This text is part of a lecture delivered at the Blavatsky centenary birth
celebration at Adyar, 12 August, 1931.
Friends, I am not quite sure that I can make you hear, but my speech
will be a very short one, anyhow. Many of you may have seen in the press that I
reviewed H.P.B.’s great work, The Secret
Doctrine, for Mr. Stead, who was then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. It was that book which led to my asking for an
introduction to her, because the subject she was dealing with I had studied
fairly deeply, and I felt that she knew much more about it than I did. So I
asked Mr. Stead for an introduction to her, and went to see her. My first visit
was very short, and the only peculiar thing about it was that she did not say
to me a word about the things I wanted to hear o f; but at parting she looked
at me for perhaps a minute, and said to me:
-
“My dear Mrs. Besant,
if you would only come among us.”
Well, I had a most intense desire —to which I did not yield— to bend over
and give her a kiss. I was not a kissing person, and I felt how utterly absurd
it would be to kiss a woman I had never before seen in my life, merely because
she had written a book which showed me she knew more of my subjects than I did.
So I did not offer her an affectionate embrace, but I was very much moved by
the way she looked at me, and I felt towards her that I wanted to kiss her. I
thought that was very odd. I wanted to talk about The Secret Doctrine, but there was not a word of it; so I got up
and went away.
Then I wrote to her and said that I would be very glad if she could give
me a short talk about the subjects dealt with in The Secret Doctrine. I had a cordial answer, and went to see her. I
began to talk about The Secret Doctrine,
and she brushed that aside, and simply said that she had read the review which,
Mr. Stead had said, was written by me, and I seemed to know a good deal about
the subject. I thought she was not very fond of discussing a matter of that
kind, and felt rather shy about talking with a well-known public speaker. Well,
I did not care to make any special effort to talk, because I had a feeling that
she would not then talk to me about the one thing in which I was interested. On
that occasion, I asked her straight out whether she would take me as a pupil,
to deal with the subjects on which she had written. Her answer was:
-
“Have you read the
Report of the Society for Psychical Research?”
That, of course, was a violent
attack upon herself. I
said:
-
"No, and I did
not want to”.
-
“Well,” she said, “if
you will read that Report through, and then come and repeat your request, I
will answer you.”
So, as I was very set on my request, I took myself off, got the Report,
read it over, and decided that it was a worthless and very unfair attack.
So I went back, and said that it made absolutely no difference to me;
that it was obviously and culpably untrue and prejudiced; and that what I was
interested in was The Secret Doctrine,
and not a Madras Committee of the Society for Psychic Research. She said if
having read that report, I desired to continue her acquaintance, she would be
very glad to talk over the subjects which I had studied and on which I had said
she knew more than I did. So I told her that I had read this Report, and that
it made no difference at all to me; I was not interested in Madame Coulomb, but
in her own writing of The Secret Doctrine.
She said:
-
“Well, if you are
indifferent to Madame Coulomb, I am quite willing to share with you any
knowledge that I may have that you have not as yet.”
-
“Well,” I said, “I
shall be very grateful if you will take me as your pupil, because you know much
more about these subjects than I do, though I have studied them for some
years.”
There is not much more to say, because I became her pupil then and
there. We discussed various points, on which it seemed to me she had
specialised knowledge; I found that she had that knowledge; I then put myself
entirely at her disposal as a pupil, saying to her quite frankly that no one
who had read her book could possibly be influenced by the scurrilous libel
written by Madame Coulomb. That was all that passed. I became her pupil, and
found what I expected to find. She had to me the effect on my mind that you may
see if you are watching before the dawn, when there is just a little promise
that light is going to rise in the east. There was the effect of a sudden
illumination that spread over my whole mind and habits of thought.
I became her pupil thoroughly and heartily, and followed what she was
pleased to put before me. I felt that I knew her character; that she was not
capable of deception; and I told her that I wanted to learn from her; that I
had no inclination to discuss libels of any kind; that I would gladly and
thankfully accept what she might be pleased to teach me. I told her that she
had thrown light on subjects that I had been studying for years; and as all I
wanted was to know the truth, I was willing to take her as teacher.
I ought
perhaps to mention one fact that happened before I went to her, happened in
fact before I knew anything about her; and that was that when I was studying
one of my favourite books on the likeness between different religions, etc.,
comparative religion, I had met some puzzles to which answers were not
satisfactory. I felt she could give me the light I wanted on that; what I asked
was light.
I mention that because I had had a curious experience before anything
that I have mentioned took place. I was down at my office in the City, working
at my old political work at The National
Reformer, when I suddenly heard a voice speaking to me. I did not see
anybody. It said:
-
“Are you willing to
give up everything for the sake of truth?”
I made a rather curious answer,
seeing that I did not know Him, could not see Him. I made the answer:
- “Yes, Lord.”
Why I called Him “Lord” I did not know at the time; it came
instinctively. I was a violent Radical at the time, and did not think much of
Lords. But it came just like that: “Yes, Lord.” Then the voice said:
-
“In a short time you
will know it.”
I heard nothing more. You will imagine I listened very carefully after
that, because of the extraordinary effect the voice had on me. It puzzled me at
the time, that I should have said, “Yes, Lord” to a voice I never heard before;
but there was the fact.
He spoke to me again in a few days, and I simply became His pupil. I did
not challenge Him or ask questions. I had this intense feeling in m e: He had
the knowledge I had not. I wanted the truth; that was the fact. I was longing
to have it intensely. So I went head over heels into it, and I have never
wavered since. I was 42 years old when I first read The Secret Doctrine; I am now 84. I have passed half my life in the
study of it, and I have never had one moment of regret from that rather curious
experience of coming out of scepticism as I did. I suppose really I had known
it all long before, Charles; hadn’t I?
It seemed so familiar, and of course, it was. Half my life now He whose
voice I heard has been my Teacher — half my life is 42 years, quite a long
time. So I am not going to finish, apparently, in the Roman Church. They used
to prophesy that. I tried one religion after another, so I was sure to become a
Catholic at last, they said. Not in this incarnation.
Raja, I was going to suggest that we all read this [the President held a
copy of H.P.B.’s “Golden Stairs,” which had been distributed to all the
audience as a souvenir of the Centenary celebration] in unison, as the close.
(Theosophist, October 1931, p.56-59)
OBSERVATIONS
Unfortunately
Annie Besant was only Blavatsky's pupil for a few months, and later she was
completely manipulated by various liars. First by Chakravarti, then by Charles Leadbeater, and at the end of her
life also by George Arundale. So the desire to know is not enough and you also have to
develop discernment so as not to be cheated by charlatans.
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