what he often mistook for + was his own higher
Self, his divine atman -- not linga Sarira
or astral Soul, or the Kama rupa the
independent doppelganger -- again. + cannot
contradict himself; + cannot be ignorant of
the truth, so often misrepresented by S.M.; +
cannot preach the occult Sciences and then
defend mediumship, not even in that highest
form described by his pupil. Mediumship is
abnormal. When in further development the
abnormal has given way to the natural, the controls
are shaken off, and passive obedience
is no longer required, then the medium learns
to use his will, to exercise his own power,
and becomes an adept. The process is one of
development and the neophyte has to go to
the end. As long as he is subject to
occasional trance -- he cannot be an adept. S.M.
passes the two-thirds of his life in Trance.
To your question -- Is Imperator "a
Planetary Spirit" and "may a Planetary Spirit have
been humanly incarnated," I will first
say that there can be no Planetary Spirit that was
not once material or what you call human. 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. Many are those who "break through
the egg-shell," few who, once out are
able to exercise their Nirira namastaka fully, when
completely out of the body. Conscious life
in Spirit is as difficult for some natures as
swimming, is for some bodies. Though the human
frame is lighter in its bulk than water,
and that every person is born with the
faculty, so few develop in themselves the art of
treading water that death by drowning is the
most frequent of accidents. The planetary
Spirit of that kind (the Buddha like) can pass
at will into other bodies -- of more or less
etherialised matter, inhabiting other regions
of the Universe. There are many other grades
and orders, but there is no separate and
eternally constituted order of Planetary Spirits.
Whether Imperator is a "planetary"
embodied or disembodied, whether he is an adept in
flesh or out of it, I am not at liberty to
say, any more than he would himself to tell S.M.
who I am, or may be, or even who H.P.B. is. If
he himself chooses to be silent on that
subject S.M. has no right to ask me.
But then our friend, S.M. ought to know. Nay: he
firmly believes he does. For in his
intercourse with that personage there came a time
when not satisfied with + assurances, or
content to respect his wishes that he, Imperator
& Co. should remain impersonal and unknown
save by their assumed titles, S.M.
wrestled with him, Jacob-like, for months on
the point of that spirit's identity. He was the.Biblical flim-flam all
over again. "I pray thee tell me thy name" -- and though answered:
"Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after
my name?" -- what's in a name? -- he allowed
S.M. to label him like a portmanteau. And so,
he is at rest now, for be has "seen God face
to face"; who, after wrestling, and
seeing that he prevailed not, said "let me go" and was
forced to come to the terms offered by Jacob.
S. Moses. I strongly advise you for your
own information to put that question to your
friend. Why should he be "anxiously
awaiting" my reply, since he knows all
about + ? Did not that "Spirit" tell him a story one
day, --
a queer story, something what he may not divulge about himself and forbid
him
ever mentioning it? What more does he want? That fact, that he seeks to learn
through me
the true nature of +, is a pretty good proof
in itself that he is not as sure of his identity as
he believes he is, or rather would make
believe he is. Or is the question a blind? -- which?
I may answer you, what I said to G. H. Fechner
one day, when he wanted to know the
Hindu view on what he had written -- "You
are right; . . . 'every diamond, every crystal,
every plant and star has its own individual
soul, besides man and animal . . .' and, 'there is
a hierarchy of souls from the lowest forms of
matter up to the World Soul' . . .; but, you
are mistaken when adding to the above the
assurance that 'the spirits of the departed hold
direct psychic
communication with Souls that are still connected with a human body' --
for, they do not." The relative position
of the inhabited worlds in our Solar System would
alone preclude such a possibility. For I trust
you have given up the queer idea -- a natural
result of early Xtian training -- that there
can possibly be human intelligences inhabiting
purely spiritual regions? You will then as readily understand the fallacy of
the christians --
who would burn immaterial souls in a material
physical hell -- as the mistake of the
more educated spiritualists, who lullaby themselves
with the thought that any other but
the denizens of the two worlds immediately
interlinked with our own can possibly
communicate with them? However etherial and
purified of gross matter they may be, the
pure Spirits are still subject to the physical
and universal laws of matter. They cannot if
even they would span the abyss that separates
their worlds from ours. They can be visited
in Spirit, their Spirit cannot descend and reach us. They attract, they
cannot be attracted,
their Spiritual polarity being an insuperable
difficulty in the way. (By-the-bye you must
not trust Isis literally. The book is
but a tentative effort to divert the attention of the
Spiritualists from their preconceptions to the
true state of things. The author was made to
hint and point out in the true direction, to
say what things are not, not what they are.
Proof reader helping, a few real mistakes have
crept in as on page 1, chapter 1, volume 1,
where divine Essence is made emanating from
Adam instead of the reverse.)
Once fairly started upon that subject, I will
endeavour to explain to you still clearer where
lies the impossibility. You will thus be
answered in regard to both Planetary Spirits and --
seance room "Spirits."
The cycle of intelligent existences commences
at the highest worlds or planets -- the term
"highest" meaning here the most
spiritually perfect. Evoluting from cosmic matter --
which is akasa, the primeval not the
secondary plastic medium, or Ether of Science
instinctively suspected, unproven as the rest
-- man first evolutes from this matter in its
most sublimated state, appearing at the
threshold of Eternity as a perfectly Etherial -- not
Spiritual Entity, say -- a Planetary Spirit.
He is but one remove from the universal and.Spiritual World Essence -- the Anima
Mundi of the Greeks, or that which humanity in its
spiritual decadence has degraded into a
mythical personal God. Hence, at that stage, the
Spirit -- man is at best an active Power,
an immutable, therefore an unthinking Principle
(the term "immutable" being again
used here but to denote that state for the time being,
the immutability applying here but to the
inner principle which will vanish and disappear
as soon as the speck of the material in him
will start on its cyclic work of Evolution and
transformation). In his subsequent descent,
and in proportion of the increase of matter he
will assert more and more his activity. Now,
the congeries of the star-worlds (including
our own planet) inhabited by intelligent
beings may be likened to an orb or rather an
epicycloid formed of rings like a chain --
worlds inter-linked together, the totality
representing an imaginary endless ring, or
circle. The progress of man throughout the
whole -- from its starting to its closing
points meeting on the highest point of its
circumference -- is what we call the Maha
Yug or Great Cycle, the Kuklos, whose head is
lost in a crown of absolute Spirit, and
its lowest point of circumference in absolute matter
-- to viz. the point of cessation of action of
the active principle. If using a more familiar
term we call the Great Cycle the Macrokosm and
its component parts or the inter-linked
star worlds Microkosms, the occultists'
meaning in representing each of the latter as
perfect copies of the former will become
evident. The Great is the Prototype of the
smaller cycles: and as such, each star world
has in its turn its own cycle of Evolution
which starts with a purer and ends with a
grosser or more material nature. As they
descend, each world presents itself naturally
more and more shadowy, becoming at the
"antipodes" absolute matter.
Propelled by the irresistible cyclic impulse the Planetary
Spirit has to descend before he can reascend.
On his way he has to pass through the
whole ladder of Evolution, missing no rung, to
halt at every star world as he would at a
station; and, besides the unavoidable cycle of
that particular and every respective star
world to perform in it his own "life-cycle"
to, viz.: returning and reincarnating as many
times as he fails to complete his round of
life in it, as he dies on it before reaching the age
of reason as correctly stated in Isis. Thus
far Mrs. Kingsford's idea that the human Ego is
being reincarnated in several successive human
bodies is the true one. As to its being
reborn in animal forms after human incarnation
it is the result of her loose way of
expressing things and ideas. Another WOMAN --
all over again. Why, she confounds
"Soul and Spirit," refuses to
discriminate between the animal and the spiritual Egos the
Jivatma (or
Linga-Sharir) and the Kama-Rupa (or Atma-Rupa), two as different things
as
body and mind, and -- mind and thought
are! That is what happens. After circling, so to
say, along the arc of the cycle, circling
along and within it (the daily and yearly rotation
of the Earth is as good an illustration as
any) when the Spirit-man reaches our planet,
which is one of the lowest, having lost at
every station some of the etherial and acquired
an increase of material nature, both spirit
and matter have become pretty much
equilibrized in him. But then, he has the
Earth's cycle to perform; and, as in the process
of involution and evolution downward, matter
is ever striving to stifle spirit, when arrived
to the lowest point of his pilgrimage, the
once pure Planetary Spirit will be found
dwindled to -- what Science agrees to call a
primitive or Primordial man -- amidst a
nature as primordial -- speaking geologically,
for physical nature keeps pace with the
physiological as well as the spiritual man, in
her cyclic career. At that point the great Law
begins its work of selection. Matter found
entirely divorced from spirit is thrown over
into the still lower worlds -- into the sixth
"GATE" or "way of rebirth" of the vegetable.
and mineral worlds, and of the primitive
animal forms. From thence, matter ground over
in the workshop of nature proceeds soulless
back to its Mother Fount; while the Egos
purified of their dross are enabled to resume
their progress once more onward. It is here,
then, that the laggard Egos perish by
the millions. It is the solemn moment of the
"survival of the fittest," the
annihilation of those unfit. It is but matter (or material man)
which is compelled by its own weight to
descend to the very bottom of the "circle of
necessity" to there assume animal form;
as to the winner of that race throughout the
worlds -- the Spiritual Ego, he will ascend
from star to star, from one world to another,
circling onward to rebecome the once pure
planetary Spirit, then higher still, to finally
reach its first starting point, and from
thence -- to merge into MYSTERY. No adept has
ever penetrated beyond the veil of primitive
Kosmic matter. The highest, the most perfect
vision is limited to the universe of Form and
Matter.
But my explanation does not end here. You want
to know why it is deemed supremely
difficult if not utterly impossible for pure disembodied
Spirits to communicate with men
through mediums or Phantomosophy. I
say, because: --
(a) On
account of the antagonistic atmospheres respectively surrounding these worlds;
(b) Of
the entire dissimilarity of physiological and spiritual conditions; and --
(c)
Because that chain of worlds I have just been telling you about, is not only an
epicycloid but an elliptical orbit of existences, having, as every
ellipse, not one but two
points -- two foci, which can never
approach each other; Man being at one focus of it and
pure Spirit at the other.
To this you might object. I can neither help
it, nor change the fact, but there is still
another and far mightier impediment. Like a
rosary composed of white and black beads
alternating with each other, so that
concatenation of worlds is made up of worlds of
CAUSES and worlds of EFFECTS, the latter --
the direct result produced by the former.
Thus it becomes evident that every sphere of
Causes and our Earth is one -- is not only
inter-linked with, and surrounded by, but
actually separated from its nearest neighbour --
the higher sphere of Causality -- by an
impenetrable atmosphere (in its spiritual sense) of
effects bordering on, and even inter-linking,
never mixing with -- the next sphere: for one
is active, the other -- passive, the world of
causes positive, that of effects -- negative. This
passive resistance can be overcome but under
conditions, of which your most learned
Spiritualists have not the faintest idea. All
movement is, so to say polar. It is very
difficult to convey my meaning to you at this
point; but I will go to the end. I am aware
of my failure to bring before you these -- to
us -- axiomatical truths -- in any other form
but that of a simple logical postulate -- if
so much -- they being capable of absolute and
unequivocal demonstration, but to the highest
Seers. But, I'll give you food for thinking if
nothing else.
The intermediary spheres, being but the
projected shadows of the Worlds of Causes -- are
negatived by the last. They are the great
halting places, the stations in which the new Self-Conscious
Egos to
be -- the self-begotten progeny of the old and disembodied Egos of.our planet
-- are gestated. Before the new phoenix, re-born of the ashes of its parents
can
soar higher, to a better, more spiritual, and
perfect world -- still a world of matter -- it has
to pass through the process of a new birth, so
to say; and, as on our earth, where the two-thirds
of infants are either still-born or die in
infancy, so in our "world of effects." On
earth it is the physiological and mental
defects, the sins of the progenitors which are
visited upon the issue: in that land of
shadows, the new and yet unconscious Ego-foetus
becomes the just victim of the transgressions
of its old Self, whose karma -- merit and
demerit -- will alone weave out its future
destiny. In that world, my good friend, we find
but unconscious, self-acting, ex-human
machines, souls in their transition state, whose
dormant faculties and individuality lie as a
butterfly in its chrysalis; and Spiritualists
would yet have them talk sense! Caught at
times, into the vortex of the abnormal
"mediumistic" current, they become the unconscious echoes of
thoughts and ideas
crystallized around those present. Every positive,
well-directed mind is capable of
neutralizing such secondary effects in a
seance room. The world below ours is worse yet.
The former is harmless at least; it is more
sinned against by being disturbed, than sinning;
the latter allowing the retention of full
consciousness as being a hundred-fold more
material, is positively dangerous. The notions
of hells and purgatory, of paradises and
resurrections are all caricatured, distorted
echoes of the primeval one Truth, taught
humanity in the infancy of its races by every
First Messenger -- the Planetary Spirit
mentioned on the reverse of page the third --
and whose remembrance lingered in the
memory of man as Elu of the Chaldees, Osiris
the Egyptian, Vishnu, the first Buddhas
and so on.
The lower world of effects is the sphere of
such distorted Thoughts; of the most sensual
conceptions, and pictures; of anthropomorphic
deities, the out-creations of their creators,
the sensual human minds of people who have
never out-grown their brutehood on earth.
Remembering thoughts are things -- have
tenacity, coherence, and life, -- that they are
real entities -- the rest will become plain.
Disembodied -- the creator is attracted naturally
to its creation and creatures; sucked in -- by
the Maelstrom dug out by his own hands. . . .
But I must pause, for volumes would hardly
suffice to explain all that was said by me in
this letter.
In reference to your wonder that the views of
the three mystics "are far from being
identical," what does the fact prove?
Were they instructed by disembodied, pure, and
wise Spirits -- even by those of one remove
from our earth on the higher plane -- would
not the teachings be identical? The question
arising: "May not Spirits as well as men
differ in ideas?" Well, then their
teaching -- aye, of the highest of them since they are the
"guides" of the three great London
Seers -- will not be more authoritative than those of
mortal men. "But, they may belong to
different spheres?" Well; if in the different spheres
contradictory doctrines are propounded, these
doctrines cannot contain the Truth, for
Truth is One, and cannot admit of
diametrically opposite views; and pure Spirits who see
it as it is, with the veil of matter
entirely withdrawn from it -- cannot err. Now, if we
allow of different aspects or portions of the
Whole Truth being visible to different
agencies or intelligences, each under various
conditions, as for example various portions
of the one landscape develop themselves to
various persons, at various distances and
from various standpoints -- if we admit the
fact of various or different agencies.(individual Brothers for instance)
endeavouring to develop the Egos of different
individuals, without subjecting entirely their
wills to their own (as it is forbidden) but by
availing themselves of their physical, moral,
and intellectual idiosyncracies; if we add to
this the countless kosmical influences which
distort and deflect all efforts to achieve
definite purposes: if we remember, moreover,
the direct hostility of the Brethren of the
Shadow always on the watch to perplex and haze
the neophyte's brain, I think we shall
have no difficulty in understanding how even a
definite spiritual advance may to a certain
extent lead different individuals to
apparently different conclusions and theories.
Having confessed to you that I had no right to
interfere with Imperator's secrets and
plans, I must say that so far, however, he has
proved the wisest of us. Had our policy
been the same, had I, for instance allowed you
to infer and then believe (without stating
anything positive myself) that I was a
"disembodied angel" -- a Spirit of pellucid
electroidal essence, from the Super-Stellar
phantasmatical zone -- we would both be
happier. You -- you would not have worried
your head as to "whether agencies of that
sort will always remain necessary" and I
-- would not find myself under the disagreeable
necessity of having to refuse a friend a
"personal interview and direct communication."
You might have implicitly believed anything
coming from me; and I would have felt less
responsible for you before my
"GUIDES." However, time will show what may or may
not be done in that direction. The book is
out, and we have to patiently wait for the results
of that first serious shot at the
enemy. Art Magic and Isis emanating from women and as
it was believed, Spiritualists -- could never
hope for a serious hearing. Its effects will at
first be disastrous enough, for the gun will
recoil and the shot rebounding will strike the
author and his humble hero, who are not likely
to flinch. But it will also graze the old
lady, reviving in the Anglo-Indian press last
year's outcry. The Hersites and literary
Philistines will go hard to work, the flings,
squibs and coups de bec falling thick upon her
-- though aimed at you alone, as the Editor of
the Pioneer is far from being beloved by
his colleagues of India. Spiritualistic papers
have already opened the campaign in London
and the Yankee editors of the Organs of
"Angels" will follow suit, the heavenly
"Controls" ejaculating their
choicest scandalum magnatum. Some men of science -- least
of all their admirers -- the parasites who
bask in the sun and dream they are themselves
that sun -- are not likely to forgive you the
sentence -- really much too flattering -- which
ranges the comprehension of a poor, unknown
Hindoo "So far beyond the science and
philosophy of Europe, that only the broadest
minded representatives of either will be able
to realize the existence of such powers in
man, etc." But what of that? It was all foreseen
and was to be expected. When the first hum and
ding-dong of adverse criticism is hushed,
thoughtful men will read and ponder over the
book, as they have never pondered over the
most scientific efforts of Wallace and Crookes
to reconcile modern science with Spirits,
and -- the little seed will grow and thrive.
In the meantime I do not forget my promises to
you. As soon as installed in your sleeping
chamber I will try and. . . . [Here three
lines in the original letter have been completely
erased apparently by the writer thereof. --
ED].
I hope to be permitted to do so much for you.
If, for generations we have "shut out the
world from the Knowledge of our Knowledge,"
it is on account of its absolute unfitness;.
and if, notwithstanding proofs given, it still
refuses yielding to evidence, then will we at
the End of this cycle retire into solitude and
our kingdom of silence once more. . . . We
have offered to exhume the primeval strata of
man's being, his basic nature, and lay bare
the wonderful complications of his inner Self
-- something never to be achieved by
physiology or even psychology in its ultimate
expression -- and demonstrate it
scientifically. It matters not to them, if the
excavations be so deep, the rocks so rough and
sharp, that in diving into that, to them,
fathomless ocean, most of us perish in the
dangerous exploration; for it is we who were
the divers and the pioneers and the men of
science have but to reap where we have sown.
It is our mission to plunge and bring the
pearls of Truth to the surface; theirs -- to
clean and set them into scientific jewels. And, if
they refuse to touch the ill-shapen,
oyster-shell, insisting that there is, nor cannot be any
precious pearl inside it, then shall we once
more wash our hands of any responsibility
before human-kind. For countless generations
hath the adept builded a fane of
imperishable rocks, a giant's Tower of
INFINITE THOUGHT, wherein the Titan dwelt,
and will yet, if need be, dwell alone,
emerging from it but at the end of every cycle, to
invite the elect of mankind to co-operate with
him and help in his turn enlighten
superstitious man. And we will go on in that
periodical work of ours; we will not allow
ourselves to be baffled in our philanthropic
attempts until that day when the foundations
of a new continent of thought are so firmly
built that no amount of opposition and
ignorant malice guided by the Brethren of the
Shadow will be found to prevail.
But until that day of final triumph someone
has to be sacrificed -- though we accept but
voluntary victims. The ungrateful task did lay
her low and desolate in the ruins of misery,
misapprehension, and isolation: but she will
have her reward in the hereafter for we never
were ungrateful. As regards the Adept -- not one
of my kind, good friend, but far higher --
you might have closed your book with those
lines of Tennyson's "Wakeful Dreamer" --
you knew him not --
"How could ye know him? Ye were yet within
The narrower circle; he had well nigh reached
The last, which, with a region of white flame,
Pure without heat, into a larger air
Up-burning, and an ether of black blue,
Invests and ingirds all other lives. . .
."
I'll close. Remember then on the 17th of July
and. . . . [Here again six lines in the original
have been deleted. -- ED.] . . . ., to you
will become the sublitnest of realities.
Farewell.
Sincerely yours,
K. H..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 10
(Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's
handwriting. -- Ed)
{Hume's article appeared in the November Theosophist.}
NOTES BY K.H. ON A "PRELIMINARY
CHAPTER" HEADED "GOD" BY HUME,
INTENDED TO PREFACE AN EXPOSITION OF OCCULT
PHILOSOPHY
(ABRIDGED).
Received at Simla, 1881-? '82.
Neither our philosophy nor ourselves believe
in a God, least of all in one whose pronoun
necessitates a capital G. Our philosophy falls
under the definition of Hobbes. It is
preeminently the science of effects by their
causes and of causes by their effects, and
since it is also the science of things deduced
from first principle, as Bacon defines it,
before we admit any such principle we must know
it, and have no right to admit even its
possibility. Your whole explanation is based
upon one solitary admission made simply
for argument's sake in October last. You were
told that our knowledge was limited to this
our solar system: ergo as philosophers who
desired to remain worthy of the name we
could not either deny or affirm the existence
of what you termed a supreme, omnipotent,
intelligent being of some sort beyond the
limits of that solar system. But if such an
existence is not absolutely impossible, yet
unless the uniformity of nature's law breaks at
those limits we maintain that it is highly
improbable. Nevertheless we deny most
emphatically the position of agnosticism in
this direction, and as regards the solar system.
Our doctrine knows no compromises. It either
affirms or denies, for it never teaches but
that which it knows to be the truth.
Therefore, we deny God both as philosophers and as
Buddhists. We know there are planetary and
other spiritual lives, and we know there is in
our system no such thing as God, either
personal or impersonal. Parabrahm is not a God,
but absolute immutable law, and Iswar is the
effect of Avidya and Maya, ignorance based
upon the great delusion. The word
"God" was invented to designate the unknown cause
of those effects which man has either admired
or dreaded without understanding them,
and since we claim and that we are able to
prove what we claim -- i.e. the knowledge of
that cause and causes we are in a position to
maintain there is no God or Gods behind
them.
The idea of God is not an innate but an
acquired notion, and we have but one thing in
common with theologies -- we reveal the
infinite. But while we assign to all the.phenomena that proceed from the
infinite and limitless space, duration and motion,
material, natural, sensible and known (to us at least) cause, the theists assign them
spiritual, super-natural and unintelligible an un-known
causes. The God of the
Theologians is simply and imaginary power, un
loup garou as d'Holbach expressed it -- a
power which has never yet manifested itself.
Our chief aim is to deliver humanity of this
nightmare, to teach man virtue for its own
sake, and to walk in life relying on himself
instead of leaning on a theological crutch,
that for countless ages was the direct cause of
nearly all human misery. Pantheistic we may be
called -- agnostic NEVER. If people are
willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE
LIFE immutable and unconscious in its
eternity they may do so and thus keep to one
more gigantic misnomer. But then they will
have to say with Spinoza that there is not and
that we cannot conceive any other
substance than God; or as that famous and
unfortunate philosopher says in his fourteenth
proposition, "practer Deum neque dari
neque concepi potest substantia" -- and thus
become Pantheists . . . . who but a Theologian
nursed on mystery and the most absurd
super-naturalism can imagine a self existent
being of necessity infinite and omnipresent
outside the
manifested boundless universe. The word infinite is but a negative which
excludes the idea of bounds. It is evident
that a being independent and omnipresent
cannot be limited by anything which is outside
of himself; that there can be nothing
exterior to himself -- not even vacuum, then
where is there room for matter? for that
manifested universe even though the latter
limited. If we ask the theist is your God
vacuum, space or matter, they will reply no.
And yet they hold that their God penetrates
matter though he is not himself matter. When
we speak of our One Life we also say that
it penetrates, nay is the essence of every
atom of matter; and that therefore it not only has
correspondence with matter but has all its
properties likewise, etc. -- hence is material, is
matter itself. How can intelligence proceed or emanate from
non-intelligence -- you kept
asking last year. How could a highly
intelligent humanity, man the crown of reason, be
evolved out of blind unintelligent law or
force! But once we reason on that line, I may
ask in my turn, how could congenital idiots,
non-reasoning animals, and the rest of
"creation" have been created by or
evoluted from, absolute Wisdom, if the latter is a
thinking intelligent being, the author and
ruler of the Universe? How? says Dr. Clarke in
his examination of the proof of the existence
of the Divinity. "God who hath made the
eye, shall he not see? God who hath made the
ear shall he not hear?" But according to
this mode of reasoning they would have to
admit that in creating an idiot God is an idiot;
that he who made so many irrational beings, so
many physical and moral monsters, must
be an irrational being. . . .
. . . We are not Adwaitees, but our teaching
respecting the one life is identical with that of
the Adwaitee with regard to Parabrahm. And no
true philosophically brained Adwaitee
will ever call himself an agnostic, for he
knows that he is Parabrahm and identical in
every respect with the universal life and soul
-- the macrocosm is the microcosm and he
knows that there is no God apart from himself,
no creator as no being. Having found
Gnosis we cannot turn our backs on it and
become agnostics.
. . . . Were we to admit that even the highest
Dyan Chohans are liable to err under a
delusion, then there would be no reality for
us indeed and the occult sciences would be as.great a chimera as that God. If
there is an absurdity in denying that which we do not
know it is still more extravagant to assign to
it unknown laws.
