Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00513)

Monday, December 24, 2001


Dear Bruce:

Perhaps the following might be of interest to you

Best wishes for the seasonal change and for the ensuing year, at
least

Dal


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CHRISTIAN FATHERS ON REINCARNATION

OUR brother George R. S. Mead, the General Secretary of the
European Section T.S., has held that whether or not Origen, the
greatest of the Fathers, believed in reincarnation, the Christian
Church never formally anathematized the doctrine. If this
position is sound there will yet be an opportunity for the Roman
Church to declare the doctrine by holding that the anathema
pronounced was against a species of incarnation or of
metempsychosis not very clearly defined except as a pre-existence
of the soul as opposed to a special creation for each new body.
This declaration can only be made by placing the future lives of
the soul on some other planet after leaving this one. That would
be reincarnation, but not as we understand it.[PARA]The issue of
Lucifer for February has valuable contributions under "Notes and
Queries" on this subject, and from that I extract something.
Beausobre says:[PARA]It is a very ancient and general belief that
souls are pure and heavenly substances which exist before their
bodies and come down from heaven to clothe and animate them. . .
. I only quote it to show that his nation (Jews) believed for a
long time back in the pre-existence of souls. . . . All the most
learned Greek fathers held this opinion, and a considerable
portion of the Latin fathers followed them herein. . . . It has
been held by several Christian philosophers. It was received into
the Church until the fourth century without being obnoxious to
the charge of heresy.[PARA]Beausobre, however, calls the belief
an "error." It would be interesting to know whether it is not the
fact that at about the fourth century the monks and bishops were
ignorant men who would be more likely to take up a narrow dogma
necessary for preservation of their power than to hold the
broader and grander one of pre-existence. Origen died about A.D.
254. He was so great and learned that even in his lifetime other
men forged his name to their own writings. But while he was still
living uneducated monks were flocking into the ranks of the
priesthood. They obtained enough strength to compel Jerome to
turn against Origen, although previously holding similar views.
It was not learning, then, nor spiritual knowledge that brought
about the subsequent condemnation of Origen, but rather bigotry
and unspiritual ignorance. Origen distinctly held as a
fundamental idea "the original and indestructible unity of God
and all spiritual essences." This is precisely the doctrine of
the Isovasya Upanishad, which says:[PARA]When to a man who
understands, the Self has become all things, what sorrow, what
trouble can there be to him who once beheld that
unity?[PARA]Francks Kabbala is referred to in these answers as
saying that Origen taught transmigration as a necessary doctrine
for the explaining of the vicissitudes of life and the
inequalities of birth. But the next quotation throws doubt again
into the question, closing, however, thus:[PARA]When the soul
comes into the world it leaves the body which had been necessary
to it in the mothers womb, it leaves, I repeat, the body which
covered it, and puts on another body fit for the life we lead on
earth. . . . But as we do not believe in metempsychosis, nor that
the soul can ever be debased so as to enter into the bodies of
brute animals...[PARA]There are several ways of looking at this.
