Theosophical Society,
H P Blavatsky
The Masters as Ideals and Facts
By
Annie Besant
A Lecture delivered in 1895 in London
Annie
Besant
THE
TESTIMONY OF RELIGIONS
“The
Masters, as Facts and Ideals” - I have taken the double title, for there
are
some who know Them not as facts, to whom yet the ideal is valuable,
precious,
and inspiring. Not every member of the Theosophical Society believes
in
the existence of Mahatmas. There are many within the limits of the Society
who
have no knowledge and no belief upon the subject; and it is the rule of our
Society
that no declaration of faith shall be asked from anyone who enters, save
in
the Brotherhood of man, without the distinctions that on the surface are set
up.
So that within the limits of the Society you may have alike believer and
non-believer
in the present existence or the past existence of these great
Teachers.
But I, who believe in them, and know them to exist, speak here not in
the
name of the Society which has no creed, but in my own and in the name of
others
who share this belief or this knowledge with myself; and before you I am
going
to place what I believe to be rational evidence worthy of consideration -
evidence that you can think over at leisure and make up your minds upon as you
will; and I speak also for the sake of the ideal, for the ideals of the race are
precious, and cannot lightly be either outraged or denied. For great is this
ideal of the Mahatma, despite the idle laughter that has been used - for the
name is merely the Sanskrit for Great Spirit.
There
is not one great religion that has raised and elevated the minds of men,
there
is not one mighty faith that has led millions to a knowledge of the spiritual
life and the possibilities of human growth, there is not one that has not
founded that belief on a Divine Man, there is not one that does not look back,
as its Founder, to one of these mighty Souls who have brought knowledge of
spiritual truth to the world. Look back to the past as you will, take what
faith you choose. Every one of them is founded on this same ideal, and looks
backward for its Teacher to a Man who is divine in his life. Around this ideal
gather all the hopes of men, around this ideal gather the future destinies of
humanity. For unless man be a spiritual Being, unless he has within himself the
possibility of spiritual unfoldment, unless there be some evidence available
that men have become perfect, that it is not only a dream of the future; but a
reality which the race has already realized, unless it be True that for you and
for me there are open the same mighty possibilities that have been proved
possible in the past by those who have achieved, then the hopes of men rest on
no foundation, the longings of men after perfection have in them no certainty
of realisation, humanity remains but the thing of a day, instead of being heir
to a boundless immortality. That man may become divine, that is an idea which
has inspired the greatest of our race, which has cheered the miserable in their
agony, and has glorified the future with hope. That is why I defend the ideal.
For
who is the Mahatma? He is the man who has become perfect, he is the man who has
reached union with the Divine, he is the man who by slow degrees has
developed
the possibilities of the spiritual nature, and stands triumphant where
we
are struggling today. Every religion has borne witness to him. Every religion
of
the world looks back to a Divine Teacher. You may have the name of Zoroaster in
A
THEORY
What
shall be the line of our evidence? I first suggest a probable theory on
the
lines of natural evolution. Then I propose to turn to the evidence for the
existence
of these perfected Divine Men in the past; to come on from that to the
evidence
for their existence in the present; then - because without this last part the lecture
would remain unpractical for us - then to show how it is possible for men to
become perfect, a slight sketch at least of the methods by which the Divine Man
becomes.
First,
then, for the theory that the existence of Masters is in itself probable and in
accordance with the analogy of nature as we see it around us, as we know it in
the past. Few today, probably, will dispute the fact of evolution. Few will
deny that our race progresses, and that cycle after cycle you will find nations
advancing
and reaching higher and higher pinnacles of knowledge, higher and higher
pinnacles in growth and in development. Theoretically there is nothing
impossible or absurd in the theory that taking into consideration the vast
periods of time which have elapsed since man first trod this earth; taking into
consideration
the enormous differences between primitive and highly developed man, and the
vast spaces of time for evolution that lie behind us in the past, it is not, at
least, irrational or absurd that evolution may have been carried to a point in
the case of some individuals much above the evolution of the civilized man of
today.
Nor
is that all. It is not only that we have enormous ranges of time behind
us,
but that there are traces of mighty civilizations which show that the race
had
climbed high in knowledge, high in philosophy, high in science and in
religion,
thousands upon thousands of years, nay! I might say centuries of
thousands
of years ago. For looking backwards you see traces of mighty
civilizations
which imply the presence of men of a most advanced type, and it is
scarcely
rational to suppose that the so much talked-of evolution has
been
nothing more than a mere ebb and flow, leaving nothing as result, nothing
more
than successive periods of high civilization and then of utter barbarism,
and
civilization again re-begun with no links to preserve continuity of
knowledge.
It is not at least impossible, and in a moment we shall see signs
that
it is probable, that out of that mighty past some will have grown upwards,
advancing
higher and higher and perfecting the human race in individuals, as
slowly
all will in turn become perfect. Not impossible, not even improbable,
remembering
that progress is the law of nature, and the vast spaces of time
during
which humanity has lived.
HISTORICAL
EVIDENCE
But
from that mere possibility, which I take because it is well to clear out
of
the way at the outset the idea that the theory is in itself impossible and
absurd,
let us take historical evidence and see whether history does not, from
time
to time, show some gigantic human figures which stand out above and beyond the
men of their time and the ordinary height of humanity; whether there is not
evidence which cannot be denied that such Men are not merely the products of
popular imagination, that they are not merely men of the past, exaggerated by
popular
tradition and seen magnified, as it were, through the haze of centuries. I speak
of those Great Ones to whom I alluded who have been the Founders of the great
religions of the world.
