Theos-Talk Archives (October 2003 Message tt00152)

M A H A T M A S, A D E P T S , I N I T I A T I O N 



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MAHATMA

"A visitor from one of the other planets of the solar system who might
learn the term Mahatma after arriving here would cer-tainly suppose that
the etymology of the word undoubtedly in-spired the believers in
Mahatmas with the devotion, fearlessness, hope, and energy which such an
ideal should arouse in those who have the welfare of the human race at
heart...The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are
contained in the word Mahatma. Maha is "great," Atma is "soul," and
both compounded into one mean those great souls who have triumphed
before us not because they are made of different stuff and are of some
strange family, but just because they are of the human race.

Reincarnation, karma, the sevenfold division, retribution, reward,
struggle, failure, success, illumination, power, and a vast embracing
love for man, all these lie in that single word.

The soul emerges from the unknown, begins to work in and with matter, is
reborn again and again, makes karma, develops the 6 vehicles for itself,
meets retribution for sin and punishment for mistake, grows strong by
suffering, succeeds in bursting through the gloom, is enlightened by
true illumination, grasps power, retains charity, expands with love for
orphaned humanity, and thenceforth helps all others who remain in
darkness until all may be raised up to the place with the "Father in
Heaven" who is the Higher Self." WQJ -- ART. II, p. 39-40



SPIRITUAL STAR OF THE SOUL


"...every class of adept has its own bond of spiritual communion...by
bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual light which
radiates from one's own Logos. ... such communion is only possible
between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the
same divine RAY, and that, as seven distinct rays radiate from the
'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan Chohans are divisible into
seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled, and overshadowed by
one of the seven forms or manifestations of the divine Wisdom."
S Row quoted by HPB, SD I 574.



ATTUNING ONE'S CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE SEVEN CHORDS


"... Whenever you are able to attune your consciousness to any of the
seven chords of 'Universal Consciousness,' those chords that run along
the sounding-board of Kosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another;
when you have studied thoroughly 'the music of the Spheres," then only
will you become quite free to share your knowledge with those with whom
it is safe to do so. ... Do not give out the great Truths that are the
inherit-ance of the future Races, to our present generation. Do not
attempt to unveil the secret of being and non-being to those unable to
see the hidden meaning of Apollo's HEPTACHORD--the lyre of the radiant
god, in each of the seven strings of which dwel-leth the Spirit, Soul
and Astral body of the Kosmos, whose shell only has now fallen into the
hands of Modern Science..."
S D I 167



MATHEMATICAL VALUE OF THE PERSON


"...each person has a distinct mathematical value expressed by one
number. This is a compound or resultant of numberless smaller ones."
WQJ ARTICLES, Vol. 1, p. 423



ADEPT INITIATION


"The degrees of an Adept's initiation mark the seven stages at which he
discovers the secret of the sevenfold principles in nature and man and
awakens his dormant powers." M.L. 99



ADEPT LIVES TO SERVE THE WORLD


"[The Adept]...serves humanity and identifies himself with the whole
world; he is ready to make vicarious sacrifice for it at any moment--by
living not by dying for it. Why should he not die for it? Because he
is part of the whole, and one of the most valuable parts of it. Because
he lives under laws of order which he does not desire to break. His
life is not his own, but that of the forces which work behind him. He
is the flower of humani-ty, the bloom which contains the divine seed.
He is, in his own person, a treasure of the universal nature. which is
guarded and made safe in order that the fruition shall be perfected. It
is only at definite periods of the world's history that he is al-lowed
to go among the herd of men as their redeemer." LIGHT ON
THE PATH p. 72-3



