Theosophy Wiki - User contributions [en]

Damodar K. Mavalankar

2013-05-17T23:09:59Z

Ed Moskowitz:

'''Damodar K. Mavalankar''' (born September 1857 in Ahmedabad) was an Indian Theosophist and a [[Chela|chela]] of [[Mahatma]] [[Koot Hoomi]].<ref>Sri Raghavan Iyer, 'Damodar K. Mavalankar'</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">Sven Eek (comp.), Dâmodar and the Pioneers of the Theosophical Movement, Theosophical Publishing House (TPH), 1965</ref><ref>The International Theosophical Year Book 1938 (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938): 200.</ref>

== Early life ==

He was born in the family of the Karhâda Mahârashtra [[caste]] of [[Brahmin|Brâhmanas]],<ref name="ReferenceB">Damodar K. Mavalankar, 'Castes in India', The Theosophist , May 1880</ref> a wealthy Indian family. Apart from learning the tenets of his religion by his father from an early age, he also received a very good English education.<ref name="ReferenceB"/> When he was ill as a child, he met his guru Koot Hoomi who promised to take him under his protection.<ref>The International Theosophical Year Book 1938 (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938): 200.</ref>

== Association with Theosophical Society ==

In 1879 he met [[H. S. Olcott]] and [[H. P. Blavatsky]] in Bombay, after they had just established the [[Theosophical Society]]'s temporary Indian headquarters there. Damodar joined the Society on [[August 3]], 1879, giving up his [[caste]]. In 1880, he officially became a [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] while in [[Sri Lanka]], taking [[Pancha Sila]] along with [[H. S. Olcott|Col. Olcott]] and [[H. P. Blavatsky|Madame Blavatsky]].<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref name="ReferenceC">Henry Steel Olcott, 'Old Diary Leaves', Vol. 2 , 1900</ref> His actions displeased his family and led to conflict, due to them desiring him to return home and live with his wife who was betrothen to him in his childhood, or face the consequences of being cut out of his will. In response to this, Damodar gave up an income of 50,000 Indian rupees to provide for the future of his would-be wife, and continued to live and work with the Theosophical founders.<ref name="ReferenceC"/> "After meeting H. P. B. his interior vision gradually opened and again he knew the Guru of his childhood vision, his Master K. H., which sealed his devotion to theosophy. His remarkable psychic powers made him the centre of many phenomena. Between 25-27 Nov. '83 he visited the ashram of his master to undergo certian training. From frail, timid, deferential, he returned bronzed, robust, bold, energetic."<ref>The International Theosophical Year Book 1938 (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938): 200.</ref>

Damodar wrote a number of excellent articles for [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']], which were compiled by [[Sven Eek]] in
''Damodar: The Writings of a Hindu Chela''. The compilation also includes some very interesting correspondence with [[William Quan Judge]], [[A. P. Sinnett]], and Mrs. Josephine W. Cables, of Rochester, New York, and various reports and other documents. All are dated in the range 1879-1886.

He continued his work in this way until on [[February 23]], 1885, when he went to [[Tibet]] to join his Master. Wearing Tibetan disguise he was brought to the frontier by his escort. Confirmation was sent by the ashram in June 1886 stating that Damodar was alive and safe.<ref>Henry Steel Olcott, 'Old Diary Leaves', Vol. 3, 1904, pp. 265-6</ref><ref>The International Theosophical Year Book 1938 (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938): 200.</ref>

== Mahatma Letters ==
[[File:Damodar signature 7317 MLB142b ML14b.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Damodar's signature on Mahatma Letter No. 142b (Barker no. 14b)]]

Under the direction of his master Koot Hoomi, Damodar wrote to [[A. P. Sinnett]]. His letters appear in [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett]] as [[Mahatma Letter No. 14a|number 142a]] (Barker no. 14a) and [[Mahatma Letter No. 14b|number 142b]] (Barker no. 14b). He provided information to Mr. Sinnett about the existence of the Mahatmas, and about initiation fees for members of the Theosophical Society.
 
 
He was mentioned in [[Mahatma Letter No. 65]] as a person who could convey papers from [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|Sinnett]] and [[Allan Octavian Hume|Hume]] to the [[Mahatmas]].

== Writings ==

These are some of the articles written for [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']]. They are available online at the [http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/damodar/dam-hp.htm [[Theosophical University Press]] online]:

* "The Swami of Akalkot" January, 1880.
* "Castes in India" May, 1880.
* "The Vedantasara" September, 1883.
* "Vedantism and Buddhism" August, 1884. Comment by "An Enquirer" on "The Vedantasara" with Damodar's Note appended.
* "Kavya Dosha Vivechana" October, 1883.
* "The Work of the Branches" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', January, 1884.
* "The Work of the Branches" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', March, 1884.
* "Oxford Mission Shots at Occultism" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', January, 1884.
* "White and Black Magic" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', February, 1884.
* "Contemplation" February, 1884.
* "Contemplation" April, 1884. Comments on previous article by "F. T. S." with Damodar's Note appended.
* "Contemplation - II" August, 1884.
* "The Philosophy and Science of Vedantic Raja Yoga" March, 1884. Edited by Babu Siris Chandra Vasu, B. A., F. T. S.
* "The Metaphysical Basis of 'Esoteric Buddhism' May, 1884.
* "The 'Occult World' and the 'Spiritualist' August, 1881.
* "Pert Questions and Plain Answers" May, 1882.
* "Answer to * * * 's Misconceptions" May, 1882.
* "Seeing Bright Light with Closed Eyes" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', September, 1883.
* "Can Females Become Adepts?" October, 1883.
* "'Phenomena'" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', April, 1884.
* "The Best Food for Man" April, 1884.
* "Esoteric Buddhism and Hinduism" June, 1884.
* "The Astral Body" January, 1885.
* "Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', December, 1881.
* "The Work of the Theosophical Society" Supplement to ''The Theosophist'', March, 1882.

