Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Letter No XXIVB
[A]
At this stag"e of our correspondence, misunderstood as wegenerally seem to be, even by yourself, my faithful friend, it maybe worth our while and useful for both, that you should be pK>stedon certain facts—and very important facts—connected with adeptship. Bear in mind then, the following points.
(i) An adept—the highest as the lowest—is one only during theexercise of his occult powers.
(2) Whenever these powers are needed, the sovereign will unlocks the door to the inner man—(the adept) who can merge andact freely but on condition that Jiis jailor—the outer man will beeither completely or partially paralyzed—as the case may require; viz : either (a) mentally and physically ; (b) mentally, —^but notphysically ; (c) physically but not entirely mentally ; (d) neither, —but with an akasic film interix>sed between the outer and the innerman.
(3) The smallest exercises of occult powers then, as you willnow see, requires an effort. We may compare it to the innermuscular efforts of an athlete preparing to use his physicalstrength. As no athlete is likely to be always amusing himselfat swelling his veins in anticipation of having to lift a weight,sono adept can be supposed to keep his will in constant tension andthe inner man in full function, when there is no immediate necessityfor it. When the inner man rests the adept becomes an ordinaryman, limited to his physical senses and the functions of hisphysical brain. Habit sharpens the intuitions of the latter, yetisunable to make them supersensuous. The inner adept is everready, ever on the alert, and that suffices for our purposes. Atmoments of rest then, his faculties are at rest also. WhenI sitat my meals, or when I am dressing, reading or otherwise occupiedI am not thinking even of those near me; and, Djual Khool caneasily break his nose to blood, by running in the dark againstabeam, as he did the other night—(just because instead of throwinga '* film " he had foolishly paralyzed all his outer senses while talking- to and with a distant friend)—and I remained placidly igTiorant of the fact. / was not thinking of him—whence my ignorance;
From the aforesaid, you may well infer, that an adept is an dinary mortal, at all the moments of his daily life but those— hen the inner man is active.
Couple this with the unpleasant fact that we are forbidden to use one particle of our powers in connexion with the Eclectics (for which you have to thank your President and him alone—)and that the little that is done, is, so to say, smuggled in—and then syllogize thusly :— K.H. when writing to us is not an adept. A non-adept—is fallible.
Therefore, K.H. may very easily commit mistakes;— Mistakes of punctuation—^that will often change entirely the whole sense of a sentence ; idiomatic mistakes—very likely to occur especially when writing as hurriedly as I do ; mistakes arising from occasional confusion of terms that / had to learn from, you—since it is you who are the author of " rounds " " rings " ** earthly rings " etc. etc. Now with all this, I beg leave to say, that after having carefully read over and over our ** Famous Contradictions " myself; after giving them to be read to M. ; and then to a high adept whose powers are not in the Chohan's chancery sequestered by Him to prevent him from squandering them upon the unworthy objects of his personal predilections; after doing all this I was told by the latter the following : *' It is all perfectly correct. Knowing what you mean, no more than any other person acquainted with the dt>ctrine, can I find in these detached fragments anything that vi^ould really conflict with each other. But, since many sentences are incomplete, and the subjects scattered about without any order, I do not wonder that your " lay chelas " should find fault with them. Yes; they do require a more explicit and clear exposition."
Such is the decree of an adept—and I abide by it ; I will try to complete the information for your sake. In one and only case—marked on your pages and my answers (i2a) and (i2b), the last—is the '* plaintiff " entitled to a hearing, but not to a farthing even—for damages; since, as in law, no one —either plaintiff or defendants—has a right to plead ignorance of that law, so in Occult Sciences, the lay chelas ought to be forced to give the benefit of the doubt to their gurus in cases, in which, owing to their great ignorance of that science they are likely to misinterpret the meaning—instead of accusing them pK>int blank of contradiction! Now I beg to state, that, with regard to the two sentences—marked respectively i2A and i2b—there is a plain contradiction but for those who are not acquainted with that tenet ; you were not, and therefore I plead " guilty " of an omission, but** not guilty " of a contradiction. And even as regards the former,that omission is so small that, like the girl accused of infanticide,who when brought before the Judge said in her excuse that thebaby was so very very little that it was not worth his while callingit a " baby "at all—I could plead the same for my omission, hadInot before my eyes your terrible definition of my *' exercisingingenuity." Well, read the explanation given in my ** Notes andAnswers " and judge.