It may be charged that some one interpolated the italicized
words; or that Origen was referring to transmigrating back to
animals; or, lastly, that he and his learned friends had a theory
about incarnation and reincarnation not clearly given. My opinion
is that he wrote as above simply as to retrograde rebirth, and
that he held the very identical doctrine as to reincarnation
found in Isis Unveiled and which caused it to be charged that
H.P.B. did not know or teach reincarnation in 1877. Of course I
cannot produce a quotation. But how could such a voluminous
writer and deep thinker as Origen hold to the doctrines of unity
with God, of the final restoration of all souls to pristine
purity, and of pre-existence, without also having a reincarnation
doctrine? There are many indications and statements that there
was an esoteric teaching on these subjects, just as it is evident
that Jesus had his private teaching for the select disciples. For
that reason Origen might teach pre-existence but hold back the
other. He says, according to Franck, that the question was not of
metempsychosis according to Plato, "but of an entirely different
theory which is of a far more elevated nature." It might have
been this.[PARA]The soul, considered as spirit and not animal
soul, is pure, of the essence of God, and desirous of immortality
through a person; the person may fail and not be united to the
soul; another and another person is selected; each one, if a
failure in respect to union with the Self, passes into the sum of
experience; but finally a personal birth is found wherein all
former experiences are united and union gained. From
thenceforward there is no more falling back, for immortality
through a person has been attained. Prior to this great event the
soul existed, and hence the doctrine of pre-existence. For all of
the personal births the soul was the God, the Higher Self of
each, the luminous one, the Augoeides; existing thus from all
time, it might be the cause of rebirths but not itself be
reincarnated, as it merely overshadowed each birth without being
wholly in the flesh. Such a doctrine, extremely mystical and
providing for each a personal God with a great possibility held
out through reunion, could well be called by Origen "a different
theory" from metempsychosis and "of more elevated
character."[PARA]When once more the modern Christian Church
admits that its founders believed in pre-existence and that Jesus
did not condemn reincarnation, a long step will have been taken
toward uprooting many intolerant and illogical doctrines now
held.[PARA]WILLIAM Q. JUDGE[PARA]Path, May, 1894[PARA][PARA]

[PARA][PARA][PARA]Let me add the
following[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]HPB Note on Avatars
and the Suras[PARA][PARA]Source: BLAVATSKY: Collected Works
(TPH), Vol. 7, p.
274-5[PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Avataras[PARA][PARA][TAB]In every
ancient cosmogony the universe and the earth are divided into
seven parts or regions.[PARA][PARA][TAB]"The seven [regions] of
Bhumi, hang by golden threads [beams or rays] from the Spiritual
central Sun [or 'God']. Higher than all, a Watcher for each
[region]. The Suras come down this [beam]. They cross the six
and reach the Seventh [our earth]. They are our mother earth's
[Bhumi] supporters [or guardians]. The eighth watches over the
[seven] watchers."[PARA][PARA][TAB]Suras are in the Vedas
deities, or beings, connected with the Sun; in their occult
meaning they are the seven chief watchers or guardians of our
planetary system. They are positively identical with the "Seven
Spirits of the Stars." The Suras are connected in practical
Occultism with the Seven Yogic powers. One of these, Laghima or
"the faculty of assuming levity," is illustrated in a Purana as
rising and descending along a sunbeam to the solar orb with its
mysteries; e.g., Khatvanga, in Vishnu-Purana (Book IV, Ch. iv).
"It must be equally easy to the adept to travel a ray downwards,"
remarks Fitzedward Hall [p. 311, Wilson's translation]. And why
not, if the action is understood in its right and correct
sense?[PARA][PARA][TAB]Eight great Gods are often reckoned, as
there are eight points of the compass, four cardinal and four
intermediate points over which preside also inferior Lokapalas or
the "doubles" of the greater Gods. Yet, in many instances where
the number eight is given, it is only a kind of exoteric shell.
Every globe, however, is divided into seven regions, as 7 x 7 =
49 is the mystic number par excellence.[PARA][PARA][TAB]To make
it clearer: in each of the seven Root-Races, and in every one of
the seven regions into which the Occult Doctrine divides our
globe, there appears from the dawn of Humanity the "Watcher"
assigned to it in the eternity of the AEon. He comes first in
his own "form," then each time as an
Avatara."[PARA][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]-- HPB Manuscript[TAB]CWB
7-pp.
