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April 1964 to June 1964

Pages 120-121 – The Theosophical Movement – April 1964 (pp. 226-227)

Turning to the noble motive you have of serving the Masters: it is fine. It is the right starting point. Without service, spiritual life may end in what the Buddha has said of the enlightened Bhikkhu who, while living, moves about like a lonely rhinoceros and, when he drops his physical body, becomes a Buddha of selfishness and joins the peace of Nirvana for a long period of years. The service motive leads to the right path, the Path of Renunciation, and it is good that you have this service motive in your consciousness.

Your decision is not unwise — to get a job, to continue with your study of Theosophy, to do what you can to live your inner life while you contact the outside world with a new attitude which Theosophy brings to you. In one place Madame Blavatsky has written in a letter to Mr. Judge the following: “What is this about ‘the soldier not being free’? 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.”

This gives you a good basis for your own life. Under your plan your task will be, in order of importance, first to develop a centre of conscious­ness within yourself with the aid of Theosophical study, and to utilize the existence of your Lodge to give your services to the Cause to the best of your ability. Secondly, to earn your own livelihood so that you may be independent to live your own life, waiting for whatever Karma may bring to you in the future. If you live within yourself, outer events will shape and mould themselves after a proper pattern and every time you will have an opportunity to learn and to grow. Thirdly, you will fulfil your duty towards your sick mother, especially as your sister will be leaving your home and your mother will be all alone. While you are performing your duty to her, to your employers and to yourself, do not overlook that all this can be done from a real inner point of view. If you are not financially self-supporting you will have to earn your liveli­hood, but there again one of the steps of the Noble Eightfold Path of the Buddha is Right Way of Livelihood.

I hope that in this letter you will find some aid and guidance. I send you my greetings and best wishes for success in your examination and in your efforts to reorient yourself in the greatest of lives which comes from the service of the greatest of causes.

It is good to know that you have been feeling a kind of divine dis­content for some time past; that is a good sign in itself though often it is an uncomfortable period psychologically speaking. You will remember the beautiful poem entitled “The Pulley” by Herbert and how this divine discontent was the last ingredient put by God in the making up of man. The allegory has of course a great deal of truth. Men and women in their animal nature, both bad and good, go on without the spark that stirs them to a better life. The recognition of the real meaning of self-conscious existence accompanies this divine discontent. If our esoteric philosophy does one thing more than any other it is the privilege it brings of revealing that life is purposeful, that all things good and bad have a meaning and that there is a goal and an objective towards which we may deliberately go. It is, therefore, a matter of good fortune for you that you have been able to see the purposefulness of life in the midst of this discontent.

It is not difficult to perceive how very full your life is — home, hus­band, children; Lodge and Service. But in every phase of our waking life the Light can illuminate us. The Gita refers to the “Constant Enemy of Man” in the triune shape of Lust, Wrath and Greed; but it also teaches that there exists a Constant Friend of Man in the body itself. The body is creative in and through every organ; is preservative, for the body contains life-atoms which are vehicles of beneficence, of the good we have assembled in past lives; and there is the destructive force which is dual — death-dealing or life-giving, i.e., regenerative. Therefore all deeds and words of ours by remembrance and recollection can become rhythmic vehicles of peace and light for us and for all concerned. We are not only miserable sinners, though each one of us carries the stamp or mark of his past crimes and sins; we are unfolding Gods with power at our command — power of thought and will, of aspirations. Every ambition of ours can by understanding become an aspiration. Now, we get opportunities for this practice hourly. The difficulty is our memory; we have to learn to recollect and so to bring memory to our service — memory of what? Of the Great Esoteric Wisdom, and within us is the assimilated aspect of that Wisdom, which acts as Reminiscence. I am writing at some length about this important principle because its use makes the joy of life; living has become a burden for so many. Right application means right endeavour, and that is creative.

