Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00935)

Dear Friends,
 
 
At  first, the idea of defending one’s teachers from false charges may sound like a strange proposition.   

Many a clever guy will ask himself,  with an innocent face: 
 
“Why should  I ever bother to oppose falsehoods said against  the source of  my spiritual learning?”  
 
Perhaps the idea of feeling any real ethical responsibility  before life is a half-forgotten part of our ancient wisdom and  philosophy.  But we can always remember old things. Esoteric tradition is not a  recent invention, and some 2050 years ago  Roman thinker Marcus Tullius Cicero seemed to be perfectly familiar with the ethical injunction present in the “Golden Stairs” which were given to HPB by her Master in the 19th century:
 
“...a brave declaration of principles,  
a valiant  defense of those who are unjustly attacked... ” 
 
Cicero wrote in his book “On Duties”: 
 
“There are, on the other hand, two kinds of injustice  – the one, on the part of those who inflict wrong, the other on the part of those who, when they can, do not shield from wrong those upon whom it is being inflicted. For (...)  he who does not prevent  or oppose wrong, if he can, is just as guilt of wrong as if he deserted his parents  or his friends or his country.” (1) 
  
Much more recently, in  H.P.Blavatsky’s  “Preliminary Memorandum to the E.S.”, we can read these lines which were put in capital letters by herself:   
 
 “AS THE MEMBERS TO THE BODY, SO ARE THE DISCIPLES TO EACH OTHER, AND TO THE HEAD AND HEART WHICH TEACH AND NOURISH THEM WITH THE LIFE-STREAM OF TRUTH.  AS THE LIMBS DEFEND THE HEAD AND HEART OF THE BODY THEY BELONG TO, SO HAVE  THE DISCIPLES TO DEFEND THE HEAD AND THE HEART  OF THE BODY  THEY BELONG TO (in this case Theosophy) FROM INJURY.  
(From the Master of a Master.) 
‘. . . . AND IF THE LIMBS HAVE TO DEFEND THE HEAD AND HEART OF THEIR BODY, THEN WHY NOT  SO, ALSO, THE DISCIPLES THEIR TEACHERS AS REPRESENTING THE SCIENCE OF THEOSOPHY WHICH CONTAINS AND INCLUDES THE ‘HEAD’ OF THEIR PRIVILEGE, THE ‘HEART’ OF THEIR SPIRITUAL GROWTH? SAITH THE SCRIPTURE: — ‘HE WHO WIPETH NOT AWAY THE FILTH WHICH THE PARENT’S BODY  MAY HAVE BEEN DEFILED BY AN ENEMY, NEITHER LOVES THE PARENT NOR HONOURS HIMSELF.  HE WHO DEFENDETH NOT THE PERSECUTED AND THE HELPLESS (....)  HATH BEEN BORN TOO SOON IN HUMAN SHAPE’.”   (Taken from “HPB Collected Writings”, volume XII)
 
Practically interpreting these words, of course, is up to each student and to his conscience only.  A true  learner must respond above all to his own heart and sense of duty. 
 
Yet we could also take into consideration some words published by HPB in November 1887, when, after challenging the Accumulated Ignorance of her time,  she was already being generously slandered in several continents.  She wrote:  
 
“... he who hears an innocent person slandered, whether a brother Theosophist or not, and does not undertake his defence as he would undertake his own – is no Theosophist.” (2)   
 
Strong words. 
 
The movement was in danger, then. Yet there were at least  three advantages in those times, if we compare them with the situation we face in the first decade of  21st century:  
 
1) In the 1880s,  HPB  was not being slandered by the very members of the theosophical movement;   
 
2) The slanders were not being plausibly published as if they were her own words; 
 
3) She was alive to duly call the slanderers -- liars.    
 
So we have an interesting issue to ponder by now. 
 
It is something to be solved in the near future by the movement.  
 
The same old and coward lies have been shamelessly  put to circulation again.  It was done in 2003  by the Adyar TPH in the U.S.  and by Mr. John Algeo, who now is  the international vice-president of the Adyar Theosophical Society.  
 
I wonder what would HPB say of  those who help slander her and at the same time pretend to be  theosophical leaders.
 
In  fact, Algeo did have the nerve to publish those lies and slanders as if they were  part of HPB’s own writings, hence, as  if they were confessions.  And this, after being warned about that by a member of his “Editorial Committee”, Nicholas Weeks.  He also did not consult  nor had the support of Mrs. Radha Burnier to do that. 
 
Fortunately, Karma  law, the law of justice and equilibrium,  can’t be controlled or misled by any  “powerful leader”. 
 
In October 1881, for instance,  HPB’s Master himself wrote, referring to an English theosophist: 
 
“If he but knew that in our sight an honest boot-black was as good as an honest king, and an immoral sweeper far higher and more excusable  than an immoral Emperor – he would have never uttered such a fallacy.” (3)  
 
Indeed, the false idea that “might is right” does not work with Occultism. . 
 
Karma law is impartial.  It favours no one.  It takes no vacation.  Harvest follows planting often in unexpected ways and timing.   
 
Best regards,  Carlos Cardoso Aveline. 
 
 
NOTE: 
 
(1) "De Officiis" ( On Duties ), Cicero, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 2005, 424 pp., see p. 25. 
 
 
(2) “The Theosophical Society: Its Mission and Its Future”, an article published in “Lucifer”, August 1888, and in “The Collected Writings”, H. P. Blavatsky, TPH, India/USA, Volume X, 1988, 462 pp., see p. 69.
 
(3) “The Mahatma Letters”,  T.U.P., Pasadena, California, USA, 1992, 494 pp., see letter XXIX, p. 223. 
 
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
 


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