Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00014)

Monday, April 07, 2003

For review -- and some thought about Those who survey the passage of
time

Very interesting account

Dallas

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THE DWELLERS ON HIGH MOUNTAINS
[ W Q J ]

AN account of the dwellers upon high mountains would be incomplete
without some reference to a widespread belief prevailing in Hindustan
in regard to authorities and others, who are said to dwell in
inaccessible places, and who are now and then seen by natives. It is
true that all over India are to be found Fakirs of much or little
sanctity, and of greater or less accumulation of dirt, but the natives
all tell of Fakirs, as many of us would call them, who dwell alone in
places remote from the habitation of man, and who are regarded with a
feeling of veneration very different from that which is accorded to
the ordinary traveling devotee.

The Hindu has an intense religious nature and says that devotion to
religious contemplation is one of the highest walks in life. He
therefore looks upon the traveling ascetic as one who by means of
renunciation has gained a great degree of advancement toward final
bliss, and he says that there are other men who are farther advanced
in this line of practice. These others finding the magnetism or
exhalations from ordinary people and from places where persons
congregate to be inimical to further progress, have retired to spots
difficult to find even when sought for, and not at all likely to be
stumbled upon by accident. For that reason they select high mountains,
because the path worn by man in going from place to place on earth are
always by that route which is the shortest or most easy of travel,
just as electricity by a law of its being will always follow the line
of least resistance and quickest access.

And so English and French travelers tell of meeting from time to time
with natives who repeat local traditions and lore relating to some
very holy man who lives alone upon some neighboring mountain, where he
devotes his time to contemplating the universe as a whole, and in
trying to reach, if he may, final emancipation.

The name given to these men is "mahatma," meaning, in English, "great
soul," because it is claimed that they could not renounce the world
and its pleasures unless they possessed souls more noble and of
greater dynamic force than the souls of the mere

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NOTE-Place and date of original publication of this article are
unknown to us.-Eds.
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ordinary man, who is content to live on through ages of reincarnations
round the great wheel of the universe, awaiting a happy chanceful
deliverance from the bond of matter some day.

The great traveler, the Abbé Huc, who went over a large part of Thibet
and put his wonderful experiences, as a Catholic missionary there,
into an interesting book of travels, refers often to these men with a
different name. But he establishes the fact beyond dispute that they
are believed to live as related, and to possess extraordinary power
over the forces of nature, or as the learned and pious Abbé would say,
an intimate and personal combination with the devil himself, who in
return does great and miraculous works for them.

The French traveler Jacolliot also attests to the wide extent of the
belief in these extraordinary men whose lesser disciples he claims to
have seen and have had perform for him extraordinary and hair-raising
feats of magic, which they said to him they were enabled to do by the
power transmitted to them from their guru or teacher, one of the
Mahatmas, a dweller on some high mountain.

It seems they assert that the air circulating around the tops of
mountains of great altitude is very pure and untainted with the
emanations from animals or man and that, therefore, the Mahatmas can
see spiritually better and do more to advance their control over
nature by living in such pure surroundings. There is indeed much to be
said in favor of the sanitary virtue of such a residence. Upon a raw,
moist day, down upon the level of our cities, one can easily see, made
heavily and oppressively visible, the steamy exhalation from both
human beings and quadrupeds. The fact that upon a fine day we do not
see this is not proof that on those days the emanations are stopped.
Science declares that they go on all the time, and are simply made
palpable by the natural process of the settling of moisture upon cold
and damp days.

Among Europeans in India all stories respecting the dwellers upon high
mountains to whom we are referring are received in two ways. One is
that which simply permits it to be asserted that such men exist,
receiving the proposition with a shrug of either in difference or lack
of faith. The other, that one which admits the truth of the
proposition while wondering how it is to be proved. Many officers of
the English army have testified to a belief in these traditions and
many to not only belief, but also to have had ocular demonstrations of
their wonderful powers. While the other side
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is simply represented by those who are unable to say that they ever
had any proof at all.

The Hindu says that his ancient sages have always lived in these high
places, safe from contamination and near the infinite. It is related
that the pilgrims who annually do the round of pilgrimage through the
sacred places of India, sometimes penetrate as far as a certain little
temple on the sides of the sky-reaching Himalayas, and that in this is
a brass tablet of great age stating that that is the highest point to
which it is safe to go; and that from there one can now and then see,
looking down at you from the cold and distant cliff still higher up,
men of grave and venerable aspect. These are said by some to be the
Mahatmas or great souls, dwelling up there alone and unsought. In
Thibet the story can be heard any time of the Sacred Mountain where
the great souls of the earth meet for converse and communion.

