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August 1961 to October 1961

Pages 35-36 – The Theosophical Movement – August (p. 394-395)

About U.L.T. meetings: We cater for newcomers and enquirers and keep them in mind when choosing textbooks for study-class work, in answering questions, etc. There are two factors of serious import to be considered: (1) The older student has to learn by his individual study the deeper aspects of the study-class assignment. How many older students study the assigned portion, prepare their own cross-references, etc.? They would learn lessons fresh and new by such an effort. But more: (2) they should keep in mind and especially in heart the fact that they should bring their own contribution to enrich the class. Even when they do not get the opportunity to speak, their preparation and silent thought keep them energized and their quota of service helps all the others, in different degrees. It is this which you will have to keep in mind. From your own Centre within you could and should ray out the help of knowledge and good will. Devoted aspirants can help the platform in a very real sense even though they may not be on the platform but be seated in the audience. Repetition for the newcomer will prove beneficial otherwise to the old student. There is this hidden side which so many miss out.

Silent study and reflection, secret self-discipline, and expressing these in real service whose influence is far-reaching and yet so nobly impersonal — this is the contribution which you can, and I know will, make to light up, to brighten up, our U.L.T. meetings. Who will know what you are doing? And yet what a profound influence that action of yours will have on those present! The mere presence of a well-intentioned person of sympathy is a great aid; how much more the aid of one who not only is well-intentioned and sympathetic but also takes pains to prepare himself or herself to radiate knowledge and light and peace and unity! Of course you can and you should contribute something substantial at every meeting; you have been doing so without deliberate planning. Henceforth you will be doing it deliberately.

As you exercise along the right lines I indicated you will see for yourself the purity or the richness of your own radiation. The light of thought and the radiating heart are the wombs of right speech. So, just do what you can and watch. What person is there whose mind does not get away from his own control? Let not there be any strain; a quiet, relaxed mind silently brooding on the Self, or better still on the Masters, will bring to the meeting a power from you of whose strength you yourself will not be cognizant. Be a centre of light and peace and devotion when you are at a meeting. Interest in mental study will follow. Try to think of H.P.B., our Guru, when your mind wanders. The image built with love and attention will do more than one thing — for you and for the meeting.

Of course the task of promulgation is not easy: first there is the difficulty about preaching the Ideal when we fail to realize it in daily life through sustained application. Then there is the paucity of knowledge. Then the method of presentation has to be considered — how to put it across not for the minds but for the hearts of people — hearers or readers.

How to make our study class interesting to newcomers? It can be done through every item — the Declaration, the giving of the Fundamentals, the summary and even the reading. Preparation would do it. But, as I often say, one must “feel for the Cause.” It is inner faith in the Esoteric Philosophy and in Its Instructors who embody It that produces the necessary result.

Of course charges are levelled against us that we preach Theosophy but do not practise it: but is that altogether fair? X calls himself a Christian, but can we say that he is applying his religion? Mind, I am not excusing ourselves; we are trying, perhaps more systematically and strenuously than church-going Christians, ceremonial Zoroastrians, and so on. I must say signs are there that several of our students are doing something with themselves and are not merely engaged in studying and preaching Theosophy.

For our people, simply to listen to a lecture is not what we need or want. Each one making his or her own effort gains through it, and the series of Sunday lectures not only are for the advantage of the public but are also to benefit the persons preparing them. From one point of view the latter is the most important for the future growth and work.

All questions should be answered directly so that they provoke thought and therefore more questions. We need not expand all the points very fully in the study class: you remember that in the Mahatma Letters as well as in H.P.B.’s articles and Crosbie’s letters the same thing is said. Will you keep this in mind because your answers would have been much appreciated by some people whom such a great deal of material might have confused.

The Echoes is a difficult book for a study class because there are many things of an occult nature on which sometimes very awkward questions arise. The same is true of The Key to Theosophy. In my experience I have found that the best textbook for study is Mr. Judge’s Ocean of Theosophy. He wrote the Ocean as well as his Epitome for the joint work of a study class. He confined himself entirely to philosophical propositions and therefore, it becomes a practical and very useful textbook.