It
is not only that there is unbroken tradition, and that the religions remain
which
these Men builded, but there is more than tradition, there is more than a
religion
which has grown; there is a literature, marked, definite, distinct, whose
antiquity no scholar denies, although some may claim for it a vaster antiquity
than others may be ready to concede. Take the latter dates that would be given
by the Orientalists who have studied the literature of
Who
wrote those works, and whence the knowledge? That they exist is obvious.
That
they must have authors can scarcely be denied. And yet those works from a
far-off antiquity show a depth of spiritual knowledge, a depth of philosophic
thought,
a depth of insight into human nature, and a depth of moral teaching so
magnificent,
that the greatest minds of our own day, both in morals and in
philosophy,
must admit that the modern world can show nothing which even
approaches
them in sublimity.
It
is not a question of tradition, but of books; not a question of theory, but
of
fact; for if the books are so great, the morality so pure, the philosophy so
sublime,
and the knowledge so vast, their authors must have had the knowledge
which
therein you find incorporated. And the testimony of millions upon millions
of
human beings answers to the reality of the spiritual truth, and nations are
guided
by the teachings that thus have come down. Nor is that all. These
teachings
are similar wherever you find them. The same teaching of the unity of
the
Divine Life out of which the universe has grown; the same teaching of the
identity
of the Spirit in man with the Spirit from which the universe has come;
the
same teaching that man by certain methods may develop the spiritual Life in
himself
and come into positive knowledge of divinity, and not only hope and
faith.
So
that you have, coming down from far-off times, at least this fact which
cannot
be denied: that some Men lived in the far-off past whose thought was
great
enough, whose morality was pure enough, whose philosophy was sublime
enough,
to outlast the wrecks of civilization and the destructive force of time.
Today
Orientalists are translating for the teaching of the modern world that
which
mighty Men of old once taught, and find the grandest thoughts to which the
human race has given birth in these Scriptures that have come down from the
most ancient times.
That
some then have lived far greater than ourselves, that some have lived whose
knowledge goes far beyond the knowledge that we possess, that we still learn in
philosophy and in spiritual matters from these Teachers who spoke millenniums
ago; that is a fact that cannot be denied. That there have been Divine Men in
the past that we speak of as Mahatmas, that they have left the testimony to
their existence in this mighty and sublime literature, that is the first line
of argument - the establishment of the existence in the past, the proof that
such Men have lived and have taught, and that by their teaching they have
guided and helped millions of the human race. That their teaching has been
identical in its main outlines, that their teaching is identical in its moral
force, that the spiritual truths enunciated unchanged have come down through
the centuries: so far, at least, can we speak with certainty, the ground so far
is solid beneath our feet.
The
statements in this literature appeal to human experience. They not only
say
that certain things are, but they say these things can be known. They not
only
declare the reality of the soul, but they say that that reality can be proved;
so that the teaching stands in this position, that it announces certain alleged
facts which remain verifiable for all time, thereby affording a continually
accumulating proof of the reality of the knowledge of those who first gave the
statements to the world.
FIRST-HAND
EXPERIENCE
Pass
from that to the next point in the argument - that these statements have
been
verified by experience and are being verified today. Take, for
instance,
such a land as
tradition
which comes down to the present time, a tradition that there always
have
been Teachers who may be found, Teachers who possess the knowledge which is
hinted at in the books of which I speak, who can add the practical teaching to
the theoretical statement, and enable people to verify by experiment that which
is said to be true in the literature to which I have alluded.
Ask
any Indian of today what is his belief on this question, and he will tell you,
if he has not been Westernized, and you can gain his confidence, that always in
his land there has remained the belief that these Men have existed in the past
and have not passed out of existence in the present; that they have more and
more withdrawn from the ordinary haunts of men, that they have become more and
more difficult to discover as materiality has made its way and spirituality has
diminished; but that still they can occasionally be found, that still the first
steps of the Path are open.
And
not only is there that belief, but you will find scattered throughout
India
many, many men who, while they have not reached the point of Mahatmaship, have
taken certain steps above the physical plane, and have developed in themselves
powers and capacities which the ordinary Westerner would look on as absolutely
impossible of attainment. I do not now speak of the Mahatmas, but of the hundreds
of so-called yogis scattered through the jungles and the mountains of India,
some of whom habitually exercise remarkable powers - powers which here would
seem incredible, but of which there is ever-accumulating testimony coming from
the mouths of travellers who collect and who record the facts with which they
themselves have come in contact. For the earlier stages of the development of
the inner man are not so difficult of attainment, and in a country like India,
where there is not the difficulty of scepticism to overcome, because there the
belief has existed for thousands of years, you will find many a man who
exercises the lower psychical powers, and a few who have gone far beyond that
stage and exercise either the higher psychic faculties or the really spiritual
powers of man.
And
you can find some who have personal experience, some who have individual
knowledge of Teachers, of Masters, who train their pupils in the higher path of
what is called the Raja, or the Kingly Yoga, that is the Yoga which primarily
trains the mind rather than the body, which works by concentration of the mind,
by meditation and by the evolution of the higher mental faculties, on which
there is so much discussion here, and who by a definite system of training are
able to consciously use powers of the mind which enable the possessor to pass
beyond physical limitations, and passing out of the body to receive instruction
which he is able then to bring back to the lower consciousness and impress on
the physical brain, proving by his knowledge the reality of his teaching, and
proving the existence of his Master by his knowledge which from him he has
obtained.
