Theos-Talk Archives (May 2000 Message tt00081)

White Lotus Day 2000
"Bear Witness!":  WHO WAS THE REAL "H.P.B."?

Compiled by Daniel H. Caldwell

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A MIGHTY ADEPT USING THE OLD BODY CALLED H.P. BLAVATSKY

Almost 109 year ago, Julia Keightley (Jasper Niemand) had the following
experience:

"A few days after Madame Blavatsky died, H.P.B. awoke me at night.  I raised
myself, feeling no surprise, but only the sweet accustomed pleasure.  She
held my eyes with her leonine gaze.  Then she grew thinner, taller, her
shape became masculine;
slowly then her features changed, until a man of height and rugged powers,
stood before me, the last vestige of her features
melting into his, until the leonine gaze, the progressed radiance of her
glance alone remained.  The man lifted his head and said:  'Bear witness!'
He then walked from the room, laying his hand on the portrait of H.P.B. as
he passed." Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine, 1893,
p. 127.

Some two years earlier, James Pryse also had a remarkable encounter with
HPB:

"One evening [in 1889] while I was thus meditating the face of H. P. B.
flashed before me.  I recognized it from her portrait in
Isis, though it appeared much older.  Thinking that the astral picture, as I
took it to be, was due to some vagary of fancy, I tried to exclude it; but
at that the face showed a look of impatience, and instantly I was drawn out
of my body and immediately was standing "in the astral" beside H. P. B. in
London.  It was along toward morning there, but she was still seated at her
writing desk.  While she was speaking to me, very kindly, I could not help
thinking how odd it was that an apparently fleshy old lady should be an
Adept.  I tried to put that impolite thought out of my mind, but she read
it, and as if in answer to it her physical body became translucent,
revealing a marvellous inner body that looked as if it were formed of molten
gold.  Then suddenly the Master M. appeared before us in his mayavi-rupa.
To him I made profound obeisance, for he seemed to me more like a God than a
man.  Somehow I knew who he was, though this was the first time I had seen
him.  He spoke to me graciously and said, "I shall have work for you in six
months."  He walked to the further side of the room, waved his hand in
farewell and departed.  Then H. P. B. dismissed me with the parting words,
"God bless you," and directly I saw the waves of the Atlantic beneath me; I
floated down and dipped my feet in their crests.  Then with a rush I crossed
the continent till I saw the lights of Los Angles and returned to my body,
seated in the chair where I had left it. . . ."  Pryse, James Morgan.
"Memorabilia of H.P.B."  The Canadian Theosophist, March 15, 1935, pp. 1-5.

James Pryse wrote to William Q. Judge about his out-of-body experience and
"vision" of H.P.B.  Judge referred to these
experiences in his reply to Pryse dated Sep 3, 1889:

"My dear Pryse:

I have your letter, and fully appreciate your feelings as they resemble my
own.

I do not think your position is so strange or remarkable as to be beyond our
ken, nor do I look at your experiences as being
solely mediumistic, nor at the dream or vision as unsolvable. You are now
struggling with the personal self in the early stages,
and can consider yourself fortunate that you have the chance to overcome in
the initial battle. . . .

. . . . Your vision that when you looked at H P B and saw no old woman but a
God is correct. You were privileged to see the Truth --- For the Being in
that old body called H P Blavatsky is a mighty Adept working on his own plan
in the world. And
thus we do not need to go to Tibet or S. America to find the sort of Being
so many wish to see. Yet having seen the reality
better keep silent and work with that in view. For even did you go and tell
Him you knew He was there he would smile while
he waited for you to do something such as you could in your limited sphere.
For flattery counts not and professions are worse
than useless. But it is a great thing to see as much as you have, and a
greater thing it will be if you do not doubt for you may
never see it again. . . . " William Quan Judge, Practical Occultism,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/prac-oc/po10.htm

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TWO PERSONS IN MADAME BLAVATSKY

In a letter dated Feb. 23, 1887, HPB wrote to William Judge:

"Yes there are 'two persons' in me.  But what of that?  So are there two in
you; only mine is conscious & responsible & yours is not."  THE THEOSOPHICAL
FORUM, July 1932, p. 226

" 'Two persons' in me"?  What does that phrase mean?

In the Glossary appended to the 2nd edition of THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY, HPB
writes about the "two Egos in man":

"Esoteric philosophy teaches the existence of two Egos in man, the mortal or
personal, and the higher, the divine or impersonal, calling the former
'personality,' and the latter 'individuality.' "  (See entry on "Ego.")

In another glossary definition, HPB writes that "Individuality," is one "of
the names given in Theosophy and Occultism to the
human Higher Ego. We make a distinction between the immortal and divine and
the mortal human Ego. . . ."

