Theos-Talk Archives (October 2005 Message tt00050)

Part II --- WHO WAS -- IS H P B OCT 05.DOC



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H P B  



Part I ---    

It is of importance that we ask ourselves: WHO WAS / IS H P B ?

Here are some statements to be thought over:


	
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HPB NOT COMMUNICATING AFTER DEATH


UNDER THE SHADOW OF GREAT NAMES

H P B 
 
[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 6, March, 1883, p. 137]
 
 
"The future has a gloomy look indeed to us
when we think that, despite their best endeavors to the
contrary, the Founders of the Theosophical Society are
quite as liable ... to an involuntary post-mortem recantation of their
most cherished and avowed ideas. ... 

-------------------------------
 
"While it is yet time, both the founders of the Theosophical 
Society place upon record their solemn promise that they 
will let trance mediums severely alone after they get to
"the other side." 

--------------------------------
  
If after this, any of the talking fraternity take their names in
vain, they hope that at least their theosophical confreres
will unearth this paragraph and warn the trespassers off
their astral premises. 
 
So far as we have observed, the best trance speakers 
have been those who bragged least about their controls. 
"Good wine needs no bush," says the adage. 

H P B 
 
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Part II --- H. P. B. -- WHO WAS / IS SHE ?





THE SECRET DOCTRINE TEACHES


"The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the ancient
and prehistoric world."	
[ SECRET DOCTRINE I xxxiv ]  


"However, as THE SECRET DOCTRINE teaches HISTORY-which, for being esoteric
and traditional, is none the less more reliable than profane history-we are
as entitled to our beliefs as anyone else, whether religionist or skeptic."
S D I 267


"These truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation, nor does the
author claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore now made public for
the first time in the world's history." [ SD I vii ]
 

"We give facts and show land-marks: let the wayfarer follow them. What is
given here is amply sufficient for this century." [ SD II 742 ]  


"There are more secrets of Initiation given out in the Introductory Chapter
than in all Isis...Fancy Masters giving out the secret of the "Divine
Hermaphrodite" even ! and so on."
[ HPB Letters to A.P.Sinnett, p. 172-3 ] 




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


"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


"...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


"...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, 68


"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


"...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 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 115


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


"...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 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 19  


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



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W. Q. JUDGE ON H P B



Mr. Judge wrote several articles giving his evaluation of the work of H P
Blavatsky.  

He said:


"In 1875, in the City of New York, I first met H.P.B. in this life...It was
her eye that attracted me, the eye of one whom I must have known in lives
long passed away. She looked at me in recognition at that first hour, and
never since has that look changed...Not as a questioner of philosophies did
I come before her...but as one, wandering many periods through the corridors
of life, was seeking the friends who could show where the designs for the
work had been hidden.  

And true to the call she responded, revealing the plans once again, and
speaking no words to explain, simply pointed then out and went on with the
task. It was as if but the evening before we had parted, leaving yet to be
done some detail of a task taken up with one common end; it was teacher and
pupil, elder brother and younger, both bent on the one single end, but she
with the power and the knowledge that belong but to lions and sages.

Others I know have looked with suspicion on an appearance they could not
fathom, and though it is true they adduce many proofs which hugged to the
breast, would damn sages and gods, yet it is only through blindness they
failed to see the lion's glance, the diamond heart of H.P.B...she was laying
down the lines of force all over the land...

The explanation has been offered by some too anxious friends that the
earlier phenomena were mistakes in judgment, attempted to be rectified in
later years by confining their area and limiting their number, but...I shall
hold to her own explanation made in advance and never changed. That I have
given above. For it is easier to take refuge behind a charge of bad
judgment than to understand the strange and powerful laws which control in
matters such as these.

Amid all the turmoil of her life, above all the din produced by those who
charged her with deceit and fraud and others who defended, while month after
month, and year after year, witnessed men and women entering the
theosophical movement only to leave it soon with malignant phrases for
H.P.B., there stands a fact we all might consider--devotion absolute to her
Master. "It was He," she writes, "who told me to devote myself to this, and
I will never disobey and never turn back."...

