Mahatma Letter No. 112

This is Letter No. 81 in Barker numbering. See below for Context and background.

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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes

Received London about July, 1883. Private but not very Confidential.

I have, you observe, left for a separate private letter — in case you should like to read the other to your British "Brethren and Sistern —" and to the last any reference to the proposed new journal, about whose prospects Col. Gordon has written you so encouragingly. I scarcely knew until I had begun to watch the development of this effort to erect a bulwark for Indian interests, how deeply my poor people had sunk. As one who watches the signs of fluttering life beside a dying bed, and counts the feeble breaths to learn if there may still be room for hope, so we Aryan exiles in our snowy retreat have been attentive to this issue. Debarred from using any abnormal powers that might interfere with the nation's Karma, yet by all lawful and normal means trying to stimulate the zeal of those who care for our regard, we have seen weeks grow into months without the object having been achieved. Success is nearer than ever before, yet still in doubt. The letter of Gwindan Lal, which I shall ask Upasika to send you, shows that there is progress. In a few days a meeting of native capitalists is to be held at Madras, which Mr. Olcott is to attend and from which there may be fruits. He will see the Gwikwar at Baroda and Holkar at Indore, and do his best — as he has already at Behar and in Bengal. There was never a time when the help of a man like yourself was more needed by

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India. We foresaw it, as you know and patriotically tried to make your way easy for a speedy return. But, — alas! that it must be confessed — the word Patriotism has now scarcely any electric power over the Indian heart. The "Cradle Land of Arts and Creeds" swarms with unhappy beings, precariously provided for, and vexed by demagogues who have everything to gain by chicane and impudence. We knew all this in the mass, but not one of us Aryans had sounded the depths of the Indian question as we have of late. If it be permissible to symbolize things subjective by phenomena objective, I should say that to the psychic sight India seems covered with a stifling grey fog — a moral meteor — the odic emanation from her vicious social state. Here and there twinkles a point of light which marks a nature still somewhat spiritual, a person who aspires and struggles after the higher knowledge. If the beacon of Aryan occultism shall ever be kindled again, these scattered sparks must be combined to make it's flame. And this is the task of the T.S., this the pleasant part of it's work in which we would so gladly assist, were we not impeded and thrown back by the would-be chelas themselves. I stepped outside our usual limits to aid your particular project from a conviction of its necessity and its potential usefulness: having begun I shall continue until the result

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is known. But in this uncongenial experience of meddling in a business affair, I have ventured within the very breath of the world's furnace. I have suffered so much from the enforced insight at short distance into the moral and spiritual condition of my people; and been so shocked by this nearer view of the selfish baseness of human nature (the concomitant, always, of the passage of humanity through our stage of the evolutionary circuit): I have seen so distinctly the certainty that it cannot be helped — that I shall henceforth abstain from any repetition of the unbearable experiment. Whether your paper should succeed or not — and if the latter, it will be due to yourself exclusively, to the unfortunate inspiration on the 17th, published in the Times — I shall have no more to do with the financial side of these worldly affairs; but confine myself to our prime duty of gaining knowledge and disseminating through all available channels such fragments as mankind in the mass may be ready to assimilate. I shall, of course, be interested in your journalistic career here — if I am able to overcome and soothe the bitter feelings you have just awakened in those who confided in you most, — by that unfortunate and UNTIMELY confession, honest as its object may have been — and you may always depend upon my practical sympathy; but the genius of Mr. Dare must preside in your Counting Room as your own in the Editor's office. The great pain you have inflicted upon me, shows clearly that either I understand

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nothing in the fitness of political duties and therefore, could hardly hope to be a wise business and political "control" or that the man whom I regard as a true friend, however honest and willing, will never rise above English prejudices and the sinful antipathy towards our race and colour. "Madame" will tell you more.

Though you do not "ask me to deal with it afresh" yet I will say two words more about Mr. Massey's difficulty as regards the letter from our Brother H---- then in Scotland, sent him circuituously through "Ski." Be just and charitable to — a European at least. If Mr. Massey had "declared to the English spiritualists that he was in communication with the BROTHERS by Occult means" he would have spoken the simple truth. For not only once but twice had he such occult relationship — once with his Father's glove, sent him by M. through "Ski" and again with the note in question, for the delivery of which the same practical agency was employed, though without an equal expenditure of power. His, you see, is one more example of the ease with which even a superior intellect may deceive itself in occult matters, by the maya of its own engendering. And, as regards the other case, may it not be noted — I am no barrister and therefore speak under reserve — as a mitigating circumstance for the accused that Mr. Massey is not even to this day sure that Dr. Billing did not intercept the Simpson letter to his wife, keep it to use against her at a fortunate time and actually

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so use it in this instance? Or, even allowing the letter to have been delivered to the addressee, know what was the answer — if any written? Has the idea struck your observant friend that, at that very time there was a womanly — worse than that — medium's spite far worse than the odium theologicum between the Simpson and Hollis-Billing, concerning their respective claims to the favours shown by Ski? That Mrs. Billing called the Ski of her "friend" Simpson "a bogus spook;" that Dr. Billing complained bitterly to Olcott and H.P.B. of the fraud perpetrated by the Simpson who tried to palm off a false Ski as the genuine one — the oldest as the most faithful "control" of his wife. The row got even into the papers. Strange, that at the time when she was publicly reproached by Mrs. B. with pretending to be controlled by her Ski Mrs. S. should have asked her for such a delicate and dangerous service! I say again — I speak under reserve — I have never looked into the accusation seriously, and know of it by having caught a glimpse of the situation in Olcott's head when reading Mr. C. C. M.'s letter. But the hint may, perchance, be of some service. But this I do know, and say; the long and short of the matter is, that your friend has hastily suspected and unjustly condemned the innocent and done himself harm spiritually. He really has no right to accuse even H.P.B. of deliberate deceit. I protest most emphatically against the woman being dealt with so uncharitably. She had no intention to deceive — unless withholding a fact be a direct deceit and lie, on

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the theory suppressio veri, suggestis falsi — a legal maxim which she knows nothing about. But then on this theory we all (Brothers and Chelas) ought to be regarded as liars. She was ordered to see that the letter should be delivered; she had no other means of doing so at that time but through "Ski." She had no power of sending it direct, as was the glove; M. would not help her, for certain reasons of his and very weighty too — as I have found out later —; she knew Mr. C. C. M. distrusted Ski, and was foolish enough to believe that Mr. Massey separated the medium from the "spirit" as proved by her letter; she was anxious out of pure and unselfish devotion for him that he should see that he was noticed at last by a real Brother. Hence — she tried to conceal the fact that Ski had a hand in it. Moreover, an hour after having sent her letter to Mrs. B. to be delivered by Ski, a letter read at the time, not found accidentally as alleged — she forgot all about it as she forgets everything. No idea, no thought of the slightest deceit on her part had ever crossed her mind. Had Mr. Massey asked her to tell him honestly the truth, after the letter had been shown to him she would have probably, either sent him to a very hot place, and said nothing, or honestly confessed the truth. She simply thought it best that the intended good effect of the Brother's message should not be cancelled by arousing in Mr. C. C. M.'s mind a hostile disposition the fruit of such unwarranted suspicion. We, my dear sirs, always judge men by their motives and the moral effects of their actions: for the world's false standards and prejudice we have no respect.

K. H.

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