Elsewhere in the glossary, we find this:

"The Individuality is the Higher Ego (Manas) of the Triad considered as a
Unity. In other words the Individuality is our
imperishable Ego which reincarnates and clothes itself in a new Personality
at every new birth."

Let us now give a number of statements by HPB in which she apparently refers
to the conscious Individuality within her:

"Do you believe that, because you have fathomed---as you think---my physical
crust and brain; that shrewd analyst of
*human* nature though you be---you have ever penetrated even beneath the
first cuticles of my REAL SELF ?  You would
gravely err, if you did...You DO NOT KNOW me;  for whatever there is INSIDE
it, is NOT WHAT YOU THINK it is;
and---to judge of me therefore, as of one UNTRUTHFUL is the greatest mistake
in the world besides being a flagrant
injustice.  I (the inner real "I") am in prison and cannot show myself as I
am with all the desire I may have to. Why, then, should I, because speaking
for myself AS I AM  and feel myself to be, why should I be held responsible
for the OUTWARD jail-door and ITS appearance, when I have neither built nor
yet decorated it ?"   Letter of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett, THE MAHATMA
LETTERS, 2nd ed., pp. 465-466.

". . .  I am enough of an occultist to know that before we find the Master
within our own hearts and seventh principle---we
need an outside Master....I got my drop from my Master (the living
one)....He is a Saviour, he who leads you to finding the
Master within yourself. . . . "  Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to Franz
Hartmann, THE PATH, VOLUME X, p. 367.

". . . I venerate the Masters, and worship MY MASTER---the sole creator of
my inner Self which but for His calling it out,
awakening it from its slumber, would never have come to conscious
being---not in this life, at all events..."   Letters of H.P.
Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett,  p. 104

"Several times a day I feel that besides me there is someone else, quite
separable from me, present in my body. I never lose the consciousness of my
own personality; what I feel is as if I were keeping silent and the other
one -- the lodger who is in me -- were speaking with my tongue. For
instance, I know that I have never been in the places which are described by
my 'other me', but this other one -- the second me -- does not lie when he
tells about places and things unknown to me, because he has actually seen
them and knows them well. I have given it up: let my fate conduct me at its
own sweet will; and besides, what am I to do? It would be perfectly
ridiculous if I were to deny the possession of knowledge avowed by my No. 2,
giving occasion to the people around me to imagine that I keep them in the
dark for modesty's sake. In the night, when I am alone in my bed, the whole
life of my No. 2 passes before my eyes, and I do not see myself at all, but
quite a different person -- different in race and different in feelings."
THE PATH, December 1894, http://sites.netscape.net/dhcblainfo/blavlet1.htm

"Do not be afraid that I am off my head. All that I can say is that someone
positively inspires me -- ..... more than this: someone enters me. It is not
I who talk and write: it is something within me, my higher and luminous
Self, that thinks and writes for me. Do not ask me, my friend, what I
experience, because I could not explain it to you clearly. I do not know
myself! The one thing I know is that now, when I am about to reach old age,
I have become a sort of storehouse of somebody else's knowledge... "

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IT IS SOMETHING WITHIN ME, MY HIGHER AND LUMNIOUS SELF,
THAT THINKS AND WRITES FOR ME.

Some students believe that HPB herself reveals that the mighty Adept using
the "H.P. Blavatsky" body was a Nirmanakaya.  In a letter dated Sept. 15,
1887, Madame Blavatsky writes Mr. Judge:

"Begin by being elected both of you [Judge and Elliott Coues] for a year,
and then if you are prepared to pledge yourselves
both for life - then affairs & events may be turned off by unseen powers
into such a groove that you will be unanimously
elected for life - just as Olcott & I were - to go on with the work after
our deaths. Do you understand what it means? It
means that unless you consent, you force me to a miserable life & a
miserable death with the idea preying on my mind that there is an end of
theosophy. That for several years I will not be able to help it on & stir
its course, because I will have to act in a body which will have to be
assimilated to the Nirmanakaya, because even in Occultism there are such
things as a failure, & a retardment, and a misfit. But you don't understand
me, I see."   http://sites.netscape.net/dhcblainfo/hpbwqj91587.htm

Here HPB writes that following her death "I will have to act in a body which
will have to be assimilated to the Nirmanakaya."
Since this assimilation can take years, she was concerned that "I will not
be able to help" the Theosophical cause and movement for that period of
time.

