Theos-Talk Archives (February 2003 Message tt00244)

Bhakti Ananda Goswami wrote:

"Reality anyone ?

'Master M. wrote about HPB:'

"Or, was it HPB writing as M. writing about HPB ?"

Bhakti Ananda Goswami, does this mean you doubt the existence of the 
Master Morya or the Master Koot Hoomi?

I refer you to the following resource:

http://mahatmas.net

Concerning some of these encounters with HPB's Masters, Steve Stubbs, 
who does not consider himself a Theosophical fundamentalist, has 
written:

". . . the only proof we can have of the masters' historical 
existence is testimony from a qualified witness, and we have that 
from Olcott. . . . Olcott's testimony is sufficient in my judgment to 
establish their corporeal existence as legal persons. . . . I cannot 
agree with anyone that they were fictions, fantasies, imagined 
beings, trance personalities, or any such thing as that unless the 
Olcott evidence can be satisfactorily disposed of. I raised that 
question some time ago, and no one has ever addressed it, so for that 
reason I remain stubbornly convinced that the mahatmas were real men 
as they were claimed to be."

Do you take issue with Steve's assessment? If so, please give us the 
particulars of your argument rather than making vague assertions.

Bhakti Ananda Goswami, also consider the following:

In Colonel Henry S. Olcott's diary for Tuesday, November 20,
1883, the entry reads: 

"1:55 a.m. Koot Hoomi came in body to my tent. Woke me suddenly out 
of sleep, pressed a note (wrapped in silk) into my left hand, and 
laid his hand upon my head. He then passed into Brown's
compartment and integrated another note in his hand (Brown's). He 
spoke to me." 

William T. Brown gives the following narrative of some of these 
meetings with the Master K.H.:

"...Lahore has a special interest, because there we saw, in his own 
physical body, Mahatma Koot Hoomi himself. On the afternoon of the 
19th November [1883], I saw the Master in broad daylight, and 
recognized him, and on the morning of the 20th he came to my 
tent....On the evening of the 21st, after the lecture was over, 
Colonel Olcott, Damodar and I were sitting outside the shamiana, 
(pavilion or pandal), when we were visited by Djual Khool (the 
Master's head Chela, and now an Initiate), who informed us that the 
Master was about to come. The Master [KH] then came near to us, gave 
instructions to Damodar, and walked away. On leaving Lahore the next 
place visited was Jammu, the winter residence of His Highness the 
Maharajah of Cashmere....At Jammu I had another opportunity of seeing 
Mahatma Koot Hoomi in propria persona. One evening I went to the end 
of the `compound,' (private enclosure) and there I found the
Master awaiting my approach. I saluted in European fashion, and came, 
hat in hand, to within a few yards of the place on which he was 
standing....After a minute or so he marched away, the noise of his 
foot-steps on the gravel being markedly audible…." Quoted from
W.T. Brown's pamphlet Some Experiences In India, 1884, pp. 15-17.

Bhakti Ananda Goswami, you may counter that only naive and foolish 
Theosophists would believe such accounts but consider the following.

In the book IN SEARCH OF THE MASTERS (p. 242) the scholar K. Paul 
Johnson assures his readers that: 

"K.H. did INDEED visit Olcott, Damodar and Brown on the edge of 
Lahore." caps added.

And several years later Johnson in his SUNY book titled INITIATES OF 
THEOSOPHICAL MASTERS, p. 40, again wrote:

"Damodar had GENUINELY met Koot Hoomi outside Lahore and at the 
palace of Ranbir Singh [at Jammu]....This is one of the great TRUE 
Mahatma stories of Theosophical history...." caps added.

Bhakti Ananda Goswami, if you think you have a better explanation 
then please give it to us.

Daniel H. Caldwell

Visit Blavatsky Archives at:
http://blavatskyarchives.com/introduction.htm

"...Contrast alone can enable us to appreciate things at
their right value; and unless a judge compares notes and
hears both sides he can hardly come to a correct decision."
H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophist, July, 1881, p. 218.