Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00679)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel H. Caldwell" 
<danielhcaldwell@y...> wrote:


> It appears that you accept the claims of
> Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater to be in contact with
> H.P. Blavatsky's Masters. 
> 
> But what about the multitude of other claimants
> who ALSO said they were/are in contact with
> HPB's Mahatmas?


Daniel:

My views on Alice Bailey's writings are at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/15287

which you apparently acknowledged at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-talk/message/15324


Before replying to your other questions I would like to quote what 
the late Dr Hugh Shearman, a distinguished member of the Adyar TS, 
who was awarded the Subba Row Medal in 1996 for his contribution to 
theosophical literature, said in his article "Exploring the Past" 
("The Theosophist", May 1985):


"Probably most people think that history is the story of the past. 
History, however, is by no means the story of the past; it is the 
story of the past constructed by certain methods and according to 
certain standards.

People also imagine that history is either true or not true. Again 
the idea must be rejected, for the truth of any work of history can 
never be more than relative. It must depend on the material available 
for its construction, the adequacy of the methods used and the 
standards of judgement prevailing at the time when it was written. ...

History, then, is no simple tale of the past events. It is a 
demanding discipline which extends a challenge not only to our view 
of the past but to our view of the present, from which it can never 
provide an escape. It is truly 'theosophical' in that it asks more 
questions than it can answer." 


I am familiar with some of the literature of the I AM movement, the 
Summit University (Clare-Prophet), and what is generally referred to 
as the "Ascended Masters" teachings. I see no reason to believe that 
such literature is 'inspired' by HPB's Teachers as it has a rather 
mediumnistic (or in modern terms, a 'channelling') tone to it. It 
also does not convey, imo, the depth of wisdom, insight and 
selflessness that the communications in "The Mahatma Letters" 
and "Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom" have.

In 1991, when in London on my way to Adyar, Lilian Storey, then 
Librarian of the TS Headquarters in England, allowed me to peruse a 
copy of "Light of the Sanctuary - the Occult Diary of Geoffrey 
Hodson", which had been recently published. I had found many of 
Hodson's books helpful in my studies but I feel the posthumously 
published "Diary" does not fall into the same category. I know it has 
inspired a number of my friends in the TS but personally I could not 
accept the statement in it that Hodson was the "occult succesor to 
HPB". Such a claim simply does not appear in his books while he was 
alive.

There seems to be a consensus amongst many of CWL's critics that 
HPB's opinion about him was epitomised in the dedication she wrote on 
his copy of "The Voice of the Silence": "To W.C. Leadbeater". Was she 
condemning him for life or was she, as a great occultist, testing his 
own self-image and thus preparing him for a lifetime of attacks and 
slanders? 

Her letters to Sinnett are a clear evidence of her attitude towards 
him. In one of them she even defends him!

"It is not to Leadbeter, dear Mr. Sinnett, that you ought to have 
written about the suppression of everything in The Theosophist 
relating to me and my defence, but to the Executive Council at 
Adyar." ("The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnet", letter LIII)

Its members were Norendro Nath Sen, A.J. Cooper-Oakley, Franz 
Hartmann, S. Ramaswamier, Naoroji Dorabji Khandalavala, H.R. Morgan, 
Gyanendranath Chakravarti, Nobin K. Bannerji, T. Subba Row, P. 
Sreenivasrow, P. Iyaloo Naidu, Rudolph Gebhard, R. Raghoonath Row and 
S. Subramania Iyer. This Committee met in December, 1884, during the 
TS Convention at Adyar. (source: "Old Diary Leaves", Third Series, p. 
192)

In another letter she says:

"See how those Theosophists love each other! Now Leadbeater is 
accused of having turned from a thoroughly good man into a bad Anglo-
Indian, under the influence of Cooper-Oakley! He is accused of saying 
bad things of me, and what not!" (LBS, letter L)

