Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00041)

Dear Friends,
 
Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater created  their own and falsely idealized version of discipleship. 
 
According to Leadbeater and his followers,  individual autonomy is to be left aside, while an extreme physical cleanliness is of great “occult” importance.
 
The “bishop”  was slightly obsessive about that, and in “At the Feet of  the Master” this recommendation is made to all aspirants to discipleship: 
 
“The body is your  animal – the horse upon which you ride. Therefore (....) you must feed it properly on pure food and drink only, and keep it strictly clean always, even from the minutest speak of dirt.  For without a perfectly clean and healthy body you cannot do the arduous work of preparation, you cannot bear its ceaseless strain.” (1)  
 
Note the words “stricly clean always”. 
 
If we were to believe Leadbeater’s fancies, we should think  that without this condition  no discipleship is possible.   Yet, what do the Masters themselves say about personal hygiene at the physical plane? 
 
In the “Mahatma Letters”,  an Adept explains to Mr. Sinnett: 
 
“Our best, most learned, and holiest 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.”  (2) 
 
Here the word ‘Singh’  is a mystical/symbolical name referring to the  Mahatma who writes the letter.  The word is part of  his signature, at the end of  the text. As to the metaphorical  link made between the Mahatma and ‘lions’, it lies in that  the  word ‘Singh’ literaly means ‘lion’ in sanskrit.   
 
Hence we may conclude that  true  Adepts are often physically “greasy” and “dirty”, according to the specific material conditions in which  they live,  and the degree of ascetism they observe. 
 
Their true, not fancied,  disciples in the East  sometimes refuse to present themselves in clean  clothes or  with some “western urban appearance”, as the Mahatma narrates in the same letter.   
 
In fact, one of his chelas refused to deliver a letter to Alfred Sinnett, because H.P.B. had asked him to present himself with a cleaner personal appearance, in order not to offend Mr. Sinett’s Western prejudices about “dirty people”.  
 
The Master explains to Sinnett that  the young disciple would not accept acting like the  chelas of unlegitimate and rival  sects,  which do recommend physical cleanliness ( see p. 16 in TUP edition).    
 
The episode shows not only that both Masters and disciples do not pay attention to physical cleanliness or  dirtiness,  but it also shows how a true Master entirely preserves the autonomy of a disciple, who is therefore entitled to have and to keep his own prejudices AGAINST  physical cleanliness. 
 
The Master even gives a Western example against the false priority given to physical cleanliness: 
 
“Prejudice and dead letter again. For over a thousand years, – says Michelet, – the Christian Saints never washed themselves!” (3)   
 
What is the real reason, then,  one may ask, for  Leadbeater recommending  such an “occult  phobia”  against  any small physical dirtiness –  something which is much more particularly radical than the generally accepted Western hygienic habits and prejudices?   
 
In his essay “Totem And Taboo”, Sigmund Freud offers us a psychiatrical explanation for that exaggeration.   
 
Such a phobia, he says,  is connected to compulsive neurosis.  And the father of Psychoanalysis testifies:  
 
“The most common  of these obsessive acts is washing with water (washing obsession).” (4) 
 
Discipleship or esoteric learning –  be it ‘regular’ or informal –  is an inner process. It is the opposite of what Leadbeater wrote about it. 
 
As we study the process of illusion-making in the history of the theosophical movement, we get to a deeper vision of the true teaching.  We see that it gradually leads the learner towards an ever greater self-responsibility,  and  far  away from subtle or gross ways of blind obedience. 
 
 
Best regards,  Carlos. 
 
 
 
NOTE:
 
(1) “At The Feet of the Master”,  by Alcyone, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL, USA, Pocketbook edition, 1984, 32 pp. See pages  9-10.  
 
(2) “The Mahatma Letters”, TUP, Pasadena, CA, USA, 1992, 494 pp., see Letter IV, first paragraph, p. 15-16.   In the Chronological Edition (Philippines TPH), Letter 5. 
 
(3) Same Letter, p. 16.
 
(4) “Totem and Taboo - Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics”,  by Sigmund Freud,  Dover Thrift Editions, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York, USA,  1998, 138 pp., see p. 25. 
 
 


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