Theos-Talk Archives (October 2004 Message tt00191)

Part II


Friends:

Here are some statements concerning the nature and work of the Mahatmas:



THE MASTERS


"The whole sweep, meaning, and possibility of evolution are contained in the
word Mahatma...those great souls who have triumphed before us...but just
because they are of the human race." WQJ ART II 39


"A Mahatma is not only an Adept, but much more...This does not mean a
noble-hearted man merely, but a perfected being, one who has attained to the
state...when time and space are no obstacles to sight, to action, to
knowledge or to consciousness...to possess information of a decidedly
practical character concerning the laws of nature, including that mystery
for science --the meaning, operation and constitution of life itself..."
ECHOES p. 23


"The whole individuality is centred in the three middle Principles or third
(MANAS), and fifth (ASTRAL BODY) principles. During earthly life it is all
in the fourth (KAMA-MANAS), the center of energy, volition--will...the
individuality survives...to run its seven-fold and upward course [ it ] has
to assimilate to itself the eternal-life power residing but in the seventh
(ATMA), and then blend the three (4th, 5th & 7th) into one--the 6th
(BUDDHI). Those who succeed in doing so become Buddhas, Dhyan Chohans,
etc... The chief object of our struggle and initiations is to achieve this
union while yet on this earth."	M L 77-8



"The theory is widely known among the members of the Society that at the
close of each century a spiritual movement is made in the world by the
Mahatmas, which begins with the last 25 years of the century and does not in
that form begin after the close of 25 years until the last quarter of the
following period...The Masters are governed by the law of action and
reaction and are wise enough always not to do that which might result in
undoing all their prior work. The law of reaction applies as much to the
mind of man as to physical things and forces. ... In the West, following the
historical cycles, a great and definite effort is made among the people--for
instance, as the Theosophical Society--so as to aid the psychical and
spiritual development in man..."


"At the end of the 25 years the Masters will not send out in such wide and
sweeping volume the force they send during the 25 years. But that does not
mean they will withdraw. They will leave the ideas to germinate in the
minds of people at large, but never will they take away from those who
deserve it the help that is due and given to all... During all the centuries
there have been many persons who have had direct and valuable help from
Masters, and to suppose that at the end of our first 25 years all of that
will be finished is an absurdity in itself."	WQJ ART II 76-7


=====================


MASTERS AND THEIR "POSITION"


"We have offered to exhume the primeval strata of man's being, his basic
nature, and lay bare the wonderful complications of his inner Self...and
demonstrate it scientifically...It is our mission to plunge and bring the
pearls of Truth to the surface...For countless generations hath the adept
builded a fane of imperishable rocks, a giant's Tower of INFINITE THOUGHT,
wherein the Titan dwelt...emerging from it but at the end of every cycle, to
invite the elect of mankind to cooperate with him and help in his turn
enlighten superstitious man...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. But until that day of final triumph, someone has to be
sacrificed--though we accept but voluntary victims. The ungrateful task did
lay her [HPB] low and desolate in the ruins of misery, misapprehension, and
isolation: but she will have her reward in the hereafter for we never were
ungrateful..." M L 51


"...our true progress lies in fidelity to Masters as ideals and facts."...I
think a constant reliance on Masters as such ideals and facts--or
either--will lead the T S on to greater work...I belong to that class of
persons in the T S who out of their own experience know that the Masters
exist and actually help the T S...I am not acting impulsively in my many
public statements as to the existence of Masters and help from Them. It is
done under an old order of Theirs and under a law of mind. The existence of
Masters being a fact, the assertion of that fact so often made in America
has opened up channels in men's minds which would have remained closed had
silence been observed about the existence of those Beings...Experience has
shown that a springing up of interest in Theosophy has followed declaration,
and men's minds are more powerfully drawn away from the blank Materialism
teaching."	WQJ ART II 43


"Concentrate the mind upon the Masters as ideals and facts--living, active,
beneficent Beings, working in and on the plane of causes. Meditate upon
this exclusively, and try to reach up to Them in thought." F P 13-14


