Theosophical Society,
H P Blavatsky
THE LETTERS OF
H P BLAVATSKY
to
A. P. SINNETT
and other
miscellaneous letters transcribed, compiled,
with an
introduction
By
A. Trevor
Barker
Section 2 Page 93 – 182
Mohini
and the Writing of” Man” . . . 93
Subba
Row lies about H. P. B . . . 95
The
Crime of divulging Sacred Things . .
. 97
The
Coulomb Letters . . . 99
The
Karma of an Occultist . . . l01
H.
P. B.’s Martyrdom . . . 103
An
Hour of Revelation . . . 105
On
Books and Characters . . . 107
False
Reasoning and Bigotry of S.P.R . .
. 109
The
Love of the Master . . . 111
Solovioff
resigns from S.P.R . . . 113
The
Forger Coulomb . . . 115
Solovioff
protests to S.P.R . . . II7
“Guilty
in One—Guilty in All” . . . 119
Dr.
F. Hartmann . . . 121
Pure
“ Vestals” . . .
123
M’s
Corroboration. . .
123
In
Defence of Mohini. . .
127
A
Double Untruth about H. P. B. . . 129
Missionaries
swear to ruin the T.S. . . 131
D.
N’s Reluctance to meet H. P. B. . . 133
A
List of Calumnies . . . 135
The
Treachery of Hodgson . . . 137
The
Truth about Hodgson and S.P.R . . . 139
The
“Vase” Phenomenon. . .
141
The
Metrovitch Incident. . . 143
The
Private Part of H. P. B.’s Life . . .
145
H.
P. B. never Mme. Metrovitch. . . 147
Myers
of the S.P.R . . . 149
H.
P. B. travels with the Master . . . 151
Mentana
. . . 153
H.
P. B. never a Medium . . . 155
The
Countess sees M . . . 157
D.N.nearlymad
. . . 159
The
Opinion of a Hindu . . . 161
Col.
Olcott’s”
The
Letter of Hurreesinjhee . . . 165
D.
N. a Fanatic . . . 167
Instructions
to Sinnett re D.N . . . 169
The
Laws of Occultism . . . 171
D.N.a”Chela”
. . . 173
The
Reason for Soloviofi’s Defection. . . 175
Medical
Evidence on H. P. B . . . 177
H.
P. B. like a Boar at Bay. . . 179
LETTER
No. XL
On board.
MY
DEAR MR. SINNETT,
I
write a few words first for the sake of the Cause generally and all of us in
particular. As I thought this day was one of
revelation and retribution all over
and round: the great test as a Cause is at an end,
now we have but to wait for
results. The first one is a letter from Mr. Finch
and a confession from Mohini
that
the “Apocalypsis” that had to supersede Esoteric Buddhism and crush it out, not
only out of market but out of existence is—good for nothing. Mr. Finch says
that this is a work which “can only lower the Masters.” The four chapters
written entirely by Mohini are of course good,
but wherever the spring of
inspiration has let loose its waters, it is rough,
unsystematic, reads like a
meaningless jibbering of a schoolboy—makes ugly
patches in the work and will
certainly do no credit to the “two chelas”
supposed to have written under the
direct inspiration of a student. Well—the probation is
at an end it seems—at
least Act I. Master wants it to be issued before
Christmas and we have to do it.
Only
poor Mohini will have to rewrite the whole chapter and remodel all the
places where his collaborator gave original ideas. I
wish you would see Mohini
and have a talk with him about this work. He will
tell you HOW it was written
for he is now free to speak.
My
Master whose voice I have just heard orders me to tell you that as Mohini is
likely to stop in
complete your literary work that sleeps for want
of materials but ought not.
Seriously
you ought to have him as often as you can to explain and teach you
upon the subjects touched in your new book for now
Master will give him orders to that effect. Hitherto he could not come to you,
give or explain the least
thing—for reasons your intuition may explain to you.
Now he can and will do so.
Dispose
of me, for you I will consent now even to serve again as a postman. But
for you alone and will beg you to keep me the
secret. I will write from either
Yours truly again,
H.
