Theos-Talk Archives (June 2004 Message tt00235)

June 28 2004

Re The GREAT MASTERS' LETTER

Dear Friends:

This unique document was printed to explain what the THEOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT stands for.  

It also offers us the opportunity of reviewing what we believe to be
our part in its progress.  

Looking back, perhaps in our next incarnation, what will we see?

The statements made are provocative and most impelling.

DTB



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THE GREAT MASTER'S LETTER


   
[This article was printed in Lucifer in 1896 without signature
as: "An Important Letter," prefaced by the statement that it "was
circulated by H.P.B. among many of her pupils, and some quotations
from it have been published from time to time." 

The Letter belongs to the early days of the Theosophical Society in
India and was part of the correspondence received (through H.P.B. --
1880-83) by A. P. Sinnett and A. O. Hume from the Theosophical Adepts.


His Adept-teacher introduced the letter to Mr. Sinnett as "an abridged
version of the view of the Chohan on the T.S. from his own words as
given last night"--in reply to objections about the conduct of the
Society and especially to the "Brotherhood plank."
     
Although the text of the complete letter was not published until after
H.P. Blavatsky and Wm. Q. Judge had left the scene, both provided a
setting for the statements made, and both quoted in their magazines
some passages for particular attention.--Ed.]


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>From the MAHA CHOHAN


The doctrine we promulgate being the only true one, must--supported by
such evidence as we are preparing to give--become ultimately
triumphant, like every other truth. 

Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually; enforcing
its theories (unimpeachable facts for those who know) with direct
inference, deduced from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by
modern exact science. 

That is why Col. H. S. Olcott, who works to revive Buddhism, may be
regarded as one who labours in the true path of Theosophy, far more
than any man who chooses as his goal the gratification of his own
ardent aspirations for occult knowledge. 

Buddhism, stripped of its superstition, is eternal truth; and he who
strives for the latter is striving for eternal truth; and he who
strives for the latter is striving for Theo-Sophia, divine wisdom,
which is a synonym of truth.  

For our doctrines to practically react on the so-called moral code, or
the ideas of truthfulness, purity, self-denial, charity, etc., we have
to preach and popularize a knowledge of Theosophy. 

It is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining
Nirvana-the culmination of all knowledge and absolute wisdom, which is
after all only an exalted and glorious selfishness -- but the
self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path
our neighbour, to cause to benefit by it as many of our
fellow-creatures as we possibly can, which constitutes the true
Theosophist.
   
The intellectual portion of mankind seems to be fast dividing into two
classes: the one unconsciously preparing for itself long periods of
temporary annihilation or states of non-consciousness, owing to the
deliberate surrender of intellect, and its imprisonment in the narrow
grooves of bigotry and superstition -- a process which cannot fail to
lead to the utter deformation of the intellectual principle; the other
unrestrainedly indulging its animal propensities with the deliberate
intention of submitting to annihilation pure and simple, in case of
failure, and to millenniums of degradation after physical dissolution.


Those intellectual classes, reacting upon the ignorant masses-which
they attract, and which look up to them as noble and fit examples to
be followed--degrade and morally ruin those they ought to protect and
guide. Between degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal
materialism, the White Dove of Truth has hardly room whereon to rest
her weary unwelcome feet.
   
It is time that Theosophy should enter the arena. The sons of
Theosophists are more likely to become in their turn Theosophists than
anything else. 

No messenger of the truth, no prophet, has ever achieved during his
life-time a complete triumph--not even Buddha. 

The Theosophical Society was chosen as the cornerstone, the foundation
of the future religions of humanity. To achieve the proposed object, a
greater, wiser, and especially a more benevolent intermingling of the
high and the low, the alpha and the omega of society, was determined
upon. 

The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship
to the dark nations, to call the poor despised "nigger" brother. This
prospect may not smile for all, but he is no Theosophist who objects
to this principle.
   
In view of the ever-increasing triumph, and at the same time the
misuse, of free thought and liberty (the universal reign of Satan,
Eliphas Levi would have called it), how is the combative natural
instinct of man to be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard-of
cruelty and enormous tyranny, injustice, etc., if not through the
soothing influence of brotherhood, and of the practical application of
Buddha's esoteric doctrines?
   
For everyone knows that total emancipation from the authority of the
one all-pervading power, or law -- called God by the priests, and
Buddha, Divine Wisdom and enlightenment or Theosophy, by the
philosophers of all ages -- means also the emancipation from that of
human law. Once unfettered and delivered from their deadweight of
dogmatism, interpretations, personal names, anthropomorphic
conceptions, and salaried priests, the fundamental doctrines of all
religions will be proved identical in their esoteric meaning. Osiris,
Krishna, Buddha, Christ, will be shown as different means for one and
the same royal highway to final bliss -- Nirvana.
   
Mystical Christianity teaches Self-redemption through one's own
seventh principle, the liberated Paramatma, called by the one Christ,
by others Buddha; this is equivalent to regeneration, or rebirth in
spirit, and it therefore expounds just the same truth as the Nirvana
of Buddhism. 

