Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00005)

April 1 2005

Dear Friends:

Last few weeks have shown increased interest in the following concepts and
ideas:  

Antiquity of THEOSOPHY,  
Mystery Schools, 
Where are the MAHATMAS now?  
Where is HPB ? 
Who guides the THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT ?
What can we do?

Some notes below were found helpful 


On MYSTERY SCHOOLS

Where are they?  

Apparently: all over the world.



 
THE MAHATMAS AS IDEALS AND FACTS

A visitor from one of the other planets of the solar system who might learn
the term Mahatma after arriving here would certainly suppose that the
etymology of the word undoubtedly inspired 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. 

Such a supposition would be correct in respect to some, but the heavenly
visitor after examining all the members of the Theosophical Society could
not fail to meet disappointment when the fact was clear to him that many of
the believers were afraid of their own ideals, hesitated to proclaim them,
were slothful in finding arguments to give reasons for their hope, and all
because the wicked and scoffing materialistic world might laugh at such a
belief.

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, developes the six vehicles for itself,
meets retribution for sin and punishment for mistake, grows strong by
suffering, succeeds in bursting through the gloom, is enlightened by the
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. 

This would be the argument of the visitor from the distant planet, and he in
it would describe a great ideal for all members of a Society such as ours
which had its first impulse from some of these very Mahatmas.

Without going into any argument further than to say that evolution demands
that such beings should exist or there is a gap in the chain -- and this
position is even held by a man of science like Professor Huxley, who in his
latest essays puts it in almost as definite language as mine -- this article
is meant for those who believe in the existence of the Mahatmas, whether
that faith has arisen of itself or is the result of argument. It is meant
also for all classes of the believers, for they are of several varieties. 

Some believe without wavering; others believe unwaveringly but are afraid to
tell of their belief; a few believe, yet are always thinking that they must
be able to say they have set eyes on an Adept before they can infuse their
belief into others; and a certain number deliberately hide the belief as a
sort of individual possession which separates them from the profane mortals
who have never heard of the Adepts or who having heard scoff at the notion.
To all these I wish to speak.

Those unfortunate persons who are ever trying to measure exalted men and
sages by the conventional rules of a transition civilization, or who are
seemingly afraid of a vast possibility for man and therefore deny, may be
well left to themselves and to time, for it is more than likely they will
fall into the general belief when it is formed, as it surely will be in the
course of no long time. 

For a belief in Mahatmas -- whatever name you give the idea -- is a common
property of the whole race, and all the efforts of all the men of empirical
science and dogmatic religion can never kill out the soul's own memory of
its past.
We should declare our belief in the Adepts, while at the same time we demand
no one's adherence. It is not necessary to give the names of any of the
Adepts, for a name is an invention of a family, and but few persons ever
think of themselves by name but by the phrase 'I am myself.' To name these
beings, then, is no proof, and to seek for mystery names is to invite
condemnation for profanation. The ideal without the name is large and grand
enough for all purposes.

Some years ago the Adepts wrote and said to H.P.B. and to several persons
that 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. 

This statement of course carries with it by contradistinction the conclusion
that where, from fear of schools of science or of religion, the members had
not referred much to the belief in Mahatmas, the power to help was for some
reason inhibited. This is the interesting point, and brings up the question
"Can the power to help of the Mahatmas be for any cause inhibited?" The
answer is, It can. But why?

All effects on every plane are the result of forces set in motion, and
cannot be the result of nothing, but must ever flow from causes in which
they are wrapped up. If the channel through which water is meant to flow is
stopped up, the water will not run there, but if a clear channel is provided
the current will pass forward. 

Occult help from Masters requires a channel just as much as any other help
does, and the fact that the currents to be used are occult makes the need
for a channel greater. 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 belief. It arouses dormant ideas
in others, it opens up a channel in the mind, it serves to make the
conducting lines for the forces to use which the Mahatmas wish to give out. 

Many a young man who could never hope to see great modern professors of
science like Huxley and Tyndall and Darwin has been excited to action, moved
to self-help, impelled to seek for knowledge, by having heard that such men
actually exist and are human beings. Without stopping to ask if the proof of
their living in Europe is complete, men have sought to follow their example.


