Theos-Talk Archives (May 2002 Message tt00007)

May 2, 2002


Dear Friends:

As the important date of WHITE LOTUS DAY approaches, we look back at
the work and help; that H.P.Blavatsky has given to us.

Here are some of her most poignant words:

Best wishes,



Dallas



===============================



THEOSOPHY and HPB


HPB said (or wrote) :


"H.P.B. is loyal to death to the Theosophical CAUSE, and those
great Teachers whose philosophy can alone bind the whole of
Humanity into one Brotherhood. Together with Col. Olcott, she is
the chief Founder and Builder of the Society which was and is
meant to represent that CAUSE... Therefore the degree of her
sympathies with the "Theosophical Society..." depends upon the
degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break
away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to
the CAUSE and the original programme of the Society, and H.P.B.,
calling the T. S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her
feet...at the first sign of their disloyalty to the CAUSE--it is
I who will have resigned my office of Corresponding Secretary for
life and left the Society. This will not prevent me from
remaining at the head of those--who will follow me. "
[ A PUZZLE FROM ADYAR, HPB -- HPB Articles I p. 219, 222 ]



"One of the chief factors in the reawakening of Aryavarta which
has been part of the work of the Theosophical Society, was the
ideal of the Masters. But owing to want of judgment, discretion,
and discrimination, and the liberties taken with Their names and
Personalities, great misconception arose concerning Them. I was
under the most solemn oath and pledge never to reveal the whole
truth to anyone... All that I was then permitted to reveal was,
that there existed somewhere such great men; that some of Them
were Hindus; that They were learned as none others in all the
ancient wisdom of Gupta Vidya, and had acquired all the Siddhis;
not as these are represented in tradition and the "blinds" of
ancient writings, but as they are in fact and nature; and also
that I was a Chela of one of Them.

However, in the fancy of some Hindus, the most wild and
ridiculous fancies soon grew up concerning Them. They were
referred to as "Mahatmas" and still some too enthusiastic friends
belittled Them with their strange fancy-pictures; our opponents,
describing a Mahatma as a full Jivanmukta, urged that, as such,
He was debarred from holding any communication whatsoever with
persons living in the world. They also maintained that as this is
the Kali Yuga, it was impossible that there could be any Mahatmas
at all in our age."
[HPB WHY I DO NOT RETURN TO INDIA, HPB Articles I p. 107 ]


" These early misconceptions notwithstanding, the idea of the
Masters, and belief in Them, has already brought its good fruit
in India. Their chief desire was to preserve the true religious
and philosophical spirit of ancient India; to defend the Ancient
Wisdom contained in its Darshanas and Upanishads against the
systematic assaults of the missionaries; and finally to reawaken
the dormant ethical and patriotic spirit in those youths in whom
it had almost disappeared owing to college education. Much of
this has been achieved by and through the Theosophical Society,
in spite of all its mistakes and imperfections.

Had it not been for Theosophy, would India have had her Tukaram
Tatya doing now the priceless work he does, and which no one in
India ever thought of doing before him?

Without the Theosophical Society, would India have ever thought
of wrenching from the hands of learned but unspiritual
Orientalists the duty of reviving, translating and editing the
Sacred Books of the East, of popularizing and selling them at a
far cheaper rate, and at the same time in a far more correct form
than had ever been done at Oxford?

Would our respected and devoted brother Tukaram Tatya himself
have ever thought of doing so, had he not joined the Theosophical
Society? Would your political Congress itself have even been a
possibility, without the Theosophical Society?

Most important of all, one at least among you has fully benefited
by it; and if the Society had never given to India but that one
future Adept (Damodar) who has now the prospect of becoming one
day a Mahatma, Kali Yuga notwithstanding, that alone would be
proof that it was not founded at New York and transplanted to
India in vain.

Finally, if any one among the three hundred millions of India can
demonstrate, proof in hand, that Theosophy, the T.S., or even my
humble self, have been the means of doing the slightest harm,
either to the country or any Hindu, that the Founders have been
guilty of teaching pernicious doctrines, or offering bad
advice--then and then only, can it be imputed to me as a crime
that I have brought forward the ideal of the Masters and founded
the Theosophical Society.