According to logic "nothing" is that
of which everything can truly be denied and nothing
can truly be affirmed. The idea therefore
either of a finite or infinite nothing is a
contradiction in terms. And yet according to
theologians "God, the self existent being is a
most simple, unchangeable, incorruptible
being; without parts, figure, motion,
divisibility, or any other such properties as
we find in matter. For all such things so
plainly and necessarily imply finiteness in
their very notion and are utterly inconsistent
with complete infinity." Therefore the
God here offered to the adoration of the XIXth
century lacks every quality upon which man's
mind is capable of fixing any judgment.
What is this in fact but a being of whom they
can affirm nothing that is not instantly
contradicted. Their own Bible their Revelation
destroys all the moral perceptions they
heap upon him, unless indeed they call those
qualities perfections that every other man's
reason and common sense call imperfections,
odious vices and brutal wickedness. Nay
more he who reads our Buddhist scriptures
written for the superstitious masses will fail to
find in them a demon so vindictive,
unjust, so cruel and so stupid as the celestial tyrant
upon whom the Christians prodigally lavish
their servile worship and on whom their
theologians heap those perfections that are
contradicted on every page of their Bible.
Truly and veritably your theology has created
her God but to destroy him piecemeal.
Your church is the fabulous Saturn, who begets
children but to devour them.
(The Universal Mind) -- A few reflections and arguments ought to support every
new
idea -- for instance we are sure to be taken
to task for the following apparent
contradictions. (1) We deny the existence of a
thinking conscious God, on the grounds
that such a God must either be conditioned,
limited and subject to change, therefore not
infinite, or (2) if he is represented to us as
an eternal unchangeable and independent
being, with not a particle of matter in him,
then we answer that it is no being but an
immutable blind principle, a law. And yet,
they will say, we believe in Dyans, or
Planetaries ("spirits" also), and
endow them with a universal mind, and this must be
explained.
Our reasons may be briefly summed up thus:
(1) We deny the absurd proposition that there
can be, even in a boundless and eternal
universe -- two infinite eternal and
omni-present existences.
(2) Matter we know to be eternal, i.e.,
having had no beginning (a) because matter is
Nature herself (b) because that which cannot
annihilate itself and is indestructible exists
necessarily -- and therefore it could not
begin to be, nor can it cease to be (c) because the
accumulated experience of countless ages, and
that of exact science show to us matter (or
nature) acting by her own peculiar energy, of
which not an atom is ever in an absolute
state of rest, and therefore it must have
always existed, i.e., its materials ever changing
form, combinations and properties, but its
principles or elements being absolutely
indestructible..(3) As to God -- since no one
has ever or at any time seen him or it -- unless he or it is the
very essence and nature of this boundless
eternal matter, its energy and motion, we
cannot regard him as either eternal or
infinite or yet self existing. We refuse to admit a
being or an existence of which we know
absolutely nothing; because (a) there is no room
for him in the presence of that matter whose
undeniable properties and qualities we know
thoroughly well (b) because if he or it is but
a part of that matter it is ridiculous to
maintain that he is the mover and ruler of
that of which he is but a dependent part and (c)
because if they tell us that God is a self
existent pure spirit independent of matter -- an
extra-cosmic deity, we answer that admitting
even the possibility of such an
impossibility, i.e., his existence, we
yet hold that a purely immaterial spirit cannot be an
intelligent conscious ruler nor can he have
any of the attributes bestowed upon him by
theology and thus such a God becomes again but
a blind force. Intelligence as found in
our Dyan Chohans, is a faculty that can
appertain but to organized or animated being --
however imponderable or rather invisible the
materials of their organizations. Intelligence
requires the necessity of thinking; to think
one must have ideas; ideas suppose senses
which are physical material, and how can
anything material belong to pure spirit? If it be
objected that thought cannot be a property of
matter, we will ask the reason why? We
must have an unanswerable proof of this
assumption, before we can accept it. Of the
theologian we would enquire what was there to
prevent his God, since he is the alleged
creator of all -- to endow matter with the
faculty of thought; and when answered that
evidently it has not pleased Him to do so,
that it is a mystery as well as an impossibility,
we would insist upon being told why it is more
impossible that matter should produce
spirit and thought, than spirit or the thought
of God should produce and create matter.
We do not bow our heads in the dust before the
mystery of mind -- for we have solved it
ages ago. Rejecting with contempt the theistic theory we reject as
much the automaton
theory, teaching that states of consciousness
are produced by the marshalling of the
molecules of the brain; and we feel as little
respect for that other hypothesis -- the
production of molecular motion by
consciousness. Then what do we believe in? Well, we
believe in the much laughed at phlogiston (see
article "What is force and what is matter?"
Theosophist, September), and in what some
natural philosophers would call nisus the
incessant though perfectly imperceptible (to
the ordinary senses) motion or efforts one
body is making on another -- the pulsations of
inert matter -- its life. The bodies of the
Planetary spirits are formed of that which
Priestley and others called Phlogiston and for
which we have another name -- this essence in
its highest seventh state forming that
matter of which the organisms of the highest
and purest Dyans are composed, and in its
lowest or densest form (so impalpable yet that
science calls it energy and force) serving
as a cover to the Planetaries of the 1st or
lowest degree. In other words we believe in
MATTER alone, in matter as visible nature and
matter in its invisibility as the invisible
omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with its
unceasing motion which is its life, and which
nature draws from herself since she is the
great whole outside of which nothing can exist.
For as Bellinger truly asserts "motion is
a manner of existence that flows necessarily out
of the essence of matter; that matter moves by
its own peculiar energies; that its motion is
due to the force which is inherent in itself;
that the variety of motion and the phenomena
that result proceed from the diversity of the
properties of the qualities and of the
combinations which are originally found in the
primitive matter" of which nature is the.assemblage and of which your
science knows less than one of our Tibetan Yak-drivers of
Kant's metaphysics.
The existence of matter then is a fact; the
existence of motion is another fact, their self
existence and eternity or indestructibility is
a third fact. And the idea of pure spirit as a
Being or an Existence -- give it whatever name
you will -- is a chimera, a gigantic
absurdity.
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. Think
profoundly and you will find that save death
-- which is no evil but a necessary law, and
accidents which will always find their reward
in a future life -- the origin of every evil
whether small or great is in human action, in
man whose intelligence makes him the one
free agent in Nature. It is not nature that
creates diseases, but man. The latter's mission
and destiny in the economy of nature is to die
his natural death brought by old age; save
accident, neither a savage nor a wild (free)
animal die of disease. Food, sexual relations,
drink, are all natural necessities of life;
yet excess in them brings on disease, misery,
suffering, mental and physical, and the latter
are transmitted as the greatest evils to future
generations, the progeny of the culprits.
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 untold 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.
Think well over these few words;
work out every cause of evil you can think of
and trace it to its origin and you will have
solved one-third of the problem of
evil. And now, after making due allowance for evils
that are natural and cannot be avoided, -- and
so few are they that I challenge the whole
host of Western metaphysicians to call them
evils or to trace them directly to an
independent cause -- 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. 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?;
voluntary victim of an illusionary God, the
abject slave of his crafty ministers. The
Irish, Italian and Slavonian peasant will starve
himself and see his family starving and naked
to feed and clothe his padre and pope. For
two thousand years India groaned under the
weight of caste, Brahmins alone feeding on
the fat of the land, and 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.
Remember the sum of human misery will never be
diminished unto that day when the
better portion of humanity destroys in the
name of Truth, morality, and universal charity,
the altars of their false gods.
If it is objected that we too have temples, we
too have priests and that our lamas also live
on charity . . . let them know that the
objects above named have in common with their
Western equivalents, but the name. Thus in our
temples there is neither a god nor gods
worshipped, only the thrice sacred memory of
the greatest as the holiest man that ever
lived. If our lamas to honour the fraternity
of the Bhikkhus established by our blessed
master himself, go out to be fed by the laity,
the latter often to the number of 5 to 25,000
is fed and taken care of by the Samgha (the
fraternity of lamaic monks) the lamassery
providing for the wants of the poor, the sick,
the afflicted. Our lamas accept food, never
money, and it is in those temples that the
origin of evil is preached and impressed upon
the people. There they are taught the four
noble truths -- ariya sakka, and the chain of
causation, (the 12 nid[ci]anas) gives them a
solution of the problem of the origin and
destruction of suffering.
Read the Mahavagga and try to understand not
with the prejudiced Western mind but the
spirit of intuition and truth what the Fully
Enlightened one says in the 1st Khandhaka.
Allow me to translate it for you.
"At the time the blessed Buddha was at
Uruvella on the shores of the river
Nerovigara as he rested under the Boddhi tree
of wisdom after he had
become Sambuddha, at the end of the seventh
day having his mind fixed
on the chain of causation he spake thus: 'from
Ignorance spring the
samkharas of threefold nature -- productions
of body, of speech, of
thought. From the samkharas springs
consciousness, from consciousness
springs name and form, from this spring the
six regions (of the six senses
the seventh being the property of but the
enlightened); from these springs
contact from this sensation; from this springs
thirst (or desire, Kama,
tanha) from thirst attachment, existence,
birth, old age and death, grief,.lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair.
Again by the destruction of
ignorance, the Sankharas are destroyed, and
their consciousness name and
form, the six regions, contact, sensation,
thirst, attachment (selfishness),
existence, birth, old age, death, grief,
lamentation, suffering, dejection,
and despair are destroyed. Such is the
cessation of this whole mass of
suffering."
Knowing this the blessed one uttered this
solemn utterance. "When the real nature of
things becomes clear to the meditating Bikshu,
then all his doubts fade away since he has
learned what is that nature and what its
cause. From ignorance spring all the evils. From
knowledge comes the cessation of this mass of
misery, and then the meditating Brahmana
stands dispelling the hosts of Mara like the
sun that illuminates the sky."
Meditation here means the superhuman (not
supernatural) qualities, or arhatship in its
highest of spiritual powers.
Copied out Simla, Sept. 28, 1882..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 11
Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's
handwriting. -- ED.
Received by A.O.H., June 30th, 1882.
Simple prudence misgives me at the thought of
entering upon my new role of an
"instructor." If M. satisfied you
but little I am afraid of giving you still less satisfaction
since besides being restrained in my
explanations, -- for there are a thousand things I will
have to leave unrevealed -- by my vow of
silence I have far less time at my disposal than
he has. However, I'll try my best. Let it not
be said that I failed to recognise your present
sincere desire to become useful to the
Society, hence to Humanity, for I am deeply alive
to the fact that none better than yourself in
India is calculated to disperse the mists of
superstition and popular error by throwing
light on the darkest problems. But before I
answer your questions and explain our doctrine
any further, I'll have to preface my replies
with a long introduction. First of all and
again I will draw your attention to the
tremendous difficulty of finding appropriate
terms in English which would convey to the
educated European mind even an approximately
correct notion about the various subjects
we will have to treat upon. To illustrate my
meaning I'll underline in red the technical
words adopted and used by your men of Science
and which withal are absolutely
misleading not only when applied to such
transcendental subjects as on hand but even
when used by themselves in their own system of
thought.
To comprehend my answers you will have first
of all to view the eternal Essence, the
Swabavat not as a compound element you call
spirit-matter, but as the one element for
which the English has no name. It is both
passive and active, pure Spirit Essence in its
absoluteness, and repose, pure matter in its
finite and conditioned state, -- even as an
unponderable gas or that great unknown which
science has pleased to call Force. When
poets talk of the "shoreless ocean of
immutability" we must regard the term but as a
jocular parodox, since we maintain that there
is no such thing as immutability -- not in
our Solar system at least. Immutability say
the theists and Christians "is an attribute of
God" and forthwith they endow that God
with every mutable and variable quality and
attribute, knowable as unknowable, and believe
that they have solved the unsolvable and
squared the circle. To this we reply if that
which the theists call God, and science "Force"
and "Potential Energy," were
to become immutable but for one instant even during the
Maha-Pralaya a period when even Brahm the
creative architect of the world is said to
have merged into non-being, then there could
be no manwantara, and space alone would
reign unconscious and supreme in the eternity
of time. Nevertheless, Theism when.speaking of mutable immutability is no more
absurd than materialistic science talking of
"latent potential energy," and the indestructibility of matter
and force. What are we to
believe as indestructible? Is it the invisible
something that moves matter or the energy of
moving bodies! What does modern science know
of force proper, or say the forces, -- the
cause or causes of motion. How can there be
such a thing as potential energy, i.e., an
energy having latent inactive power
since it is energy only while it is moving matter, and
that if it ever ceased to move matter it
would cease to be, and with it matter itself would
disappear. Is force any happier term? Some
thirty-five years back a Dr. Mayer offered the
hypothesis now accepted as an axiom that force
in the sense given it by modern science,
like matter is indestructible namely
when it ceases to be manifest in one form it still
exists and has only passed into some other
form. And yet your men of science have not
found a single instance where one force is
transformed into another, and Mr. Tyndall tells
his opponents that "in no case is the
force producing the motion annihilated or changed
into anything else." Moreover we are
indebted to modern science for the novel discovery
that there exists a quantitative relation
between the dynamic energy producing something
and the "something" produced.
Undoubtedly there exists a quantitive relation between
cause and effect, between the amount of energy
used in breaking one's neighbour's nose,
and the damage done to that nose, but this
does not solve one bit more the mystery of
what they are pleased to call correlations,
since it can be easily proved (and that on the
authority of that same science) that neither
motion nor energy is indestructible and that
the physical forces are in no way or manner
convertible one into another. I will cross-examine
them in their own phraseology and we will see
whether their theories are
calculated to serve as a barrier to our
"astounding doctrines." Preparing as I do to
propound a teaching diametrically opposed to
their own it is but just that I should clear
the ground of scientific rubbish lest what I
have to say should fall on a too encumbered
soil and only bring forth weeds. "This
potential and imaginary materia prima cannot exist
without form," says Raleigh, and he is
right in so far that the materia prima of science
exists but in their imagination. Can they say
the same quantity of energy has always been
moving the matter of the Universe? Certainly
not so long as they teach that when the
elements of the material cosmos, elements
which had first to manifest themselves in their
uncombined gaseous state, were uniting the
quantity of matter -- moving energy was a
million times greater than it is now when our
globe is cooling off. For where did the heat
that was generated by this tremendous process
of building up a universe go to? To the
unoccupied chambers of space they say. Very
well, but if it is gone for ever from the
material universe and the energy operative on earth has never and at no time
been the
same, then how can they try to maintain the
"unchangeable quantity of energy," that
potential energy which a body may sometimes
exert, the FORCE which passes from one
body to another producing motion and which is
not yet "annihilated or changed into
anything else." Aye, we are answered,
"but we still hold to its indestructibility; while it
remains connected with matter, it can
never cease to be, or less or more." Let us see
whether it is so. I throw a brick up to a
mason who is busy building the roof of a temple.
He catches it and cements it in the roof.
Gravity overcame the propelling energy which
started the upward motion of the brick, and
the dynamic energy of the ascending brick
until it ceased to ascend. At that
moment it was caught and fastened to the roof. No
natural force could now move it, therefore it
possesses no longer potential energy. The
motion and the dynamic energy of the ascending
brick are absolutely annihilated..Another
example
from their own text books. You fire a gun upward from the foot of a hill
and the ball lodges in a crevice of the rock on
that hill. No natural force can, for an
indefinite period move it, so the ball as much
as the brick has lost its potential energy.
"All the motion and energy which was
taken from the ascending ball by gravity is
absolutely annihilated, no other motion or
energy succeeds and gravity has received no
increase of energy." Is it not true then
that energy is indestructible! How then is it that
your great authority teaches the world that
"in no case is the force producing the motion
annihilated or changed into anything
else"?
I am perfectly aware of your answer and give
you these illustrations but to show how
misleading are the terms used by scientists,
how vacillating and uncertain their theories
and finally how incomplete all their
teachings. One more objection and I have done. They
teach that all the physical forces rejoicing
in specific names such as gravity, inertia,
cohesion, light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
chemical affinity, are convertible one into
another? If so the force producing must cease
to be as the force produced becomes
manifest. "A flying cannon ball moves
only from its own inherent force of inertia." When
it strikes it produces heat and other effects
but its force of inertia is not the least
diminished. It will require as much energy to
start it again at the same velocity as it did at
first. We may repeat the process a thousand
times and as long as the quantity of matter
remains the same its force of inertia will
remain the same in quantity. The same in the
case of gravity. A meteor falls and produces
heat. Gravity is to be held to account for this,
but the force of gravity upon the fallen body
is not diminished. Chemical attraction
draws and holds the particles of matter
together, their collision producing heat. Has the
former passed into the latter? Not in the
least, since drawing the particles again together
whenever these are separated it proves that
it, the chemical affinity is not decreased, for it
will hold them as strongly as ever together.
Heat they say generates and produces
electricity yet they find no decrease in the
heat in the process. Electricity produces heat
we are told? Electrometers show that the
electrical current passes through some poor
conductor, a platinum wire say and heats the
latter. Precisely the same quantity of
electricity, there being no loss of
electricity, no decrease. What then has been converted
into heat? Again electricity is said to
produce magnetism.
I have on the table before me primitive
electrometers in whose vicinity chelas come the
whole day to recuperate their nascent powers.
I do not find the slightest decrease in the
electricity stored. The chelas are magnetized,
but their magnetism or rather that of their
rods is
not that electricity under a new mask. No more than the flame of a
thousand
tapers lit at the flame of the Fo lamp
is the flame of the latter. Therefore if by the
uncertain twilight of modern science it is an
axiomatic truth "that during vital processes
the conversion only and never the creation
of matter or force occurs" (Dr. J. R. Mayer's
organic motion in its connection with
nutrition) -- it is for us but half a truth. It is neither
conversion nor creation, but something for which science has yet
no name.
Perhaps now you will be prepared to better
understand the difficulty with which we will
have to contend. Modern science is our best
ally. Yet it is generally that same science
which is made the weapon to break our heads
with. However you will have to bear in
mind (a) that we recognise but one element
in Nature (whether spiritual or physical).outside
which there can be no Nature since it is Nature
itself (1), and which as the Akasa
pervades our solar system every atom being
part of itself pervades throughout space and
is space
in fact, which pulsates as in profound sleep during the pralayas and the
universal
Proteus, the ever active Nature during the
Manwantaras; (b) that consequently spirit and
matter are one, being but a
differentiation of states not essences, and that the Greek
philosopher who maintained that the Universe
was a huge animal penetrated the
symbolical significance of the Pythagorean
monad (which becomes two, then three and
finally having become the tetracktis or the
perfect square (thus evolving out of itself four
and involuting three forms the sacred seven)
-- and thus was far in advance of all the
scientific men of the present time; (c) that
our notions of "cosmic matter" are
diametrically opposed to those of western
science. Perchance if you remember all this we
will succeed in imparting to you at least the
elementary axioms of our esoteric philosophy
more correctly than heretofore. Fear not my
kind brother; your life is not ebbing away
and it will not be extinct before you have
completed your mission. I can sayno more
except that the Chohan has permitted me to
devote my spare time to instruct those who
are willing to learn, and you will have work
enough to "drop" your Fragments at intervals
of two or three months. My time is very
limited yet I will do what I can. But I can
promise nothing beyond this. I will
have to remain silent as to the Dyan Chohans nor can
I impart to you the secrets concerning the men
of the seventh round. The recognition of
the higher phases of man's being on this
planet is not to be attained by mere acquirement
of knowledge. Volumes of the most perfectly
constructed information cannot reveal to
man life in the higher regions. One has to get
a knowledge of spiritual facts by personal
experience and from actual observation, for as
Tyndall puts it "facts looked directly at are
vital, when they pass into words half the sap
is taken out of them." And because you
recognise this great principle of personal
observation, and are not slow to put into
practice what you have acquired in the way of
useful information, is perhaps the reason
why the hitherto implacable Chohan my Master
has finally permitted me to devote to a
certain extent a portion of my time to the
progress of the Eclectic. But I am but one and
you are many, and none of my Fellow Brothers
with the exception of M. will help me in
this work, not even our semi-European Greek
Brother who but a few days back remarked
that when "every one of the Eclectics on
the Hill will have become a Zetetic then will he
see what he can do for them." And as you
are aware there is very little hope for this. Men
seek after knowledge until they weary
themselves to death, but even they do not feel very
impatient to help their neighbour with their
knowledge; hence there arises a coldness, a
mutual indifference which renders him who
knows inconsistent with himself and
inharmonious with his surroundings. Viewed
from our standpoint the evil is far greater on
the spiritual than on the material side of
man: hence my sincere thanks to you and desire
to urge your attention to such a course as
shall aid a true progression and achieve wider
results by turning your knowledge into a
permanent teaching in the form of articles and
pamphlets.
But for the attainment of your proposed
object, viz. -- for a clearer comprehension of the
extremely abstruse and at first
incomprehensible theories of our occult doctrine never
allow the serenity of your mind to be disturbed
during your hours of literary labour, nor
before you set to work. It is upon the serene
and placid surface of the unruffled mind that
the visions gathered from the invisible find a
representation in the visible world..Otherwise you would vainly seek those
visions, those flashes of sudden light which have
already helped to solve so many of the minor
problems and which alone can bring the
truth before the eye of the soul. It is with
jealous care that we have to guard our mind-plane
from all the adverse influences which daily
arise in our passage through earth-life.
Many are the questions you ask me in your
several letters, I can answer but few.
Concerning Eglinton I will beg you to wait for
developments. In regard to your kind lady
the question is more serious and I cannot
undertake the responsibility of making her
change her diet as ABRUPTLY as you suggest.
Flesh and meat she can give up at any
time as it can never hurt; as for liquor with
which Mrs. H. has long been sustaining her
system, you yourself know the fatal effects it
may produce in an enfeebled constitution
were the latter to be suddenly deprived of its
stimulant. Her physical life is not a real
existence backed by a reserve of vital force,
but a factitious one fed upon the spirit of
liquor however small the quantity. While a
strong constitution might rally after the first
shock of such a change as proposed, the
chances are that she would fall into a decline. So
would she if opium or arsenic were her chief
sustenance. Again I promise nothing yet
will do in this direction what I can.
"Converse with you and teach you through astral
light?" Such a development of your
psychical powers of hearing, as you name, -- the
Siddhi of hearing occult sounds would not be
at all the easy matter you imagine. It was
never done to any one of us, for the iron rule
is that what powers one gets he must himself
acquire. And when acquired and ready for use the powers lie dumb and dormant in
their
potentiality like the wheels and clockwork
inside a musical box; and only then does it
become easy to wind up the key and set them in
motion. Of course you have now more
chances before you than my zoophagous friend
Mr. Sinnett, who were he even to give up
feeding on animals would still feel a craving
for such a food, a craving over which he
would have no control and, -- the impediment
would be the same in that case. Yet every
earnestly disposed man may acquire such
powers practically. That is the finality of it;
there are no more distinctions of persons in
this than there are as to whom the sun shall
shine upon or the air give vitality to. There
are the powers of all nature before you; take
what you can.
Your suggestion as to the box I will think
over. There would have to be some contrivance
to prevent the discharge of power when once
the box was charged, whether during transit
or subsequently: I will consider and take
advice or rather permission. But I must say the
idea is utterly repugnant to us as everything
else smacking of spirits and mediumship. We
would prefer by far using natural means as in
the last transmission of my letter to you. It
was one of M's chelas who left it for you in
the flower-shed, where he entered invisible to
all yet in his natural body, just as he had
entered many a time your museum and other
rooms, unknown to you all, during and after
the "Old Lady's" stay. But unless he is told
to do so by M. he will never do it, and
that is why your letter to me was left unnoticed.
You have an unjust feeling towards my Brother,
kind sir, for he is better and more
powerful than I -- at least he is not as bound
and restricted as I am -- I have asked H. P.
B. to send you a number of philosophical
letters from a Dutch Theosophist at Penang --
one in whom I take an interest: you ask for
more work and her -- one is some. They are
translations, originals of those portions of
Schoppenhauer which are most in affinity with
our Arhat doctrines. The English is not
idiomatic but the material is valuable. Should you.be disposed to utilise any
portion of it, I would recommend your opening a direct
correspondence with Mr. Sanders, F.T.S. -- the
translator. Schoppenhauer's philosophical
value is so well known in the western
countries that a comparison or connotation of his
teachings upon will, etc., with those you have
received from ourselves might be
instructive. Yes I am quite ready to look over
your 50 or 60 pages and make notes on the
margins: have them set up by all means and
send them to me either through little "Deb"
or Damodar and Djual Kul will transmit them.
In a very few days, perhaps to-morrow,
your two questions will be amply answered by
me.
Meanwhile
Yours sincerely,
K. H.
P.S. -- The Tibetan translation is not quite
ready yet.
FOOTNOTE:
1. Not in the sense of Natus "born"
but Nature as the sum total of everything visible and
invisible, of forms and minds, the aggregate
of the known (and unknown), causes and
effects, the universe in short infinite and
uncreated and endless, as it is without a
beginning. (return to text).The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 12
Your hypothesis is far nearer the truth than
Mr. Hume's. Two factors must be kept in
view -- (a) a fixed period, and (b) a fixed
rate of development nicely adjusted to it.
