Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00584)

WHAT WERE THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY MASTERS THE MASTERS OF ? 

PART 2



by H H TRIDANDI SANNYASI BHAKTI ANANDA GOSWAMI MAHARAJA , SHIKSHA 
(INSTRUCTING) MASTER, BRAHMA-MADHVA-GAUDIYA LINEAGE OF VAISHNAVISM 

SEE PART I...

THEOSOPHICAL PROPOSITIONS

1. THE ONLY TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF THE EARTH, THEOSOPHY IDENTIFIED AS 
BUDDHISM, IS FOUND IN THE MAHATMAS' LETTERS, AND THESE LETTERS ARE 
THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF ESOTERIC / OCCULT OR HIGHER WISDOM FOR 
THEOSOPHISTS. NEXT TO THESE LETTERS, THE "STANZAS OF DYZAN" ARE OF 
CANONICAL IMPORTANCE TO THEOSOPHISTS. 

2. THE THEOSOPHICAL MASTERS, AUTHORS OF THE 'MAHATMA LETTERS', 
ESPECIALLY KOOT HOOMI, MASTER MORYA AND SERAPIS, ARE THE HIGHEST 
AUTHORITIES WHO HAVE REVEALED THEMSELVES TO HUMANITY. 

3. THE MASTER OF THE MASTERS KOOT HOOMI AND MORYA, IS SERAPIS.

4. H.P, BLAVATSKY IS THE RATHER HIDDEN INCARNATION OF SERAPIS.

5.THE BROTHERHOOD OF THEOSOPHICAL MASTERS HAS REINCARNATED THROUGHOUT 
TIME, GUIDING THE WORLD ( AND EVOLUTION OF THE RACES). THUS ALL 
PREVIOUS REVELATIONS, RELIGIONS AND ADVANCES IN VARIOUS FIELDS, MUST 
BE INTERPRETED IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR SUPPOSED RELATIONSHIP TO THE T 
S MASTERS. 

6. THE PRIESTS OF DOGMATIC OR DOCTRINAL ORGANIZED RELIGIONS HAVE 
CORRUPTED THEIR SCRIPTURES, SO IT IS BETTER TO READ THE MORE 
AUTHENTIC CORE OF TEACHINGS CONTAINED IN THE "STANZAS OF DYZAN" AND 
THE SYNTHESIZED TEACHINGS OF THE MAHATMAS AND HPB. THERE IS NO NEED 
TO LEARN LANGUAGES AND STUDY THE SOURCE WORKS THEMSELVES, AS HPB HAS 
PROVIDED A CLEAR AND ACCURATE SYNTHESIS OF EVERYTHING IN THESE THAT 
IS SIGNIFICANT TO STUDY. 

7. SANNYASIS AND SADHUS ETC. ARE "ON THE PATH OF ERROR", AND 
THEOSOPHY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SHASTRA OF BRAHMINISM. 

8. KOOT HOOMI / THEOSOPHY ABSOLUTELY DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF GOD OR 
GODS. 

9, THERE IS AN AMALGAMATION OF MAHAYANA AND THERAVADIN BUDDHISM WITH 
ADVAITA VEDANTISM AND VAISHNAVA SOURCES IN THE TEACHINGS OF 
THEOSOPHICAL 'BUDDHISM'. 

10. MADAME BLAVATSKY WAS A VERY INTELLECTUALLY GIFTED AND EDUCATED 
PERSON, WHO WAS THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN THE WHOLE DEVELOPMENT OF 
THEOSOPHY. WHETHER OR NOT SHE WROTE THE MAHATMA LETTERS WITH THE 
HELP OF CORPOREAL OR INCORPOREAL BEINGS, MAY OR MAY NOT BE OF 
IMPORTANCE IN CERTAIN KINDS OF ANALYSIS OF THE LETTERS. THE ACTUAL 
CONTENT OF THE LETTERS CAN BE EXAMINED IN RELATIONSHIP TO REAL-WORLD 
ANCIENT TEXTUAL AND LIVING TRADITIONS, TO SEE IF THE MAHATMAS' 
PRESENTATIONS ARE ACCURATE WITH REGARD TO THOSE THOUGHT-SYSTEMS. 