That
then would be the next line of evidence available. Not available, you may
fairly
retort, to the majority. But then you are surely bound to remember, as
reasonable
men and women, that if you desire knowledge you must seek it where
the
knowledge is to be found, and that it is as absurd for a number of men, who
have
never investigated, who have never even tried to investigate, who have
never
travelled, to write on that of which they have no knowledge, as it would
be
for some simple Indian, who has never had she slightest experience of Western
experiments, say in the Royal Institution, to sit down and declare that those
are absolutely impossible and ludicrous, because he himself has not travelled
here and has not had the opportunity of seeing them performed. You must deal
with evidence on rational lines; and if you cannot yourselves come into contact
with certain facts, with certain phases of human life, you must either remain
ignorant - and then you should be silent - or you should take the testimony of
those who have carefully investigated, and have laid the result of their
investigations before you.
HOW
CAN WE FIND THE MASTERS?
And
that leads me to my next line of argument. Suppose such Men existed in the
past,
suppose we admit, as every religion admits for its own Founder
though
it may deny as to the Founders of other religions - suppose we admit that
in
the past Divine Men have lived, suppose that, believing in the immortality of
the
Spirit, we admit that they must still exist somewhere if they ever existed
at
all; then the next question will be: Do these Men of the past exist in the
present?
Can they be reached? Can they be known? And are there others who have reached a
similar point, whose existence may be supported by evidence which at least is
worthy of consideration? Do they still exist?
Here
I am going into a line of thought which I should adopt if I were trying
to
prove to you the existence of any person living in a country which you had
not
visited, living under conditions which you had not yourself experienced.
That
it can be absolutely demonstrated in every case I admit to be impossible. I
cannot
demonstrate to you, for instance, the existence of Count Tolstoi. [Spoken in
1895] If you do not travel to
and
you do not happen to meet him, I cannot show you as an absolute matter of
demonstration that he exists. But I could bring evidence that would convince
any reasonable man; I could show evidence which would be admitted in any Court
of Law; I could show you that there is no reason for denying his existence
merely because you have not personally met him, and therefore obtained what you
would call ocular proof of his existence.
H.
P. BLAVATSKY
Now
what is the proof for the existence of Divine of Perfect Men living at the
present
time, reachable under certain conditions? What evidence can I submit to
you
for that? There are many of you probably who will object to my first
witness;
but not for the objection am I going to hold back her name - I speak of
H.
P. Blavatsky. I know the attacks that from every side have been made upon
her.
In face of those, having read, and read them carefully, I say that there
remains
enough evidence coming through her, untouched by those attacks,
sufficient
to put before you for your consideration, and sufficient to win the
assent
of rational men. Take if you will, for a moment - though I should deny it
-
take if you will some of the worst of those charges - that she had no contact
with
the Mahatmas at all, that she invented them, that they did not exist
outside
her imagination, and that everything she said was falsehood, everything
that
she said and did was intended to mislead. Still you have to deal with the
facts
of her life, and with the facts of her books.
“THE
SECRET DOCTRINE”
You
have to deal with the book known as The Secret Doctrine, and if you want
to
understand that you must read it before you waive it aside, and study it
before
you laugh at it. Madame Blavatsky has been accused of plagiarism, that she borrowed
here, there and everywhere from other books. But what you have to consider is
this: that she never claimed that she discovered the knowledge she gave to the
world; that her contention is that this knowledge comes down from a far-off
past, is found in every Scripture, in every philosophy; and the very purpose of
that book is to quote from every direction, from the Scriptures of every
religion, from the writings of every people, in order to show the identity of
the teaching and to prove the antiquity of the doctrine.
What
is new in the book is not facts that therein you find. What is new in the
book
is not what has been found by Orientalists, and may be pointed to in one or
another sacred book of the world. What is new is the knowledge which enabled
her to select from the whole of these the facts which build up a single, mighty
conception of the evolution of the universe, the evolution of man, the coherent
synthesis of the whole cosmogony. And that is her title to be the greatest
teacher of our time, because she had real knowledge, not mere book-learning,
knowledge which enabled her to collect from scattered books the truths which,
fitted together, made one mighty whole; because she held the clue which she was
able to follow with unerring accuracy through the maze, and show that all the
scattered materials contained within them the possibility of the single
building.
And her work is the more wonderful because she did it not being a
scholar;
because she did it not having had the education which would have enabled her to
some extent to piece this knowledge together; because she did what no
Orientalists have done with all their learning; what not all the
Orientalists
together have done with all the help of their knowledge of Eastern tongues and
their study of Eastern literature. There is not one of them who out of that
tangled mass brought out that mighty synthesis; not one of them who out of that
chaos was able to build up a cosmos. But this Russian woman who was no scholar,
and pretended to be none, somewhere or other she gained a knowledge
that
enabled her to do what none of your scholars can do, somewhere or other she had
a teaching which enabled her to reduce this chaos to order, and to bring out a
mighty scheme of evolution which makes us understand the universe and man. She
said it was not hers, she never claimed to have originated it; she was always
speaking of her own want of knowledge and referring to those who taught her.