== Notes ==
<references />

== Additional resources ==
*[http://www.theosophytrust.org/tlodocs/articlesTeacher.php?d=DamodarKMavalankar.htm&p=32 'Damodar K. Mavalankar' by Sri Raghavan Iyer]
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/damodar/dam-hp.htm 'Damodar, The Writings of a Hindu Chela', Compiled by Sven Eek]
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/damodar/dam1.htm 'Damodar, The Writings of a Hindu Chela', Compiled by Sven Eek -- Biographical notes]

[[Category:Writers|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]
[[Category:Associates of HPB|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]
[[Category:Clairvoyants|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]
[[Category:Chelas|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]
[[Category:Buddhists|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]
[[Category:Nationality Indian|Mavalankar, Damodar K.]]

Mahatma Letter No. 64

2012-09-07T02:53:01Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Commentary about this letter */

[[Category:ML from Subba Row]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[T. Subba Row|Subba Row]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = June 26, 1882
| receiveddate = June 1882
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = Coconada, India
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 131 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 64#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 63|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 65|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 58|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 59|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Coconada. 26th June, 1882.

To A. P. Sinnett, Esq., etc. etc. etc.

Dear Sir,

Please kindly excuse me for not having sent you a reply to your letter up to this time. The qualified assent which you were pleased to give to the conditions laid down by me necessitated a reference to the [[Brotherhood of Adepts|Brothers]] for their opinion and orders. And now I am sorry to inform you that anything like practical instruction in the ritual of [[Occult Science]] is impossible under the conditions you propose. So far as my knowledge goes, no student of Occult Philosophy has ever succeeded in developing his psychic powers without leading the life prescribed for such students; and it is not within the power of the teacher to make an exception in the case of any student. The rules laid down by the ancient teachers of Occult Science are inflexible; and it is not left to the discretion of any teacher either to enforce them or not to enforce them according to the nature of the existing circumstances. If you find it impracticable to change the present mode of your life, you cannot but wait for practical instruction until you are in a position to make such sacrifices as Occult Science demands; and for the present you must be satisfied with such theoretical

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-1_7249.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-1_7249_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 2 ==

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instruction as it may be possible to give you.

It is hardly necessary now to inform you whether the instruction promised you in my first letter under the conditions therein laid down would develop in you such powers as would enable you either to see the Brothers or converse with them [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyantly]]. Occult training, however commenced will in course of time, necessarily develop such powers. You will be taking a very low view of Occult Science if you were to suppose that the mere acquirement of psychic powers is the highest and the only desirable result of occult training. The mere acquisition of wonder-working powers can never secure immortality for the student of Occult Science unless he has learnt the means of shifting gradually his sense of individuality from his corruptible material body to the incorruptible and eternal Non-Being represented by his [[Seventh Principle|seventh principle]]. Please consider this as the real aim of Occult Science and see whether the rules you are called upon to obey are necessary or not to bring about this mighty change.

Under the present circumstances, the Brothers have asked me to assure you and [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]] that I would be fully prepared to give you both such theoretical instruction as I may be able to give in the Philosophy of the Ancient Brahminical religion and Esoteric Buddhism.

I am going to leave this place for Madras on the 30th of this month.

I beg to remain your sincerely,

T. Subba Row.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-2_7250.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-2_7250_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

{{Col-end}}

== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
In the handwriting of [[Subba Row|TSR]], both sides of paper in black ink.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

Joy Mills comments on Subba Row's statement on occult powers and true purpose of occult training:

<blockquote>
Occult training, states Subba Row, involves "instruction" that would "in the course of time necessarily develop such powers." In other words, the training and instruction accompanying it comes first and involve what Subba Row here calls "the means of shifting gradually [the student's] sense of individuality from the corruptible material body to the incorruptible and eternal Non-Being represented by the seventh principle." He adds: "Please consider this as the real aim of Occult Science." What is called for is a genuine "shift" from ego-centered consciousness to a transpersonal awareness of the underlying source of all existence ... <ref>Joy Mills, Reflections on an Ageless Wisdom, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010), 224.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 64

2012-09-07T02:52:04Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Commentary about this letter */

[[Category:ML from Subba Row]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[T. Subba Row|Subba Row]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = June 26, 1882
| receiveddate = June 1882
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = Coconada, India
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 131 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 64#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 63|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 65|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 58|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 59|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Coconada. 26th June, 1882.

To A. P. Sinnett, Esq., etc. etc. etc.

Dear Sir,

Please kindly excuse me for not having sent you a reply to your letter up to this time. The qualified assent which you were pleased to give to the conditions laid down by me necessitated a reference to the [[Brotherhood of Adepts|Brothers]] for their opinion and orders. And now I am sorry to inform you that anything like practical instruction in the ritual of [[Occult Science]] is impossible under the conditions you propose. So far as my knowledge goes, no student of Occult Philosophy has ever succeeded in developing his psychic powers without leading the life prescribed for such students; and it is not within the power of the teacher to make an exception in the case of any student. The rules laid down by the ancient teachers of Occult Science are inflexible; and it is not left to the discretion of any teacher either to enforce them or not to enforce them according to the nature of the existing circumstances. If you find it impracticable to change the present mode of your life, you cannot but wait for practical instruction until you are in a position to make such sacrifices as Occult Science demands; and for the present you must be satisfied with such theoretical

{{Col-break|width=3%}}

{{Col-break|width=15%}}
[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-1_7249.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-1_7249_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 2 ==

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instruction as it may be possible to give you.