274-5[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Definitions[PARA][PARA][PARA][TA
B]ARAHAT (Sk.)[TAB]Also...Arhat, Arhan, Rahat, etc., "the worthy
one," lit. "deserving divine honors"...first given to the Jain
and subsequently to the Buddhist holy men initiated into the
esoteric mysteries. The Arhat is one who has entered the best
and highest path, and is thus emancipated from re-berth."[TAB]
GLOS. 28[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]ALAYA (Sk.)[TAB]The Universal
Soul (See SD I 47...) GLOS. 14[PARA]"Alaya is literally the
"Soul of the World" or Anima Mundi, the "Over-Soul" of Emerson,
and according to esoteric teaching it changes periodically its
nature. Alaya though eternal and changeless in its inner essence
on the planes which are unreachable by either men of Cosmic Gods
(Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the active life-period with
respect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not
only the Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and Essence,
but even the man strong in the Yoga(mystic meditation) "is able
to merge his soul with it" (Aryasangha, the Bumapa school). This
is not Nirvana, but a condition next to it. Hence the
disagreement. Thus, while the Yogacharyas (of the Mahayana
school) say that Alaya is the personification of the Voidness,
and yet Alaya (Nyingpo and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis of
every visible and invisible thing, and that, though it is eternal
and immutable in its essence, it reflects itself in every object
of the Universe "like the moon in clear tranquil water;" other
schools dispute the statement. The same for
Paramartha..."[TAB]SD I
47[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]BHIKSHU[TAB](Sk.)[TAB]In Pali Bhikku.
the first followers of Sakyamuni Buddha ... "mendicant
scholar"... 2 classes: Sramanas ... esoteric mendicants who
control their nature by the (religious) law, and exoteric
mendicants who control their nature by diet..."[TAB]GLOS
56[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]SRAMANA[TAB](Sk.)[TAB]Buddhist priests,
ascetics and postulants for Nirvana, "they who have to place a
restraint on their thoughts."[TAB]GLOS
307[PARA][PARA][TAB]MAHATMA[TAB](Sk.)[TAB]Lit., "great soul." An
adept of the highest order. Exalted beings who, having attained
to the mastery over their lower principles are thus living
unimpeded by the "man of flesh," and are in possession of
knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached
in their spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and
Arhats."[TAB][TAB]GLOS
201[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Adept
Initiation[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"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."[TAB][TAB]M.L.
99[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Adept Lives to Serve the
World[PARA][PARA][TAB]"[The Adept]...serves humanity and
identifies himself with the whole world; he is ready to make
vicarious sacrifice for it at any moment--by living not by dying
for it. Why should he not die for it? Because he is part of the
whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because he
lives under laws of order which he does not desire to break. His
life is not his own, but that of the forces which work behind
him. He is the flower of humanity, the bloom which contains the
divine seed. He is, in his own person, a treasure of the
universal nature. which is guarded and made safe in order that
the fruition shall be perfected. It is only at definite periods
of the world's history that he is allowed to go among the herd of
men as their redeemer."[TAB][PARA][TAB]LIGHT ON THE PATH p.
72-3[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Seclusion of the
Adept[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"Through all time the wise men have
lived apart from the mass. [ That the chief body of these wise
ones should be understood to dwell beyond the fastnesses of the
Himalayas...p. 70 ] And even when some temporary purpose or
object induces one of them to come into the midst of human life,
his seclusion and safety is preserved as completely as ever...
they are only known as mystics by those who have the power to
recognize; the power given by the conquering of self. Otherwise
how could they exist, even for an hour, in such a mental and
psychic atmosphere as is created by the confusion and disorder of
a city ? Unless protected and made safe their own growth would
be interfered with, their work injured. And the neophyte may
meet an adept in the flesh, may live in the same house with him,
and yet be unable to recognize him, and unable to make his own
voice heard by him... No voice penetrates to his inner hearing
till it has become a divine voice, a voice which gives no
utterance to the cries of self... Until a man has become, in
heart and spirit a disciple, he has no existence for those who
are teachers of disciples. And he becomes this by one method
only--the surrender of his personal
humanity."[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]L ON P p.
74-5[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"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 or his inner Self...and demonstrate it
scientifically...It is our mission to plunge and bring the pearls
of Truth to the surface...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."[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]M L p.
