In the will of the late H.P. Blavatsky was made the request that her
friends should assemble on the anniversary of her death and read passages from
the Bhagavad-Gita and the Light of Asia. This was accordingly
done on May 8th, in Adyar, London, New York, and other places.
In New York, among other interesting items reported at the time, Mrs. Jasper
Niemand read, after a few introductory remarks, extracts from the private
letters of H.P.B. In response to many requests we print these as follows. The
remarks, being extemporaneous, are quoted from memory.
~ * ~
Mr. President, Friends:
This being the first occasion upon which I have ever spoken in public, I
will ask you to condone my inexperience while I make a few remarks upon the
extracts chosen from the letters of Madame Blavatsky to a few friends.
In regard to Mme. Blavatsky, the world, to use a phrase of Charles Lamb,
was "the victim of imperfect sympathies." It failed to know her; that
failure was its own great loss. Among the many accusations flung at her was one
which, at the last ditch, it never failed to make; it said that Mme. Blavatsky
had no Moral Ideal. This was false.
She had this ideal; she had also the Eastern reverence for an ideal — a
reverence to the Western world unknown. We might hence expect to find her
teaching that Ideal to a great extent under the privacy of a pledge, and there
are indications of this in all that has been published concerning the Esoteric
School.
That her ideal was ever present to her mind and heart these extracts
from private letters to her friends will show.
Her main teachings can be reduced to the following propositions:
- That Morals have a basis in Law and in fact.
- That Moral Law is Natural Law.
- That Evolution makes for Righteousness.
- That the "fundamental identity of all souls with the Oversoul" renders moral contagion possible through the subtle psychic medium.
- That the Spiritual Identity of all Being renders Universal Brotherhood the only possible path for truth-seeking men.
She distrusted the appeal to sentiment. She saw that existing religions
fail in it; that modern civilization frustrates it; that emotionalism is no
basis for the Will which annuls all temptations of the flesh, and the Faith
which shall make mountains move.
Hence she taught the scientific aspect and bearing of sin. Taught
that Universal Law, in every department, rigidly opposes and avenges the
commission of sin, showing the free will of man counterbalanced by the
declaration "Vengeance is mine, saith the Law; I will repay."
She taught that the awful responsibility of the occultist, extending
down to the least atom of substance, forever forbade our asking that question
of Cain which we do ask daily:
-
"Am I my Brother's keeper?"
She taught that the deep reply reverberated down the ages, as we may
read it in our bibles:
-
"What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's
blood crieth to me from the ground."
Justice she taught, and the true discrimination of it; Mercy, too, and
Love. She wrote of one:
-
"He has developed an extraordinary hatred to me,
but I have loved him too much to hate him."
Above all she taught that "the pure in heart see God"; taught
it as a scientific fact; showed it to be, so to say, materially as well as
spiritually possible through the spiritual laws working in the one Substance,
and, in the showing, lifted our courage higher than the visible stars.
The first of these extracts from H.P.B.'s letters is dated Nov. 29,
1878, and is interesting from the fact that it speaks of the original
institution of three degrees of the Theosophical Society, a fact often disputed
in these later days.
« You will find the aims and purposes of the
Theosophical Society in the two inclosed circulars. It is a brotherhood of
humanity, established to make away with all and every dogmatic religion founded
on dead-letter interpretation, and to teach people and every member to believe
but in one impersonal God; to rely upon his (man's) own powers; to consider
himself his only saviour; to learn the infinitude of the occult psychological powers
hidden within his own physical man; to develop these powers; and to give him
the assurance of the immortality of his divine spirit and the survival of his
soul; to make him regard every man of whatever race, color, or creed, and to
prove to him that the only truths revealed to man by superior men (not a god)
are contained in the Vedas of the ancient Aryas of India.
Finally, to demonstrate to him that there never were, will be, nor are,
any miracles; that there can be nothing 'supernatural' in this universe, and
that on earth, at least, the only god is man himself.
It lies within his powers to become and to continue a god after the
death of his physical body. Our society receives nothing the possibility of
which it cannot demonstrate at will.
We believe in the phenomena, but we disbelieve in the constant
intervention of “spirits” to produce such phenomena. We maintain that the
embodied spirit has more powers to produce them than a disembodied one. We
believe in the existence of spirits, but of many classes, the human spirits
being but one class of the many.
The Theosophical Society requires of its members but the time they can
give it without encroaching upon that due to their private affairs. There are
three degrees of membership. It is but in the highest or third that members
have to devote themselves quasi entirely to the work of the Theosophical
Society. . .
Everyone is eligible, provided he is an honest, pure man or woman, no
free lover, and especially no bigoted Christian. We go dead against
idolatry, and as much against materialism.
Of the two unpardonable sins, the first is Hypocrisy — Pecksniffianism.