It is hardly necessary now to inform you whether the instruction promised you in my first letter under the conditions therein laid down would develop in you such powers as would enable you either to see the Brothers or converse with them [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyantly]]. Occult training, however commenced will in course of time, necessarily develop such powers. You will be taking a very low view of Occult Science if you were to suppose that the mere acquirement of psychic powers is the highest and the only desirable result of occult training. The mere acquisition of wonder-working powers can never secure immortality for the student of Occult Science unless he has learnt the means of shifting gradually his sense of individuality from his corruptible material body to the incorruptible and eternal Non-Being represented by his [[Seventh Principle|seventh principle]]. Please consider this as the real aim of Occult Science and see whether the rules you are called upon to obey are necessary or not to bring about this mighty change.

Under the present circumstances, the Brothers have asked me to assure you and [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]] that I would be fully prepared to give you both such theoretical instruction as I may be able to give in the Philosophy of the Ancient Brahminical religion and Esoteric Buddhism.

I am going to leave this place for Madras on the 30th of this month.

I beg to remain your sincerely,

T. Subba Row.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-2_7250.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/64-2_7250_thm.jpg]

{{Col-break|width=30%}}
'''NOTES:'''
*

{{Col-end}}

== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
In the handwriting of [[Subba Row|TSR]], both sides of paper in black ink.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

Joy Mills comments on Subba Row's statement on occult powers and true purpose of occult training:

<blockquote>
Occult training, states Subba Row, involves "instruction" that would "in the course of time necessarily develop such powers." In other words, the training and instruction accompanying it comes first and involve what Subba Row here calls "the means of shifting gradually [the student's] sense of individuality from the corruptible material body to the incorruptible and eternal Non-Being represented by the seventh principle." He adds: "Please consider this as the real aim of Occult Science." What is called for is a genuine "shift" from ego-centered consciousness to a transpersonal awareness of the underlying source of all existence ... <ref>Joy Mills, Reflections on an Ageless Wisdom, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 2010), 22.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 3a

2012-09-06T19:58:29Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Context and background */

Mahatma Letter No. 2

2012-09-06T19:56:29Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Context and background */

[[Category:ML from Koot Hoomi]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate =
| receiveddate = October 19, 1880
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = Somewhere in the Kashmir Valley
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 2 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 2#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 1|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 3a|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 1|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 3a|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Cover sheet ==

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Received Simla, October 19th, 1880.

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'''NOTES:'''
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== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Much Esteemed Sir and Brother,

We will be at cross purposes in our correspondence until it has been made entirely plain that [[occult science]] has its own methods of research as fixed and arbitrary as the methods of its antithesis physical science are in their way. If the latter has its dicta so also has the former; and he who would cross the boundary of the unseen world can no more prescribe how he will proceed than the traveller who tries to penetrate to the inner subterranean recesses of L'Hassa — the blessed, could show the way to his guide. The [[mysteries]] never were, never can be, put within the reach of the general public, not, at least, until that longed for day when our religious philosophy becomes universal. At no time have more than a scarcely appreciable minority of men possessed nature's secret, though multitudes have witnessed the practical

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'''NOTES:'''
* L'Hassa is Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. It literally means "place of the gods."
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evidences of the possibility of their possession. The [[adept]] is the rare efflorescence of a generation of enquirers; and to become one, he must obey the inward impulse of his [[soul]] irrespective of the prudential considerations of worldly science or sagacity. Your desire is to be brought to communicate with one of us directly, without the agency of either [[H. P. Blavatsky|Mad. B.]] or any [[medium]]. Your idea would be, as I understand it, to obtain such communications either by letters — as the present one — or by audible words so as to be guided by one of us in the management and principally in the instruction of the [[Theosophical Society|society]]. You seek all this, and yet, as you say yourself, hitherto you have not found "sufficient reasons" to even give up your "modes of life" — directly hostile to such modes of communications. This is hardly reasonable. He who would lift up high the banner of [[mysticism]] and proclaim its reign near at hand, must give the example to others. He must be the first to change his modes of life; and, regarding the study of the [[occult]] [[mysteries]] as the upper step in the ladder

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'''NOTES:'''
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of Knowledge must loudly proclaim it such despite exact science and the opposition of society. "The Kingdom of Heaven is obtained by force" say the [[Christianity|Christian]] [[mysticism|mystics]]. It is but with armed hand, and ready to either conquer or perish that the modern [[mysticism|mystic]] can hope to achieve his object.

My first answer covered, I believed, most of the questions contained in your second and even third letter. Having then expressed therein my opinion that the world in general was unripe for any too staggering proof of [[occult]] power, there but remains to deal with the isolated individuals, who seek like yourself to penetrate behind the veil of [[matter]] into the world of primal causes, i.e., we need only consider now the cases of [[A. P. Sinnett|yourself]] and [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]]. This gentleman also, has done me the great honour to address me by name, offering to me a few questions and stating the conditions upon which he would be willing to work for us seriously. But your motives and aspirations being of diametrically opposite character, and

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hence — leading to different results I must reply to each of you separately.