By the bye, my good Brother, I have not hitherto suspectedinyou such a capacity for defending and excusing the inexcusableas exhibited by you in my defence, of the now famous ** exerciseof ingenuity." If the article (reply to C. C. Massey) has beenwritten in the spirit you attribute to me in your letter; and if I,or any one of us has " an inclination to tolerate subtler and moretricksy ways of pursuing an end " than generally admitted ashonourable by the truth-loving, straightforward European (is Mr.Hume included in this category?)—indeed you have no right toexcuse such a mode of dealing, even in me; nor to view it ** merelyin the nature of spots in the sun " since a spot is a spot whetherfound in the bright luminary or upon a brass candlestick. Butyou are mistaken, my dear friend. There was no subtle, notricky mode of dealing to get her out of the difficulty created byher ambiguous style and ignorance of English, not her ignoranceof the subject which is not the same thing and alters entirely thequestion. Nor was I ignorant of the fact that M. had writtento you previously upon the subject since it was in one of his letters(the last but one before I took the business off his hands) in whichhe touched upon the subject of ** races " for the first and spokeof reincarnation. If M. told you to beware trusting Isis tooimplicitly, it was because he was teaching you truth and fact—and that at the time the passage was written we had not yetdecided upon teaching the public indiscriminately. He gave youseveral such instances—^if you will but re-read his letter—addingthat were such and such sentences written in such a way theywould explain facts now merely hinted upon, far better.
Of course " to C.C.M. " the passage must seem wrong and contradictory for it is "misleading" as M. said. Many are thesubjects treated upon in Isis that even H.P.B. was not allowedtobecome thoroughly acquainted with ; yet they are not contradictoryif "misleading." To make her say—as she was made by meto say—that the passage criticized was " incomplete, chaotic,vague, clumsy as many more passages in that work" wasasufficiently " frank admission " I should think, to satisfy the mostcrotchetty critic. To admit " that the passage was wrong,"onthe other hand, would have amounted to a useless falsehood, for maintain that it is not wrong-; since if it concealed the whole truth it does not distort it in the fragments of that proof as g-iven in Isis. The point in C.C.M.'s complaining criticism was not that the whole truth had not been g-iven, but that the truth and facts of 1877 were represented as errors and contradicted in 1882 ; and it was that point—damag-ing for the whole Society, its ** lay " and inner chelas, and for our doctrine—that had to be shown under its true colours ; namely that of an entire misconception due to the fact that the * * septenary ' ' doctrine had not yet been divulged to the world at the time when Isis was written. And thus it was shown. I am sorry you do not find her answer written under my direct inspiration " very satisfactory," for it proves to me only that up to this you have not yet grasped very firmly the difference between the sixth and seventh and the fifth or the immortal and the astral or personal " Monads = Egos." The suspicion is cor- roberated by what H—X gives in his criticism of my explanation at the end of his ** letter " in the September number; your letter before me completing the evidence thereupon. No doubt the " real ego inheres in the higher principles which are reincarnated " periodically every one, two, or three or more thousands of years. But the immortal ego the individual monad," is not the personal monad which is the 5th ; and the passage in Isis did not answer Eastern reincarnationists—^who maintain in that same Isis—had you but read the whole of it—that the individuality or the immortal " ego " has to re-appear in every cycle—but the Western especially the French reincarnationists, who teach that it is the personal or astral monad, the '' moi fluidique '' the manas or the intellectual mind, the 5th principle in short, that is reincarnated each time. Thus if you read once more C.C.M.'s quoted passage from Isis against the ** Reviewer of the Perfect Way " you will perhaps find that H.P.B. and myself were perfectly right in maintaining that in the above passage only the ** astral monad " was meant. And, there is a far more ** unsatisfactory shock " to my mind, upon finding that you refuse to recognise in the astral monad the personal ego—^whereas all of us call it most undoubtedly by that name, and have so called it for millenniums—than there could ever be in yours when meeting with that monad under its proper name in E. Levi's ** Fragment on Death."