P. B.
—•— 94
THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
LETTER
No. XLI
Copy of the letter to be sent through Olcott. I want you to correct
it. I am
determined to sue the Coulombs for this.
• HODGSON ESQ.
SIR,
I
have always laboured under the impression that in English law so long as one
was not proven “guilty” legally, one was held
innocent; and that a one sided
testimony—especially that of recognised enemies
could be put aside even in a
Court
of Justice. You seem to act on different principles. You are welcome to do so.
In the matter of phenomena I have come to care very little whether I will be
proclaimed in your Report to the P.R.S. a humbug and a fraud twenty times over,
or not; though I doubt the propriety and good taste of your proclaiming me all
this beforehand among your Madras acquaintances. However, even to this I am
indifferent.
But
you went further. At Mr. Garstin’s dinner the other night you spoke of me as a
“Russian Spy.” You have supported this assertion against Mr. Hume’s laugh and
denial, and that of Mr. and Mrs. C. O. so seriously and with such emphasis that
it becomes a matter of the gravest importance for me to have it proved publicly
whether I am a “Spy” or not. As I defy any mortal man to bring valid proof that
I have ever written one line or received one from the Russian Govt. for the
last 15 years during which period I became an American citizen, and that I am
as loyal to the British Govt. that now gives me hospitality as you can be—I
would have been perfectly justified in taking out summonses and have you
arrested, for the vile and dangerous calumny but for three considerations:
(1)
You are the friend of the Oakleys whom I love and respect and would avoid
dragging as unwilling witnesses;
(2)
Only a fortnight ago I had an affectionate regard for yourself whom I
believed impartial and just;
(3)
People might, and would say that it was a revenge for your
having “found me
out” and shown “a consummate fraud” as you express
it.
And
pray do not think for a moment that any one has repeated to me your
conversations and accusations at Mr.
Garstin’s. I know every word that was said at table by means that even your
P.R.S. recognise and could not deny in me. I thank you also for your additional
fling at an innocent and absent woman who has never done you any harm, in
saying that you believed her a woman capable of every and
any crime. You may believe
—•— 95 SUBBA ROW LIES
ABOUT H. P. B. —•—
me personally what you like, but you have no right
to express your slanders
publicly.
However
it may be, I expect from you a written statement over your signature of
all you heard from the Coulombs about my being a
spy that led you to form such a conclusion. I will also beg of you a
description of the paper or papers she showed you, for this time I mean to sue
her and put an end to such an infamy.
This
is a serious affair Mr. Hodgson and it is yourself who have forced me into
this course of action.
Yours,
H. P. B.
LETTER
No. XLII
June
16th.
DEAR
MRS. AND MISS ARUNDALE,
If
we had two dozen like you two and a dozen like Sinnett—Masters would be with
you and the Society long ago. I mean what I say and what more is—I know it.
Listen:
try to disconnect the L.L. as much as you can from the H.Q. You may be at
heart—one. Try to become two in the management. Karma is taking its course.
We
cannot help it. But the innocent and the true should not suffer for the
guilty and the untrue. And oh, dear, how many traitors
and Judases of all
colours and shades we have in the very heart of
the Society. Ambition is a
terrible adviser! Show this to Mr. Sinnett. Let
him be truly “keener” in his
work, not only in his interest for the Society. Let
him not hesitate to
sacrifice if needed—friends, myself included.
Olcott is becoming a wind-bag full
of vanity. But do not blame him. He has fallen
under the influence of one who
has become to him what I used to be in the days of
old. He is a terrible
sensitive notwithstanding his big beard. I pity
and love him as of old. But he
is throwing the blame upon me alone—forgetting his
exhibition of Buddha, his
flapdoodle cramming with phenomena the psychists
and so on. Master will never spurn him, for no one in this world will work as
devotedly and unselfishly as he has. But why should the L.L.—the head and
brains of the T.S. suffer and risk disintegration for the wild beatings of its
heart—the Adyar H. Quarters? Such as Subba Row—uncompromising initiated
Brahmins, will never reveal—even that which they are permitted to. They hate
too much Europeans for it. Has he not gravely given out to Mr. and Mrs. C.O.
that I was henceforth “a shell deserted and abandoned by the Masters?” When I
took him for it to task, he answered: “You have been guilty of the
—•— 96
THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
most terrible of crimes. You have given out secrets
of Occultism—the most sacred and the most hidden. Rather that you should be
sacrificed than that which was never meant for European minds. People had too
much faith in you. It was time to throw doubt into their minds. Otherwise they
should have pumped out of you all that you know.” And he is now acting on that
principle.
