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August 1960 to September 1960

Pages 5-6 - The Theosophical Movement – August 1960 (pp.392-393)

It is a good sign indeed that our students seemed anxious to know what we should do to deserve the help and guidance of the Masters. This is of fundamental importance. What is implicit in this particular piece of instruction in the Message of H.P.B. is not generally perceived. The giving of it cost her tremendously. It brought doubt and derision, but she did it, and it is the most vital teaching of her philosophy. When we see what it means, the accepted order of evolution from animal savagery to the present “enlightened era” reverses. The existence of the Adept Fraternity; Their silent, secret but far-reaching influence; Their method of helping mankind; Their Line of Guruparampara; the establishment of the Path of Chelaship — these are not only of academic importance; they are valuable to us now and here and have a practical bearing on the daily handling of our own incarnated existence.

As to how the Masters and the Nirmanakayas help humanity: They are channels of the Most High, the Logos or the Word. Each one of Them is a Mantra unfolding from the single impartite Word. Ideation and Imagination are a combined power, which uses sound and colour and number-language, and Their created thought-images, idea-idols, built in and by Akasha, are concretized till this plane of gross matter is touched. Like the air, all of us breathe it, but our mortal and faulty constitution is not able to inhale, retain and absorb more of that ozone. This being so, They have the institution of Divine Incarnations. Using Their knowledge of time-cycles, They take bodies of flesh and blood and become like unto us, wearing mortal garments. They teach, and Their knowledge arouses us from the sleep of tamas and ignorance, and we benefit here. The greatest benefit is increase in our capacity to inhale and absorb that Akashic ozone.

Then, each of us proceeds from the general and the universal to the particular and the personal. Here is where our treading of the Path of Chelaship comes in. You are at this point. You are inhaling more of that ozone by study and effort at concentration in application. The Gracious Guru creates the inner chela. The Guru uses our substances and essences and by His Kriyashakti creates a new Being out of the old puny and mortal self. Of course we have to adopt exercises of silence and secrecy, ideation and imagination, work and worship — note the three pairs. Masters’ work is with the masses and this work leads to work with persons and personalities who become “listeners” to Their Wisdom and servants of the masses. They are Complete Beings; we are “becoming.” Now you have begun to become transformed. May your light shine more in your brain and radiate through your eyes and hands and feet! Heart electricity manifests as personal radiation or magnetism. This is not fiction; it is fact. Thus in the mire and scum of the earth-pond a lotus begins to emerge.

When the disciple is ready the Master appears. You are preparing yourself. Secrecy and silence are important ingredients in chela-life. How to hide oneself? By appearing “as nothing in the eyes of men.” You need but to go on as you are doing and Karma will open the door. “Great man is he who is strongest in the exercise of patience,” says the Mahatma K.H. The Blessed Ones help the devotee. One may not know how help comes, but it does come. Longingly yearning for the Holy Ones will one day bring you the glimmer of the Lords of Light. But to perceive and to enjoy that Light we must have within us the spark of the Tathagata Light. Do not overlook that it is possible so to purify the mind and elevate the heart that the Tathagata Light may be kindled by us now and here. If in our waking hours we are with Their Teachings, learning them or promulgating them; if we keep the company of those who love Them and are devoted to Them, we shall transform our sleeping and vision life and make it rich. It is in the Hall of Wisdom, says The Voice of the Silence, that the Master can be truly found. So it is in our heart consciousness that the influence and the inspiration will come. May you achieve and attain! Make Their existence real to you!

By elimination of what does not contain the Masters, by unfoldment, more and more, of what contains Them, we get nearer to Them. Can there be Masters in our anger? No. Therefore true devotion also cannot be there. Can we hear Their voice when we are angry? Can we then create the face to visualize? No. Well, then, there can be no devotion. But, like Buddhi, yagna, etc., devotion also is tamasic, rajasic and sattvic, and it is by unfolding sattvic devotion that Masters are contacted. Pure or sattvic devotion has to be developed by study and by reflection. Devotion is the mother-virtue; it is sui generis in man. We can begin to give more and more to the Masters. But what offerings are acceptable to Them? How to make the offering? Light on the Path has some most valuable hints and aids and suggestions.

And are you sure that in your own inner being you are not familiar with your revered Master? Do we know of Self the powers? How little we know of the Inner Ruler and how much of the personality, engrossed as we are in its doings! It is the “blessed mood” (recall Wordsworth) which we need to invoke — the Mood of the Light of the True. The sacred feeling of Bhakti is broken and diffused into rajasic and tamasic devotion. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” and also that seemingly terrible exclamation of Jesus to his mother, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” carry a profound truth in one-pointedness, in concentration — something we have as an innate idea. It was born in us with the lighting up of Manas. It is creative. You — the personal you — may not have seen or heard Master but try to feel Him and Them — “the Master whom yet thou dost not see, but whom thou feelest,” says the Voice. But we have also to try to feel the presence of the Inner God, the Higher Manas, in us at the same time. “Guru” is also the term used by chelas for the Inner Ruler. Knowledge of our true being and knowledge of Masters go hand in hand.