The first and chief consideration in determining us to accept or reject your offer lies in the inner motive which propels you to seek our instructions, and in a certain sense — our guidance. The latter in all cases under reserve — as I understand it, and therefore remaining a question independent of aught else. Now, what are your motives? I may try to define them in their general aspect, leaving details for further consideration. They are: (1) The desire to receive positive and unimpeachable proofs that there really are forces in nature of which science knows nothing; (2) The hope to appropriate them some day — the sooner the better, for you do not like to wait — so as to enable yourself — (a) to demonstrate their existence to a few chosen western minds; (b) to contemplate future life as an objective reality built upon the rock of Knowledge — not of faith; and (c) to finally learn — most important this, among all your motives, perhaps, though the

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'''NOTES:'''
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most occult and the best guarded — the whole truth about our Lodges and ourselves; to get, in short, the positive assurance that the "[[Brothers]]" — of whom everyone hears so much and sees so little — are real entities — not fictions of a disordered hallucinated brain. Such, viewed in their best light appear to us your "motives" for addressing me. And in the same spirit do I answer them, hoping that my sincerity will not be interpreted in a wrong way or attributed to anything like an unfriendly spirit.

To our minds then, these motives, sincere and worthy of every serious consideration from the worldly standpoint, appear — selfish. (You have to pardon me what you might view as crudeness of language, if your desire really is, that which you profess — to learn truth and get instruction from us — who belong to quite a different world from the one you move in.) They are selfish because you must be aware that the chief object of the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] is not so much to gratify individual aspirations as to serve our fellow men: and the real value of this term "selfish," which may jar

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 6 ==

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upon your ear, has a peculiar significance with us which it cannot have with you; therefore, and to begin with, you must not accept it otherwise, than in the former sense. Perhaps you will better appreciate our meaning when told that in our view the highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity become tainted with selfishness if, in the mind of the philanthropist there lurks the shadow of desire for self benefit or a tendency to do injustice, even when these exist unconsciously to himself. Yet, you have ever discussed but to put down the idea of a universal Brotherhood, questioned its usefulness, and advised to remodel the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] on the principle of a college for the special study of [[occultism]]. This, my respected and esteemed friend and Brother — will never do!

Having disposed of "personal motives," let us analyze your "terms" for helping us to do public good. Broadly stated these terms are — first: that an independent Anglo-Indian Theosophical Society

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'''NOTES:'''
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shall be founded through your kind services, in the management of which neither of our present representatives shall have any voice; and second, that one of us shall take the new body "under his patronage," — be — "in free and direct communication with its leaders," and afford them "direct proof that he really possessed that superior knowledge of the forces of nature and the attributes of the [[Soul#Human soul|human soul]] which would inspire them with proper confidence in his leadership." I have copied your own words, so as to avoid inaccuracy in defining the position.

From your point of view then, those terms may seem so very reasonable as to provoke no dissent; and, indeed, a majority of your countrymen — if not of Europeans — might share that opinion. What, will you say, can be more reasonable than to ask that teacher — anxious to disseminate his knowledge, and pupil — offering him to do so should be brought face to face and the one give the experimental proofs to the other that his instructions were correct? Man of the world, living

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'''NOTES:'''
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in, and in full sympathy with it — you are undoubtedly right. But the men of this other world of ours, untutored in your modes of thought, and who find very hard at times to follow and appreciate the latter, can hardly be blamed for not responding as heartily to your suggestions as in your opinion they deserve. The first and most important of our objections is to be found in our Rules. True, we have our schools and teachers, our [[neophyte]]s and shaberons (superior [[adepts]]), and the door is always opened to the right man who knocks. And, we invariably welcome the new comer; — only, instead of going over to him he has to come to us. More than that: unless he has reached that point in the path of [[occultism]] from which return is impossible, by his having irrevocably pledged himself to our association, we never — except in cases of utmost moment — visit him or even cross the threshold of his door in visible appearance.

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'''NOTES:'''
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Is any of you so eager for knowledge and the beneficent powers it confers as to be ready to leave your world and come into ours? Then let him come; but he must not think to return until the seal of the [[mysteries]] has locked his lips even against the chances of his own weakness or indiscretion. Let him come by all means, as the pupil to the master, and without conditions; or let him wait, as so many others have, and be satisfied with such crumbs of knowledge as may fall in his way.

And supposing you were thus to come — as two of your own countrymen have already — as [[H. P. Blavatsky|Mad. B.]] did, and [[H. S. Olcott|Mr. O.]] will; supposing you were to abandon all for the truth; to toil wearily for years up the hard steep road, not daunted by obstacles, firm under every temptation; were to faithfully keep within your heart the secrets entrusted to you as a trial; had worked with all your energy and unselfishly to spread the truth and provoke men to

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correct thinking and a correct life — would you consider it just, if, after all your efforts, we were to grant to [[H. P. Blavatsky|Mad. B.]] or [[H. S. Olcott|Mr. O.]] as "outsiders" the terms you now ask for yourselves? Of these two persons one has already given three-fourths of a life, the other six years of manhood's prime to us, and both will so labour to the close of their days. Though ever working for their merited reward, yet never demanding it, nor murmuring when disappointed. Even though they respectively could accomplish far less than they do, would it not be a palpable injustice to ignore them as proposed in an important field of [[Theosophy|Theosophical]] effort? Ingratitude is not among our vices, nor do we imagine you would wish to advise it. . . .

Neither of them has the least inclination to interfere with the management of the contemplated Anglo-Indian Branch, nor dictate its officers. But, the new society, if formed at all, must (though bearing a

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distinctive title of its own) be, in fact, a Branch of the Parent body as is the British Theosophical Society at London, and contribute to its vitality and usefulness by promoting its leading idea of a Universal Brotherhood, and in other practicable ways.

