William Kingsland was one of Blavatsky's
most faithful disciples and
when she died he wrote the following article in tribute to her.
WHAT SHE TAUGHT US
If I were to write this short memoir
simply as an imperfect expression of what H.P.B. was to me personally, and of
the influence of her life and teachings upon my own life and aspirations, I
should merely be adding one more testimony to that affection and reverence
which she inspired in all who learnt to understand her in some degree. There
were those who were attracted to her by the magnetism of her personal
influence, by her extraordinary intellect, by her conversational powers, and
even by her militant unconventionality. But I was nor one of these. It was her
message that attracted me; it was as a teacher that I learnt to know and love
her.
Apart from her teachings I might
have looked upon H.P.B. as an interesting and unique character, but I do not
think I should have been attracted to her, had not her message spoken at once
right home to my heart. It was through that message that I came to know H.P.B.,
not as a mere personal friend, but as something infinitely more.
Let me dwell therefore upon H.P.B.
as a teacher, let me endeavor to express what it was that she set before me,
and before so many others, the acceptance of which united us by ties which
death cannot sever.
First, and above all else, she showed
us the purpose of life.
And when I say this I mean much more
than might be commonly understood by this phrase. I mean much more than that
she gave us an interest and a motive in this present life, and a belief or
faith with regard to the next. Those who have learnt the lesson of the illusory
nature of that which most men call life
whether here or here after, need to draw their inspiration from a deeper source
than is available in the external world of forms. But to the born Mystic there
is often a long period of waiting and seeking before that source is found.
Many years are spent in testing and
rejecting first one system, then another, until it seems perchance as if life could
be naught but a hopeless problem. And perhaps just when all seemed darkest and
most hopeless, when it even appeared best to abandon the quest, to take up the
position, "we do not know, and we cannot know" just then it has been
that the light has dawned, the teacher has been sent, the word has been spoken,
which has recalled the lost memory of that hidden source of truth for which we
have been seeking; and we have taken up once more, at the point at which we
dropped it in a previous life-time, that great task which we have set ourselves
to accomplish.
And thus she did something more than
teach us a new system of philosophy. She drew together the threads of our life,
those threads which run back into the past, and forward into the future, but
which we had been unable to trace, and showed us the pattern we had been
weaving, and the purpose of our work.
She taught us Theosophy — not as a
mere form of doctrine, not as a religion, or a philosophy, or a creed, or a
working hypothesis, but as a living power in our lives.
It is inevitable that the term
Theosophy should come to be associated with a certain set of doctrines. In
order that the message may be given to the world it must be presented in a
definite and systematic form. But in doing this it becomes exoteric, and
nothing that is exoteric can be permanent, for it belongs to the world of form.
She led us to look beneath the surface, behind the form; to make the principle
the real motive power of our life and conduct. To her the term Theosophy meant
something infinitely more than could be set before the world in any Key of Theosophy, or Secret Doctrine.
The nearest approach to it in any of
her published works is in The Voice of
the Silence; yet even that conveys but imperfectly what she would —had the
world been able to receive it— have taught and included in the term Theosophy.
The keynote of her teachings, the
keynote of her life, was — Self-sacrifice, "But stay, Disciple . . . Yet
one word. Canst thou destroy divine COMPASSION? Compassion is no attribute. It
is the LAW of Laws — eternal Harmony, Alaya's SELF; a shoreless universal
essence, the light of everlasting Right, and fitness of all things, the law of
love eternal . . . Now bend thy head and listen well, O Bodhisattva —
Compassion speaks and saith: 'Can there be bliss when all that lives must
suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?' "
And thus though doctrinal Theosophy
speaks of Devachan and Nirvana: of rest for the weary storm -tossed pilgrim of
life; of a final goal of bliss past all thought and conceiving; yet, to those
who are able to receive it, it says that there is something higher and nobler
still, that though thrice great is he who has "crossed and won the
Aryahata Path", he is greater still, who having won the prize can put it
aside, and "remain unselfish till the endless end".
And so H.P.B. often pointed out to
us those men and women who. were true Theosophists, though they stood outside
of the Theosophical movement, and even appeared antagonistic to it. Already in
the world a Theosophist has come to mean someone who believes in Reincarnation
and Karma, or some other distinctive doctrine. But the term was never so limited
in its application by the great founder of the Theosophical Society.
She taught these doctrines in order
that men might dissociate themselves from all forms of doctrine, and reach
Alaya's Self. There is no older doctrine than this of Divine Compassion, of
Universal Brotherhood. It is the essence of all the teachings of all the
Buddhas and Christs the world has ever known. It is above all doctrines, all
creeds, all formulas; it is the essence of all religion. Yet men ever miss it,
miss the one principle which alone can save the world, and take refuge instead
in the selfish desires of their lower nature.
Individualism is the keynote of
modern civilization; competition and survival of the fittest, the practical
basis of our morality. Our modern philosophers and scientific teachers do all
that is possible to reduce man to the level of an animal, to show his
parentage, his ancestry and his genius as belonging to the brute creation, and
conditioned by brutal laws of blind force and dead matter.
What wonder then
that one who believed so ardently in the divine nature of man, in the divine
law of love, should oppose with scornful contempt the teachings of both
religion and science which thus degrade humanity.
And she paid the inevitable penalty.
Misunderstood, slandered, and vilified to the last degree, she lived a hero's
life, and died a martyr's death. Only those who were her intimate friends knew
how she suffered, mentally and bodily. The man who dies with his face to the
foe, fighting to the last though covered with wounds, is accounted a hero. But
in the heat of battle there is oblivion of pain, there is a superhuman strength
of madness and frenzy. How much more should she be accounted a hero who could
hold on to life, and work as no other woman has worked, through years of physical
and mental torture.
Some few years ago she was at
death's door. Humanly speaking, she ought to have died then. She was given up
by the doctors; she herself knew she was dying, and rejoiced greatly. But the
Master came to her, showed her the work that must still be done, and gave her
her choice — the bliss of dying or the cross of living.
She chose the cross. And thus not
merely did she teach us the meaning of Theosophy by precept, but also by
example. She was herself the greatest of the Theosophists, not merely because
she founded the movement, and restored to the world the treasures of ancient
wisdom, but because she herself had made the Great Renunciation.
(This article was published in Lucifer
magazine, July 1891, p.385-387; and later in the book HPB: in memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.78-80)
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