Aye, my good and never-to-be-forgotten Hindu Brothers, the name
alone of the holy Masters, which was at one time invoked with
prayers for Their blessings, from one end of India to the
other--Their name alone has wrought a mighty change for the
better in your land. It is not to Colonel Olcott or to myself
that you owe anything, but verily to these names, which, but a
few years ago, had become a household word in your mouths.

Thus it was that, so long as I remained at Adyar, things went on
smoothly enough, because one or other of the Masters was almost
constantly present among us, and their spirit ever protected the
Theosophical Society from real harm. But in 1884, Colonel Olcott
and myself left for a visit to Europe, and while we were away the
Padri-Coulomb "thunderbolt" descended.

I returned in November, and was taken most dangerously ill. It
was during that time and Colonel Olcott's absence in Burma, that
the seeds of all future strifes, and--let me say at
once--disintegration of the Theosophical Society, were planted by
our enemies. What with the Patterson-Coulomb-Hodgson conspiracy,
and the faint-heartedness of the chief Theosophists, that the
Society did not then and there collapse should be sufficient
proof of how it was protected. Shaken in their belief, the
faint-hearted began to ask: "Why, if the Masters are genuine
Mahatmas, have They allowed such things to take place, or why
have They not used Their powers to destroy this plot or that
conspiracy, or even this or that man and woman?" Yet it had been
explained numberless times that no Adept of the Right Path will
interfere with the just workings of Karma. Not even the greatest
of Yogis can divert the progress of Karma, or arrest the natural
results of actions for more than a short period, and even in that
case, these results will only reassert themselves later with even
tenfold force, for such is the occult law of Karma and the
Nidanas."	[ Idem. I p. 108-9 ]



"Acting under the Master's orders I began a new movement in the
West on the original lines; I founded Lucifer, and the Lodge
which bears my name.

Recognizing the splendid work done at Adyar by Colonel Olcott and
others to carry out the second of the three objects of the T.S.,
viz., to promote the study of Oriental Literature, I was
determined to carry out here the two others. All know with what
success this had been attended.

Twice Colonel Olcott was asked to come over, and then I learned
that I was once more wanted in India --at any rate by some. But
the invitation came too late; neither would my doctor permit it,
nor can I, if I would be true to my life-pledge and vows, now
live at the Headquarters from which the Masters and Their spirit
are virtually banished. The presence of Their portraits will not
help; They are a dead letter. The truth is that I can never
return to India in any other capacity than as Their faithful
agent. And as, unless They appear among the Council in propria
persona (which They will certainly never do now), no advice of
mine on occult lines seems likely to be accepted, as the fact of
my relations with the Masters is doubted, even totally denied by
some; and I myself having no right to the Headquarters, what
reason is there, therefore, for me to live at Adyar?

The fact is this: In my position, half-measures are worse than
none. People have either to believe entirely in me, or to
honestly disbelieve. No one, no Theosophist, is compelled to
believe, but it is worse than useless for people to ask me to
help them, if they do not believe in me.

Here in Europe and America are many who have never flinched in
their devotion to Theosophy; consequently the spread of Theosophy
and of the T.S., in the West, during the last three years, has
been extraordinary.

The chief reason for this is that I was enabled and encouraged by
the devotion of an ever-increasing number of members to the Cause
and to Those who guide it, to establish an Esoteric Section, in
which I can teach something of what I have learned to those who
have confidence in me, and who prove this confidence by their
disinterested work for Theosophy and the T.S.

For the future, then, it is my intention to devote my life and
energy to the E.S., and to the teaching of those whose confidence
I retain. It is useless that I should use the little time I have
before me to justify myself before those who do not feel sure
about the real existence of the Masters, only because,
misunderstanding me, it therefore suits them to suspect me.

And let me say at once, to avoid misconception, that my only
reason for accepting the exoteric direction of European affairs,
was to save those who really have Theosophy at heart and work for
it and the Society, from being hampered by those who not only do
not care for Theosophy, as laid out by the Masters, but are
entirely working against both, endeavouring to undermine and
counteract the influence of the good work done, both by open
denial of the existence of the Masters, by declared and bitter
hostility to myself, and also by joining forces with the most
desperate enemies of our Society.