Badly as the [[phenomena]] may have been shown, there have still been — as yourself admit — certain ones that are unimpeachable. The "raps on the table when no one touches it," and the "bell sounds in the air" have, you say, "always been regarded as satisfactory," etc., etc. From this, you reason that good "test [[phenomena]]" may easily be multiplied ad infinitum." So they can — in any place where our magnetic and other conditions are constantly offered; and where we do not have to act with and through an enfeebled female body in which, as we might say, a vital cyclone is raging much of the time. But, imperfect as may be our visible agent — and often most unsatisfactory and imperfect she is — yet, she is the best available at present,

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and her [[phenomena]] have for about half a century astounded and baffled some of the cleverest minds of the age. If ignorant of "journalistic etiquette" and the requirements of physical science, we still have an intuition of the effects of causes. Since you have written nothing about the very [[phenomena]] you properly regard as so convincing we have the right to infer that much precious power may be wasted without better results. By itself the "brooch" affair is — in the eyes of the world — completely useless, and time will prove me right. Your kind intention has entirely failed.

To conclude: we are ready to continue this correspondence if the view given of [[occult]] study as above suits you. Through the ordeal described, each of us, whatever his country, or race, has passed. Meanwhile, hoping in the best — yours faithfully as ever

[[Koot Hoomi|Koot' Hoomi Lal Sing]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

The first letter received from the Mahatma K.H. was written from Toling Monastery, a relatively short distance over the border in Tibet. When the second was written (or precipitated), the Mahatma had left Toling Monastery and was somewhere in the Kashmir Valley on his way to consult with the Mahachohan about a letter he had received from A.O. Hume.

As explained by Sinnett in The Occult World (90-91), Hume had read the first letter from the Mahatma and, becoming enthused with the possibilities of such a correspondence, decided to write to K.H. himself. In that letter he offered to give up everything and go into seclusion if only he could be trained in occultism so that he could return to the world and demonstrate its realities. 1

After receiving the Mahatma’s first letter, Mr. Sinnett wrote to him again, saying in effect that the European mind was less intractable than K.H. had represented it, and setting forth some of the “terms” under which he would be willing to work for the cause of the Masters. He also made a suggestion, which he and Hume had devised, that a separate branch of the Theosophical Society should be formed, to be called the Anglo-Indian Branch, not to be subject in any way to H.P.B. and Col. Olcott, but connected directly with the Brotherhood, with the Mahatmas giving their instructions and teachings directly to the members of the branch. It seems that Hume also, in his letter to the Mahatma, had argued for this suggestion.

Received Simla, October 19th, 1880.

== Physical description of letter ==

The original letter is in Folio 1 in the British Library. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was:
<blockquote>
Similar in appearance to [[Mahatma Letter No. 1|ML-1]] and in the same dull black ink. On 6 sheets of standard size white paper, on both sides. Also, as in ML-1, the signature is in a somewhat different script from the text and in a slightly darker ink. It has a tinge of red in places. Also the signature varies a little from the previous one in that the last three parts are all joined together and the "h" at the end is illegible or missing. There are three dots int he form of a triangle beneath the signature.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 37-38.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 1

2012-09-06T19:54:27Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Context and background */

[[Category:ML from Koot Hoomi]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox

| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = October 15, 1880
| receiveddate = October 17 (or 18 per [[Boris de Zirkoff|BdZ]])
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Toling Monastery, Tibet]]
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 1 in Barker numbering.''' In it, [[Koot Hoomi]] responds to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett's]] idea that the existence of the [[Mahatmas]] could be proved to skeptics by simultaneously having a London newspaper [[Precipitation|precipated]] in India on the very day of its publication, and a [[The Pioneer (periodical)|''Pioneer'']] precipitated in London. KH explains why that method would not work. See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 1#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
{{pad|10em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 2|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 {{pad|10em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 2|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Received Simla about October 15th, 1880.

Esteemed Brother and Friend,

Precisely because the test of the London newspaper would close the mouths of the skeptics — it is unthinkable. See it in what light you will — the world is yet in its first stage of disenthralment if not development, hence — unprepared. Very true, we work by natural not supernatural means and laws. But, as on the one hand Science would find itself unable (in its present state) to account for the wonders given in its name, and on the other the ignorant masses would still be left to view the [[Phenomenon|phenomenon]] in the light of a miracle; everyone who would thus be made a witness to the occurrence would be thrown off his balance and the results would be deplorable. Believe me, it would be so — especially for yourself who originated the idea, and the [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|devoted woman]] who so foolishly rushes into the wide open door leading to notoriety. This door, though opened by so friendly a hand as yours, would prove very soon a trap — and a fatal one indeed for her. And such is not surely your object?

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'''NOTES:'''
* The '''devoted woman''' refers to [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]].

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Madmen are they, who, speculating but upon the present, wilfully shut their eyes to the past when made already to remain naturally blind to the future! Far be it from me, to number you with the latter — therefore will I endeavour to explain. Were we to accede to your desires know you really what consequences would follow in the trail of success? The inexorable shadow which follows all human innovations moves on, yet few are they, who are ever conscious of its approach and dangers. What are then to expect they, who would offer the world an innovation which, owing to human ignorance, if believed in, will surely be attributed to those dark agencies the two-thirds of humanity believe in and dread as yet? You say — half London would be converted if you could deliver them a [[Pioneer]] on its day of publication. I beg to say that if the people believed the thing true they would kill you before you could make the round of Hyde Park; if it were not believed true, — the least that could happen would be the loss of your reputation and good name, — for propagating such ideas.

The success of an attempt of such a kind as the one you propose, must be calculated and based upon a thorough knowledge of the people around you.