Shall we not take advantage of the same law of the human mind and let the
vast power of the Lodge work with our assistance and not against our
opposition or doubt or fear? Those who are devoted know how they have had
unseen help which showed itself in results. Those who fear may take courage,
for they will find that not all their fellow beings are devoid of an
underlying belief in the possibilities outlined by the doctrine of the
existence of the Adepts.

And if we look over the work of the Society we find wherever the members
boldly avow their belief and are not afraid to speak of this high ideal, the
interest in theosophy is awake, the work goes on, the people are benefited.
To the contrary, where there are constant doubt, ceaseless asking for
material proof, incessant fear of what the world or science or friends will
think, there the work is dead, the field is not cultivated, and the town or
city receives no benefit from the efforts of those who while formally in a
universal brotherhood are not living out the great ideal.

Very wisely and as an occultist, Jesus said his followers must give up all
and follow him. We must give up the desire to save ourselves and acquire the
opposite one, -- the wish to save others. Let us remember the story in
ancient writ of Arjuna, who, entering heaven and finding that his dog was
not admitted and some of his friends in hell, refused to remain and said
that while one creature was out of heaven he would not enter it. This is
true devotion, and this joined to an intelligent declaration of belief in
the great initiation of the human race will lead to results of magnitude,
will call out the forces that are behind, will prevail against hell itself
and all the minions of hell now striving to retard the progress of the human
soul.

THE PATH, March 1893 (Eusebio Urban) 	

W. Q. JUDGE

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THE ANCIENT SOURCE of THEOSOPHY 

	
(1.) The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its
cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in
the exotericism of the Puranas. 

But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which
have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets
to marshal, to set down and explain, in the bewildering series of
evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs
and glyphs. 

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of
matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane,
however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But
modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and hence will reject
the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system
in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. 

That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of
Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify
traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of
higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. 

That for long ages, the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and
rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their
lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by
checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the
traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who
have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual
organisations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was
accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions-so obtained as to
stand as independent evidence-of other adepts, and by centuries of
experiences. 
SECRET DOCTRINE 1-272

================================
[ Also
Mahatma K. H. wrote to A.P. Sinnett:

". . . You have heard of and read about a good many Seers, in the 
past and present centuries, such as Swedenborg, Boehme, and others. 
Not one among the number but thoroughly honest, sincere, and as 
intelligent, as well educated; aye, even learned. Each of them in 
addition to these qualities, has or had . . . a 'Guardian' and a 
Revelator -- under whatever 'mystery' and 'mystic name' -- whose 
mission it is -- or has been to spin out to his spiritual ward -- a 
new system embracing all the details of the world of Spirit. Tell me, 
my friend, do you know of two that agree? And why, since truth is 
one, and that putting entirely the question of discrepancies in 
details aside -- we do not find them agreeing even upon the most 
vital problems -- those that have either 'to be, or not to be' -- and 
of which there can be no two solutions?"  
K H The Mahatma Letters, 2nd ed., Letter 48
==================================


LAW

(2.) The fundamental Law in that system, the central point from which all
emerged, around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the
philosophy of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE,
the one radical cause. 

. . . "Some few, whose lamps shone brighter, have been led 
>From cause to cause to nature's secret head,
And found that one first Principle must be. . . ." 

It is called "Substance-Principle," for it becomes "substance" on the plane
of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a "principle" in
the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and invisible SPACE. It is
the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything.
Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the System. It is latent
in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself. (See in chapters
on Symbolism, "Primordial Substance, and Divine Thought.") 



CYCLIC MANIFESTATION


(3.) The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute
Essence. To call it "essence," however, is to sin against the very spirit of
the philosophy. For though the noun may be derived in this case from the
verb esse, "to be," yet IT cannot be identified with a being of any kind,
that can be conceived by human intellect. IT is best described as neither
Spirit nor matter, but both. "Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti" are One, in
reality, yet two in the Universal conception of the manifested, even in the
conception of the One Logos, its first manifestation, to which, as the able
lecturer in the "Notes on the Bhagavad Gita" shows, IT appears from the
objective standpoint of the One Logos as Mulaprakriti and not as
Parabrahmam; as its veil and not the one REALITY hidden behind, which is
unconditioned and absolute. 



TEMPORARY - ILLUSION -- MAYA


(4.) The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is
temporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a fire-fly to that of the Sun.
Compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE, and the changelessness of
that Principle, the Universe, with its evanescent ever-changing forms, must
be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no better than a
will-o'-the-wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings
in it, which are as unreal as it is itself. 


