This
description Leadbeater put in chapter two of his book "The Masters and the Path":
I will briefly
describe the valley of Tibet where the masters Morya, Kuthumi and Djwal Khul
live. The Masters Morya and Kuthumi occupy houses on opposite sides of this
narrow ravine, the slopes of which are covered with pine trees.
A secret
museum
Paths run down the
ravine past their houses, and meet at the bottom, where there is a little
bridge. Close to the bridge a narrow door, which may be seen on the left at the
bottom of the picture, leads to a system of vast subterranean halls containing
an occult museum of which the Master Kuthumi is the Guardian on behalf of the
Great White Brotherhood.
The contents of this
museum are of the most varied character. They appear to be intended as a kind
of illustration of the whole process of evolution. For example, there are here
the most life-like images of every type of man which has existed on this planet
from the commencement —from gigantic loose-jointed Lemurians to pigmy remains
of even earlier and less human races. Models in alto relieve show all the
variations of the surface of the earth— the conditions before and after the
great cataclysms which have changed it so much. Huge diagrams illustrate the
migrations of the different races of the world, and show exactly how far they
spread from their respective sources. Other similar diagrams are devoted to the
influence of the various religions of the world, showing where each was practiced
in its original purity, and where it became mingled with and distorted by the
remains of other religions.
Amazingly life-like
statues perpetuate the physical appearance of certain of the great leaders and
teachers of long-forgotten races; and various objects of interest connected
with important and even unnoticed advancements in civilization are preserved
for the examination of posterity. Original manuscripts of incredible antiquity
and of priceless value are here to be seen—a manuscript, for example, written
by the hand of the Lord Buddha himself in his final life as Prince Siddartha,
and another written by the Lord Christ during his birth in Palestine. Here is
kept that marvelous original of the Book of Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky
describes in the opening of The Secret Doctrine. Here too are strange scripts
from other worlds than ours. Animal and vegetable forms are also depicted, some
few of which are known to us as fossils, though most of them are unimagined by
our modern science. Actual models of some of the great cities of remote and
forgotten antiquity are here for the study of the pupils.
All statues and
models are vividly colored exactly as were the originals; and we may note that
the collection here was intentionally put together at the time, in order to
represent to posterity the exact stages through which the evolution or
civilization of the time was passing, so that instead of mere incomplete
fragments, such as our museums so often present to us, we have in all cases an intentionally
educative series of presentations. There we find models of all the kinds of
machinery which the different civilizations have evolved, and also there are
elaborate and abundant illustrations of the types of magic in use at the
various periods of history.
In the vestibule
leading to these vast halls are kept the living images of those pupils of the
Masters Morya and Kuthumi who happen at the time to be on probation, which I
will describe later. These images are ranged round the walls like statues, and
are perfect representations of the pupils concerned. It is not probable,
however, that they are visible to physical eyes, for the lowest matter entering
into their composition is etheric.
The
environment
Near the bridge there
is also a small Temple with turrets of somewhat Burmese form, to which a few
villagers go to make offerings of fruit and flowers, and to burn camphor and
recite the Pancha Sila. A rough and uneven track leads down the valley by the
side of the stream. From either of the two houses of the Masters the other
house can be seen; they are both above the bridge, but both cannot be seen from
it, since the ravine bends round. If we follow the path up the valley past the
house of the Master Kuthumi it will lead us to a large pillar of rock, beyond which,
the ravine bending round again, it passes out of sight. Some distance further
on the ravine opens out into a plateau on which there is a lake, in which,
tradition tells us, Madame Blavatsky used to bathe; and it is said that she
found it very cold. The valley is sheltered and faces south, and though the
surrounding country is under snow during the winter, I do not remember having
seen any near the Masters’ houses. These houses are of stone, very heavily and
strongly built.
Master
Kuthumi's house
Diagram 1
The house of the
Master Kuthumi is divided into two parts by a passage-way running straight
through it. As will be seen from our diagram 1, which shows the ground plan of
the southern half of the house, on entering the passage, the first door on the
right leads into the principal room of the house, in which our Master usually
sits. It is large and lofty (about fifty feet by thirty feet), in many ways
more like a hall than a room, and it occupies the whole of the front of the
house on that side of the passage. Behind that large room are two other nearly
square rooms, one of which he uses as a library, and the other as a bedroom.
That completes that side or division of the house, which is apparently reserved
for the Master’s personal use, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. The other
side of the house, on the left of the passage as one enters, seems to be
divided into smaller rooms and offices of various kinds; we have had no
opportunity of closely examining them, but we have noted that just across the
passage from the bedroom is a well- appointed bathroom.
