Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00640)

May 24 2005



Dear Friends:



A student of the writings of H P Blavatsky's THEOSOPHY wrote the following
tale:



A FOREWORD by Dhan Gargya


I confess that I do not know the magic of Murdhna Joti, nor why he should
have told me these tales, nor more than a little of what they may mean,
beyond the meaning anyone can grasp. Read them for yourself and see: that is
what Murdhna told me when I would have probed into his hidden self-that
invisible, immortal Self, by which he never wearied of saying the unknown is
to be known. 

But this I do know, and therefore confess as freely as what I do not
know: this, that there are voyages and voyages besides and beyond those by
land, or water, or air. There are those voyages which we all nightly make
into dream, into sleep-that voyage of discovery by an unknown route to find
the Farther East-and from which we return to the familiar shores of waking
no whit the wiser for our nocturnal quest. 

Then there is that vaster Voyage by which we come from Otherwhere to
here, where we land more naked than any Crusoe. And, finally, there is that
embarkation on a voyage from here to-Where, indeed? 

Sometimes I think, or feel, or fancy-that Murdhna Joti was (and is) a
Voyager merely passing through our worldly Universe, and that, small doubt,
if Truth were known instead - of, talked of, he could tell many more, and
more enthralling tales from his Book of Images-that is to say, from the log
of his voyages-than any he told me. 

Certain, I never encountered in Heroes, legendary or real, any (unless
it be the mysterious Ramon Lull) who so fed my own dreams of magical
voyagings in far spaces as this same Murdhna Joti. I dream of him often, and
the dreams are so vivid, so much more life-like than anything I experience
in reality, that sometimes, even when my friends assure me I am wide-awake,
I am secretly engaged in telling myself that I am dreaming-that life here
is a mere book of fleeting images, and the life whereof Murdhna Joti more
than hints, the only real life. 

In other words, that I am myself an invisible, immortal Self, and not
just what my friends and I call me. I wonder.... 



["Murdhana Joti" - means "the Light in the head." ]

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[ From: THE BOOK OF IMAGES ]





KAVALA'S QUEST

THIS was the eldest son who went to his father and said, "My younger brother
is wiser than I. He was born with a contented mind, and his thoughts have
remained always in order. Let him be in my stead. He will conserve all
things and do justice." 

"What is it that you wish to do ? " asked the, father. 

"I desire another wisdom and I cannot find it here." 

"What is this wisdom which you seek, and where can, it be
found?" 

"I do not know what it is, nor where it can be had. But it
must exist, otherwise how could I have any hunger for it, and if it cannot
be found, how could the hunger persist?" 

The old Brahmin spoke. 

"Many have felt as you feel, my son; Kings' sons and
others; but always it arises in those who have too much or too little. It is
not good. Make offerings, perform sacrifices, and seek communion with the
gods. Siva is terrible. Vishnu is great. Brahma is all-powerful. Make search
for Brahma. He is here as well as there. He is not to be found by
journeying." 

Kavala answered, "Make audience, then, for me with Brahma,
that I may ask this wisdom." 

But the old priest shook his head. 

"Not even a Brahmin can do that. Each must find Brahma for
himself. All the books say that."

Kavala asked again, "But this wisdom that the books tell
of, whence does it come? The preserved figs give food, but they do not
produce fig-trees. Their seeds will not germinate. All that I have learned
from the books is but a dried fruit. Where is the tree ? " 
"Be content that the tree must exist," said the King, "or
you have eaten of its' fruit. By learning you may instruct others in the
things that have been, and govern wisely in the things that are. A King's
son must rule in his kingdom." 

"What is my kingdom," said Kavala, "if I gain not this
wisdom?" 

After many days and much leave-taking, Kavala went his unknown way. At
first he was tempted to repent, for at the time of parting the things of his
life that had seemed of small account and unable to satisfy his emptiness
took on hues of great value and his thirst for the unknown wisdom might well
be but a strange fever, and the wisdom itself no more than a mirage in the
mind of a sick traveler. 