Please let Mr. S. know this,
Yours for ever the same,
H. P. BLAVATSKY.
LETTER
No. XLIII
Sunday, 17 May.
MY
DEAREST MOHINI,
You
may show this, or simply tell Mr. Sinnett about the following. Gaboriau had
intensely begged me to offer him as a chela to
Mahatma K. H. or my Master, and the former had accepted him on a trial. Thus he
was a chela and no lie can be implied to me in saying to Mr. Sinnett that
“Masters had chelas everywhere.” At the time, as many a time before and after
that I had determined not to mix
myself any more in the transmission of letters from
Mahatmas. Had MASTER
permitted me to carry out this resolution I would
not, perhaps, be now here an
exile and dying far away from
however I could send the Mahatma K. H.’s letters
through some other chela if I
was so cowardly. D. K. was then trying an
experiment on Mr. Sinnett to see
whether he could succeed in suggesting the idea
into his head to go through
and G.) Gaboriau is extremely sensitive and
mediumistic and I may succeed in
training him for something, though I am afraid he
is a fool.”
This
gave me the idea (1) that Mr. Sinnett might be induced by suggestion to
stop at
Gaboriau.
The
experiment failed. Mr. Sinnett is not very sensitive and went through some
other road. I have not tried to mislead him, neither
then, nor at any time. I
simply kept silent, as I have in many other cases
phenomenal and
semi-phenomenal, with regard to letters
received by him. But he, measuring
occultism upon the standard of daily life and
rules makes no difference between
a
—•— 97 THE CRIME OF
DIVULGING SACRED THINGS —•—
deliberate lie and the desire or rather sad
necessity of concealing things. When
he told me that he had received a letter from
much embarrassed, and understood that D. Khool had
failed, which he had not told me. I simply said “Have you?” and the words he
correctly stated to you, about chelas everywhere, unless I wrote them using them
in a letter of which I am not certain. The proof that I had no desire to
mislead him is found in the fact that I have never asked Gaboriau to make a
secret of it. He was a “chela” and dropped only when preparing to sail for
Adyar and prevented from going there as he had been found a perfect fool. If
Mr. Sinnett will see guilt and dishonesty in every such circumstance, then,
since I now tell him plainly that there are a hundred things I have had to
conceal from him, he is at liberty to drop me and even my existence from his
life altogether. I have never deceived him, never tried to mislead, never lied to him. I have tried my best to serve him and my
present
misfortune and the quasi-ruin of the T.S. are due
primarily to his independent
way of thinking, of thrusting occultism, and its
mysteries into the teeth of a
prejudiced unprepared public by publishing his two
books. Had phenomena and the Masters been sacredly preserved among and only for
Theosophists, all this would not have happened. But it is my own fault as much
as his. In my zeal and
devotion to the Cause I have permitted publicity
and as Subba Row truly says
“committed the crime of divulging things most sacred and holy
that had never
been known to the profane before” and now comes my
Karma. I had always seen in Mr. Sinnett the most devoted and useful member of
our Society, I have told to him things I never said even to Olcott, but I could
not divulge all even to him. Since Mahatma K. H. tells him that he has not
dropped him and has the same regard for him as ever, what more does he want?
They can, if They like, find other channels of
communication with him besides myself. Let him drop me out of his life like a
bad penny, and give me up like so many others have, now that I am dying from
the effects of the Simla causes. I have done my best, I can serve him no
longer, and I ask and pray but for one thing, to be left to die like a
mangy dog, quietly and alone in my corner. May the
Masters bless and protect you all—and may my martyrdom and sufferings known
perhaps to the Masters alone—do
some good to the Society and help it turning a new
leaf. But if even those
sufferings will prove to have been sent and
accepted in vain, then is the T.S.
doomed and it has indeed been started prematurely.