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It depends entirely upon the social and moral conditions of the people in their bearing on these deepest and most mysterious questions which can stir the human mind — the deific powers in man and the possibilities contained in nature. How many, even of your best friends, of those who surround you, who are more than superficially interested in these abstruse problems? You could count them upon the fingers of your right hand. Your race boasts of having liberated in their century, the genius so long imprisoned in the narrow vase of dogmatism and intolerance — the genius of knowledge, wisdom and freethought. It says that in their turn ignorant prejudice and religious bigotry, bottled up like the wicked Jin of old, and sealed up by the Solomons of science rests at the bottom of the sea and can never, escaping to the surface again, reign over the world as it did in days of old; that the public mind is quite free, in short, and ready to accept any demonstrated truth. Aye; but is it verily so, my respected friend? Experimental knowledge does not quite date from 1662, when Bacon, Robert Boyle and the Bishop of Chester transformed under the royal charter their "Invisible College" into a Society for the promotion of experimental science.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Jin''' is a genie or djinn, a supernatural creature from Arabic folklore - often captured in a bottle and released by magic. It is a play on the word "genius."
* '''Solomons''' is used here, sarcastically, to indicate wise men. King Solomon in the Bible was noted for his wisdom and fairness.
* The '''Invisible College''' was a group that was a precursor to the Royal Society in London.

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Ages before the Royal Society found itself becoming a reality upon the plan of the "Prophetic Scheme" an innate longing for the hidden, a passionate love for and the study of nature had led men in every generation to try and fathom her secrets deeper than their neighbours did. Roma ante Romulum fuit — is an axiom taught to us in your English schools. Abstract enquiries into the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction and by men separated from his days by as long a period — and far longer — than the one which separates you from the great Syracusian. The [[vril]] of the [[The Coming Race (book)|"Coming Race"]] was the common property of races now extinct. And, as the very existence of those gigantic ancestors of ours is now questioned — though in the Himavats, on the very territory belonging to you we have a cave full of the skeletons of these giants — and their huge frames when found are invariably regarded as isolated freaks of nature, so the [[vril]] or [[Akas]] — as we call it — is looked upon as an impossibility, a myth. And, without a

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'''NOTES:'''
* The '''Royal Society''' is a British academy of sciences based in London and founded in 1660.
* '''Roma ante Romulum fuit''' is Latin for "Rome existed before Romulus <nowiki>[</nowiki>the founder of Rome<nowiki>]</nowiki>."
* '''Syracusian''' refers to [[Archimedes]], one of the leading scientists in ancient Greece.
* '''Himavats''' indicates the Himalayan Mountains; Himavat is the Hindu god of snow.

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thorough knowledge of [[Akas]], its combinations and properties, how can Science hope to account for such phenomena? We doubt not but the men of your science are open to conviction; yet facts must be first demonstrated to them, they must first have become their own property, have proved amenable to their own modes of investigation, before you find them ready to admit them as facts. If you but look into the Preface to the "Micrographia" you will find in Hooke's suggestions that the intimate relations of objects were of less account in his eyes than their external operation on the senses — and Newton's fine discoveries found in him their greatest opponent. The modern Hookeses are many. Like this learned but ignorant man of old your modern men of science are less anxious to suggest a physical connexion of facts which might unlock for them many an occult force in nature, as to provide a convenient "classification of scientific experiments"; so that the most essential quality of an hypothesis is not that it should be true but only plausible — in their opinion.

So far for Science — as much as we know of it. As for human nature in general, it is the same now as it was a million of years

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''''Micrographia''''' by '''Robert Hooke''' was the first major publication of the Royal Society, detailing his discoveries made through use of a primitive microscope.

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== Page 6 ==

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ago: Prejudice based upon selfishness; a general unwillingness to give up an established order of things for new modes of life and thought — and occult study requires all that and much more —; pride and stubborn resistance to Truth if it but upsets their previous notions of things, — such are the characteristics of your age, and especially of the middle and lower classes. What then would be the results of the most astounding [[Phenomena|phenomena]], supposing we consented to have them produced? However successful, danger would be growing proportionately with success. No choice would soon remain but to go on, ever crescendo, or to fall in this endless struggle with prejudice and ignorance killed by your own weapons. Test after test would be required and would have to be furnished; every subsequent phenomenon expected to be more marvellous than the preceding one. Your daily remark is, that one cannot be expected to believe unless he becomes an eye-witness. Would the lifetime of a man suffice to satisfy the whole world of skeptics? It may be an easy matter to increase the original number of believers at [[Simla, India|Simla]] to hundreds and thousands. But what of the hundreds of millions of those who could

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not be made eye-witnesses? The ignorant — unable to grapple with the invisible operators — might some day vent their rage on the visible agents at work; the higher and educated classes would go on disbelieving as ever, tearing you to shreds as before. In common with many, you blame us for our great secrecy. Yet we know something of human nature for the experience of long centuries — aye, ages — has taught us. And, we know, that so long as science has anything to learn, and a shadow of religious dogmatism lingers in the hearts of the multitudes, the world's prejudices have to be conquered step by step, not at a rush. As hoary antiquity had more than one Socrates so the dim Future will give birth to more than one martyr. Enfranchised science contemptuously turned away her face from the Copernican opinion renewing the theories of Aristarchus Samius — who "affirmeth that the earth moveth circularly about her own centre" years before the Church sought to sacrifice Galileo as a holocaust to the Bible. The ablest mathematician at the Court of Edward VI — Robert Recorde — was left to starve in jail by his colleagues, who laughed at his Castle of Knowledge,

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Aristarchus of Samos''' was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathemetician who presented the heliocentric view that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
* '''Robert Recorde''' was a Welsh physician and mathematiciam who introduced the "+" and "=" signs. He died in a debtors' prison after a distinguished career at court. His '''''Castle of Knowledge''''' was a book about planetary motion.
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declaring his discoveries "vain phantasies." Wm. Gilbert of Colchester — Queen Elisabeth's physician — died poisoned, only because — this real founder of experimental science in England — has had the audacity of anticipating Galileo; of pointing out Copernican's fallacy as to the "third movement," which was gravely alleged to account for the parallelism of the earth's axis of rotation! The enormous learning of the Paracelsi, of the Agrippas and the Deys was ever doubted. It was science which laid her sacrilegious hand upon the great work "De Magnete" — "The Heavenly White Virgin" ([[Akas]]) and others. And it was the illustrious "Chancellor of England and of Nature" — Lord Verulam-Bacon — who having won the name of the Father of Inductive Philosophy, permitted himself to speak of such men as the above-named as the "Alchemicians of the Fantastic philosophy."

