Theos-Talk Archives (December 2010 Message tt00170)

Lucifer Magazine which has been scanned and uploaded recently to
theosophy.net, is a gold mine for the earnest inquirer.

I ran into the following relating to Chelaship. There seems to be a lot of
confusion about Chelaship and mistaken ideas and practices surround it,
especially when one becomes a member of any organized group, whether
publicly known or not. Here is what HPB has to say, and she puts it very
clearly. (Lucifer, Vol IV, No. 22, June 1989, pp.348)

âChelaship has nothing whatever to do with means of subsistence or anything
of the kind, for a man can isolate his mind entirely from his body and its
surroundings. Chelaship is a stale of mind rather than a life according to
hard and fast rules on the physical plane. This applies especia11y  to the
earlier, probationary period, while the rules given in Lucifer for April
last pertain properly to a later stage, that of actual occult training and
the development of occult powers and insight.

These rules indicate, however, the mode of life which ought to be followed
by all aspirants so far as practicable, since it is the most helpful to them
in their aspirations.

It should never be forgotten that Occultism is concerned with the inner man
who must be strengthened and freed from the dominion of the physical body
and its surroundings, which must become his servants.

Hence the first and chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute
unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then follow self-knowledge and
self-mastery. These are all-important; while outward observance of fixed
rules of life is a matter of secondary moment.

Woman has as good a chance as any man has to reach high Adeptship. Why she
does not succeed in this direction in Europe is simply due to her early
education and the social prejudice which causes her to be regarded as
inferior to man. This prejudice, amounting to a curse in Christian lands,
was mainly derived from the Jewish Bible, and man has profited by it.â

MKR


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