Theos-Talk Archives (October 2008 Message tt00348)

What is meant by a letter from person X? Generally, letter from person
X is understood as the message from person X written by himself, or
dictated by him, almost every word of the letter, to his secretary or
other writer.
As Blavatsky herself admitted, most of the Mahatma Letters were not
written by Masters with their own hands. 
Also according to Blavatsky, ability to accurately receive messages
from the Masters depended to great extent on the development of the
chela. 
As I understand, Mahatmas did not dictate every word of the letter to
disciples, even psychically they did not communicate words of his
letter. At the most, Masters conveyed certain ideas to chelas, these
chelas then put those ideas into their (chelas') own words. Disciples
writing of Master's thought depends on many factors. Disciple writes
what he interprets Master's thought, he writes what he receives.
Disciple may not understand Master's thought or he may partially
understand Master's thought, or he may entirely misunderstand Master's
thought. So when disciple writes Master's thought, we need to remember
that that thought is disciple's understanding of Master's thought and
so it may not be exactly Master's thought.
If this is so, such writing by chela can not be considered as letter
from the Master. 

If I tell somebody some idea, say idea of evolution in 4-5 sentences,
and if that person writes article of 7 pages on that idea, will that
article of 7 pages be considered as letter from me ? No.
I think, what happened in case of Blavatsky is she imperfectly
received Masters thought. Then she put those thoughts in her own
words, materialized those words on paper using occult powers, and sent
them out as letters from Masters. 
Blavatsky many times could not understand Master's thought, sometimes
partially understood, sometimes entirely misunderstood. And then she
materialized those words of her on paper and sent out as Mahatma Letters. 
As this was the procedure, I don't think those letters can be called
as letters from the Mahatmas.
Best
Anand Gholap