Willing in the service of the cause to offer up hope, money, reputation,
life itself, provided the Society might be saved from every hurt, whether
small or great.  

And thus bound body and soul to this entity called the T. S., bound to
protect it at all hazards, and in the face of every loss, she often incurred
the resentment of many who became her friends but would not always care for
the infant organization as she had sworn to do.  

And when they acted as it opposed to the Society, her instant opposition
seemed to them to nullify professions of friendship. Thus she had but few
friends, for it required a keen insight, untinged with personal feeling, to
see even a small part of the real H.P.Blavatsky...

She worked under directors who, operating from behind the scene, knew that
the T. S. was, and was to be, the nucleus from which help might be spread to
all the people of the day, without thanks and without acknowledgment...I
asked her what was the chance of drawing people into the Society...she
said:--"When you consider those days in 1875 and after, in which you could
not find any people interested in your thoughts, and now look at the
wide-spreading influence of theosophical ideas--however labeled--it is not
so bad.  

We are not working that people may call themselves Theosophists, but that
the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole mind of this
century. This alone can be accomplished by a small earnest band of workers,
who work for no human reward, no earthly recognition, but who, supported and
sustained by a belief in that Universal Brotherhood of which our Masters are
a part, work steadily, faithfully, in understanding and putting forth for
consideration the doctrines of life and duty that have come down to us from
immemorial time. Falter not so long as a few devoted ones will work to keep
the nucleus existing.  

You were not directed to found and realise a Universal Brotherhood, but to
form the nucleus for one; for it is only when the nucleus it formed that
the accumulations can begin that will end in future years, however far, in
the formation of that body which we have in view."

H.P.B. had a lion heart, and on the work traced out for her she had a lion's
grasp, let us...sustain ourselves in carrying out the designs laid down on
the trestle-board, by the memory of her devotion and the consciousness that
behind her task stood, and still remain, those Elder Brothers who, above the
clatter and the din of our battle, ever see the end and direct the forces
distributed in array for the salvation of "that great orphan--Humanity."

W. Q. Judge	
YOURS TILL DEATH AND AFTER, H.P.B..." 
Judge Articles, II p. 1


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2

	
"...in 1875 she told me that she was then embarking on a work that would
draw upon her unmerited slander, implacable malice, uninterrupted
misunderstanding, constant work, and no worldly reward. Yet in the face of
this her lion heart carried her on...

Much has been said of her "phenomena," some denying them, others alleging
trick and device. Knowing her for so many years so well, and having seen at
her hands in private the production of more and more varied phenomena that
it has been the good fortune of all others of her friends put together to
seem I know for myself that she had control of hidden powerful laws of
nature not known to our science, and I also know that she never boasted of
her powers, never advertised their possession, never publicly advised anyone
to attempt their acquirement, but always turned the eyes of those who could
understand her to a life of altruism based on a knowledge of true
philosophy.

If the world thinks that her days were spent in deluding her followers by
pretended phenomena, it is solely because her injudicious friends, against
her expressed wish, gave out wonderful stories of her "miracles" which can
not be proved to a skeptical public and which are not the aim of the Society
nor were ever more than mere incidents in the life of H.P.Blavatsky.

Her aim was to elevate the race. Her method was to deal with the mind of
the century as she found it, by trying to lead it on step by step; to seek
out and educate a few who, appreciating the majesty of the Secret Science
and devoted to "the great orphan Humanity," could carry on her work with
zeal and wisdom; to found a Society whose efforts--however small itself
might be--would inject into the thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines,
the nomenclature of the Wisdom Religion, so that when the next century shall
have seen its 75th years the new messenger coming again into the world would
find the Society still at work, the ideas sown broadcast, the nomenclature
ready to give expression and body to the immutable truth, and thus to make
easy the task which for her since 1875 was so difficult and so encompassed
with obstacles in the very paucity of the language--obstacles harder than
all else to work against."
W. Q. Judge
"H.P.B.--A LION-HEARTED COLLEAGUE PASSES"  
WQJ Articles II p. 5

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3


"This article is meant for members of the T.S...Those members who believe
that such beings as the Masters may exist must come to one of two
conclusions in regard to H.P.B.: either that she invented her Masters, who
therefore have no real existence, or that she did not invent them but spoke
in the names and by the orders of such beings.

