Theos-Talk Archives (November 2005 Message tt00106)

Thank you for the documents regarding the matter. I was aware that it
is possible to undergo "chelaship" no matter what your location
(though some places are obviously better suited than others to receive
instruction). I am still curious to see if anyone had any experience
doing this, though.

-Mark H.

On 11/19/05, W.Dallas TenBroeck <dalval14@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 11/19/2005 4:22 AM
>
> RE: World Travelling TO "FIND THE MASTER"
>
> Dear Friends:
>
> Considering what might be said in answer to this -- the Masters are
> everywhere -- rushing off to India or Tibet, or anywhere else -- can
> produce nothing unless some if not all of the following advice is carried
> out by each individual who desires and WILLS.
>
> This advice has been offered for many years, and I but repeat it:
>
> The Master wrote:
>
>
>
> "I now answer the above and your other questions.
>
> [1] It is not necessary that one should be in India during the seven years
> of probation. A chela can pass them anywhere.
>
> [2] To accept any man as a chela does not depend on my personal will. It can
> only be the result of one's personal merit and exertions in that direction.
>
> 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.
>
> So much for candidates during the periods of the undisturbed progress of
> your Society.
>
> There is something more to be done, however, when theosophy, the Cause of
> Truth, is, as at the present moment on its stand for life or death before
> the tribunal of public opinion -- that most flippantly cruel, prejudiced and
> unjust of all tribunals. ...
>
> He who would shorten the years of probation has to make sacrifices for
> theosophy. Pushed by malevolent hands to the very edge of a precipice, the
> Society needs every man and woman strong in the cause of truth. It is by
> doing noble actions and not by only determining that they shall be done that
> the fruits of the meritorious actions are reaped.
>
> Like the "true man" of Carlyle who is not to be seduced by ease --
> "difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act"
> during the hours of trial on the heart of a true chela.
>
> You ask me - "what rules I must observe during this time of probation, and
> how soon I might venture to hope that it could begin".
>
> I answer:
>
> you have the making of your own future, in your own hands as shown above,
> and every day you may be weaving its woof.
>
> If I were to demand that you should do one thing or the other, instead of
> simply advising, I would be responsible for every effect that might flow
> from the step and you acquire but a secondary merit. Think, and you will see
> that this is true. So cast the lot yourself into the lap of Justice, never
> fearing but that its response will be absolutely true.
>
> Chelaship is an educational as well as probationary stage and the chela
> alone can determine whether it shall end in adeptship or failure. Chelas
> from a mistaken idea of our system too often watch and wait for orders,
> wasting precious time which should be taken up with personal effort.
>
> Our cause needs missionaries, devotees, agents, even martyrs perhaps. Butit
> cannot demand of any man to make himself either. So now choose and grasp
> your own destiny, and may our Lord's the Tathagata's memory aid you to
> decide for the best."
> K.H.
>
> [ MAHATMA LETTERS , Letter 32]
>
>
>
> =======================================
>
>
> ADVICE TO "CHELAS"
>
> From MASTER
>
>
> COPY
>
> Master K H wrote to Miss Arundale:
>
> "It is not enough that you should set the example of a pure, virtuous life
> and a tolerant spirit; this is but negative goodness-and for chelaship will
> never do.
>
> You should, even as a simple member, much more as an officer, learn that you
> may teach, acquire spiritual knowledge and strength that the work may lean
> upon you, and the sorrowing victims of ignorance learn from you the cause
> and remedy of their pain.
>
> If you choose, you may make your home [where H.P.B. was the
> guest of Mrs. and Miss Arundale.] one of the most important
> centres of spiritualising influence in all the world. The 'power' is now
> concentrated there, and will remain-if you do not weaken or repulse it:
> remain to your blessing and advantage.
>
> You will do good by encouraging the visits of your fellow members and of
> enquirers and by holding meetings, of the more congenial for study and
> instruction. You should induce others, in other quarters, to do likewise.
>
> You should constantly advise with your associates in the Council how to make
> the general meetings of the Lodge interesting.
>
> New members should be taken in hand from the first, by the older ones
> especially selected and assigned to the duty in each case, and instructed
> thoroughly in what you have already learnt, so that they may be capable of
> participating intelligently in the proceedings of regular meetings. ...
