Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00915)

Friends,

What about the secrecy which for 87 years surrounded the full text 
of the  1900 "last farewell" letter?

It was edited by C. Jinarajadasa in such a way that its published 
version excluded all sentences which were more directly to the 
point, which were stronger,  and clearly discussed the guiding 
principles of the Adyar Esoteric School. 

I see no major problem with keeping secrecy of those key sentences.

The key mistake was that the Adyar leaders and "Outer Heads" from 
1900 down to 2006 have never acted to openly  correct the mistakes 
anticipated and denounced in that letter.  They blindly ignore a 
message which they themselves say came from the Master.


Thanks to Jinarajadasa, the letter was not destroyed; it was at 
first partially published;  and its full text could be finally 
recovered and published in 1987 by Emmet Small.   

Probably KARMA HIMSELF wanted that. 


Regards,  Carlos. 






--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "carlosaveline" 
<carlosaveline@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Friends, 
>  
> The text of the ?1900 Letter to Annie Besant?, especially  those 
parts of it which were eliminated by C. Jinarajadasa in  his edition 
of the letter,  contain many severe and accurate warnings about 
future mistakes that Annie Besant should avoid.  Bud which she did 
didn't.    
>  
> The whole of  the Letter is in agreement with the general 
perspective followed by HPB/Masters students in the decades that 
followed, including the ULT after its start in 1909.   
>  
> Let?s compare what the full text of the 1900 Letter says, with 
what Annie Besant did. (1)  The Letter statements are in capital 
letters:
>  
> 1) ?IS THE WORSHIP  OF A NEW TRINITY MADE UP OF THE BLESSED M.,   
UPASIKA   AND YOURSELF TO TAKE THE PLACE OF EXPLODED CREEDS.  WE ASK 
NOT FOR THE WORSHIP OF OURSELVES.? 
>  
> In fact, in the following years the Adyar Society was transformed 
in a semi-Christian belief system, with a Masonry,  a Catholic 
Church with its priests and Bishops, and even a new Christ of its 
own making.  Dogmatic religions stopped to be criticized. The 
Masters were transformed in objects of emotional worship and blind 
belief.  
>  
> 2) ?THE DISCIPLE SHOULD IN NO WAY BE FETTERED. BEWARE OF AN 
ESOTERIC POPERY.? 
>  
> Annie Besant did exactly what the Letter?s author told her not to 
do. She created the illusion that the leaders of the Adyar Society 
were clairvoyant, and that they could consult the Masters at any 
time, thus being able to avoid making any mistakes. As we know, 
Popes are supposed (by their followers)  to be infallible.  
The ?logic result? of such a popish  infallibility was that everyone 
should obey Annie Besant blindly. Thus an ?Esoteric Popery? emerged, 
with its own ?apostolic succession?. 
>  
> 3) THE INTENSE DESIRE TO SEE UPASIKA REINCARNATE AT ONCE HAS 
RAISED A MISLEADING  MAYAVIC IDEATION.  UPASIKA HAS USEFUL  WORK TO 
DO ON HIGHER PLANES AND CANNOT COME AGAIN SO SOON. 
>  
> By then, Annie Besant had started to create a collective 
expectation  that  H.P.B.  was coming back as  the little daughter 
of G. N. Chakravarti. In fact, that was the starting point for a  
neotheosophical version of the ?myth of the divine child?. 
>  
> The 1900 letter  did grant some peace to HPB?s soul  in its 
afterdeath process. The hysteria about her ?Second Coming? was 
immediately abandoned.  Yet the neochristian  myth of  the ?divine 
child? would soon come back in a most unfortunate  way  through C. 
W . Leadbeater?s false clairvoyance, with the presentation of the 
boy Jiddu Krishnamurti as the future ?Christ?. The consequences of 
such a myth of the ?divine child? ended by bringing shame upon the 
Adyar Society and provoking several scandals of which C.W. 
Leadbeater was always the centre.   
>  
> 4) ?YOU HAVE FOR SOME TIME BEEN UNDER DELUDING INFLUENCES.?
>  
> This includes the influences which had made Annie Besant persecute 
William Judge in 1894-95, that had made her  join the mediumnistic 
group of Mr. Sinnett?s ?inner circle? (which promoted false contacts 
with the Masters), and that made her follow G. N. Chakravarti?s 
leadership.    
>  
> 5) ?SHUN PRIDE, VANITY AND LOVE OF POWER.? 
>  
> In the following years Annie Besant concentrated all power in her 
hands. She was the President of the T.S., the Head of  the Esoteric 
School, the leader of  Co-Masonic groups, the responsible for the 
Egyptian Rite, etc. 
>  
> Yet she depended on C.W. Leadbeater?s ?clairvoyance?  to take 
every real decision.  CWL dominated her because of her  vanity and 
love for power. 
>  
> 6) ?BE NOT GUIDED BY EMOTION BUT LEARN TO STAND ALONE.  BE 
