Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Letter No XLV
First received after revival in February, 1882.
My Brother—I have been on a long journey after supremeknowledge, I took a long time to rest. Then, upon coming back,I had to give all my time to duty, and all my thoughts to theGreat Problem. It is all over now : the New Year's festivitiesare at an end and I am " Self " once more. But what is Self?Only a passing guest, whose concerns are all like a mirage of thegreat desert. . . .
Anyhow—this is my first moment of leisure. I offer it to you,whose inner Self reconciles me to the outer man who but too oftenforgets that great man is he who is strongest in the exercise ofpatience. Look around you, my friend : see the " three poisons " jragfing within the heart of man—anger, greed, delusion, and the ifive obscurities—envy, passion, vacillation, sloth, and unbelief—ever preventing their seeing truth. They will never get rid of the pollution of their vain, wicked hearts, nor perceive the spiritual portion of themselves. Will you not try—for the sake of shortening the distance between us—to disentangle yourself from the net of life and death in which they are all caught, to cherish less, lust and desire? Young Portman is seriously meditating to leave all, to come over to us, and ** become a Tibetan monk " as he puts it. His ideas are singularly mixed upon the two entirely different characteristics and qualifications of the " Monk " or Lama and the living ** Lha," or Brother: but let him try by all means.
Aye—I am only now able to correspond with you. At the same time let me tell you that it is more difficult than before to ex- change letters with you, though my regard for you has sensibly increased, instead of being lessened—as you feared—and will not diminish unless—but as the consequence of your own acts. That you will try to avoid in raising any such obstacle, I know well ; but man, after all, is the victim of his surroundings while he lives in the atmosphere of society. We may be anxious to befriend such as we have an interest in, and yet be as helpless to do so, as is one who sees a friend engulfed in a stormy sea when no boat is near to be launched and his personal strength is paralysed by a stronger hand that keeps him back. Yes, I see your thought . . but you are wrong. Blame not the holy man for strictly doing his duty by humanity. Had it not been for the Chohan and his restraining influence you would not be reading now again a letter from your trans-Himalayan correspondent. The world of the Planes is antagonistic to that of the mountains, that you know ; but what you do not know is the great harm produced by your own unconscious indiscretions. Shall I give you an instance? Remember the wrath produced on Stainton Moses by your too imprudent letter quoting ad libittitn and with a freedom pregnant with the most disastrous results from my letter to you about him. . . . The cause generated at that time has now developed its results : not only has S.M. completely estranged himself from the Society some of whose members believe in us, but he has determined in his heart the utter annihilation of the British Branch. A psychic Society is being founded and he has succeeded in bringing over to it Wyld, Massey and others. Shall I also tell you the future of that new body? It will grow and develop and expand and finally the Theos. Soc. of London will be swamped in it, and lose first its influence then—its name until Theosophy in its very name becomes a thing of the Past. It is you alone, the simple action of your swift pen which will have produced the Nidana and the ten-del, the " cause " and its *' effect " and thus the work ofseven years, the constant untiring efforts of the builders of theTheos. Society will perish—killed by the wounded vanity of amedium.
This simple act on your part is silently digging out a chasmbetween us. The evil may yet be averted—let the Society existbut in name till the day it can get members with whom we canwork de facto—and by the creation of another counteracting causewe may save the situation. The hand of the Chohan alone canbridge it, but it must be yours that places the first stone for thew^ork. How will you do it? How can you do it? Think of it well, if you care for further intercourse. They want somethingnew. A Ritual to amuse them. Consult with Subba Row, withSan Kariah the Dewan Naib of Cochin, read attentively hispamphlet extracts from which you will find in the last Theosophist(see, " A Flash of Light upon Occult Free Masonry." Page 35).I can come nearer to 3'Ou, but you must draw me by a purifiedheart and a gradually developing wull. Like the needle the adeptfollow^s his attractions. Is this not the law of the disembodiedPrinciples? Why then not of the living also? As the social tiesof the carnal man are too weak to call back the Soul of thedeceased except where there is a mutual affinity which survivesas a force in the region within the terrestrial region, so the callsof mere friendship or even enthusiastic regard are too feeble todraw the "Lha " who has passed on a stage of the journey tohim he has left behind, unless a parallel development goes on.M. spoke well and truthfully w^hen saying that a love of collectivehumanity is his increasing inspiration ; and if any one individualshould wish to divert his regards to himself he must overpowerthe diffusive tendency by a stronger force.
