In 1917 Charles Leadbeater claimed that
Blavatsky had reincarnated immediately after passing away (in 1891), but in 1900 Master
Kuthumi had specified that Blavatsky could not quickly return to earth. And to try to reconcile this contradiction, the
theosophist Rangaswami Aiyar wrote the following reflection:
IS THERE CONTRADICTION?
In the maturity of his knowledge of the law and of Theosophy, Mr. Rangaswami
Aiyar finds points of reconciliation between the statements of the Master and
of Bishop Leadbeater as to the reincarnation of H. P. Blavatsky; he has no
reason to believe that they are contradictory. (Theosophist Editor)
Conversations with H.P.B.
A.J.H. in The Theosophist for
January 1939 draws attention to a seeming contradiction between a comment on
the reincarnation of H.P. Blavatsky made by the Master K.H. inside a letter
addressed by a Mr. B.W. Mantri to Dr. Besant in 1900, namely:
- "The intense desire of some to see Upasika reincarnate at once has
raised a misleading Mayavic ideation. Upasika has useful work to do on higher
planes and cannot come again so soon.” (1)
And
a definite statement by Bishop C.W. Leadbeater in an address to the Sydney
Lodge on White Lotus Day, 8th May 1917 in which he says:
-
"When Madame
Blavatsky left her old body, she stepped into the body of an Indian boy, then
fourteen years old.” (2)
In that address Bishop Leadbeater states further:
"She has held that body ever since. She did make a tentative effort
once at occupying another just for a few hours occasionally, but she dropped
it. She found that that was a misfit ... so she is now an Indian with rather ascetic-looking
face — a very strong face of course, otherwise it would not be Madame
Blavatsky; and so far in this life she has not come down or taken any direct
share in the work of The Society, though she has often given us her advice, I
am glad to say, and has also dictated to us or written for us various teachings
on different points.”
In the same address Bishop Leadbeater quotes a message which H.P.
Blavatsky gave in her present masculine body for the members assembled on that
White Lotus Day (1917). In that message, which Bishop Leadbeater tried his best
to write down, though he was a little doubtful about the exact wording in some
places, H.P.B. says:
-
"I greet you
well, you who meet to celebrate my birthday into my present body.”
Bishop Leadbeater’s comment on this is that her death was her “birthday”
into her present body, “because she stepped straight from one to the other. ...
Now we know that it was because the boy [whose body she took] chose that
particular moment, or somebody chose it for him, to get drowned. So she had to rush
off and take that body, because if she had left it too long it would have been
impossible to take it. There are certain rules governing that sort of thing.”
Bishop Leadbeater was noted as a very accurate observer of super physical
facts and events, and those who have come in personal contact with him can
easily realize the immense labour he took in verifying his clairvoyant
observations.
(Cid's note: this is false since
Leadbeater's "clairvoyant" observations turned out to be grossly
wrong.)
So here we have a definite statement from him that H.P.B. took
her present masculine body on 8th May 1891, and that he had come in contact
with her in this new body.
H.P.B. also says that the celebration of White Lotus Day is also the celebration
of her birthday into her present body.
Bishop Leadbeater says in a “Reminiscence” which he gave at Adyar on 12th
August 1931, at the celebration of the centenary of her birth as H.P.
Blavatsky:
« Not many days ago I met her in her new manifestation and spoke to her about
this Centenary. I am afraid she does not appreciate it quite as we do. She
appreciates the affection and good intention of it, but she is just a little
contemptuous about “all this fuss,” as she calls it.
-
"I told you to
celebrate the day I left the physical body," she remarked.
-
"Well," I
said, "you must let us be a little human, and celebrate also your arrival
on the physical plane."
I then ventured to ask him
whether he would attend."
- "No, not as yet."
He must go his own way in that. » (3)
The above extracts would show that Bishop Leadbeater knew and believed
as a fact that H.P.B. has a masculine body at the present time and that she
took that body on the day Madame Blavatsky died.
An interpretation
The first question that arises is whether there is really a contradiction
between the statement in the Master’s letter to Dr. Besant in 1900 and the
statement by Bishop Leadbeater seventeen years later. I should hesitate to
conclude that there is such a contradiction between the two statements as leads
A.J.H. to conclude that the present incarnation of H.P.B. would not have
followed immediately on the death of Madame Blavatsky, but might well have been
after 1900, when the Master’s letter was written in the vacant spaces in Mr.
B.W. Mantri’s letter of 22nd August 1900 to Dr. Besant, evidently while it was
in transit.
The statement of the Master K.H. occurs in the midst of a comment which
he made inside Mr. B.W. Mantri’s letter. That comment dealt with a situation
which was prevalent among Indian Theosophists thirty-eight years ago, in which
members and inquirers were confused by “tenets and beliefs” ascribed to The
Society. The Master strongly disapproved of the forcing of the “crest wave of
intellectual advancement... into beliefs and emotional worship.” Evidently “the
intense desire of some to see Upasika reincarnate at once” came into this
category, and it is said to have raised “a misleading Mayavic ideation.”
