THE TRANSHIMALAYAN MASTERS by Clement Acton Griscom

(Clement Acton Griscom, Jr. was members of the Theosophical Society in America and editor of The Theosophical Quarterly revue, and in this article he summarizes the theosophical information that was given about these very advanced humans.)

« The very rough sketch of the evolutionary process outlined in the last article is woefully incomplete without including the vital and essential part which the Masters play; and yet one stands appalled at the mere idea of attempting to put into words what the New Testament describes in part.  Perhaps the best thing to do is to set down quite simply, in a series of dogmatic statements the essence of what one knows or understands about this vast subject.

The first thing that has to be kept in mind is the hierarchical principle in the universe. Our universe is one; it is a uni-verse, not a duo-verse, or a multi-verse. Every soul is a part of the Oversoul, a spark of Divinity, a ray from the spiritual center of things; but they are not all equal.  Some are nearer and some are farther away from the inner most heart of the universe, and they rank, as souls, according to their distance away, according to their position along the evolutionary stream.

In the Secret Doctrine there is a beautiful phrase, “Time lay asleep in the bosom of infinite duration"; but it does not always lie asleep. When the hour strikes and a Great Day of Brahma dawns, every 311,040,000,000,000 years or so, there issues forth from the Absolute a whole universe, which gradually unrolls in manifestation.

The early stages of this vast unfoldment do not concern us. Suffice it to say that in due time, the process reaches the point where solar systems, and then earths are born, and again, in due time, in stretches of time which dwarf our geological periods into insignificance, these earths are prepared for human evolution, and mankind appears.

The picture I wish to present is that this process, taking thousands of millions of years, is a succession of steps or stages, and that every step or stage has its appropriate form of life. Most of these are so inconceivably remote from man that the wildest stretches of our imagination does not give us even a glimmer of their nature and functions. We only know, from analogy, that such beings must exist.

It is not until we reach the world itself that the human mind can begin, vaguely, to concern itself with the higher forms of spiritual life, and to hope to begin to understand a little about them. In order to suggest something of the nature and functions of these spiritual beings that are beginning to come within the range of our understanding, I am going to try to build up our concept from below.

Every atom in the universe is composed of substance and consciousness, or matter and spirit. The quality of the consciousness is determined by its vehicle or body; as vehicles for consciousness become more complete, the character of the consciousness ensouling these vehicles, becomes more complete ; or we can use the term “higher” and say that the higher the type of body, the higher the type of consciousness inhabiting that body.

The consciousness of a cell is a synthesis of the consciousness of the atoms composing that cell; the consciousness of an organ in the body, is the synthesis of the consciousness of the cells composing the organ. The body itself has a consciousness, as a whole, which is the synthesis of the organs and parts composing it. It gets hungry and thirsty, or feverish, or tired, or cold. We Occidental peoples say, “We are hungry, or cold,” but the Orient people say much more truly, “my body is hungry,” or “my body is cold.”

Carrying forward this idea that a higher type is the synthesis of many of a lower type, and associating it with what has already been said about great spiritual beings, we reach the logical conclusion that there must be entities, or centers of life and consciousness which are the synthesis of groups of human beings. That is one way of explaining what a Master is. All the souls in the world are “on the ray" of a Master, belong to him, are a part of him. There is no escape from this, for it is the way the universe manifests. Everything above is a synthesis of things below.

A Master is the synthesis of the souls of men. He is a man made perfect, for he came up, or evolved, through the human stage, but in the process he became more than man, for, as he reached that stage of progress, he automatically took upon himself the characteristics of that stage; he became a link—-in a new place-in the uninterrupted stream leading from the Absolute and running down to the smallest unit of manifestation, which we call the atom.

It does not follow, of course, that all Masters are products of this cycle of evolution. On the contrary we are given to believe that many, if not all of the greatest Masters, became such in previous cycles, but “came back” in this one in order to help forward human evolution.

(Note: I have read that with the exception of the early Masters, the rest of the Masters belong to this cycle of evolution, but they are humans who have progressed much faster than the rest of the humans in their evolution.)