All of us have to get rid of our own Ego, the illusory, apparent self,
to recognize our true Self, in a transcendental divine life. But if we
would not be selfish, we must strive to make other people see that
truth, and recognize the reality of the transcendental Self, the
Buddha, the Christ, or God of every preacher. This is why even
esoteric Buddhism is the surest path to lead men towards the one
esoteric truth.
   
As we find the world now, whether Christian, Mussulman, or Pagan,
justice is disregarded, and honour and mercy are both flung to the
winds. In a word, how -- since the main objects of the Theosophical
Society are misinterpreted by those who are most willing to serve us
personally -- are we to deal with the rest of mankind? with that curse
known as the struggle for life, which is the real and most prolific
parent of most woes and sorrows, and all crimes? Why has that struggle
become almost the universal scheme of the universe? 

We answer, -- because no religion, with the exception of Buddhism, has
taught a practical contempt for this earthly life; while each of them,
always with that one solitary exception, has through its hells and
damnations inculcated the greatest dread of death. Therefore do we
find that struggle for life raging most fiercely in Christian
countries, most prevalent in Europe and America. It weakens in the
Pagan lands, and is nearly unknown among Buddhist populations. In
China during famine, and where the masses are most ignorant of their
own or of any religion, it was remarked that those mothers who
devoured their children belonged to localities where there was none;
and where the Bonzes alone had the field, the population died with the
utmost indifference. Teach the people to see that life on this earth,
even the happiest, is but a burden and an illusion; that it is our own
Karma [the cause producing the effect] that is our own judge - our
Saviour in future lives -- and the great struggle for life will soon
lose its intensity. There are no penitentiaries in Buddhist lands, and
crime is nearly unknown among the Buddhist Tibetans. The world in
general, and Christendom especially, left for 2,000 years to the
regime of a personal God, as well as to its political and social
systems based on that idea, has now proved a failure. 
   
If the Theosophists say we have nothing to do with all this; the lower
classes and the inferior races (those of India, for instance, in the
conception of the British) cannot concern us, and must manage as they
can, what becomes of our fine professions of benevolence,
philanthropy, reform, etc.? Are those professions a mockery? And if a
mockery, can ours be the true path? 

Shall we devote ourselves to teaching a few Europeans -- fed on the
fat of the land, many of them loaded with the gifts of blind fortune
-- the rationale of bell-ringing, of cup-growing, of the spiritual
telephone, and astral body formation, and leave the teeming millions
of the ignorant, of the poor and oppressed, to take care of
themselves, and of their hereafter, as best they can? 

Never! perish rather the Theosophical Society with both its hapless
Founders, than that we should permit it to become no better than an
academy of magic, and a hall of occultism! That we, the devoted
followers of that spirit incarnate of absolute self-sacrifice, of
philanthropy, divine kindness, as of all the highest virtues
attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, Gautama Buddha,
should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment
of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the
many, is a strange idea, my brothers!
   
Among the few glimpses obtained by Europeans of Tibet and its mystical
hierarchy of perfect Lamas, there was one which was correctly
understood and described. The incarnations of the Bodhisattva
Padmapani or Avolokiteshvara, of Tsong-ka-pa, and that of Amitabha,
relinquished at their death the attainment of Buddhahood -- i.e., the
summum bonum of bliss, and of individual personal felicity - that they
might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind. 

In other words, that they might be again and again subjected to
misery, imprisonment in flesh, and all the sorrows of life, provided
that they by such a self-sacrifice, repeated throughout long and weary
centuries, might become the means of securing salvation and bliss in
the hereafter for a handful of men chosen among but one of the many
planetary races of mankind.
   
And it is we, the humble disciples of these perfect Lamas, who are
expected to allow the Theosophical Society to drop its noblest title,
that of the Brotherhood of Humanity, to become a simple school of
philosophy! 

No, no, good brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too
long already. Let us understand each other. He who does not feel
competent to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it, need
not undertake a task too heavy for him. 

But there is hardly a Theosophist in the whole Society unable to
effectually help it by correcting erroneous impressions of outsiders,
by himself actually propagating this idea. Oh! for noble and
unselfish men to help us effectually in that divine task! All our
knowledge, past and present, would not be sufficient to repay him.
   
Having explained our views and aspirations, I have but a few words
more to add. The true religion and philosophy offer the solution of
every problem. That the world is in such a bad condition, morally, is
a conclusive evidence that none of its religions and philosophies,
those of the civilized races less than any other, has ever possessed
the truth. The right and logical explanations on the subject of the
problems of the great dual principles, right and wrong, good and evil,
liberty and despotism, pain and pleasure, egotism and altruism, are as
impossible to them now as they were 1880 years ago. 

They are as far from the solution as they were; but to these problems
there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our doctrines
will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the
first to confess that there must be the true philosophy, the true
religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the truth.
   
[Lucifer, August, 1896]
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Let us each reflect on this mighty statement and ACT.

Best wishes,


Dallas