The Hindu early saw that his conquerors, the Dutch and English, were
unable as well as incapable of appreciating his views of devotion and
devotees, and therefore maintained a rather exasperating silence and
claim of ignorance on such matters. But here and there when a
listener, who was not also a scoffer, was found, he unbosomed himself,
and it is now generally admitted by all well-informed Anglo-Indians
and Indian scholars that there is a universal belief in these
Mahatmas, or dwellers upon high mountains, extending from one end of
India to the other throughout every caste.

For the Christian it ought to be significant here, that when Jehovah
commanded Moses to attend him for instruction and to receive the law,
he did not set the place of meeting in the plain, but designated Mount
Sinai, a high place of awful ruggedness, and more or less
inaccessible. Then in that high mountain he hid Moses in the cleft of
the rock while he passed by, and from that high mountain, now roll and
reverberate through Christendom the thunders of the Judaic law. All
through the Semitic book, this peculiar connection of great events and
men with high mountains is noticeable. Abraham, when he was ordered to
sacrifice Isaac, received command to proceed to Mount Moriah. Sadly
enough he set forth, not acquainting either the human victim or his
family with his determination, and traveled some weary days to reach
the appointed spot.

The thoughtful man will see the indicia of a unity of plan and
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action in nearly all these occurrences. The sacrifice of Isaac could
with great ease and perfect propriety have been offered on the plain,
but Abraham is made to go a long distance in order to reach the summit
of a high mountain. And when he reached it, made his preparations, and
piously lifted the fatal blade-he was restrained, and his son restored
to him.

Passing rapidly through long centuries from the great patriarch down
to Jesus of Nazareth, we find him preaching his most celebrated sermon
not in the synagogue or at the corners of the streets, but from the
mount, and from there also he distributes to the hungry multitude the
loaves and fishes. Again, he is transfigured, but not in the city nor
outside in view of all the people, but with two disciples he returns
to the summit of a high mountain, and there the wonderful glory sat
upon him. Or we watch him in the wilderness, only to see him again on
a high mountain, where he resists the Arch temptation. And then, when
the appointed hour for the veiling from human gaze of his earthly life
is come, we have to follow him up the steep sides of the Mount
Golgotha, where, in agony of body and woe of soul, with words of
appealing anguish, his spirit flies to the father.

The story of Mohammed, that world-famed descendant of Ishmael, is
closely associated with high mountains. He often sought the quiet and
solitude of the hills to restore his health and increase his faith. It
was while he was in the wilds of Mount Hira that the Angel Gabriel
appeared to him, and told him he was Mohammed, the prophet of God, and
to fear not. In his youth Mohammed had wandered much upon the sides
and along the summits of high ranges of mountains. There the mighty
trees waved their arms at him in appeal, while the sad, long traveling
wind sighed pityingly through their branches, and the trembling leaves
added to the force of the mighty cry of nature. Upon those mountains
he was not oppressed by care nor by the adverse influences of his
fellows, such as kept him down when he was one merely of a lot of
camel drivers. So, then, when he returned to the mountain's clear and
wide expansive view, his spiritual eyes and ears heard more than the
simple moaning of the wind and saw greater meaning than unconscious
motion in the beckoning of the trees. There he saw the vision of the
different heavens, peopled by lovely houris, garlanded with flowers,
and musical with the majestic tones of the universe; and then, too, he
saw handed to him the sword with
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which he was to compel all people to bow to Allah and his prophet. The
countries of all the earth are full of similar traditions. In

South America, Humboldt heard the story of the wonderful people who
are said to dwell unfound among the inaccessible Cordilleras and,
stern traveler that he was, he set out to find some trace of them. He
went so far as to leave after him a fragment of testimony of his
belief that somewhere in those awful wilds a people could easily live,
and perhaps did.

It was from a high mountain where he had long lived, that Peter the
Hermit rushed down upon Europe with his hordes of Crusaders, men,
women and children, to wrest the holy land from the profaning hand of
the Saracen; and the force and fury of the feelings that inspired
William Tell were drawn in upon the tops of his native high mountain,
to whom upon his return, he cried:

Ye crags and peaks,
I am with you once again.

Japan, the highly civilized country of Islands so long buried from
European sight, and Corea, which has only just partly opened a door of
communication, have always venerated a high mountain. This is called
Fujiyama. They say that it can be seen from any part of the world and
they regard it as extremely sacred. Its top is cold and covered with
snow, while round its base the corn waves to the touch of the zephyr,
and the flowers bloom.

The love for this mountain is so great that it is pictured on their
china, in their paintings, and reproduced wherever possible, whether
in mural decoration or elaborated carvings. Its sacredness is due to
its being the residence, as they claim, of holy persons. And they also
believe that there is, too, a spiritual Fujiyama, whose base is on
earth and top in heaven.

WILLIAM Q. JUDGE

THE WORD, June, 1912

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