Better one hundred mistakes through unwise, injudicious sincerity and
indiscretion than Tartuffe-like saintship as the whitened sepulchre, and
rottenness and decay within. . . . This is not unpardonable, but very
dangerous, . . . doubt, eternal wavering — it leads one to wreck. . . . One
little period passed without doubt, murmuring, and despair; what a gain it
would be; a period a mere tithe of what every one of us has had to pass
through. But every one forges his own destiny.
Those who fall off from our living human Mahatmas to fall into
the Saptarishi — the Star Rishis, are no Theosophists.
Allow me to quote from a very esoterically wise and exoterically foolish
book, the work and production of some ancient friends and foes:
-
“There is more joy in the Kingdom of Heaven for one
repentant sinner than for ninety-nine saints.”
Let us be just and give to Caesar what is Caesar's, however imperfect,
even vicious, Caesar may be. “Blessed be the peacemakers,” said another old
adept of 107 years B.C., and the saying is alive and kicks to the present day
amongst the Masters. »
Blavatsky's second letter is dated December 1, 1888, and the excerpt is as
follows:
« The Esoteric Section is to be a School for
earnest Theosophists who would learn more (than they can from published works)
of the true Esoteric tenets. . . . There is no room for despotism or ruling in
it; no money to pay or make; no glory for me, but a series of misconceptions,
slanders, suspicions, and ingratitude in almost an immediate future.
(Note: subsequent events prove the prediction true.)
But if out of the Theosophists who have already pledged themselves I can
place on the right and true path half a dozen or so, I will die happy. Many are
called, few are chosen. Unless they comply with the lines you speak of, traced
originally by the Masters, they cannot succeed.
(Note: her correspondent had quoted the Simla letter of “K.H.” in The
Occult World.)
I can only show the way to those whose eyes are open to the truth, whose
souls are full of altruism, charity, and love for the whole creation, and who
think of themselves last.
The blind will never profit by these teachings. They would make of the
'strait gate' a large public thoroughfare leading not to the Kingdom of Heaven,
now and hereafter, to the Buddha-Christos in the Sanctuary of our innermost
souls, but to their own idols with feet of clay. . . .
The Esoteric Section is not of the earth, earthy; it does not interfere
with the exoteric administration of Lodges; takes no stock in external
Theosophy; has no officers or staff; needs no halls or meeting rooms. . . .
Finally, it requires neither subscription fees nor money, for 'as I have
not so received it, I shall not so impart it,' and that I would rather
starve in the gutter than take one penny for my teaching of the sacred truths.
. . .
Here I am with perhaps a few years or a few months only (Master knoweth)
to remain on earth in this loathsome, old, ruined body; and I am ready to
answer the call of any good Theosophist who works for Theosophy on the lines
traced by the Masters, and as ready as the Rosicrucian pelican to feed with
my heart's blood the chosen “Seven.”
He who would have his inheritance before I die . . . let him ask first.
What I have, or rather what I am permitted to give, I will give.
Many are called but few are chosen. Well, no need breaking my heart over
spilt milk. Come what may, I shall die at my post, Theosophical banner in hand,
and while I live I do fervently hope that all the splashes of mud thrown
at it will reach me personally. At any rate I mean to continue protecting the
glorious truth with my old carcass so long as it lasts. And when I do drop down
for good, I hope in such Theosophists as . . . and . . . to carry on the work
and protect the banner of Truth in their turn.
Oh, I do feel so sick at heart in looking round and perceiving nothing
save selfishness, personal vanity, and mean little ambitions. What is this about
“the soldier not being free”?
(Note: referring to the dilemma of an S.T.S. soldier in the army,
presented to her.)
Of course no soldier can be free to move about his physical body
wherever he likes. But what has the esoteric teaching to do with the outward
man?
A soldier may be stuck to his sentry box like a barnacle to its ship,
and the soldier's Ego be free to go where it likes and think what it likes
best. . . .
No man is required to carry a burden heavier than he can bear; nor do
more than it is possible for him to do. A man of means, independent and free
from any duty, will have to move about and go, missionary-like, to teach
Theosophy to the Sadducees and the Gentiles of Christianity.
A man tied by his duty to one place has no right to desert it in order
to fulfill another duty, let it be however much greater; for the first duty
taught in Occultism is to do one's duty unflinchingly by every duty.
Pardon these seemingly absurd paradoxes and Irish Bulls; but I have to
repeat this ad nauseam usque for the last month. »
Another excerpt is as follows:
« A person asks us:
-
“Shall I risk to be ordered to leave my wife, desert my
children and home if I pledge myself?”
Asks one: “No,” I say, “because he who plays truant in one thing will be
faithless in another. No real, genuine MASTER will accept a chela who
sacrifices anyone except himself to go to that Master.”