"...no worker, however feeble or insignificant, is outside the range of
Master's eye and help."	WQJ ART II 47


"...I can swear it, the Masters are watching us all, and, without fail, when
we come to the right point and really deserve, They manifest to us. At all
times I know They help and try to aid us as far as we will let Them. Why,
the Masters are anxious (to use a word of our own) that as many as possible
may reach to the state of power and love They are in. Why, then, suppose
They help not? As They are Atman and therefore the very law of Karma
itself, They are in everything in life, and in every phase of our changing
days and years. If you will arouse your faith on this line you come nearer
to help from Them than you will recognize."	LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME
- Judge, p. 68


"...fix your thoughts again on Those Elder Brothers, work for Them, serve
Them, and They will help through the right appropriate means and no other.
To meditate on the Higher Self is difficult. Seek, then, the bridge--the
Masters."		
LETTERS p. 112


"...the great Adepts live in the plane of our inner nature, it must follow
that they might be actively helping every one of us after the date referred
to, and we, as physical brain men, not be conscious of it on this plane."
LETTERS , p. 115


"...between adept and chela--Master and Pupil--there gradually forms a
closer tie; for the psychic interchange is regulated scientifically...as
the water in a full tank runs into an empty one which it is connected with;
and as the common level will be sooner or later reached according to the
capacity of the feed-pipe, so does the knowledge of the adept flow to the
chela; and the chela attains the adept-level according to his receptive
capacities. At the same time the chela, being an individual, a separate
evolution, unconsciously imparts to the Master the quality of his
accumulated mentality. [ we ] always ascertain independently and for
ourselves whether the ideas so reflected in us are right or wrong."
LETTERS from the Masters of Wisdom, (I), p. 82-3


".the Master-Soul is one"...[Thou art THAT.] VOICE , p. 54


"...the light of the ONE MASTER, the one unfading golden light of Spirit,
shoots its effulgent beams on the Disciple from the very first. Its rays
thread through the thick dark clouds of matter..."	VOICE p. 19


" .the best and most important teacher is one's seventh principle [Atma]
centred in the sixth [Buddhi]." LETTERS p. 96


"The Masters are not Eastern nor Western, but universal." LETTERS p. 109


"And whoever therefore wants to see the real MAHATMA, must use his
intellectual sight. He must so elevate his Manas that its perception will
be clear...His vision will then be bright and he will see the MAHATMAS
wherever he may be, for, being merged into the sixth and seventh principles,
which are ubiquitous and omnipresent, the MAHATMAS may be said to be
everywhere." HPB ART I 294


"Just now the best and biggest work by us poor children is on this plane
with the great aid of Master, Whose simple single will keeps the whole
organization [in being], and acts as its support and shield." LETTERS p.
87


".the image of the Master is the best protection against lower influences;
think of the Master as a living man within you." LETTERS p. 164


"...more help could be given to the movement in America because the fact of
their existence was not concealed from motives of either fear or
doubt...Occult help from Masters requires a channel just as much as any
other help does...the persons to be acted on must take part in making the
channel or line for the force to act, for if we will not have it they cannot
give it.

Now as we are dealing with the mind and nature of man, we have to throw out
the words which will arouse the ideas connected with the forces we desire to
have employed. In this case the words are those which bring up the doctrine
of the existence of Adepts, Mahatmas, Masters of wisdom. Hence the value of
the declaration of our beliefs."	WQJ ART II 41



Q.:--	"What then are the Adepts doing?

A.:-- (a) Assisting all good movements by acting on men from behind the
scenes through mental influence.

(b) Preparing as many men and women who are fit for it so that
they may, in their next incarnation, appear in the world as active devotees
to the good of the Human Family.