SECLUSION OF THE ADEPT


"Through all time the wise men have lived apart from the mass. [ That
the chief body of these wise ones should be under-stood to dwell beyond
the fastnesses of the Himalayas...p. 70 ] And even when some temporary
purpose or object induces one of them to come into the midst of human
life, his seclusion and safety is preserved as completely as ever...
they are only known as mystics by those who have the power to recognize;
the power given by the conquering of self. Otherwise how could they
exist, even for an hour, in such a mental and psychic atmosphere as is
created by the confusion and disorder of a city ? Unless pro-tected and
made safe their own growth would be interfered with, their work injured.
And the neophyte may meet an adept in the flesh, may live in the same
house with him, and yet be unable to recognize him, and unable to make
his own voice heard by him... No voice penetrates to his inner hearing
till it has become a divine voice, a voice which gives no utterance to
the cries of self... Until a man has become, in heart and spirit a
disciple, he has no existence for those who are teachers of disciples.
And he becomes this by one method only--the surrender of his personal
humanity." L ON P , p. 74-5



"If, for generations we have "shut out the world from the Knowledge of
our Knowledge," it is on account of its absolute unfitness; and if,
notwithstanding proofs given, it still refus-es yielding to evidence,
then will we at the End of this cycle retire into solitude and our
kingdom of silence once more...We have offered to exhume the primeval
strata of man's being, his basic nature, and lay bare the wonderful
complications or his inner Self...and demonstrate it scientifically...It
is our mis-sion to plunge and bring the pearls of Truth to the
surface...For countless generations hath the adept builded a fane of
imperish-able rocks, a giant's Tower of Infinite Thought, wherein the
Titan dwelt, and will yet, if need be, dwell alone, emerging from it but
at the end of every cycle, to invite the elect of mankind to co-operate
with him and help in his turn enlighten supersti-tious man. And we will
go on in that periodical work of ours; we will not allow ourselves to
be baffled in our philanthropic attempts until that day when the
foundations of a new continent of thought are so firmly built that no
amount of opposition and ignorant malice guided by the Brethren of the
Shadow will be found to prevail." M L p. 50-1



TRANSITION CYCLE


"We are the bottom of a cycle and evidently in a transitory state, Plato
divides the intellectual progress of the universe during every cycle
into fertile and barren periods...We are in a barren period the
eighteenth century during which the malignant fever of skepticism broke
out so irrepressibly, has entailed unbelief as an hereditary disease
upon the nineteenth. The divine intellect is veiled in man; his animal
brain alone phi-losophizes." ISIS I 247
[WQJ Art. Vol ,I , LETTERS 71-2, OCEAN 4, 50 55,
126, IS II 366-9] 



"...I told you long ago to expect many and great disturbanc-es of all
kinds as one cycle was closing and the other beginning its fateful
activities. You already see in the seismological phenomena of late
occurrence some of the proof; you will see a great many more and
shortly..." M L 396



HARMONY OF THE ADEPT - CHELA


"...an adept may be compared to that one key which contains all the keys
in the great harmony of nature. He has the synthe-sis of all keys in
his thoughts, whereas the ordinary man has the same key as a basis, but
only acts and thinks on one or a few changes of this great key,
producing in his brain only a few chords out of the whole great possible
harmony...the brain of the chela is attuned by training to the brain of
the Master. His vibrations synchronize with those of the Adept...so the
chela's brain is abnormal...(425) ...the adept sees all the colors in
every color and yet does not confuse them together...the highest adepts
[ have raised their vibrations so as to have them the same as those of
nature as a whole ]...He can produce a sound which will alter a color.
It is the sound which produces the color, and not the other or opposite.
By correlating the vibrations of a sound in the proper way a new color
is made...on the astral plane every sound always produces a
color...these are invisible because not yet correlated by the human
brain so as to become visible on the earth plane....His astral senses
may see the true color, but the physical eye has its own vibrations, and
these, being on the outer plane, overcome the others for the time, and
the astral man is compelled to report to the brain that it saw
correctly. For in each case the outer stimulus is sent to the inner
man, who then is forced, as it were, to accept the message and to
confirm it for the time so far as it goes. But there are cases where
the inner man is able to even then overcome the outer defect and to make
the brain see the difference...." 
WQJ ARTICLES, Vol. I, p. 423-426.