>
> If every Fellow took for his motto the wise words of a young boy, but one
> who is a fervent Theosophist, and repeated with Bertram Keightley 'I am a
> theosophist before I am an Englishman,' no foe could ever upset your
> Society.
>
> However, candidates should be taught, and old members always recollect, that
> this is a serious affair the Society is engaged in; and that they should
> begin the work as seriously by making their own lives theosophical. The
> 'Journal' is well begun, and should be continued. It should be the natural
> complement to that of the 'S.P.R.' -- Society for Psychical Research --
> which is
> a bag of nuts uncracked.
>
> Your branch should keep in correspondence with all the others in
> Europe...whose leading members were the Gebhard family and Dr Hubbe
> Schleiden can help you, the others need your help. This is a movement for
> all Europe, not for London only, remember.
>
> The American members are under great disadvantages, and have had until now,
> since the Founders left, no competent leaders; your Branch can, and should,
> help them, for they are your neighbours, and the Headquarters have already
> too much to do in other quarters.
>
> A chela will be detailed to answer general questions if the Branch deserves
> assistance.
>
> But remember: we are not public scribes or clerks, with time to be
> continually writing notes and answers to individual correspondents about
> every trifling personal matter that they should answer for themselves. Nor
> shall we permit those private notes to be forwarded as freely as hitherto.
>
> Time enough to discuss the terms of chelaship when the aspirant has digested
> what has already been given out, and mastered his most palpable vices and
> weaknesses. This you may show or say to all. The present is for the Branch
> addressed to you as its officer. ...
>
> If the members in Europe wish well to the Mother Society, they should help
> to circulate its publications, and to have them translated into other
> languages when worthy of it. Intentions-you may tell your
> fellows-members -- and kind words count for little with us.
>
> Deeds are what we want and demand. Mrs. Laura C. Holloway, has done -
> poor child-more in that direction during two months than the best of your
> members in these five years.
>
> The members of the L[ondon]. Lodge have such an opportunity as seldom comes
> to men.
>
> A movement calculated to benefit an English-speaking world is in their
> custody. If they do their whole duty, the progress of materialism, the
> increase of dangerous self-indulgence, and the tendency towards spiritual
> suicide can be checked.
>
> The theory of vicarious atonement has brought about its inevitable reaction:
> only the knowledge of karma can offset it. The pendulum has swung from the
> extreme of blind faith towards the extreme materialistic skepticism, and
> nothing can stop it save Theosophy.
>
> Is not this a thing worth working for, to save those nations from the doom
> their ignorance is preparing for them?
>
> Think you truth has been shown to you for your sole advantage? That we have
> broken the silence of centuries for the profit of a handful of dreamers
> only? The converging lines of your karma have drawn each and all of you into
> this Society as to a common focus, that you may each help to work out the
> results of your interrupted beginnings in the last birth.
>
> None of you can be so blind as to suppose that this is your first dealing
> with Theosophy? You surely must realize that this would be the same as to
> say that effects came without causes. Know then that it depends now upon
> each of you whether you shall henceforth struggle alone after spiritual
> wisdom thro' this and the next incarnate life, or, in company of your
> present associates and greatly helped by the mutual sympathy and aspiration.
> Blessing to all-deserving them."
>
> K.H.
> LETTERS FROM THE MASTERS OF WISDOM, 1919, Series I, pp 23-5
>
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> 2
>
> "THE process of self-purification is not the work of a moment, nor of a few
> months but of years-nay, extending over a series of lives.
>
> The later a man begins the living of a higher life, the longer must be his
> period of probation, for he has to undo the effects of a long number of
> years spent in objects diametrically opposed to the real goal.
>
> The more strenuous his efforts and the brighter the result of his work, the
> nearer he comes to the threshold.
>
> If his aspiration is genuine-a settled conviction and not a sentimental
> flash of the moment-he transfer from one body to another the
> determination which finally leads him to the attainment of his
> desire. Bhawani Shankar (*) has seen me in my own physical body and he
> can point out the way to others. He has been working unselfishly for his
> fellow men thro' the Theosophical Society and he is having his reward tho'
> he may not always notice it."