(c) Spreading now, through impulses given in many places which
must not be mentioned, a philosophy of life which will gradually affect the
race mind, and in particular the active, conquering Western peoples, thus
preparing the whole people to change and evolve yet further and further
until evils disappear and better days and people reappear." WQJ
ARTICLES II 53-4


"...if it were possible to alter the state of things and to make a peaceful
earth and a right humanity without following the law of evolution, they
would willingly do it, but mankind can only be altered step by step. [The
Masters] have also stated that they do not make themselves objectively known
to believers in them except in those cases where those believers are ready
in all parts of their nature, are definitely pledged to them, with the full
understanding of the meaning of the pledge. But they have also stated that
they help all earnest seekers after truth, and that it is not necessary for
those seekers to know from where the help comes so long as it is
received...The Masters do help powerfully, though unseen, all those who
earnestly work and sincerely trust in their higher nature, while they follow
the voice of conscience without doubt or cavil."
FORUM ANSWERS, 75-76



"...remember what was long ago said--that the Master would manage results.
You must not manage, precipitate, nor force...As chelas and students conceal
rather than give out your inner psychic life, for by telling of it your
proper progress is hindered...By gentleness, detachment, strict attention to
duty, and retiring now and then to the quiet place, bring up good currents
and keep back all evil ones...A steady mind and heart stands still and quiet
until the muddy stream rolls clear."	WQJ LETTERS p. 84



"The Occult Science is not one in which secrets can be communicated of a
sudden...till the neophyte attains to the condition necessary for that
degree of illumination to which, and for which, he is entitled and fitted,
most if not all of the Secrets are incommunicable. The receptivity must be
equal to the desire to instruct. The illumination must come from
within...Fasting, meditation, chastity of thought word and deed; silence
for certain periods to enable nature herself to speak to him who comes to
her for information; government of the animal passions and impulses; utter
unselfishness of intention, the use of certain incense and fumigations for
physiological purposes, have been published as the means since the days of
Plato and Iamblichus in the West..."	
M L p. 282-3



THE INNER MASTER -- SELF-DEVELOPMENT



"Every form on earth and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its efforts
towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the "Heavenly
Man"...Its [atom's] involution and evolution, its external and internal
growth and development, have all one and the same object--man; man is the
highest physical and ultimate form on this earth; the MONAD in the absolute
totality and awakened condition--as the culmination of the divine
incarnations on Earth."	S D I 183


"This 'Conscious Entity' Occultism says, comes from, nay, in many cases is,
the very entire essence and esse of the high Intelligences condemned, by the
undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reincarnate in the manvantara." 
S D II 248


"Rudimentary man...becomes the perfect man...when, with the development of
"Spiritual fire,"...he acquires from his inner Self, or Instructor, the
Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the beginning."  
S D II 113



"The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits of no privileges or
special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort
and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations."
S D I 17



"...our own work, in and on ourselves, each one...has for its object the
enlightenment of oneself for the good of others...so as to make of each a
centre from which...may flow out the potentialities for good that from the
adept come in large and affluent streams...As we use the moment, so we shift
the future up or down for good or ill; the future being only a word for the
present, not yet come, we have to see to the present more than all...The
race is in a transition state...the only way we can alter it is by such
action now as makes of each one a centre for good, a force that makes "for
righteousness," and that is guided by wisdom...we each one have a greater
fight to wage the moment we force our inner nature up beyond the dead level
of the world..."
LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME - Judge, 71



"Self-Consciousness belongs alone to man and proceeds from the SELF, the
Higher MANAS...whereas the psychic element (or Kama-Manas) is common to both
animal and human being...no physiologist...will ever be able to solve the
mystery of the human mind, in its highest spiritual manifestations, or in
its dual aspect of the psychic and the noetic (or the manasic)...unless he
knows something of, and is prepared to admit this dual element...to admit a
lower (animal), and a higher (or divine) mind in man...the "personal" and
the "impersonal" Egos."	HPB ART II 9-10



"...conscious communication with one's Master can only be accomplished after
long training and study. What a student has to do is to fit himself to
receive this training."	LETTERS THAT HAVE HELPED ME - Judge, 111