Almost unthinkably long as is a Mahayug, it is
still a definite term, and within it must be
accomplished the whole order of development,
or to state it in occult phraseology: the
descent of Spirit into matter and its return
to the re-emergence. A chain of beads, and
each bead a world -- is an illustration
already made familiar to you. You have already
pondered over the life impulse beginning with
each Manvantara to evolve the first of
these worlds; to perfect it; to people it
successively with all the aerial forms of life. And
after completing on this first world seven
cycles -- or revolutions of development -- in
each kingdom as you know -- passing forward
down the arc -- to similarly evolve the
next world in the chain, perfect it, and
abandon it. Then to the next and next and next --
until the sevenfold round of world-evolutions
along the chain is run through and the
Mahayug comes to its end. Then chaos again --
the Pralaya. As this life-impulse (at the
seventh and last round from planet to planet)
moves on it leaves behind it dying and --
very soon -- "dead planets."
The last seventh round man having passed on to
a subsequent world, the precedent one
with all its mineral, vegetable and animal
life (except man) begins to gradually die out,
when with the exit of the last animalcule it
is extinguished, or as H.P.B. has it -- snuffed
out (minor or partial pralaya).
When the Spirit-man reaches the last bead of the chain and
passes into final Nirvana, this last
world also disappears or passes into subjectivity. Thus
are there among the stellar galaxies births
and deaths of worlds ever following each other
in the orderly procession of natural Law. And
-- as said already -- the last bead is strung
upon the thread of the "Mahayuga."
When the last cycle of man-bearing has been
completed by that last fecund earth; and
humanity has reached in a mass the stage of
Buddhahood and passed out of the objective
existence into the mystery of Nirvana -- then
"strikes the hour;" the seen becomes the
unseen, the concrete resumes its pre-cyclic
state of atomic distribution.
But the dead worlds left behind the
on-sweeping impulse do not continue dead. Motion is
the eternal order of things and affinity or
attraction its handmaid of all works. The thrill
of life will again re-unite the atoms, and it
will stir again in the inert planet when the time
comes. Though all its forces have remained statu
quo and are now asleep, yet little by
little it will -- when the hour re-strikes
-- gather for a new cycle of man-bearing
maternity, and give birth to something still
higher as moral and physical types than
during the preceding manvantara. And
its "cosmic atoms already in a differentiated state"
(differing -- in the producing force, in the mechanical sense, of
motions and effects).remain statu quo as well as globes and
everything else in the process of formation." Such
is the "hypothesis fully in accordance
with (your) (my) note." For, as planetary
development is as progressive as human or race
evolution, the hour of the Pralaya's
coming catches the series of worlds at
successive stages of evolution; (i.e.) each has
attained to some one of the periods of
evolutionary progress -- each stops there, until the
outward impulse of the next manvantara sets
it going from that very point -- like a
stopped time-piece re-wound. Therefore, have I
used the word "differentiated."
At the coming of the Pralaya no human, animal,
or even vegetable entity will be alive to
see it, but there will be the earth or globes
with their mineral kingdoms; and all these
planets will be physically disintegrated in
the pralaya, yet not destroyed; for they have
their places in the sequence of evolution and
their "privations" coming again out of the
subjective, they will find the exact point
from which they have to move on around the
chain of "manifested forms." This,
as we know, is repeated endlessly throughout
ETERNITY. Each man of us has gone this
ceaseless round, and will repeat it for ever and
ever. The deviation of each one's course, and
his rate of progress from Nirvana to
Nirvana is governed by causes which he himself
creates out of the exigencies in which he
finds himself entangled.
This picture of an eternity of action may
appal the mind that has been accustomed to look
forward to an existence of ceaseless repose.
But their concept is not supported by the
analogies of nature, nor -- and ignorant
though I may be thought of your Western
Science, may I not say? -- by the teachings of
that Science. We know that periods of
action and rest follow each other in
everything in nature from the macrocosm with its
Solar Systems down to man and its
parent-earth, which has its seasons of activity
followed by those of sleep; and that in short
all nature, like her begotten living forms has
her time for recuperation. So with the
spiritual individuality, the Monad which starts on
its downward and upward cyclic rotation. The
periods which intervene between each
great manvantarian "round"
are proportionately long to reward for the thousands of
existences passed on various globes; while the
time given between each "race birth" -- or
rings as
you call them -- is sufficiently lengthy to compensate for any life of strife
and
misery during that lapse of time passed in
conscious bliss after the re-birth of the Ego. To
conceive of an eternity of bliss or
woe, and to offset it to any conceivable deeds of merit
or demerit of a being who may have lived a
century or even a millenium in the flesh, can
only be proposed by one who has never yet
grasped the awful reality of the word
Eternity, nor pondered upon the law of perfect
justice and equilibrium which pervades
nature. Further instructions may be given you,
which will show how nicely justice is done
not to man only but also his subordinates, and
throw some light, I hope, upon the vexed
question of good and evil.
And now to crown this effort of mine (of
writing) I may as well pay an old debt, and
answer an old question of yours concerning
earth incarnations. Koot'humi answers some
of your queries -- at least began writing
yesterday but was called off by duty -- but I may
help him anyhow. I trust you will not find
much difficulty -- not as much as hitherto -- in
making out my letter. I have become a very
plain writer since he reproached me with.making you lose your valuable time
over my scrawlings. His rebuke struck home, and as
you see I have amended my evil ways.
Let us see what your Science has to tell us
about Ethnography and other matters. The
latest conclusions to which your wise men of
the West seem to have arrived briefly stated
are the following. The theories even
approximately correct I venture to underline with
blue. [These passages appear in bold type. --
ED.]
(1) The earliest traces of man they can find
disappear beyond the close of a period of
which the rock-fossils furnish the only clue they possess.
(2) Starting thence they find four races of
men who have successively inhabited Europe
(a) The race of the river Drift -- mighty
hunters (perchance Nimrod?) who dwelt
in the
then sub-tropical climate of Western Europe, who used chipped stone implements of
the most primitive kind and were contemporary with the rhinoceros and the
mammoth; (b) the so-called cave-men, a race developed during the
glacial period (the
Esquimaux being now, they say, its only type) and which
possessed finer weapons and
tools of chipped stone since they made with
wondrous accuracy pictures of various
animals they were familiar with, simply with
the aid of sharp pointed flints on the antlers
of reindeer and on bones and stones; (c) the
third race -- the men of the Neolithic age are
found already grinding their stone
implements, building houses and boats and making
pottery, in short -- the lake dwellers of
Switzerland; and finally (d) appears the fourth
race, coming from Central Asia. These are the
fair complexioned Aryans who intermarry
with the remnant of the dark Iberians -- now
represented by the swarthy Basks of Spain.
This is the race which they consider as the
progenitors of you modern peoples of Europe.
(3) They add moreover, that the men of the
river Drift, preceded the glacial period known
in geology as the Pleistocene and
originated some 240,000 years ago, while human
beings generally (see Geikie, Dawkins, Fiske
and others) inhabited Europe at least
100,000 years earlier.
With one solitary exception they are all
wrong. They come near enough yet miss the
mark in every case. There were not four but
five races; and we are that fifth with
remnants of the fourth. (A more perfect
evolution or race with each mahacyclic round);
while the first race appeared on earth not
half a million of years ago (Fiske's theory) --
but several millions. The latest scientific
theory is that of the German and American
professors who say through Fiske: "we see
man living on the earth for perhaps half a
million years to all intents and purposes
dumb."
He is both right and wrong. Right about the
race having been "dumb," for long ages of
silence were required, for the evolution and
mutual comprehension of speech, from the
moans and mutterings of the first remove of
man above the highest anthropoid (a race
now extinct since "nature shuts the door
behind her" as she advances, in more than one
sense) -- up to the first monosyllable
uttering man. But he is wrong in saying all the rest..By the bye, you ought to
come to some agreement as to the terms used when discussing
upon cyclic evolutions. Our terms are
untranslateable; and without a good knowledge of
our complete system (which cannot be given but
to regular initiates) would suggest
nothing definite to your perceptions but only
be a source of confusion as in the case of
the terms "Soul" and
"Spirit" with all your metaphysical writers -- especially the
Spiritualists.
You must have patience with Subba Row. Give
him time. He is now at his tapas and will
not be disturbed. I will tell him not to
neglect you but he is very jealous and regards
teaching an Englishman as a sacrilege.
Yours M.
P.S. -- My writing is good but the paper
rather thin for penmanship. Cannot write English
with a brush though; would be worse..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 13
[Mr. Sinnett's Queries in ordinary type with
M.'s Replies in bold type. --
Ed.]
Cosmological Notes and Queries and M.'s
Replies. Received January,
1882. Allahabad.
(1) I conceive that at the close of a pralaya
the impulse given by the Dhyan Chohans does
not develop from chaos, a succession of worlds
simultaneously, but seriatim. The
comprehension of the manner in which each in
succession ensues from its predecessor as
the impact of the original impulse might
perhaps be better postponed till after I am
enabled to realize the working of the whole
machine -- the cycle of worlds -- after all its
parts have come into existence.
(1) Correctly conceived. Nothing in nature springs into
existence suddenly all being
subjected to the same law of gradual evolution. Realize but
once the process of the
mahacycle, of one sphere and you have realized them
all. One man is born like
another man, one race evolves, develops, and declines like
another and all other
races. Nature follows the same groove from the
"creation" of a universe down to
that of a moskito. In studying esoteric cosmogony, keep a
spiritual eye upon the
physiological process of human birth; proceed from cause to
effect establishing [The
original letter has a small portion missing at
this point, hence the incompleteness of the
following lines. -- ED]. . . . . . . . . . go along, analogies between the. . . . . . . . . .
. man
and that of a world. In our doctri . . . . . . . . will find
necessary the synthetic me . . . . .
. . . . . you will have to embrace the whole . . . . . . . .
. . . -- that is to say to blend the
macrocosm. . . . . . . . -- cosm together -- before you are
ena . . . . . . . . . to study the
parts separately or analyze them with profit to your
understanding. Cosmology is
the physiology of the universe spiritualized, for there is
but one law.
(2) Taking the middle of a period of activity
between two pralayas, i.e., of a manvantara --
what I understand to happen is this. Atoms are
polarized in the highest region of
spiritual efflux from behind the veil of
primitive cosmic matter. The magnetic impulse
which has accomplished this result flits from
one mineral form to another within the first
sphere till having run the round of existence
in that kingdom of the first sphere it
descends in a current of attraction to the
second sphere.
(2) Polarize themselves during the process of motion and
propelled by the
irresistible Force at work. In Cosmogony and the work of
nature the positive and
the negative or the active and passive forces correspond to
the male and female.principles. Your spiritual efflux comes not from
"behind the veil" but is the male
seed falling into the veil of cosmic matter. The active is attracted by the passive
principle and the Great Nag, the serpent emblem of the
eternity, attracts its tail to
its mouth forming thereby a circle (cycles in the eternity)
in that incessant pursuit of
the negative by the positive. Hence the emblem of the lingam thephallus and the eteis.
The one and chief attribute of the universal spiritual
principle -- the unconscious
but ever active life-giver -- is to expand and shed; that of
the universal material
principle to gather in and fecundate. Unconscious and
non-existing when separated,
they become consciousness and life when brought together.
Hence again -- Brahma,
from the root "brih" the Sanskrit for "to
expand, grow or to fructify. Brahma being
but the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternal
evolution.
(3) Do worlds of effects intervene between the
worlds of activity in the series of descent?
(3) The worlds of effects are not lokas or localities. They
are the shadow of the world
of causes their souls-- worlds having like men their seven principles
which develop
and grow simultaneously with the body. Thus the bodyof man is wedded to and
remains for ever within the body of his planet; his
individual jivatma life principle
that which is called in physiology animal spirits returns after death to its source
--
Fohat; his linga shariram will be drawn into Akasa; his Kamarupawill recommingle
with the Universal Sakti-- the Will-Force, or universal energy; his
"animal soul"
borrowed from the breath of Universal Mind will return to the Dhyan Chohans;
his
sixth principle -- whether drawn into or ejected from the
matrix of the Great
Passive Principle must remain in its own sphere -- either as
part of the crude
material or as an individualized entity to be reborn in a
higher world of causes. The
seventh will carry it from the Devachanand follow the new Ego to its place of re -birth.
. . .
(4) The magnetic impulse which cannot yet be
conceived of as an individuality -- enters
the second sphere in the same (the mineral)
kingdom as that to which it belonged in
sphere I and runs the round of mineral
incarnations there passing on to sphere III. Our
earth is still a sphere of necessity for it.
Hence it passes into the upward series -- and from
the highest of these passes into the vegetable
kingdom of sphere I.
Without any new impulse of creative force from
above, its career round the cycle of
worlds as a mineral principle has developed
some new attractions or polarization which
cause it to assume the lowest vegetable form
-- in vegetable forms it passes successively
through the cycle of worlds, the whole being
still a circle of necessity (as no
responsibility can yet have accrued to an
unconscious individuality, and therefore it
cannot at any stage of its progress do
anything to select one or other of divergent paths).
Or is there something in the life even of a
vegetable which, though not responsibility,
may lead it up or down at this critical stage
of its progress?
Having completed the whole cycle as a
vegetable the growing individuality expands on
the next circuit into an animal form..(4) The evolution of the worlds cannot be
considered apart from the evolution of
everything created or having being on these worlds. Your
accepted conceptions of
cosmogony -- whether from the theological or scientific
standpoints -- do not enable
you to solve a single anthropological, or even ethnical
problem and they stand in
your way whenever you attempt to solve the problem of the
races on this planet.
When a man begins to talk about creation and the origin of
man, he is butting
against the facts incessantly. Go on saying: "Our
planet and man were created --
and you will be fighting against hard facts for ever, analyzing and losing
time over
trifling details -- unable to ever grasp the whole. But once
admit that our planet and
ourselves are no more creations than the iceberg now before me (in
our K.H.'s
home) but that both planet and man are -- states for a given time; that their
present
appearance -- geological and anthropological -- is
transitory and but a condition
concomitant of that stage of evolution at which they have
arrived in the descending
cycle -- and all will become plain. You will easily
understand what is meant by the
"one and only" element or principle in the
universe and that androgynous; the
seven-headed serpent Ananda of Vishnu, the Nag
around Buddha --
the great dragon
eternity biting with its active head its passive tail, from the emanations of which
spring worlds, beings and things. You will comprehend the
reason why the first
philosopher proclaimed ALL -- Maya -- but that one
principle, which rests during
the maha-pralayas only -- the "nights of Brahm." . . .
Now think: the Nag awakes. He heaves a heavy breath and the
latter is sent like an
electric shock all along the wire encircling Space. Go to your fortepiano and
execute
upon the lower register of keys the seven notes of the lower octave -- up
and down.
Begin pianissimo; crescendo from the first key and having struck fortissimoon the last
lower note go back diminuendogetting out of your last note a
hardly perceptible
sound -- "morendo pianissimo" (as I luckily for my
illustration find it printed in one
of the musick pieces in K.H.'s old portmanteau). The first
and the last notes will
represent to you the first and last spheres in the cycle of
evolution -- the highest! the
one you strike onceis our planet. Remember you have to reverse the order
on the
fortepiano: begin with the seventh note, not with the first.
The seven vowels chanted
by the Egyptian priests to the seven rays of the rising sun
to which Memnon
responded, meant but that. The one Life-principlewhen in action runs in circuits even
as known in physical science. It runs the round in human
body, where the head
represents, and is to the Microcosmos (the physical world of
matter) what the
summit of the cycle is to the Macrocosmos (the world of
universal spiritual Forces);
and so with the formation of worlds and the great descending
and ascending "circle
of necessity." All is one Law. Man has his seven
principles, the germs of which he
brings with him at his birth. So has a planet or a world.
From first to last every
sphere has its world of effects, the passing through which
will afford a place of final
rest to each of the human principles -- the seventh
principle excepted. The world No.
A is born; and with it, clinging like barnacles to the
bottom of a ship in motion --
evolute from its first breath of life, the living beings of
its atmosphere, from the
germs hitherto inert, now awakening to life with the first
motion of the sphere. With
sphere A, begins the mineral kingdom and runs the round of
mineral evolution. By
the time it is completed sphere B comes into objectivity and
draws to itself the.lifewhich has completed its round on sphere A, and has become a surplus.(The fount
of life being inexhaustible, for it is the true Arachnea
doomed to spin out its web
eternally -- save the periods of pralaya). Then comes vegetable life on
sphere A, and
the same process takes place. On its downward course
"life" becomes with every
state coarser, more material; on its upward more shadowy. No
-- there is, nor can
there be any responsibility until the time when matter and
spirit are properly
equilibrized. Up to man"life" has no responsibility in whatever
form; no more than
has the foetus who in his mother's womb passes through all
the forms of life -- as a
mineral, a vegetable, an animal to become finally Man.
(5) Where does it get the animal soul, its
fifth principle, from? Has the potentiality of this
resided from the first in the original
magnetic impulse which constituted the mineral, or
at every transition from the last world on the
ascending side to sphere I does it, so to
speak, pass through an ocean of spirit and
assimilate some new principle?
(5) Thus you see his fifth principle is evolved from within himself, man having as you
well say "the potentiality" of all the seven principles
as a germ, from the very
instant he appears in the first world of causes as a shadowy
breath, which
coagulates with, and is hardened together with the parent
sphere.
Spirit or LIFE is indivisible. And when we speak of the
seventh principle it is
neither quality nor quantity nor yet form that are meant,
but rather the
spaceoccupied in that ocean
of spirit by the
results or effects -- (beneficent as are all
those of a co-worker with nature) -- impressed thereon.
(6) From the highest animal (non-human) form
in sphere I -- how does it get to sphere II?
It is inconceivable that it can descend to the
lowest animal form there, but otherwise how
can it go through the whole circle of life on
each planet in turn?
If it runs its cycle in a spiral (i.e., from
form 1 of sphere I to form 1 of sphere II, etc. --
then to form 2 of sphere I, II, III, etc., and
then to form 3 of sphere I. . . . nth) then it
seems to me that the same rule must apply to
the mineral and vegetable individualities if
they have such, and yet some things I have
been told seem to militate against that. (State
them and they will be answered and explained.)
For the moment I must work on that hypothesis
however.
(Having swept through the cycle in the highest
animal form the animal soul in its next
plunge into the ocean of spirit acquires the
seventh principle which endows it with a
sixth. This determines its future on Earth,
and at the close of the earth life has sufficient
vitality to keep an attraction of its own for
the seventh principle, or loses this and ceases
to exist as a separate entity. All this misconceived.)
Seventh principle always there as a latent force in every
one of the principles -- even
body. As the macrocosmic Wholeit is present even in the lower sphere, but there is
nothing there to assimilate it to itself..(6) Why,
"inconceivable?" The highest animal form in sphere I or A being
irresponsible, there is no degradation for it
to merge into sphere II or B as the most
infinitesimal of that sphere. While on its upward course, as
you were told, man finds
even the lowest animal form there-- higher than he was himself on earth. How do
you know that men and animals and even life in its incipient
stage is not a thousand
times higher there, than it is here? Besides which, every
kingdom (and we have
seven -- while you have but three) is subdivided into seven degrees or classes. Man
(physically) is a compound of all the kingdoms, and
spiritually -- his individuality is
no worse for being shut up within the casing of an ant than
it is for being inside a
king. It is not the outward or physical shape that dishonours and pollutes the
five
principles -- but the mental perversity. Then it is but at his fourth round when
arrived at the full possession of his Kama-energy and is completely
matured, that
man becomes fully responsible, as at the sixth he may become a Buddha and at the
seventh before the Pralaya -- a "Dyan Chohan."
Mineral, vegetable, animal-man, all
of these have to run their seven rounds during the period of earth's activity -- the
Maha Yug. I will not enter here on the
details of mineral and vegetable evolution, but
I will notice only man -- or -- animal-man. He starts
downward as a simply spiritual
entity -- an unconscious seventh principle (a Parabrahm in contradistinction to Para-parabrahm)
-- with the germs of the other six principles lying latent
and dormant in
him. Gathering solidity at every sphere -- his six pr. when
passing through the
worlds of effects, and his outward form in the worlds of
causes (for these worlds or
stages on the descending side we have other names) when he
touches our planet he is
but a glorious bunch of light upon a sphere itself yet pure
and undefiled (for
mankind and every living thing on it increase in their
materiality with the planet).
At that stage our globe is like the head of a newly born
babe -- soft, and with
undefined features, and man -- an Adam before the breath of life was breathed into his
nostrils (to quote your own bungled up Scriptures for
your better comprehension).
For man and (our planets) nature -- it is day -- the first (see distorted tradition in
your Bible). Man No. 1 makes his appearance at the apex of
the circle of the sphere s
on sphere No. 1, after the completion of the seven rounds or
periods of the two
kingdoms (known to you) and thus he is said to be created on
the eighth day (see
Bible Chapter 11; note verses 5 and 6 and think what is
meant there by "mist" --
and verse 7 wherein LAW the Universal great fashioner is
termed "God" by
Christians and Jews, and understood as Evolutionby Kabalists). During this first
round "animal-man" runs, as you say, his cycle in
a spiral. On the descending arc --
whence he starts after the completion of the seventh round of
animal life on
his own
individual sevenrounds -- he has to enter every sphere not as a lower animal as you
understand it but as a lower man. Since during the cycle which preceded his round
as a man he performed it as the highest type of animal. Your
"Lord God," says
Bible, chapter I, verses 25 and 26 -- after having made all said: "Let us make man in
our image," etc., and creates man -- an androgyne ape!
(extinct on our planet) the
highest in intelligence in the animal kingdom and whose descendants
you find in the
anthropoids of to-day. Will you deny the possibility of the
highest anthropoid in the
next sphere being higher in intelligence than some men down
here -- savages for
instance, the African dwarf-race and our own Veddahs of
Ceylon. But man has no
such "degradation" to go through as soon as he has
reached the fourth stage of his.cyclic rounds. Like the lower lives and beings during his first,
second and third
round and while he is an irresponsible compound of pure matter and purespirit
(none of them as yet defiled by the consciousness of their
possible purposes and
applications) from sphere I, where he has performed his local sevenfold round of
evolutionary process from the lowest class of the highestspecies of -- say --
anthropoids up to rudimentary man certainly enters No. 2 as
an ape (the
last word
being used for your better comprehension). At this round or
stage his individuality
is as dormant in him as that of a foetus during his period
of gestation. He has no
consciousness, no sense, for he begins as a rudimentary
astral man and lands on our
planet as a primitive physical man. So far it is a mere
passing on of mechanical
motion. Volition and consciousness are at the same time
self-determining and
determined by causes, and the volition of man his
intelligence and consciousness will
awake but when his fourth principle Kama is matured and completed by its
(seriatim) contact with the Kamas or energizing forces of all the forms man has
passed through in his previous three rounds. The present
mankind is at its
fourthround (mankind as a genus or a kind not a RACE nota bene) of the post-pralayancycle
of evolution; and as its various races, so the individual
entities in them
are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly sevenfold cycles --
hence the vast difference in the degrees of their
intelligence, energy and so on. Now
every individuality will be followed on its 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 reborn here. His
local terrestrial cycle is completed and he has to either
proceed onward or -- be
annihilated as an individuality. (The incomplete entities
have to be reborn or
reincarnated). (1)On
their fifth round after a partial Nirvana when the zenith of the
grand cycle is reached, they will be held responsible
henceforth in their descents
from sphere to sphere, as they will have to appear on this
earth as a still more
perfect and intellectual race. This downward course has not
yet begun but will soon.
Only how many -- oh, how many will be destroyed on their
way!
The above said is the rule. The Buddhas and Avatars form the exception as verily we
have yet some Avatars left to us on earth.
(7) The animal soul having in successive
passages round the cycle lost, so to speak, the
momentum which previously carried it past the
divergent path downward which strikes
off here, falls into the lower world, in the
relatively brief cycle in which its individuality
is dissipated.
But this would only be the case with the
animal soul which had not, in its union with
spirit, developed a durable sixth principle.
If it had done this, and if the sixth principle
drawing to itself the individuality of the
complete man, had withered the interior fifth
principle by so doing -- as the aloe's flower,
when thrown up, withers its leaves -- then
the animal soul would not have cohesion enough
to enter on another existence in a lower
world and would be soon dissipated in the
sphere of this earth's attraction..(7)
Reforming your conceptions on what I gave you above you will understand now
better.
The whole individuality is centred in the three middle or
3rd, 4th and 5th principles.
During earthly life it is all in the fourth the centre of
energy, volition -- will. Mr.
Hume has perfectly defined the difference between
personality and individuality.
The former hardly survives -- the latter, to run successfully
its seven-fold downward
and upward course has to assimilate to itself the eternal
life-power residing but in
the seventh and then blend the three (fourth, fifth and
seventh) into one -- the sixth.
