The Masters show great respect towards Buddha
The first letter of the Masters
that is known was destined to Blavatsky’aunt, and although it is not signed, it
is written with the calligraphy of Master Kuthumi, and in this letter we find
the following text:
« Blavatsky has been very ill,
but is so no longer; for under the protection of the Lord Sang-gyas she has found
devoted friends who guard her physically and spiritually. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
first series, No. 38)
(Note: the word “Sang-gyas” is the Tibetan translation of
the Sanskrit word “Buddha”.)
In the Mahatma Letters that
Masters Kuthumi and Morya wrote to Alfred Sinnett and Allan Hume, they often
speak of Buddha referring to him as "our Lord":
« Christian theologians, they
cannot place (however much they would) the birth of our Lord Sang-gyas Buddha A.D.
as they have contrived to place that of Krishna. »
(ML 59, p.345)
« The ecclesiastical system built
upon the basic ideas of our Lord Gautama Buddha’s philosophy. »
(ML 85, p.399)
« The information gathered as
to what takes place beyond we are indebted to the Planetary Spirits, to our blessed
Lord Buddha. »
(ML 22, p.138)
« And now you will understand the
necessity of the practical application of these sublime words of our Lord and Master:
"O ye Bhikkhus and Arhats". »
(ML 82, p.387)
« This is the old, very old fact
distinctly taught by our Lord. »
(ML 16, p.111)
« This was said by our Lord Buddha
for such as she. »
(ML 64, p.360)
« The Devachan, or land of “Sukhavati,” is allegorically described by
our Lord Buddha himself. »
(ML 16, p.99)
« Our Lord Buddha is a man who
has reached the level of the sixth round. »
(ML 15, p.96)
« Plato and Confucius were
men with the level of the fifth round and our Lord Buddha is a man with the
level of the sixth round. »
(ML 14, p.84)
And in the letters that Master
Kuthumi wrote to Leadbeater when he was an aspirant to be a disciple, we also
find similar references designating Buddha as "our Lord" but using
the term "Tathâgata" which is another title given to Buddha:
« So now choose and grasp your own
destiny and may our Lord’s the Tathâgata’s memory aid you to decide for the best. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
first series, No. 7)
« Let no one know that you are
going, and may the blessing of our Lord and my poor blessing shield you from every
evil in your new life. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
first series, No. 8)
And the same thing happens in the
letters that Master Morya wrote to his disciple Ramaswamier:
« Decide after counting the whole
cost, and may the light of our Lord Tathâgata’s memory aid you to decide for the
best. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
second series, No. 51)
And the Chohan Serapis (who is
the boss of Kuthumi and Morya) also shows a great respect for Buddha since in a
letter he wrote the following:
« That we the devoted followers of
that spirit incarnate of absolute self sacrifice, of philanthropy, divine kindness,
as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men,
Gautama Buddha, should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment
of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a
strange idea, my brothers. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
first series, No. 1)
The Masters claim to be Buddhists
Master Kuthumi wrote:
« Our lamas to honour the fraternity
of the Bhikkhus [Buddhist monks] established
by our blessed master Buddha. »
(ML 64, p.360)
« Our oracle says the following:
"Real Adepts like Gautama Buddha or Jesus Christ did not shroud themselves
in mystery, but came and talked openly." And if they did it is news to us—the humble
followers of the former. »
(ML 49, p.281)
« Who reads our Buddhist
scriptures? »
(ML 10, p.54)
« Therefore, we deny the
concept that you have about God as Philosophers and Buddhists. »
(ML 10, p.52)
And the Chohan Serapis wrote:
« Among the few glimpses obtained
by Europeans of Tibet and its mystical hierarchy of “perfect lamas,” there is one
which was correctly understood and described.
“The incarnations of the Boddisatwa Padma Pani or Avalo-Kiteswara and of Tsong Kapa, that of Amitabha, relinquish at their death the attainment of Buddhahood —i.e.
the summum bonum of bliss, and of individual personal felicity— that they might
be born again and again for the benefit of mankind.”
In other words, that they might be
again and again subjected to misery, imprisonment in flesh and all the sorrows of
life, provided that by such a self sacrifice repeated throughout long and
dreary centuries they might become the means of securing salvation and bliss in
of others.