"...he who enters the secret Path finds his peace and pleasure in endless
work for ages for Humanity...with his added sight and knowledge, he must
always be seeing the self-inflicted miseries of men...the wider sweep and
power of soul make what we call sacrifice and woe seem something different."
LETTERS 116


"It is not high learning that is needed, but solely devotion to humanity,
faith in Masters, in the Higher Self."	LETTERS 97


"...the door is always opened to the right man who knocks. And we
invariably welcome the newcomer;--only instead of going over to him he has
to come to us. More than that: unless he has reached that point in the
path of occultism from which return is impossible, by his having irrevocably
pledged himself to our association, we never--except in cases of utmost
moment--visit him or even cross the threshold of his door in visible
appearance." M L (Barker) p. 8-9


"...whenever and whatever is possible will always be done for you unurged;
hence never to either ask for, or suggest it, yourself-- (avoid my having to
refuse a friend) ...to teach (others in Britain)...through your kind
agency...I have never undertaken to convince them of the extent of our
powers or even of our personal existence."	M L 337


"Every human being contains within himself vast potentialities, and it is
the duty of adepts to surround the would-be chela with circumstances which
shall enable him to take the "right-hand path," if he have the ability in
him...until he has passed that period [of probation] we leave him to fight
out his battles as best he may; and have to do so occasionally with higher
and initiated chelas such as H.P.B., once that they are allowed to work in
the world, that all of us more or less avoid...We were all so tested; and
while Moorad Ali--failed--I, succeeded. The victor's crown is only for him
who proves himself worthy to wear it; for him who attacks Mara single
handed and conquers the demon of lust and earthly passions; and not we but
he himself puts it on his brow...there is no such other difficult struggle.
If it were not so, adeptship would be but a cheap acquirement."	M L 318


"...let him rid himself of the Maya that any man living can set up "claims"
upon Adepts. He may create irresistible attractions and compel their
attention, but they will be spiritual, not mental or intellectual...nothing
draws us to any outsider save his evolving spirituality... The supreme
energy resides in the Buddhi, latent--when wedded to Atman alone, active and
irresistible when galvanized by the essence of "Manas" and when none of the
dross of the latter commingles with that pure essence to weigh it down by
its finite nature...When the ancient founders of your philosophical schools
came East, to acquire the lore of our predecessors, they filed no claims,
except the single one of a sincere and unselfish hunger for truth."
M L 341-2


"Masters never cease working, but they cease at times from such public
efforts as were made at the establishment of the T.S. Before that they were
working with individuals" [ WQJ quoted by RC, F P 388 ] ...In this work,
natures are intensified, good and bad come to the surface. The
"cleaning-up" process is gradual and each must do his own work of
elimination when such work is seen to be needed. The barriers to help from
Masters are in ourselves and nowhere else."	F P 399
	

"At times they come to nations as great teachers and "saviours," who only
repromulgate the old truths and systems of ethics. This therefore holds
that humanity is capable of infinite perfection both in time and quality,
the saviours and adepts being held up as examples of that possibility."

"From this living and presently acting body of perfected men H.P.Blavatsky
declared she received the impulse to once more bring forward the old ideas,
and from them also received several keys to ancient and modern doctrines.
Added...to the testimony through all time found in the records of all
nations we have this modern explicit assertion that the ancient learned and
humanitarian body of adepts still exists on this earth and takes an interest
in the development of the race."  	
WQJ ARTICLES I pp. 1-2


"Under the protection and assistance and guidance of this Society of Adepts
are the disciples of each one of its members. These disciples are divided
into different degrees, corresponding to the various stages of development;
the least developed disciples are assisted by those who are in advance of
them, and the latter in a similar manner by others, until the grade of
disciple is reached where direct intercourse with the Adepts is possible.
At the same time, each Adept keeps a supervisory eye upon all his disciples.
Through the agency of the disciples of Adepts many effects are brought about
in human thought and affairs, for from the higher grades are often sent
those who, without disclosing their connection with mysticism, influence
individuals who are known to be main factors in events about to occur."
ECHOES 29