DAILY AND HOURLY INITIATIONS -- TESTS OF DAILY LIFE


"It is supposed by some that initiation is always and in every case a
set and solemn occasion for which the candidate is prepared and notified
in advance. While there are some initia-tions surrounded by such
solemnities as these, the daily one, without success in which no
aspirant will ever have the chance to try for those that are higher,
comes to the disciple with almost each moment. It is met in our
relations with our fellows, and in the effects upon us of all the
circumstances of life. And if we fail in these, we never get to the
point where greater ones are offered. If we cannot bear momentary
defeat, or if a chance word that strikes our self-love finds us
unprepared, or if we give way to the desire to harshly judge others, or
if we remain in igno-rance of some of our most apparent faults, we do
not build up that knowledge and strength imperatively demanded from
whoever is to be master of nature."
WQJ ART II 497-8



MOMENTS OF CHOICE


"It is in the life of every one to have a moment of choice, but that
moment is not set for any particular day. It is the sum total of all
days; and it may be put off until the day of death, and then it is
beyond our power, for the choice has been fixed by all the acts and
thoughts of the lifetime. We are self-doomed at that hour to just the
sort of life, body, environment, and ten-dencies which will best carry
out our karma. This is a thing solemn enough, and one that makes the
"daily initiation" of the very greatest importance to each earnest
student." WQJ ART II 497-8



UNIVERSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS -- RANGE OF THE INITIATE


"That High Spirits work on Earth in bodies of men, while those spirits
are still in the highest spheres [ see SD I 233-4 &fn, 235fn ]...it is
clearly explained that the author [HPB] does not mean that which is
called among the spiritualists "control" of mediums by a spirit, but the
actual continuance of the status and functions of the incarnated spirit
in the supersensuous regions, while actually using as its own and
working in a mortal envelope on earth. So that, according to her, there
are certain persons on this earth, living and working as ordinary human
beings and members of society. whose informing divine part is so
immeasurably high in development that they as such high beings have a
definite status and function in the "supersensuous re-gions." 

We should say...that she herself was such a case, and that "H.P.B.,"
whether hourly in the day and night when all around was still, had a
status and functions" in their spheres where she consciously carried on
the work of that high station, whatever it was. 

There were many events in her daily life known to those who were
intimate with her that this hint may reveal, or at least shed much light
upon. And in one of her letters the sentence appears--in
substance--"The difference between you and me is that you are not
conscious except at day, while I am conscious day and night, and have
much to do and to endure in both of these exist-ences from which you,
being thus half-conscious, are happily saved."

In the Hindu books and teachings there is a reference to this when the
speak of high gnanees--that is, persons full of knowledge and spiritual
power--being attracted to this earth by certain acts and at certain
times in the history of nation, race or city." "Hidden
Hints in the S. D." WQJ Art I 615-6



"If it is true that "the whole universe is an aggregate of states of
consciousness," it would seem to follow that the real difference between
one who is an initiate and one who is not lies in the fact that the
former looks at all things from a totally different stand point to the
majority of men...that he is on a higher plane of consciousness
altogether. If such a higher plane has been attained, it will follow
that his whole range of ideas will differ from that of others and he
will be sensible of the operation of causes of a more far-reaching
character than those cognized by others. He will be as it were in the
possession of higher and superior information and so will be able to
form juster conclusions and this fact alone will give him enormous
power." Theos.. Art. & Notes, p. 60



"The action of the entire universe is but a detailed mani-festation and
example of the action of mind on matter, governed at the highest point
by the action of the universal mind. Bet-ween the finite human mind of
the ordinary uninitiated individual and this universal mind lie an
infinite number of gradually ascending degrees, and the higher the plane
of consciousness the nearer is the approach to the universal mind which
is, as it were, the mainspring of the whole." --"Alpha" THEOS
ART & NOTES, p. 60-1



"BRAIN" of the MANIFESTED UNIVERSE


"Occult philosophy reconciles the absurdity of postulating in the
manifested Universe an active Mind without an organ, with that worse
absurdity, an objective Universe evolved as everything else in it, by
blind chance, by giving to this Universe an organ of thought, a "brain."
The latter, although not objective to our senses, is nonetheless
existing; it is to be found in the Entity called Kosmos (Adam Kadmon,
in the Kabala)." 

