Mahatma Letter to H. S. Olcott - LMW 2 No. 18
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| People involved | |
| Written by: | Serapis Bey |
| Received by: | Henry Steel Olcott |
| Sent via: | unknown |
| Dates | |
| Written on: | unknown |
| Received on: | June-August 1875 |
| Other dates: | unknown |
| Places | |
| Sent from: | unknown |
| Received at: | unknown |
| Via: | unknown |
This is Letter No. 18 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Second Series. In it Mahatma Serapis Bey advises Henry Steel Olcott on development of spiritual qualities.[1] Letters 9-20 of this series are closely related.
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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes
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Send forth Atma’s most divine emanations, proceedings of that God-like sentiment – the love of mortal man for its fellow creature in its higher spiritual expression and concentrating them . . find . . the means of benefiting humanity by the practical application of the Sephiroths of Love, Mercy, Justice, Divine Charity and boundless Self-abnegation. The microcosmical application of these will but the better enable . . . to comprehend the mysterious laws of attraction in their macrocosmal shape. Purity of earthly love purifies and prepares for the realisation of the Divine Love. No mortal man’s imagination can conceive of its ideals of the divinity otherwise but in the shape the familiar to him. One who prepares for solving the Infinite must solve the finite first. The Ideal of the Spiritual can penetrate only through the imagination which is the leading path and first gate to the conceptions and impressions of the earthly Atma.
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Context and background
Mr. Jinarājadāsa provided this background information on the series of letters numbered 9-20:
The letters which follow, all written by the Master Serapis, deal with certain incidents in the life of H.P.B., of which there has been scarcely any mention. Colonel Olcott describes in Old Diary Leaves the Philadelphia marriage of H.P.B., but evidently he has forgotten the true reason for it, for the account he gives of H.P.B.’s explanation of it differs from that given by the Master S. The man whom H.P.B. married was little better than a workman. He had lately come to America from Tiflis in Russia, and had built up a small business as an importer and exporter. He was sincerely drawn to Spiritualism, and evidently in the beginning was desirous of helping H.P.B. to carry out her great schemes to found a spiritual philosophy. On the strict understanding that his privileges as husband would only consist in making a home for her, so that she might carry out the plan of the Brotherhood, H.P.B. married him, though a woman of her aristocratic nature must have felt intensely humiliated to be linked to such a peasant. There was a stipulation that, even though married, she should retain her own name of Blavatsky. After H.P.B. left him, he obtained a decree of divorce, so that when she started for India, the sad incident of the second marriage was utterly closed...[2]
Physical description of letter
The original of this letter is preserved at the Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai, India, according to Mr. Jinarājadāsa. He wrote:
Five of the letters of the Master Serapis were received through the post, and their envelopes still remain, and bear the postmark. Four of them were posted in Philadelphia and one in Albany. Colonel Olcott received them in New York at his house, or in Boston care of the Postmaster. Seven of the letters are written on green paper with black ink.[3]
Publication history
Commentary about this letter
Mr. Jinarājadāsa provided this commentary:
Throughout these letters about H.P.B., there are several references to the “Dweller on the Threshold.” This mysterious phrase occurs in Zanoni. It is evident that challenging the Dweller, and risking one’s very existence in the process, is one of the trials of the Initiate. There is no clue in the letters showing of what type were the dangers which confronted H.P.B., so that her very life was at stake.
These letters to Colonel Olcott from the Master S. mention incidents in H.P.B.’s inner life. As none have a right to peer inquisitely into the workings of the soul, I have omitted all references to such incidents, extracting out of the letters only such teachings as seem to me to have value to earnest students.[4]