Half-measures, I repeat, are no longer possible. Either I have
stated the truth as I know it about the Masters, and teach what I
have been taught by them, or I have invented both Them and the
Esoteric Philosophy. There are those among the Esotericists of
the inner group who say that if I have done the latter, then I
must myself be a "Master." However it may be, there is no
alternative to this dilemma.

The only claim, therefore, which India could ever have upon me
would be strong only in proportion to the activity of the Fellows
there for Theosophy and their loyalty to the Masters. You should
not need my presence among you to convince you of the truth of
Theosophy, any more than your American brothers need it. A
conviction that wanes when any particular personality is absent
is no conviction at all.

Know, moreover, that any further proof and teaching I can give
only to the Esoteric Section, and this for the following reason:
its members are the only ones whom I have the right to expel for
open disloyalty to their pledge (not to me, H.P.B., but to their
Higher Self and the Mahatmic aspect of the Masters), a privilege
1 cannot exercise with F.T.S.'s at large, yet one which is the
only means of cutting off a diseased limb from the healthy body
of the Tree, and thus save it from infection. I can care only for
those who cannot be swayed by every breath of calumny, and every
sneer, suspicion, or criticism, whoever it may emanate from.

Thenceforth let it be clearly understood that the rest of my life
is devoted only to those who believe in the Masters, and are
willing to work for Theosophy as They understand it, and for the
T.S. on the lines upon which They originally established it.

If, then, my Hindu brothers really and earnestly desire to bring
about the regeneration of India, if they wish to ever bring back
the days when the Masters, in the ages of India's ancient glory,
came freely among them, guiding and teaching the people; then let
them cast aside all fear and hesitation, and turn a new leaf in
the history of the Theosophical Movement.

Let them bravely rally around the President-Founder, whether I am
in India or not, as around those few true Theosophists who have
remained loyal throughout, and bid defiance to all calumniators
and ambitious malcontents--both without and within the
Theosophical Society." [ H P B Articles I pp. 112 -114 ]

=================================================


SHE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH

Statements made by H. P. Blavatsky.


[In the will of the late H. P. Blavatsky was made the request
that her friends should assemble on the anniversary of her death
and read passages from the Bhagavad-Gita and the Light of Asia.
This was accordingly done on May 8th, in Adyar, London, New York,
and other places. In New York, among other interesting items
reported at the time, Mrs. J. Campbell Keightley read, after a
few introductory remarks, extracts from the private letters of
H.P.B. In response to many requests we print these as follows.
The remarks, being extemporaneous, are quoted from memory.]

.........

In regard to Mme. Blavatsky, the world, to use a phrase of
Charles Lamb, was "the victim of imperfect sympathies." It failed
to know her; that failure was its own great loss. Among the many
accusations flung at her was one which, at the last ditch, it
never failed to make; it said that Mme. Blavatsky had no Moral
Ideal. This was false.

She had this ideal; she had also the Eastern reverence for an
ideal--a reverence to the Western world unknown. We might hence
expect to find her teaching that Ideal to a great extent under
the privacy of a pledge, and there are indications of this in all
that has been published concerning the Esoteric School. That her
ideal was ever present to her mind and heart these extracts from
private letters to her friends will show.

Her main teachings can be reduced to the following propositions:

That Morals have a basis in Law and in fact.
That Moral Law is Natural Law.
That Evolution makes for Righteousness.
That the "fundamental identity of all souls with the Oversoul"
renders moral contagion possible through the subtle psychic
medium.
That the Spiritual Identity of all Being renders Universal
Brotherhood the only possible path for truth-seeking men.

She distrusted the appeal to sentiment. She saw that existing
religions fail in it; that modern civilization frustrates it;
that emotionalism is no basis for the Will which annuls all
temptations of the flesh, and the Faith which shall make
mountains move.