Yours to the last
H. P. B.
—•—
98 THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
LETTER
No. XLIV
HOTEL DEL
VESUVIO,
June 21.
MY
DEAR MRS. SINNETT,
The
sight of your familiar hand-writing was a welcome one, indeed, and the
contents of your letter still more so.
No,
dear Mrs. Sinnett, I never thought that you could have ever believed that I
played the tricks I am now accused of; neither you or
any one of those who have Masters in their heart, not on their brains.
Nevertheless, here I am, and stand accused, without any means to prove the
contrary—of the most dirty, villainous deceptions, ever practiced by a half
starved medium.
What
can I, and what shall I do? Useless to either write,
to persuade, or try to
argue with people who are bound to believe me guilty,
to change their opinion.
Let
it be. The fuel in my heart is burnt to the last atom. Henceforth nothing is
to be found in it but cold ashes. I have so
suffered that I can suffer no more—I
simply laugh at every new accusation.
“Notwithstanding
the expertise” you say. Ah, they must be famous those experts, who found the
Coulomb’s letters genuine. The whole world may bow before their decision and
acuteness; but there is one person, at least, in this wide world, whom they can never convince that those stupid letters were
written by me, and it is—H. P. Blavatsky. Were the God of Israel and Moses,
Mahomet and all the prophets, with Jesus and the Virgin Mary to boot, come and
tell me that I have written one line of the infamous instructions to Coulomb—I
would say then to their faces—“fiddlestick—I have not.”
Now,
look here, I want you to know these facts. To this day I have never been
allowed to see one single of those letters. Why
could not Mr. Hodgson come and show me one of them at least. I suspect he has
brought some of them to
—•— 99 THE COULOMB LETTERS —•—
my fraud in phenomena were to be believed by the
whole creation, that in 1880,
I,
who was then at Bombay, bent upon proving the existence of Masters and with my
plans of imposture—if I had any—well matured already, that I should have
written such a letter to one whom I had hardly known 8 years before, who was no
friend of mine, only a casual acquaintance with whom since I left Cairo in 1871
I had never had any correspondence, and whose very name I had forgotten! In
that infamous letter I am made, nevertheless, to say that I had left my
husband, loved and lived with a man (whose wife was my dearest friend and who
died in 1870 -- a man who died too a year after his wife, and was buried by me
at
winding the whole confession by asking her not
to speak of me as she knew me,
and so on: sentences strung together, to show that
I had never known the
Masters, never was in
It
is only wasting time to argue upon all this. Those who believe the published
letters genuine, have no reason to disbelieve in
that one, and if there are such
fools in this world—or people so cunning as to play
the part of a fool—who can
believe me capable of writing such a suicidal
confession, to such a woman, a
perfect stranger to me with the exception of a
few weeks I had known her at
—•—
100 THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
very nearly succeeded. At any rate they have
succeeded in fooling Hume and the
S.P.R.
Poor Myers! and still more poor Hodgson! How terribly
they will be
laughed at some day. En attendant, they are busy
crucifying me, it seems.
Psychic research indeed. “Hodgson’s” research,
rather! But pray tell me. Is it
the legal thing in
absence?; without giving him the chance of
saying one single word in his
defence?; without letting him know even of what
he is precisely accused of, or
who it is who accuses him and is brought forward as
chief evidence. For I do not know the first word of all this.