As to disappointments: they are always with us. There is a right esoteric way of handling disappointments. “Regret nothing,” says Judge; but unless we live the life of divine discipline we shall become lazy and careless. But if we act because of a better understanding of Karma and turn every disappointment into an opportunity for the practice of Detach­ment, the Viraga Paramita, we gain greatly. Be calm in your mind and it will develop understanding because of the love in your heart. We cannot effect improvement in others; we can only help them to effect self­-improvement. Knowledge has to be obtained and then applied. But do not look for or expect disappointments; and also, when pleasing encouragements manifest themselves rejoice and be thankful.

Pages 122-123 – The Theosophical Movement – May 1964 (pp. 273-274)

I should like you to perceive that the first task is becoming, and doing should be for that supreme purpose of becoming. Beness, Becom­ing, Being, is the metaphysical triad. In the human kingdom the Soul grows by deliberate undertakings. Our mind so far has been exploited by desires both bad and good, selfish and unselfish; but in both aspects it is personal — this is the most important point. Your effort in an increas­ing measure should be to impersonalize your feelings, i.e., to use our Teachings to purify and elevate the feelings. Crosbie’s Friendly Philosopher gives the best prescription that I know of. Study that.

Do not be anxious and worried or concerned. Within you is the Great Steady Fire and it is bound to blaze now, and then lessen, to blaze again. The Wisdom-Light and the Compassion-Warmth of the Fire will dispel all defects, all doubts, all hesitations. Live within yourself. Prob­lems and difficulties are bound to arise, but with calmness ever present you will feel the Power of the Fire. Its upward-going flame will meet the descending tongue of the Higher Manasic Fire; so let your Fire ascend high, steadily and steadfastly.

Courage in one’s own trouble as kindness towards others when they are in trouble — that is always a good line. But courage should ever be accompanied by calmness. Again remember the words of the Gita — “With calmness ever present.” Now what does calmness imply? That the Ego is in some kind of control, and the way of the Ego is always deliberate, rooted in Knowledge.

I do not quite understand about being sober and joyful, etc., to which you make reference. I am very happy, though busy, and also joyous. Am pressed for time, for there is so much to be done and people want their personal problems solved and their personal difficulties removed, and in all that time is gone. For the next two years it is to be work — efficiency; strenuous execution of duty; a positive, courageous, non-sentimental atti­tude; self-confidence and humility; principles alone, minus all personality — these are some of the things. Don’t you hear the cry of the world? It rends one’s heart and one has to be so patient and loving to the wounded and the afflicted in spirit that every single and even slight mani­festation of egotism and I-ness comes to me like a deadly sear. It spoils my work and I have no time either to explain or to persuade. Do, or depart and leave people who can do alone the work — that is my atti­tude. But I am very happy. I think I will have to write a book —How to be Happy Though Busy!

We are all men in a state of self-consciousness, which state we do not uniformly sustain. We lose it, being heedless; most of our acts are instinctive and impulsive. Only now and again we become thought-full and will-full. Men lose their manhood ever so often. Even today most members of the human race are either good or evil by instinct and by impulse, respectively. When knowledge of Theosophy represented by the nine Powers, Shaktis or Muses is practised because man has become wedded to knowledge, then chelaship begins — the practice of sva-dharma which requires righteous war, the Dharma-yuddh of the second chapter.

Devotion grows by degrees and there are different kinds of devotion. There is not only mind-concentration but also heart-concentration. You must cultivate the heart, impersonate affections and all emotions. Try to be with your own Manas-Taijasi; deepen your effort to find Buddhi both as an active power and as the casket of Atma. Consider a diamond’s power to shine. There is substance — carbon in the main — and the light which the diamond-substance reflects. “Knowest thou of Self the powers?” Consider your own soul-nature and soul-powers. That requires going away from the personal, the mundane, the Ahankaric. The Great Ones are the Hidden Watchers who both test and protect. They do not want us to fail but to pass the examination. So you need not be in the least fearful. Be confident in the heart and keep your mind humble, and it cannot help becoming humble in the presence of the Ocean of Knowl­edge — the spiritual counterpart of the Ocean of Samsara.