The large room is
well supplied with windows, both along the front and the end—so well that on
entering one gets the impression of an almost continuous outlook; and under the
windows runs a long seat. There is also a somewhat unusual feature for that
country, a large open fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the front
windows. This is so arranged as to heat all three rooms, and it has a curious hammered
iron cover, which I am told is unique in Tibet. Over the opening of that
fire-place is a mantelpiece, and near by stands the Master’s armchair of very
old carved wood, hollowed to fit the sitter, so that for it no cushions are
required. Dotted about the room are tables and settees or sofas, mostly without
backs, and in one corner is the keyboard of the Master’s organ.
The ceiling is
perhaps twenty feet high, and is very handsome, with its fine carved beams,
which descend into ornamental points where they meet one another and divide the
ceiling into oblong sections. An arched opening with a pillar in the centre,
somewhat in the Gothic style, but without glass, opens into the study, and a
similar window opens into the bedroom. This latter room is very simply
furnished. There is an ordinary bed, swung hammock-like between two carved
wooden supports fixed in the wall (one of these carved to imitate a lion’s
head, and the other an elephant’s), and the bed when not in use folds up
against the wall.
The library is a fine
room, containing thousands of volumes. Running out from the wall there are tall
book-shelves, filled with books in many languages, a number of them being
modern European works and at the top there are open shelves for manuscripts.
The Master is a great linguist, and besides being a fine English scholar has a
thorough knowledge of French and German. The library also contains a
typewriter, which was presented to the Master by one of his pupils.
Of the Master’s
family I know but little. There is a lady, evidently a pupil, whom he calls
‘sister’. Whether she is actually his sister or not I do not know; she might
possibly be a cousin or a niece. She looks much older than he, but that would
not make the relationship improbable, as he has appeared of about the same age
for a long time. She resembles him to a certain extent, and once or twice when
there have been gatherings she has come and joined the party; though her
principal work seems to be to look after the house-keeping and manage the
servants. Among the latter are an old man and his wife, who have been for a
long time in the Master’s service. They do not know anything of the real
dignity of their employer, but regard him as a very indulgent and gracious
patron, and naturally they benefit greatly by being in his service.
The
Master’s Activities
The Master has a
large garden of his own. He possesses, too, a quantity of land, and employs
labourers to cultivate it. Near the house there are flowering shrubs and masses
of flowers growing freely, with ferns among them. Through the garden there
flows a streamlet; which forms a little waterfall, and over it a tiny bridge is
built. Here he often sits when he is sending out streams of thought and
benediction upon his people; it would no doubt appear to the casual observer as
though he were sitting idly watching Nature, and listening heedlessly to the
song of the birds, and to the splash and tumble of the water. Sometimes, too,
he rests in his great armchair, and when his people see him thus, they know
that he must not be disturbed; they do not know exactly what he is doing, but
suppose him to be in samadhi.
The fact that people
in the East understand this kind of meditation and respect it may be one of the
reasons why the Adepts prefer to live there rather than in the West. In this
way we get the effect of the Master sitting quietly for a considerable part of
the day and, as we should say, meditating; but while he is apparently resting
so calmly, he is in reality engaged all the time in most strenuous labour on
higher planes, manipulating various natural forces and pouring forth influences
of the most diverse character on thousands of souls simultaneously; for the
Adepts are the busiest people in the world. The Master, however, does much physical-plane
work as well; he has composed some music, and has written notes and papers for
various purposes. He is also much interested in the growth of physical science,
although this is especially the province of one of the other great Masters of
the Wisdom.
From time to time the
Master Kuthumi rides on a big bay horse, and occasionally, when their work lies
together, he is accompanied by the Master Morya, who always rides a magnificent
white horse. Our Master regularly visits some of the monasteries, and sometimes
goes up a great pass to a lonely monastery in the hills. Riding in the course
of his duties seems to be his principal exercise, but he sometimes walks with
the Master Djwal Kul, who lives in a little cabin which he built with his own
hands, quite near to the great crag on the way up to the plateau.
Sometimes our Master
plays on the organ which is in the large room in his house. He had it made in
Tibet under his direction, and it is in fact a combined piano and organ, with a
keyboard like those which we have in the West, on which he can play all our
western music. It is unlike any other instrument with which I am acquainted,
for it is in a sense double-fronted, as it can be played either from the
sitting-room or the library. The principal keyboard (or rather the three
keyboards, great organ, swell and choir) is in the sitting-room, whereas the
piano keyboard is in the library; and these keyboards can be used either
together or separately. The full organ with its pedals can be played in the
ordinary way from the sitting-room; but by turning a handle somewhat equivalent
to a stop, the piano mechanism can be linked with the organ, so that it all
plays simultaneously. From that point of view, in fact, the piano is treated as
an additional stop on the organ.
