Theos-Talk Archives (July 2009 Message tt00096)

Mahatma KH explains very clearly the issue of occult secrets and the
essential transformation needed in the neophyte and that no amount of hocus
pocus will work. It is hoped that those concerned with secrets may get a
better picture after reading it.
.
MKR
.
>From Letter #49 - Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett:
.

Once we are upon the topic, I wish you would impress upon your London
friends some wholesome truths that they are but too apt to forget, even,
when they have been told of them over and over again. The Occult Science is
not one, in which secrets can be communicated of a sudden, by a written or
even verbal communication. If so, all the "Brothers" should have to do,
would be to publish a Hand-book of the art which might be taught in schools
as grammar is. It is the common mistake of people that we willingly wrap
ourselves and our powers in mystery -- that we wish to keep our knowledge to
ourselves, and of our own will refuse -- "wantonly and deliberately" to
communicate it. The truth is that till the neophyte attains to the condition
necessary for that degree of Illumination to which, and for which, he is
entitled and fitted, most if not all of the Secrets are incommunicable. The
receptivity must be equal to the desire to instruct. The illumination must
come from within. Till then no hocus pocus of incantations, or mummery of
appliances, no metaphysical lectures or discussions, no self-imposed penance
can give it. All these are but means to an end, and all we can do is to
direct the use of such means as have been empirically found by the
experience of ages to conduce to the required object. And this was and has
been no secret for thousands of years. Fasting, meditation, chastity of
thought, word, and deed; silence for certain periods of time to enable
nature herself to speak to him who comes to her for information; government
of the animal passions and impulses; utter unselfishness of intention, the
use of certain incense and fumigations for physiological purposes, have been
published as the means since the days of Plato and Iamblichus in the West,
and since the far earlier times of our Indian Rishis. How these must be
complied with to suit each individual temperament is of course a matter for
his own experiment and the watchful care of his tutor or Guru. Such is in
fact part of his course of discipline, and his Guru or initiator can but
assist him with his experience and will power but can do no more until the
last and Supreme initiation. I am also of opinion that few candidates
imagine the degree of inconvenience -- nay suffering and harm to himself --
the said initiator submits to for the sake of his pupil. The peculiar
physical, moral, and intellectual conditions of neophytes and Adepts alike
vary much, as anyone will easily understand; thus, in each case, the
instructor has to adapt his conditions to those of the pupil, and the strain
is terrible for to achieve success we have to bring ourselves into a full
rapport with the subject under training. And as, the greater the powers of
the Adept the less he is in sympathy with the natures of the profane who
often come to him saturated with the emanations of the outside world, those
animal emanations of the selfish, brutal, crowd that we so dread -- the
longer he was separated from that world and the purer he has himself become,
the more difficult the self-imposed task. Then -- knowledge, can only be
communicated gradually; and some of the highest secrets -- if actually
formulated even in your well prepared ear -- might sound to you as insane
gibberish, notwithstanding all the sincerity of your present assurance that
"absolute trust defies misunderstanding." This is the real cause of our
reticence.
.
âxxxâ


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