Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00045)

LEON:

"The Voice of the Silence" is dedicated "To the Few."

But in a way, what is even more significant, is that it is "TRANSLATED AND
ANNOTATED BY "H.P.B."", rather than by H.P.Blavatsky, or by H.P.B.  It is
...by "H.P.B."

And in H.P.B's own copy of "The Voice of the Silence", she inscribes it:

"H.P.B. to H.P.Blavatsky
with *no* kind regards."

So to put forward the opinion that it is alright to make changes in "The
Voice of the Silence", because of the nature of the work, but not in any of
other of H.P.B's works, doesn't really add up?

"H.P.B." points inwards.

You mention dried palm leaves.

On the first page of the PROEM it is:

"AN Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to
water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the
writer's eye." (rather than eyes).
For example, HPB may be seeing the palm leaves in the akasa, they are
impermeable to water, fire, and air. There is no sense of dry about these
palm leaves.

So why shouldn't "thin oblong squares" be seen in a similar kind of light,
but making the suitable adjustments to this situation?  The whole point is
that it is not "thin oblongs", that is just what it is not.

Does H.P.B. sign any of her other works "H.P.B."?

What does H.P.B. mean when she writes:

"H.P.B. to H.P.Blavatsky
with *no* kind regards."

In the INTRODUCTORY to "The Secret Doctrine" H.P.B. writes:
Lao-tse: "He is said to have written 930 books on Ethics and religions, and
seventy on magic, one thousand in all. His great work, however, the heart of
his doctrine, the "Tao-te-King," or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has
in it, as Stanislas Julien shows, only "about 5,000 words" (Tao-te-King, p.
xxvii.), hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Muller finds that "the
text is unintelligible without commentaries...""

This, with the text that follows in the SD (but is not quoted here) says
many things, but the point here being stressed is that his great work, the
heart of his doctrine was a very short work.

Is'nt it also possible, in the case of "H.P.B.", that "The Voice of the
Silence" is also "her" great work, which makes it all the more reason for
not altering it (rather than making it the exception for altering as you
do)?

Tony



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