"...the disciple of the Adept knows that...he is supposed to concentrate
into a few lives the experience and practice which it takes ordinary men
countless incarnations to acquire....he leaves behind the hope for reward so
common in all undertakings. Nothing is gained by favor, but all depends
upon his actual merit. As the end to be reached is self-dependence with
perfect calmness and clearness, he is from the beginning made to stand
alone...solely in his own company. But this produces no selfishness,
because, being accompanied by constant meditation upon the unseen, the
knowledge is acquired that the loneliness felt is only in respect to the
personality."	ECHOES 32-33


"But, hiding themselves under an exterior which does not attract attention,
there are many of the real disciples in the world. They are studying
themselves and other human hearts. They have no diplomas, but there resides
in them a consciousness of constant help and a clear knowledge of the true
Lodge which meets in real secrecy and is never found mentioned in any
directory. Their whole life is a persistent pursuit of the fast-moving soul
which, although appearing to stand still, can distance the lightning; and
their death is only another step forward to greater knowledge through better
physical bodies in new lives."	ECHOES 33

	
"The real object to be kept in view is to so open up or make porous the
lower nature that the spiritual nature may shine through it and become the
guide and the ruler...it is the real man, who is the HIGHER SELF--being the
spark of the Divine--overshadows the visible being, which has the
possibility of becoming united to that spark. Thus it is said that the
higher Spirit is not in the man, but above him...The object of the student
is to let the light of that spirit shine through the lower covering...all
selfishness must be eliminated from the lower nature before its divine state
can be reached...When systematically trained in accordance with the
aforesaid system and law, men attain to clear insight into the immaterial,
spiritual world, and their interior faculties apprehend truth as immediately
and readily as physical faculties grasp the things of sense, or mental
faculties those of reason..."They are able to look directly upon ideas."
EPITOME 13-14


"...the members of our Great Lodge have full information unknown to those
outside the Lodge, of the "conscious efforts to obtain knowledge of
principles and laws" on the part of good men and women, and in this search
that help is frequently extended but is not seen or recognized, although it
is felt and has its results."	FORUM ANSWERS 50


".since the MAHATMA is but an advanced occultist, who has so far controlled
his lower "self" as to hold it more or less in complete subjection to the
Cosmic impulse, it is in the nature of things impossible for him to act in
any other but an unselfish manner. No sooner does he allow his "personal
self" to assert itself, than he ceases to be a MAHATMA...The law of Cosmic
evolution is ever operating to achieve its purpose of ultimate unity and to
carry the phenomenal into the noumenal plane, and the MAHATMAS, being en
rapport with it, are assisting that purpose...they alone have got to the
basic knowledge which can determine the right course and exercise proper
discrimination. And for us...it will be evident that, as soon as the least
feeling of selfishness tries to assert itself, the vision of the spiritual
sense, which is the only perception of the MAHATMA, becomes clouded and he
looses the "power" which abstract "knowledge" alone can confer. Hence the
vigilant watch of the "will" we have constantly to exercise to prevent our
lower nature from coming up to the surface..."	THEOS. MVT. Vol. X, p.
138-9


"A perfect man is not made to order but is a product of evolution. Wisdom
is not a matter of book-learning but of growth. General rules for conduct
can be given, but to apply them properly, the power of discrimination is
necessary...A virtue, practiced without moderation, becomes a crime. To
know how to find the point of equilibrium is the great secret of the Adept,
that cannot be told but must be learned by experience, when sagacity and
goodness will be united in wisdom."	HPB -- THEOSOPHIST 1885,  	
Reprint: THEOSOPHY, Vol. 47, pp. 441-2


"Happy the man physically pure, for his external soul (astral body, the
image of the body) is pure, it will strengthen the second (the lower Manas),
or the soul which is termed by him the higher mortal soul, which, though
liable to err from its own motives, will always side with the reason against
the animal proclivities of the body. In other words, the ray of our Higher
Ego, the lower Manas, has its higher light, the reason or rational powers of
the Nous, to help it in the struggle with Kamic desires."	HPB ART I
27-8