But
the fact you have to meet is this - the knowledge is there, and stands there
for criticism. Not one other person has done it, although the same materials
that she used are open to the whole of the world. And my answer is: Give us
then some others who can do as she did. Let us have some more of this
plagiarism which is able to gather from so many sources everything that is
necessary fur a mighty philosophy. Let your scholars do it, and help us to
understand, as she helps us to understand, the religions of the world. Let them
show us the identity, let them show us the reality, and then we may begin
perhaps to revise our opinion of her; but until that is done her claim remains
unshaken even though you should prove that she may have erred in much, and even
although stones may be thrown at her by those who can never rival her in
unselfishness, in self-sacrifice and in knowledge.
The
reason that you cannot shake us in our belief in this is because she
helped
us to knowledge, because we gained from her teaching that which none
other
gave, because she opened up to us ways of gaining further knowledge along the
same lines, and from the same Teachers who had taught her. That is why we
remain such fools as people think us, in clinging to her and clinging to her
memory, for we owe her a debt of gratitude that we never shall be able to pay,
and never shall stone be cast upon her grave which I will not try to lift off
it,
for the sake of the knowledge to which she led me, and the priceless
benefits
that she gave me in the teaching which she began.
Now
the evidence that I ask you to take from her is not the evidence of
phenomena.
I put that on one side. It is not the evidence of scholarship. She
had
none, she never pretended to it. It is not the question as to whether or not
her
life from her childhood was perfect. It is that she had certain definite
knowledge
acquired somehow, which cannot be accounted for by ordinary education, which
she obtained in a comparatively short space of time, which astonished her own
family and friends when first she produced it, and which she said she got from
certain Teachers the important fact being that she possessed
it,
however it may have come into her possession.
That
is the evidence that I want to lay stress upon, because that is the point
which
cannot be shaken, and it removes her testimony for the moment from the
whole
question of fraud of any sort; it remains above it and beyond it. There
remains
the fact of this knowledge embodied in The Secret Doctrine, which stands there
as a witness to her, and which I venture to say cannot be overthrown; and the
more you degrade her, the less you make of her, the more you prove the
existence of and exalt the Great Ones who worked through her, and gave her what
she produced.
“THE
VOICE OF THE SILENCE”
Now,
there is another point about another book of hers which is to me of
special
interest, a book that you may know, The Voice of the Silence: that book
happened
to be written while I was with her at
book,
and in what I am going to say I speak only of the book itself: I am not
speaking
of the notes; those were done afterwards. The book itself is what may
be
called a prose poem in three divisions. She wrote it at Fontainebleau, and
the
greater part was done when I was with her, and I sat in the room while she
was
writing it. I know that she did not write it referring to any books, but she
wrote
it down steadily, hour after hour, exactly as though she were writing
either
from memory or from reading it where no book was. She produced,
in
the evening, that manuscript that I saw her write as I sat with her, and
asked
myself and others to correct it for English, for she said that she had
written
it so quickly that it was sure to be bad. We did not alter in that more
than
a few words, and it remains as a specimen of marvellously beautiful
literary
work, putting everything else aside.
The
book is, as I said, a prose poem, full of spiritual inspiration, full of
food
for the heart; stimulating the loftiest virtue and containing the noblest
ideals.
It is not a hotch-potch drawn from various sources, but a coherent,ethical
whole. It moves us, not by a statement of facts gathered from books, but by an
appeal to the divinest instincts of our nature: it is its own best testimony to
the source whence it came.
PERSONAL
KNOWLEDGE
Pass
now from Madame Blavatsky herself to those she taught. Mr. A. P. Sinnett
is
one of them. Many others are living, here and elsewhere, whom she taught at
first,
and who have passed from her training into and under the training of her
Teachers.
And here you have an accumulating testimony of men and women who, of their own
authority, by first-hand evidence, out of their own experience,
testify
to the reality of the existence of these Teachers, and to their own
personal
knowledge of them, and of the teaching which they have personally
received
from them.
Mr.
Sinnett has alluded to evidence extending in his own case over fifteen
years.
Many others have done the same, like Countess Wachtmeister, like Colonel
Olcott, like others who have given their own individual testimony. Are you
going to say that all these people are frauds? With what right do you so
condemn them?
Are
you going to say that they are all fools? But they are men and women living
the
ordinary life, men and women who amongst those who know them stand as
persons
of education, of intelligence, showing the ordinary powers of
discrimination
and of knowledge that others possess. Are you going to say that
we
are all mad? That is rather a rash assertion to make against constantly
growing
numbers of apparently reasonable men and women. What other sort of
evidence
can you demand for the existence of anyone save the evidence of those
who
know him, of persons of integrity and of honour who are living amongst
yourselves?
We bear to these our personal testimony, not founded on
documents,
not founded on writings, not founded simply on letters, and so on, on which
there is always the possibility of deception arising, but on individual
communion
with individual Teachers, and teaching received which otherwise we
could
not have gained. That is the kind of evidence you have to deal with; and
no
case of proving fraud against one or two or three people will upset the
accumulating
testimony of reasonable men and women, who are coming into
connection
with those Teachers, and who bear testimony to what they themselves know. That
is the kind of evidence that you have to meet, that the
kind
of testimony that you have to overthrow. And however much you may be amused at
smart and clever writing, which takes advantage of the deception practised by
one in order to discredit the whole, you can no more discredit this mass of
testimony by proving one man to be fraudulent, than you can challenge, say, the
reality of real coin because a forger may circulate some false coin in a
community,
and people may pass the coin for the moment, and may be deceived into believing
that it is real.