If one cannot, owing to circumstances or his position in life, become a
full adept in this existence, let him prepare his mental luggage for the next,
so as to be ready at the first call when he is once more reborn.
What one has to do before he pledges himself irretrievably is, to probe
one's nature to the bottom, for self-discipline is based on self-knowledge.
It is said somewhere that self-discipline often leads one to a state of
self-confidence which becomes vanity and pride in the long run. I say, foolish
is the man who says so. This may happen only when our motives are of a worldly
character or selfish; otherwise, self-confidence is the first step to that kind
of WILL which will make a mountain move:
-
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the
night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
The question is whether Polonius meant this for worldly wisdom or for
occult knowledge; and by “own self” the false Ego (or the terrestrial
personality) or that spark in us which is but the reflection of the “One
Universal Ego.”
But I am dreaming. I had but four hours' sleep. . . . Give my sincere,
fraternal respects to, and let him try to feel my old hand giving him the Master's
grip, the strong grip of the Lion's paw of Punjab (not of the tribe of
Judah) across the Atlantic. To you my eternal affection and gratitude.
Your H.P.B. »
The third letter was written to William Judge and it says:
« To live like cats and dogs in the Theosophical
Society is positively against all rules--and wishes of “the Masters,” as
against our Brotherhood —so-called— and all its rules. THEY are disgusted. THEY
look on, and in that look (oh Lord! if you could only see it as I have!)
there's an ocean deep of sad disgust, contempt, and sorrow. . . .
The ideal was besmeared with mud, but as it is no golden idol on feet of
clay it stands to this day immovable . . . and what the profane see is only
their own mud thrown with their own hands, and which has created a veil, an
impassable barrier between them and the ideal . . . without touching the latter.
. . .
Have a large Society, the more the better; all that is chaff and husk is
bound to fall away in time; all that is grain will remain. But the seed
is in the bad and evil man as well as in the good ones, — only it is more
difficult to call into life and cause it to germinate.
The good husbandman does not stop to pick out the seeds from the
handful. He gives them all their chance, and even some of the half-rotten seeds
come to life when thrown into good soil. Be that soil. . . . Look at me — the
universal Theosophical manure--the rope for whose hanging and lashing is made
out of the flax I have sown, and each strand it is twisted of represents a
'mistake' (so-called) of mine.
Hence, if you fail only nine times out of ten in your selections you are
successful one time out of ten — and that's more than many other Theosophists
can say. . . . Those few true souls will be the nucleus for future success, and
their children will. . . . Let us sow good -— and if evil crops up, it will be
blown away by the wind like all other things in this life — in its time.
I am the Mother and the Creator of the Society; it has my magnetic
fluid, and the child has inherited all of its parent's physical, psychical, and
spiritual attributes--faults and virtues if any. Therefore I alone and to a
degree . . . can serve as a lightning conductor of Karma for it.
I was asked whether I was willing, when on the point of dying--and I
said Yes--for it was the only means to save it. Therefore I consented to
live--which in my case means to suffer physically during twelve hours of the
day--mentally twelve hours of night, when I get rid of the physical shell. . .
.
It is true about the Kali Yuga. Once that I have offered myself as the
goat of atonement, the Kali Yuga (the Dark Age, the present cycle) recognizes
its own — whereas any other would shrink from such a thing -— as I am doomed
and overburdened in this life worse than a poor weak donkey full of sores made
to drag up hill a cart load of heavy rocks.
You are the first one to whom I tell it, because you force me
into the confession. . . .You have a wide and noble prospect before you if you
do not lose patience. . . . Try to hear the small voice within."
Yes, there are “two persons” in me. But what of that? So there are two in you; only mine is
conscious and responsible — and yours is not. So you are happier than I am.
I know you sympathise with me, and you do so because you feel
that I have always stood up for you, and will do so to the bitter or the happy
end — as the case may be. He may be moved to doubt — and that is the beginning
of wisdom.
Well, sir, and my only friend, the crisis is nearing. I am ending
my Secret Doctrine, and you are going to replace me, or take my
place in America. I know you will have success if you do not lose heart;
but do, do remain true to the Masters and Their Theosophy and the names.
. . . May They help you and allow us to send you our best blessings. »
And in another excerpt, she said:
« There are traitors, conscious and unconscious.
There is falsity and there is injudiciousness. . . . Pray do not imagine that
because I hold my tongue as bound by my oath and duty I do not know who
is who. . . . I must say nothing, however much I may be disgusted.
But as the ranks thin around us, and one after the other our best
intellectual forces depart, to turn into bitter enemies, I say--Blessed are the
pure-hearted who have only intuition--for intuition is better than intellect.