Wherever he went, he found all men contented with the dried fruit of
their ancient wisdom, now become learning so great that everywhere there
were temples in which priests dwelt who did naught but repeat to the hungry
from the books they studied. Yet nowhere could he find where wisdom grew as
fresh as once it grew in days of old.

When Kavala was come to forty years, half his life had been passed in
this wandering and he was no wiser than before he had forsaken his
possessions for this rudderless quest. 

Each year, on the day of his departure, he had been accustomed to walk
far, to pass the night alone in the forest, to meditate upon his journey's
object, and to scan his long wanderings. For always, it might be, he had
been near to wisdom, or to the place where wisdom might be had. Perchance he
had been, diverted in his thoughts for a moment, so that had wisdom's voice
been there, he had not heard. But each year, however long his path appeared
before him, clear in all its details like a vision by lightning, he had been
able to assure himself that at no single moment had he forsaken his object;
always his invisible goal had kept his mind's eye sealed to its reckoning.

Once, as the end of his seventh year drew nigh, he had felt a great
sadness and longing and a sense of failure, so keen that he thought he heard
laughter-the bitter laughter of mockery. But he knew it was only the creak
of his aching body, and he knew that wisdom was not to be found in any
appeal of the senses, whether in the joys and softness of a king's Son, or
in the weary bones of a wanderer. A meteor had flashed across the heavens
through the tree-tops, like the waving of a signal torch. But when he
looked-for who knew whence wisdom might descend? -only the darkness touched
him with familiar kindness, so that it might have been but a light in the
head. Nevertheless, he had felt an accession of faith and of hope like a
drink to the soul from some spring not of earth. 

Again, on the night of his fourteenth year, he had thought to drop the
ragged mantle of his body, now worn and frayed in the endless struggle. A
storm raged in the forest, the rain drenched his chilled members and hid
itself ceaselessly in the drinking earth. 

Almost he yielded to the thought that wisdom cannot be had upon this earth,
which drinks and is ever parched. It would seem that only those who die can
hope to find wisdom: all the wisdom that is spoken of in the books has come
down from those long dead. 

Suddenly a star shone, vivid and bewildering. Not white, not red, but a
great golden softness, as if the immense darkness were but a rent curtain on
the other side of which lay shadowless light. But when Kavala rubbed his
eyes to see the star was no more there, and he could not say that it might
be only the will-o'-the-wisp of some dreaming flecked from his great
lassitude and weakness. Nevertheless, a forgetfulness of his pains and
disappointments came upon him, and his long journey seemed reasonable, and
sure to come upon its wished-for issue.

Now on this twenty-first ending of his years of fruitlessness, there
stood sudden and sharp before his consciousness, defined with unrelenting
vigor, two pictures, one on either side of that emptiness like the hollow
center-of a flame, which was his goal. There stood, like a beautiful torch,
himself, eldest son of the king, fair youth in the midst of all the tenure
that men covet, and this youth gazing with luminous yet wistful eye straight
into the heart of the flame. On the other side of the unpierced blackness of
the fire's midst, the bent, wan, flickering torch of what had once been a
man, and this he knew, as his steps carried him slowly forward, to be none
other than himself. Kavala, though he saw both figures, nevertheless kept
his gaze steadfast on the dark emptiness which was the center of the flame.
"It is the fuel of the fire," he said, not knowing that he spoke, but a
peace entered him as the pictures vanished-a peace that he had never known. 

In the margin of the forest Kavala met a Bhikshu at the crossing of
three paths. The mendicant spoke: 

"What, do you seek in the jungle, King's son ? " 

"I seek wisdom," replied Kavala. 

"No King's son can ever find wisdom," said the Bhikshu in a voice
which fell hollow and dry, like pease in a beggar's. bowl. 

"I gave up my estate to go in search of wisdom," said Kavala in
the tone of respect which is used toward a holy man. 

"Then why did you reply when I said, What do you seek in the
jungle, King's son? If you had given up your estate you would not have known
that I spoke to none other than you."

Kavala bent forward respectfully and took the mendicant's bowl in his
two hands. 

"Let thy chela go forth and beg food for thee," he said, "for I
have found thee, O my Master." 



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Best wishes,



Dallas











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Dallas





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