But
you may say: We want first-hand evidence for ourselves. You can have it;
but
you must take the way. You can have the evidence amounting to demonstration for
yourselves if you choose to take the trouble, if you choose to give the time.
Not an unreasonable demand.
If
you want to verify for yourselves the experiments of some great chemist,
can
you do it by simply going into a laboratory and mixing together the things
that
you find there? If you want to verify some of the latest experiments in
chemical
science, do you suppose that you can do it for yourselves, without
giving
years of trouble and of study to master the science in which you want to
carry
out a critical experiment? And what would you think of the value of the
criticism
of some person absolutely ignorant of chemistry, if he said the
experiment
could not be performed, merely because he was not able to do it
without
training and without knowledge?
THE
WAY TO ADEPTSHIP
Therefore
I said that I would tell you how the Mahatma becomes. For only those
who
are willing to aim at that goal can obtain the absolute demonstration of the
existence
of those who have achieved. That is the price that has to be paid. And
without
this only probability? Yes, reasonable probability; testimony of others
which
you would accept on any other matter, on which, in a law-court, you would pass
vast sums of money, large estates, or anything else; that you can have by
simply looking into the available evidence of which I have been sketching
merely the outline. But personal demonstration? For that you must begin
yourselves to develop in the way in which their development has been made; and
in order that anyone who desires may begin to follow that line and follow it to
its natural ending, there have been published to the world the preliminary
steps upon the Path, the steps that are taken by those who attain the
knowledge, the steps that anyone may begin to take, and by which he in his turn
may acquire a certainty similar to that which some of us possess. Two little
books, especially, have been published, which trace the beginnings of the Path,
one called Light on the Path, the other, the one to which I alluded before, The
Voice of the Silence; and in addition to these there are many hints scattered
through Theosophical literature.
How
then should ordinary men and women begin? If they desire to get evidence
for
themselves as to the possibility of this development, which in the end will
make the Perfect Man - the man become Divine - the first, the early steps, are
those which every religion has taught - carefulness and unselfishness in life,
discharge of duty in whatever place in life man or woman may happen to be. To
use the phrase which is used in this book: [ The Voice of the Silence] “Follow the wheel of life; follow the wheel of
duty to race and kin”; that is a preliminary. For those who would gain
knowledge of the Soul must begin in this way, which has ever been taught by the
leaving off of evil ways, and by the following of good; by purity in life, by
service to men, by the unselfish effort, continually repeated, to be useful in
whatever place one may be in by the law of nature. The endeavor to discharge to
the fullest every obligation, the endeavour to live a life which shall leave
the world better than it was found, the endeavour to live nobly, unselfishly,
and purely - these are conditions laid down for those who would find the Path.
REINCARNATION
Here
let me say that unless reincarnation be true, then most certainly this
development
is not possible. In no one human life could that long Path be
trodden;
in no new-born Soul could be developed these divine possibilities;
unless
it be true that the Soul of man comes back life after life to earth, bringing
with it to every new life the experience of the lives behind, building up
higher and higher character life after life, then indeed the Mahatma would be
animpossibility, and the perfection of man would be but the dream of the poet.
Reincarnation is taken for granted in the whole of this teaching, as a
fundamental fact in nature, on which the perfection of the individual must
depend.
TO
LIVE NOBLY
First
then, a man through many lives must set himself to live well, to live
usefully,
to live nobly, so that he may be born time after time with higher and
higher
qualities, with nobler and nobler faculties. Next, there is a stage in
this
human evolution, marked and definite, where the Soul, having long been
struggling
upwards, raises itself a little beyond the ordinary evolution of man.
There
are men and women who are exceptionally unselfish, who show exceptional
capacities, exceptional intuitions, exceptional love for spiritual
things,
exceptional devotion to the service of mankind; when those exceptional
qualities begin to manifest themselves, then comes the time when one of the
great Teachers takes that person in hand individually, in order to guide the
further evolution and to train the evolving Soul. The earlier efforts must be
made in concert with the great spiritual forces which spread through all the
world. But when those have been utilized, when men and women have done their
best, as it were, along this line of general spiritual growth, then comes the
stage when the Teacher comes forward to guide the further evolution, and
certain definite
demands
are made, if this further evolution is to proceed.
These
are laid down in the books to which I alluded. Summed up in a phrase, or
rather
in two phrases, they might be called “the realization of non-separateness”, which
I will explain in a moment, and “rigid self-discipline”. Non-separateness on
the one side, self-discipline upon the other. Now “non-separateness” is a
technical word, which means this: that you realize that you are one
fundamentally with all that lives and breathes, that you do not separate
yourself from any living thing, that you separate yourself neither from the
sinner nor from the saint, neither from the highest nor from the lowest of
mankind. Nay, not even from the lower forms of living things, and things called
non-living, which you recognise as being one in essence, and one with your
innermost Self. How shall it be shown? It is shown by the deliberate attempt
and training to begin to identify yourself with the sufferings, with the
feelings, and with the wants of man. You are told: “Let thy soul lend its ear
to every cry of pain like as the lotus bares its heart to drink the morning
sun. Let not the fierce sun dry one tear of pain, before thyself hast wiped it
from the sufferer’s eye”.