Those who succeed in doing so become Buddhs, Dyan Chohans,
etc. The chief object
of our struggles and initiations is to achieve this union while yet
on this earth. Those
who will be successful have nothing to fear of during the
fifth, sixth and seventh
rounds. But this is a mystery. Our beloved K.H. is on his
way to the goal -- the
highest of all beyond as on this sphere.
I have to thank you for all you have done for our two
friends. It is a debt of gratitude
we oweyou.
M.
For some short time you will not hear of, or from me --
PREPARE.
FOOTNOTE:
1. By-the-bye, I'll re-write for you pages 345
to 357, Vol. I., of Isis -- much jumbled, and
confused by Olcott, who thought he was
improving it! (return to text).The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 14
[Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's
handwriting -- ED.]
Letter from K.H. Answering Queries. Received
by A.O.H., July 9th, 1882.
(1) We understand that the man-bearing cycle
of necessity of our solar system consists of
thirteen objective globes, of which ours is
the lowest, six above it in the ascending, and
six in the descending cycle with a fourteenth
world lower still than ours. Is this correct?
(1) The number is not quite correct. There are seven
objective and seven subjective
globes (I have been just permitted for the first time to
give you the right figure), the
worlds of causes and of effects. The former have our earth
occupying the lower
turning point where spirit-matter equilibrates. But do not
trouble yourself to go into
calculations even on this correct basis for it will only
puzzle you, since the infinite
ramifications of the number seven (which is one of our
greatest mysteries) being so
closely allied and interdependent with the seven principles
of Nature and man -- this
figure is the only one I am permitted (so far) to give you.
What I can reveal I do so
in a letter I am just finishing.
(2) We understand that below man you reckon
not three kingdoms as we do (mineral,
vegetable and animal) but seven. Please enumerate
and explain these.
(2) Below man there are three in the objective and three in
the subjective region,
with man a septenary. Two of the three former none but an
initiate could conceive
of; the third is the Inner kingdom -- below the crust of the
earth which we could
name but would feel embarrassed to describe. These seven
kingdoms are preceded
by other and numerous septenary stages and combinations.
(3) We understand that the monad, starting in
the highest world of the descending series,
appears there in a mineral encasement, and
there goes through a series of seven
encasements representing the seven classes
into which the mineral kingdom is divided,
and that this done it passes to the next
planet and does likewise (I purposely say nothing
of the worlds of results, where it takes on
the development the result of what it has gone
through in the last world and the necessary
preparation for the next) and so on right
through the thirteen spheres, making
altogether 91 mineral existences. (a) Is this correct?
(b) If so, what are the classes we are to
reckon in the mineral kingdom? Also (c) How
does the monad get out of one encasement into
another; in the case of inherbations and
incarnations, the plant and animal dies, but
so far as we know the mineral does not die, so
how does the monad in the first round get out
of one into another inmetalliation? (d) And.has every separate molecule of the
mineral a monad or only those groups of molecules
where definite structure is observable such as
crystals?
(3) Yes; in our string of worlds it starts at globe
"A" of the descending series and
passing through all the preliminary evolutions and
combinations of the first three
kingdoms it finds itself encased in its first mineral form
(in what I call race when
speaking of man and what we may call class in general) -- of
class 1 -- there. Only it
passes through seveninstead of "through the thirteen spheres"
even omitting the
intermediate "worlds of results." Having passed
through its seven great classes of
inmetalliation (a good word this) with their septenary
ramifications -- the monad
gives birth to the vegetable kingdom and moves on to the
next planet "B."
(a) As you now see, except as to the numbers. (b) Your geologists
divide, I believe,
stones into three great groups -- of Sandstone, granite and
chalk; or the
sedimentary, organic, and igneous, following their physical
characteristics just as
the psychologists and spiritualists divide man into the
trinity of body, soul, and
spirit. Our method is totally different. We divide minerals
(also the other kingdoms)
according to their occult properties, i.e., according to the
relative proportion of the
seven universal principles which they contain. I am sorry to
refuse you, but I
cannot, am not permitted to answer your question. To
facilitate for you a question of
simple nomenclature, however, I would advise you to study
perfectly the seven
principles in man, and thus to divide the seven great
classes of the minerals
correspondentially. For instance, the group of the
sedimentary would answer to the
compound (chemically speaking) body of man or his first
principle; the organic to
the second (some call it third) principle or jiva, etc.,
etc. You must exercise your own
intuitions in that. Thus you might also intuite certain
truths even as to their
properties. I am more than willing to help you but things
have to be divulged
gradually.(c) By occult osmosis.The plant and animal leave their carcases behind
when life is extinct. So does the mineral only at longer
intervals, as its rocky body is
more lasting. It dies at the end of every manwantariccycle, or at the close of one
"Round" as you would call it. It is explained in
the letter I am preparing for you. (d)
Every molecule is part of the Universal Life. Man's soul
(his fourth and fifth
principle) is but a compound of the progressed entities of
the lower kingdom. The
superabundance or preponderance of one over another compound
will often
determine the instincts and passions of a man, unless these
are checked by the
soothing and spiritualizing influence of his sixth
principle.
(4) Please note, we call the Grand Cycle that
the monad has performed in the mineral
kingdom a "round" which we
understand to contain thirteen (seven) stations, or objective,
more or less material worlds. At each of these
stations it performs what we call a "world
ring," which includes seven
inmetalliations, one in each of the seven classes of that
kingdom. Is this accepted for nomenclature and
correct?
(4) I believe it will lead to a further confusion. A Round
we are agreed to call the
passage of a monad from globe "A" to globe
"Z" (or "G") through the encasement
in all and each of the four kingdoms, viz., as a mineral, a
vegetable, an animal and.man or the Deva kingdom. The "world ring" is
correct. M. advised Mr. Sinnett
strongly to agree upon a nomenclature before going any
further. A few stray facts
were given to you par contrebande and on the smuggling principle
hitherto. But now
since you seem really and seriously determined to study and
utilize our philosophy --
it is time we should begin to work seriously. Because we are
constrained to deny to
our friends an insight into the higher Mathematics it is no
reason why we should
refuse to teach them arithme tic. The monad performs not
only "world rings" or
seven major inmetalliations, inherbations, zoonisations (?)
and incarnations -- but
an infinitude of sub-rings or subordinate whirls all in
series of sevens. As the
geologist divides the crust of the earth into great
divisions, sub-divisions, minor
compartments and zones; and the botanist his plants into
orders, classes and
species, and the zoologist his subjects into classes, orders
and families, so we have
our arbitrary classifications and our nomenclature. But
besides all this being
incomprehensible to you, volumes upon volumes out of the
Books of Kiu-te and
others would have to be written. Their commentaries are
worse still. They are filled
with the most abstruse mathematical calculations the key to
most of which are in the
hands of our highest adepts only, since showing as they do
the infinitude of the
phenomenal manifestations in the side projections of the one Force they are again
secret. Therefore I doubt whether I will be allowed to give
you for the present
anything beyond the mere unitary or root idea. Anyhow I will
do my best.
(5) We understand that in each of your
other six kingdoms, a monad similarly performs a
complete round, in each round stopping in each
of the thirteen stations, and there
performing in each a world ring of seven
lives, one in each of the seven classes into
which each of the 6 said kingdoms are divided.
Is this correct, and, if so, will you give us
the seven classes of these six kingdoms?
(5) If by kingdoms the seven kingdoms or regions of the
earth are meant -- and I do
not see how it can mean anything else -- then the query is
answered in my reply to
your Question (2) and if so then the five out of the seven
are already enumerated.
The first two are related as well as the third, to the
evolution of the elementals and
of the Inner kingdom.
(6) If we are right then the total existences
prior to the man-period is 637. Is this correct?
Or are there seven existences in each class of
each kingdom, 4,459? Or what are the total
numbers and how divided? One point more. In
these lower kingdoms is the number of
lives, so to speak, invariable, or does it
vary, and, if so, how, why, and within what
limits?
(6) Not being permitted to give you the whole truth, or
divulge the number of
isolated fractions, I am unable to satisfy you by giving you
the total number. Rest
assured my dear Brother, that to one who does not seek to
become a practical
occultist these numbers are immaterial. Even our high chelas
are refused these
particulars to the moment of their initiation into
adeptship. These figures as I have
already said are so interwoven with the profoundest
psychological mysteries that to
divulge the key to such figures, would be to put the rod of
power within the reach of.all the clever men who would read your book. All that
I can tell you is that within
the Solar Manwantara the number of existences or vital
activities of the monad is
fixed, but there are local variations in number in minorsystems, individual worlds,
rounds, and world rings, according to circumstances. And in
this connexion
remember also that human personalities are often blotted out, while the entities
whether single or compound complete all the minor and major circles
of necessities
under whatsoever form.
(7) So far we hope we are tolerably correct,
but when we come to Man we have got
muddled.
(7) And no wonder, since you were not given the correct
information.
(7a) Does the monad as Man (ape-man and
upwards) make one or seven rounds as above
defined? We gathered the latter.
(7a) As a man-ape he performs just as many rounds and rings
as every other race or
class; i.e., he performs one Round and in every planet from
"A" to "Z" has to go
through seven chief races of ape -like man, as many
sub-races, etc., etc. (See
Supplementary Notes) as the above described race.
(7b) At each round does his world
circle consist of seven lives in seven races (49) or of
only seven lives in one race? We are not
certain how you use the word race, whether
there is only one race to each station of each
round, i.e., one race to each world circle or
whether there are seven races (with their
seven branchlets and a life in each in either
case) in each world circle? Nay, from your use
of the words "and through each of these
Man has to evolute before he passes on
to the next higher race and that seven times," we
are not sure that there are not seven lives in
each branchlet as you call it, sub-race we
will, if you like, say. So now there may be seven
rounds each with seven races, each with
seven sub-races, each with seven incarnations
= 13 x 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 = 31, = 313 lives, or
one round with seven races and seven sub-races
and a life in each = 13 x 7 x 7 = 637 lives
or again 4,459 lives. Please set us right here
stating the normal number of lives (the exact
numbers will vary owing to idiots, children,
etc., not counting) and how divided.
(7b) As the above described race: i.e., at each planet --
our earth included -- he has
to perform seven rings through seven races (one in each) and
seven multiplied by
seven offshoots. There are seven root-races, and seven
sub-races or offshoots. Our
doctrine treats anthropology as an absurd empty dream of the
religionists and
confines itself to ethnology. It is possible that my
nomenclature is faulty: you are at
liberty in such a case to change it. What I call
"race" you would perhaps term
"stock" though sub-race expresses better what we
mean than the word family or
division of the genus homo. However, to set you right so far
I will say -- one life in
each of the seven root-races; seven lives in each of the 49
sub-races -- or 7 x 7 x 7 =
343 and add 7 more. And then a series of lives in offshoot
and branchlet races;
making the total incarnations of man in each station or
planet 777. The principle of
acceleration and retardation applies itself in such a way,
as to eliminate all the.inferior stocks and leave but a single superior one to
make the last ring. Not much to
divide over some millions of years that man passes on one
planet. Let us take but
one million of years -- suspected and now accepted by your
science -- to represent
man's entire term upon our earth in this Round; and allowing
an average of a
century for each life, we find that whereas he has passed in
all his lives upon our
planet (in this Round) but 77,700 years he has been in the
subjective spheres 922,300
years. Not much encouragement for the extreme modern
re-incarnationists who
remember their several previous existences!
Should you indulge in any calculations do not forget that we
have computed above
only full average lives of consciousness and responsibility.
Nothing has been said as
to the failures of Nature in abortions, congenital idiots,
death of children in their
first septenary cycles, nor of the exceptionsof which I cannot speak. No less
have you
to remember that average human life varies greatly according
to the Rounds.
Though I am obliged to withhold information about many
points yet if you should
work out any of the problems by yourself it will be my duty
to tell you so. Try to
solve the problem of the 777 incarnations.
(8) "M" said all mankind is in the
fourth round, the fifth has not yet commenced but soon
will. Was this a slip? If not, then collating
this with your present remarks we gather that
all mankind is on the fourth round (though in
another place you seemed to say we are on
the fifth round). That the highest people now
on earth belong to the first sub-race of the
fifth race, the majority to the seventh
sub-race of the fourth race but with remnants of the
other sub-races of the fourth race and the
seventh sub-race of the third race. Pray set us
quite right on this.
(8) "M
"knows very little English and hates writing. But even I might have used
very well the same expression. 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)
and not even Gautama Buddha's son was anything but a fourth
round man.
Our mystic terms in their clumsy re-translation from the
Sanskrit into English are
as confusing to us as they are to you -- especially to
"M" unless in writing to you one
of us takes his pen as an adept and uses it from the first word to
the last, in this
capacity he is quite as liable to "slips" as any
other man. No, we are not in the fifth
round, but fifth round men have been coming in for the last
few thousand years. But
what is such a petty stretch of time in comparison with even
one million of the
several millions of years embraced in man's occupancy of
earth in a single round..K.H.
Please examine carefully the few additional things I give
you on the fly-leaves.
Damodar has received orders to send you No. 3 of Terry's
letters -- a good material
for pamphlet No. 3 of Fragments of Occult Truth.
This figure roughly represents the development of humanity
on a planet -- say our
earth. Man evolves in seven major or root-races; 49 minor
races; and the
subordinate races or offshoots, the branchlet races coming
from the latter are not
shown.
The arrow indicates the direction taken by the evolutionary
impulse.
??
I, II, III, IV, etc.,
are the seven major or root-races.
??
1, 2, 3, etc., are
the minor races.
??
a, a, a, are the
subordinate or offshoot races.
??
N, the initial and
terminal point of evolution on the planet.
??
S, the axial point
where the development equilibrates or adjusts itself in each
race evolution.
??
E, the equatorial
points where in the descending arc intellect overcomes
spirituality and in the ascending arc spirituality outstrips
intellect.
(N.B. -- The above in D.K.'s hand -- the rest
in K.H.'s. -- A.P.S.)
P.S. -- In his hurry D.J.K. has made his figure incline
somewhat out of the
perpendicular but it will serve as a rough memorandum. He
drew it to represent
development on a single planet; but I have added a word or
two to make it apply as
well (which it does) to a whole manwantaric chain of worlds.
K.H.
Supplementary Notes.
Whenever any question of evolution or development in any
Kingdom presents itself
to you bear constantly in mind that everything comes under
the Septenary rule of
series in their correspondences and mutual relation
throughout nature.
In the evolution of man there is a topmost point, a bottom
point, a descending arc,
and an ascending arc. As it is "Spirit" which
transforms itself into "matter" and
(not "matter" which ascends -- but) matter which resolves once
more into spirit, of
course the first race evolution and the last on a planet (as
in each round) must be
more etherial, more spiritual, the fourth or lowermost one
most physical
(progressively of course in each round) and at the same time
-- as physical
intelligence is the masked manifestation of
spiritual intelligence -- each evoluted race in
the downward arc must be more physically intelligent than
its predecessor, and each.in the upward arc have a more refined form of
mentality commingled with spiritual
intuitiveness.
The first race (or stock) of the first round after a solarmanwantara (kindly wait for
my forthcoming letter before you allow yourself to be
repuzzled or remuddled. It
will explain a good deal) would then be a god man race of an
almost impalpable
shape, and so it is; but then comes the difficulty to the student
to reconcile this fact
with the evolution of man from the animal-- however high his form among
the
anthropoids. And yet it is reconcilable, for whomsoever will
hold religiously to a
strict analogy between the works of the two worlds, the visible
and the invisible --
one world, in fact, as one is working within itself so to
say. Now there are -- there
must be "failures" in the etherial races of the
many classes of Dyan Chohans or
Devas as well as among men. But still as these failures are
too far progressed and
spiritualized to be thrown back forcibly from their Dyan
Chohanship into the vortex
of a new primordial evolution through the lower kingdoms --
this then happens.
When a new solar system is to be evolved these Dyan Chohans
are (remember the
Hindu allegory of the Fallen Devas hurled by Siva into Andarah who
are allowed by
Parabrahm to consider it as an intermediate state where they
may prepare
themselves by a series of rebirths in that sphere for a
higher state -- a new
regeneration) born in by the influx "ahead" of the
elementals and remain as a latent
or inactive spiritual force in the aura of the nascent world
of a new system until the
stage of human evolution is reached. Then Karma has reached
them and they will
have to accept to the last drop in the bitter cup of
retribution. Then they become an
activeForce, and commingle with the Elementals, or
progressed entities of the pure
animal kingdom to develope little by little the full type of
humanity. In this
commingling they lose their high intelligence and
spirituality of Devaship to regain
them in the end of the seventh ring in the seventh round.
Thus we have:
1st Round. -- An ethereal being -- non-intelligent, but super-spiritual. In each of the
subsequent races and sub-races and minor races of evolution
he grows more and
more into an encased or incarnate being, but still
preponderatingly etherial. And
like the animal and vegetable he develops monstrous bodies
correspondential with
his coarse surroundings.
2nd Round. -- He is still gigantic and etherial, but growing
firmer and more
condensed in body -- a more physical man, yet still less
intelligent than spiritual; for
mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than the
physical frame and the mind
would not develop as rapidly as the body.
3rd Round. -- He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted
body; at first the form
of a giant ape, and more intelligent (or rather cunning)
than spiritual. For in the
downward arc he has now reached the point where his
primordial spirituality is
eclipsed or over-shadowed by nascent mentality. In the last
half of this third round
his gigantic stature decreases, his body improves in texture
(perhaps the microscope.might help to demonstrate this) and he becomes a more rational
being -- though still
more an ape than a Deva man.
4th round. -- Intellect has an enormous development in this
round. The dumb races
will acquire our human speech, on our globe, on which from the 4th race language is
perfected and knowledge in physical things increases. At
this half-way point of the
fourth round, Humanity passes the axial point of
the minor manwantaric circle.
(Moreover, at the middle point of every major or root race evolution of each round,
man passes the equator of his course on that planet, the
same rule applying to the
whole evolution or the seven rounds of the minor Manwantara
-- 7 rounds divided
by 2 = 3 1/2 rounds). At this point then the world teems
with the results of
intellectual activity and spiritual decrease. In the first half of the fourth
race,
sciences, arts, literature and philosophy were born,
eclipsed in one nation, reborn in
another. Civilization and intellectual developme nt whirling
in septenary cycles as
the rest; while it is but in the latter half that the spiritual
Ego will begin its real
struggle with body and mind to manifest its transcendental
powers. Who will help in
the forthcoming gigantic struggle? Who? Happy the man who
helps a helping hand.
5th Round. -- The same relative development, and the same struggle
continues.
6th Round.
7th Round.
Of these we need not speak.
The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 15
[Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's
handwriting. K.H.'s repies are in
bold type. -- ED.]
From K.H. to A.O.H. Received July 10th, 1882.
(1) Does every mineral form, vegetable, plant,
animal, always contain within it that entity
which involves the potentiality of development
into a planetary spirit? At this present day
in this present earth is there such an essence
or spirit or soul -- the name is immaterial in
every mineral, etc.
(1) Invariably; only rather call it the germ of a future entity, which it has
been for
ages. Take the human foetus. From the moment of its first
planting until it.completes its seventh month of gestation it repeats in
miniature the mineral,
vegetable, and animal cycles it passed through in its
previous encasements, and only
during the last two, develops its future human entity. It is
completed but towards
the child's seventh year. Yet it existed without any increase or decrease aeons on
aeons before it worked its way onward, through and in the womb of mother nature
as it works now in its earthly mother's bosom. Truly said a
learned philosopher who
trusts more to his intuitions than the dicta of modern
science. "The stages of man's
intra-uterine existence embody a condensed record of some of
the missing pages in
Earth's history." Thus you must look back at the
animal, vegetable and mineral
entities. You must take each entity at its starting point in
the manvantaric course as
the primordial cosmic atom already differentiated by the
first flutter of the
manvantaric life breath. For the potentiality which develops
finally in a perfected
planetary spirit lurks in, is in fact that primordial cosmic atom. Drawn by its
"chemical affinity" (?) to coalesce
with other like atoms the aggregate sum of such
united atoms will in time become a man-bearing globe after
the stages of the cloud,
the spiral and sphere of fire -mist and of the condensation,
consolidation, shrinkage
and cooling of the planet have been successively passed
through. But mind, not
every globe becomes a "man bearer." I simply state the
fact without dwelling
further upon it in this connection. The great difficulty in
grasping the idea in the
above process lies in the liability to form more or less
incomplete mental conceptions
of the working of the oneelement, of its inevitable presence in every
imponderable
atom, and its subsequent ceaseless and almost illimitable
multiplication of new
centres of activity without affecting in the least its own
original quantity. Let us take
such an aggregation of atoms destined to form our globe and
then follow, throwing a
cursory look at the whole, the special work of such atoms.
We will call the
primordial atom A. This being not a circumscribed centre of
activity but the initial
point of a manwantaric whirl of evolution, gives birth to
new centres which we may
term B, C, D, etc., incomputably. Each of these capital
points gives birth to minor
centres, a, b, c, etc. And the latter in the course of
evolution and involution in time
develops into A's, B's, C's, etc., and so form the roots or
are the developing causes of
new genera, species, classes, etc., ad infinitum. Now
neither the primordial A and its
companion atoms, nor their derived a's, b's, c's, have lost
one tittle of their original
force or life-essence by the evolution of their derivatives.
The force there, is not
transformed into something else as I have already shown in
my letter, but with each
development of a new centre of activity from withinitself multiplies ad infinitum
without ever losing a particle of its nature in quantity or
quality. Yet acquiring as it
progresses something plus in its differentiation. This
"force" so-called, shows itself
truly indestructible but does not correlate and is not convertible in the sense
accepted by the Fellows of the R.S., but rather may be said
to grow and expand into
"something else" while neither its own
potentiality nor being are in the least
affected by the transformation. Nor can it well be called force since the latter is but
the attribute of Yin Sin (Yin Sin or the one "Form of
existence" also Adi-Buddhi or
Dharmakaya the mystic, universally diffused essence) when
manifesting in the
phenomenal world of senses namely only your old acquaintance
Fohat. See in this
connexion Subba Row's article "Aryan Arhat Esoteric
Doctrines" on the seven-fold
principles in man; his review of your Fragments, pp. 94 and
95. The initiated.Brahmin calls it (Yin Sin and Fohat) Brahman and Sakti when
manifesting as that
force. We will perhaps be nearer correct to call it infinite life and the source of all life
visible and invisible, an essence inexhaustible ever
present, in short Swabhavat. (S.
in its universal application, Fohat when manifesting
throughout our phenomenal
world or rather the visible universe hence in its
limitations). It is pravritti when
active, nirvritti when passive. Call it the Sakti of
Parabrahma, if you like, and say
with the Adwaitees (Subba Row is one) that Parabrahm plus
Maya becomes Iswar
the creative principle -- a power commonly called God which
disappears and dies
with the rest when pralaya comes. Or you may hold with the
northern Buddhist
philosophers and call it Adi-Buddhi the all-pervading supreme and
absolute
intelligence with its periodically manifesting Divinity --
"Avalokiteshvara" (a
manwantaric intelligent nature crowned with humanity) -- the
mystic name given by
us to the hosts of the Dyan Chohans (N.B., the solar Dyan
Chohans or the host of
only our solar system) taken collectively, which host
represents the mother source,
the aggregate amount of all the intelligences that were are
or ever will be whether
on our string of man-bearing planets or on any part or
portion of our solar system.
And this will bring you by analogy to see that in its turn
Adi-Buddhi (as its very
name translated literally implies) is the aggregate
intelligence of the universal
intelligences including that of the Dyan Chohans even of the
highest order. That is
all I dare now to tell you on this special subject, as I
fear I have already transcended
the limit. Therefore whenever I speak of humanity without
specifying it you must
understand that I mean not humanity of our fourth round as
we see it on this speck
of mud in space but the whole host already evoluted.
Yes as described in my letter -- there is but one element
and it is impossible to
comprehend our system before a correct conception of it is
firmly fixed in one's
mind. You must therefore pardon me if I dwell on the subject
longer than really
seems necessary. But unless this great primary fact is
firmly grasped the rest will
appear unintelligible. This element then is the -- to speak
metaphysically -- one sub-stratum
or permanent cause of all manifestations in the phenomenal
universe. The
ancients speak of the five cognizable elements of ether,
air, water, fire, earth, and of
the one incognizable element (to the uninitiates) the 6th
principle of the universe --
call it Purush Sakti, while to speak of the seventh outside
the sanctuary was
punishable with death. But these five are but the
differentiated aspects of the one.
As man is a seven-fold being so is the universe -- the
septenary microcosm being to
the septenary macrocosm but as the drop of rainwater is to
the cloud from whence it
dropped and whither in the course of time it will return. In
that one are embraced
or included so many tendencies for the evolution of air,
water, fire, etc. (from the
purely abstract down to their concrete condition) and when
those latter are called
elements it is to indicate their productive potentialities
for numberless form changes
or evolution of being. Let us represent the unknown quantity
as X; that quantity is
the one eternal immutable principle -- and A, B, C, D, E,
five of the six minor
principles or components of the same; viz., the principles
of earth, water, air, fire
and ether (akasa) following the order of their spirituality
and beginning with the
lowest. There is a sixth principle answering to the sixth
principle Buddhi, in man (to
avoid confusion remember that in viewing the question from
the side of the.descending scale the abstract All or eternal principle would be
numerically
designated as the first, and the phenomenal universe as the
seventh, and whether
belonging to man or to the universe -- viewed from the other
side the numerical
order would be exactly reversed) but we are not permitted to
name it except among
the initiates. I may however hint that it is connected with
the process of the highest
intellection. Let us call it N. And besides these, there is
under all the activities of the
phenomenal universe an energizing impulse from X, call this
Y. Algebraically
stated, our equation would therefore read A+B+C+D+E+N+Y=X.