The Secret Doctrine teaches that there is a Planetary spirit who looks after, guides and directs evolution on the Earth, and who is the synthesis of the Earth and all that it contains, of life and consciousness. Our minds cannot even speculate to advantage about this Being, who is too inconceivably far removed from our range of perception to make speculation worth while.

It has been said of him that he could wipe every trace of evil out of the world as easily as a boy wipes a pencil mark off his slate. He does not do it because it would interfere with free will.

His point of direct contact with the world is a being known as the “Silent Watcher,” (the ranking member of the Great White Lodge).

Next below are two beings whose names are not given us. Below them again are the four Maha-chohans of the North, East, South and West, the Regents, as they are sometimes called, who preside over the destinies of mankind.

These great beings are the Masters of the Masters, and, so far as I know, they are the highest with whom it is possible for a human being to have intercourse. It is probable that this last statement is not absolutely and theoretically true, whatever it may be in practice.

But it is known that the Maha-chohans do concern themselves with individuals and, occasionally, though rarely, communicate with them. One or two letters were received from the Regent of the West in the early days of the Theosophical Society, and they have sent messages to individuals.

(Note: Maha-chohans are sometimes also simply called Chohans, and Chohans [i.e. Adepts of a higher level] are sometimes called Maha-Chohans. It is the same vagueness as “chief” and “big chief,” so be flexible when you read those terms, and the real MAHA-CHOHAN is the leader of the entire Hierarchy of the Masters.)

Below the Maha-chohans are the great body of the Masters. We do not know how many there are or how many grades of them there are. There would appear to be no limit to their possible number, but there is a distinct limit to their actual number. There must be ranks or grades among them, for scattered bits of information have filtered down to us indicating this.

We also read of different kinds of Masters. The Voice of the Silence speaks of Nirmanakayas who stay in the atmosphere of the earth, as it were, where they are able to deal directly with human affairs, and Dharmakayas, those who pass on to some Nirvanic condition where they are removed from any possible intercourse with man.

We hear of those who renounce their own advancement, who actually retain some of the limitations of humanity, in order to continue to work directly with and for mankind; a ceaseless sacrifice of such appalling magnitude that it transcends our imagination.

Their state has been likened to what ours would be if we lived and worked perpetually in a noisome muck heap, in a boiler factory full of raucous and discordant noise.

One great Master’s name is especially associated with this type of sacrifice, than which it is impossible to conceive of anything higher. Reverend hail to Jesus, the living exponent of what is greatest, even among Masters.

Below the Masters are the disciples of countless different grades, but of two great divisions:

-      those who are conscious of who and what they are, who have conscious intercourse with their Master and with other members of the Lodge;

-      and those who strive for that full communion. But this section is about Masters. I shall endeavor to deal with disciples more in detail, later.

Different words

Chohan is a Tibetan word meaning Lord or aster; Maha is a Sanskrit word meaning great, — so Maha-chohan means, great master.

The Masters are sometimes called Mahatmas, from Maha-atma, atma meaning, roughly, soul-great souls. The term adept is too loosely used in Theosophical literature to have any special significance. Generally it is used to mean any full member of the Lodge.

Jivanmukti is a Sanskrit word meaning one who has reached the ultimate state of holiness, who has reached the state of Nirvana during life and is often used to designate the Masters.

They are also sometimes called Rishi, a Sanskrit word meaning the inspired one.

~ * ~

We have endeavored to give some idea of their nature and of the place they occupy in the evolutionary stream. What of their powers and functions.

Their powers

First as to their powers. They have conquered, in a certain way, death as we know it. That does not mean that they are not subject to the law of cycles. Death is but a period of sleep between two awakenings. The Masters’ periods are longer, that is all. They too are subject to the universal law that alternates periods of activity with periods of rest. We must count their periods in hundreds of years.

(This only applies to the higher ones)

They are not subjects of time, as we know it, although subject to their own kind of time. Neither are they limited by space, as we know it. Our world is a world of three dimensions. They live in a four dimensional world, and have the powers which necessarily follow, powers which we can understand only in the terms of our own world, and which therefore, can only express phases or aspects of their real capacities.