Hence she taught the scientific aspect and bearing of sin. Taught
that Universal Law, in every department, rigidly opposes and
avenges the commission of sin, showing the free will of man
counterbalanced by the declaration "Vengeance is mine, saith the
Law; I will repay." She taught that the awful responsibility of
the occultist, extending down to the least atom of substance,
forever forbade our asking that question of Cain which we do ask
daily--"Am I my Brother's keeper?" She taught that the deep reply
reverberated down the ages, as we may read it in our bibles:
"What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to
me from the ground."

Justice she taught, and the true discrimination of it; Mercy,
too, and Love. She wrote of one: "He has developed an
extraordinary hatred to me, but I have loved him too much to hate
him." Above all she taught that "the pure in heart see God";
taught it as a scientific fact; showed it to be, so to say,
materially as well as spiritually possible through the spiritual
laws working in the one Substance, and, in the showing, lifted
our courage higher than the visible stars.

The first of these extracts from H.P.B.'s letters is dated Nov.
29, 1878, and is interesting from the fact that it speaks of the
original institution of three degrees of the T.S., a fact often
disputed in these later days.

------------------------------------------

Said HPB:


"You will find the aims and purposes of the Theosophical Society
in the two inclosed circulars. It is a brotherhood of humanity,
established to make away with all and every dogmatic religion
founded on dead-letter interpretation, and to teach people and
every member to believe but in one impersonal God; to rely upon
his (man's) own powers; to consider himself his only saviour; to
learn the infinitude of the occult psychological powers hidden
within his own physical man; to develop these powers; and to give
him the assurance of the immortality of his divine spirit and the
survival of his soul; to make him regard every man of whatever
race, color, or creed, and to prove to him that the only truths
revealed to man by superior men (not a god) are contained in the
Vedas of the ancient Aryas of India. Finally, to demonstrate to
him that there never were, will be, nor are, any miracles; that
there can be nothing 'supernatural' in this universe, and that on
earth, at least, the only god is man himself.

"It lies within his powers to become and to continue a god after
the death of his physical body. Our society receives nothing the
possibility of which it cannot demonstrate at will. We believe in
the phenomena, but we disbelieve in the constant intervention of
'spirits' to produce such phenomena. We maintain that the
embodied spirit has more powers to produce them than a
disembodied one. We believe in the existence of spirits, but of
many classes, the human spirits being but one class of the many.

"The Society requires of its members but the time they can give
it without encroaching upon that due to their private affairs.
There are three degrees of membership. It is but in the highest
or third that members have to devote themselves quasi entirely to
the work of the T.S. . . .

"Everyone is eligible, provided he is an honest, pure man or
woman, no free lover, and especially no bigoted Christian. We go
dead against idolatry, and as much against materialism."

"Of the two unpardonable sins, the first is
Hypocrisy--Pecksniffianism. Better one hundred mistakes through
unwise, injudicious sincerity and indiscretion than Tartuffe-like
saintship as the whitened sepulchre, and rottenness and decay
within. . . . This is not unpardonable, but very dangerous, . . .
doubt, eternal wavering--it leads one to wreck. . . . One little
period passed without doubt, murmuring, and despair; what a gain
it would be; a period a mere tithe of what every one of us has
had to pass through. But every one forges his own destiny."

"Those who fall off from our living human Mahatmas to fall into
the Saptarishi--the Star Rishis, are no Theosophists."

"Allow me to quote from a very esoterically wise and exoterically
foolish book, the work and production of some ancient friends and
foes: 'There is more joy in the Kingdom of Heaven for one
repentant sinner than for ninety-nine saints.' . . . Let us be
just and give to Caesar what is Caesar's, however imperfect, even
vicious, Caesar may be. 'Blessed be the peacemakers,' said
another old adept of 107 years B.C., and the saying is alive and
kicks to the present day amongst the MASTERS."