The '* astral monad " is the " personal ego," and therefore, it never reincarnates, as the French Spirites will have it, but under " exceptional circumstances;" in which case, reincarnating it does not become a shell but, if successful in its second reincarnation will become one, and then gradually lose its personality, after being so to say emptied of its best and highest spiritual attributes by the immortal monad or the ** spiritual ego," during the last and supreme struggle. The "jar of feeling" then ought to be on my side, as indeed it only " seemed to be another illustra-tion of the difference between eastern and western methods," butwas not—not in this case at any rate. I can readily understand,my dear friend, that in the chilly condition you find yourself(mentally) in, you are prepared to hash even in the rays ofafunereal pile upon which a living- sutti is being performed ; butwhy—why call it a—sun, and excuse its spot—the corpse?
The letter addressed to me, which your delicacy would not permityou to read, was for your perusal and sent for that purpose. Iwanted you to read it.
Your suggestion concerning G.K. 's next trial in art—is clever,but not sufficiently, as to conceal the white threads of theJesuitically black insinuation. G.K. was however caught at it : ** Nous verrons, nous verrons " ! says the French song. G. Khool says—presenting his most humble salaams—that youhave " incorrectly described the course of events as regards thefirst portrait." What he says is this : (i) ** the day she came"she did not ask you * * to gfive her a piece of ' ' etc. (page 300) butafter you had begun speaking to her of my portrait, which shedoubted much whether you could have. It is but after half-an-hour's talk over it in the front drawing room—^you two formingthe two upper points of the triangle, near your office door, andyour lady the lower one (he was there he says) that she told youshe would try. It was then that she asked you for " a pieceofthick white paj>er "and that you gave her a piece of a thin letterpaper, which had been touched by some very anti-magnetic person.However he did, he says, the best he could. On the day following, as Mrs. S. had looked at it just 27 minutes before he did it, heaccomplished his task. It was not " an hour or two before "asyou say for he had told *' the O.L." to let her see it just beforebreakfast. After breakfast, she asked you for a piece of Bristolboard, and you gave her two pieces, both marked and not oneasyou say. The first time she brought it out it was a failure, hesays, "with the eyebrow like a leech " and it was finished onlyduring the evening while you were at the Club, at a dinneratwhich the old Upasika would not go. And it was he again G.K.'* great artist " who had to make away with the " leech," andtocorrect cap and features, and who made it " look like Master"(he will insist giving me that name thoug'h he is no longer mychela in reality), since M. after spoiling it would not go to thetrouble of correcting it but preferred going to sleep instead andfinally, he tells me, my making fun of the portrait notwithstanding,the likeness is good and would have been better had M. sahib notinterfered with it, and he, G.K. allowed to have his own *' artistic"ways. Such is his tale, and he therefore, is not satisfied with yourdescription and so he said to Upasika who told you somethingquite different. Now to my notes.
(I)' Nor do they fret me—particularly. But as they furnish our mutual friend with a good handle against us, which he is likely to use any day in that nasty way, so pre-eminently his own, I rather explain them once more—with your kind permission.
(2) Of course of course ; it is our usual way of getting out of difficulties. Having been ** invented " ourselves, we repay the inventors by inventing imaginary races. There are a good many things more we are charged with having invented. Well, well, well ; there's one thing, at any rate, we can never be accused of invent- ing ; and that is Mr. Hume himself. To invent his like transcends the highest Siddhi powers we know of. And now good friend, before we proceed any further, pray read the appended No. [A]. It is time you should know us as we are. Only, to prove to you, if not to him, that we have not invented those races, I will give out for your benefit that which has never been given out before. I will explain to you a whole chapter out of Rhys Davids work on Buddhism, or rather on Lamaism, which, in his natural ignorance he regards as a corruption of Buddhism ! Since those gentlemen—the Orientalists—presume to give to the world their soi disant translations and commentaries on our sacred books, let the theosophists show the great ignorance of those " world " pundits by giving the public the right doctrines and explanations of what they would regard as an absurd fancy theory.