Not being limited by time or space, they can go with the speed of thought instantaneously, from any place to any other place, by a simple act of will. More mysterious still, being in four dimensional spaces, they can be simultaneously in several different places at once, from the point of view of our space. They can enter closed, rooms, see inside of things, including our hearts and minds.

They can communicate with each other freely, at any time, no matter where they may happen to be. They can see and hear anything at any part of the earth, or at different parts of the earth at the same time. We can do several things at once. We can eat and read and watch the time, and listen to music simultaneously. A little training enables us to add quite a number of things which we can do at the same time.

Having far greater abilities in all directions than we have, and having additional powers of which we know nothing, the Masters can do so many different things at the same time that it appears miraculous to us. They seem omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, and to all intents and purposes they are, so far as we are concerned, but they are not in fact. They have their limits, they get tired; they get overburdened; there are tasks beyond even their exalted strength.

Their place in the evolutionary stream

They are subjects to Karma and they must work within the limits of the law of cycles. Man's free will is a perpetual barrier to all their projects and often raises in sufferable obstacles to the successful fulfillment of their plans.

Tradition tells us that they meet once a year in formal convention, to receive the instructions of their superiors, and to plan out the work for the coming year. They discuss the state of the world, in all its vast com plexities, study the trend of thought and the other activities of the human race; sometimes disagree as to the best course of action, referring the point, in such a case, to the Maha-chohan for decision; and generally assign to each member of the Lodge his task for the immediate future.

In order not to get a wrong idea from this, however, it must be remembered that they plan movements that take hundreds, and sometimes thou sands of years to mature. They prepare centuries in advance for important departures in human affairs. They guide, direct, control, inspire, encourage, retard all human activities, literature, art, music, science in all its branches, including medicine, philosophy, commerce, war, politics, religion.

They concern themselves with races, nations, peoples, governments, societies, and all assembles and associations of peoples; but their great work is done with individuals, for after all it is the individual, the soul, with which they are finally concerned. All these other things are of interest only as they affect the souls of men.

Their functions

In an effort to describe the essence of their functions, I first thought of using the word service. That word certainly is an epitome of their lives and activities; but there is a better, though much misused word, which is even more descriptive, and that is Love.

The Masters are the living exponents of the law of Love, which is the basic law of the Universe. They have been called Masters of Compassion, because they spend themselves, endlessly, ceaselessly, upon mankind, out of compassion for the sufferings of the human race; as they know that all suffering arises from sin, from self-will, from disobedience to the laws of Life, and that the only possible surcease from suffering lies in getting rid of self-will and in making the personal life conform to the divine life.

Hence their special interest in the individual. Their activity in other directions, their interest in and guidance of human events and movements, are because of the influence these things have on the individual. Their fundamental concern is with the souls of men. Their interest in outer worldly events is only because of the effect these have upon the souls of men.

Their work

They want disciples, for the road to final emancipation is through discipleship, and by no other way whatsoever. Therefore they maintain, always, in the world, a series of agencies which make this appeal to man kind.

These agencies vary from time to time, and according to the natures appealed to. The laws of life are interpreted and reinterpreted in an endless variety of ways, so that no single soul shall not be reached by some form of appeal best suited to his needs.

They are never discouraged, for they know that in the fullness of time all men will be caught in the net of the Gods, and be drawn home to their eternal Salvation; but their hearts bleed because of man's perversity and self-will, his ignorance and inertia. They do not wish us to be whipped into Heaven by pain and misery, but to travel there joyously and willingly, with heads erect and hearts aflame.

Endlessly patient, endlessly compassionate, endlessly wise, they work ceaselessly, in countless different ways, for our salvation. Selfless, impersonal, yet full of personality in the best sense, they are Gods in their divine natures, yet very loving and lovable human beings in their humanity.

_ _ _

This brief sketch would be incomplete if it did not end with an effort to express the unceasing gratitude and recognition which we should bear them for their endless goodness and sacrifice.

»

(The Theosophical Quarterly, 1916, vol. 13, p.384-388)