"The Esoteric Section is to be a School for earnest Theosophists
who would learn more (than they can from published works) of the
true Esoteric tenets. . . . There is no room for despotism or
ruling in it; no money to pay or make; no glory for me, but a
series of misconceptions, slanders, suspicions, and ingratitude
in almost an immediate future: 1 but if out of the . . .
Theosophists who have already pledged themselves I can place on
the right and true path half a dozen or so, I will die happy.
Many are called, few are chosen. Unless they comply with the
lines you speak of, traced originally by the Masters, they cannot
succeed. 2 I can only show the way to those whose eyes are open
to the truth, whose souls are full of altruism, charity, and love
for the whole creation, and who think of themselves last. The
blind . . . will never profit by these teachings. They would make
of the 'strait gate' a large public thoroughfare leading not to
the Kingdom of Heaven, now and hereafter, to the Buddha-Christos
in the Sanctuary of our innermost souls, but to their own idols
with feet of clay. . . . The Esoteric Section is not of the
earth, earthy; it does not interfere with the exoteric
administration of Lodges; takes no stock in external Theosophy;
has no officers or staff; needs no halls or meeting rooms. . . .
Finally, it requires neither subscription fees nor money, for 'as
I have not so received it, I shall not so impart it,' and that I
would rather starve in the gutter than take one penny for my
teaching of the sacred truths. . . . Here I am with perhaps a few
years or a few months only (Master knoweth) to remain on earth in
this loathsome, old, ruined body; and I am ready to answer the
call of any good Theosophist who works for Theosophy on the lines
traced by the Masters, and as ready as the Rosicrucian pelican to
feed with my heart's blood the chosen 'Seven.' He who would have
his inheritance before I die . . . let him ask first. What I
have, or rather what I am permitted to give, I will give."

"Many are called but few are chosen. Well, no need breaking my
heart over spilt milk. Come what may, I shall die at my post,
Theosophical banner in hand, and while I live I do fervently hope
that all the splashes of mud thrown at it will reach me
personally. At any rate I mean to continue protecting the
glorious truth with my old carcass so long as it lasts. And when
I do drop down for good, I hope in such Theosophists as . . . and
their turn. Oh, I do feel so sick at heart in looking round and
perceiving nothing save selfishness, personal vanity, and mean
little ambitions. What is this about 'the soldier not being
free'? 3 Of course no soldier can be free to move about his
physical body wherever he likes. But what has the esoteric
teaching to do with the outward man? A soldier may be stuck to
his sentry box like a barnacle to its ship, and the soldier's Ego
be free to go where it likes and think what it likes best. . . .
No man is required to carry a burden heavier than he can bear;
nor do more than it is possible for him to do. A man of means,
independent and free from any duty, will have to move about and
go, missionary-like, to teach Theosophy to the Sadducees and the
Gentiles of Christianity. A man tied by his duty to one place has
no right to desert it in order to fulfill another duty, let it be
however much greater; for the first duty taught in Occultism is
to do one's duty unflinchingly by every duty. Pardon these
seemingly absurd paradoxes and Irish Bulls; but I have to repeat
this ad nauseam usque for the last month. 'Shall I risk to be
ordered to leave my wife, desert my children and home if I pledge
myself?' asks one. 'No,' I say, 'because he who plays truant in
one thing will be faithless in another. No real, genuine MASTER
will accept a chela who sacrifices anyone except himself to go to
that Master.' If one cannot, owing to circumstances or his
position in life, become a full adept in this existence, let him
prepare his mental luggage for the next, so as to be ready at the
first call when he is once more reborn. What one has to do before
he pledges himself irretrievably is, to probe one's nature to the
bottom, for self-discipline is based on self-knowledge. It is
said somewhere that self-discipline often leads one to a state of
self-confidence which becomes vanity and pride in the long run. I
say, foolish is the man who says so. This may happen only when
our motives are of a worldly character or selfish; otherwise,
self-confidence is the first step to that kind of WILL which will
make a mountain move:

" 'To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night
the day, thou can'st not then be false to any man.'

"The question is whether Polonius meant this for worldly wisdom
or for occult knowledge; and by 'own self' the false Ego (or the
terrestrial personality) or that spark in us which is but the
reflection of the 'One Universal Ego.'

"But I am dreaming. I had but four hours' sleep. . . . Give my
sincere, fraternal respects to . ., and let him try to feel my
old hand giving him the Master's grip, the strong grip of the
Lion's paw of Punjab (not of the tribe of Judah) across the
Atlantic. To you my eternal affection and gratitude.