50-1[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB] Harmony of the Adept -
Chela[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"...an adept may be compared to that
one key which contains all the keys in the great harmony of
nature. He has the synthesis of all keys in his thoughts,
whereas the ordinary man has the same key as a basis, but only
acts and thinks on one or a few changes of this great key,
producing in his brain only a few chords out of the whole great
possible harmony...the brain of the chela is attuned by training
to the brain of the Master. His vibrations synchronize with
those of the Adept...so the chela's brain is abnormal...(425)
...the adept sees all the colors in every color and yet does not
confuse them together...the highest adepts [ have raised their
vibrations so as to have them the same as those of nature as a
whole ]...He can produce a sound which will alter a color. It is
the sound which produces the color, and not the other or
opposite. By correlating the vibrations of a sound in the proper
way a new color is made...on the astral plane every sound always
produces a color...these are invisible because not yet correlated
by the human brain so as to become visible on the earth
plane....His astral senses may see the true color, but the
physical eye has its own vibrations, and these, being on the
outer plane, overcome the others for the time, and the astral man
is compelled to report to the brain that it saw correctly. For
in each case the outer stimulus is sent to the inner man, who
then is forced, as it were, to accept the message and to confirm
it for the time so far as it goes. But there are cases where the
inner man is able to even then overcome the outer defect and to
make the brain see the difference...."[TAB][TAB]WQJ ARTICLES,
Vol. I, p. 423-426.[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]Universe of
Consciousness -- Range of the
Initiate[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"That High Spirits work on Earth
in bodies of men, while those spirits are still in the highest
spheres [ see SD I 233-4 &fn, 235fn ]...it is clearly explained
that the author [HPB] does not mean that which is called among
the spiritualists "control" of mediums by a spirit, but the
actual continuance of the status and functions of the incarnated
spirit in the supersensuous regions, while actually using as its
own and working in a mortal envelope on earth. So that,
according to her, there are certain persons on this earth, living
and working as ordinary human beings and members of society.
whose informing divine part is so immeasurably high in
development that they as such high beings have a definite status
and function in the "supersensuous regions." [PARA][PARA][TAB]We
should say...that she herself was such a case, and that "H.P.B.,"
whether hourly in the day and night when all around was still,
had a status and functions" in their spheres where she
consciously carried on the work of that high station, whatever it
was. [PARA][PARA][TAB]There were many events in her daily life
known to those who were intimate with her that this hint may
reveal, or at least shed much light upon. And in one of her
letters the sentence appears--in substance--"The difference
between you and me is that you are not conscious except at day,
while I am conscious day and night, and have much to do and to
endure in both of these existences from which you, being thus
half-conscious, are happily saved."[PARA][PARA][TAB]In the Hindu
books and teachings there is a reference to this when the speak
of high gnanees--that is, persons full of knowledge and spiritual
power--being attracted to this earth by certain acts and at
certain times in the history of nation, race or
city."[TAB][TAB]"Hidden Hints in the S. D."[TAB]WQJ Art I
615-6[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"If it is true that "the whole
universe is an aggregate of states of consciousness," it would
seem to follow that the real difference between one who is an
initiate and one who is not lies in the fact that the former
looks at all things from a totally different stand point to the
majority of men...that he is on a higher plane of consciousness
altogether. If such a higher plane has been attained, it will
follow that his whole range of ideas will differ from that of
others and he will be sensible of the operation of causes of a
more far-reaching character than those cognized by others. He
will be as it were in the possession of higher and superior
information and so will be able to form juster conclusions and
this fact alone will give him enormous
power."[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]T A & N
60[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"The action of the entire universe is
but a detailed manifestation and example of the action of mind on
matter, governed at the highest point by the action of the
universal mind. Between the finite human mind of the ordinary
uninitiated individual and this universal mind lie an infinite
number of gradually ascending degrees, and the higher the plane
of consciousness the nearer is the approach to the universal mind
which is, as it were, the mainspring of the whole." --"Alpha"
[TAB]THEOS ART & NOTES, p.