From the keyboard in
the library, however, the piano can be played alone as a separate instrument,
quite dissociated from the organ; but by some complicated mechanism the
choir-organ is also linked to that keyboard, so that by it one can play the
piano alone precisely as though it were an ordinary piano, or one can play the
piano accompanied by the choir-organ, or at any rate by certain stops of that
organ. It is also possible, as I said, to separate the two completely, and so,
with a performer at each keyboard, to play a piano-organ duet. The mechanism
and the pipes of this strange instrument occupy almost the whole of what might
be called the upper story of this part of the Master’s house. By magnetization
he has placed it in communication with the Gandharvas, or Devas of music, so
that whenever it is played they co-operate, and thus he obtains combinations of
sound never to be heard on the physical plane; and there is, too, an effect
produced by the organ itself as of an accompaniment of string and wind
instruments.
The song of the Devas
is ever being sung in the world; it is ever sounding in men’s ears, but they
will not listen to its beauty. There is the deep bourdon of the sea, the
sighing of the wind in the trees, the roar of the mountain torrent, the music
of stream, river and waterfall, which together with many others form the mighty
song of Nature as she lives. This is but the echo in the physical world of a
far grander sound, that of the Being of the Devas. As is said in Light on the
Path:
« Only
fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man. But,
if you listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which has reached you
is lost, and endeavour to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which
surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher. For as the individual has
voice, so has that in which the individual exists. Life itself has speech, and
is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose, a
cry: it is a song. Learn from it that you are part of the harmony; learn from
it to obey the laws of the harmony. »
Every morning a
number of people—not exactly pupils, but followers—come to the Master’s house,
and sit on the veranda and outside it. Sometimes he gives them a little talk—a
sort of lecturette; but more often he goes on with his work and takes no notice
of them beyond a friendly smile, with which they seem equally contented. They
evidently come to sit in his aura and venerate him. Sometimes he takes his food
in their presence, sitting on the veranda, with this crowd of Tibetans and
others on the ground around him; but generally he eats by himself at a table in
his room. It is possible that he keeps the rule of the Buddhist monks, and
takes no food after noon; for I do not remember ever to have seen him eat in
the evening; it is even possible that he does not need food every day. Most
probably when he feels inclined he orders the food that he would like, and does
not take his meals at stated times.
I have seen him eating little round cakes,
brown and sweet; they are made of wheat and sugar and butter, and are of the
ordinary kind used in the household, cooked by his sister. He also eats curry
and rice, the curry being somewhat in the form of soup, like dhal. He uses a
curious and beautiful golden spoon, with an exquisite image of an elephant at
the end of the handle, the bowl of which is set at an unusual angle to the
stem. It is a family heirloom, very old and probably of great value. He generally
wears white clothes, but I do not remember ever having seen him wearing a
head-dress of any kind, except on the rare occasions when he assumes the yellow
robe of the Gelugpa sect or clan, which includes a hood somewhat of the shape
of the Roman helmet. The Master Morya, however, generally wears a turban.
Master
Morya's house
The house of the
Master Morya is on the opposite side of the valley, but much lower down — quite
close, in fact, to the little temple and the entrance to the caves. It is of an
entirely different style of architecture, having at least two stories, and the
front facing the road has verandas at each level which are almost entirely
glassed in. The general method and arrangement of his life is much the same as
that already described in the case of the Master Kuthumi.
If
we walk up the road on the left bank of the stream, rising gradually along the
side of the valley, we pass on the right the house and grounds of the Master
Kuthumi, and further up the hill we find on the same side of the road a small
hut or cabin which he who is now the Master Djwal Kul constructed for himself
with his own hands in the days of his pupilage, in order that he might have an
abiding-place quite near to his Master. In that cabin hangs a sort of plaque
upon which at his request one of the English pupils of the Master Kuthumi
precipitated many years ago an interior view of the large room in the house of
the Master Kuthumi, showing the figures of various Masters and pupils. This was
done in commemoration of a certain especially happy and fruitful evening at the
Master’s house.
OBSERVATIONS
Charles
Leadbeater, like many other individuals who wanted to try, was on probation for
a time to become a chela, and like almost everyone else, he too failed. But
being a very talkative man, he made people believe that he had been successful
and now he was a disciple accepted by the Transhimalayan masters and he maintains
contact with them. Which is false because then he would not have made so many
aberrations and written so many mistakes.
This
deception led him to the point that here he pretends to have visited the house
of the masters, but in reality what he did was read the stories that were given
by true disciples like Damodar and Ramiah, who did visit that place through his
astral body.
And
not content with plagiarizing, Leadbeater still added many fables to his
account because Damodar and Ramiah only mentioned that Masters Kuthumi and
Morya have their houses in a secret place in Kashmir, that the houses are
opposite each other surrounded by trees at a distance of approximately one or
two miles, and that there is a small temple that is located halfway between the
two.
So
all the rest of the story that Leadbeater told, he made it up. And this is one
more example that shows you how much liar was this individual.
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