(3) And because I admit the superficial or apparent inconsistency— and even that in the case only of one who is so thoroughly unacquainted with our dbctrines as you are—is that a reason why they should be regarded as conflicting in reality? Suppose I had written in a previous letter—*' the moon has no atmosphere " and then went on talking of other things ; and told you in another letter ** for the moon has an atmosphere of its own " etc. : no doubt but that I should stand under the charge of saying to-day black and to-morrow white. But where could a cabalist see in the two sentences a contradiction? I can assure you that he would not. For a cabalist who knows that the moon has no atmosphere answering in any respect to that of our earth, but one of its own, entirely different from that your men of science would call one, knows also that like the Westerns we Easterns, and Occultists especially, have our own ways of expressing thought as plain to us in their implied meaning as yours are to yourselves. Take for instance into your head to teach your Bearer astronomy. Tell him to-day—* * see, how gloriously the sun is setting-—see howrapidly it moves, how it rises and sets etc. ;" and to-morrow tryto impress him with the fact that the sun is comparatively motionless and that it is but our earth that loses and then again catchessight of the sun in her diurnal motion ; and ten to one, if your pupilhas any brains in his head, he will accuse you of flatly contradictingyourself. Would this be a proof of your ignorance of the helio-centric system? And would you be accused with anything likejustice of " writing one thing to-day and denying it to-morrow"though your sense of fairness would prompt you to admit that you** can easily understand " the accusation.
Writing my letters, then, as I do, a few lines now and a fewwords two hours later ; having to catch up the thread of the samesubject, perhaps with a dozen or more interruptions between the be-ginning and the end, I cannot promise you anything like westernaccuracy for ergo—the only '* victim of accident " in this caseismyself. The innocent cross examination to which I am subjectedbyyou—and that I do not object to—and the positively pre-determinedpurpose of catching me tripping whenever he can, on Mr. Hume'spart, —a proceeding regarded as highly legal and honest inw-estern law, but to which we, Asiatic savages, object mostemphatically, has given my colleagues and Brothers a highopinion of my proclivities to martyrdom. In their sight I havebecome a kind of Indo-Tibetan Simon Stylites. Caught by thelower hook of the Simla interrogation mark and impaled on it, Isee myself doomed to equilibrize upon the apex of the semicirclefor fear of slipping down at every uncertain motion either backward or forward—such is the present condition of your humblefriend. Ever since I undertook the extraordinary task of teachingtwo grown up pupils with brains in which the methods of westernscience had crystallized for years ; one of whom is willing enoughto make room for the new iconoclastic teaching, but who, nevertheless, requires a careful handling while the other will receivenothing but on condition of grouping the subjects as he wantsthem to group, not in their natural order—I have been regardedby all our Chohans as a lunatic. I am seriously asked whethermy early association with Western '* Pelings " had not madeofme a half-Peling and turned me also into a *' dzing dzing"visionary. All this had been expected. I do not complain; Inarrate a fact, and humbly demand credit for the same, only hopingit will not be mistaken again for a subtle and tricky way of gettingout of a new difficulty.
(5) Every just disembodied four-fold entity—^whether it diesanatural or violent death, from suicide or accident, mentally saneor insane, young or old, good, bad, or indifferent—loses at the instant of death all recollections, it is mentally—annihilated; it sleeps it's akasic sleep in the Kama-loka. This state lasts from a few hours, (rarely less) days, weeks, months : —sometimes to several years. All this according to the entity, to its mental status at the moment of death, to the character of its death, etc. That remembrance will return slowly and gradually towards the end of the gestation (to the entity or ego), still more slowly but far more imperfectly and incompletely to the shell, and fully to the Ego at the moment of its entrance into Deva chan. And now the latter being a state determined and brought by its past life, the Ego does not fall headlong but sinks into it gradually and by easy stages. With the first dawn of that state appears that life (or rather is once more lived over by the Ego) from its first day of consciousness to its last. From the most important down to the most trifling event, all are marshalled before the spiritual eye of the Ego ; only, unlike the events of real life, those of them remain only that are chosen by the new liver (pardon the word) clinging to certain scenes and actors, these remain permanently—while all the others fade away to disappear for ever, or to return to their creator—the shell. Now try to understand this highly important because so highly just and retributive law, in its effects. Out of the resurrected Past nothing remains but what the Ego has felt spiritually—that was evolved by and through, and lived over by his spiritual faculties—they be love or hatred. All that I am now trying to describe is in truth—indescribable. As no two men, not even two photographs of the same person, nor yet two leaves resemble line for line each other, so no two states in Deva-Chan are like. Unless he be an adept, who can realize such a state in his periodical Deva-chan—how can one be expected to form a correct picture of the same?