60-1[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]"BRAIN" of the MANIFESTED
UNIVERSE[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"Occult philosophy reconciles the
absurdity of postulating in the manifested Universe an active
Mind without an organ, with that worse absurdity, an objective
Universe evolved as everything else in it, by blind chance, by
giving to this Universe an organ of thought, a "brain." The
latter, although not objective to our senses, is nonetheless
existing; it is to be found in the Entity called Kosmos (Adam
Kadmon, in the Kabala)." [PARA][PARA][TAB]"As in the Microcosm,
Man, so in the Macrocosm, of the Universe. Every "organ" in it
is a sentient entity, and every particle of matter or substance,
from the physical molecule up to the spiritual atom, is a cell, a
nerve center, which
communicates."[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]T A & N
208[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][TAB]MAN'S EGO -- ATMA-BUDDHI --
A RAY OF UNIVERSAL MIND[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"This is precisely
what occult philosophy claims: our Ego is a ray of the Universal
Mind, individualized for the space of a cosmic life-cycle, during
which space of time it gets experience in almost numberless
reincarnations or rebirths, after which it returns to its
Parent-Source.[PARA][PARA][TAB]"The Occultist would call the
"Higher Ego" the immortal Entity, whose shadow and reflection is
the human Manas, the mind, limited by its physical senses. The
two may be well compared to the Master-artist and the
pupil-musician. [PARA][PARA][TAB]"In the course of natural
evolution our "brain-mind" will be replaced by a finer organism,
and helped by the 6th and the 7th senses.[PARA][PARA][TAB]"The
"sensing principle" in us is an entity capable of acting outside
as inside its material body; and it is certainly independent of
any organ in particular, in its actions, although during its
incarnation it manifests itself through its physical
organs.[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]T A & N
208-9[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]MEMORY is impressed in IMPERISHABLE
WAVES OF ASTRAL LIGHT[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"Our "memory" is but
a general agent, and its "tablets," with their indelible
impressions, but a figure of speech; the "brain-tablets" serve
only as a upadhi or a vahan (basis or vehicle) for reflecting at
a given moment the memory of one or another thing. The records
of past events, of even minutest action, and of passing thoughts,
in fact, are really impressed on the imperishable waves of the
ASTRAL LIGHT, around us and everywhere, not in the brain alone;
and these mental pictures, images, and sounds, pass from these
waves via the consciousness of the personal Ego or Mind (the
lower Manas) whose grosser essence is astral, into the "cerebral
reflectors," so to say, or our brain, whence they are delivered
by the psychic to the sensuous consciousness. This at every
moment of the day, and even during sleep."[TAB][TAB]HPB
[TAB][TAB][TAB][PARA][TAB][TAB]FOOTNOTE IN LUCIFER THEOS ART &
NOTES, p. 208-9[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA]About H.P.B.
[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]W. Q. Judge:[TAB]"In 1875, in the City of
New York, I first met H.P.B. in this life...It was her eye that
attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives long
passed away. She looked at me in recognition at that first hour,
and never since has that look changed...Not as a questioner of
philosophies did I come before her...but as one, wandering many
periods through the corridors of life, was seeking the friends
who could show where the designs for the work had been hidden.
And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once
again, and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed then out
and went on with the task. It was as if but the evening before
we had parted, leaving yet to be done some detail of a task taken
up with one common end; it was teacher and pupil, elder brother
and younger, both bent on the one single end, but she with the
power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and
sages.[PARA][PARA][TAB]Others I know have looked with suspicion
on an appearance they could not fathom, and though it is true
they adduce many proofs which hugged to the breast, would damn
sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness they failed to
see the lion's glance, the diamond heart of H.P.B...she was
laying down the lines of force all over the
land...[PARA][PARA][TAB]The explanation has been offered by some
too anxious friends that the earlier phenomena were mistakes in
judgment, attempted to be rectified in later years by confining
their area and limiting their number, but...I shall hold to her
own explanation made in advance and never changed. That I have
given above. For it is easier to take refuge behind a charge of
bad judgment than to understand the strange and powerful laws
which control in matters such as these.[PARA][PARA][TAB]Amid all
the turmoil of her life, above all the din produced by those who
charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while
month after month, and year after year, witnessed men and women
entering the theosophical movement only to leave it soon with
malignant phrases for H.P.B., there stands a fact we all might
consider--devotion absolute to her Master. "It was He," she
writes, "who told me to devote myself to this, and I will never
disobey and never turn back."...[PARA][PARA][TAB]...she ever was
devoted to Theosophy and the Society organized to carry out a
programme embracing the world in its scope. Willing in the
service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation, life
itself, provided the Society might be saved from every hurt,
whether small or great. And thus bound body and soul to this
entity called the T. S., bound to protect it at all hazards, and
in the face of every loss, she often incurred the resentment of
many who became her friends but would not always care for the
infant organization as she had sworn to do. And when they acted
as it opposed to the Society, her instant opposition seemed to
them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but few
friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged with personal
feeling, to see even a small part of the real
H.P.Blavatsky...[PARA][PARA][TAB]She worked under directors who,
operating from behind the scene, knew that the T. S. was, and was
to be, the nucleus from which help might be spread to all the
people of the day, without thanks and without acknowledgment...I
asked her what was the chance of drawing people into the
Society...she said:--"When you consider those days in 1875 and
after, in which you could not find any people interested in your
thoughts, and now look at the wide-spreading influence of
theosophical ideas--however labeled--[TAB][PARA]it is not so bad.
