Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00070)

(This may be, arguably, one of the most touching and human pasages in
the Mahatma Letters, something even Anand could appreciate had he
studied them. po)


"...most undeniably she is given to exaggeration in general, and when
it becomes a question of "puffing up" those she is devoted to, her
enthusiasm knows no limits. Thus she has made of M. an Apollo of
Belvedere, the glowing description of whose physical beauty, made him
more than once start in anger, and break his pipe while swearing like
a true -- Christian; and thus, under her eloquent phraseology, I,
myself had the pleasure of hearing myself metamorphosed into an "angel
of purity and light" -- shorn of his wings. We cannot help feeling at
times angry, with, oftener -- laughing at, her. Yet the feeling that
dictates all this ridiculous effusion, is too ardent, too sincere and
true, not to be respected or even treated with indifference.

I do not believe I was ever so profoundly touched by anything I
witnessed in all my life, as I was with the poor old creature's
ecstatic rapture, when meeting us recently both in our natural bodies,
one -- after three years, the other -- nearly two years absence and
separation in flesh. Even our phlegmatic M. was thrown off his
balance, by such an exhibition -- of which he was chief hero. He had
to use his power, and plunge her into a profound sleep, otherwise she
would have burst some blood-vessel including kidneys, liver and her
"interiors" -- to use our friend Oxley's favourite expression -- in
her delirious attempts to flatten her nose against his riding mantle
besmeared with the Sikkim mud! We both laughed; yet could we feel
otherwise but touched? Of course, she is utterly unfit for a true
adept: her nature is too passionately affectionate and we have no
right to indulge in personal attachments and feelings. You can never
know her as we do, therefore -- none of you will ever be able to judge
her impartially or correctly. You see the surface of things; and what
you would term "virtue," holding but to appearances, we -- judge but
after having fathomed the object to its profoundest depth, and
generally leave the appearances to take care of themselves. In your
opinion H.P.B. is, at best, for those who like her despite herself --
a quaint, strange woman, a psychological riddle: impulsive and
kindhearted, yet not free from the vice of untruth. We, on the other
hand, under the garb of eccentricity and folly -- we find a profounder
wisdom in her inner Self than you will ever find yourselves able to
perceive. In the superficial details of her homely, hard-working,
common-place daily life and affairs, you discern but unpracticality,
womanly impulses, often absurdity and folly; we, on the contrary,
light daily upon traits of her inner nature the most delicate and
refined, and which would cost an uninitiated psychologist years of
constant and keen observation, and many an hour of close analysis and
efforts to draw out of the depth of that most subtle of mysteries --
human mind -- and one of her most complicated machines, -- H.P.B.'s
mind -- and thus learn to know her true inner Self."

(http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/mahatma/ml-54.htm)