Hodgson came to Adyar; was received as a
friend; examined and cross-examined all whom he wanted
to; the “boys” -- (the
Hindus)
at Adyar gave him all the information he needed. If he now finds
discrepancies and contradictions in
their statements, it only shows that feeling
as they all did, that it was (in their sight) pure
tomfoolery to doubt the
phenomena and the Masters, they had not prepared
themselves for the scientific
cross-examination, may have forgotten
many of the circumstances; in short, that
not feeling guilty and having never either been my
confederates or my dupes,
they had not rehearsed among themselves what they
had to say, and thus, may very well have created suspicions in a prejudiced
mind. But the whole trouble with us is, that we have
never looked at Mr. Hodgson at first, as a prejudiced judge. Quite
the reverse. Well I was the first one to be punished for my confidence
in his fairness. To think that while I was laid up on my death-bed, he came
daily as a friend of the C. Oakleys, dined at the H.Q., abused and vilified,
and betrayed me daily, in their presence—and that I never knew the truth till
the
end! Ask him—has he ever confronted me with my
accusers? Has he ever tried to learn anything from me, or given me a chance of
defence and explanation? NEVER.
He
acted from the first day as though I was proven guilty beyond the shadow of a
doubt. He played traitor with me; and acted not like any honest enquirer would
have done, but as a Govt. prosecutor, an attorney
general or whatever his legal
names. And now behold the results. It is disgusting,
SICKENING to see how he
played into the hands of the padris and the padris in
his. Oh for my prophetic
soul! I did foresee all this, in
Enough. It is all dead and gone. Consummatum est.
Here
I am. Where I shall go next, I know no more than the man in the moon. The only
friend I have in life and death is poor little exiled Bowajee D. Nath in
—•— 101
THE KARMA OF
AN OCCULYIST —•—
thing too strange for me to comprehend; but Their
ways are and always have
been—incomprehensible. What good am I now for the
Cause? Besmeared with mud, spat upon, doubted and suspected by the whole
creation except a few—would I not do more good to the T.S. by dying than by
living? Their will be done not mine.
Yours in life and always,
H. P. B.
LETTER
No. XLV
July 23rd.
MY
DEAR MRS. SINNETT,
Do
not tremble at the sight of this table-cloth. Lately my sight has become very
weak and my hand so unsteady that I fancy somehow I
can write more easily on
large paper.
I
hope you will forgive me for delaying my answer for more than a week; but I
had work to finish for the papers, and had to do it
for vile cash and lucre, as
the burden of poor Mary Flynn and Babajee is now
upon me also, and I have to
work for my living, or rather for ours. And I write
so slow now! One hour pen in
hand, two hours in bed, my sight getting dim, heart
faint (physically) and
fingers stiff. Ah, well, it’s my Karma; and I have
nothing to say. No dear, I
have not—speaking of Karma—seen your husband’s new
book, I see nothing
now-a-days, but I asked Bowajee to send for it to
I
was rather astonished to hear you say my letter made such an impression on
yourself and your uncle, and I was agreeably
surprised too; still it was real
surprise; for, though I do not remember a word I
said in it, still I could not
have written to you anything more or less than what
I had written dozens of
times to others, and said in so many words—a hundred.
But what you say, only
made me sadder. Do not fight for me, my kind, dear
Mrs. Sinnett, do not defend
me; you will lose your time and only be called a
confederate, if not worse. You
would hurt yourself, perhaps the Cause, and do me no
good. The mud has entered too deeply into the hapless individual known as H. P.
B., the chemicals used for the dye of slander were, or rather are, too strong,
and death herself, I am afraid, shall never wash away in the eyes of those who
do not know me, the dirt that has been thrown at, and has stuck on the
personality of the “dear old
lady.” Ah, yes; the “old lady” is a clean thing to
look at now; an honour to her
friends, and an ornament to the Society, if
anything. Alone the “Occult World”
has the key to the situation and the truth.
—•— 102 THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
But
the Occult World is at a discount now, even at the Headquarters. The poor
Colonel
has it securely locked up for the present under a triple key, at the
very bottom of his poor, weak heart, and dares not
for the time being, have it
on his tongue. A reaction,
and an exaggeration with him, as usual. He has
stuffed the S.P.R. with what could not but
appear to the majority cock and bull
stories, and had fights with me for asking him
not to take them as arbiters, not
to have anything to do with the Dons; and now when
their arbitration had such a
glorious end for us, he got frightened out of his
wits and has become a Brahmin,
a regular Subba Row for secrecy. He forgets the
“they who shall deny me before men, I shall deny them before my (Tibetan)
father.” He does not deny the
Masters,
of course, but he is mortally afraid to pronounce even their names,
except in strict privacy. Ah! If he had but half that
reticence and discretion,
when he thrust the Lord Buddha on His wheels, before
the intuitional gathering
at the Psychic Research Meeting! But it is too
late. Consummatum est.