WE are not working that people may call themselves Theosophists,
but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole
mind of this century. This alone can be accomplished by a small
earnest band of workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly
recognition, but who, supported and sustained by a belief in that
Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part, work
steadily, faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for
consideration the doctrines of life and duty that have come down
to us from immemorial time. Falter not so long as a few devoted
ones will work to keep the nucleus existing. You were not
directed to found and realise a Universal Brotherhood, but to
form the nucleus for one; for it is only when the nucleus it
formed that the accumulations can begin that will end in future
years, however far, in the formation of that body which we have
in view."[PARA][PARA][TAB]H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the
work traced out for her she had a lion's grasp, let us...sustain
ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on the
trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the
consciousness that behind her task stood, and still remain, those
Elder Brothers who, above the clatter and the din of our battle,
ever see the end and direct the forces distributed in array for
the salvation of "that great orphan--Humanity."[TAB][TAB]W. Q.
Judge[TAB][PARA] Yours till Death and After, H.P.B..." Judge
Articles, II p. 1[PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB][PARA][TAB]"...in 1875
she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would draw
upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted
misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in
the face of this her lion heart carried her on...Much has been
said of her "phenomena," some denying them, others alleging trick
and device. Knowing her for so many years so well, and having
seen at her hands in private the production of more and more
varied phenomena that it has been the good fortune of all others
of her friends put together to seem I know for myself that she
had control of hidden powerful laws of nature not known to our
science, and I also know that she never boasted of her powers,
never advertised their possession, never publicly advised anyone
to attempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those
who could understand her to a life of altruism based on a
knowledge of true philosophy.[PARA][PARA][TAB]If the world thinks
that her days were spent in deluding her followers by pretended
phenomena, it is solely because her injudicious friends, against
her expressed wish, gave out wonderful stories of her "miracles"
which can not be proved to a skeptical public and which are not
the aim of the Society nor were ever more than mere incidents in
the life of H.P.Blavatsky.[PARA][PARA][TAB]Her aim was to elevate
the race. Her method was to deal with the mind of the century as
she found it, by trying to lead it on step by step; to seek out
and educate a few who, appreciating the majesty of the Secret
Science and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity," could carry
on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose
efforts--however small itself might be--would inject into the
thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of
the Wisdom Religion, so that when the next century shall have
seen its 75th years the new messenger coming again into the world
would find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast,
the nomenclature ready to give expression and body to the
immutable truth, and thus to make easy the task which for her
since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with obstacles in
the very paucity of the language--obstacles harder than all else
to work against."[TAB][TAB]W. Q. Judge[PARA] "H.P.B.--A
Lion-hearted Colleague Passes" WQJ Articles II p.