Each of these six
letters represents, so to speak, the spirit or abstraction
of what you call elements
(your meagre English gives me no other word). This spirit
controls the entire line of
evolution, around the whole manwantaric cycle in its own
department. The
informing, vivifying, impelling, evolving cause,behind the countless phenomenal
manifestations in that department of Nature. Let us work out
the idea with a single
example. Take fire. D -- the primal igneous principle
resident in X -- is the ultimate
cause of every phenomenal manifestation of fire on all the
globes of the chain. The
proximate causes are the evoluted secondary igneous agencies
which severally
control the sevendescents of fire on each planet. (Every element having its seven
principles and every principle its seven sub-principles and
these secondary agencies
before doing so, have in turn become primary causes.) D is a
septenary compound of
which the highest fraction is pure spirit. As we see it on
our globe it is in its coarsest,
most material condition, as gross in its way as is man in his
physical encasement. In
the next preceding globe to ours fire was less gross than
here: on the one before that
less still. And so the body of flame was more and more pure
and spiritual less and
less gross and material on each antecedent planet. On the first
of all in the
manwantaric chain, it appeared as an almost pure objective
shining -- the Maha
Buddhi, sixth principle of the eternal light. Our globe being at the bottom of
the arc
where matter exhibits itself in its grossest form along with
spirit -- when the fire
element manifests itself on the globe next succeeding ours
in the ascending arc it will
be less dense than as we see it. Its spiritual quality will
be identical with that which
fire had on the globe preceding ours in the descending
scale; the second globe of the
ascending scale will correspond in quality with that of the
second anterior globe to
ours in the descending scale, etc. On each globe of the
chain there are seven
manifestations of fire of which the first in order will
compare as to spiritual quality
with the last manifestation on the next preceding planet:
the process being reversed,
as you will infer, with the opposite arc. The myriad
specific manifestations of these
six universal elements are in their turn but the offshoots,
branches or branchlets of
the one single primordial "Tree of Life."
Take Darwin's genealogical tree of life of the human race
and others and bearing
ever in mind the wise old adage, "As below so
above" -- that is the universal system
of correspondences -- try to understand by analogy. Thus
will you see that in this
day on this present earth in every mineral, etc., there is
such a spirit. I will say more .
Every grain of sand, every boulder or crag of granite, is that spirit crystallized or
petrified. You hesitate. Take a primer of geology and see
what science affirms there
about the formation and growth of minerals. What is the
origin of all the rocks,
whether sedimentary or igneous. Take a piece of granite or
sandstone and you find.one composed of crystals, the other of grains of various
stones (organic rocks or
stones formed out of the remains of once living plants and
animals, will not serve
our present purpose: they are the relics of subsequent
evolutions while we are
concerned but with the primordial ones). Now sedimentary and
igneous rocks are
composed, the former of sand gravel and mud, the latter of
lava. We have then but
to trace the origin of the two. What do we find? We find
that one was compounded
of three elements or more accurately three several manifestations
of the one
element, -- earth, water and fire, and that the other was
similarly compounded
(though under different physical conditions) out of cosmic
matter -- the imaginary
materia prima itself one of the manifestations
(6th principle) of the one element. How
then can we doubt that a mineral contains in it a spark of
the One as everything else
in this objective nature does?
(2) When the pralaya commences what becomes of
the Spirit that has not worked its way
up to man?
(2) . . . The period necessary for the completion of the
seven local or earthly -- or
shall we call it -- globe-rings (not to speak of the seven
Rounds in the minor
manwantaras followed by their seven minor pralayas) -- the
completion of the so-called
mineral cycle is immeasurably longer than that of any other
kingdom. As you
may infer by analogy every globe before it reaches its adult
period, has to pass
through a formation period -- also septenary. Law in Nature
is uniform and the
conception, formation, birth, progress and development of
the child differs from
those of the globe only in magnitude. The globe has two
periods of teething and of
capillature -- its first rocks which it also sheds to make
room for new -- and its ferns
and mosses before it gets forest. As the atoms in the body
change [every] seven years
so does the globe renew its strata every seven cycles. A
section of a part of Cape
Breton coalfields shows seven ancient soils with remains of
as many forests, and
could one dig as deep once more seven other sections would
be found following. . . .
There are three kinds of pralayas and manwantara: --
1. The universal or Maha pralaya and manwantara.
2. The solar pralaya and manwantara.
3. The minor pralaya and manwantara.
When the pralaya No. 1 is finished the universal manwantara
begins. Then the
whole universe must be re-evoluted de novo. When the pralaya of a solar system
comes it affects that solar system only. A solar pralaya = 7
minor pralayas. The
minor pralayas of No. 3 concern but our little string of globes,
whether man-bearing
or not. To such a string our Earth belongs.
Besides this within a minor pralaya there is a condition of
planetary rest or as the
astronomers say "death," like that of our present
moon -- in which the rocky body.of the planet survives but the life impulse has
passed out. For example. Let us
imagine that our earth is one of a group of seven planets or
man-bearing worlds
more or less eliptically arranged. Our earth being at the
exact lower central point of
the orbit of evolution, viz., half way round -- we will call
the first globe A, the last Z.
After each solar pralaya there is a complete destruction of our system and
after each
solar p. begins the absolute objective reformation of our
system and each time
everything is more perfect than before.
Now the life impulse reaches "A" or rather that
which is destined to become "A"
and which so far is but cosmic dust. A centre is formed in
the nebulous matter of the
condensation of the solar dust disseminated through space
and a series of three
evolutions invisible to the eye of flesh occur in
succession, viz., three kingdoms of
elementals or nature forces are evoluted: in other words the
animal soul of the
future globe is formed; or as a Kabalist will express it,
the gnomes, the salamanders,
and the undines are created. The correspondence between a
mother-globe and her
child-man may be thus worked out. Both have their seven
principles. In the Globe,
the elementals (of which there are in all seven species)
form (a) a gross body, (b) her
fluidic double (linga sariram), (c) her life principle (jiva); (d) her
fourth principle
kama rupa is formed by her creative impulse working from
centre to
circumference; (e) her fifth principle (animal soul or Manas, physical intelligence) is
embodied in the vegetable (in germ) and animal kingdoms; (f)
her sixth principle (or
spiritual soul, Buddhi) is man (g) and her seventh principle
(atma) is in a film of
spiritualized akasa that surrounds her. The three evolutions
completed: palpable
globe begins to form. The mineral kingdom fourth in the
whole series, but first in
this stage leads the way. Its deposits are at first vaporous
soft and plastic, only
becoming hard and concrete in the seventh ring. When this
ring is completed it
projects its essence to globe B -- which is already passing
through the preliminary
stages of formation and mineral evolution begins on that
globe. At this juncture the
evolution of the vegetable kingdom commences on globe A.
When the latter has
made its seventh ring its essence passes on to globe B. At
that time the mineral
essence moves to globe C and the germs of the animal kingdom
enter A. When the
animal has seven rings there, its life principle goes to
globe B, and the essences of
vegetable and mineral move on. Then comes man on A, an
ethereal foreshadowing
of the compact being he is destined to become on our earth.
Evolving seven parent
races with many offshoots of sub-races, he, like the
preceding kingdoms completes
his seven rings and is then transferred successively to each
of the globes onward to
Z. From the first man has all the seven principles included
in him in germ but none
are developed. If we compare him to a baby we will be right;
no one has ever, in the
thousands of ghost stories current, seen the ghost of an
infant, though the
imagination of a loving mother may have suggested to her the
picture of her lost
babe in dreams. And this is very suggestive. In each of the
rounds he makes one of
the principles develop fully. In the first round his
consciousness on our earth is dull
and but feeble and shadowy, something like that of an
infant. When he reaches our
earth in the second round he has become responsible in a
degree, in the third he
becomes so entirely. At every stage and every round his
development keeps pace,
with the globe on which he is. The descending arc from A to
our earth is called the.shadowy, the ascending to Z the "luminous" .
. . We men of the fourth round are
already reaching the latter half of the fifth race of our fourth
round humanity, while
the men (the few earlier comers) of the fifth round, though
only in their first race
(or rather class), are yet immeasurably higher than we are
-- spiritually if not
intellectually; since with the completion or full
development of this fifth principle
(intellectual soul) they have come nearer than we have, are
closer in contact with
their sixth principle Buddhi. Of course many are the
differentiated individuals even
in the fourth r. as germs of principles are not equally
developed in all, but such is
the rule.
. . . Man comes on globe "A" after the other
kingdoms have gone on. (Dividing our
kingdoms into seven, the last four are what exoteric science
divides into three. To
this we add the kingdom of man or the Deva kingdom. The respective
entities of
these we divide into germinal, instinctive, semi-conscious,
and fully conscious). . . .
When all kingdoms have reached globe Z they will not move
forward to re-enter A
in precedence of man, but under a law of retardation
operative from the central
point -- or earth -- to Z and which equilibrates a principle
of acceleration in the
descending arc -- they will have just finished their
respective evolution of genera
and species, when man reaches his highest development on
globe Z -- in this or any
round. The reason for it is found in the enormously greater
time required by them
to develop their infinite varieties as compared with man;
the relative speed of
development in the rings therefore naturally increases as we go up the scale from the
mineral. But these different rates are so adjusted by man
stopping longer in the
inter-planetary spheres of rest, for weal or woe -- that all
kingdoms finish their
work simultaneously on the planet Z. For example, on our
globe we see the
equilibrating law manifesting. From the first appearance of
man whether speechless
or not to his present one as a fourth and the coming fifth
round being the structural
intention of his organization has not radically changed.
Ethnological characteristics
however varied, affecting in no way man as a human being. The fossil of man or his
skeleton whether of the period of that mammalian branch of
which he forms the
crown, whether cyclop or dwarf can be still recognised at a
glance as a relic of man.
Plants and animals meanwhile have become more and more
unlike what they were. .
. . The scheme with its septenary details would be
incomprehensible to man had he
not the power as the higher Adepts have proved of
prematurely de veloping his 6th
and 7th senses -- those which will be the natural endowment
of all in the
corresponding rounds. Our Lord Buddha -- a 6th r. man --
would not have
appeared in our epoch, great as were his accumulated merits
in previous rebirths
but for a mystery. . . . Individuals cannot outstrip the humanity of their round any
further than by one remove, for it is mathematically
impossible -- you say (in effect):
if the fountain of life flows ceaselessly there should be
men of all rounds on the earth
at all times, etc. The hint about planetary rest may dispel
the misconception on this
head.
When man is perfected qua a given round on Globe A he disappears thence (as
had
certain vegetables and animals). By degrees this Globe loses
its vitality and finally
reaches the moon stage, i.e., death, and so remains while man
is making his seven.rings on Z and passing his inter-cyclic period before
starting on his next round. So
with each Globe in turn.
And now as man when completing his seventh ring upon A has
but begun his first
on Z and as A dies when he leaves it for B, etc., and as he
must also remain in the
inter-cyclic sphere after Z, as he has between every two
planets, until the impulse
again thrills the chain, clearly no one can be more than one
round ahead of his kind.
And Buddha only forms an exception by virtue of the mystery. We have fifth round
men among us because we are in the latter half of our
septenary earth ring. In the
first half this could not have happened. The countless
myriads of our fourth round
humanity who have outrun us and completed their seven rings
on Z, have had time
to pass their inter-cyclic period begin their new round and
work on to globe D
(ours). But how can there be men of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th
and 7th rounds? We
represent the first three and the sixth can only come at
rare intervals and
prematurely like Buddhas (only under prepared conditions)
and that the last-named
the seventh are not yet evolved! We have traced man out of a
round into the
Nirvanic state between Z and A. A was left in the last round
dead. As the new round
begins it catches the new influx of life, reawakens to
vitality and begets all its
kingdoms of a superior order to the last. After this has
been repeated seven times
comes a minor pralaya; the chain of globes are not destroyed
by disintegration and
dispersion of their particles but pass in abscondito. From this they will re-emerge in
their turn during the next septenary period. Within one
solar period (of a p. and m.)
occur seven such minor periods, in an ascending scale of
progressive development.
To recapitulate there are in the round seven planetary or
earth rings for each
kingdom and one obscuration of each planet. The minor
manwantara is composed
of seven rounds, 49 rings and 7 obscurations, the solar
period of 49 rounds, etc.
The periods with pralaya and manwantara are called by
Dikshita "Surya
manwantaras and pralayas." Thought is baffled in
speculating how many of our
solar pralayas must come before the great Cosmic night --
but that will come.
. . . In the minor pralayas there is no starting de novo -- only resumption of arrested
activity. The vegetable and animal kingdoms which at the end
of the minor
manwantara had reached only a partial development are not
destroyed. Their life or
vital entities, call some of them nati if you will -- find also their
corresponding night
and rest -- they also have a Nirvana of their own. And why
should they not, these
foetal and infant entities. They are all like ourselves
begotten of the one element. . . .
As we have our Dyan Chohans so have they in their several
kingdoms elemental
guardians and are as well taken care of in the mass as is
humanity in the mass. The
one element not only fills space and isspace, but interpenetrates every
atom of
cosmic matter.
When strikes the hour of the solar pralaya -- though the
process of man's advance
on his last seventh round is precisely the same, each planet
instead of merely passing
out of the visible into the invisible as he quits it in turn
is annihilated. With the
beginning of the seventh Round of the seventh minor
manwantara, every kingdom.having now reached its last cycle, there remains on
each planet after the exit of man
but the maya of once living and existing forms. With every
step he takes on the
descending and ascending arcs as he moves on from Globe to
Globe the planet left
behind becomes an empty chrysaloidal case. At his departure
there is an outflow
from every kingdom of its entities. Waiting to pass into
higher forms in due time
they are nevertheless liberated: for to the day of that
evolution they will rest in their
lethargic sleep in space until again energized into life in
the new solar manwantara.
The old elementals -- will rest until they are called to
become in their turn the bodies
of mineral, vegetable and animal entities (on another and a
higher string of globes)
on their way to become human entities (see Isis) while the
germinal entities of the
lowest forms, and in that time of general perfection there
will remain but few of
such -- will hang in space like drops of water suddenly
turned to icicles. They will
thaw at the first hot breath of a solar manwantara and form
the soul of the future
globes. . . . The slow development of the vegetable kingdom
provided for by the
longer inter-planetary rest of man. . . . When the solar
pralaya comes the whole
purified humanity merges into Nirvana and from that
inter-solar Nirvana will be
reborn in higher systems. The string of worlds is destroyed
and vanishes like a
shadow from the wall in the extinguishment of light. We have
every indication that
at this very moment such a solar pralaya is taking place
while there are two minor
ones ending somewhere.
At the beginning of the solar manwantara the hitherto
subjective elements of the
material world now scattered in cosmic dust -- receiving
their impulse from the new
Dyan Chohans of the new solar system (the highest of the old
ones having gone
higher) -- will form into primordial ripples of life and
separating into differentiating
centres of activity combine in a graduated scale of seven
stages of evolution. Like
every other orb of space our Earth has before obtaining its
ultimate materiality --
and nothing now in this world can give you an idea of what
this state of matter is --
to pass through a gamut of seven stages of density. I say
gamut advisedly since the
diatonic scale best affords an illustration of the perpetual
rythmic motion of the
descending and ascending cycle of Swabhavat -- graduated as
it is by tones and
semi-tones.
You have among the learned members of your society one
Theosophist who without
familiarity with our occult doctrine, has yet intuitively
grasped from scientific data
the idea of a solar pralaya and its manwantara in their
beginnings. I mean the
celebrated French astronomer Flammarion -- "La
Resurrection et la Fin des
Mondes" (Chapter 4 res.). He speaks like a true seer.
The facts are as he surmises
with slight modifications. In consequence of the secular
refrigeration (old age rather
and loss of vital power), solidification and desiccation of
the globes, the earth arrives
at a point when it begins to be a relaxed conglomerate. The
period of child-bearing
is gone by. The progeny are all nurtured, its term of life
is finished. Hence "its
constituent masses cease to obey those laws of cohesion and
aggregation which held
them together." And becoming like a cadaver which
abandoned to the work of
destruction would leave each molecule composing it free to
separate itself from the
body for ever to obey in future the sway of new influences. The
attraction of the.moon (would that he could know the full extent of its
pernicious influence) would
itself undertake the task of demolition by producing a tidal
wave of earth particles
instead of an aqueous tide.
His mistake is that he believes a long time must be devoted
to the ruin of the solar
system: we are told that it occurs in the twinkling of an
eye but not without many
preliminary warnings. Another error is the supposition that
the earth will fall into
the sun. The sun itself is first to disintegrate at the
solar pralaya.
. . . Fathom the nature and essence of the sixth principle
of the universe and man
and you will have fathomed the greatest mystery in this our
world -- and why not --
are you not surrounded by it? What are its familiar manifestations,
mesmerism, Od
force, etc. -- all different aspects of one force capable of
good and evil applications.
The degrees of an Adept's initiation mark the seven stages
at which he discovers the
secret of the sevenfold principles in nature and man and awakens
his dormant
powers...The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 16
[Mr. Sinnett's queries to which K.H. replies
in this letter are printed in
bold type. -- ED.]
(1) The remarks appended to a letter in the last Theosophist,page 226, Col. 1,
strike
me as very important and as qualifying -- I do not say
contradicting -- a good deal of
what we have hitherto been told in re Spiritualism.
We had heard already of a spiritual condition of life in
which the redeveloped Ego
enjoyed a conscious existence for a time before
reincarnation in another world; but
that branch of the subject has hitherto been slurred over.
Now some explicit
statements are made about it; and these suggest further
enquiries.
In the Deva Chan (I have lent my Theosophist to a friend; and have not got it
at hand
to refer to but that if I remember rightly is the name given
to the state of spiritual
beatitude described) the new Ego retains complete recollection
of his life on earth
apparently. Is that so or is there any misunderstanding on
that point on my part?
(1) The Deva-Chan, or land of
"Sukhavati," is allegorically described by our Lord
Buddha himself. What he said may be found in
the Shan-Mun-yi-Tung. Says Tathagata: --
"Many thousand myriads of systems of
worlds beyond this (ours) there is a region of
Bliss called Sukhavati . . . . This
region is encircled with seven rows of railings, seven
rows of vast curtains, seven rows of
waving trees; this holy abode of Arahats is governed
by the Tathagatas (Dhyan Chohans) and is
possessed by the Bodhisatwas. It hath seven
precious lakes, in the midst of which flow
crystaline waters having 'seven and one'
properties, or distinctive qualities (the 7
principles emanating from the ONE). This, O,
Sariputra is the 'Deva Chan.' Its divine
Udarnbara flower casts a root in the shadow of
every earth, and blossoms for all those who reach it. Those born in the
blessed region are
truly felicitous, there are no more griefs or
sorrows in that cycle for them. . . . Myriads of
Spirits (Lha) resort there for rest and then return
to their own regions. (1) Again, O,
Sariputra, in that land of joy many who are
born in it are Avaivartyas . . .(2) etc., etc.
(2) Now except in the fact that the duration of existence in
the Deva Chan is limited,
there is a very close resemblance between that condition and
the Heaven of ordinary
religion (omitting anthropomorphic ideas of God).
(2) Certainly the new Ego once that it
is reborn, retains for a certain time -- proportionate
to its Earth-life, a "complete
recollection of his life on earth." (3) (See your preceding.query.) But it
can never return on earth, from the Deva Chan, nor has the latter --
even
omitting all "anthropomorphic ideas of
God" -- any resemblance to the paradise or
heaven of any religion, and it is H.P.B.'s
literary fancy that suggested to her the
wonderful comparison.
(3) Now the question of importance -- is who goes to Heaven
-- or Deva Chan? Is this
condition only attained by the few who are very good, or by
the many who are not
very bad, -- after the lapse in their case of a longer
unconscious incubation or
gestation.
(3) "Who goes to Deva Chan?" The
personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy.
Every Ego -- the combination of the sixth and
seventh principles -- which, after the
period of unconscious gestation is reborn into
the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent
and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his
being reborn at all, shows the preponderance
of good over evil in his old personality. And
while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the
time being to follow him in his future
earth-reincamation, he brings along with him but
the Karma of his good deeds, words, and
thoughts into this Deva-Chan. "Bad" is a
relative term for us -- as you were told more
than once before, -- and the Law of
Retribution is the only law that never errs.
Hence all those who have not slipped down
into the mire of unredeemable sin and
bestiality -- go to the Deva Chan. They will have to
pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary,
later on. Meanwhile, they are rewarded;
receive the effects of the causes produced
by them.
Of course it is a state, one, so to
say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps
the reward of his unselfishness on
earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his
personal earthly affections, preferences and
thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his
meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor
even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken
the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness:
for, it is a state of perpetual "Maya" . . .
Since the conscious perception of one's personality
on earth is but an evanescent dream
that sense will be equally that of a dream in
the Deva-Chan -- only a hundred fold
intensified. So much so, indeed, that the
happy Ego is unable to see through the veil, the
evils, sorrows and woes to which those it
loved on earth may be subjected to. It lives in
that sweet dream with its loved ones --
whether gone before, or yet remaining on earth; it
has them near itself, as happy, as blissful
and as innocent as the disembodied dreamer
himself; and yet, apart from rare visions, the
denizens of our gross planet feel it not. It is
in this, during such a condition of
complete Maya that the Souls or astral Egos of pure,
loving sensitives, labouring under the same
illusion, think their loved ones come down to
them on earth, while it is their own Spirits
that are raised towards those in the Deva-Chan.
Many of the subjective spiritual communications
-- most of them when the
sensitives are pure minded -- are real; but it
is most difficult for the uninitiated medium to
fix in his mind the true and correct pictures
of what he sees and hears. Some of the
phenomena called psychography (though more
rarely) are also real. The spirit of the
sensitive getting odylised, so to say, by the
aura of the Spirit in the Deva-Chan, becomes
for a few minutes that departed
personality, and writes in the hand writing of the latter, in
his language and in his thoughts, as they were
during his life time. The two spirits
become blended in one; and, the preponderance
of one over the other during such.phenomena determines the preponderance of personality
in the characteristics exhibited
in such writings, and "trance
speaking." What you call "rapport" is in plain fact an
identity of molecular vibration between the
astral part of the incarnate medium and the
astral part of the disincarnate personality. I
have just noticed an article on smell by some
English Professor (which I will cause to be
reviewed in the Theosophist and say a few
words), and find in it something that applies
to our case. As, in music, two different
sounds may be in accord and separately
distinguishable, and this harmony or discord
depends upon the synchronous vibrations and
complementary periods; so there is rapport
between medium and "control" when
their astral molecules move in accord. And the
question whether the communication shall
reflect more of the one personal idiosyncracy,
or the other, is determined by the relative
intensity of the two sets of vibrations in the
compound wave of Akasa. The less
identical the vibratory impulses the more
mediumistic and less spiritual will be the
message. So then, measure your medium's
moral state by that of the alleged
"controlling" Intelligence, and your tests of genuineness
leave nothing to be desired.
(4) Or are there great varieties of condition within the
limits, so to speak, of Deva
Chan, so that an appropriate state is dropped into by all,
from which they will be
born into lower and higher conditions in the next world of
causes. It is no use
multiplying hypotheses. We want some information to go upon.
(4) Yes; there are great varieties in the
Deva-Chan states, and, it is all as you say. As
many varieties of bliss, as on earth there are
shades of perception and of capability to
appreciate such reward. It is an ideated
paradise, in each case of the Ego's own making,
and by him filled with the scenery, crowded
with the incidents, and thronged with the
people he would expect to find in such a
sphere of compensative bliss. And it is that
variety which guides the temporary personal Ego
into the current which will lead him to
be reborn in a lower or higher condition in
the next world of causes. Everything is so
harmoniously adjusted in nature -- especially
in the subjective world, that no mistake can
be ever committed by the Tathagatas -- or
Dhyan Chohans -- who guide the impulses.
(5) On the face of the idea, a purely spiritual state would only
be enjoyable to the
entities highly spiritualized in this life. But there are
myriads of very good people
(morally) who are not spiritualized at all. How can they be
fitted to pass, with their
recollections of this life from a material to a spiritual condition
of existence.