LET US NOW CONSIDER SOME OF THE CURIOUS FACTS RELATED TO THE SPECIFIC 
MIXTURE OF EASTERN AND WESTERN TEACHINGS IN THE MAHATMA LETTERS. 

In one letter KH writes to Sinnett:
..."Our best, most learned. and highest adepts are of the races of 
the 'greasy Tibetans'; and the Penjabi Singhs -- ..."...

From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" 
Date: Sat Nov 16, 2002 2:12 pm
Subject: A Question for Brian about one of his statements




Concerning Master KH, Mr. Sinnett said in THE OCCULT WORLD (first 
published June 1881):

"My correspondent is known to me as the Mahatma Koot Hoomi. This is 
his 'Tibetan Mystic name' - occultists, it would seem, taking new 
names on initiation. . . ."

Mr. Sinnett also writes in the same work that Koot Hoomi was:

". . . a native of the Punjab who was attracted to occult studies 
from his earliest boyhood. He was sent to Europe while still a youth 
at the intervention of a relative - himself an occultist - to be 
educated in Western knowledge, and since then has been fully 
initiated in the greater knowledge of the East."

H.P. Blavatsky in 1884 wrote in LIGHT magazine:

". . . the Master [Koot Hoomi] is a Punjabi, whose family was settled 
for years in Cashmere." 

...

"There are a number of primary source documents which show that K.H. 
was known as "Cashmere" ("Kashmir" or other variant spellings) 
especially during the years 1875-1878 when H.P.B. and Olcott were 
living in New York City."

From: "Daniel H. Caldwell" 
Date: Sat Nov 16, 2002 12:03 pm
Subject: Coleman wrote: "he (K.H.) was known in America as `The 
Kashmiri Brother.'"


What were the Theosophical Society Masters the masters of ? Most of 
the debates that I have seen regarding the T.S. Masters have focused 
on the Masters' identity, the 'precipitation' of their letters, H.P. 
Blavatsky's or someone else's medium-ship or 'channeling' of their 
thoughts / writings, textual analysis of their letters for 
contemporary or near-contemporary plagiarized material, stylistic 
elements, language or other clues to their identity. In my planned 
series of commentaries on the Mahatma Letters, I do not intend to 
address any of these things, which have all been chewed before. 
Rather than chewing-the-chewed, like a cow not done with its cud, I 
want to provide a reading of the Letters from the perspective of a 
person familiar with some of the source-works and traditions that the 
Mahatmas used and / or claimed to be representing. Ideas and the 
words, written and spoken, and images or symbols and actions that 
convey them, have history. Innovations occur and get diffused. 
Ideas spark social movements that wax and wane. Thought-forms, like 
other 'things' have certain time-and-space limitations. 
Communication is sent and received in specific forms and languages. 
Each word or symbol has a content actually intended by its sender, 
and any number of meanings imposed on it by receivers. 
Scientifically-minded historians (not historical-fiction writers) 
want to know what was actually meant by the creators or sender(s) of 
a document from the past. They want to understand the successive 
meanings giving to an original or earlier document by later 
commentators. They want to peel-back the layers of time, and get at 
the original core of an idea. Such scientifically-minded persons do 
not want to impose meanings on history, they want to discover the 
real meanings already there in history. They don't want to 'massage 
the data' to fit into preconceived notions of history, or to support 
an agenda of some kind. The real lover of truth wants to understand 
what really happened, who the real players were, and what their 
motives, means and actions were etc. Such investigators use 
scientific methodologies and means of inquiry designed to safe-guard 
the objectivity and integrity of their efforts. They try to avoid 
errors by rigorously identifying their sources, to be sure of 
authenticity.