Pages 7-9 – The Theosophical Movement – September 1960 (pp. 433-435)

It was once explained: “There are those who labouring for the Cause come to love the Cause” (i.e., become wholly devoted to it and Those behind it). Then, ‘‘there are those who love the Cause and learn to labour for it, more and ever more.” The Cause and the Masters are one; They and Their Teachings go together. Old chelas in new bodies love Masters and so learn anew the Philosophy called the Esoteric Philosophy ─ Gupta Vidya; new aspirants proceed from the Teachings to the Teachers. They cannot be separated. The Twelfth Chapter of the Gita gives the picture of the complete chela-devotee; it serves as a model for willing and determined aspirants. Effort counts; errors matter little. (See Voice, p. 68)

No one, not even a Divine Incarnation, can root out evil; but the Gurus point out the ways whereby it can be overcome. The real inner work of the Lodge of Masters is to affect the mind of the race by the reproclamation of old wisdom and as a result individuals transform themselves. It is the individual who rises to be the Adept, the rare efflorescence of any race and civilization.

The Guru can but adjust the mind of the disciple; the latter must learn the real significance of that adjustment. Even to become a chela one must have already developed the right inner attitude and the right outer behaviour, appropriate to and required by Chelaship. The good man must be active and moral principles must be to the fore. Presently his tests and trials will begin and will make heavy demands upon his character. How will he fight? That depends on his already developed moral stamina.

Real chelaship may be far off, but the Himalayas are not climbed in a day. Patiently we have to persevere. Devotion of the heart, vigilance of the head and piety of the hands — that is the triad we have to develop. Devotion flows when disturbances are absent from the mind; and they can be absent only when the mind looks to and attends to its real function, finding positive expression in pious deeds, holy acts. This it is which makes all functions sacramental — outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace. Reflect on that triad; it has a fine potency.

Light on the Path has something that at this stage you will find useful; let your mind dwell on it: “The would-be disciple (we may say “lay chela”) has to arouse himself by a fierce and resolute and indomitable effort of will.” Any person can become a lay chela; he may feel in himself who his Master is, but in silence about this he has to labour for the Cause. If out of egotism he gives out his inner belief, or even faith, he will have taken the first step towards a failure. On the side of the Master, He of course knows, but He works in silence of His own. That, as far as lay-chelaship is concerned. Accepted chelaship is very different and implies knowledge on the part of the chela of his acceptance by his Guru.

Yes, the Master uses even the lay chela’s Karma to draw out hidden forces of good as well as of evil. But the chela does not know, often does not even suspect this. Dispassion is the starting point. How each values and how each judges men, matters and events is related to his inner attitude. Desirelessness at every turn implies our power to give the correct value to all these. It is not merely running away! In this the principle of “Resist not evil” and the higher resignation play important parts.

One need not be an actual accepted chela to experience all chela-life activities. The period of probation is preparation for accepted chelaship. Therefore we must theoretically live as if tomorrow we would be ready and willing to offer ourselves for chelaship. Take H.P.B.’s article on “Practical Occultism” in which she quotes several Rules of Chelaship, e.g., about shaking hands, pet animals, etc. Now for us these are most difficult to practise, almost impossible. But we must know what is expected of us and so aim at right preparation, using discrimination. To use Viveka in practising Vairagya is one of our tests — now and here.

Now come to the next point: we are required to develop higher resignation, indifference, inward patience, etc.; to meet and pass our Karmas, saying, “This is what I desire and not only what I deserve”; to resist without resisting and to be truly brotherly. All this requires not only belief but faith, belief which is elevated into faith by true knowledge. Theosophy tells us about Masters’ teaching pupils—we accept that mentally and theoretically; but how to apply it? If we develop nearness to the Great Teachers, and as a result of our study They become more and more real to us, we ultimately come to look upon our life — i.e., all our Karmas — as somehow related to Them, connected with Them. As we deepen our devotion and They begin to be a presence in all our tasks, at all our waking hours, as we begin to live dharmically in facing Karmas, we see how the feeling of Karma coming from Them naturally arises. There is strength in this attitude. We are not overpowered and overthrown by our weaknesses; also we are not puffed up by our merits. That is the line of reasoning I offer you for your consideration. It is, as you say, an inspiring idea, and so what are you going to do with it? You may not have surrendered yourself, body and soul, to the Masters but are you not attempting a surrender? What means application in reference to the Path of Chelaship? Their Movement, in every age and cycle, deals with the Karmas of Humanity, and one striking variety in that Motion is the selection of chelas who are ready to become channels for Them.

I do not agree that we will need a long time to arrive at the stage of probationary chelaship. The whole tremendous effort of H.P.B. and her Mission would then la fanciful plan. If we students, cannot apply the fundamental proposition that “All life is probationary” to our own incarnation, then her arrival on the stage of the world is robbed of serious meaning. Those Rules in “Practical Occultism” are purposely given; of course not for our present and immediate application, but do they not enable us to make our mental and moral luggage ready — especially by discarding those pieces of the luggage which will prove a burden or worse? Remember that chelaship has grades — the probationer or the lay chela is the first and from there we proceed to the Adept-Chela ready to be “Initiated” and to become a Brother, a Member of the Great Fraternity. Now, the first stage has this for its fundamental and foundational principle: Live as a chela; overcome your own Karma; presently trials and tests will precipitate themselves; do not expect to see or hear from the Guru; cultivate the Self in the self. For this purpose instructions are given and what each should select for study, suitable to his temperament, is left to himself and in a sense constitutes his first test. In what is given is present work for future days and stages; the map of the road which we are walking and which is to be walked is offered and we should be thankful for it. Also, please remember that many grades of human Intelligences live and strive side by side; milk for babes and meat for men are provided. Again, mind-temperaments are numerous and provision is made for each. It is like a buffet supper; 20 dishes are offered: we can eat what we find suitable for us. Some eat what is tasty and get pain; some sample all 20 dishes and very probably go away hungry, dissatisfied and full of complaints!