(6) Therefore, there is no contradiction in saying, that the ego once reborn in the Devachan, " retains for a certain time proportionate to its earth life a complete recollection of his (Spiritual) life on earth." Here again the omission of the word ** Spiritual " alone, produced a misunderstanding !
(7) All those that do not slip down into the 8th sphere—go to the Devachan. Where's the point made or the contradiction?
(8) The Devachan State, I repeat, can be as little described or explained, by giving a however minute and graphic description of the state of an ego taken at random, as all the human lives collectively could be described by the ** Life of Napoleon " or that of any other man. There are millions of various states of happiness and misery, emotional states having their source in the physical as well as the spiritual faculties and senses, and only the lattersurviving. An honest labourer will feel differently from an honestmillionaire. Miss Nightingale's state will differ considerablyfromthat of a young bride who dies before the consummation of whatshe regards as happiness. The two former love their families; thephilanthropist—humanity, the girl centres the whole world inherfuture husband ; the melomanic knows of no higher state of blissand happiness than music—the most divine and spiritual ofarts.The devachan merges from its highest into its lowest degree—^byinsensible gradations ; while from the last step of devachan,theEgo will often find itself in Avicha's faintest state, which, towardsthe end of the " spiritual selection " of events may become abonafide ** Avicha." Remember, every feeling is relative. Thereisneither good nor evil, happiness nor misery per se. Thetran-scendent, evanescent bliss of an adulterer, who by his act murdersthe happiness of a husband, is no less spiritiuilly born foritscriminal nature. If a remorse of conscience (the latter proceedingalways from the Sixth Principle) has only once been felt duringthe period of bliss and really spiritual love, born in the sixthandfifth, however polluted by the desires of the fourth or Kamarupa—then this remorse must survive and will accompany incessantlythe scenes of pure love. I need not enter into details, sinceaphysiological expert, as I take you to be, need hardly havehisimagination and intuition prompted by a psychological observerof my sort. Search in the depths of your conscience and memory,and try to see what are the scenes that are likely to taketheirfirm hold upon you ; when once more in their presence youfindyourself living them over again ; and that, ensnared, you will haveforgotten all the rest—this letter among other things, since inthecourse of events it will come far later on in the panorama ofyourresurrected life. I have no right to look into your pastlife.Whenever I may have caught glimpses of it, I have invariablyturned my eyes away, for I have to deal with the present A.P.Sinnett—(also and by far more " a new invention " than theexA.P.S.)—not with the ancient man.
Yes ; love and hatred are the only immortal feelings ; butthegradations of tones along the seven by seven scales of the wholekey-board of life, are numberless and, since it is those two feelings—(or, to be correct, shall I risk being misunderstood againandsay those two poles of man's *' Soul " which is a unity?)—thatmould the future state of man, whether for devachan or Avichathen the variety of such states must also be inexhaustible. Andthis brings us to your complaint or charge, number—
(9) —for, having eliminated from your past life the RatigansandReeds who with you have never transcended beyondthe boundaries of the lower portion of your fifth principle with its vehicle—the kama—what is it but the " partial remembrance " of a life? The lines marked with your reddest pencil are also disposed of. For how can you dispute the fact that music and harmony are for a Wagner, a Paganini, the King of Bavaria and so many other true artists and melomans, an object of the pro- foundest spiritual love and veneration? With your permission I will not change one word in clause 9.