Your H.P.B."


"To live like cats and dogs in the T.S. is positively against all
rules--and wishes of 'the Masters,' as against our Brotherhood--
so-called--and all its rules. THEY are disgusted. THEY look on,
and in that look (oh Lord! if you could only see it as I have!)
there's an ocean deep of sad disgust, contempt, and sorrow. . . .
The ideal was besmeared with mud, but as it is no golden idol on
feet of clay it stands to this day immovable . . . and what the
profane see is only their own mud thrown with their own hands,
and which has created a veil, an impassable barrier between them
and the ideal . . . without touching the latter. . . . Have a
large Society, the more the better; all that is chaff and husk is
bound to fall away in time; all that is grain will remain. But
the seed is in the bad and evil man as well as in the good
ones,--only it is more difficult to call into life and cause it
to germinate. The good husbandman does not stop to pick out the
seeds from the handful. He gives them all their chance, and even
some of the half-rotten seeds come to life when thrown into good
soil. Be that soil. . . . Look at me--the universal Theosophical
manure--the rope for whose hanging and lashing is made out of the
flax I have sown, and each strand it is twisted of represents a
'mistake' (so-called) of mine. Hence, if you fail only nine times
out of ten in your selections you are successful one time out of
ten--and that's more than many other Theosophists can say. . . .
Those few true souls will be the nucleus for future success, and
their children will. . . . Let us sow good--and if evil crops up,
it will be blown away by the wind like all other things in this
life--in its time."

"I am the Mother and the Creator of the Society; it has my
magnetic fluid, and the child has inherited all of its parent's
physical, psychical, and spiritual attributes--faults and virtues
if any. Therefore I alone and to a degree . . . can serve as a
lightning conductor of Karma for it. I was asked whether I was
willing, when on the point of dying--and I said Yes--for it was
the only means to save it. Therefore I consented to live--which
in my case means to suffer physically during twelve hours of the
day--mentally twelve hours of night, when I get rid of the
physical shell. . . . It is true about the Kali Yuga. Once that I
have offered myself as the goat of atonement, the Kali Yuga -- 4.
recognizes its own--whereas any other would shrink from such a
thing--as I am doomed and overburdened in this life worse than a
poor weak donkey full of sores made to drag up hill a cart load
of heavy rocks. You are the first one to whom I tell it, because
you force me into the confession. . . .You have a wide and noble
prospect before you if you do not lose patience. . . . Try to
hear the small voice within."

"Yes, there are 'two persons' in me. But what of that? So there
are two in you; only mine is conscious and responsible--and yours
is not. So you are happier than I am. I know you sympathise with
me, and you do so because you feel that I have always stood up
for you, and will do so to the bitter or the happy end--as the
case may be."

"He may be moved to doubt--and that is the beginning of wisdom."

"Well, sir, and my only friend, the crisis is nearing. I am
ending my Secret Doctrine, and you are going to replace me, or
take my place in America. I know you will have success if you do
not lose heart; but do, do remain true to the Masters and Their
Theosophy and the names. . . . May They help you and allow us to
send you our best blessings. . . ."

"There are traitors, conscious and unconscious. There is falsity
and there is injudiciousness. . . . Pray do not imagine that
because I hold my tongue as bound by my oath and duty I do not
know who is who. . . . I must say nothing, however much I may be
disgusted. But as the ranks thin around us, and one after the
other our best intellectual forces depart, to turn into bitter
enemies, I say--Blessed are the pure-hearted who have only
intuition--for intuition is better than intellect."

"The duty,--let alone happiness--of every Theosophist--and
especially Esotericist--is certainly to help others to carry
their burden; but no Theosophist or other has the right to
sacrifice himself unless he knows for a certainty that by so
doing he helps some one and does not sacrifice himself in vain
for the empty glory of the abstract virtue. . . . Psychic and
vital energy are limited in every man. It is like a capital. If
you have a dollar a day and spend two, at the end of the month
you will have a deficit of $30."