CONSCIOUSNESS -- INTELLIGENCE IS UNIVERSAL


(5.) Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is CONSCIOUS:
i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of
perception. We men must remember that because we do not perceive any
signs-which we can recognise-of consciousness, say, in stones, we have no
right to say that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as
either "dead" or "blind" matter, as there is no "Blind" or "Unconscious"
Law. These find no place among the conceptions of Occult philosophy. The
latter never stops at surface appearances, and for it the noumenal essences
have more reality than their objective counterparts; it resembles therein
the mediaeval Nominalists, for whom it was the Universals that were the
realities and the particulars which existed only in name and human fancy. 



INNER "SPIRIT" IS ALWAYS ACTIVE


(6.) The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it
is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man-the microcosm and miniature copy
of the macrocosm-is the living witness to this Universal Law, and to the
mode of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether
voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by
internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. As no
outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place
unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three
functions named, so with the external or manifested Universe. 



DEGREES OF INTELLIGENCE AND POWER


The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated by almost endless
series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a mission to perform,
and who-whether we give to them one name or another, and call them
Dhyan-Chohans or Angels-are "messengers" in the sense only that they are the
agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. 

They vary infinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and
intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits without any of the earthly
alloy "which time is wont to prey upon" is only to indulge in poetical
fancy. For each of these Beings either was, or prepares to become, a man, if
not in the present, then in a past or a coming cycle (Manvantara). 

They are perfected, when not incipient, men; and differ morally from the
terrestrial human beings on their higher (less material) spheres, only in
that they are devoid of the feeling of personality and of the human
emotional nature-two purely earthly characteristics. 

The former, or the "perfected," have become free from those feelings,
because (a) they have no longer fleshly bodies-an ever-numbing weight on the
Soul; and (b) the pure spiritual element being left untrammelled and more
free, they are less influenced by maya than man can ever be, unless he is an
adept who keeps his two personalities-the spiritual and the
physical-entirely separated. 

The incipient monads, having never had terrestrial bodies yet, can have no
sense of personality or EGO-ism. That which is meant by "personality," being
a limitation and a relation, or, as defined by Coleridge, "individuality
existing in itself but with a nature as a ground," the term cannot of course
be applied to non-human entities; but, as a fact insisted upon by
generations of Seers, none of these Beings, high or low, have either
individuality or personality as separate Entities, i.e., they have no
individuality in the sense in which a man says, "I am myself and no one
else;" in other words, they are conscious of no such distinct separateness
as men and things have on earth. 

Individuality is the characteristic of their respective hierarchies, not of
their units; and these characteristics vary only with the degree of the
plane to which those hierarchies belong: the nearer to the region of
Homogeneity and the One Divine, the purer and the less accentuated that
individuality in the Hierarchy. 

They are finite, in all respects, with the exception of their higher
principles-the immortal sparks reflecting the universal divine
flame-individualized and separated only on the spheres of Illusion by a
differentiation as illusive as the rest. 

They are "Living Ones," because they are the streams projected on the Kosmic
screen of illusion from the ABSOLUTE LIFE; beings in whom life cannot become
extinct, before the fire of ignorance is extinct in those who sense these
"Lives." 

Having sprung into being under the quickening influence of the uncreated
beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that radiates on the shores of
the river of Life, it is the inner principle in them which belongs to the
waters of immortality, while its differentiated clothing is as perishable as
man's body. Therefore Young was right in saying that 

"Angels are men of a superior kind" 

and no more. They are neither "ministering" nor "protecting" angels; nor are
they "Harbingers of the Most High" still less the "Messengers of wrath" of
any God such as man's fancy has created. 

To appeal to their protection is as foolish as to believe that their
sympathy may be secured by any kind of propitiation; for they are, as much
as man himself is, the slaves and creatures of immutable Karmic and Kosmic
law. The reason for it is evident.

Having no elements of personality in their essence they can have no
personal qualities, such as attributed by men, in their exoteric religions,
to their anthropomorphic God-a jealous and exclusive God who rejoices and
feels wrathful, is pleased with sacrifice, and is more despotic in his
vanity than any finite foolish man. 