5[PARA][PARA][PARA][PARA][TAB]"This article is meant for members
of the T.S...Those members who believe that such beings as the
Masters may exist must come to one of two conclusions in regard
to H.P.B.: either that she invented her Masters, who therefore
have no real existence, or that she did not invent them but spoke
in the names and by the orders of such beings.[PARA][PARA][TAB]If
we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often
was said by her, all that she has taught and written is the
product of her own brain, from which we would be bound to
conclude that her position on the roll of great and powerful
persons must be higher than people have been willing to place
her.[PARA][PARA][TAB]But I take it most of us believe in the
truth of her statement that she had those teachers whom she
called Masters and that they are more powerful beings than
ordinary men.[PARA][PARA][TAB]The case I wish to deal with...is
this: H.P.B. and her relations to the Masters and to us; her
books and teachings; the general question of disciples and
chelas...Chelas and disciples are of many grades, and some of the
Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts...[they are
those who have] devoted himself or herself to the service of
mankind and the pursuit of knowledge of the Self...[Some] have
gained through knowledge and discipline those powers over mind,
matter, space, and time which to us are the glittering prizes of
the future...So much being laid down, we may next ask how we are
to look at H.P.B.[PARA][PARA][TAB]...every one has the right to
place her if he pleases for himself on the highest plane...But
taking her own sayings, she was a chela or disciple of the
Masters, and therefore stood in relation to them as one who might
be chided or corrected or reproved. She called them her Masters,
and asseverated a devotion to their behests and a respect and
confidence in and for their utterances which the chelas has
always for one who is high enough to be his
Master.[PARA][PARA][TAB]But looking at her powers exhibited to
the world, and as to which one of her Masters wrote that they had
puzzled and astonished the brightest minds of the age, we see
that compared with ourselves she was an
Adept...[PARA][PARA][TAB]...Subba Row [said to the writer] in
1884: "The Mahatmas are in fact some of the great Rishis and
Sages of the past, and people have been too much in the habit of
lowering them to the petty standard of this age." But with this
reverence for her teachers she had for them at the same time a
love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates
her chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants
us in deciding that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment
of her.[PARA][PARA][TAB]Now some Theosophist ask if there are
other letters extant from her Masters in which she is called to
account, is called their chela, and is chided now and then,
besides those published. Perhaps yes. And what of it ? Let
them be published by all means, and let us have the full and
complete record of all letters sent during her life; those put
forward as dated after her death will count for naught...since
the Masters do not indulge in any criticisms on the disciples who
have gone from earth. As she has herself published letters and
parts of letters from the Masters to her in which she is called a
chela and is chided, it certainly matte if we know of others of
the same sort.[PARA][PARA][TAB]For over against all such we have
common sense, and also the declarations of her Masters that she
was the sole instrument possible for the work to be done, that
They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general all she
did. And she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge,
and the only one to date through which came the objective
presence of the Adepts. We cannot ignore the messenger, take the
message, and laugh at or give scorn to the one who brought it to
us. There is nothing new in the idea that letters are still
unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and there is
no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that not
a single such letter has anything in it putting her below us;
she must ever remain the greatest of the
chelas...[PARA][PARA][TAB]There only remains...the position taken
by some and without a knowledge of the rules governing these
matters, that chelas sometimes write messages claimed to be from
the Masters when they are not. this is an artificial position
not supportable by law or rule. It is due to ignorance of what
is and is not chelaship, and also to confusion between grades in
discipleship. It has been used as to H.P.B. The false
conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high
grade may become accustomed to dictation by the Master and then
may fall into the false pretense of giving something from himself
and pretending it is from the Master. It is impossible. The
bond in her case was not of such a character to be dealt with
thus. One instance of it would destroy the possibility of any
more communication from the teacher. It may be quite true that
probationers now and then have imagined themselves as ordered to
say so and so, but that is not the case of an accepted and high
chela who is irrevocably pledged...This idea, then, ought to be
abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what
must be the case when such relations are established as existed
between H.P.B. and her
Masters."[TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB][TAB]W. Q. Judge[PARA]
"Masters, Adepts, Teachers and Disciples"[TAB]WQJ Art. II p.
9[PARA][PARA][PARA]

-----Original Message-----[NL]From: Bruce F. MacDonald
[PARA][NL]Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 11:18 AM[NL]To:
[PARA][NL]Subject: Solstice/Christmas/Nirmanakaya


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