But it is in a letter of 1886 to CWL (who was in Ceylon at that 
time), which was published the HPB Centenary Issue of "The 
Theosophist" (August 1931), with editorial comments by C. 
Jinarajadasa, that she makes two direct references of CWL as a chela 
of the Masters. The subject of this letter is "Bawajee" (Darbagiri 
Nath), an Indian chela who had been sent to London to help in the TS 
work there but who later turned against both HPB and the TS. Some 
letters by both HPB and Countess Wachtmeister, in LBS, also deal with 
the "Bawajee" (sometimes referred to as "Babaji") crisis. I quote 
relevant portions of the letter:


"My dearest Leadbeater,
I was glad - sincerely - to receive your welcome letter. As to the 
enclosure I really do not take upon myself to send it. I cannot do 
it, my dear friend; I swore not to deliver any more letters and 
Master has given me the right and privilege to refuse it. So that I 
have put it aside and send it to you back as I received it. If 
Mahatma K.H. had accepted or wanted to read the letter he would have 
taken it away from my box, and it remaining in its place shows me 
that he refuses it.
Now learn new developments. Bawajee is entirely against us and 
bent on the ruin of the T.S. A month ago he was in London and ready 
to sail back to India. Now, he is here - heaven knows when he will go 
away for he lives with Franz Gebhard (the elder son who sides with 
him and whom he has utterly psychologized) and he has sown dissention 
and strife in Gebhard family, the mother, father, and two sons Arthur 
and Rudolph remaining true to the teachings of Masters and me and F. 
siding with him. ...

Moreover, he has slandered persistently Subba Row, Damodar, Olcott 
and everyone at Adyar. He made many Europeans lose confidence in 
them. Subba Row, he says, never said a truth in his life to a 
European; he bamboozles them always and is a liar; Damodar is a great 
liar also; he alone (Bawajee) knows the Masters, and what They are. 
In short, he makes of our Mahatmas inaccesible, impersonal Beings, so 
far away that no one can reach Them!!! At the same time he 
contradicts himself: to one he says he was 10 y. [years] with Mahatma 
K.H.; to another 3 years, again he went several times to Tibet and 
saw the Master only from afar when he entered and came out of the 
temple. He lies most awfully. The truth is the he (B.) has never been 
to Tibet and has never seen his Master 100 miles off. NOW, I have the 
assurance of it from my Master Himself. He was a chela on probation. 
When he came to Bombay to the Headquarters, your Master ordered me to 
tell all He accepted Krishnaswami, and had sent him to live with us 
and work for the T.S."


Later on in the same letter to CWL, HPB writes:

"When I showed him Master's writing in which your Mahatma 
corroborated my statement and affirmed that he (Bawajee) "had never 
seen HIM or go to Tibet" - Mr. B. cooly said it was a spook letter, 
for the Mahatma could neither write letters, nor would He ever say 
anything about his chelas."

She then ends her letter to CWL with ecouragement and affection:

"Good bye, my dear fellow, don't lose courage however. The Masters 
are with us and will protect all those who stand firm by Them. Write 
to Ostende, poste restante to me, I will be there tomorrow.

Yours ever faithfully and fraternally, 

H. P. Blavatsky"


Jinarajadasa adds the following editorial comment:

[On line 5 of this letter, H.P.B. informs C.W. Leadbeater regarding 
the letter which he sent her to be forwarded to the Master K.H.: "I 
have put it aside and send it to you back as I received it". But when 
C.W. Leadbeater opened the envelope, the letter was no longer there. 
But on the last page of H.P.B.'s letter, there were written, accross 
the page diagonally, in the well-known blue-pencil handwriting of the 
Master K.H., the following words, evidently precipitated in transit 
through the post:


Take courage. I am pleased with you. Keep 
your own counsel and believe in your better 
intuitions. The little man (2) has failed
and will reap his reward. SILENCE meanwhile.

K.H.]

(2) ["Bawajee", who was small in stature]C.J.


The above communication from K.H. to CWL is included as Letter 37 
in "Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom", First Series. 


As for Annie Besant, perhaps one reference will suffice (BCW, vol. 
XII, 1890, p. 485):


"E.S.

O R D E R

I hereby appoint in the name of the MASTER, Annie Besant Chief 
Secretary of the Inner Group of the Esoteric Section & Recorder of 
the Teachings.

H.P.B."


Pedro