Therefore it is necessary to understand the meaning of this expression
“misleading Mayavic ideation.”
Ideation is the function or capacity of the mind to form ideas, or the
process of forming such ideas. I can understand that the disapproval of the
Master was directed towards that kind of mental attitude. People were curious
to know when a prominent member of The Society died —of whom a hope was expressed
that he would come back speedily to take up the work of The Society in a new
incarnation, sacrificing the joys of Swarga— in what body he would incarnate,
and were apt to believe easily any story or surmise that he had taken such and such
a body.
This led to easy “credulity,” which the Master condemns in his letter. It
also indicated a morbid desire to gather personal psychical titbits of information
about other people’s postmortem lives, which could have no bearing upon the
spiritual development of the individual who hankers after such information, nor
upon the work and progress of The Theosophical Society. If the information thus
circulated proved to be wrong, it would affect the good name and reputation of
The Society.
What the Master conveys is that “the intense desire of some to see Upasika
reincarnate at once” has raised a multitude of false ideas or thought-forms
regarding the body or bodies which she was supposed to have taken, a matter
difficult to verify but only tending towards satisfying the curiosity of
members.
The next sentence in the Master’s letter that “Upasika has useful work
to do on higher planes and cannot came again so soon,” is amply justified by
her or rather his not coming to work in The Theosophical Society during these
forty-eight years since Madame Blavatsky passed away.
In 1931, when he was asked by Bishop Leadbeater whether he would come
out, he replied: “No, not as yet.” It is quite likely that he is doing work
during these years on higher planes. The expression, “Upasika cannot come again
so soon” may refer to “the intense desire of some to see Upasika reincarnate at
once” to take up the work in the outer world left by her during her life as
Madame Blavatsky.
A tentative vehicle?
We may also understand the Master’s statement in another manner. It was
arranged that H.P.B., after she died, should take immediate reincarnation.
Suppose she took the body of the boy who was drowned. Such immediate
reincarnation, if it took place in the body of a newborn child, would not be
attended with difficulties. But in the case of a boy of fourteen years, whose
physical body and etheric double had been fashioned to suit his karmic limitations,
the difficulty of adapting these physical and etheric vehicles to an ego like
that of H.P.B. can be easily conceived as a tedious process attended with a
certain degree of strain or discomfort. It would be a misfit for H.P.B.
Bishop Leadbeater in his Sydney talk in 1917 said that a body which she
took tentatively was a misfit for the Ego, adding that “all bodies would be, more
or less, I think.” Until the new body was fully adapted, H.P.B.’s association
with it might have been somewhat loose, and H.P.B. might be making tentative
efforts to find other suitable bodies, as appears to have been the case in the
story which A.J.H. says that Mr. N. Sri Ram told him (4).
Thus the
body which H.P.B. would finally take might not have been settled. It would be
so settled when the new body would fairly serve H.P.B.’s Ego with its own permanent
atoms, to suit which that body was not originally fashioned but grew on its own
original lines till fourteen years of age, and when it came to be adapted some
time after H.P.B. tenanted it. The new body might have been finally adapted to H.P.B.
as a workable instrument on the physical plane after 1900.
(Cid's
note: the permanent atoms and the etheric double do not exist, they were lies invented
by Leadbeater.)
Until that time it was only a tentative vehicle, and therefore between
1891 and 1900 H.P.B. might well be supposed not to have taken birth in that
body. But after H.P.B. finally attached herself to that body, the birth of
H.P.B. in that vehicle would date not from the time of final attachment, but
only from the time when that body began to be occupied even tentatively and
before it became a permanent vehicle.
It is an accepted rule of interpretation that when it is possible to reconcile
two statements seeming to be contradictory, all possible ways of rationally
reconciling them should be exhausted before trying to find an explanation on
the assumption that they are contradictory, especially when the two statements proceed
from quarters entitled to high regard.
(Cid's
note: Leadbeater is not entitled to high esteem since this individual turned
out to be an immense charlatan.)
A. Rangaswami Aiyar
Madura,
South India.
(Theosophist, February
1939, p.387-390)
Notes
- The Theosophist, May 1937, p.108
- Theosophy in Australia, September 1917, p.144-151; reproduced in The Theosophist, May 1938, p.131
- The Theosophist, October 1931, p.44-45
- The Theosophist, January 1939, p.276
OBSERVATION
If Mr. Rangaswami had taken the effort to study the original theosophy,
then he would have immediately realized Leadbeater's claim that Blavatsky had
reincarnated was a vile lie concocted by this individual, because it makes no
sense for Blavatsky to send a message to the members of the Sydney Lodge
motivating them to continue working for the prompt arrival of Lord Maitreya, since
the true Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine specified that Maitreya will only
come at the end of the fourth round. And instead it makes much more sense to
consider that Leadbeater invented this story in order to continue to manipulate
his followers, since it was he who assured that Lord Maitreya would soon come
through Krishnamurti; something that was later shown to be false.
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