Well,
really and indeed I would not have cared one brass pin for my personal
reputation, only that every bullet of mud shot at,
and passing through me,
splatters the unfortunate T. S. with odoriferous
ingredients.
You
“cannot imagine how anyone knowing you (me) can believe you (me)
guilty”—guilty of the asinine actions charged upon me?
Nor could I—six months ago, but now I can. When was truth accepted and
remembered, or lies and slander fail to be accepted
and treasured in people’s brains? The world is divided into the millions who do
not know me, who have never seen or heard me, but who have heard of me; and
what they did hear, even in the palmy days of Theosophy, when it was nearly
becoming a fashion, could never prepossess them in my favour; and among those
millions—a few hundreds—say thousands—who have seen me personally,
i.e. the very rough personality in her “black bag,”
and of unrefined talk. Those
who do know me and have had a glimpse of the inner
creature—are a few dozens.
But
if you divide these into those who do believe, but are afraid of losing
caste; those who know but whose interest it is to
appear uncertain; and again
those whom our phenomena kicked out of saddle—like
the spiritualists—and broke the head of their own hobbies—what remains? A dozen
or two of individuals who like yourself have the COURAGE of being honest with
themselves and the still greater one of showing they do have it, under the nose
and in the face of the idiots and the selfish of the age! Of course, you all
who believe in, and respect the Masters cannot without losing every belief in Them, think me guilty.
Those
who feel no discrepancy
—•—
103 H. P. B.’S MARTYRDOM —•—
in the idea (Hume was one of such) of filthy lying
and fraud even for the good
of the cause—being associated with work done for
the Masters—are congenital
Jesuits. One capable of believing that such pure
and holy hands can touch and
handle with no sense of squeamishness such a filthy
instrument, as I am now
represented to be—are natural born fools, or capable
themselves of working on
the principle that “the end justifies the means.”
Therefore, while thanking you,
and appreciating fully the great kindness of your
heart that dictated you such
words as—“were I convinced tomorrow that you had
written those wretched letters I should love you still”—I answer—I hope you
would not, and this for your own sake. Had I written even one of those idiotic
and at bottom infamous
interpolations now made to appear in
the said letters; had I been guilty once
only—of a deliberate, purposely concocted fraud,
especially when those deceived were my best, my truest friends—no “love” for
such one as I! At best—pity or eternal contempt. Pity,
if proved that I was an irresponsible lunatic, a hallucinated medium made to
trick by my “guides” whom I was representing as Mahatmas; contempt—if a
conscious fraud—but then where would be the Masters? Ah! dear
child of my old heart, I was, I really was guilty, of but one crime from the
natural standpoint of human conception. Many are the things I have been obliged
to conceal by holding my tongue; many—though fewer—those I have allowed to go
uncorrected before the world’s criterion and the belief of my friends; but
these were no phenomena of ours, but only the mistakes and hallucinations, the
exaggerations of other people, quite sincere too. And if I did so it was only
because I was ever afraid of injuring the Cause; and that had I “revised and
corrected” those first editions, I might have been called to task to explain
the remainder, which I could never do, without betraying things I was not
permitted to divulge. Never, never, shall you, or even could you, realise with
all your earnestness and sympathy for me, and your natural keen perceptions—all
I had to suffer for the last ten years! What could people know of me? The
exterior carcase fattened on the life-blood of the interior wretched prisoner,
and people perceived only the first, never suspecting the existence of the
latter. And that “first” was charged with ambition, love of cheap fame,
mercenary objects; with fraud and deceit, cunning and unscrupulousness, lying
and cheating—by the average outsider; with insincerity and untruthfulness,
suspected even of passing off deliberately bogus phenomena—by my best, my
dearest friends. Bound up, as I was, from head to foot by my pledge, an oath
involving my future life—aye, even lives—what could I do since I was forbidden
to explain all, but insist on the truth of the little
—•—
104 THE LETTERS OF H. P. BLAVATSKY —•—
I
was permitted to give out, and deny simply the unfair charges? But as I hope
redress in my future existence, when this
terrible period of Karma wans away; as
I
venerate the Masters, and worship MY MASTER—the sole creator of my inner Self
which but for His calling it out, awakening it from its slumber, would have
never come to conscious being—not in this life, at all events; as I value all
this—I swear I never was guilty of any dishonest
action. I may have appeared
often heartless for allowing occasionally people to
sacrifice themselves as I
did, while knowing they had none of my chances, in
this life of theirs, to
progress very far; but then, it was for their
good, not mine. Whether they
progressed or not, reward for the good intention
was stored for them by their
Karma;
while, in my case, the more I progressed in occult matters, the less I
had any chances of happiness in this life, for it
became more and more my duty
to sacrifice myself for the good of others and to
my own personal detriment.