And it is we, the humble disciples
of these perfect lamas, who are expected to allow the Theosophical Society to drop
its noblest title, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity to become a simple school
of psychology? No, no. »
(Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom,
first series, No. 1)
And it should be noted that the
Masters themselves differ from other creeds, including even Advaita Vedanta,
which is said by Blavatsky to be, along with Buddhism, the closest to the
Esoteric Philosophy:
Master Kuthumi specified:
« We are not Adwaitines. »
(ML 10, p.53)
And they maintain this distinction,
even when they accept the truths taught in Advaita Vedanta, and they have Advaita
Vedanta pupils:
« It It is an every day occurrence
to find students belonging to different schools of occult thought sitting side by
side at the feet of the same Master. Upasika [Madam Blavatsky] and Subba Row, though
pupils of the same Master, have not followed the same Philosophy — the one is Buddhist
and the other an Adwaitee. »
(ML 85, p.399)
And Master Morya is more
categorical about it:
« What do we have to see, we,
the disciples of the real Arhats [the great initiates] of esoteric Buddhism and
of Sang-gyas [Lord Buddha] with the Shastras and Orthodox Brahmanism?
Almost nothing!
There are hundreds of thousands
of Fakirs, Sannyasis and Saddhus leading the most pure lives, and yet being as they
are, on the path of error, never having had an opportunity to meet, see or even
hear of us.
Their forefathers have driven
away the followers of the only true philosophy upon earth away from India and
now, it is not for the latter to come to them but to them to come to us if they
want us.
Which of them is ready to become
a Buddhist, a Nastika [someone who
does not believe in God or Gods] as they call us?
None!
But instead those who have
believed and followed us have had their reward. »
(ML 134, p.462)
The Masters recommend studying Buddhism
Madame Blavatsky and Colonel
Olcott to give the example publicly took "Panchashila"
at Galle, Ceylon, on May 25, 1880, and with this ritual they formally become Buddhists,
and they were the first Westerners known to do so.
When Dr. Franz Hartmann
questioned about it, Master Morya replied that the one who becoming a Buddhist
would have easier access to the path of knowledge, and that is why Dr. Hartmann
followed suit and became a Buddhist on December 26, 1883.
And two weeks later (on February 25,
1884) Master Morya wrote in a letter to him:
« Let me give you an advice. Never
offer yourself as a chela, but wait until chelaship descends by itself upon you.
Above all, try to find yourself, and the path of knowledge will open itself before
you, and this so much the easier as you have made a contact with the Light-ray of
the Blessed one, whose name you have now taken as your spiritual lode-star. Receive
in advance my blessings and my thanks. »
(Collected Writings 8, p.446)
_ _ _
We see that the Masters and their
disciples are Buddhists and this regardless of where they were born, since
Kuthumi, Morya, Djwal Khul were Indians, Serapis was Slavic, Hilarion was
Greek, Blavatsky was Russian, Olcott was American, William Judge was Irish,
etc.
WHY ARE THE MASTERS BUDDHISTS?
Master Kuthumi explained the
reason:
« Lord Buddha achieved the
level of development that humans will attain in the sixth round [while the
Masters have only reached the level of the fifth round], and he having
successfully passed through their evolution in their previous incarnations,
Lord Buddha surpassed even his predecessors [i.e. the humans who had already
become Masters]. But a man like this only meets very rarely. One in a trillion
human lives! »
(ML 17, p117)
And in another letter Kuthumi explains
that this fulminating development made the Lord Buddha becomes:
« The Chief of all the Masters,
and the reformer and codifier of the occult system. »
(ML 9, p.43)
« He became our Grand Patron. »
(ML 8, p.33)
And that is the reason why the
Hierarchy of the Masters became Buddhist, because Lord Buddha assumed the
direction.
But it must be emphasized that
even if the Masters are very close to Buddhism because it is the most direct descendant
of the Wisdom-Religion now in existence, and in the Buddhist scriptures are preserved
more of the true teachings than in any other texts now extant.
On the other hand, in what concern
the knowledge, they do not identify themselves as Buddhists, but as esoteric Buddhists
because they claim that they received a much deeper teaching of Lord Buddha and
this knowledge has not been altered over time:
« Indeed, the secret portions of
the “Dan” or “Jan-na” (“Dhyan”) of Gautama’s metaphysics — grand as they appear
to one unacquainted with the tenets of the Wisdom Religion of antiquity — are
but a very small portion of the whole.