Here is what HPB writes in her glossary to the KEY TO THEOSOPHY about a
"Nirmanakaya":

". . . Occultism...says...that Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a
transformed "body," is a state. The form is that of the
Adept or Yogi who enters, or chooses, that post-mortem condition in
preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic
state. He does this because the latter Kaya separates him for ever from the
world of form, conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no
other living being can participate, the adept being thus precluded from the
possibility of helping humanity, or even devas. As a Nirmanakaya, however,
the adept leaves behind him only his physical body, and retains every other
"principle" save the Kamic, for he has crushed this out for ever from his
nature during life, and it can never resurrect in his post-mortem state.
Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of
self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life-cycle, in order
to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible, yet most effective, manner. .
. . Thus a Nirmanakaya
is...verily one who, whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a Yogi
during life, has since become a member of that
invisible Host which ever protects and watches over humanity within Karmic
limits. Mistaken often for a "Spirit," a Deva, God himself, &c., a
Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian, angel to
him who is worthy of his help...."

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WHO "INCARNATED" INTO THE BLAVATSKY BODY?

Let us first give two suggestive statements from the letters of Mahatma Koot
Hoomi that may shed some light on this question.

Referring to Madame Blavatsky, Master K.H. wrote:

"After nearly a century of fruitless search, our CHIEFS had to avail
themselves of the only opportunity to send out a European BODY upon European
soil to serve as a connecting link between that country and our own."  The
Mahatma Letters to A. P.
Sinnett, Letter No. 26, K.H.'s Confidential Memo about Old Lady [HPB].
Received Simla, Autumn, 1881.,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/mahatma/ml-26.htm  Caps added.

In another letter the Master wrote:

"The TCHANG-CHUB (an adept who has, by the power of his knowledge and soul
enlightenment, become exempt from the curse of UNCONSCIOUS
transmigration) --- may, at his will and desire, and instead of
reincarnating himself only after bodily death, do so, and repeatedly ---
during his life if he chooses. He holds the power of choosing for himself
NEW BODIES -- whether on this or any other planet --- while in possession of
his old form, that he generally preserves for purposes of his own." The
Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter No. 49,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/mahatma/ml-49.htm Caps added to "new
bodies".

Madame Blavatsky also wrote a very interesting and suggestive remark in
LUCIFER:

"It had also escaped him [A.P. Sinnett] for the moment, no doubt, that among
the group of Initiates to which his [Sinnett's] own mystical correspondent
[Koot Hoomi] is allied, are two [Initiates] of  European race, and that one
[Initiate] who is that
Teacher's [Koot Hoomi's] SUPERIOR is also of that origin [European], being
half a Slavonian in his 'present incarnation,' as
he himself wrote to Colonel Olcott in New York. "  Lucifer, October, 1888,
p. 173; reprinted in H.P.B.'s COLLECTED
WRITINGS, Volume X, p. 153  Caps added.

This is a quite fascinating statement by HPB that Koot Hoomi's Superior was
of European origin and was "half a Slavonian in
his 'present incarnation.' "  HPB also tells us that this latter information
was conveyed to Colonel Olcott in New York in a letter written by the Adept
Superior.

The anonymous author of THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT (1925 edition, p 378) pens
a valuable suggestion about this passage:

"Just why H.P.B. should put the phrase 'present incarnation' in quotes is
worth some intuitional effort, as is also the fact that
'H.P.B.' was herself precisely and exactly 'half a Slavonian' in her then
'present incarnation.' "

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WHO WAS KH'S SUPERIOR WHO WAS EUROPEAN
AND HALF A SLAVONIAN IN HIS "PRESENT INCARNATION"?

Pursuing this intuitional effort, let us examine some other primary sources.

A.P. Sinnett had a remarkable encounter with the Master K.H.  Sinnett wrote
in a brief note of the experience:

"I saw K.H. in astral form on the night of 19th of October, 1880, --- waking
up for a moment but immediately afterwards being rendered unconscious again
(in the body) and conscious out of the body in the adjacent dressing-room
where I saw another of the Brothers afterwards identified with one called
'Serapis' by Olcott, --- 'the youngest of the chohans.' "  THE MAHATMA
LETTERS, Letter No. 3a in the first three editions.

Some four years later, while William Judge was in London and on a visit to
Mr. Sinnett's home, the following interesting
conversation ensued.  Mr. Judge wrote:

"I asked him [A.P. Sinnett] about his sight of K.H. and he related thus:
'He was lying in his bed in India one night [see above], when suddenly
awakening, he found K.H. standing by his bed.  He rose half up, when K.H.
put his hand on his head, causing him to fall at once back on the pillow.
He then, he says, found himself out of the body, and in the next room,
talking to another adept whom he describes as an English or European, with
light hair, fair, and of great beauty.  This is the one [adept] Olcott
described to me in 1876 and called by name -------.  Please erase that when
read. . . . S[innett] says he [the European adept] is very high. . . ."
LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME, ULT edition, p. 196.