In the case of my own studies, from the very beginning I learned of 
the value of interdisciplinary research from my father (a research 
electrobiophysicist), who taught me that errors could be avoided and 
facts established beyond doubt by approaching a subject or question 
from a multiplicity of disciplines instead of only one. Thus my 
studies utilized every discipline that I could bring to bear on a 
particular question. This has given me a well-rounded grasp of the 
main subjects of my historical inquiries. 

In the above quotes, the Master Koot Hoomi (K H) writes about the 
Tibetans and Penjabi Singhs, Mr. Sinnet says that K H was a native 
of the Punjab, H.P. Blavatsky says that Koot Hoomi is a Pujabi, and 
both Blavatsky and others identify K H with Kashmir. I begin my 
commentary on the Mahatma Letters with these references, because I 
will be focusing quite a bit on the Vaishnava, Buddhist and related 
content of the Letters. Tibetan Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, 
Devi worship, Sufism, Sikhism and all the branches of these 
traditions have their own real world histories. For example, there 
is a traditional date for the entrance of Padmasambhava into Tibet, 
and thus an eighth century historical beginning to Tibetan 
Buddhism. The Advaita Vedantism of Sri Adi Shankaracharya has a 
history too, as does the successive waves of Ishmali and Sufi 
Mohammedanism into the Punjab and Kashmir. In the Mahatma Letters 
there is a curious mix of Atheistic and Theistic (Vaishnava) Advaita 
Vedanta, Mahayana and Theravadin Buddhism, Sikh and Sufi 
reinterpretations of Vaishnava, Shaivite and Devi teachings, and 
other amalgamations which can be found ESPECIALLY in the region of 
Kashmir. In Kashmir today for instance, there may be found 
Vaishnava-influenced Muslim Sufi 'brahmins' who do not eat flesh, 
Tantric-influenced Sahajiya Vaishnavas, various Sufi-Vaishnava or 
Sufi-Vaishnava-Shaivite hybrid groups, and Sikhism, which as another 
Sufi-Vaishnava-Shaivite hybrid religion is of course related to the 
Vaishnava and Shaivite Kshatriyas (warrior class) of the Punjab. 
Thus the name "Singh" is important in this connection. 

Pure Land Buddhism, as originally in Nepal and Tibet, has its 
historical origins in Vaishnavism, and so is connected to the strange 
Kashmiri mix in the thread of Vaishnava doctrines and practices 
running through the whole region. It is from this regional melting-
pot of Indic and Western (Sufi and Gnostic) traditions that the 
Masters' K H and Morya seem to have acquired some of their unorthodox 
understanding of the Sanskrit Shastras (scriptures) and to have 
created their hodge-podge of an 'Eastern' thought system. Whoever 
they were, they were masters of something, but what was that 
something? To assess their competence as masters of eastern 
traditions, one would need themself to be qualified in such 
traditions. As an instructing master in the Vedic-based Tradition of 
Vaishnavism, I am qualified to assess the accuracy of the what the 
masters have presented from my own tradition. Since the oldest 
literary traditions in the region are clearly those of the Sanskrit 
Vaishnava-related texts, and the Masters refer to doctrines from 
these texts, then it is reasonable to assess the Mahatmas' 
presentation of ideas from these texts to determine their accuracy. 


THE EXAMPLE OF THE RIG VEDA AND PROTO-MAHAYANA BUDDHISM

For example, the Rig Veda is by all estimations very much older than 
the Advaita Vedantan writings of Adi Sankaracharya, the beginning of 
Tibetan Buddhism (8th A D), the Era of Asoka or even the life of 
Sakyamuni Buddha Himself. The Purusha Sukta Hymn is considered by 
many scholars to be among the oldest surviving writings of humanity. 
The Purusha Sukta is found in a collection of Vedic Sanskrit Hymns, 
the Rig Veda. These hymns glorify God under a variety of Names and 
Forms, as these forms have appeared from the Cosmic Body of the 
universal self-sacrificed Purusha, Who is described in the Purusha 
Sukta. In later corruptions of this monotheistic tradition, the 
forms of Purusha, are demoted to a mere multiplicity of 'gods'. Thus 
polytheism , pantheism etc. eventually obscured the originality and 
supremacy of Purusha as the transcendent supreme Deity of the Rig 
Veda. Purusha assumed a cosmic form for self-sacrifice to create, 
sustain (as sacramental food / Prasadam) and redeem every world / 
cosmic manifestation. In the Purusha Sukta, and related Vedic 
texts, it is clearly understood that Purusha is VISHNU. The Purusha 
Sukta is still chanted today on Vaishnava altars as the Eucharistic 
PRASADAM offerings are being made. Another one of Vishnu's Vedic 
names is Asura (from the root meaning 'being', 'to be, exist'). In 
the "Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism", R. C. Zaehner identifies 
the cosmic Purusha with the Zoroastrian supreme Deity Ahura Mazda 
(Ahura=Asura).