ACCURATE AND CRITICAL RATHER THAN CREDULOUS. THE MISTAKES OF THE 
PAST IN THE OLD RELIGIONS MUST NOT BE GLOSSED OVER WITH IMAGINARY 
EXPLANATIONS.  THE E.S.T. MUST BE REFORMED SO AS TO BE AS 
UNSECTARIAN AND CREEDLESS AS THE T.S.   THE RULES MUST BE SIMPLE AND 
ACCEPTABLE TO ALL.? 
>  
> In  fact, the T. S. was reformed so as to become so sectarian and 
blind as the E. S.T.,  and not the other way around. 
>  
> Annie Besant did not learn to stand alone and used emotional  
worship to get more personal power. 
>  
> The Adyar movement became a complicated, bureaucratic, ritualistic 
belief-system,  under the cover of liberty of  thought.  As to the 
reference to the ?errors of the old religions?, the sentence  is a 
clear vindication of the ?Prayag Letter?, a message from the Masters 
received through H.P.B.,  whose  authenticity was publically denied 
by H. S. Olcott but which now is part of the ?Mahatma Letters to 
A.P.  Sinnett? as edited by the Adyar TPH (Letter  134, non-
chronological editions, or Letter 30, chronological edition).  
William Judge had openly defended the authenticity of that letter  
in his New York magazine THE PATH (March 1895, p. 430, and  June 
1895, p. 81).  The 1900 Letter mentions the same idea and underlines 
the importance of discussing the mistakes of  all dogmatic 
religions.  Something which Besant and Leadbeater, of  course, never 
did.   
>  
> 7) ?WE NEVER TRY TO SUBJECT TO OURSELVES THE WILL OF ANOTHER. AT 
FAVOURABLE TIMES  WE LET LOOSE ELEVATING INFLUENCES WHICH STRIKE 
VARIOUS PERSONS IN VARIOUS WAYS.   IT IS THE COLLECTIVE ASPECT OF 
MANY SUCH THOUGHTS THAT CAN  GIVE THE CORRECT NOTE OF ACTION.? 
>  
> This is a precious bit of advice for the next decades and 
centuries. In 1900, it was also a prophecy. It was an announcement 
that the days of  verbal and visual contact with  the Mahatmas were 
over, but  that an  inner contact was still possible at a subtle 
level.  These sentences were unduly despised by A. Besant, who 
preferred her own clairvoyant fancies about Initiations and verbal 
contacts with Masters.  Right now,  these same sentences may reveal 
to us the middle way between two equally mayavic extremes: one, the 
idea that the Masters are completely out of touch,  or that  they do 
not exist; the other, that they can be contacted in  any visual or 
verbal way, or by lower personalities.   
>  
> 8) ?MISLEADING SECRECY HAS GIVEN THE DEATH BLOW TO NUMEROUS 
ORGANIZATIONS.  THE CANT ABOUT THE  ?MASTERS? MUST BE  SILENTLY BUT 
FIRMLY  PUT DOWN. LET THE DEVOTION AND SERVICE BE TO THAT SUPREME 
SPIRIT ALONE OF  WHICH EACH (2) ONE  IS A PART.? 
>  
> Annie Besant did exactly the opposite.  She used misleading 
secrecy as a power-mechanism, and so  she gave a death-blow to  most 
of Adyar Society as a spiritual level. She used the names of the 
Masters to justify her fancies, and she exacted personal devotion 
from theosophists to herself, in the name of the  Masters.   
>  
> 9)  ?YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE A GOOD DEAL OF YOUR EMOTIONS AND 
CREDULITY BEFORE YOU BECOME A SAFE GUIDE AMONG THE INFLUENCES THAT 
WILL COMMENCE   TO WORK IN THE NEW CYCLE.?        
>  
> Here the letter says, in an implicit yet clear way, that Annie 
Besant, as she was, could not be a safe guide. And she was not.   
The text also mentions ?the new cycle?, which constitutes an 
internal evidence of  its accuracy,  since H.P.B. had positively 
written --  apparently ?en passant? --  that the the new cycle, 
Aquarius Age,  would start in that year of 1900.  (3)   
>  
>  
>  
> O o o O o o O o o O  
>  
> Much more can be said about this controversial Letter.  Yet  a few 
things  seem to stand clear: 
>  
> 1) That the 1900  Letter  announces most mistakes Annie Besant 
would make in the 33 following years; 
>  
> 2) That the warning was not heard;  
>  
> 3) That anyone except a High Initiate would find it most difficult 
to foresee all  such mistakes in such a stern and  accurate way; 
>  
> 4) That being a ?last farewell? letter, it was issued in 1900, 
during the inaugural moments of  the Aquarius Age, and contains 
important hints for the movement as a whole in the decades and 
centuries ahead. 
>  
> 5) It is not coincidence that the full content of  the letter was 
only discovered in 1987, during the following ?end-of-century-
effort?; and not by a member of the Adyar Society, but by an 
independent student. Even now, Adyar leaders can?t comment or 
discuss  the full text of the Letter ? it is too  strong for them.  
>  
> Best regards,  Carlos Cardoso 
Aveline.                                       
>  
>  
> O o o O o o O o o O o o O  o o O  
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>