Mahatma Letter to Holloway - LMW 1 No. 30
| Quick Facts | |
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| People involved | |
| Written by: | Koot Hoomi |
| Received by: | Laura Carter Holloway |
| Sent via: | unknown |
| Dates | |
| Written on: | unknown |
| Received on: | unknown |
| Other dates: | unknown |
| Places | |
| Sent from: | unknown |
| Received at: | unknown |
| Via: | unknown |
This letter is Letter No. 30 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series. Mahatma Koot Hoomi advises Laura Carter Holloway about chelaship.[1]
It was presented in the 1964 and 1973 editions as Letter I, before the First Series was resequenced in 1988 to make it Letter 30.
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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes
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When you are older in your chela life you will not be surprised if no notice is taken of your wishes, and even birthdays and other feasts and fasts. For you will have then learned to put a proper value on the carcass-sheath of the Self and all its relations. To the profane a birthday is but a twelve-month stride towards the grave. When each new year marks for you a step of evolution, all will be ready with their congratulations; there will be something real to felicitate you upon. But, so far, you are not even one year old – and you would be treated as an adult! Try to learn to stand firm on your legs, child, before you venture walking. It is because you are so young and ignorant in the ways of occult life that you are so easily forgiven. But you have to attend your ways and put – – and her caprices and whims far in the background before the expiration of the first year of your life as a chela if you would see the dawn of the second year. Now the lake in the mountain heights of your being is one day a tossing waste of waters, as the gust of caprice or temper sweeps through your soul; the next a mirror as they subside and peace reigns in the 'house of life'. One day you win a step forward; the next you fall two back. Chelaship admits none of these transitions; its prime and constant qualification is a calm, even, contemplative state of mind (not the mediumistic passivity) fitted to receive psychic impressions from without, and to transmit one's own from within. The mind can be made to work with electric swiftness in a high excitement; but the Buddhi – never. To its clear region, calm must ever reign. It is foolish to be thinking of outward Upasika [H.P.B.] in this connection. She is not a 'chela' . . . You cannot acquire psychic power until the causes of psychic debility are removed. You have scarcely learned the elements of self-control in psychism; your vivid creative imagination evokes illusive creatures, coined the instant before in the mint of your mind, unknown to yourself. As yet you have not acquired the exact method of detecting the false from the true, since you have not yet comprehended the doctrine of shells.
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NOTES:
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Context and background
Mr. Jinarajadasa provided these notes about the series of letters numbered 30-41. They were clearly written before Letters 4 to 20, which have reference to Mrs Holloway:
Miss Mary K. Neff was well known for her record of service to various Indian schools, and especially for her work during two years at the Theosophical Headquarters, at Adyar, indexing all the letters and documents which are in the Archives of the Society. She had dedicated herself especially to the history of H.P.B.'s movements and had published Personal Memories of H.P. Blavatsky.
She found in a magazine The World published in New York, articles by Mrs Langford in the issues of May and June 1912. These contain certain instructions received by her from the Master K.H... I publish these letters, as they contain much valuable instructions, for all who are preparing to tread the path to the Masters.[2]
Physical description of letter
The location of the original of this letter is not known.
Publication history
This letter was added as Letter I in the 1964 edition of the First Series, and kept that designation until 1988, when the letters were resequenced. Then it became Letter 30.