But
that is not all. “Let each burning human tear drop on thy heart and there
remain;
nor ever brush it off, until the pain that caused it is removed.” The
Voice
of the Silence.
The
other quotations are from the same book]
There is the first note. Go out to the sufferer and relieve his pain;
but relieving his pain, let it wring your own heart, and let it remain there as
a constant suffering until the cause of that pain has been removed. That is the
first stage of non-separateness. Identify yourself with the sorrows and the
joys of the world; let the sorrow of every one be your sorrow, the pain of
every one your pain, the joy of every one your joy. Your heart must answer to
every thrill in other hearts, as the string gives back the note of music to
which it has been attuned. You must feel the pain, you must feel the agony; you
must feel the sin and the shame as your sin and your shame, and make it part of
your own consciousness, and bear it, and never try to escape therefrom. You
must train yourself in a sensitiveness which will answer to every suffering of
mankind, and you must carry that out in deed as well as in feeling; for you are
told again that “Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly
sin”.
But
you must not only realize the pain of the world and make it yours; you must be
as hard to yourself as you are tender to those around. You have no time to
spend on your own troubles, if the trouble of the world is to become yours.
You
have no strength to waste on laments over your own grief, if you are to be
identified
with the sorrows of mankind. And so it is said that you must be as
hard
as the stone of the mango-fruit to your own pains and sorrows, while soft
as
its pulp to the pains and sorrows of other men.
BROTHERHOOD
And
thus life after life you must be trained, life after life becoming more
and
more identified with all, and breaking down everything that separates man
from
man. That is why brotherhood is our only condition; because the recognition
of
that is the first step towards this realization of non-separateness, which is
necessary
if the disciple is to progress. And the definite training of the disciple is a
training which makes him sensitive to the sorrows of all, in order that,
feeling, he may be ready to help, and which trains him in this
self-identification with the whole, in order that he may at last become one of
the Saviours of the world. For as this training proceeds life after life, there
gradually develops in this human being an ever-growing sympathy, an ever-deepening
compassion, a charity which nothing can stain, and a tolerance which nothing
can shake. No injury can give offence, for the sorrow is for the one who does
the injury, and not for the blow which is struck at oneself. No anger can arise
against any wrong, for you understand why the wrong is done, and you sorrow for
the doer and have no time to waste in anger. You will not condone wrong, you
will not say that wrong is right, you will not pretend that good is evil, for
that would be the greatest cruelty and would make the progress of the race
impossible. But while recognizing the evil, there will be no anger against the
evil-doer, for he is one with your own Soul, and you recognize no separation
between yourself and him.
To
what end? Because, as this growth
proceeds, memory and knowledge will
grow;
because, as this growth proceeds, the developing life of the Spirit within
the
disciple will show itself out more and more in the walks of men, and
gradually
he will become marked out as a worker for man, a helper for man, a
toiler
for man, working for him to enlighten his ignorance, to bring him
knowledge,
and to show him the reality that underlies all the illusions in the
world.
And he must be hard to himself because he is to stand between man and
evil,
because he is to stand between his weaker brothers and the dark powers
that
otherwise might crush them.
The
illustrations given here of what the disciple must be are that he is to be
like
a star which gives light to all, but takes from none; that he is to be like the
snow which takes on itself the frost and the biting winds, in order that the
seeds below may sleep uninjured by the cold, and have the possibility of growth
when the season for growth shall come. There is the training to which submission
is demanded by these Divine Teachers; there what they claim from men who desire
to be disciples. Not accomplishment at first, but endeavour; not perfection at
first, but effort; not certainly the showing out of the ideal, but the striving
after it amid whatever failure and amid whatever error. And I ask you if those
of us who realise this as ideal, and who know that this is the demand which our
Teachers make upon us, is it likely that we should act for the injury of
society, or be anything save the servants of men in obedience to those whose
law we strive to obey?
And
then, as I said, life after life these qualities develop, until there comes at
last a time when the weaknesses of men have fallen away, when the frailties of
human nature have gradually been overcome, when a compassion that nothing can
shake, a purity that nothing can soil, a knowledge mighty in this scope, and a
spirituality that makes itself felt - when these are the qualities that mark
the disciple who is nearing the threshold of liberation; until the day dawns
when the treading of this Path is finished, the time comes when the disciple’s
course is over, and the last possibility of the Perfect Man opens before his
eyes. Then for a while the earth, as it were, drops into the background; he stands
- the liberated Soul as he is called, the Soul that has now his freedom, the
Soul that has conquered human limitations - he stands on the threshold of
Nirvana, of that perfect consciousness and bliss which go beyond possibility of
human thought, which go beyond possibility of our limited
consciousness.
And as he stands there it has been said that there is silence; silence in
Nature, one of whose children is rising beyond her, silence which nothing for a
time may break, when the liberated Soul has accomplished his freedom. Silence -
and it is broken by a voice; it is a voice that unites into one mighty cry the
whole of the misery of the world which has been left behind.
A
cry from the world in its darkness, in its misery, in its spiritual starvation,
in its moral degradation. And in that silence surrounding the liberated Soul,
the cry that comes across is the cry of misery from the human race to the Soul
that has gone beyond his brothers, to the Soul that is free while they are left
in chains.