And it is because the Hindu
Reformer limited his public teachings to the purely moral and physiological
aspect of the Wisdom-Religion, to Ethics and man alone.
Things “unseen and incorporeal,”
the mystery of Being outside our terrestrial sphere, the great Teacher left
entirely untouched in his public lectures, reserving the hidden Truths for a
select circle of his Arhats. »
(The Secret Doctrine I, p.XX)
And it must be pointed out that Lord
Buddha did not invent his teachings from nothing but he acquired them from the
knowledge that he himself had received from the Hierarchy of the Masters:
« Gautama was a student of
the Old Secret School located in the Himalayas (Shambala) which is the
progenitor of all other esoteric schools, and which had been established many
ages before the appearance of Buddhism. »
(CW 14, p.435)
« So far — we (the Masters) know.
Within and to the utmost limit, to the very edge of the cosmic veil we know the
fact to be correct — owing to personal experience; for the information gathered
as to what takes place beyond — we are indebted to the Planetary Spirits, to
our blessed Lord Buddha. »
(ML 22, p.138)
And this is also the reason why
the Masters are Buddhists, because esoteric Buddhism is a reformulation that Lord
Buddha made of the old genuine esoteric teaching.
And the fact that the Buddha resided
in Tibet, this generated that the spiritual development on Earth will be
concentrated for thousands of years in this region.
« Our best, most erudite and holy
Adepts are of Tibetan origin. »
(ML 4, p.15)
But this does not mean that the
Masters repudiate the other Messiahs, and they speak very well of Jesus.
Master Morya said the following:
« We consider that the great
Initiate you call Jesus has been one of the greatest Masters that has ever
existed. »
(CW 8, p.402)
But on the other hand, they disapprove
completely the manipulative and enslaving organizations in which religions have
become, and that is why Master Kuthumi said:
« It is religion under
whatever form and in whatsoever nation. It is the sacerdotal caste, the priesthood
and the churches; it is in those illusions that man looks upon as sacred, that
he has to search out the source of that multitude of evils which is the great
curse of humanity and that almost overwhelms mankind.
Ignorance created “Gods” and
cunning took advantage of the opportunity. Look at India and look at
Christendom and Islam, at Judaism and Fetichism. It is priestly imposture that
rendered these gods so terrible to man.
It is religion that makes of him
the selfish bigot, the fanatic that hates all mankind out of his own sect
without rendering him any better or more moral for it. It is belief in God and
gods that makes two-thirds of humanity the slaves of a handful of those who
deceive them under the false pretence of saving them.
And so for example the Irish,
Italian or Hispanic peasant [and any devout Catholic] will starve himself and
see his family starving and naked to feed and clothe his padre and pope.
And that is why our chief aim is
to deliver humanity of this nightmare, to teach man virtue for its own sake,
and to walk in life relying on himself instead of leaning on a theological
crutch, that for countless ages was the direct cause of nearly all human
misery.
If it is objected that we too
have temples, we too have priests and that our lamas also live on charity . . .
let them know that the objects above named have in common with their Western
equivalents, but the name. Thus in our temples there is neither a god nor gods
worshipped, only the thrice sacred memory of the greatest as the holiest man
that ever lived. »
(ML 10, pp. 53, 57-58)
In this latter asseveration, I
disagree with Master Kuthumi because unfortunately it is a fact that Buddhism
has also been corrupted, but I also understand that the Masters, despite their
great development, being human, is difficult to accept that something they love
has been degraded.
CONCLUSION
Based on all I have studied, I am also inclined to consider that among
all the religions that exist, probably Buddhism is the one that most
illustrates the truth, but with this I am not telling you that you have to
leave your religion because all religions have good and bad things, and
therefore what I recommend is that you take the good and discard the bad. And
this also includes Buddhism, so my advice is that you take the Buddhist
philosophy, but avoid the business that has been created around Buddhism. And for
the occult knowledge, I recommend you to focus on original Theosophy because
that is the most genuine esoteric teaching that we have access to in this life.
No comments:
Post a Comment