MAN - HIS COMPOSITION AND POTENCY

Man, as shown in Book II., being a compound of the essences of all those
celestial Hierarchies may succeed in making himself, as such, superior, in
one sense, to any hierarchy or class, or even combination of them. "Man can
neither propitiate nor command the Devas," it is said. 



MAN'S PROGRESS


But, by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full
knowledge of the non-separateness of his higher SELF from the One absolute
SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as "One of Us." Thus
it is, by eating of the fruit of knowledge which dispels ignorance, that man
becomes like one of the Elohim or the Dhyanis; and once on their plane the
Spirit of Solidarity and perfect Harmony, which reigns in every Hierarchy,
must extend over him and protect him in every particular. 

The chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine
as well as in nature Spirits is their materialism. The main impediment
before the Spiritualist which hinders him from believing in the same, while
preserving a blind belief in the "Spirits" of the Departed, is the general
ignorance of all, except some Occultists and Kabalists, about the true
essence and nature of matter. It is on the acceptance or rejection of the
theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly
rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious
beings besides the Spirits of the Dead. 


EVOLUTION IS UNIVERSAL


It is on the right comprehension of the primeval Evolution of Spirit-Matter
and its real essence that the student has to depend for the further
elucidation in his mind of the Occult Cosmogony, and for the only sure clue
which can guide his subsequent studies. 

In sober truth, as just shown, every "Spirit" so-called is either a
disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyan Chohan)
down to the last conscious "Builder" (the inferior class of Spiritual
Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras,
on this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and
non-intelligent Elementals-are all future men. That fact alone-that a Spirit
is endowed with intelligence-is a proof to the Occultist that that Being
must have been a man, and acquired his knowledge and intelligence throughout
the human cycle. 


UNITY - ONENESS


There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in
the Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point
of the whole finite Kosmos which hath no bounds, and which people call
SPACE, considered independently of anything contained in it. But the first
differentiation of its reflection in the manifested World is purely
Spiritual, and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a
consciousness that has any relation to the one we conceive of. They can have
no human consciousness or Intelligence before they have acquired such,
personally and individually. This may be a mystery, yet it is a fact, in
Esoteric philosophy, and a very apparent one too. 


PROGRESS IS UNIVERSAL IN NATURE


The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life.
There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole
process of evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this. The
immutable laws that weed out the weak and feeble species, to make room for
the strong, and which ensure the "survival of the fittest," though so cruel
in their immediate action-all are working toward the grand end. The very
fact that adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle
for existence, shows that what is called "unconscious Nature"* is in reality
an aggregate of forces manipulated 

* Nature taken in its abstract sense, cannot be "unconscious," as it is the
emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the ABSOLUTE
consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to
vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he can say
is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension. 
-----------------------------------------------------------

by semi-intelligent beings (Elementals) guided by High Planetary Spirits,
(Dhyan Chohans), whose collective aggregate forms the manifested verbum of
the unmanifested LOGOS, and constitutes at one and the same time the MIND of
the Universe and its immutable LAW. 


PAST -- PRESENT -- FUTURE


Three distinct representations of the Universe in its three distinct aspects
are impressed upon our thought by the esoteric philosophy: the PRE-EXISTING
(evolved from) the EVER-EXISTING; and the PHENOMENAL-the world of illusion,
the reflection, and shadow thereof. During the great mystery and drama of
life known as the Manvantara, real Kosmos is like the object placed behind
the white screen upon which are thrown the Chinese shadows, called forth by
the magic lantern. The actual figures and things remain invisible, while the
wires of evolution are pulled by the unseen hands; and men and things are
thus but the reflections, on the white field, of the realities behind the
snares of Mahamaya, or the great Illusion. This was taught in every
philosophy, in every religion, ante as well as post diluvian, in India and
Chaldea, by the Chinese as by the Grecian Sages. In the former countries
these three Universes were allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three
trinities emanating from the Central eternal germ and forming with it a
Supreme Unity: the initial, the manifested, and the Creative Triad, or the
three in One. The last is but the symbol, in its concrete expression, of the
first ideal two. Hence Esoteric philosophy passes over the necessarianism of
this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever
Existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian
philosophy-the six principles of that unit body of WISDOM of which the
"gnosis," the hidden knowledge, is the seventh. 
S D I 272-278

-------------------------------------


Best wishes,

Dallas