THE
SENSE OF UNITY
How
shall he go further? Life after life he has learned to identify himself with
man; life after life he has learned to answer to every cry of pain. Can he go
onward freed, and leave others in chains? Can he go onward into bliss, and
leave
the world in sorrow? He whom we call the Mahatma is the liberated Soul who has
the right to go onward but for Love’s sake turns back, who brings his
knowledge
to the helping of ignorance, brings his purity to the cleansing of
foulness,
brings his light to the chasing away of darkness, and takes up again
the
burden of the flesh till all the race of men shall be free with him, and he
shall
go onward not alone, but as father of a mighty family, bringing humanity
with
him to share the common goal and the common bliss in Nirvana.
That
is the Mahatma. Life after life of effort crowned with supreme renunciation;
perfection gained by struggle and by toil, and then brought back to help others
till they stand where he is standing. Every Soul that stretches out its hands,
his hand is ready to help. Of every brother that asks for guidance, his heart
answers to the cry; and they stand there waiting until we are willing to be
taught, and give them the opportunity which they have renounced Nirvana to
secure.
A
SUBLIME IDEAL
Is
that an ideal for scoffing, for laughter, for idle ridicule? If it be only a
dream, it is the noblest dream that humanity has ever dreamed; the fullest of
self-sacrifice, and the most inspiring of ideals. To some a fact - a fact more real
than life. But to those to whom it is no fact it might be an ideal; an ideal of
self-sacrifice, of knowledge, and of love. That such Men are, some of us know.
But even if you believe not in them, there is nothing in the ideal that is not
noble, and by thinking of which you may not grow higher and higher towards the
light.
The
Christian has the same ideal in his Christ; the Buddhist has the same
ideal
in his Buddha. Every faith has the same ideal in the Man whom it regards
as
Divine. And we stand as witness to all religions that their faith is real and
not
false; their Teachers a reality, and not a dream; for the Teacher is the
realization
of the promise in the disciple, the realization of the ideal that we
adore.
And so to some of us these Divine Teachers, whom we know to live, are a daily
inspiration. We can only come in contact with them as we strive to purify
ourselves.
We can only learn more as we practise what already they have taught.
And
if I have spoken at first of a theory, then of the historical past, then of the
witness that we bear you in the present, and lastly of the steps that all may
take if they will, it is because I want to lift the ideal out of all the
ridicule that has been heaped upon it, away from all the mud that has been cast
upon it, out of the jar and the strife which has been made to surround it.
Blame
us as you will, but leave that noble ideal of human perfection untouched. Laugh
at us as you will, but do not laugh at the Perfect Man, the man made God, in
whom, after all, most of you believe. Do riot, you who are Christians, be false
to your own religion, and leave your Christ only as a matter of faith and not
of living reality, as many of you know that he is today. And remember that
whatever the name; the ideal is the same, whatever the title, the thought that
underlies it is identical.
And
as you think, you develop; as is your ideal, so gradually your lives will
become.
For there is this transforming power in thought, that if your ideals are
paltry
your lives will be paltry; if your ideals are material your lives will be
material.
Take then this ideal and think of it, and your lives will become
penetrated
by its purity; you will become the nobler men and the nobler women,
because
it forms a subject of your thought, and the thought transforms you into
its
own likeness. It is true that men become like that they worship; it is true
that men become like that on which they think. And this ideal of the Perfect
Man
has
in it the hope for the future of the race. Therefore I plead for it to you
today, and I point you to the Path by which from an ideal it may become a
living reality, turning from a hope into a living Teacher, and from a lofty
ideal for aspiration into the Friend and the Master to whom you may give your life.
THE
ADEPTS
WHO
IS THE MASTER?
AMONG
the many questions to which Theosophy gives rise, none perhaps awakens more
interest and arouses more enquiry than that of the Masters. What is indicated
by the term? Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do? These, and many
other questions, are constantly heard. Let me try to throw a little light on
these questions, to answer them, at least, partially.
A
Master is a term applied to denote certain human beings, who have completed
their
human evolution, have attained human perfection, have nothing more to
learn
so far as our part of the solar system is concerned, have reached what the
Christians
call “Salvation”, and the Hindus and Buddhists “Liberation”. When the Christian
Church still kept “the faith once delivered to the Saints” in its
fulness,
salvation meant much more than escape from everlasting damnation. It
meant
the release from compulsory reincarnation, safety from all possibility of
failure
in evolution. “To him that overcometh” was the promise that he should be “a pillar in the
that
had overcome was “saved”.
The
conception of evolution, which implies a gradual expansion of
consciousness,
embodied in ever-improving material forms, underlies the
conception
of Masterhood. The perfection it connotes is to be reached by every
human
being, and clearly perfection cannot be gained in the course of one brief
human
life. The differences between man and man, between genius and dolt,
between
saint and criminal, between athlete and cripple, are only reconcilable
with
divine justice if each human being is in course of growth from savagery to
nobility,
and if differences are merely the signs of differing stages of that
growth.
At the apex of such a long evolution stands the “Master”, embodying in
himself
the highest results possible to man of intellectual, moral, and
spiritual
development. He has learned all the lessons that humanity can
assimilate,
and the value of all the experience the world can give is his.
Beyond
this point, evolution is superhuman; if the conqueror returns to human
life
it is a voluntary action, for neither birth can seize him nor death touch
him,
save by his own consent.
We
must add something to this for the full conception of Masterhood. The
Master
must be in a human body, must be incarnate. Many who reach this level no longer
take up the burden of the flesh, but using only “the spiritual body” pass out
of touch with this earth, and inhabit only loftier realms of existence.