"As in the Microcosm, Man, so in the Macrocosm, of the Universe. Every
"organ" in it is a sentient entity, and every particle of matter or
substance, from the physical molecule up to the spiritual atom, is a
cell, a nerve center, which communi-cates." T A & N 208




MAN'S EGO -- ATMA-BUDDHI -- A RAY OF UNIVERSAL MIND


"This is precisely what occult philosophy claims: our Ego is a ray of
the Universal Mind, individualized for the space of a cosmic life-cycle,
during which space of time it gets experience in almost numberless
reincarnations or rebirths, after which it returns to its Parent-Source.

"The Occultist would call the "Higher Ego" the immortal Entity, whose
shadow and reflection is the human Manas, the mind, limited by its
physical senses. The two may be well compared to the Master-artist and
the pupil-musician. 

"In the course of natural evolution our "brain-mind" will be replaced by
a finer organism, and helped by the 6th and the 7th senses.

"The "sensing principle" in us is an entity capable of acting outside as
inside its material body; and it is certainly independent of any organ
in particular, in its actions, although during its incarnation it
manifests itself through its physical organs. T A & N
208-9



MEMORY is impressed in IMPERISHABLE WAVES OF ASTRAL LIGHT


"Our "memory" is but a general agent, and its "tablets," with their
indelible impressions, but a figure of speech; the "brain-tablets"
serve only as a upadhi or a vahan (basis or vehicle) for reflecting at a
given moment the memory of one or another thing. The records of past
events, of even minutest action, and of passing thoughts, in fact, are
really impressed on the imperishable waves of the ASTRAL LIGHT, around
us and every-where, not in the brain alone; and these mental pictures,
im-ages, and sounds, pass from these waves via the consciousness of the
personal Ego or Mind (the lower Manas) whose grosser essence is astral,
into the "cerebral reflectors," so to say, or our brain, whence they are
delivered by the psychic to the sensuous consciousness. This at every
moment of the day, and even during sleep." HPB Footnote in LUCIFER
THEOS ART & NOTES, p. 208-9



PURE MIND GUIDE OF THE HIGHEST FACULTIES


"..."Mind" is manas, or rather its lower reflection, which whenever it
disconnects itself, for the time being, with kama, becomes the guide of
the highest mental faculties, and is the organ of the free-will in
physical man...." HPB
ARTICLES, Vol. II, p. 13


"Mankind usually receives a thousand impressions through the senses to
one through the spiritual nature. Adeptship means reversing the
proportion." -- H.S.Olcott PATH 3, 109



ABOUT H.P.B. An ADEPT


W.Q.Judge: "In 1875, in the City of New York, I first met H.P.B.
in this life...It was her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I
must have known in lives long passed away. She looked at me in
recognition at that first hour, and never since has that look
changed...Not as a questioner of philosophies did I come before
her...but as one, wandering many periods through the corridors of life,
was seeking the friends who could show where the designs for the work
had been hidden. And true to the call she responded, revealing the
plans once again, and speaking no words to explain, simply pointed then
out and went on with the task. It was as if but the evening before we
had parted, leaving yet to be done some detail of a task taken up with
one common end; it was teacher and pupil, elder brother and younger,
both bent on the one single end, but she with the power and the
knowl-edge that belong but to lions and sages.

Others I know have looked with suspicion on an appearance they could not
fathom, and though it is true they adduce many proofs which hugged to
the breast, would damn sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness
they failed to see the lion's glance, the diamond heart of H.P.B...she
was laying down the lines of force all over the land...

