Martundrow Babaji Nagnath was one of the early Indian members of the Theosophical Society
when it headquarter was in Bombay.
In 1881, when
the journalist Alfred Sinnett published his book "The Occult World" in which he mentioned to the Western public
the existence of the Transhimalayan Masters, some spiritualists claimed that
these beings were disembodied spirits.
And to
testify that this affirmation was not true, Babaji Nagnath and Bhavani Shankar
(another member of the Theosophical Society), wrote an answer to the London
spiritist magazine "Spiritualist"
saying:
« In common with some other
Theosophists of Bombay, we have had, on several occasions, the honor to see
these “Brothers” of our Society’s First Section. We have thus been led to know
that they represent a class of living, not “disembodied” men or ghosts — as the
Spiritualists would insist upon; that they are in possession of the highest
virtues and psychic capabilities, and have, as we are assured from the
opportunities we have been permitted to enjoy, ever exerted such powers for
beneficent purposes, regarding the whole humanity as a Universal Brotherhood,
but keeping aloof from the world for reasons best known to themselves. »
(This
answer was published in "Theosophist", August, 1881, p.230)
And later when he was
questioned about those encounters with the Masters, Babaji Nagnath mentioned
the following:
« I have had constant occasions
to visit Theosophical headquarters at Breach Candy, Bombay. My connection with
the Founders of the Society has been close, and my opportunity good for
studying Theosophy. I am therefore inclined, for my satisfaction and for the
information of students of Nature, to record here my experiences of certain
phenomena, which came under my observation on several occasions in the presence
of brother Theosophists and strangers. I have also had the rare privilege to
see the so-called and generally unseen Brothers [Masters] of the 1st section of
the Theosophical Society.
In the month
of April 1881, on one dark night, while talking in company with other
Theosophists with Madame Blavatsky about 10 p.m. in the open verandah of the
upper bungalow, a man, six feet in height, clad in a white robe, with a white
[turban] on the head, made his appearance on a sudden, walking towards us
through the garden adjacent to the bungalow from a point —a precipice— where
there is no path for any one to tread. Madame then rose up and told us to go
inside the bungalow.
So we went
in, but we heard Madame and he talking for a minute with each other in an
Eastern language unknown to us. Immediately after, we again went out into the
verandah, as we were called, but the Brother had disappeared.
On the next
occasion, when we were chatting in the above verandah as usual, another
Brother, clothed in a white dress, was suddenly seen as if standing on a branch
of a tree. We saw him then descending as though through the air, and standing
on a corner edge of a thin wall.
Madame then
rose up from her seat and stood looking at him for about two minutes, and —as
if it seemed— talking inaudibly with him. Immediately after, in our presence,
the figure of the man disappeared, but was afterwards seen again walking in the
air through space, then right through the tree, and again disappearing.
Similarly, in a strong moonlight
on another night, I, in company with three Brother Theosophists, was conversing
with Madame Blavatsky. Madame Coulomb was also present. About eight or ten
yards distant from the open verandah in which we were sitting, we saw a Brother
known to us as Koot Hoomi. He was wearing a white loose gown or robe, with long
wavy hair and a beard; and was gradually forming, as it were, in front of a
shrub or number of shrubs some twenty or thirty yards away from us, until he
stood to a full height.
Madame Coulomb was asked in our presence to Madame Blavatsky:
-
“Is this good Brother
a devil?” as she used to think and say so when seeing the Brothers, and was
afraid.
Madame Blavatsky then answered:
-
“No; this one is a
man”.
He then showed his full figure
for about two or three minutes, then gradually disappeared, melting away into
the shrub.
On the same night again, at about
11 p.m., we, about seven or eight in number, were hearing a letter read to us,
addressed to the London Spiritualist
about our having seen Brothers, which one of our number had drafted, and which
we were ready to sign. At this instant Mr. and Mrs. Coulomb called out and
said:
-
“Here is again the
Brother.”
This Brother (Koot Hoomi) was sometimes standing
and walking in the garden here and there, at other times floating in the air.
He soon passed into and was heard in Madame Blavatsky’s room talking wit her.
On this account after we had signed the letter to the London Spiritualist we
added a postscript that we had just seen him again while signed the letter.
Koot Hoomi was in his Mayavi-rupa* on
that evening.
(A Sanskrit word for what is called by Western people the “double,”
“Doppelganger,” “corps fluidique,” or “perisprit”, etc. It means a form
will-created, or desire-created. — H.S.O.)
On another night a Brother came
in his own physical body, walking through the lower garden (attached to Colonel
Olcott’s bungalow) and stood quite. Madame Blavatsky then went down the wooden
staircase leading into the garden. He shook hands with her and gave her a
packet. After a short time the Brother disappeared
on the stop, and Madame Blavatsky coming up the stairs opened the packet
and found in it a letter from Allahabad. We saw the envelope was quite blank, i.e., unaddressed, but it bore a
triangular stamp of Allahabad Post Office of December the 3rd, 1881,
and also a circular postal stamp of the Bombay Post Office of the same date, viz., 3rd December. But the two cities are 860 miles
apart!
I have seen letters, or rather envelopes containing letters, coming or
falling from the air in different places, without anybody’s contact, in
presence of both: Theosophists and strangers. Their contents related to
subjects that had been the topics of our conversation at the moment.
Now I aver in good faith I saw the Brothers of the 1st
section and phenomena in such places and times, and under such circumstances,
that there could be no possibility of anybody’s playing a trick. »
(Source:
this testimony was published in Alan Hume’s book: “Hints on Esoteric Theosophy,
No.1: Is Theosophy a Delusion? Do the Brothers Exist?”, edited by Calcutta
Central Press, 1882, p.103-106)
(NOTE: Several of
these events were also witnessed by Pandit Bhavani Shankar whose narration can
be read in the article following this one.)
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