(5) It is "a spiritual condition"
only as contrasted with our own grossly "material
condition," and, as already stated -- it
is such degrees of spirituality that constitute and
determine the great "varieties" of
conditions within the limits of Deva-Chan. A mother
from a savage tribe is not less happy than a
mother from a regal palace, with her lost
child in her arms; and although as actual
Egos, children prematurely dying before the
perfection of their septenary Entity do not
find their way to Deva-Chan, yet all the same
the mother's loving fancy finds her children
there, without one missing that her heart
yearns for. Say -- it is but a dream, but
after all what is objective life itself but a
panorama of vivid unrealities? The pleasures
realized by a Red Indian in his "happy
hunting grounds" in that Land of Dreams
is not less intense than the ecstasy felt by a.connoisseur who passes aeons
in the wrapt delight of listening to divine Symphonies by
imaginary angelic choirs and orchestras. As it
is no fault of the former, if born a "savage"
with an instinct to kill -- though it caused
the death of many an innocent animal -- why, if
with it all, he was a loving father, son,
husband, why should he not also enjoy his share of
reward? The case would be quite different if
the same cruel acts had been done by an
educated and civilized person, from a mere
love of sport. The savage in being reborn
would simply take a low place in the scale, by
reason of his imperfect moral
development; while the Karma of the
other would be tainted with moral delinquency. . . .
Every one but that ego which, attracted by its
gross magnetism, falls into the current that
will draw it into the "planet of
Death" -- the mental as well as physical satellite of our
earth -- is fitted to pass into a
relative "spiritual" condition adjusted to his previous
condition in life and mode of thought. To my
knowledge and recollection H.P.B.
explained to Mr. Hume that man's sixth
principle, as something purely spiritual could not
exist, or have conscious being in the
Deva-Chan, unless it assimilated some of the more
abstract and pure of the mental attributes of
the fifth principle or animal Soul: its manas
(mind) and memory. When man dies his second
and third principles die with him; the
lower triad disappears, and the fourth, fifth,
sixth and seventh principles form the
surviving Quaternary. (Read again page
6 in Fragments of O.T.) (4) Thenceforth it is a
"death" struggle between the Upper
and Lower dualities. If the upper wins, the sixth,
having attracted to itself the quintessence of
Good from the fifth -- its nobler affections,
its saintly (though they be earthly)
aspirations, and the most Spiritualised portions of its
mind -- follows its divine elder (the
7th) into the "Gestation" State; and the fifth and
fourth remain in association as an empty shell
-- (the expression is quite correct) -- to
roam in the earth's atmosphere, with half the
personal memory gone, and the more brutal
instincts fully alive for a certain period --
an "Elementary" in short. This is the "angel
guide" of the average medium. If, on the
other hand, it is the Upper Duality which is
defeated, there, it is the fifth principle
that assimilates all that there may be left of
personal recollection and perceptions of its personal individuality in the sixth.
But, with
all this additional stock, it will not remain
in Kama-Loka -- "the world of Desire" or our
Earth's atmosphere. In a very short time like
a straw floating within the attraction of the
vortices and pits of the Maelstrom, it is
caught up and drawn into the great whirlpool of
human Egos; while the sixth and seventh -- now
a purely Spiritual, individual MONAD,
with nothing left in it of the late
personality, having no regular "gestation" period to pass
through: (since there is no purified personal
Ego to be reborn), after a more or less
prolonged period of unconscious Rest in the
boundless Space -- will find itself reborn in
another personality on the next planet. When
arrives the period of "Full Individual
Consciousness" -- which precedes that of Absolute
Consciousness in the Pari-Nirvana --
this lost personal life becomes as a
torn out page in the great Book of Lives, without even
a disconnected word left to mark its absence.
The purified monad will neither perceive
nor remember it in the series of its past
rebirths -- which it would had it gone to the
"World of Forms" (rupa-loka)
-- and its retrospective glance will not perceive even the
slightest sign to indicate that it had been.
The light of Samma-Sambuddh --
". . . that light which shines beyond our
mortal ken.The line of all the lives in all the worlds " --
throws no ray upon that personal life
in the series of lives foregone.
To the credit of mankind, I must say, that
such an utter obliteration of an existence from
the tablets of Universal Being does not occur
often enough to make a great percentage. In
fact, like the much mentioned "congenital
idiot" such a thing is a lusus naturae -- an
exception, not the rule.
(6) And how is a spiritual existence in which everything has
merged into the sixth
principle, compatible with that consciousness of individual
and personal material
life which must be attributed to the Ego in Deva-Chan if he
retains his earthly
consciousness as stated in the Theosophist Note.
(6) The question is now sufficiently
explained, I believe: the sixth and seventh principles
apart from the rest constitute the eternal
imperishable, but also unconscious "Monad." To
awaken in it to life the latent consciousness,
especially that of personal individuality,
requires the monad plus the highest attributes
of the fifth -- the "animal Soul"; and it is
that which makes the ethereal Ego that
lives and enjoys bliss in the Deva-Chan. Spirit, or
the unalloyed emanations of the ONE -- the
latter forming with the seventh and sixth
principles the highest triad -- neither of the
two emanations are capable of assimilating
but that which is good, pure and holy; hence,
no sensual, material or unholy recollection
can follow the purified memory of the Ego to
the region of Bliss. The Karma for these
recollections of evil deeds and thought will
reach the Ego when it changes its personality
in the following world of causes. The Monad,
or the "Spiritual Individuality," remains
untainted in all cases. "No sorrow
or Pain for those born there (in the Rupa-Loka of
Deva-Chan); for this is the Pure-land. All the
regions in Space possess such lands
(Sakwala),
but this land of Bliss is the most pure." In the Djnana Prasthana
Shaster, it is
said: "by personal purity and earnest
meditation, we overleap the limits of the World of
Desire, and enter in the World of Forms."
(7) The period of gestation between Death and Deva-Chan has
hitherto been
conceived by me at all events as very long. Now it is said
to be in some cases only a
few days, in no cases (it is implied) more than a few years.
This seems plainly stated,
but I ask if it can be explicitly confirmed because it is a
point on which so much
turns.
(7) Another fine example of the habitual
disorder in which Mrs. H.P.B.'s mental furniture
is kept. She talks of "Bardo" and
does not even say to her readers what it means! As in
her writing room confusion is ten times
confounded, so in her mind are crowded ideas
piled in such a chaos that when she wants to
express them the tail peeps out before the
head. "Bardo" has nothing to do with
the duration of time in the case you are referring to.
"Bardo" is the period between death
and rebirth -- and may last from a few years to a
kalpa. It is divided into three sub-periods
(1) when the Ego delivered of its mortal coil
enters into Kama-Loka (5) (the abode of
Elementaries); (2) when it enters into its
"Gestation State"; (3) when it is
reborn in the Rupa-Loka of Deva-Chan. Sub-period (1).may last from a few
minutes to a number of years -- the phrase "a few years"
becoming
puzzling and utterly worthless without a more
complete explanation; Sub-period (2) is
"very long"; as you say, longer
sometimes than you may even imagine, yet proportionate
to the Ego's spiritual stamina;
Sub-period (3) lasts in proportion to the good KARMA,
after which the monad is again
reincarnated. TheAgama Sutra saying: -- "in all these
Rupa-Lokas, the Devas (Spirits) are equally subjected to birth, decay,
old age, and death,"
means only that an Ego is borne thither then
begins fading out and finally "dies," i.e.,
falls into that unconscious condition which
precedes rebirth; and ends the Sloka with
these words -- "As the devas emerge from
these heavens, they enter the lower world
again:" i.e, they leave a world of bliss
to be reborn in a world of causes.
(8) In that case, and assuming that Deva-Chan is not solely
the heritage of adepts
and persons almost as elevated, there is a condition of existence
tantamount to
Heaven actually going on, from which the life of Earth may
be watched by an
immense number of those who have gone before! (9) And for
how long? Does this
state of spiritual beatitude endure for years? for decades?
for centuries?
(8) Most emphatically "the Deva-Chan is not
solely the heritage of adepts," and most
decidedly there is a "heaven" -- if
you must use this astro-geographical Christian term --
for "an immense number of those who have
gone before." But "the life of Earth" can be
watched by
none of these, for reasons of the Law of Bliss plus Maya, already given.
(9) For years, decades, centuries and
milleniums, oftentimes -- multiplied by something
more. It all depends upon the duration of
Karma. Fill with oil Den's little cup, and a city
Reservoir of water, and lighting both see
which burns the longer. The Ego is the wick and
Karma the oil: the difference in the quantity
of the latter (in the cup and the reservoir)
suggesting to you the great difference in the
duration of various Karmas. Every effect
must be proportionate to the cause. And, as
man's terms of incarnate existence bear but a
small proportion to his periods of inter-natal
existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the
good thoughts, words, and deeds of any one of
these "lives" on a globe are causative of
effects, the working out of which requires far
more time than the evolution of the causes
occupied. Therefore, when you read in the Jats
and other fabulous stories of the Buddhist
Scriptures that this or the other good action
was rewarded by Kalpas of several figures of
bliss, do not smile at the absurd
exaggeration, but bear in mind what I have said. From a
small seed, you know, sprung a tree whose life
endures now for 22 centuries; I mean the
Anuradha-pura Bo tree. Nor must you
laugh, if ever you come across Pindha-Dhana or
any other Buddhist Sutra and read:
"Between the Kama-Loka and the Rupa-Loka there is
a locality, the dwelling of 'Mara' (Death).
This Mara filled with passion and lust, destroys
all virtuous principles, as a stone grinds
corn. (6) His palace is 7000 yojanas square, and
is surrounded by a seven-fold
wall," for you will feel now more prepared to understand
the allegory. Also, when Beal, or Burnouf, or
Rhys Davids in the innocence of their
Christian and materialistic souls indulge in
such translations as they generally do, we do
not bear them malice for their commentaries,
since they cannot know any better. But
what can the following mean: -- "The
names of the Heavens" (a mistranslation; lokas are
not heavens but localities or abodes)
of Desire, Kama-Loka -- so called, because the
beings who occupy them are subject to desires
of eating, drinking, sleeping and love..They are otherwise called the abodes of
the five (?) orders of sentient creatures -- Devas,
men, asuras, beasts, demons" (Lantan
Sutra, trans. by S. Beal). They mean simply that,
had the reverend translator been acquainted
with the true doctrine a little better -- he
would have (1) divided the Devas into two
classes -- and called them the "Rupa-devas"
and the "Arupa-devas" (the "form"
-- or objective, and the "formless" or subjective Dhyan
Chohans; and (2) -- would have done the same for his class of "men,"
since there are
shells, and
"Mara-rupas" -- i.e. bodies doomed to annihilation. All these are:
(1) "Rupa-devas" -- Dhyan
Chohans (7) having forms;
(2) "Arupa-devas"[-- Dhyan
Chohans] having no forms
{[above are] Ex-men.
(3) "Pisachas" --
(two-principled) ghosts.
(4) "Mara-rupa" -- Doomed to death
(3 principled).
(5) Asuras -- Elementals -- having
human form
(6) Beasts -- [Elementals] 2nd class --
animal Elementals
{[Asuras and Beasts are] Future men.
(7) Rakshasas (Demons) Souls or Astral
Forms of sorcerers; men who have reached the
apex of knowledge in the forbidden art. Dead
or alive they have, so to say cheated nature;
but it is only temporary -- until our planet
goes into obscuration, after which they have
nolens volens to be annihilated.
It is these seven groups that form the
principal divisions of the Dwellers of the subjective
world around us. It is in stock No. 1, that
are the intelligent Rulers of this world of
Matter, and who, with all this intelligence
are but the blindly obedient instruments of the
ONE; the active agents of a Passive Principle.
And thus are misinterpreted and mistranslated
nearly all our Sutras; yet even under that
confused jumble of doctrines and words, for
one who knows even superficially the true
doctrine, there is firm ground to stand upon.
Thus, for instance in enumerating the seven
lokas of the "Kama-Loka" the Avatamsaka
Sutra, gives as the seventh, the "Territory of
Doubt." I will ask you to remember the
name as we will have to speak of it hereafter.
Every such "world" within the Sphere
of Effects has a Tathagata, or "Dhyan Chohan" --
to protect and watch over, not to interfere
with it. Of course, of all men, spiritualists will
be the first to reject and throw off our
doctrines to "the limbo of exploded superstitions."
Were we to assure them that every one of their
"Summerlands" had seven boarding
houses in it, with the same number of
"Spirit Guides" to "boss" in them, and call these
"angels," Saint Peters, Johns, and
St. Ernests, they would welcome us with open arms.
But whoever heard of Tathagats and Dhyan
Chohans, Asuras and Elementals?.Preposterous! Still, we are happily allowed --
by our friends (Mr. Eglinton, at least) -- to
be possessed "of a certain knowledge of
Occult Sciences" (Vide "Light"). And thus, even
this mite of "Knowledge" is at your
service, and is now helping me to answer your
following question:
Is there any intermediate condition between the spiritual
beatitude of Deva-Chan,
and the forlorn shadow life of the only half conscious
elementary reliquiaeof human
beings who have lost their sixth principle. Because if so
that might give a locus standi
in imagination to the Earnests and Joeys of the spiritual
mediums -- the better sort
of controlling "spirits." If so surely that must
be a very populous world? from
which any amount of "spiritual" communications
might come.
Alas, no; my friend; not that I know of. From
"Sukhavati" down to the "Territory of
Doubt" there is a variety of Spiritual
States; but I am not aware of any such "intermediate
condition." I have told you of the
Sakwalas (though I cannot be enumerating them since it
would be useless); and even of Avitchi --
the "Hell" from which there is no return (7a),
and I have no more to tell about. "The
forlorn shadow" has to do the best it can. As soon
as it has stepped outside the Kama-Loka,
and crossed the "Golden Bridge" leading to the
"Seven Golden Mountains" the Ego can
confabulate no more, with easy-going mediums.
No "Earnest" or "Joey" has
ever returned from the Rupa Loka -- let alone the Arupa-Loka
-- to hold sweet intercourse with mortals.
Of course there is a "better sort"
of reliquiae; and the "shells" or the
"earth-walkers" as
they are here called, are not necessarily all
bad. But even those that are good, are made
bad for the time being by mediums. The
"shells" may well not care, since they have
nothing to lose, anyhow. But there is another
kind of "Spirits," we have lost sight of: the
suicides and those killed by accident. Both kinds can communicate, and both
have to pay
dearly for such visits. And now I have again
to explain what I mean. Well, this class is
the one that the French Spiritists call -- "les
Esprits Souffrants." They are an exception to
the rule, as they have to remain within the
earth's attraction, and in its atmosphere -- the
Kama-Loka -- till the very last moment of what would have been the
natural duration of
their lives. In other words, that particular
wave of life-evolution must run on to its shore.
But it is a sin and cruelty to revive their
memory and intensify their suffering by giving
them a chance of living an artificial life; a
chance to overload their Karma, by tempting
them into opened doors, viz., mediums and
sensitives, for they will have to pay roundly
for every such pleasure. I will explain. The suicides,
who, foolishly hoping to escape life,
found themselves still alive, -- have
suffering enough in store for them from that very
life. Their punishment is in the intensity of
the latter. Having lost by the rash act their
seventh and sixth principles, though not for
ever, as they can regain both -- instead of
accepting their punishment, and taking their
chances of redemption, they are often made
to regret life and tempted to regain a hold upon it by sinful means. In the
Kama-Loka, the
land of intense desires, they can gratify
their earthly yearnings but through a living proxy;
and by so doing, at the expiration of the
natural term, they generally lose their monad for
ever. As to the victims of accident -- these
fare still worse. Unless they were so good and
pure, as to be drawn immediately within the
Akasic Samadhi, i.e. to fall into a state of
quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams,
during which, they have no recollection of the.accident, but move and live
among their familiar friends and scenes, until their natural
life-term is finished, when they find
themselves born in the Deva-Chan -- a gloomy fate
is theirs. Unhappy shades, if sinful and
sensual they wander about -- (not shells, for their
connection with their two higher principles is
not quite broken) -- until their death-hour
comes. Cut off in the full flush of earthly
passions which bind them to familiar scenes,
they are enticed by the opportunities which
mediums afford, to gratify them vicariously.
They are the Pisachas, the Incubi,
and Succubi of mediaeval times. The demons of thirst,
gluttony, lust and avarice, -- elementaries of
intensified craft, wickedness and cruelty;
provoking their victims to horrid crimes, and
revelling in their commission! They not
only ruin their victims, but these psychic
vampires, borne along by the torrent of their
hellish impulses, at last, at the fixed close
of their natural period of life -- they are carried
out of the earth's aura into regions where for
ages they endure exquisite suffering and end
with entire destruction.
But if the victim of accident or violence, be
neither very good, nor very bad -- an average
person -- then this may happen to him. A
medium who attracts him, will create for him
the most undesirable of things: a new combination
of Skandhas and a new and evil
Karma. But
let me give you a clearer idea of what I mean by Karma in this case.
In connection with this, let me tell you
before, that since you seem so interested with the
subject, you can do nothing better than to
study the two doctrines -- of Karma and
Nirvana -- as profoundly as you can. Unless
you are thoroughly well acquainted with the
two tenets -- the double key to the
metaphysics of Abidharma -- you will always find
yourself at sea in trying to comprehend the
rest. We have several sorts of Karma and
Nirvana in their various applications -- to
the Universe, the world, Devas, Buddhas,
Bodhisatwas, men and animals -- the second
including its seven kingdoms. Karma and
Nirvana are but two of the seven great
MYSTERIES of Buddhist metaphysics; and but
four of the seven are known to the best
orientalists, and that very imperfectly.
If you ask a learned Buddhist priest what is
Karma? -- he will tell you that Karma is what
a Christian might call Providence (in a
certain sense only) and a Mahomedan -- Kismet,
fate or destiny (again in one sense). That it
is that cardinal tenet which teaches that, as
soon as any conscious or sentient being,
whether man, deva, or animal dies, a new being
is produced and he or it reappears in another
birth, on the same or another planet, under
conditions of his or its own antecedent
making. Or, in other words that Karma is the
guiding power, and Trishna (in Pali Tanha)
the thirst or desire to sentiently live -- the
proximate force or energy, the resultant of
human (or animal) action, which, out of the
old Skandhas (8) produce the new group
that form the new being and control the nature
of the birth itself. Or to make it still
clearer, the new being, is rewarded and punished for
the meritorious acts and misdeeds of the old
one; Karma representing an Entry Book, in
which all the acts of man, good, bad, or
indifferent, are carefully recorded to his debit and
credit -- by himself, so to say, or rather by
these very actions of his. There, where
Christian poetical fiction created, and sees a
"Recording" Guardian Angel, stern and
realistic Buddhist logic, perceiving the
necessity that every cause should have its effect --
shows its real presence. The opponents of
Buddhism have laid great stress upon the
alleged injustice that the doer should escape
and an innocent victim be made to suffer, --.since the doer and the sufferer
are different beings. The fact is, that while in one sense
they may be so considered, yet in another they
are identical. The "old being" is the sole
parent -- father and mother at once -- of the
"new being." It is the former who is the
creator and fashioner, of the latter, in
reality; and far more so in plain truth, than any
father in flesh. And once that you have well
mastered the meaning of Skandhas you will
see what I mean.
It is the group of Skandhas, that form and
constitute the physical and mental individuality
we call man (or any being). This group
consists (in the exoteric teaching) of five
Skandhas, namely: Rupa -- the material
properties or attributes; Vedana -- sensations;
Sanna --
abstract ideas; Sankhara -- tendencies both physical and mental; and Vinnana
--
mental powers, an amplification of the fourth
-- meaning the mental, physical and moral
predispositions. We add to them two more, the
nature and names of which you may learn
hereafter. Suffice for the present to let you
know that they are connected with, and
productive of Sakkayaditthi, the
"heresy or delusion of individuality" and of Attavada
"the doctrine of Self," both of
which (in the case of the fifth principle the soul) lead to the
maya of
heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies; in prayers and
intercession.
Now, returning to the question of identity
between the old and the new "Ego." I may
remind you once more, that even your Science
has accepted the old, very old fact
distinctly taught by our Lord (9), viz. --
that a man of any given age, while sentiently the
same, is yet physically not the same as he was
a few years earlier (we say seven years and
are prepared to maintain and prove it):
buddhistically speaking, his Skandhas have
changed. At the same time they are ever and
ceaselessly at work in preparing the abstract
mould, the "privation" of the future
new being. Well then, if it is just that a man of 40
should enjoy or suffer for the actions of the
man of 20, so it is equally just that the being
of the new birth, who is essentially identical
with the previous being -- since he is its
outcome and creation -- should feel the
consequences of that begetting Self or
personality. Your Western law which punishes
the innocent son of a guilty father by
depriving him of his parent, rights and property;
your civilized Society which brands with
infamy the guileless daughter of an immoral,
criminal mother; your Christian Church and
Scriptures which teach that the "Lord God
visits the sins of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation" are
not all these far more unjust and cruel than
anything done by Karma? Instead of punishing
the innocent together with the culprit, the
Karma avenges and rewards the former, which
neither of your three western potentates
above mentioned ever thought of doing. But
perhaps, to our physiological remark the
objectors may reply that it is only the body
that changes, there is only a molecular
transformation, which has nothing to do with
the mental evolution; and that the Skandhas
represent not only a material but also a set
of mental and moral qualities. But is there, I
ask, either a sensation, an abstract idea, a
tendency of mind, or a mental power, that one
could call an absolutely non-molecular
phenomenon? Can even a sensation or the most
abstractive thoughts which is something, come
out of nothing, or be nothing?
Now, the causes producing the "new
being" and determining the nature of Karma are, as
already said -- Trishna (or "Tanha")
-- thirst, desire for sentient existence and Upadana --.which is the
realization or consummation of Trishna or that desire. And both of these
the
medium helps to awaken and to develop nec
plus ultra in an Elementary, be he a suicide
or a victim. (10) The rule is, that a person
who dies a natural death, will remain from "a
few hours to several short years," within
the earth's attraction, i.e., in the Kama-Loka. But
exceptions are, in the case of suicides and
those who die a violent death in general.
Hence, one of such Egos, for instance, who was
destined to live -- say 80 or 90 years, but
who either killed himself or was killed by
some accident, let us suppose at the age of 20 --
would have to pass in the Kama Loka not
"a few years," but in his case 60 or 70 years,
as an Elementary, or rather an
"earth-walker"; since he is not, unfortunately for him, even
a "shell." Happy, thrice
happy, in comparison, are those disembodied entities, who sleep
their long slumber and live in dream in the
bosom of Space! And woe to those whose
Trishna will
attract them to mediums, and woe to the latter, who tempt them with such an
easy Upadana. For in grasping them, and
satisfying their thirst for life, the medium helps
to develop in them -- is in fact the cause of
-- a new set of Skandhas, a new body, with far
worse tendencies and passions than was the one
they lost. All the future of this new body
will be determined thus, not only by the Karma
of demerit of the previous set or group
but also by that of the new set of the future
being. Were the mediums and Spiritualists but
to know, as I said, that with every new
"angel guide" they welcome with rapture, they
entice the latter into an Upadana which
will be productive of a series of untold evils for
the new Ego that will be born under its
nefarious shadow, and that with every seance --
especially for materialization -- they
multiply the causes for misery, causes that will make
the unfortunate Ego fail in his spiritual
birth, or be reborn into a worse existence than
ever -- they would, perhaps, be less lavishing
their hospitality.
And now, you may understand why we oppose so
strongly Spiritualism and mediumship.
And, you will also see, why, to satisfy Mr.
Hume, -- at least in one direction, -- I got
myself into a scrape with the Chohan,
and mirabile dictu! -- with both the sahibs, "the
young men by the name of" -- Scott and
Banon. To amuse you I will ask H.P.B. to send
you with this a page of the "Banon
papyrus," an article of his that he winds up with a
severe literary thrashing of my humble self.
Shadows of the Asuras, in what a passion she
flew upon reading this rather disrespectful
criticism! I am sorry she does not print it, upon
considerations of "family honour" as
the "Disinherited" expressed it. As to the Chohan,
the matter is more serious; and, he was far
from satisfied that I should have allowed
Eglinton to believe it was myself. He
had permitted this proof of the power in living man
to be given to the Spiritualists through a
medium of theirs, but had left the programme
and its details to ourselves; hence his
displeasure at some trifling consequences. I tell
you, my dear friend, that I am far less free
to do as I like than you are in the matter of the
Pioneer. None of us but the highest Chutuktus are their full masters. But I
digress.
And now that you have been told much and had explained
a good deal, you may as well
read this letter to our irrepressible friend
-- Mrs. Gordon. The reasons given may throw
some cold water on her Spiritualistic zeal,
though I have my reasons to doubt it. Anyhow
it may show her that it is not against true
Spiritualism that we set ourselves, but only
against indiscriminate mediumship and --
physical manifestations, -- materializations and
trance-possessions especially. Could
the Spiritualists be only made to understand the
difference between individuality and personality,
between individual and personal.immortality and some other
truths, they would be more easily persuaded that Occultists
may be fully convinced of the monad's immortality,
and yet deny that of the soul -- the
vehicle of the personal Ego; that they
can firmly believe in, and themselves practice
spiritual communications and intercourse with
the disembodied Egos of the Rupa-Loka,
and yet laugh at the insane idea of
"shaking hands" with a "Spirit"!; that finally, that as
the matter stands, it is the Occultists and
the Theosophists who are true Spiritualists,
while the modern sect of that name is composed
simply of materialistic phenomenalists.
