Mahatma Letter to H. S. Olcott - LMW 2 No. 2

Quick Facts
People involved
Written by:	Koot Hoomi
Received by:	Henry Steel Olcott
Sent via:	unknown
Dates
Written on:	unknown
Received on:	7 June 1886
Other dates:	unknown
Places
Sent from:	unknown
Received at:	Adyar
Via:	unknown

This is Letter No. 2 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Second Series, in which Mahatma Koot Hoomi writes to Henry Steel Olcott about Damodar K. Mavalankar.

This letter is reprinted from Letter 29 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series.

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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes

The poor boy has had his fall. Before he could stand in the presence of the ‘Masters’ he had to undergo the severest trials that a neophyte ever passed through, to atone for the many questionable doings in which he had over-zealously taken part, bringing disgrace upon the sacred science and its adepts. The mental and physical suffering was too much for his weak frame, which has been quite prostrated, but he will recover in course of time. This ought to be a warning to you all. You have believed ‘not wisely but too well’. To unlock the gates of the mystery you must not only lead a life of the strictest probity, but learn to discriminate truth from falsehood. You have talked a great deal about karma but have hardly realized the true significance of that doctrine. The time is come when you must lay the foundation of that strict conduct — in the individual as well as in the collective body — which, ever wakeful, guards against conscious as well as unconscious deception.

K.H.

IMAGE NOT
AVAILABLE

NOTES:

• The poor boy is Damodar K. Mavalankar.

Context and background

Mr. Jinarajadasa provided these notes about this letter:

Transcribed from the original at Adyar. I have given a photographic reproduction of the letter in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, Second Series. It is precipitated in blue ink on the last blank page of a letter written on thin paper by Mr Tookaram Tatya of Bombay on 5 June 1886. The letter was folded in three. Among other matters, it contained the following:

I have constantly been thinking of poor brother Damodar. It is nearly a year since he left and we have hitherto had no authentic news about him. If you have any recent information about him please communicate it to me.

When Colonel Olcott received Mr Tookaram Tatya’s letter at Adyar on June 7, he found precipitated on the blank page, crosswise, this letter. The letter refers to Damodar K. Mavalankar who, after many hardships and privations, crossed to Tibet and reached the home of his Master.

Physical description of letter

According to Mr. Jinarajadasa, the original of this letter is preserved at the Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai, India. "It is precipitated in blue ink on the last blank page of a letter written on thin paper by Mr Tookaram Tatya of Bombay on 5 June 1886. The letter was folded in three."

Publication history

This letter was published for the first time in the Second Series of Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, and then reproduced with a facsimile in Did Madame Blavatsky Forge the Mahatma Letters?