Theos-Talk Archives (June 2001 Message tt00083)

LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME

12 LETTER 12 -- On Discipleship (Chelaship)


By William Q. Judge

Volume 1 compiled by Jasper Niemand: -- Letter 12

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."

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 12

Re: Chelaship (Discipleship)


Dear Jasper:


There are so many questioners who ask about Chelaship that
your letter comes quite apropos to experiences of my own. You say
that these applicants must have some answer, and in that I agree
with you.

And whether they are ready or unready, we must be able
to tell them something. But generally they are not ready, nor,
indeed, are they willing to take the first simple step which is
demanded. I will talk the matter over with you for your future
guidance in replying to such questions; perhaps also to clear up
my own mind.

The first question a man should ask himself (and by "man" we mean
postulants of either sex) is: "When and how did I get a desire to
know about chelaship and to become a chela?" and secondly, "What
is a chela, and what is chelaship?"

There are many sorts of chelas. There are lay chelas and
probationary ones; accepted chelas and those who are trying to
fit themselves to be even lay chelas.

Any person can constitute himself a lay chela, feeling sure that
he may never in this life consciously hear from his guide.

Then as to probationary chelas, there is an invariable rule that
they go upon seven years' trial. These "trials" do not refer to
fixed and stated tests, but to all the events of life and the
bearing
of the probationer in them.

There is no place to which applicants can be referred where their
request could be made, because these matters do not relate to
places and to officials: this is an affair of the inner nature.

We become chelas; we obtain that position in reality because our
inner nature is to that extent opened that it can and will take
knowledge: we receive the guerdon at the hands of the Law.

In a certain sense every sincere member of the Theosophical
Society is in the way of becoming a chela, because the Masters do
some of Their work with and for humanity through this Society,
selected by Them as Their agent.

And as all Their work and aspiration are to the end of helping
the
race, no one of Their chelas can hope to remain (or become) such,
if any selfish desire for personal possessions of spiritual
wealth
constitutes the motive for trying to be a chela. Such a motive,
in the
case of one already a chela, acts instantly to throw him out of
the
ranks, whether he be aware of his loss or not, and in the case of
one trying to become a chela it acts as a bar.

Nor does a real chela spread the fact that he is such. For this
Lodge
is not like exoteric societies which depend upon favor or mere
outward appearances.

It is a real thing with living Spirit -- men at its head,
governed by
laws that contain within themselves their own executioners, and
that do not require a tribunal, nor accusations, nor verdicts,
nor
any notice whatever.

As a general thing a person of European or American birth has
extreme difficulty to contend with. He has no heredity of
psychical development to call upon; no known assembly of Masters
or Their chelas within reach. His racial difficulties prevent him
from easily seeing within himself; he is not introspective by
nature. But even he can do much if he purifies his motive, and
either naturally possesses or cultivates an ardent and
unshakeable faith and devotion.

A faith that keeps him a firm believer in the existence of
Masters even through years of non-intercourse. They are generous
and honest debtors and always repay. How They repay, and when, is
not for us to ask.

Men may say that this requires as blind devotion as was ever
asked
by any Church. It does, but it is a blind devotion to Masters who
are
Truth itself; to Humanity and to yourself, to your own intuitions
and ideals.

This devotion to an ideal is also founded upon another thing, and
that
is that a man is hardly ready to be a chela unless he is able to
stand
alone and uninfluenced by other men or events, for he must stand
alone, and he might as well know this at the beginning as at the
end.

There are also certain qualifications which he must possess.
These are to be found in Man: Fragments of Forgotten History
towards the close of the book, so we will not dwell upon them
here.

The question of the general fitness of applicants being disposed
of, we come to the still more serious point of the relations of
Guru and Chela, or Master and Disciple. We want to know what it
really is to be a pupil of such a Teacher.

The relation of Guru and Chela is nothing if it is not a
spiritual
one. Whatever is merely outward, or formal, as the relation
established by mere asking and acceptance, is not spiritual, but
formal, and is that which arises between teacher and pupil. Yet
even this latter is not in any way despicable, because the
teacher
stands to his pupil, in so far forth as the relation permits, in
the
same way as the Guru to his chela.

It is a difference of degree, but this difference of degree is
what constitutes the distinction between the spiritual and the
material, for, passing along the different shadings from the
grossest materiality to as far as we can go, we find at last that
matter merges into spirit.

We are now speaking, of course, about what is commonly
called matter, while we well know that in truth the thing thus
designated is not really matter, but an enormous
illusion which in itself has no existence. The real matter,
called mulaprakriti by the Hindus, is an invisible thing or
substance of which our matter is a representation. The real
matter is what the Hermetists called primordial earth; a, for us,
intangible phase of matter. We can easily come to believe that
what is usually called matter is not really such, inasmuch as we
find clairvoyants and nervous people seeing through thick walls
and closed doors. Were this matter, then they could not see
through it. But when an ordinary clairvoyant comes face to face
with primordial matter, he or she cannot see beyond, but is met
by a dead wall more dense than any wall ever built by human
hands.

So from earliest times, among all but the modern western people,
the teacher was given great reverence by the pupil, and the
latter was taught from youth to look upon his preceptor as only
second to his father and mother in dignity. It was among these
people a great sin, a thing that did one actual harm in his moral
being, to be disrespectful to his teacher even in thought. The
reason for this lay then, and no less to-day does also lie, in
the fact that a long chain of influence extends from the highest
spiritual guide who may belong to any man, down through vast
numbers of spiritual chiefs, ending at last even in the mere
teacher of our youth. Or, to restate it in modern reversion of
thought, a chain extends up from our teacher or preceptors to the
highest spiritual chief in whose ray or descending line one may
happen to be. And it makes no difference whatever, in this occult
relation, that neither pupil nor final guide may be aware, or
admit, that this is the case. [ see S D Vol. I pp. 570-575 ]

Thus it happens that the child who holds his teacher in reverence
and diligently applies himself accordingly with faith, does no
violence to this intangible but mighty chain, and is benefited
accordingly, whether he knows it or not. Nor again does it matter
that a child has a teacher who evidently gives him a bad system.
This is his Karma, and by his reverent and diligent attitude he
works it out, and transcends erstwhile that teacher.

This chain of influence is called the Guruparampara chain.

The Guru is the guide or readjuster, and may not always combine
the function of teacher with it.


W. Q. J.

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DTB