"One refuses to pledge himself not to listen without protest to
any evil thing said of a brother--as though Buddha our divine
Lord-- or Jesus--or any great initiate has ever condemned any one
on hearsay. Ah, poor, poor, blind man, not to know the difference
between condemning in words--which is uncharitable--and
withdrawing in silent pity from the culprit and thus punishing
him, but still giving him a chance to repent of his ways. No man
will ever speak ill of his brother without cause and proof of the
iniquity of that brother, and he will abstain from all
backbiting, slandering, and gossip. No man should ever say behind
a Brother's back what he would not say openly to his face.
Insinuations against one's neighbor are often productive of more
evil consequences than gross slander. Every Theosophist has to
fight and battle against evil,--but he must have the courage of
his words and actions, and what he does must be done openly and
honestly before all."

"Every pledge or promise unless built upon four pillars--absolute
sincerity, unflinching determination, unselfishness of purpose,
and moral power, which makes the fourth support and equipoises
the three other pillars--is an insecure building. The pledges of
those who are sure of the strength of the fourth alone are
recorded."

"Are you children, that you want marvels? Have you so little
faith as to need constant stimulus, as a dying fire needs fuel! .
your hands like a sick man under the hands of a quack? . . . You
should never forget what a solemn thing it is for us to exert our
powers and raise the dread sentinels that lie at the threshold.
They cannot hurt us, but they can avenge themselves by
precipitating themselves upon the unprotected neophyte. You are
all like so many children playing with fire because it is pretty,
when you ought to be men studying philosophy for its own sake."

"If among you there was one who embodied in himself the idea
depicted, it would be my duty to relinquish the teacher's chair
to him. For it would be the extreme of audacity in me to claim
the possession of so many virtues. That the MASTERS do in
proportion to their respective temperaments and stages of
Bodhisatvic development possess such Paramitas, constitutes their
right to our reverence as our Teachers. It should be the aim of
each and all of us to strive with all the intensity of our
natures to follow and imitate Them. . . . Try to realize that
progress is made step by step, and each step gained by heroic
effort. Withdrawal means despair or timidity. . . . Conquered
passions, like slain tigers, can no longer turn and rend you. Be
hopeful then, not despairing. With each morning's awakening try
to live through the day in harmony with the Higher Self. 'Try' is
the battle-cry taught by the teacher to each pupil. Naught else
is expected of you. One who does his best does all that can be
asked. There is a moment when even a Buddha ceases to be a
sinning mortal and takes his first step toward Buddhahood. The
sixteen Paramitas (virtues) are not for priests and yogis alone,
as said, but stand for models for us all to strive after--and
neither priest nor yogi, Chela nor Mahatma, ever attained all at
once. . . . The idea that sinners and not saints are expected to
enter the Path is emphatically stated in the VOICE OF THE
SILENCE."

"I do not believe in the success of the . . . T.S. unless you
assimilate Master or myself; unless you work with me and THEM,
hand in hand, heart. . . . Yes; let him who offers himself to
Masters as a chela, unreservedly, . . . let him do what he can if
he would ever see Them. . . . Then things were done because I
alone was responsible for the issues. I alone had to bear Karma
in case of failure and no reward in case of success. . . . I saw
the T.S. would be smashed or that I had to offer myself as the
Scapegoat for atonement. It is the latter I did. The T.S.
lives,--I am killed. Killed in my honor, fame, name, in
everything H.P.B. held near and dear, for this body is MINE and I
feel acutely through it. . . . I may err in my powers as H.P.B. I
have not worked and toiled for forty years, playing parts,
risking my future reward, and taking karma upon this unfortunate
appearance to serve Them without being permitted to have some
voice in the matter. H.P.B. is not infallible. H.P.B. is an old,
rotten, sick, worn-out body, but it is the best I can have in
this cycle. Hence follow the path I show, the Masters that are
behind--and do not follow me or my PATH. When I am dead and gone
in this body, then will you know the whole truth. Then will you
know that I have never, never, been false to any one, nor have I
deceived anyone, but had many a time to allow them to deceive
themselves, for I had no right to interfere with their Karma. . .
himself in sacrifice as I did!"

Path, June, July, August, 1892

[ HPB Articles I p. 115 - 123 -- ULT edition.]