Babula was Blavatsky's domestic servant
when she lived in Adyar, India, and when Blavatsky died he wrote the following article in
tribute to her.
FROM INDIA
(Note: Babula, H.P.B’s Hindu
servant, writing from Adyar, sends a leader that appeared in the Indian Mirror of May 13th. "Humanity",
he says, "has sustained an irreparable loss from her sudden death. With
tears in my eyes I wrote this brief note." We print the leader among these
memorial articles as a testimony from the East that she loved so well.)
"Gone is the glory from the
grass,
And splendor from the flower!"
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has ceased
to exist on this earthly plane. She is gone from among us. Madame Blavatsky’s
death is a blow to all the world. She was not of this nation or that. The wide
earth was her home, and all mankind were her brothers, and these brothers are
now plunged in mourning for the loss of a priceless sister. For ourselves,
dazed as we are with blinding grief, it is all impossible for us to realize the
enormity of this loss. Our affection for Madame Blavatsky was so personal, we
were so longing to see her in flesh once more in India, and to press her
hallowed hand, that now that this desire has been cruelly crushed by death, a
stupor has crept over all our senses, and we are writing as if it were
mechanically.
We recall the features of the dear
lady, who is assuredly a saint now, her quick movements, the rapid flow of
words, those light, glowing eyes, which saw through you and, at a glance,
turned you inside out — anon we behold her, kind and gentle as a mother, and
wise as a father, pouring faith, hope, and consolation into your ears, as you
mention to her your doubts and your anxieties — there Madame Blavatsky, or H.P.B.,
as she loved to be called, and as loving friends always called her in
affection, there H.P.B. stands before us now, all herself, free from disease,
and, seems to whisper to us the larger faith, which animated her through life,
that trust in the infinite purpose, which is both the karma and the destiny of
the Divine Man!
Madame Blavatsky was decidedly the
most remarkable person that this age has produced. The whole of her life was
simply extraordinary. There is no existing human standard by which to judge
her. She will always stand out alone. There was only one Madame Blavatsky,
there never will be any other. It was always difficult to understand her at all
points, she was often the greatest puzzle to her most intimate friends, and the
mystery of her life is yet only partly revealed. But future generations will
have come at a sufficient distance of time to free them from circumstantial
prejudices, and to pronounce an accurate judgment on Madame Blavatsky's life
and work, and we say confidently that before many years have gone by, she will
be regarded as an Avatar, a holy incarnation, and divine honors will be paid to
her memory.
The story of Madame Blavatsky's life
appeared while she was yet alive, and has been read with wonder everywhere.
There is no parallel to such a biography as Mr. Sinnett has related. It is a
story of a wayward and fanciful child, slowly budding into womanhood, enjoying
curious experiences, and astonishing and frightening in turns the inmates of a
noble and fashionable Russian home. Then comes the marriage with General
Blavatsky, whom the girl took for husband for very frolic, and ran away from
immediately after without allowing him time or opportunity to enforce his
conjugal rights.
Then we follow the high-souled and eccentric woman in her
wanderings in the East, obedient to the occult call, which she heard far back
in her childhood. And the East has claimed her as its very own ever since. But
her bones have not been laid in the East. Our readers will remember that such a
hope had been expressed by us only a few days ago, but, at that time, we had no
fears that her death would occur so soon. In fact, we were preparing to invite her
back, and entreat her to pass her declining years in India.
For India, or
rather Tibet was the promised land for Madame Blavatsky. It was there that she
acquired her extraordinary learning and her wonderful knowledge of the
world-old religions and philosophies of the East, and ever humbly and
gratefully she professed herself to be the slave and the worldly instrument of
the Masters, who received, taught and protected her. But for the Masters, she
would have died before long, for during her world-wide wanderings she had
contracted germs of many and complicated diseases.
Before her final departure
from India, her life had been given up, and it was a veritable marvel to her
physicians that she did pull through. But at that time, she had not yet
completed her life-work. The message of the Masters had not yet been fully
delivered. It was subsequently given to the world in that monumental work: The Secret Doctrine.
Madame Blavatsky may be literally
said to have lived and died for India. The Theosophical Society was founded
expressly for disseminating the religious and philosophic truths of Vedanta and
Buddhism among the Western nations. But those truths were known very partially
in this country itself. Madame Blavatsky was accordingly required to transfer
her labors among us, and for several years she became a living sacrifice for
the sake of the Hindus, who, however, turned away most ungratefully from her,
when she most needed their support. But now they have been rightly punished.
Their land is not made sacred, as English ground has been, by her tomb or
cenotaph. And English Theosophists have been certainly much more faithful to
her than we in India have been. Theirs is and will be the exceeding great
reward. But shall we not endeavor to wipe away the reproach and the shame?
It can only be by raising such a
memorial to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's memory as shall show the strength and
extent of our repentance, and our appreciation of all that she ever did for
India.
(This
article was published in Lucifer magazine, July 1891, p.388-389; and later in the book HPB: in memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1891, p.81-82)
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