SMART SCHOLARS
Jul 07, 2006 12:00 PM
by carlosaveline
Dear Friends,
In her famous text “Why I Do Not Return to India”, H. P. Blavatsky evaluates the actual level of brain activity in the case of some “pandits” and “scholars” who believe that she “may have been a Russian Spy”. The assessment can apply to the recent examples of Daniel Calwell and John Algeo.
H.P.B. says:
“For the Russian spy theory, if it still finds credit in some idiotic heads, has long ago disappeared, at any rate from the official brains of the Anglo-Indians.”
Let’s take a look now at the broader context of her words:
“As for myself, who can charge me with having acted like an impostor? with having, for instance, taken one single pie from any living soul? With having ever asked for money, or even with having accepted it, notwithstanding that I was repeatedly offered large sums! Those who, in spite of this, haven chosen to think otherwise, will have to explain what even my traducers of even the Padri class and the Psychical Research Society have been unable to explain to this day, viz., the motive for such a fraud. They will have to explain why, instead of taking and making money, I gave away to the Society every penny I earned by writing for the papers, why at the same time I nearly killed myself with overwork and incessant labour year after year, until my health gave way, so that but for my Master’s repeated help, I should have died long ago from the effects of such voluntary hard labour. For the Russian spy theory, if it still finds credit in some idiotic heads, has long ago disappeared, at any rate from the official brains of the Anglo-Indians.” (1)
H.P.B. ends the text by mentioning “those few true Theosophists who have remained loyal throughout, and bid defiance to all calumniators and ambitious malcontents – both without and within the Theosophical Society”.
She knew there were calumniators inside the movement. Does the problem date from her time, then? Yes, and it includes many other times and places, too.
In fact, the symbolic presence of a Judas among the twelve apostles of the New Testament represents a much deeper and broader challenge than just a personal problem to be faced by Jesus.
Loyalty to others – as Shakespeare wrote in the Act I of his “Hamlet” – depends on being loyal to oneself.
Best regards, Carlos Cardoso Aveline
NOTE:
(1) “Why I Do Not Return To India”, H.P. Blavatsky, published in “Collected Writings”, TPH, volume XII, 1980, pp. 161-162. Also “Theosophy”, a monthly magazine, Los Angeles, USA, May 1947, pp. 295-296. Written in April 1890, the text was an Open Letter to all theosophists in India, published originally.
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