The Jagganatha or Universal Form of Vishnu as Purusha is sometimes 
called his Vishva Rupa or Virata Rupa. This is one of the 
theophanies of SRI KRISHNA that was revealed to Arjuna in the 
Bhagavad-gita, The cosmic form of God in Jewish mysticism is 
definitely related to the revelation of Sri Krishna in the Gita. 
The universal Purusha is of course identified with the Purusha 
AVATARA FORMS OF VISHNU. In the Vedas, Vishnu is called by many 
names, including Asura and Purusha. It is Vishnu Who is worshiped in 
multi-form in the Vedic hymns. This is the tradition of the oldest 
stratum of Vedic so-called 'Hinduism', and all the principle Vedic 
Nama-Rupa name-forms of Vishnu are found many centuries later in 
Mahayana Buddhism, including Tibetan and related Nepalese Buddhism. 
There the very ancient Vedic names and forms of Vishnu-Purusha AS 
LOKSHEVARA, are connected to Vaishnava doctrines, rites, practices, 
sacramental social order etc.. So the foundation of Tibetan 
Buddhism is in the much earlier worship of Vishnu-Purusha, without 
any doubt. When the entire socio-religious cultural milieu in which 
Sakyamuni's Buddhism first developed was Vedic-Vaishnava, how is it 
reasonable to assume that the pervasive elements of Vaishnavism in 
Mahayana Buddhism are later, intrusions or corruptions ? In fact, 
Mahayana Buddhism, including Tibetan Buddhism, uses the very Sanskrit 
Names of Krishna-Vishnu for the ADI BUDDHA, who is also called ADI 
PURUSHA, BHAGAVAN, PURUSOTAMMA etc. To claim that a younger 
tradition (Buddhism) owes nothing to its origins is ridiculous. The 
extremely ancient Purusha Sukta related Forms of Lokesvara are those 
of Vishnu. The same names and forms are there in both the Buddhist 
and Vaishnava traditions, and this is not peculiar to the Nepalese-
Tibetan form of Buddhism either. Everywhere in Pure Land Mahayana 
Buddhism it is the same. The names, forms, doctrines, rites etc, of 
the salvific other-power tradition of Buddhism are closely related to 
those of Krishna-centric Vaishnavism. When we look at the Sanskrit 
sources for the Mahatmas' 'Hindu' and 'Buddhist' ideas, again the 
oldest of these are the Vaishnava and Vaishnava-related scriptures. 
For those accustomed to thinking of Sanskrit literatures in terms of 
some generic 'Hinduism', no such thing existed in the ancient world. 
Scriptures were the testimony of specific traditions, such as the 
sattvic Vaishnava or Shaivite or tantric Devi worshiping 
traditions. In the "CULT OF TARA" by S. Beyer, the original 
Sanskrit for the Tibetan Buddhist rituals of Mother Tara is given. 
Any Vaishnava pujari priest would immediately recognize these 
Sanskrit mantrams, hymns and rites ! So, if we are going to 
seriously consider the claims of the Mahatmas to mastery in Tibetan 
Buddhism, I want to see evidence in their Letters that they knew of, 
and understood the close relationship between Tibetan Buddhism, and 
my own much more ancient Vedic tradition of Vaishnavism. 

END PART 2