Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00059)

Sunday, April 08, 2001



No. 2

Some Further Extracts from LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

By William Q. Judge
Volume 1 compiled by Jasper Niemand;

The Letters in Volume 1 originally appeared in The Path, December
1888 to March 1890. W. Q. Judge first published them in book form
in 1891,
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SOME EXTRACTS


>From Volume 1

"Seeking for freedom I go to that God who is the light of his own
thoughts. A man who knows him truly passes over death; there is
no other path to go." -- Upanishads

"We need a literature, not solely for highly intellectual
persons, but of a more simple character, which attempts to appeal
to ordinary common-sense minds who are really fainting for such
moral and mental assistance as is not reached by the more
pretentious works."

JASPER SAID:

The experience of one student is, on the whole, the experience of
all. Details differ, however.


Some are made more instantly rich than others: they are those who
put forth more vigorous and generous effort; or they have a
Karmic store which brings aid.


Karma, or the law of spiritual action and reaction, decided this,
as it works on all the planes, physical, moral, mental,
psychical, and spiritual alike. Our Karma may be worked out on
any one of these planes when our life is chiefly concentrated
upon it,.


The letters, in the hope that they may assist others, are here
published. They are hints given by one who knew that the first
need of a student is to learn how to think.


The true direction is pointed out, and the student is left to
clarify his own perceptions, to draw upon and enlarge his own
intuitions, and to develop, by his own inward exertions.
Such students have passed the point where their external
environment can affect their growth favorably. They may learn
from it, but the time has also come to resist it and turn to the
internal adjustment to higher relations only.


The brevity of these letters should not mislead. Every statement
in them is a statement of law. They point to causes of which life
is an effect. That life, arising from the action of Spirit in
Nature, is that which we must understand. It is to be manifested
within us before we can advance on the Path.


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Letter 2

My Dear Brother:

Your last letter has been read with much pleasure. It is quite
rare to find one willing to enter this movement on the basis you
have laid down for yourself. And before yours of today, I fell to
thinking about you and wondering whether a future of power, a
brilliancy of knowledge, was not your aspiration, and what effect
certain occurrences would have upon that.

It is true, we must aspire ardently, and blessed is the one who,
after the first aspiration, is wise enough to see the Truth.

Three qualities forever encompass us: Satwa (truth and
stability), Rajas (action, war, aspiration, ambition), Tamas
(indifference, ignorance, darkness).

None may be ignored. So the path lies from Tamas, up through war,
ambition, and aspiration, to Satwa, or truth and stability. We
are now in Rajasika regions, sometimes lifting our fingers up to
the hem of the garment of Satwa, ever aspiring, ever trying to
purify our thoughts and free ourselves from the attachment to
action and objects. So, of course, the ardent student naturally
aspires for power. This is wise. But he must soon begin to see
what he must do for real progress. For continual aspiration for
power merely is sure to sow for us the giant weed of self, which
is the "Giant" spoken of in Light on the Path.

As to the Theosophical Society, all should be admitted, for we
can refuse no one. If this is a Universal Brotherhood, we can
make no distinctions; but we can put ourselves right in the
beginning by seeing that people do not enter with mistaken
notions of what we have.

And yet with all our precautions, how often we find persons who
are not really sincere themselves judging us by their standard,
unbelieving in our sincerity. They enter; they find that each
must study for himself and that no guides are told off to reach
one; then they are disgusted. They forget that "the kingdom of
heaven must be taken by violence."

We have also had to suffer from our friends. People who have
joined us in secret; they have stood idly by, waiting for the
Cause to get strong or to get fashionable, and leaving all the
hard fighting to be done by a few earnest ones who defied the
hosts of Materialism and of Conventionality. Had they spoken for
their Cause, more earnest people would long ago have heard of the
movement, instead of being kept away until now, like yourself,
for want of knowledge that it existed.

You will find that other members care for nothing but Theosophy,
and are yet forced by circumstances to work in other fields as
well. What moments they have left are devoted to the Cause, and
in consequence they have no unoccupied hours; each moment, day
and evening, is filled up, and therefore they are happy. Yet they
are unhappy that they cannot give their entire working time to
the Cause in which some have been from the beginning. They feel,
a burning desire within them to get these truths to the ears of
all men. They are truths, and you are in the right path.

In America it is as easy to find the Light of Lights as in India,
but all around you are those who do not know these things, who
never heard of them, and yet many of our fellow members are only
anxious to study for their own benefit.

Sometimes, if it were not for my reliance on those Great Beings
who beckon me ever on, I would faint, and, leaving these people
to themselves, rush off into the forest. So many people like
Theosophy, and yet they at once wish to make it select and of
high tone. It is for all men. It is for the common people, who
are ever with us. Others, again, come in and wait like young
birds for food to be put into them: they will not think, and ages
must pass before they will progress.

You'll please think all the thoughts you will of me, but do not
place me on any pinnacle: that's all I meant. A constant
endeavor towards perfecting the mere mortal machine is folly.
Thereby we sometimes fail to live up to our own intuitions. This
habit goes on for some time, but will get weaker as other senses
(inner ones) begin to appear. Yet know the new fully before being
off with the old.

Inasmuch as we learn almost solely from each other -- as we are
all here for each other -- the question of the effect of
affinities upon our acts and thoughts is enormous and wide. It
anon saves us, and anon damns. For we may meet in our lives a
person who has a remarkable effect, either for good or ill,
because of the affinities engendered in past lives. And now our
eyes are open, we act today for the future.

That you may pass beyond the sea of darkness, I offer you my life
and help.

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