"Force any one of the "Masters" you may happen to choose; do good works in
his name and for the love of mankind; be pure and resolute in the path of
righteousness (as laid out in our rules); be honest and unselfish; forget
your self but to remember the good of other people--and you will have forced
that "Master" to accept you."	
Letters from the Masters of Wisdom Series (I), p. 33


THEOSOPHICAL OBJECTIVES


"...the chief object of the T S is not so much to gratify individual
aspirations as to serve our fellow men...in our view the highest aspirations
for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness if, in the mind
of the philanthropist there lurks the shadow of desire for self benefit or a
tendency to do injustice, even when these exist unconsciously to himself."
M L 7-8


"...we are not working for some definite organization of the new years to
come, but for a change in the Manas and Buddhi of the Race...Masters could
give now all the light and knowledge needed, but there is too much darkness
that would swallow up the light, except for a few bright souls, and then a
greater darkness would come on."	LETTERS p. 72


"At present the main fundamental object of the Society is to sow germs in
the hearts of men, which may in time sprout, and under more propitious
circumstances lead to a healthy reform, conductive of more happiness to the
masses than they have hitherto enjoyed." HPB	KEY 257


"It is the rich who have to be regenerated, if we would do good to the
poor...Work, therefore, to bring about the moral regeneration of the
cultured classes before you attempt to do the same for ignorant younger
brethren..."	HPB ART I 103-5


"[ The T S has as its mission ] to furnish to the West that which it can
never get from the East; to push forward and raise high on the circular
path of evolution now rolling West, the light that lighteth every man who
cometh into the world--the light of the true Self, who is the one true
Master for every human being; all other Masters are but servants of that
true One; in it all real Lodges have their union." LETTERS p. 75


"As a change in thought of a people who have been tending to gross atheism
is one always desired by the Sages of the Wisdom Religion, it may be
supposed that the wave of spiritualistic phenomena resulting now quite
clearly in a tendency back to a universal acknowledgment of the soul, has
been aided by the Nirmanakayas. They are in it and of it; they push on the
progress of a psychic deluge over great masses of people. The result is
seen in the literature, the religion and the drama of today. Slowly but
surely the tide creeps up and covers the once dry shore of Materialism..."
ECHOES 28


"Essentials are the only things on which true occultism and Theosophy
require an agreement..."	LETTERS 70


"There must be an adherence to the program of the Masters. That can only be
ascertained by consulting her [HPB] and the letters given out by her as from
Those to whom she refers. There is not much doubt about that
program."..."This is the moment to guide the recurrent impulse which must
soon come and which will push the age toward extreme atheism or drag it back
to extreme sacerdotalism, if it is not led to the primitive, soul-satisfying
philosophy of the Aryans."..."We must follow this program and supply the
world with a system of philosophy which gives a sure and logical basis for
ethics, and that can only be gotten from those to which I adverted." ..."By
our unity the smallest effort made by us will have ten-fold the power of any
obstacle before us or any opposition offered by the world."..."Our destiny
is to continue the wide work of the past in affecting literature and thought
throughout the world, while our ranks see many changing quantities but
always holding those who remain true to the program, and refuse to become
dogmatic or give up common sense in Theosophy. Thus we will wait for the
new messenger, striving to keep the organization alive that he may use it." 
WQJ - THE FUTURE AND THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY -   
quoted by RC, F P, p. 153 -- [WQJ ART II p. 145-6]


"A band of students of the Esoteric Doctrines, who would reap any profit
spiritually must be in perfect harmony and unity of thought. Each one
individually and collectively has to be utterly unselfish, kind and full of
good-will towards each other at least--leaving humanity out of the question;
there must be no party spirit among the band, no backbiting, no ill-will, or
envy or jealousy, contempt or anger." 
L M W (I) p. 16-7

Best wishes,

Dallas