All this is old history, you will think. Verily so; but the chronicles of our modern days do not differ very essentially from their predecessors. And we have but to bear in mind the recent persecutions of [[mediums]] in England, the burning of supposed witches, and sorcerers in South America, Russia and the frontiers of Spain — to assure ourselves that the only salvation of

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''William Gilbert''' wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Magnete De Magnete], in which he made the case that the Earth is magnetic, and provided support for Copernican theory of planetary motion.
* '''Lord Verulam-Bacon''' was '''Francis Bacon'''.

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the genuine proficients in [[Occult Science|occult sciences]] lies in the skepticism of the public: the charlatans and the jugglers are the natural shields of the "[[adepts]]." The public safety is only ensured by our keeping secret the terrible weapons which might otherwise be used against it, and which, as you have been told became deadly in the hands of the wicked and selfish.

I conclude by reminding you that such phenomena as you crave, have ever been reserved as a reward for those who have devoted their lives to serve the goddess [[Saraswati]] — our [[Aryan]] [[Isis]]. Were they given to the profanes what would remain for our faithful ones? Many of your suggestions are highly reasonable and will be attended to. I listened attentively to the conversation which took place at [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s. His arguments are perfect from the standpoint of [[Exotericism|exoteric]] wisdom. But, when the time comes and he is allowed to have a full glimpse into the world of [[Esotericism|esoterism]], with its laws based upon mathematically correct calculations of the future — the necessary results of the causes which we are always at liberty to create and shape at our will but are as unable to control their consequences which thus become our masters — then only will, both you and he understand why to the uninitiated our acts must seem often unwise, if not actually foolish.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 10 ==

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Your forthcoming letter I will not be able to fully answer without taking the advice of those who generally deal with the European [[Mysticism|mystics]]. Moreover the present letter must satisfy you on many points you have better defined in your last; but it will no doubt disappoint you as well. In regard to the production of newly devised and still more startling [[Psychic Phenomena|phenomena]] demanded of her with our help, as a man well acquainted with the strategy, you must remain satisfied with the reflection that there is little use in acquiring new positions until those that you have already reached are secured, and your Enemies full aware of your right to their possession. In other words, you had a greater variety of [[Psychic Phenomena|phenomena]] produced for yourself and friends than many a regular [[neophyte]] has seen in several years. First, notify the public of the production of the note, the cup and the sundry experiments with the cigarette papers, and let them digest these. Get them to work for an explanation. And as except upon the direct and absurd accusation of deceit they will never be able to account for some of these, while the skeptics are quite satisfied with their present hypothesis for the production of the

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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brooch — you will then have done real good to the cause of truth and justice to the woman who is made to suffer for it. Isolated as it is, the case under notice in the [[Pioneer]] becomes less than worthless — it is positively injurious for all of you — for yourself as the Editor of that paper as much as for anyone else, if you pardon me for offering you that which looks like advice. It is neither fair to yourself nor to her, that, because the number of eye-witnesses does not seem sufficient to warrant the public attention, your and [[Patience Sinnett|your lady's]] testimony should go for nothing. Several cases combining to fortify your position as truthful and intelligent witness to the various occurrences, each of these gives you an additional right to assert what you know. It imposes upon you the sacred duty to instruct the public and prepare them for future possibilities by gradually opening their eyes to the truth. The opportunity should not be lost through a lack of as great confidence in your own individual right of assertion as that of Sir Donald Stewart. One witness of well known character outweighs the evidence of ten strangers; and if, there is anyone in India who is respected for his trustworthiness it is — the Editor of the Pioneer. Remember that there was but

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Sir Donald Stewart''' was a British field marshall and was involved in the military occupation and administration of India from 1840 to 1900.

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one hysterical woman alleged to have been present at the pretended [[ascension]], and that the phenomenon has never been corroborated by repetition. Yet for nearly 2,000 years countless milliards have pinned their faith upon the testimony of that one woman — and she not over trustworthy.

TRY — and first work upon the material you have and then we will be the first to help you to get further evidence. Until then, believe me, always your sincere friend,

[[Koot Hoomi|Koot' Hoomi Lal Singh]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

In The Occult World, (pp. 81-83) Sinnett explains what he wrote in his first letter to the Mahatma and why he wrote it. In spite of his conviction of the genuineness of the phenomena performed by H.P.B. during the summer of 1880 at Simla, he felt that they were not always surrounded by the necessary safeguards and that it would not be very difficult for any thoroughgoing skeptic to cast doubt on their validity. He was eager to have some phenomenon produced which would, as he expressed it, “leave no opening for even the suggestion of imposture.” He wondered whether the “Brothers” themselves might not always realize the necessity for rendering their test phenomena unassailable in every minor detail.

So, Sinnett decided that in his first letter to the Mahatma, he would suggest a test which he was sure would be absolutely fool-proof and which could not fail to convince the most profound skeptic. This was the simultaneous production in Simla (in the presence of the group there) of one day’s editions of the London Times and The Pioneer.