Notice that this adept called Serapis is described as "English or European,
with light hair, fair, and of great beauty."

Was Serapis therefore K.H.'s SUPERIOR who came with KH to visit Mr. Sinnett?

In 1883, Colonel Olcott was healing people with his mesmeric "power".  He
relates the following experience:

"On the day in question, while under treatment for his eyes, upon which
business my thoughts were closely concentrated,
[Badrinath Babu, the patient] . . . suddenly began describing a shining man
whom he saw looking benevolently on him.  His
clairvoyant sight, had, it seemed, become partially developed, and what he
saw was through closed eyelids.  From the minute
description he then proceeded to give me, I could not fail to recognise the
portrait of one of the most revered of our Masters. . . .
.[Badrinath]...described to me an individual with blue eyes, light flowing
hair, light beard, and European features and
complexion. . . . The description...fitted accurately a real personage, the
Teacher of our Teachers [KH and M.], a PARAMAGURU, as one such is called in
India, and who had given me a small colored sketch of himself in New York,
before we left for Bombay. . . ." OLD DIARY LEAVES, Volume III, 430-1

It is on record that the Master Serapis gave Colonel Olcott "a small colored
sketch of himself in New York."  See Letters from the Masters of Wisdom,
Series II.

Concerning Colonel Olcott's mesmeric healing, Master Koot Hoomi wrote to
A.P. Sinnett:

"This [healing] is all done thro' the power of a lock of hair sent by our
beloved younger Chohan to H. S. O."

This is KH's annotation to a newspaper article titled "CURES EFFECTED BY
COLONEL OLCOTT IN CALCUTTA BY
MESMERIC PASSES" that was published in the Calcutta INDIAN MIRROR. See The
Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P.
Sinnett, Appendix III,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-aps/bl-ap3.htm

Confirmation that the SUPERIOR or MASTER of both KH and M  was Serapis is
again found in this statement by Henry
Olcott:

"One of the greatest of them, the Master of the two Masters [KH and M] about
whom the public has heard. . . . , wrote me on June 22, 1875:

'The time is come to let you know who I am.  I am not a disembodied spirit,
Brother, I am a living man; gifted with such powers by our Lodge as are in
store for  yourself some day.  I cannot be with you otherwise than in
spirit, for thousands of miles separate us at present. . . . .' "  OLD DIARY
LEAVES, Volume I, p. 237.

Koot Hoomi's SUPERIOR is further mentioned in a letter of HPB's:

"K. H. or Koot-Hoomi is now gone to sleep for three months to prepare during
this Sumadhi or continuous trance state for his initiation, the last but
one, when he will become one of the highest adepts.  Poor K. H. his body is
now lying cold and stiff in a separate square building of stone with no
windows or doors in it, the entrance to which is effected through an
underground passage from a door in Toong-ting (reliquary, a room situated in
every Thaten (temple) or Lamisery; and his Spirit is quite free.  An adept
might lie so for years, when his body was carefully prepared for it
beforehand by mesmeric passes etc.  It is a beautiful spot where he is now
in the square tower.  The Himalayas on the right and a lovely lake near the
lamisery.  His Cho-han (spiritual instructor, master, and the Chief of a
Tibetan Monastery) takes care of his body.  M[orya] also goes occasionally
to visit him. . . .

"Now Morya lives generally with Koot-Hoomi who has his house in the
direction of the Kara Korum Mountains, beyond
Ladak, which is in Little Tibet and belongs now to Kashmire.  It is a large
wooden building in the Chinese fashion pagoda-like, between a lake and a
beautiful mountain. . . . They come out very rarely.  But they can project
their astral forms anywhere."  Letter from H. P. B. to Mrs. Hollis Billings,
Simla. Oct. 2. 1881.  The Theosophical Forum (Point Loma, California), May
1936, pp. 343-346,
http://sites.netscape.net/dhcblainfo/hpbhollisbillings.htm

>From the above material, it would appear that Serapis, one of the Chiefs or
Chohans of the Occult Brotherhood, was the
SUPERIOR or TEACHER of both Master KH and Master M.  Furthermore, Serapis
being a Nirmanakaya had taken on his "present incarnation" using the "old
body" called H.P. Blavatsky as a instrument for his "life of
self-sacrifice." These insights help us to understand more fully the
significance of KH's words about H.P. Blavatsky:

"After nearly a century of fruitless search, our CHIEFS had to avail
themselves of the only opportunity to send out a European
BODY upon European soil to serve as a connecting link. . . . "




















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