(10) Pity you have not followed your quotation with personal commentaries. I fail to comprehend in what respect you object to the word " dream " ? Of course both bliss and misery are but a dream ; and as they are purely spiritual they are intensified.
(II) Answered.
(I2a & I2b) Had I but written,—when answering Mr. Hume's objections, who after statistical calculations made with the evident intention of crushing our teaching, maintained that after all spiritualists were right and the majority of seance room spooks were " Spirits "—*' in no case then, with the exception of suicides and shells "—and those accidents who die full of some engrossing earthly passion—is there any possibility for any other, etc., etc." I would have been perfectly right and pukka as a '* professor *'? To think that, eager as you are to accept doctrines that contradict in some most important point of physical science from first to last—you should have consented at Mr. Hume's suggestion to split hairs over a simple omission ! My dear friend, permit me to remark that simple common sense ought to have whispered you that one who says one day : "in no case then etc. :" and a few days later denies having ever pronounced the word never—is not only no adept but must be either suffering from softening of the brain or some other ** accident." ** On margin I said rarely but I have not pronounced the word never "—refers to the margin of the proof of your letter N. H ; that margin—or rather to avoid a fresh accusation—the piece of paper I had written upon some remarks referring to the subject and glued to the margin of your proof—you have cut out as well as the four lines of poetry. Why you have done so is known better to yourself. But the word never refers to that margin.
To one sin though I do, plead " guilty." That sin, was a very acute feeling of irritation against Mr. Hume upon receiving his triumphant statistical letter ; the answer to which you found in- corporated in yours when I wrote for you the material for your answer to Mr. Khandallawala's letter that you had sent back to H.P.B. Had I not been irritated I would not have become guilty of the omission, perhaps. This now is my Karma. I had nobusiness to feel irritated, or lose my temper; but that letter ofhis was I believe the seventh or the eighth of that kind receivedby me during that fortnight. And I must say, that our friendhas the most knavish way of using his intellect in raising themost unexpected sophisms to tickle people's nerves with, thatIhave ever known ! Under the pretext of strict logical reasoning,he will perform feigned thrusts at his antagonist—whenever unable to find a vulnerable spot, and then, caught and exposed, hewill answer in the most innocent way, " Why, it is for your owngood, and you ought to feel grateful ! If I were an adept I wouldalways know what my correspondent really meant, etc. etc."Being an " adept " in some small matters I do know whathereally means ; and that his meaning amounts to this : were wetodivulge to him the whole of our philosophy leaving no inconsist-ency unexplained, it would still do no good, whatever. For,asin the observation embodied in the Hudibrasian couplet :
" These fleas have other fleas to bite 'em, And these—their fleas ad infinitum."
—so with his objections and arguments. Explain him one, andhe will find a flaw in the explanation ; satisfy him by showinghim that the latter was after all correct, and he will fly at theopponent for speaking too slow or too rapidly. It is an impossible task—and I give it up. Let it last until the whole breaksunder its own weight. He says " I can kiss no Pope's toe " for-getting that no one has ever asked him to do so ; "I can love,but I cannot worship " he tells me. Gush—he can love no one,and nobody but A. O. Hume, and never has. And that really,one could almost exclaim '* O Hume,—gush is thy name!—"isshown in the following that I transcribe from one of his letters:** If for no other reason, I should love M. for his entire devotionto you—and you I have always loved ( !). Even when most crosswith you—as one always is most sensitive with those one caresmost about—even when I was fully persuaded you were a myth,for even then my heart yearned to you as it often does to anavowedly fictitious character/' A sentimental Becky Sharpwriting to an imaginary lover, could hardly express her feelingsbetter !
I will see to your scientific questions next week. I am notathome at present, but quite near to Darjeeling, in the Lamasery,the object of poor H.P.B.'s longing. I thought of leavingbythe end of September but find it rather difficult on accountofNobin's boy. Most probably, also I will have to interview in myown skin the Old Lady if M. brings her here. And—he hastobring her—or lose her for ever—at least, as far as the physical triad is concerned. And now good-bye, I ask you again—do not frighten my little man ; he may prove useful to you some day— only do not forget—he is but an appearance.
Yours,K. H.