The explanation has been offered by some too anxious friends that the
earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted to be rectified
in later years by confining their area and limit-ing their number,
but...I shall hold to her own explanation made in advance and never
changed. That I have given above. For it is easier to take refuge
behind a charge of bad judgment than to understand the strange and
powerful laws which control in matters such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above all the din produced by those
who charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while
month after month, and year after year, witnessed men and women entering
the theosophical movement only to leave it soon with malignant phrases
for H.P.B., there stands a fact we all might consider--devotion absolute
to her Master. "It was He," she writes, "who told me to devote myself
to this, and I will never disobey and never turn back."...

.she ever was devoted to Theosophy and the Society organ-ized to carry
out a programme embracing the world in its scope. Willing in the
service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation, life itself,
provided the Society might be saved from every hurt, whether small or
great. And thus bound body and soul to this entity called the T. S.,
bound to protect it at all hazards, and in the face of every loss, she
often incurred the resentment of many who became her friends but would
not always care for the infant organization as she had sworn to do. And
when they acted as it opposed to the Society, her instant opposi-tion
seemed to them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but
few friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged with personal
feeling, to see even a small part of the real H.P.Blavatsky...

She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene, knew
that the T. S. was, and was to be, the nucleus from which help might be
spread to all the people of the day, without thanks and without
acknowledgment...I asked her what was the chance of drawing people into
the Society...she said:--

"When you consider those days in 1875 and after, in which you could not
find any people interested in your thoughts, and now look at the
wide-spreading influence of theosophical ideas--however labeled--it is
not so bad. We are not working that people may call them-selves
Theosophists, but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven
the whole mind of this century. This alone can be accomplished by a
small earnest band of workers, who work for no human reward, no earthly
recognition, but who, supported and sustained by a belief in that
Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are a part, work steadily,
faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for consideration the
doctrines of life and duty that have come down to us from immemorial
time. Falter not so long as a few devoted ones will work to keep the
nucleus existing. You were not directed to found and realise a
Universal Brotherhood, but to form the nucleus for one; for it is only
when the nucleus it formed that the accumulations can begin that will
end in future years, however far, in the formation of that body which we
have in view."

H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she had a
lion's grasp, let us...sustain ourselves in carrying out the designs
laid down on the trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the
consciousness that behind her task stood, and still remain, those Elder
Brothers who, above the clatter and the din of our battle, ever see the
end and direct the forces distributed in array for the salvation of
"that great orphan--Humanity." 
W. Q. Judge "Yours till Death and After, H.P.B..."
Judge Articles, II p. 1



"...in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would
draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted
misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in the face
of this her lion heart carried her on...Much has been said of her
"phenomena," some denying them, others alleging trick and device.
Knowing her for so many years so well, and having seen at her hands in
private the pro-duction of more and more varied phenomena that it has
been the good fortune of all others of her friends put together to seem
I know for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of nature
not known to our science, and I also know that she never boasted of her
powers, never advertised their possession, never publicly advised anyone
to attempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those who
could understand her to a life of altruism based on a knowledge of true
philosophy.

If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her followers
by pretended phenomena, it is solely because her injudicious friends,
against her expressed wish, gave out wonder-ful stories of her
"miracles" which can not be proved to a skep-tical public and which are
not the aim of the Society nor were ever more than mere incidents in the
life of H.P.Blavatsky.

Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the mind
of the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step by step;
to seek out and educate a few who, appreci-ating the majesty of the
Secret Science and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity," could carry
on her work with zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose
efforts--however small itself might be--would inject into the thought of
the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the Wisdom
Religion, so that when the next century shall have seen its 75th years
the new messenger coming again into the world would find the Society
still at work, the ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature ready to give
expres-sion and body to the immutable truth, and thus to make easy the
task which for her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed with
obstacles in the very paucity of the language--obstacles harder than all
else to work against." W. Q. Judge
"H.P.B.--A Lion-hearted Colleague Passes" WQJ Articles II
p. 5



"This article is meant for members of the T.S...Those mem-bers who
believe that such beings as the Masters may exist must come to one of
two conclusions in regard to H.P.B.: either that she invented her
Masters, who therefore have no real existence, or that she did not
invent them but spoke in the names and by the orders of such beings.