>
> K.H. [MAHATMA LETTERS , Letter 31]
>
>
> ==========================================
>
>
> (*) BHAWANI SHANKAR
>
>
>
> 1904 - 1907 BHAWANI SHANKAR --
>
>
> Pandit Bhawani Shankar was a direct pupil of HPB, became a friendof
> BPW in his early Adyar days.
>
> Not long after HPB landed in Bombay in February 1879, Bhawani
> Shankar, then 20 years old, put himself under her guidance. On several
> occasions he was among those who recorded they had seen the Masters visiting
> her at the T S Headquarters, at "Crow's Nest," Cumballa Hill, in Bombay.
>
> When, later, doubts arose concerning the existence of the Masters,
> he declared openly that he had seen them numerous times at the Bombay
> Headquarters of the T S, speaking or delivering messages of instruction to
> HPB in connection with its work.
>
> "They are not disembodied spirits, as the Spiritualists would force us to
> believe, but living men. I was on seeing them neither hallucinated nor
> entranced...I as a Theosophist and Hindu Brahmin give to disbelievers...that
> these Brothers are not mere fictions of our respectable Madame Blavatsky's
> imagination, but real personages, whose existence to us, is not a matter of
> mere belief, but of actual knowledge." THE THEOSOPHIST
>
>
> Bhawani Shankar -- one of H.P.B.'s direct pupils from the early
> days, 1879-84, was living temporarily at Versova (north of Bombay, near Juhu
> beach, (where the Wadias had been given land in part payment for their
> services as ship-builders many years before, by the British East India
> Company). BPW was invited to come and to attend the Pandit's "morning
> puja" -- a period which he spent in meditation and devotion with thought
> centered on HPB and the Masters.
>
> This, BPW said, began at 4.00 a.m. and would continue for a period
> of 4 to 5 hours. Bhawani Shankar used at that time a special bell. It had
> a "peculiar, a curious ring to it" which "produced a deep psychological
> effect on those who heard it." [ Mr. B. R. Shenoy, who in his youth had
> been a direct pupil of Bhawani Shankar also spoke of this. He lived in New
> Delhi in the 1960s, and was at that time one of the Governors of the Reserve
> Bank of India. Earlier, he had spent several years in Washington, D.C., as
> one of the Directors of the World Bank. He had been professor of Economics
> for many years at Gujerat University in Ahmedabad.]
>
>
> 1885 ---
>
>
> After the departure of HPB and Damodar from India in 1885 he took
> earnestly to the study of the Bhagavad Gita which became his text-book for
> Theosophical exposition. Up and down the vast peninsula he traveled from
> 1891 to 1909. In 1907 Col. Olcott, the President Founder of the T S died.
> He was succeeded as President by Mrs. Annie Besant. During that time, on
> visits to Adyar, Bhawani Shankar had become friends with BPW.
>
> Serious differences developed with the new group of Adyar "leaders."
> This resulted in his limiting his services to small groups of independent
> students who needed and welcomed him.
>
> 1929
>
>
> After the formation of the ULT in Bombay he quickly recognized that
> the real Theosophical work was being carried on there. Under its auspices
> he gave a series of talks on the Gita in October 1931, September 1933 and
> September 1934. THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT Vol. VI, p. 146
>
>
> 1936
>
>
> At the time of his death, Bhawani Shankar asked B.P.Wadia to come
> and visit him. He apparently delayed that event until his arrival. They
> had a private talk, after which he expired. The date was the Full Moon of
> the month of Ashadha--the 4th of July 1936. Born in 1859, Bhawani Shankar
> was 77 years old, and, active to the last, was ever ready to help and
> instruct his fellows.
> THE THEOSOPHICAL MOVEMENT Vol. VI, p. 146
>
> -- DTB
>
> ========================================
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Hamilton Jr.
> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 5:46 PM
> To: Theosophy
> Subject: World Travelling
>
> I was wondering if anyone here been to the East to meet a
> teacher/master/guru. If you have, I would enjoy hearing your
> experiences. I'm planning on going some day.
>
> -Mark H.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


--
Mark Hamilton Jr.
waking.adept@gmail.com