And once that we are discussing
"individuality" and "personality," it is curious that
H.P.B. when subjecting poor Mr. Hume's brain
to torture with her muddled explanations,
never thought -- until receiving the
explanation from himself, of the difference that exists
between individuality and personality -- that
it was the very same doctrine she had been
taught: that of Paccika-Yana, and of Amita-Yana.
The two terms as above given by him
are the correct and literal translation of the
Pali, Sanskrit, and even of the Chino-Tibetan
technical names for the many personal
entities blended in one Individuality -- the long
string of lives emanating from the same
Immortal MONAD. You will have to remember
them: --
(I) The Paccika Yana -- (in Sanskrit
"Pratyeka") means literally -- the "personal vehicle"
or personal Ego, a combination of the
five lower principles. While --
(2) The Amita-Yana -- (in Sanskrit
"Amrita") is translated: "The immortal vehicle," or the
Individuality, the Spiritual Soul, or the Immortal monad -- a
combination of the fifth,
sixth and seventh. (11)
It appears to me that one of our great difficulties in
trying to understand the
progress of affairs turns on our ignorance so far of the divisions of the seven
principles. Each has in turn its seven elements we are told:
can we be told something
more concerning the seven-fold constitution of the fourth
and fifth principles
especially. It is evidently in the divisibility of these
that the secret of the future and
of many psychic phenomena here during life, resides.
Quite right. But I must be permitted to doubt
whether with the desired explanations the
difficulty will be removed, and you will
become able to penetrate "the secret of psychic
phenomena." You, my good friend, whom I
had once or twice the pleasure of hearing
playing on your piano in the quiet intervals
between dress-coating and a beef-and-claret
dinner -- tell me, could you favour me as
readily, as with one of your easy waltzes -- with
one of Beethoven's Grand Sonatas? Pray, pray
have patience! Yet, I would not refuse you
by any means. You will find the fourth and the
fifth principles, divided into roots and
Branches on a fly-sheet herein enclosed, if I
find time. (12) And now, how long do you
propose to abstain from interrogation marks?
Faithfully,
K. H..P.S. -- I hope I have now removed
all cause for reproaches -- my delay in answering your
queries notwithstanding, -- and that my
character is re-established. Yourself and Mr.
Hume have received now more information about
the A.E. Philosophy than was ever
given out to non-initiates within my
knowledge. Your sagacity, my kind friend, will have
suggested long ago, that it is not so much
because of your combined personal virtues --
though Mr. Hume I must confess, has run up a
large claim since his conversion -- or my
personal preferences for either of you, as for
other and very apparent reasons. Of all our
semi-chelas you two are the most likely to
utilise for the general good the facts given
you. You must regard them received in trust
for the benefit of the whole Society; to be
turned over, and employed and re-employed in
many ways and in all ways that are good.
If you (Mr. Sinnett) would give pleasure to
your trans-Himalayan friend, do not suffer
any month to pass without writing a Fragment,
long or short for the magazine, and then,
issuing it as a pamphlet -- since you so call
it. You may sign them as "A Lay-Chela of
K.H.," or in any way you choose. I dare
not ask the same favour of Mr. Hume, who has
already done more than his share in another
direction.
I will not answer your query about your
Pioneer connection just now: something may be
said on both sides. But at least take no rash
decision. We are at the end of the cycle, and
you are connected with the T.S.
Under favour of my Karma -- I mean to answer
to-morrow Mr. Hume's long and kind
personal letter. The abundance of MSS. from me
of late shows that I have found a little
leisure, their blotched, patchy and mended
appearance also proves that my leisure has
come by snatches, with constant interruptions,
and that my writing has been done in odd
places here and there, with such materials as
I could pick up. But for the RULE that
forbids our using one minim of power until
every ordinary means has been tried and
failed, I might, of course, have given you a
lovely "precipitation" as regards chirography
and composition. I console myself for the
miserable appearance of my letters with the
thought that perhaps, you may not value them
the less, for these marks of my personal
subjection to the way-side annoyances which
you English so ingeniously reduce to a
minimum with
your appliances of sorts. As your lady once kindly remarked, they take
away most effectually the flavour of miracle,
and make us as human beings, more
thinkable entities, -- a wise reflection for
which I thank her.
H.P.B. is in despair: the Chohan refused
permission to M. to let her come this year further
than the Black Rock, and M. very coolly made
her unpack her trunks. Try to console her,
if you can. Besides, she is really wanted more
at Bombay than Penlor. Olcott is on his
way to Lanka and Damodar packed up to Poona
for a month, his foolish austerities and
hard work having broken down his physical
constitution. I will have to look after him,
and perhaps, to take him away, if it comes to
the worst.
Just now I am able to give you a bit of
information, which bears upon the so often
discussed question of our allowing phenomena.
The Egyptian operations of your blessed
countrymen involve such local consequences to
the body of Occultists still remaining
there and to what they are guarding, that two
of our adepts are already there, having
joined some Druze brethren and three more on
their way. I was offered the agreeable.privilege of becoming an eye-witness to
the human butchery, but -- declined with thanks.
For such great emergency is our Force stored
up, and hence -- we dare not waste it on
fashionable tamasha.
In about a week -- new religious ceremonies,
new glittering bubbles to amuse the babes
with, and once more I will be busy night and
day, morning, noon, and evening. At times I
feel a passing regret that the Chohans should
not evolute the happy idea of allowing us
also a "sumptuary allowance" in the
shape of a little spare time. Oh, for the final Rest! for
that Nirvana where -- "to be one with
Life, yet -- to live not." Alas, alas! having
personally realized that: --
". . . the Soul of Things is sweet,
The Heart of Being is celestial Rest,"
one does long for -- eternal REST!
Yours,
K. H.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Those who have not ended their earth rings.
(return to text)
2. Literally -- those who will never return --
the seventh round men, etc. (return to text)
3. See back -- (1) of your questions. (return
to text)
4. O.T. stands for Occult Truth. -- ED. (return
to text)
5. Tibetan: Yuh-Kai. (return to text)
6. This Mara, as you may well think, is the
allegorical image of the sphere called the
"Planet of Death" -- the whirlpool
whither disappear the lives doomed to destruction. It is
between Kama and Rupa-Lokas that
the struggle takes place. (return to text)
7. The Planetary Spirits of our Earth are not
of the highest, as you may well imagine --
since, as Subba Row says in his criticism upon
Oxley's work that no Eastern Adept would
like to be compared with an angel or a Deva.
See May
Theosophist. (return to text).7a. In Abidharma Shastra (Metaphysics) we
read: -- "Buddha taught that on the outskirts
of all the Sakwalas, there is a black interval, without Sun or moonlight for
him who falls
into it. There is no re-birth from it.
It is the cold Hell, the great Naraka." This is Avitchi.
(return to text)
8. I remark that in the second as well as in
the first edition of your Occult World the same
misprint appears, and that the word Skandha
is spelt Shandba -- on page 130. As it now
stands I am made to express myself in a very
original way for a supposed Adept. (return
to text)
9. See the Abhidharma Kosha Vyakhya, the
Sutta Pitaka, any Northern Buddhist book, all
of which show Gautama Buddha saying that none
of these Skandhas is the soul; since the
body is constantly changing, and that neither
man, animal, nor plant is ever the same for
two consecutive days or even minutes.
"Mendicants! remember that there is within man
no abiding principle whatever, and that only the learned disciple who
acquires wisdom,
in saying 'I am' -- knows what he is
saying." (return to text)
10. Alone the Shells and the Elementals are
left unhurt, though the morality of the
sensitives can by no means be improved by the
intercourse. (return to text)
11. To avoid a fresh surprise and confusion at
the news of the fifth keeping company with
the sixth and seventh, please turn to page 3, et
sec. [answer to question 5] (return to text)
12. I did not find time. Will send it a
day or two later. (return to text).The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 17
[K.H.'s Replies to Mr. Sinnett's queries are
printed in bold type. -- ED.]
Received Simla, June, 1882
(1) Some fifth round men have already begun to
appear on earth. In what way are they
distinguishable from fourth round men of the
seventh earthly incarnation? I suppose they
are in the first incarnation of the fifth
round that that a tremendous advance will be
achieved when the fifth round people get to
their seventh incarnation.
(1) The natural-born Seers and clairvoyants of Mrs. A.
Kingsford's and Mr.
Maitland's types; the great adepts of whatsoever country;
the geniuses -- whether in
arts, politics or religious reform. No great physical
distinction yet: too early and will
come later on.
Quite so. If you turn to Appendix No. I (1) you will find it
explained.
(2) But if a 1st-5th round man devoted himself
to occultism and became an adept, would
he escape further earthly incarnations?
(2)No; if we except Buddha -- a sixth round being, as he had
run so successfully the
race in his previous incarnations as to outrun even his
predecessors. But then such a
man is to be found in a billion of human creatures. He differed from other men as
much in his physical appearance as in spirituality and
knowledge. Yet even he
escaped further reincarnations but on this earth; and, when
the last of the sixth
round men of the third ring is gone out of this earth, the
Great Teacher will have to
get reincarnated on the next planet. Only, and since He
sacrificed Nirvanic bliss and
Rest for the salvation of his fellow creatures He will be re
-born in the highest -- the
seventh ring of the upper planet. Till then He will overshadow every decimillenium
(let us rather say and add "hasovershadowed already" a chosen individual who
generally overturned the destinies of nations. See Isis, Vol. I, pp. 34 and 35 last and
first para. on the pages).
(3) Is there any essential spiritual
difference between a man and a woman, or is sex a
mere accident of each birth -- the ultimate
future of the individual furnishing the same
opportunities?
(3) A mere accident -- as you say. Generally a chance work
yet guided by individual
Karma, -- moral aptitudes, characteristics and deeds of a
previous birth..(4) The majority of the superior classes of civilized
countries on earth now, I understand
to be seventh "ring" people (i.e. of
the seventh earthly incarnation) of the fourth round.
The Australian aborigines I understand to be
of a low ring? which? and are the lower and
inferior classes of civilized countries of
various rings or of the ring just below the
seventh. And are all seventh ring people born
in the superior classes or may not some be
found among the poor?
(4) Not necessarily. Refinement, polishedness, and brilliant
education, in your sense
of these words have very little to do with the course of
higher Nature's Law. Take a
seventh ring African or a fifth ring Mongolian and you can
educate him -- if taken
from the cradle -- save his physical appearance, and
transform him into the most
brilliant and accomplished English lord. Yet, he will still
remain, but an outwardly
intellectual parrot. (See Appendix No. 11).
(5) The Old Lady told me that the bulk of the
inhabitants of this country are in some
respects less advanced than Europeans though
more spiritual. Are they on a lower ring of
the same round -- or does the difference refer
to some principle of national cycles which
has nothing to do with individual progress?
(5) Most of the peoples of India belong to the oldest or the
earliest branchlet of the
fifth human Race. I have desired M. to end his letter to you
with a short summary of
the last scientific theory of your learned Ethnographers and
Naturalists, to save
myself work. Read what he writes and then turn to No. III of
my Appendix.
What is the explanation of "Ernest"
and Eglinton's other guide? Are they elementaries
drawing their conscious vitality from him or
elementals masquerading? When "Ernest"
took that sheet of "Pioneer"
notepaper how did he contrive to get it without mediumship
at this end?
I can assure you it is not worth your while nowto study the true natures of the
"Ernests" and "Joeys" and "other
guides" as unless you become acquainted with
the evolution of the corruptions of elemental dross, and those of
the seven principles
in man -- you would ever find yourself at a loss to
understand -- what they really
are; there are no written statutes for them, and they can
hardly be expected to pay
their friends and admirers the compliment of truth, silence
or forbearing. If some
are related to them as some soullessphysical mediums are -- they shall meet. If not --
better leave them alone. They gravitate but to their likes --
the mediums; and their
relation is not made but forced by foolish and sinful
phenomena-mongers. They are
both elementaries and elementals -- at best a low,
mischievous, degrading jangle.
You want to embrace too much knowledge at once, my dear
friend; you cannot
attain at a bound all the mysteries. See however Appendix --
which is in reality a
letter.
I do not know Subba Rao -- who is a pupil of M. At least --
he knows very little of
me. Yet I know, he will neverconsent to come to Simla. But if ordered by Morya
will
teach from Madras, i.e., correct the MSS. as M. did, comment
upon them, answer.questions, and be very, very useful. He has a perfect reverence and adoration for
--
H.P.B.
K. H.
FOOTNOTE:
1. See Letter No. 18. -- ED. (return to text).The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 18
Received Simla, June, 1882.
APPENDIX
(I) Every Spiritual Individuality has a
gigantic evolutionary journey to perform a
tremendous gyratory progress to accomplish.
First -- at the very beginning of the great
Mahamanvantaric rotation, from first to last
of the man-bearing planets, as on each of
them, the monad has to pass through seven
successive races of man. From the dumb
offshoot of the ape (the latter strongly
differentiating from the now known specimens) up
to the present fifth race, or rather
variety, and through two more races, before he has done
with this earth only; and then on to the next,
higher and higher still. . . . But we will
confine our attention but to this one. Each of
the seven races send seven ramifying
branchlets from the Parent Branch: and through
each of these in turn man has to evolute
before he passes on to the next higher race;
and that -- seven times. Well may you open
wide your eyes, good friend, and feel puzzled
-- it is so. The branchlets typify varying
specimens of humanity -- physically and
spiritually -- and no one of us can miss one
single rung of the ladder. With all that there
is no reincarnation as taught by the London
Seeress -- Mrs. A.K., as the intervals between
the re-births are too immeasurably long to
permit of any such fantastic ideas. Please,
bear in mind, that when I say "man," I mean a
human being of our type. There are other and
innumerable manvantaric chains of globes
bearing intelligent beings -- both in and out
of our solar system -- the crowns or apexes of
evolutionary being in their respective chains,
some -- physically and intellectually --
lower, others immeasurably higher than the man
of our chain. But beyond mentioning
them we will not speak of these at present.
Through every race then, man has to pass
making seven successive entrances and exits
and developing intellect to degrees from the
lowest to the highest in succession. In short,
his earth-cycle with its rings and sub-rings
is the exact counterpart of the Great Cycle --
only in miniature. Bear in mind again, that
the intervals even between these special "race
re-incarnations" are enormous, as even
the dullest of the African Bushmen has to reap the
reward of his Karma, equally with his brother
Bushman who may be six times more
intelligent.
Your Ethnographers and anthropologists would
do well to ever keep in their minds this,
unvarying septenary law which runs throughout
the works of nature. From Cuvier -- the
late grand master of Protestant Theology --
whose Bible-stuffed brain made him divide
mankind into but three distinct varieties of
races -- down to Blumenbach who divided
them into five -- they were all wrong. Alone
Pritchard, who prophetically suggested.seven comes near the right mark. I read
in the Pioneer of June 12th forwarded to me by
H.P.B. a letter on the Ape Theory by
A.P.W. which contains a most excellent exposition
of the Darwinian hypothesis. The last
paragraph page 6 column 1 would be regarded --
barring a few errors -- as a revelation in
a millenium or so, were it to be preserved.
Reading the nine lines from line 21 (counting
from the bottom) you have a fact of which
few naturalists are yet prepared to accept the
proof. The fifth, sixth and seventh races of
the Fifth Round -- each succeeding race
evoluting with and keeping pace, so to say with
the "Great Cycle" rounds -- and the
fifth race of the fifth round, having to exhibit a
perceptible physical and intellectual as well
as moral differentiation towards its fourth
"race" or "earthly
incarnation" you are right in saying that a "tremendous advance will
be
achieved when the fifth round people get to
their seventh incarnation."
(II) Nor has wealth nor poverty, high or low
birth any influence upon it, for this is all a
result of their Karma. Neither has -- what you
call -- civilization much to do with the
progress. It is the inner man, the
spirituality, the illumination of the physical brain by the
light of the spiritual or divine intelligence
that is the test. The Australian, the Esquimaux,
the Bushmen, the Veddahs, etc., are all
side-shooting branchlets of that Branch which
you call "cave-men" -- the third race
(according to your Science -- the second)that
evoluted on the globe. They are the remnants
of the seventh ring cave-men, remnants
"that have ceased to grow and are the
arrested forms of life doomed to eventual decay in
the struggle of existence" in the words
of your correspondent?
See "Isis" Chapter 1, -- " . .
. . . the Divine Essence (Purusha) like a luminous arc"
proceeds to form a circle -- the
mahamanvantaric chain; and having attained the highest
(or its first starting point) bends back again
and returns to earth (the first globe) bringing
a higher type of humanity in its vortex --
"thus seven times. Approaching our earth it
grows more and more shadowy until upon
touching ground it becomes as black as night --"
i.e. it is matter outwardly, the Spirit
or Purusha being concealed under a quintuple
armour of the first five principles. Now see
underlined three lines on page 5 for the word
"mankind" read human races, and
for that of "civilization" read Spiritual evolution of that
particular race and you have the truth which had to be concealed at that
incipient
tentative stage of the Theosophical Society.
See again pp. 13 last paragraph and 14 first
paragraph, and note the underlined lines
about Plato. Then see p. 32 remembering the
difference between the Manvantaras as
therein calculated and the MAHAMANVANTARAS
(complete seven round between
two Pralayas, -- the four Yugs returning seven
times, once for each race. Having done so
far take your pen and calculate. This will
make you swear -- but this will not hurt your
Karma much: lip-profanity finds it deaf. Read
attentively in this connection (not with the
swearing process but with that of evolution)
pp. 301 last line "and now comes a mystery .
. ." and continue on to p. 304.
"Isis" was not unveiled but rents sufficiently large were
made to afford flitting glances to be
completed by the student's own intuition. In this
curry of quotations from various philosophic
and esoteric truths purposely veiled, behold
our doctrine, which is now being partially
taught to Europeans for the first time..(III) As said in my answer on your
notes, most of the peoples of India -- with the
exception of the Semitic (?) Moguls --
belong to the oldest branchlet of the present fifth
Human race, which was evoluted in Central Asia
more than one million of years ago.
Western Science finding good reasons for the
theory of human beings having inhabited
Europe 400,000 years before your era -- this
cannot so shock you as to prevent your
drinking wine to-night at your dinner. Yet
Asia, has as well as Australia, Africa, America
and the most northward regions -- its remnants
-- of the fourth -- even of the third race
(cave-men and Iberians). At the same time, we
have more of the seventh ring men of the
fourth race than Europe and more of the first
ring of the fifth round, as, older than the
European branchlets, our men have naturally
come in earlier. Their being "less advanced"
in civilization and refinement trouble their
spirituality but very little, Karma being an
animal which remains indifferent to pumps and
white kid gloves. Neither your knives nor
forks, operas and drawing-rooms will any more
follow you in your onward progress than
will the dead-leaf coloured robes of the
British Esthetics prevent the proprietors thereof
and wearers from having been born among the
ranks of those, who will be regarded -- do
what they may -- by the forthcoming sixth and
seventh round men as flesh-eating and
liquor-drinking "savages" of the
"Royal Society Period." It depends on you, to so
immortalize your name, as to force the future
higher races to divide our age and call the
sub-division -- the "Pleisto-Sinnettic
Period" but this can never be so long as you labour
under the impression that "the purposes
we have now in view would be met by
reasonable temperance and self-restraint." Occult Science is a
jealous mistress and
allows not a shadow of self-indulgence; and it
is "fatal" not only to the ordinary course of
married life but even to flesh and wine drinking.
I am afraid that the archaeologists of the
seventh round, when digging out and unearthing
the future Pompeii of Punjab -- Simla,
one day, instead of finding the precious
relics of the Theosophical "Eclectic," will fish
out but some petrified or vitreous remains of
the "Sumptuary allowance." Such is the
latest prophecy current at Tzigadze.
And now to the last question. Well, as I say,
the "guides" are both elementals and
elementaries and not even a decent "half
and half" but the very froth in the mug of the
mediumistic beer. The several
"privations" of such sheets of notepaper were evoluted
during E's stay in Calcutta in Mrs. G's
atmosphere -- since she frequently received letters
from you. It was then an easy matter for the
creatures in following E's unconscious desire
to attract other disintegrated particles from
your box, so as to form a double. He is a
strong medium, and were it not for an inherent
good nature and other good qualities,
strongly counteracted by vanity, sloth,
selfishness, greediness for money and with other
qualities of modern civilization a total
absence of will, be would make a superb Dugpa
yet, as I said he is "a good fellow"
every inch of him; naturally truthful, under control --
the reverse. I would if I could save him from.
. . .
NOTE. -- The rest of the original letter is
missing. It is in K.H.'s hand
writing. -- ED..The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 19
[Fragments in K.H.'s writing. -- ED.]
Attached to Proofs of Letter on Theosophy.
Received August 12th, 1882.
Yes; verily known and as confidently affirmed
by the adepts from whom --
"No curtain hides the spheres Elysian,
Nor these poor shells of half transparent
dust;
For all that blinds the spirit's vision
Is pride and hate and lust."
(Not for publication)
Exceptional cases, my friend. Suicides can and
generally do, but not so with the others.
The good and pure sleep a quiet blissful
sleep, full of happy visions of earth-life and have
no consciousness of being already for ever
beyond that life. Those who were neither good
nor bad, will sleep a dreamless, still a quiet
sleep; while the wicked will in proportion to
their grossness suffer the pangs of a
nightmare lasting years: their thoughts become living
things, their wicked passions -- real
substance, and they receive back on their heads all
the misery they have heaped upon others.
Reality and fact if described would yield a far
more terrible Inferno than even Dante
had imagined!.The Mahatma Letters to
A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 20a
[The original letter of A.O.H. to K.H. has
some passages numbered and
underlined with blue pencil by K.H. These are
printed in bold type. The
numbers refer to K.H.'s replies, for which see
post Letter No. 20c. -- ED.]
Received August, 1882.
10[X]
My dear Master,
In speaking of Fragments No. III of which you
will receive proofs soon, I said it was far
from satisfactory though I had done my best.
It was necessary to advance the doctrine of
the Society another stage, so as gradually to
open the eyes of the spiritualists -- so I
introduced as the most pressing matter the Suicide
etc. view given in your last letter to S.
Well it is this that seems to me most unsatisfactory and it will lead to anumber of
questions that I shall feel puzzled to reply to.
Our first doctrine is that the majority of
objective phenomena were due to shells. 1½ and
2½ principled shells, i.e. principles entirely
separated from their sixth and seventh
principles.
But as a further (1) development we admit that there are some spirits, i.e.
5th and 4th
principles not wholly dissevered from their
sixth and seventh which also may be potent in
the seance room. These are the spirits of
suicides and the victims of accident or violence.
Here the doctrine is that each particular wave
of life must run on to its appointed shore
and with the exception of the very good, that
all spirits prematurely divorced from the
lower principles, must remain on earth, until
the foredestined hour of what would have
been the natural death strikes.
Now this is all very well but this being so,
it is clear that in opposition to our
former
doctrine, shells will be few and spirits many (2).
For what difference can there be to take the
case of suicides, whether these be conscious
or unconscious, whether the man blows his
brains out, or only drinks or womanizes
himself to death, or kills himself by
over-study? In each case equally the normal natural.hour of death is
anticipated and a spirit and not a shell the result -- or again what
difference does it make whether a man is hung
for murder, killed in battle, in a railway
train or a powder explosion, or drowned or
burnt to death, or knocked over by cholera or
plague, or jungle fever or any of the other
thousand and one epidemic diseases of which
the seeds were not ab initio, in his
constitution, but were introduced therein in
consequence of his happening to visit a
particular locality or undergo a given experience,
both of which he might have avoided? Equally
in all cases the normal death hour is
anticipated and a spirit instead of a shell
the result.
In England it is calculated that not 15% of
the population reach their normal death period
-- and what with fevers and famines and their sequeloe,
I fear the percentage is not much
larger here even -- where the people are
mostly vegetarian and as a rule live under less
unfavourable sanitary conditions.
So then the great bulk of all the physical
phenomena of spiritualists ought apparently to
be due to these spirits and not to shells. I
should be glad to have further information on
this point.
There is a second point (3) very often as I understand the
spirits of very fair average good
people dying natural deaths, remain
some time in the earth's atmosphere -- from a few
days to a few years -- why cannot such as
these communicate? And if they can this is a
most important point that should not have been
overlooked.
(4) And thirdly it is a fact that thousands of
spirits do appear in pure circles and teach the
highest morality and moreover tell very
closely the truths as to the unseen world (witness
Alan Kardec's books pages on pages of which
are identical with what you yourself teach)
and it is unreasonable to suppose that such
are either shells or bad spirits. But you have
not given us any opening for any large number
of pure high spirits -- and until the whole
theory is properly set forth and due place
made for these which seem to me a thoroughly
well established fact, you will never win over
the spiritualists. I dare say it is the old story
-- only part of the truth being told to
us and the rest reserved -- if so it is merely cutting
the Society's throat. Better to tell the outside
world nothing -- than to tell them half truths
the incompleteness of which they detect at
once, the result being a contemptuous
rejection of what is truth and though
they cannot accept it in this fragmentary state.