Pages 37-39 – The Theosophical Movement – September (pp. 433-435)

Our students may not be succeeding 100 per cent in living Theosophically, but are they not sincerely trying? The Esoteric Philosophy does enable us to give practical guidance to individuals and they are taken care of as they arise. We are not looking out for men of great learning, but for men of strong hearts. Only a few take advantage of U.L.T. activities, true; but see what has been accomplished! There are individual U.L.T.ers who are endeavouring to reshape their characters, hearts, minds and lives, by the only right way — self-induction; what is perhaps lacking is a sense of unity and solidarity, not only felt and accepted but also expressed and demonstrated. That is the rub.

Among all workers for and servers of Theosophy the requirement is twofold — (1) right Theosophic education and (2) solidarity among themselves. If you, as well as others, in fact all, realize that Theosophy is a definite system of Knowledge, precise and accurate, a little examination will clearly show you why it is that we religiously stick to certain few books and exclude others. Solidarity among co-students and co-workers is highly essential. Generally, it has not been practised in the past and hence the innumerable failures. It becomes one’s duty to assimilate the Teachings, as well as the co-students and co-servers, in the right way.

The real drawback is lack of real deep unity among the labourers in the field. One has to go on with faith in the Wisdom and Love of the Blessed Ones. How numerous are the obstacles They have to remove! Each person opines he knows, finds faults in others and with what is being done. If each minded his own business and did his or her best and sustained a friendly, though vigilant, attitude our work would prove itself. Our real strength is in our Philosophy and in our faith and devotion to the great Holy Ones. We are not geniuses but are capable of becoming true geniuses using this twofold strength. There is too much egotism, too much talk and failure to ‘‘make of pride and self-regard bondmaidens to devotion.”

As to love and trust among students — it is rare everywhere. The term “brother-pupils” implies two factors: brotherliness and pupilage. One without the other cannot work. See that passage in the Voice about disciples and the strings of the vina, echoing the Master-Guru. Music is not composed of chords only but is also the harmony of discords. There are five fingers on one hand; each finger is different in shape, power and function, but the wrist is there.

As you say, lack of unity and solidarity among student-servers is strange and yet it is not. Human egotism means, does it not, that the ego-element is enveloped by pride. By analogy, the lower Manas separating itself from its parent, the higher Manas, enters into a new incarnation. It is a ray of the higher and yet the moment it is enveloped by the old skandhas it becomes different. It is no more the same. Thus, it is the material skandhaic or tanhaic substance which makes for Ahankara, the “l”-making tendency. Egotism, conceit, pride and its brood, love for possessions (represented by money) and the urge to creativeness (represented by sex) — these are the causes for disunity, discord, disharmony. It is not difficult to comprehend this, but most difficult to apply the remedy. The dire heresy of separateness is the south pole of the divine unity of Atma which is the north pole — substance and essence, metaphysically; evil and good, morally. Does one love oneself more than the One Self? To detach ourselves from the lower and to attach that lower self to the Higher Triad is the whole story. Two or three people can create havoc with their pride and conceit. This discord-disunity in the lower is a reflection of the Harmony made by the seven Rays or seven Lodges or seven Hierarchies. That Harmony exists at the Centre, but in lower spheres it remains to be established. So, primarily in this as in so many other matters, the work is upon ourselves — each one of us.

With this task is also intimately connected the perception of the harmony between the metaphysical and the ethical and the arising spontaneously of the knowledge within. The Inner Ego is made up of the substance of knowledge, as the Voice says.

It is not only a saddening but a ghastly experience to see friends betraying our confidence, shattering our hopes for them and above all injuring themselves, throwing away opportunities, etc. True, men and women come and go, but the River of Wisdom continues to run — there are cycles when it merely trickles and cycles when it flows full and fast. Our Theosophical failures do not see their own spiritual adversity, as the poor do not really know the deep import of their economic poverty. See H.P.B.’s article, “Let Every Man Prove His Own Work.” You are not only perceiving the causes of defection and failure but are also hitting upon the right remedy — “To appear as nothing in the eyes of men.”