If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often was
said by her, all that she has taught and written is the product of her
own brain, from which we would be bound to con-clude that her position
on the roll of great and powerful persons must be higher than people
have been willing to place her.

But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her state-ment that she
had those teachers whom she called Masters and that they are more
powerful beings than ordinary men.

The case I wish to deal with...is this: H.P.B. and her relations to the
Masters and to us; her books and teachings; the general question of
disciples and chelas...Chelas and disci-ples are of many grades, and
some of the Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts...[they
are those who have] devoted himself or herself to the service of mankind
and the pursuit of knowledge of the Self...[Some] have gained through
knowledge and discipline those powers over mind, matter, space, and time
which to us are the glittering prizes of the future...So much being laid
down, we may next ask how we are to look at H.P.B.

.every one has the right to place her if he pleases for himself on the
highest plane...But taking her own sayings, she was a chela or disciple
of the Masters, and therefore stood in relation to them as one who might
be chided or corrected or reproved. She called them her Masters, and
asseverated a devo-tion to their behests and a respect and confidence in
and for their utterances which the chelas has always for one who is high
enough to be his Master.

But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as to which one of
her Masters wrote that they had puzzled and aston-ished the brightest
minds of the age, we see that compared with ourselves she was an
Adept...

.Subba Row [said to the writer] in 1884: "The Mahatmas are in fact some
of the great Rishis and Sages of the past, and people have been too much
in the habit of lowering them to the petty standard of this age." But
with this reverence for her teachers she had for them at the same time a
love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates her
chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants us in
deciding that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment of her.

Now some Theosophist ask if there are other letters extant from her
Masters in which she is called to account, is called their chela, and is
chided now and then, besides those published. Perhaps yes. And what of
it ? Let them be published by all means, and let us have the full and
complete record of all let-ters sent during her life; those put forward
as dated after her death will count for naught...since the Masters do
not indulge in any criticisms on the disciples who have gone from earth.
As she has herself published letters and parts of letters from the
Masters to her in which she is called a chela and is chided, it
certainly matte if we know of others of the same sort.

For over against all such we have common sense, and also the
declarations of her Masters that she was the sole instrument possible
for the work to be done, that They sent her to do it, and that They
approved in general all she did. And she was the first direct channel to
and from the Lodge, and the only one to date through which came the
objective presence of the Adepts. We cannot ignore the messenger, take
the message, and laugh at or give scorn to the one who brought it to us.
There is nothing new in the idea that letters are still unpublished
wherein the Mas-ters put her below them, and there is no cause for any
apprehen-sion. But it certainly is true that not a single such letter
has anything in it putting her below us; she must ever remain the
greatest of the chelas...

There only remains...the position taken by some and without a knowledge
of the rules governing these matters, that chelas sometimes write
messages claimed to be from the Masters when they are not. this is an
artificial position not supportable by law or rule. It is due to
ignorance of what is and is not chelaship, and also to confusion between
grades in discipleship. It has been used as to H.P.B. The false
conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high grade may
become accustomed to dictation by the Master and then may fall into the
false pre-tense of giving something from himself and pretending it is
from the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not of
such a character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it would
destroy the possibility of any more communication from the teach-er. It
may be quite true that probationers now and then have imagined
themselves as ordered to say so and so, but that is not the case of an
accepted and high chela who is irrevocably pledged...This idea, then,
ought to be abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to
what must be the case when such relations are established as existed
between H.P.B. and her Masters." W. Q. Judge
"Masters, Adepts, Teachers and Disciples" WQJ Art.
II p. 9

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