Emotionalism is not real Devotion. But Devotion is a feeling; it is a Divine Intuition; one of those Innate Ideas which cannot be destroyed. In each one of us it is covered over and at present in ordinary manifesta­tion it cannot show its true colour because of personal selfishness. As the 12th chapter of the Gita shows, the true devotee is balanced in love and helpfulness and is active in all virtues. Remember Shelley’s lines: “The desire of the moth for the star, of the night for the morrow; the devotion to something afar from the sphere of our sorrow.” They are beautiful lines. Also do read that S.D. passage on the birth of Devotion and note the words of Carlyle which H.P.B. quotes. It is a line passage.

“The soul is a river whose holy source is self-control, whose water is truth, whose bank is righteousness, whose waves are compassion; bathe there, O son of Pandu, for not with water is the soul washed pure.” — Indian Proverb (Lucifer, August 1888)

Pages 124-126 – The Theosophical Movement – June 1964 (pp. 311-313)

Knowledge of the Theosophical philosophy is very necessary and I would like you to utilize its doctrines and teachings in making your own decisions as to your future. It is good to know of your feeling that the personality of yours is now beginning to be tamed by you, and the first thing you should take a very careful note of is that there is a tamer within you, a spiritual entity who is able to control and adjust the personality.

We are bound to be egotistic, for the lower nature of Krishna from which we derive our lower nature has as one of its components — Ahankara. It is the “I”-making power; it does not remain that, but turns to Abhiman. H.P.B. points out that there are three Ahankaras — personal, individual, and purely spiritual. The lowest, caught up in gross matter, becomes “separative.” The notion of a separated self dies hard; it is the root of the personal-god idea.

Shy people (introverts) are often said to be proud because of their reserve. Of course personality implies pride; ego-hood implies egotism; and all of us have pride, which, according to Buddhistic psychology, is the last to go. You have to live your life within yourself and calmly proceed. To stick quietly to one’s own convictions is not pride; it annoys people who are so proud that they insist on your abandoning your convictions and adopting theirs. Often mock modesty passes for humility. Mock modesty is vociferous; humility shines in silence. It is often an inferiority complex which indulges in mock modesty. How humble was Uriah Heep! I do not think you need to worry on this point of humility and pride. Just go on with your study and sacrifice, silently, without any ado or show.

Pride has numerous aspects. What you say about pride blinding us to our own faults and foibles is correct. Hypocrisy is connected with knowledge — we know and still we say what we know to be untrue. Shila is absent; bifurcation in the very consciousness takes place. Atten­tion (Chapter II of the Dhammapada) is the antidote. But there is un­self-conscious hypocrisy and that is to be overcome by goodness and humility.

Doubts are of two kinds: the good and worth-while doubt of which Robert Browning speaks in his “Rabbi Ben Ezra”: “I rather prize the doubt low kinds exist without” (do look it up — a fine philosophical poem); the second is “unpardonable.” You know in your consciousness that such-and-such a thing is a fact; having known this, you doubt. Sup­pose you see a Guru; after He has gone away doubt assails you and you dwell in that doubt. It becomes a sin.

We may and often should doubt our beliefs (“seeing is believing” and that is all that superficial seeing is), but that which is our conviction and which comes from knowledge and reason should produce, not doubt, but eager search. Sincere questioning is not doubt. As Judge points out, doubt is always of the lower man, the desire-mind which tends towards the hardness of tamas instead of moving towards the rhythm of sattva.