About workers: what makes a worker a true one? Fire and knowledge. In some there is the fire of devotion and of altruism, but there is lack of knowledge and a streak of tamas. In others there is knowledge, a fund of information, but they lack fire, ardency, a feeling for wisdom and for humanity. Then there is the third factor — character. If you will take care of your psychic nature and begin to apply the four basic rules of Light on the Path, or the instruction in the first five pages of the Voice, in two or three years’ time you will not only have outer silence but also the inner silence of calmness which is active peace. Ambition and pride have made short work of many. Go on as you have been going on and the rest will follow as the dawn after the night.

If half a dozen workers, possessing different qualities, were to unite, the labour of love would produce fine results. What one has, the other has not; but unity is lacking. The closing section of the Key is most useful; what is needed is selflessness, earnestness, devotion, knowledge, unbiased judgment. Once again one person may not be found possessing all these qualities, but five possessing one each would be an excellent substitute, provided there were unity and brotherliness. Talk and gossip make short work of people.

Pages 40-41 – The Theosophical Movement – October (pp. 477-478)

As to the future, signs are not bad. On devotees like you that future will depend. It has always been the few who laboured, the few who sacrificed, the few who actively tried to walk the Way to Them. You prepare yourself.

The next Messenger will provide, first of all, a problem in Viveka-Vairagya for every survivor of stout heart and good standing. There may be claimants — “Lo here!” and “Lo there!” The recognition will demand heart sight. The next ten years will reveal the condition of the world; there are auspicious omens and also bad signs. It seems to me that the best way for us is to go on, primarily and also all the time, with the living of the Inner Life. A pure heart, an open mind, a studious brain, gather the magnetism of Wisdom which means Discernment. If we study carefully our own heart, as Light on the Path directs, and observe the moving life all around us, we shall pierce Maya’s veil in every direction and see the truth of things and beings, events in our own or in the collective life. Kali Yuga is bound to darken, but we must learn to keep “watch,” as Buddha advised and as He Himself kept.

As to 1975: between now and then stirring events are bound to occur and each of them will precipitate one of the two immortal feelings — love or hate. Mars is the God of War and also of Love. Sanity and brotherliness are not born in an hour; the habit of sane and sage thinking which liberalizes the mind has to be established. It can be and should be established even on the battlefield, as the great allegory of Krishna teaching Arjuna shows; but it took days. Historically, there is Ashoka, who after the Kalinga war awoke to the tragedy of hatred and resolved to stop the use of the Drum of War and to beat the Drum of Law, Order, Love. The common mass of people have to be taught, which is next to impossible. Did even Gandhiji succeed? No. People heard and approved and some followed in action without ideation and imagination, and we know the result. What H.P.B. herself has said in the concluding pages of the Key gives hints and pointers as well as definite instructions. The very ardency of faith of so many of our students may narrow their vision. “Where, oh! where is the Messenger?” some will cry. “So after all H.P.B. was a false prophet,” others will murmur. The remedy? Develop, now and here, and keep on developing the three qualities — Purity, Truth, Memory (Shaucham — Satyam — Srnriti). The Inner Life has its own inner vision. When knowledge and devotion meet in holy wedlock, the Single Eye of Light develops and It reveals the True, the Good, the Beautiful. That is the way; I do not know of any other.

The next Messenger — who is to determine and by what measuring stick? If one does not prepare oneself from now on to feel the truth of ideas, which then are bound to be extensions of known present-day truths, one will be nowhere. Moral principles of Truth, Charity, Justice, etc., will be reiterated in a new set of words, idioms and allegories; there will be a deeper core to them which will be missed by all those who have not purified themselves by the practice of Divine Virtues now. H.P.B. gave the truth about 1975 as a proclamation so that individuals might prepare themselves by working on and within themselves. In that very process they are preparing the mind of the race. Compared with that inner preparation, our platform and periodicals are but outer expressions — or ought to be.

As to the future: you are right; we must hope while we help. Let us labour in love and leave results to Them who know what is best for us as also for the Cause.