If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course, as so often was said
by her, all that she has taught and written is the product of her own brain,
from which we would be bound to conclude that her position on the roll of
great and powerful persons must be higher than people have been willing to
place her.

But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her statement that she had
those teachers whom she called Masters and that they are more powerful
beings than ordinary men.

The case I wish to deal with...is this: H.P.B. and her relations to the
Masters and to us; her books and teachings; the general question of
disciples and chelas...Chelas and disciples are of many grades, and some of
the Adepts are themselves the chelas of higher Adepts...[they are those who
have] devoted himself or herself to the service of mankind and the pursuit
of knowledge of the Self...[Some] have gained through knowledge and
discipline those powers over mind, matter, space, and time which to us are
the glittering prizes of the future...So much being laid down, we may next
ask how we are to look at H.P.B..

But taking her own sayings, she was a chela or disciple of the Masters, and
therefore stood in relation to them as one who might be chided or corrected
or reproved. She called them her Masters, and asseverated a devotion to
their behests and a respect and confidence in and for their utterances which
the chelas has always for one who is high enough to be his Master.

But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and as to which one of her
Masters wrote that they had puzzled and astonished the brightest minds of
the age, we see that compared with ourselves she was an Adept...are in fact
some of the great Rishis and Sages of the past, and people have been too
much in the habit of lowering them to the petty standard of this age." But
with this reverence for her teachers she had for them at the same time a
love and friendship not often found on earth. All this indicates her
chelaship to Them, but in no way lowers her to us or warrants us in deciding
that we are right in a hurried or modern judgment of her.

Now some Theosophist ask if there are other letters extant from her Masters
in which she is called to account, is called their chela, and is chided now
and then, besides those published. Perhaps yes. And what of it ? Let them
be published by all means, and let us have the full and complete record of
all letters sent during her life; those put forward as dated after her
death will count for naught...since the Masters do not indulge in any
criticisms on the disciples who have gone from earth. As she has herself
published letters and parts of letters from the Masters to her in which she
is called a chela and is chided, it certainly matte if we know of others of
the same sort.

For over against all such we have common sense, and also the declarations of
her Masters that she was the sole instrument possible for the work to be
done, that 

They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general all she did. And
she was the first direct channel to and from the Lodge, and the only one to
date through which came the objective presence of the Adepts.  

We cannot ignore the messenger, take the message, and laugh at or give scorn
to the one who brought it to us. There is nothing new in the idea that
letters are still unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and
there is no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that not a
single such letter has anything in it putting her below us; she must ever
remain the greatest of the chelas...

There only remains...the position taken by some and without a knowledge of
the rules governing these matters, that chelas sometimes write messages
claimed to be from the Masters when they are not. this is an artificial
position not supportable by law or rule. It is due to ignorance of what is
and is not chelaship, and also to confusion between grades in discipleship.
It has been used as to H.P.B.  

The false conclusion has first been made that an accepted chela of high
grade may become accustomed to dictation by the Master and then may fall
into the false pretense of giving something from himself and pretending it
is from the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not of such
a character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it would destroy the
possibility of any more communication from the teacher.  

It may be quite true that probationers now and then have imagined themselves
as ordered to say so and so, but that is not the case of an accepted and
high chela who is irrevocably pledged...This idea, then, ought to be
abandoned; it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what must be the
case when such relations are established as existed between H.P.B. and her
Masters."	
W. Q. Judge
"MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS AND DISCIPLES"
WQJ Art. II p. 9


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Best wishes,

DTB