What you say about the present cycle is true, but you must not allow doubts to enter your own heart. The fact that you have to remem­ber is that there are certain things which are matters of deep conviction and faith with you. Thus, if through your study and reflection, you have come to the conviction that man is an immortal soul in the process of unfoldment, that the evolution of that soul takes place through Reincar­nation and Karma, that the Law is just and that Karma works infallibly and always on a higher spiral — if these are convictions, then there naturally follows the other conviction that your own life has a meaning and a purpose and that meaning must be understood and the purpose fulfilled. That being so, the only thing that we can do is to apply the words of Mr. Judge and increase our faith in that which we know to be true, and the rest must be allowed to flow according to its course, trusting the law of Karma to make the necessary adjustments. So it is no use being dejected; it is far more important that you should make clean and clear your own nature, your own mental perceptions in life’s activities.

What you describe as your experience is not the Dweller; it is in the process of formation. You have separated yourself from your weak­nesses by the aid of your aspirations and the assembling of those weak­ nesses is taking place. When the process is completed it becomes Papa-Purusha, the evil Dweller. But our aspirations and our effort to lead the higher life also begin to take shape — Punya-Purusha. Then by the help and strength of the latter we eject the former from within ourselves. Next, it torments us from without; this is the real Dweller. There are some grim mysteries connected with the subject. A clear conscience, purity of magnetism and cleanliness of body are the very best protection. You are bound to get over difficulties as you persist in attention-devotion.

There are several types of Dwellers. Soon or late every chela encounter is it, in one form or another. This for the simple reason that each one has the personal dire heresy of separateness which is the will to live a separate life apart from Nature-Prakriti ensouled by Masters — Perfect Purushas.

The inner senses are in two sets. There are the psychic duplicates of our bodily senses; the development of these belongs to the lower iddhis, as the very first page of the Voice explains. Then there is the higher set which is unfolded in the purified and elevated astral by the Manasic Ego, and this development is of the spiritual kind. The link is explained by Judge in his “Culture of Concentration.”

There are two consciences: (1) That pertaining to the lower Manas; the voice of Manas which says to its partner, Kama, “No, this is wrong.” Kama answers and fools Manas and so Manas gets enslaved. That voice is rooted in Manas’s experiences of the past and is mostly connected with the Kamic or emotional life of the personality. Therefore it can say, “No, No!” It cannot teach. This conscience is negative. If we habituate ourselves to listen to and to understand that voice, separation of Manas from Kama progresses and a pucca Antahkarana. is formed. (2) That pertaining to the Antahkarana, who is mastering Kama and the five senses and the five organs. This Antahkarana stretches out to its parent, the Higher Manas, which is ever in unison with the Atma-Buddhi duad. This higher conscience is called Divine Conscience; it is Buddhic in nature and character. It can not only warn; it can bring knowledge and make the Antahkarana, the Bridge, ready to receive inspiration. This is the Inner Voice of which so many mistaken views exist. For daily living of the Theosophic life the creation of Antahkarana is highly important, in fact most necessary. Then Antahkarana is to the personal­ity what Buddhi is to the Individuality.

Our love gets coloured and tarnished because of our Kama-Manasic nature. Our consciousness swings from the purely passionate to the purely intuitive, from the grossly personal to the highly individual and imper­sonal; this is the experience of each of us. We are like the phases of the moon — always changing, and not regularly like the moon but in jerks of irregularity! We have to gain the full-moon position — the personal­ity unobscured and fully shining by the Light of the Spiritual Sun. To get to that we must become Antahkaranic beings, more or less per­manently. This is our battlefield — our dharma as aspirant-devotee-neo­phytes.

Work never kills; worry does, and our fretting about it and finding fault with it spoils health, psychic as well as bodily. H.P.B. once wrote that Chelaship is an attitude of mind; our attitude to all men and matters, all things and events, implies some self-examination, some calm­ness and some enthusiasm. The sense of responsibility for one’s own life and the study of Theosophy give birth to the spirit of sacrifice. But how to make people, especially the young ones, introspective? Well, we are doing what we can. Money has become the Great God and sense-life the communion with that God! Result? Selfishness. Denouncing it is loss of Prana. Bemoaning it is loss of time. We can and must orient our­selves and sustain ourselves on the right path, serving whole-heartedly our fellow men, and rest content with Karma.