The duty, let alone happiness of every Theosophist — and especially
Esotericist — is certainly to help others to carry their burden; but no
Theosophist or other has the right to sacrifice himself unless he knows for
a certainty that by so doing he helps some one and does not sacrifice
himself in vain for the empty glory of the abstract virtue. . . .
Psychic and vital energy are limited in every man. It is like a capital.
If you have a dollar a day and spend two, at the end of the month you will have
a deficit of $30.
One refuses to pledge himself not to listen without protest to any evil
thing said of a brother, as though Buddha our divine Lord, or Jesus, or any
great initiate has ever condemned any one on hearsay.
Ah, poor, poor, blind man, not to know the difference between condemning
in words--which is uncharitable — and withdrawing in silent pity from the
culprit and thus punishing him, but still giving him a chance to repent of his
ways.
No man will ever speak ill of his brother without cause and proof of the
iniquity of that brother, and he will abstain from all backbiting, slandering,
and gossip. No man should ever say behind a Brother's back what he would not
say openly to his face.
Insinuations against one's neighbor are often productive of more evil
consequences than gross slander. Every Theosophist has to fight and battle
against evil, but he must have the courage of his words and actions, and what
he does must be done openly and honestly before all.
Every pledge or promise unless built upon four pillars--absolute
sincerity, unflinching determination, unselfishness of purpose, and moral
power, which makes the fourth support and equipoises the three other
pillars — is an insecure building. The pledges of those who are sure of the
strength of the fourth alone are recorded. »
And the excerpt from the last letter is as follows:
« Are you children, that you want marvels? Have
you so little faith as to need constant stimulus, as a dying fire needs fuel!?
Would you let the nucleus of a
splendid Society die under your hands like a sick man under the hands of a
quack?
You should never forget what a solemn thing it is for us to exert our
powers and raise the dread sentinels that lie at the threshold. They cannot
hurt us, but they can avenge themselves by precipitating themselves upon the
unprotected neophyte.
You are all like so many children playing with fire because it is
pretty, when you ought to be men studying philosophy for its own sake.
If among you there was one who embodied in himself the idea depicted, it
would be my duty to relinquish the teacher's chair to him. For it would be the
extreme of audacity in me to claim the possession of so many virtues.
That the Masters do in proportion to their respective temperaments and
stages of Bodhisatvic development possess such Paramitas, constitutes their
right to our reverence as our Teachers.
It should be the aim of each and all of us to strive with all the
intensity of our natures to follow and imitate Them. . . . Try to realize that
progress is made step by step, and each step gained by heroic effort.
Withdrawal means despair or timidity. . . . Conquered passions, like
slain tigers, can no longer turn and rend you. Be hopeful then, not despairing.
With each morning's awakening try to live through the day in harmony
with the Higher Self.
“Try” is the battle-cry taught by the teacher to each pupil. Naught else
is expected of you. One who does his best does all that can be asked.
There is a moment when even a Buddha ceases to be a sinning mortal and
takes his first step toward Buddhahood. The sixteen Paramitas (virtues) are not
for priests and yogis alone, as said, but stand for models for us all to strive
after — and neither priest nor yogi, Chela nor Mahatma, ever attained all at
once. . . .
The idea that sinners and not saints are expected to enter the Path is
emphatically stated in the Voice of the Silence.
I do not believe in the success of the . . . Theosophical Society unless
you assimilate Master or myself; unless you work with me and THEM, hand
in hand, heart. . . .
Yes; let him who offers himself to Masters as a chela, unreservedly, . .
. let him do what he can if he would ever see Them. . . . Then things
were done because I alone was responsible for the issues. I alone had to
bear Karma in case of failure and no reward in case of success. . . .
I saw the Theosophical Society would be smashed or that I had to
offer myself as the Scapegoat for atonement. It is the latter I did. The Theosophical
Society lives, — I am killed. Killed in my honor, fame, name, in
everything H.P.B. held near and dear, for this body is MINE and I feel acutely
through it. . . .
I may err in my powers as H.P.B. I have not worked and toiled for forty
years, playing parts, risking my future reward, and taking karma upon this
unfortunate appearance to serve Them without being permitted to have some voice
in the matter.
H.P.B. is not infallible. H.P.B. is an old, rotten, sick, worn-out body,
but it is the best I can have in this cycle. Hence follow the path I show, the
Masters that are behind — and do not follow me or my PATH.
When I am dead and gone in this body, then will you know the whole
truth. Then will you know that I have never, never, been false to any
one, nor have I deceived anyone, but had many a time to allow them to deceive
themselves, for I had no right to interfere with their Karma. . . . Oh ye foolish blind moles, all of you; who is able to offer
himself in sacrifice as I did! »
(This text was published with the title “She being dead yet speaketh” in the Path revue, June, July, August, 1892)