Such
is the law. Ah, if they only knew, some of my “friends,” who, if they do
not go publicly against me, still entertain very
serious doubts as to my
honesty—if they only knew now what they are sure
to learn some day—when I am dead and gone, with my memory soiled from head to
foot—the real good I have done to them! I do not pretend to say, that I have
done so for their own sake; for generally I was not even thinking of their
personal selves. But since, they have happened to come within the circle where
the poor old pelican’s blood was being shed, and had their share of its
fruition, why should some of them prove so cruel, if not ungrateful!
My
dearest Mrs. Sinnett—my heart is broken—physically and morally. For the first I
do not care; Master shall take care it shall not burst, so long as I am
needed; in the second case there is no help. Master
can, and shall not interfere
with Karma. My heart is broken not for what my true,
open enemies have
done—them, I despise; but for the selfishness, the
weak-heartedness in my
defence, the readiness shown to accept and even
to force me to all manner of
sacrifices—when Masters are my witnesses, I was
ready to shed the last drop of
life in me, give up every hope, for the last shred
of—I shall not say
happiness—but rest and comfort in this life of
torture, for the cause I serve
and [as] for every true Theosophist. The
treachery—that atmosphere of soft and
sympathetic words, expressive of the utmost
selfishness at the bottom of them,
whether due to weakness, or ambition—was
something terrible. I shall not mention names. With some, with most of them, I
shall remain on good terms to my dying day. Nor shall I allow them to suspect I
read through them from the first. But I shall never—nor could I if I would,
forget that for-
—•—
105 AN HOUR
OF REVELATION —•—
ever-memorable night during the crisis
of my illness, when Master, before
exacting from me a certain promise, revealed to
me things that He thought I
ought to know, before pledging my word to Him for the
work He asked me (not
ordered as He had a right to) to do. On that night when Mrs. Oakley and Hartman and everyone except
Bowajee (D. N.), expected me every minute to breathe my last—I learned all.
I was shown who was right and who wrong (unwittingly) and who was entirely
treacherous; and a general sketch of what I had to expect outlined before me.
Ah, I tell you, I have learnt things on that night—things that stamped
themselves for-ever on my Soul; black treachery, assumed friendship for selfish
ends, belief in my guilt, and yet a determination to lie in my defence, since I
was a convenient step to rise upon, and what not! Human nature I saw in all its
hideousness in that short hour, when I felt one of Master’s hands upon my
heart, forbidding it cease beating, and saw the other calling out sweet future
before me. With all that, when He had shown me all, all, and asked
“Are
you willing?”—I said “Yes,” and thus signed my wretched doom, for the sake of
the few who were entitled to His thanks. Shall you believe me if I say, that
among those few your two names stood prominent? You may disbelieve, or perhaps
doubt—yet it was so. Death was so welcome at that hour, rest so needed, so
desired; life like the one that stared me in the face, and that is realised
now—so miserable; yet how could I say No to Him who
wanted me to live! But all this is perhaps incomprehensible to you, though I do
hope it is not quite so. I
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . him, and
I have already . . . .
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
not want to live in any of the large centres of