Further,
a Master - as the name implies - takes pupils, and in
strictness
the term should only be applied to those who discharge the special
function
of helping men and women to tread the arduous road which takes them “by a short
cut” to the summit of human evolution, far in advance of the bulk of
their
fellow-men. Evolution has been compared to a road winding round and round a
hill in an ascending spiral, and along that road humanity slowly advances; there
is a short cut to the top of the hill, straight, narrow, rugged and steep, and
“few there be that find it”. Those few are the pupils, or “disciples” of the
Masters. As in the days of the Christ, they must “forsake all and follow Him”.
Those
who are at this level, but do not take pupils, are concerned in other lines of
service to the world, whereof something will presently be said. There is no
English name to distinguish these from the teachers, and so, perforce, the word
“Master” is applied to them also. In
We
may take, then, as a definition of a Master: a human being who has
perfected
himself and has nothing more to learn on earth, who lives in a
physical
body on earth for the helping of man, who takes pupils that desire to
evolve
more rapidly in order to serve it, and are willing to forsake all for
this
purpose.
THE
PERFECT MAN: HIS PLACE IN EVOLUTION
It
may, perhaps, be necessary to add, for the information of those who are not
familiar
with the Theosophical conception of evolution, that when we say “a
Perfect
Man” we mean a good deal more than is generally connoted by the phrase.
We
mean a consciousness which is able to function unbrokenly through the five
great
spheres in which evolution is proceeding: the physical, intermediate and
heavenly
worlds, to which all men are now related, and in addition to these the
two
higher heavens -
heaven”
- which ordinary humanity cannot as yet enter. A Master’s consciousness is at
home in all these and includes them all, and his refined and subtle bodies
function freely in them all, so that he can at any time know and act at will in
any part of any one of them.
The
grade occupied by the Masters is the fifth in the great Brotherhood, the
members
of which have outpaced normal evolution. The four lower grades consist of
initiated disciples, who live and labour for the most part unknown in the
everyday world, carrying on the work assigned to them by their superiors. At
certain
times in human history, in serious crises, in the transitions from one type of
civilization to another, members of the Occult Hierarchy, Masters and even
loftier Beings, come out into the world; normally although incarnate, they
remain in retired and secluded spots, away from the tumult of human life, in
order to carry on the helpful work which would be impossible of accomplishment
in the crowded haunts of men.
WHERE
DO THEY LIVE?
[
A fuller account is given in The Masters and the Path by C. W. Leadbeater.]
They
live in different countries, scattered over the world. The Master Jesus
lives
mostly in the mountains of
wears
a Cretan body; the Masters M. and K. H. in
using
Indian bodies; the Master Rakoczi in
not
know the dwelling-places of “the Venetian” and the Master “Serapis”.
Dwelling-places
of the physical body seem to mean so little when the swift
movements
of the subtle body, freed at will from the grosser one, carry the
owner
whither he wills at any time. “Place” loses its ordinary significance to
those
who are free denizens of space, coming and going at will. And though one
knows
that they have abiding-places where dwells usually the physical body, that
body
is so much of vesture, at any moment to be readily laid aside, that the
“where”
loses its interest to a great extent.
THEIR
WORK
They
aid, in countless ways, the progress of humanity. From the highest sphere
they
shed down light and life on all the world, that may be taken up
and
assimilated, as freely as the sunshine, by all who are receptive enough to
take
it in. As the physical world lives by the life of God, focused by the sun,
so
does the spiritual world live by that same life, focused by the Occult
Hierarchy.
Next, the Masters specially connected with religions use these
religions
as reservoirs into which they pour spiritual energy, to be distributed
to
the faithful in each religion through the duly appointed “means of grace”.
Next
comes the great intellectual work, wherein the Masters send out
thought-forms
of high intellectual power to be caught up by men of genius,
assimilated
by them and given out to the world; on this level also they send out
their
wishes to their disciples, notifying them of the tasks to which they
should
set their hands.
Then
comes the work in the lower mental world, the generation of the
thought-forms
which influence the concrete mind and guide it along useful lines
of
activity in this world, and the teaching of those who are living in the
heavenly
world. Then the large activities of the intermediate world, the helping
of
the so-called dead, the general direction and supervision of the teaching of
the
younger pupils and the sending of aid in numberless cases of need. In the
physical
world the watching of the tendencies of events, the correction and
neutralizing,
as far as law permits, of evil cur rents, the constant balancing
of
the forces that work for and against evolution, the strengthening of the
good,
the weakening of the evil. In conjunction with the Angels of the
Nations
also they work, guiding the spiritual forces as the others guide the
material,
choosing and rejecting actors in the great Drama, supplying needful
impulses
in the right direction.
These
are but a few of the activities ceaselessly carried on in every sphere
by
the Guardians of humanity, some of the activities which come within our
limited
vision. They stand as a Guardian Wall around humanity, within which it
can
progress, uncrushed by the tremendous cosmic forces which play around our
planetary house. From time to time, one of them comes forth into the world of
men, as a great religious teacher, to carry on the task of spreading a new form
of the Eternal Verities, a form suitable to a new civilization. Their ranks include all the greatest Prophets of the Faiths of the world, and while a religion lives one of these great Ones is ever at its head, hatching over it as his special charge.
Theosophical Society,