Yours affectionately,
A. O. Hume.
The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 20b.[Letter from Mr. Sinnett to H.P.B. on the
backs of the pages of which is
part of a long letter from K.H. (No. 20c) re
queries of Hume's. The
passages in bold type have been underlined in
blue by K.H. -- ED.]
Received August 1882.
Simla, July 25th.
My Dear Old Lady,
I began to try to answer N.D.K.'s letter at
once so that if K.H. really meant the note to
appear in this immediately "next"
appearing Theosophist for August it might just be in
time. But I soon got into a tangle. Of course
we have received no information that
distinctly covers the question now raised,
though I suppose we ought to be able to
combine bits into an answer. The difficulty
turns on giving the real explanation of
Eliphas Levi's enigma in your note in the
October Theosophist.
If he refers to the fate of this, at present
existing race of mankind his statement that the
intermediate majority of Egos are ejected from
nature or annihilated, would be in direct
conflict with K.H.'s teaching. ** They do not die without
remembrance, if they retain
remembrance in Devachan and again recover
remembrance (even of past personalities as
of a book's pages) at the period of full
individual consciousness preceding that of
absolute consciousness in Pari-Nirvana.
But it occurred to me that E.L. may have been
dealing with humanity as a whole, not
merely with
the fourth round men. Great numbers of fifth round personalities are
destined to perish I understand, and these might be his
intermediate useless portion
of mankind. But then the
individual spiritual monads, as I understand the matter, do not
perish whatever happens, and if a monad
reaches the fifth round with all his previous
personalities preserved in the pages of his
book awaiting future perusal, he would not be
ejected and annihilated because some of his
fifthround pages were "unfit for publication."
So again there is a difficulty in reconciling
the two statements.
X. But again is it conceivable that a
spiritual monad though surviving the rejection of its
third and fourth round pages, cannot survive
the rejection of fifth and sixth round pages.
That failure to lead good lives in these
rounds means the annihilation of the whole
individual who will never then get to the
seventh round at all.
But on the other hand if that were so the
Eliphas Levi case would not be met by such a
hypothesis, for long before then the individuals who had become
co-workers with
nature for evil would have been themselves annihilated by
the obscuration of the
planet X. between the fifth and sixth rounds -- if not by the
obscuration between the
fourth and the fifth, for to every round there
is one obscuration we are told. (5) There is
another difficulty here because some fifth
rounders being here already it is not clear when
the obscuration comes on. Will it be behind
the avant couriers of the fifth round, who.will not count as commencing
the fifth, that epoch only really beginning after the existing
race has totally decayed out -- but this idea
will not work.
Having got so far in my reflections yesterday,
I went up to Hume to see if he could make
out the puzzle and so enable me to write what
was wanted for this post. But on looking
into it and looking back to the October
Theosophist we came to the conclusion that the
only possible explanation was that the October
Theosophist note was utterly wrong and
totally at variance with all our later
teaching. Is that really the solution? I do not think so
or K.H. would not have set me to reconcile the
two.
But you will see that at present, with the
best will in the world I am utterly unable to do
the job set me, and if my dear Guardian and
Master will kindly look at these remarks he
will see the dilemma in which I am placed.
And then in the way which will be the least
trouble to himself either through you or
directly he will perhaps indicate the line
which the required explanation ought to take.
Manifestly it cannot be done for the August
number, but I am inclined to believe he never
intended this as the time is now so short.
We all feel so sorry for you, over-worked amid
the heat and the flies. When you have got
the August number off your hands you might
perhaps be able to take flight for here, and
get a little rest amongst us. You know how
glad at any time we should be to see you.
Meanwhile my own individual plans are a little
uncertain. I may have to return to
Allahabad, in order to leave Hensman free to
go as special correspondent to Egypt. I am
fighting my proprietors tooth and nail to
avert this result -- but for a few days still the
issue of the struggle will be uncertain.
Ever Yours,
A. P. S.
P.S. --
As you may want to print the letter in this number, I return it herewith, but
hope
that this may not be the case and that
you will send it me back again so that I may duly
perform my little task with the help of a few
words as to the line to be followed.
{The articles mentioned were published in the
September Theosophist.}.The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 20c
Received August, 1882.
**Except in so far, that he constantly uses the terms
"God" and "Christ" which taken in
their esoteric sense simply mean
"Good" -- in its dual aspect of the abstract and the
concrete and nothing more dogmatic, Eliphas Levi is not in any direct conflict
with our
teachings. It is again a straw blown out of a
hay-stack and accused by the wind to belong
to a hay-rick. Most of those, whom you
may call, if you like, candidates for Deva Chan --
die and are reborn in the Kama-Loka
"without remembrance"; though (and just because)
they do get some of it back in the Deva-Chan.
Nor can we call it a full, but only a partial
remembrance. You would hardly call
"remembrance" a dream of yours; some particular
scene or scenes, within whose narrow limits
you would find enclosed a few persons --
those whom you loved best, with an undying
love, that holy feeling that alone survives,
and -- not the slightest recollection of any
other events or scenes? Love and Hatred are
the only immortal feelings, the only
survivors from the wreck of Ye-damma, or the
phenomenal world. Imagine yourself then, in
Deva-Chan with those you may have loved
with such immortal love; with the familiar,
shadowy scenes connected with them for a
background and -- a perfect blank for
everything else relating to your interior, social,
political, literary and social life. And then,
in the face of that spiritual, purely cogitative
existence, of that unalloyed felicity which,
in proportion with the intensity of the feelings
that created it, last from a few to
several thousand years, -- call it the "personal
remembrance of A. P. Sinnett" -- if you
can. Dreadfully monotonous! -- you may think. --
Not in the least -- I answer. Have you
experienced monotony during -- say -- that moment
which you considered then and now so
consider it -- as the moment of the highest bliss
you have ever felt? -- Of course not. -- Well
no more will you experience it there, in that
passage through the Eternity in which a
million of years is no longer than a second.
There, where there is no consciousness of an
external world there can be no discernment
to mark differences, hence, -- no perception
of contrasts of monotony or variety; nothing
in short, outside that immortal feeling of
love and sympathetic attraction whose seeds are
planted in the fifth, whose plants blossom
luxuriantly in and around the fourth, but whose
roots have to penetrate deep into the sixth
principle, if it would survive the lower groups.
(And now I propose to kill two birds with one
stone -- to answer your and Mr. Hume's
questions at the same time) -- remember, both,
that we create ourselves our devachan as
our avitchi while yet on earth, and
mostly during the latter days and even moments of our
intellectual, sentient lives. That feeling
which is the strongest in us at that supreme hour;
when, as in a dream, the events of a long
life, to their minutest details, are marshalled in
the greatest order in a few seconds in our
vision (1) -- that feeling will become the
fashioner of our bliss or woe, the life
principle of our future existence. In the latter we
have no substantial being, but only a present
and momentary existence, -- whose duration.has no bearing upon, as no effect,
or relation to its being -- which as every other effect of
a transitory cause will be as fleeting, and in
its turn will vanish and cease to be. The real
full remembrance of our lives will come but at
the end of the minor cycle -- not before. In
Kama Loka those who retain their remembrance,
will not enjoy it at the supreme hour of
recollection. -- Those who know they
are dead in their physical body -- can only be either
adepts or -- sorcerers; and these two are the exceptions
to the general rule. Both having
been "co-workers with nature," the
former for good, the latter -- for bad, in her work of
creation and in that of destruction, they are
the only ones who may be called immortal --
in the Kabalistic and the esoteric sense of
course. Complete or true immortality, -- which
means an unlimited sentient existence,
can have no breaks and stoppages, no arrest of
Self-consciousness.
And even the shells of those good men whose page will not be found
missing in the great Book of Lives at the
threshold of the Great Nirvana, even they will
regain their remembrance and an appearance of
Self-consciousness, only after the sixth
and seventh principles with the essence of the
5th (the latter having to furnish the
material for even that partial recollection of
personality which is necessary for the object
in Deva Chan) -- have gone to their gestation
period, not before. Even in the case of
suicides and those who have perished by
violent death, even in their case, consciousness
requires a certain time to establish its new
centre of gravity, and evolve, as Sir W.
Hamilton would have it -- its "perception
proper" henceforth to remain distinct from
"sensation proper." Thus, when man
dies, his "Soul" (fifth prin.) becomes unconscious
and loses all remembrance of things internal
as well as external. Whether his stay in
Kama Loka has to last but a few moments,
hours, days, weeks, months or years; whether
he died a natural or a violent death; whether
it occurred in his young or old age, and,
whether the Ego was good, bad, or indifferent,
-- his consciousness leaves him as
suddenly as the flame leaves the wick, when
blown out. When life has retired from the
last particle in the brain matter, his
perceptive faculties become extinct forever, his
spiritual powers of cogitation and volition --
(all those faculties in short, which are
neither inherent in, nor acquirable by organic
matter) -- for the time being. His Mayavi
rupa may
be often thrown into objectivity, as in the cases of apparitions after death;
but,
unless it is projected with the knowledge of
(whether latent or potential), or, owing to the
intensity of the desire to see or appear to
someone, shooting through the dying brain, the
apparition will be simply -- automatical; it
will not be due to any sympathetic attraction,
or to any act of volition, and no more than
the reflection of a person passing
unconsciously near a mirror, is due to the
desire of the latter.
Having thus explained the position, I will sum
up and ask again why it should be
maintained that what is given by Eliphas Levi
and expounded by H.P.B., is "in direct
conflict" with my teaching? E.L. is an
Occultist, and a Kabalist, and writing for those
who are supposed to know the rudiments of the
Kabalistic tenets, uses the peculiar
phraseology of his doctrine, and H.P.B.
follows suit. The only omission she was guilty of,
was not to add the word "Western"
between the two words "Occult" and doctrine (see
third line of Editor's note).She is a
fanatic in her way, and is unable to write with
anything like system and calmness, or to
remember that the general public needs all the
lucid explanations that to her may seem
superfluous. And, as you are sure to remark --
"but this is also our case; and
you too seem to forget it," -- I will give you a few more
explanations. As remarked on the margin of the
October Theosophist -- the word."immortality" has for the
initiates and occultists quite a different meaning. We call
"immortal" but the one Life in
its universal collectivity and entire or Absolute
Abstraction; that which has neither beginning
nor end, nor any break in its continuity.
Does the term apply to anything else?
Certainly it does not. Therefore the earliest
Chaldeans had several prefixes to the word
"immortality," one of which is the Greek,
rarely-used term -- panaeonic immortality,
i.e. beginning with the manvantara and
ending with the pralaya of our Solar
Universe. It lasts the aeon, or "period" of our pan or
"all nature." Immortal then is he, in the panaeonic immortality
whose distinct
consciousness and perception of Self under
whatever form -- undergoes no disjunction at
any time not for one second, during the period
of his Egoship. Those periods are several
in number, each having its distinct name in
the secret doctrines of the Chaldeans, Greeks,
Egyptians and Aryans, and, were they but
amenable to translation, -- which they are not,
at least so long as the idea involved remains
inconceivable to the Western mind -- I could
give them to you. Suffice for you, for the
present to know, that a man, an Ego like yours
or mine, may be immortal from one to the other
Round. Let us say I begin my
immortality at the present fourth Round, i.e.,
having become a full adept (which
unhappily I am not) I arrest the hand of Death
at will, and when finally obliged to submit
to it, my knowledge of the secrets of nature
puts me in a position to retain my
consciousness and distinct perception of Self
as an object to my own reflective
consciousness and cognition; and thus avoiding
all such dismemberments of principles,
that as a rule take place after the
physical death of average humanity, I remain as
Koothoomi in my Ego throughout the
whole series of births and lives across the seven
worlds and Arupa-lokas until finally I
land again on this earth among the fifth race men
of the full fifth Round beings. I would have
been, in such a case -- "immortal" for an
inconceivable (to you) long period, embracing
many milliards of years. And yet am "I"
truly immortal
for all that? Unless I make the same efforts as I do now, to secure for
myself another such furlough from Nature's
Law, Koothoomi will vanish and may
become a Mr. Smith or an innocent Babu, when
his leave expires. There are men who
become such mighty beings, there are men among
us who may become immortal during
the remainder of the Rounds, and then take
their appointed place among the highest
Chohans, the Planetary conscious "Ego-Spirits."
Of course the Monad "never perishes
whatever happens," but Eliphas speaks of
the personal not of the Spiritual Egos, and you
have fallen into the same mistake (and very
naturally too) as C.C.M.; though I must
confess the passage in Isis was very
clumsily expressed, as I had already remarked to
you, about this same paragraph in one of my
letters long ago. I had to "exercise my
ingenuity" over it -- as the Yankees
express it, but, succeeded in mending the hole, I
believe, -- as I will have to many times more,
I am afraid, before we have done with Isis.
It really ought to be re-written for
the sake of the family honour.
X It is certainly inconceivable, therefore, there is no
mortal use to discuss the subject.
X You misconceived the teaching, because you were not aware of
what you are now told:
(a) who are the true co-workers with
nature; and (b) that it is by no means all the evil co-workers,
who drop into the eighth sphere and are
annihilated. (2).The potency for evil is as great in man -- aye --
greater -- than the potentiality for good.
An exception to the rule of nature, that
exception, which in the case of adepts and
sorcerers becomes in its turn a rule,
has again its own exceptions. Read carefully the
passage that C.C.M. left unquoted -- on pp.
352-353, Isis Volume I, Para. 3. Again she
omits to distinctly state that the case
mentioned relates but to those powerful sorcerers
whose co-partnership with nature for evil
affords to them the means of forcing her hand,
and thus accord them also panaeonic
immortality. But oh, what kind of immortality, and
how preferable is annihilation to their lives!
Don't you see that everything you find in Isis
is delineated, hardly sketched -- nothing
completed or fully revealed. Well the time has
come, but where are the workers for such a
tremendous task?
Says Mr. Hume (see affixed letter (3) marked
passages -- 10 [X] and 1, 2, 3). And now
when you have read the objections to that most
unsatisfactory doctrine -- as Mr. Hume
calls it -- a doctrine which you had to learn
first as a whole, before proceeding to study it
in parts, -- at the risk of satisfying you no
better, I will proceed to explain the latter.
(1) Although not "wholly dissevered from
their sixth and seventh principles" and quite
"potent" in the seance room,
nevertheless to the day when they would have died a natural
death, they are separated from the higher
principles by a gulf. The sixth and seventh
remain passive and negative, whereas, in cases
of accidental death the higher and the
lower groups mutually attract each other. In
cases of good and innocent Egos, moreover,
the latter gravitates irresistibly toward the
sixth and seventh, and thus -- either slumbers
surrounded by happy dreams, or, sleeps a
dreamless profound sleep until the hour strikes.
With a little reflection, and an eye to
eternal justice and fitness of things, you will see
why. The victim whether good or bad is irresponsible
for his death, even if his death
were due to some action in a previous life or
an antecedent birth; was an act, in short, of
the Law of Retribution, still, it was not the direct
result of an act deliberately committed
by the personal Ego of that life during
which he happened to be killed. Had he been
allowed to live longer he may have atoned for
his antecedent sins still more effectually:
and even now, the Ego having been made to pay
off the debt of his maker (the previous
Ego) is free from the blows of retributive
justice. The Dhyan Chohans who have no hand
in the guidance of the living human
Ego, protect the helpless victim when it is violently
thrust out of its element into a new one,
before it is matured and made fit and ready for it.
We tell you what we know, for we are made
to learn it through personal experience. You
know what I mean and I CAN SAY NO MORE! Yes;
the victims whether good or bad
sleep, to awake but at the hour of the last
Judgment, which is that hour of the supreme
struggle between the sixth and seventh, and
the fifth and fourth at the threshold of the
gestation state. And even after that, when the
sixth and seventh carrying off a portion of
the fifth have gone into their Akasic Samadhi,
even then it may happen that the spiritual
spoil from the fifth will prove too weak to be
reborn in Deva-Chan; in which case it will
there and then reclothe itself in a new body,
the subjective "Being" created from the
Karma of the victim (or no-victim, as the case
may be) and enter upon a new earth-existence
whether upon this or any other planet. In no
case then, -- with the exception of
suicides and shells, is there any possibility
for any other to be attracted to a seance room.
And it is clear that "this
teaching is not in opposition to our former doctrine" and that
while "shells" will be many, --
Spirits very few..(2) There is a great difference in our humble opinion.
We, who look at it from a stand-point
which would prove very unacceptable to Life
Insurance Companies, say, that there
are very few if any of the men who indulge in
the above enumerated vices, who feel
perfectly sure that such a course of action
will lead them eventually to premature death.
Such is the penalty of Maya. The
"vices" will not escape their punishment; but it is the
cause not
the effect that will be punished, especially an unforeseen though
probable
effect. As well call a suicide a man
who meets his death in a storm at sea, as one who
kills himself with "over-study."
Water is liable to drown a man, and too much brain-work
to produce a softening of the brain which may
carry him away. In such a case no one
ought to cross the Kalapani nor even to
take a bath for fear of getting faint in it and
drowned (for we all know of such cases;) nor
should a man do his duty, least of all
sacrifice himself for even a laudable and
highly-beneficent cause, as many of us --
(H.P.B. for one) -- do. Would Mr. Hume call
her a suicide were she to drop down dead
over her present work? Motive is
everything and man is punished in a case of direct
responsibility, never otherwise. In the
victim's case the natural hour of death was
anticipated accidentally, while in that
of the suicide, death is brought on voluntarily and
with a full and deliberate knowledge of its
immediate consequences. Thus a man who
causes his death in a fit of temporary
insanity is not a felo de se to the great grief and
often trouble of the Life Insurance Companies.
Nor is he left a prey to the temptations of
the Kama Loka but falls asleep like any
other victim. A Guiteau will not remain in the
earth's atmosphere with his higher principles
over him -- inactive and paralysed, still
there. Guiteau is gone into a state during the
period of which, he will be ever firing at his
President, thereby tossing into confusion and shuffling the destinies
of millions of
persons; where he will be ever tried and
ever hung. Bathing in the reflections of his deeds
and thoughts -- especially those he indulged
in on the scaffold, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Two lines in original have been deleted here.
-- ED.] his fate. As for those who were
"knoched over by cholera, or plague, or
jungle fever" they could not have succumbed had
they not the germs for the development of such
diseases in them from birth.
"So then, the great bulk of the physical
phenomena of Spiritualists" my dear brother, are
not "due
to these Spirits" but indeed -- to "shells."
(3) "The Spirits of very fair average
good people dying natural deaths remain . . . in the
earth's atmosphere from a few days to a few
years," the period depending on their
readiness to meet their -- creature not
their creator; a very abstruse subject you will learn
later on, when you too are more prepared. But
why should they "communicate"? Do
those you love communicate with you during
their sleep objectively? Your Spirits, in
hours of danger, or intense sympathy,
vibrating on the same current of thought -- which
in such cases, creates a kind of telegraphic
spiritual wires between your two bodies --
may meet and mutually impress your memories;
but then you are living, not dead bodies.
But how can an unconscious 5th
principle (see supra) impress or communicate with a
living organism, unless it has already become
a shell? If, for certain reasons they remain
in such a state of lethargy for several years,
the spirits of the living may ascend to them,
as you were already told; and this may take
place still easier than in Deva Chan, where
the Spirit is too much engrossed in his
personal bliss to pay much attention to an
intruding element. I say -- they cannot..(4)
I am sorry to contradict your statement. I know of no "thousands of
spirits" who do
appear in circles -- and moreover positively
do not know of one "perfectly pure circle" --
and "teach the highest morality." I
hope I may not be classed with slanderers in addition
to other names lately bestowed upon me, but
truth compels me to declare that Allan
Kardec was not quite immaculate during his
lifetime, nor has become a very pure Spirit
since. As to teaching the "highest
morality," we have a Dugpa-Shammar not far from
where I am residing. Quite a remarkable man.
Not very powerful as a sorcerer but
excessively so, as a drunkard, a thief, a
liar, and -- an orator. In this latter role he could
give points to and beat Messrs. Gladstone,
Bradlaugh, and even the Rev. H. W. Beacher --
than whom, there is no more eloquent preacher
of morality, and no greater breaker of
his Lord's Commandments in the U.S.A. This
Shapa-tung Lama, when thirsty, can make
an enormous audience of "yellow-cap"
laymen weep all their yearly supply of tears, with
the narrative of his repentance and suffering
in the morning, and then get drunk in the
evening and rob the whole village by
mesmerising them into a dead sleep. Preaching and
teaching morality with an end in view proves
very little. Read "J.P.T.'s" article in Light
and what I say will be corroborated.
(To A.P.S. (5).) The "obscuration"
comes on only when the last man of whatever Round
has passed into the sphere of effects. Nature
is too well, too mathematically adjusted to
cause mistakes to happen in the exercise of
her functions. The obscuration of the planet
on which are now evoluting the races of the
fifth Round men -- will, of course "be behind
the few avant couriers" who are
now here. But before that time comes we will have to
part, to meet no more, as the Editor of the Pioneer
and his humble correspondent.
And now having shewn that the October Number
of the Theosophist was not utterly
wrong,
nor was it at "variance with the later teaching," may K.H. set you to
"reconcile the
two"?
To reconcile you still more with Eliphas, I
will send you a number of his MSS. -- that
have never been published, in a large, clear,
beautiful handwriting with my comments all
through. Nothing better than that can give you
a key to Kabalistic puzzles.
I have to write to Mr. Hume this week; to give
him consolation, and to show, that unless
he has a strong desire to live, he need not
trouble himself about Deva-Chan. Unless a
man loves well or hates as well,
he will be neither in Deva-Chan nor in Avitchi. "Nature
spews the luke-warm out of her mouth"
means only that she annihilates their personal
Egos (not the shells, nor yet the sixth
principle) in the Kama Loka and the Deva-Chan.
This does not prevent them from being
immediately reborn -- and, if their lives were not
very very bad, -- there is no reason
why the eternal Monad should not find the page of
that life intact in the Book of Life.
K. H.
FOOTNOTES:.1. That vision takes place when a
person is already proclaimed dead. The brain is the last
organ that dies. (return to text)
2. Annihilated suddenly as human
Egos and personalities, lasting in that world of pure
matter under various material forms an
inconceivable length of time before they can
return to primeval matter. (return to text)
3. See ante Letter No. 20a. -- ED. (return to
text).The Mahatma Letters to A. P.
Sinnett
--------------------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------------------
Letter No. 22
[Transcribed from a copy in Mr. Sinnett's
handwriting. -- ED.]
Extract from Letter by K.H. to Hume. Received
for my perusal towards
the end of season 1882. (A.P.S.)
Did it ever strike you, -- and now from the
standpoint of your Western science and the
suggestion of your own Ego which has already
seized up the essentials of every truth,
prepare to deride the erroneous idea -- did
you ever suspect that Universal, like finite,
human mind might have two attributes, or a
dual power -- one the voluntary and
conscious, and the other the involuntary and
unconscious or the mechanical power. To
reconcile the difficulty of many theistic and
anti-theistic propositions, both these powers
are a philosophical necessity. The possibility
of the first or the voluntary and conscious
attribute in reference to the infinite mind,
notwithstanding the assertions of all the Egos
throughout the living world -- will remain for
ever a mere hypothesis, whereas in the
finite mind it is a scientific and
demonstrated fact. The highest Planetary Spirit is as
ignorant of the first as we are, and the
hypothesis will remain one even in Nirvana, as it is
a mere inferential possibility, whether there
or here.
Take the human mind in connexion with the
body. Man has two distinct physical brains;
the cerebrum with its two hemispheres at the
frontal part of the head -- the source of the
voluntary nerves; and the cerebellum, situated
at the back portion of the skull -- the
fountain of the involuntary nerves which are
the agents of the unconscious or mechanical
powers of the mind to act through. And weak
and uncertain as may be the control of man
over his involuntary, such as the blood
circulation, the throbbings of the heart and
respiration, especially during sleep -- yet
how far more powerful, how much more
potential appears man as master and ruler over
the blind molecular motion -- the laws
which govern his body (a proof of this being
afforded by the phenomenal powers of the
Adept and even the common Yogi) than that
which you will call God, shows over the
immutable laws of Nature. Contrary in that to
the finite, the "infinite mind," which we
name so but for argument's sake, for we call
it the infinite FORCE -- exhibits but the
functions of its cerebellum, the existence of
its supposed cerebrum being admitted as
above stated, but on the inferential
hypothesis deduced from the Kabalistic theory
(correct in every other relation) of the
Macrocosm being the prototype of the Microcosm.
So far as we know the corroboration of
it by modern science receiving but little
consideration -- so far as the highest
Planetary Spirits have ascertained (who remember
well have the same relations with the
trans-cosmical world, penetrating behind the
primitive veil of cosmic matter as we have to
go behind the veil of this, our gross
physical world --) the infinite mind displays
to them as to us no more than the regular.unconscious throbbings of the eternal
and universal pulse of Nature, throughout the
myriads of worlds within as without the
primitive veil of our solar system.