All this I say, not because its substance has not been told youbefore, but because I read your heart and detect in it a shade ofsadness, not to say disappointment, that hovers there. You havehad other correspondents but are not perfectly satisfied. Togratify, I write you therefore with some effort to bid you keepacheerful frame of mind. Your strivings, perplexities and fore-bodings are equally noticed, good and faithful friend. In theimperishable Record of the Masters you have written them all. There are registered your every deed and thought ; for, thoughnot a chela, as you say, to my Brother Morya, nor even a** protege "—as you understand the term—still, you have steppedwithin the circle of our work, you have crossed the mystic linewhich separates your world from ours, and now w^hether youpersevere or not ; whether we become later on, in your sight, still more living real entities or vanish out of your mind like so manydream fictions—perchance an ugly night-mare—you are virtually ours. Your hidden Self has mirrored itself in our Akasa ; your nature is—yours, your essence is—ours. The flame is distinct from the log of wood which serves it temporarily as fuel ; at the end of your apparitional birth—and whether we two, meet face to face in our grosser rupas—you cannot avoid meeting us in Real Existence. Yea, verily good friend your Karma is ours, for you imprinted it daily and hourly upon the pages of that book where the minutest particulars of the individuals stepping inside our circle—are preserved ; and that your Karma is your only personality to be when you step beyond. In thought and deed, by day, in soul-struggles by nights, you have been writing the story of your desires and your spiritual development:. This, every one does who approaches us with any earnestness of desire to become our co-worker, he himself ** precipitates " the written entries by the identical process used by us when we write inside your closed letters and uncut pages of books and pamphlets in transit. (See pp. 32, 2^^ Report sent by Olcott, once more.) I will tell you this for your private information and it must not figure in the next pamphlet from Simla. During the past few months, especially, when your weary brain was plunged in the torpor of sleep, your eager soul has often been searching after me, and the current of your thoughts has been beating against my protecting barriers of Akks as the lapping wavelets against a rocky shore. What that ** inner Self " impatient, anxious—has longed to bind itself to, the carnal man, the worldlings' master has not ratified : the ties of life are still as strong as chains of steel. Sacred, indeed, some of them are, and no one would ask you to rupture them. There below, lies your long cherished field of enterprise and usefulness. Ours can never be more than a bright phantom-world to the man of thorough ** practical sense "; and if your case be in some degree exceptional, it is because your nature has deeper inspirations than those of others, who are still more ** businesslike " and the fountain-head of whose eloquence is in the brain not in the heart, which never was in contact with the mysteriously effulgent, and pure heart of Tathagata.
If you hear seldom from me, never feel disappointed, my Brother, but say—"It is my fault." Nature has linked all parts of her Empire together by subtle threads of magnetic sympathy, and there, there is a mutual correlation even between a star and a man ; thought runs swifter than the electric fluid, and your thought will find me if projected by a pure im.pulse, as mine will find, has found, and often impressed upon your mind. We may move in cycles of activity divided—not entirely separated from each other. Like the light in the sombre valley seen by the mountaineer from his peaks, every bright thought in your mind, my Brother, will sparkle and attract the attention of your distant friend and correspondent. If thus we discover our natural Alliesin the S/ia^/ow-world—your world and ours outside the precincts—and it is our jaw to approach every such an one if even there bebut the feeblest glimmer of the true " Tathagata " light withinhim—then how far easier for you to attract us. Understand thisand the admission into the Society of persons often distasteful toyou will no longer amaze you. ** They that be whole need notthe physician, but they that be sick "—is an axiom, whoever mayhave spoken it.
And now, let me bid you farewell for the present until the next.Indulge not in apprehensions of what evil might happen if thingsshould not go as your worldly wisdom thinks they ought ; doubtnot, for this complexion of doubt unnerves and pushes back one'sprogress. To have cheerful confidence and hope is quite anotherthing from giving way to the fool's blind optimism : the wiseman never fights misfortune in advance. A cloud does lower overyour path—it gathers about the hills of Jakko. He whomyoumade your confident—I advised you to become but his co-worker,not to divulge things to him that you should have kept back within your bosom—is under a baneful influence, and may becomeyour enemy. You do right to try to rescue him from it, for itbodes ill to him, to you and to the Society. His greater mindfumed by vanity and charmed by the piping of a weaker butmore cunning one, is for the time under a spell of fascination.You will easily detect the malign power that stands behind bothand uses them as tools for the execution of its own nefariousplans. The intended catastrophe can be averted by redoubledvigilance and increased fervour of pure will on the part of thefriends of S.B.L. Work then, if you still will, to turn the blowaside ; for if it falls you will not escape unhurt however great myBrothers' efforts. The cause will never be ruined though albeitthe Sisyphus' rock may crush a good many toes. Farewell,-again, my friend—for longer or shorter, as you may determine.I am called to duty.
Yours faithfully,
K. H.