At that time, London and India were at least a month apart by all means of communication other than telegraph, and it would obviously have been impossible for the entire contents of the Times to have been telegraphed to India in advance of its publication in London, and to appear in print in India at the same time that it appeared in print in London. Further, such a project could not have been undertaken without the whole world knowing about it.

After he had written the letter and delivered it to H.P.B., a day or so passed before he heard anything about its fate. Finally, H.P.B. told him he was to have an answer. This so encouraged him that he sat down and wrote a second letter, feeling that perhaps he had not made his first letter quite strong enough to convince his correspondent. After the lapse of another day or so, he found on his writing table, one evening, his first letter from the Mahatma K.H. It answered both of his letters.

Received Simla about October 15th, 1880.

== Physical description of letter ==

The original letter is in Folio 1 in the British Library. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
In dull black ink, on both sides of white paper. There are some smears and write-overs and, in a few instances, words have been crossed out.In the bottom right-hand corner of the first page are three rather large red dots in the formm of a triangle with a small ink mark underneath which looks like an initial. The signature is in slightly blacker ink than the text, and the script is not quite the same. This characteristic is noticeable in several of the earlier letters.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 35.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-09-06T19:44:29Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Context and background */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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'''NOTE - Ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as dreams, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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*

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about [[Henry Slade|Slade]]'s case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Slade's case''' refers to [[Henry Slade|Dr. Henry Slade]], an American medium who became rich by touring the world, demonstrating psychic phenomena.

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such blows - magna est veritas et prevalebit -''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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'''NOTES:'''
* "'''Magna est veritas et praevalebit'''" means "Truth is mighty, and will prevail."

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not '''a''' doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "[dictum?]" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Hakim''' is a Muslim honorific title used for a leader or ruler of an area.

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "[sifaten?]" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
* '''Sifat''' means nature in Malay.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

<blockquote>
Letter No. 8 (ML-99) and No. 9 (ML-98) have to be considered together. Letter No. 8 is dated November 20, 1880, but it was not transmitted to the Mahatma until Dec. 1, 1880 or later. Letter No. 9 was received on Dec. 1, 1880 or shortly thereafter, on the same date that Letter No. 8 was transmitted to K.H. Letter No. 8 is from Hume to the Mahatma; Letter No. 9 is a reply to that letter, but is directed to Sinnett rather than to Hume.
This may seem confusing. In The Occult World, p. 122, Sinnett mentions that Hume wrote a long reply to the Mahatma’s first letter to him, and subsequently an additional letter to K.H. which he forwarded to Sinnett, asking him to read it and then seal it up and send or give it to H.P.B. for transmittal, since she was expected soon at Allahabad. Letter No. 8 is this additional letter.
<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 43.</ref>.
</blockquote>

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 9

2012-09-06T19:17:29Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Commentary about this letter */

Mahatma Letter No. 9

2012-09-06T19:16:44Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Commentary about this letter */

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-09-02T06:34:30Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''NOTES:'''
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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as dreams, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about [[Henry Slade|Slade]]'s case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Slade's case''' refers to [[Henry Slade|Dr. Henry Slade]], an American medium who became rich by touring the world, demonstrating psychic phenomena.

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== Page 4 ==

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such blows - magna est veritas et prevalebit -''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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'''NOTES:'''
* "'''Magna est veritas et praevalebit'''" means "Truth is mighty, and will prevail."

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not '''a''' doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "[dictum?]" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Hakim''' is a Muslim honorific title used for a leader or ruler of an area.

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== Page 8 ==

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "[sifaten?]" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
* '''Sifat''' means nature in Malay.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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== Page 11 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-30T16:06:07Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 5 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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'''NOTE - Ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 2 ==

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as dreams, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about [[Henry Slade|Slade]]'s case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Slade's case''' refers to [[Henry Slade|Dr. Henry Slade]], an American medium who became rich by touring the world, demonstrating psychic phenomena.

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== Page 4 ==

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'''NOTE - Long ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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'''NOTE - Ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
 
of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such blows - magna est veritas et prevalebit -''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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'''NOTES:'''
* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not '''a''' doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "[dictum?]" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Hakim''' is a Muslim honorific title used for a leader or ruler of an area.

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== Page 8 ==

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 11 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-29T21:35:48Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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*

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as dreams, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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*

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about [[Henry Slade|Slade]]'s case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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* '''Slade's case''' refers to [[Henry Slade|Dr. Henry Slade]], an American medium who became rich by touring the world, demonstrating psychic phenomena.

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not '''a''' doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "[dictum?]" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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* '''Hakim''' is a Muslim honorific title used for a leader or ruler of an area.

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-28T23:38:52Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 2 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as dreams, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-28T23:37:37Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 2 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, or you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge, have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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*

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-28T17:02:21Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principle as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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*

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-28T16:58:34Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given any real vital principles as a basis to the Society & nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-28T16:40:05Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 2 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to in order to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks - and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T17:10:27Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 10 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T17:08:16Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 9 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T17:06:12Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T17:00:34Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 6 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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*

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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*

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T16:58:37Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 5 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage, "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good end but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt even to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and vaquils, the khitmutgars and the bulk of the lower class officials & employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar classes in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it equally however badly set. I should prefer to get it suitably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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* A '''"Vaquil"''' (more commonly spelled as "vakil") refers to an official or ambassador.
* A '''"Khitmutgar"''' is a waiter.
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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend to discover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty pagri and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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* '''"Pagri"''' is the term for a "turban" within India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "dhun, man, fan[?]" proposed to me twenty years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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'''NOTES:'''
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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T14:33:13Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 4 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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'''NOTE - Ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 2 ==

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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*

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== Page 4 ==

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might almost say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast am[oun]t in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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'''NOTE - Ellipsis in printed text has been added back from letter image, printed in boldface.'''
 
 
of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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'''NOTES:'''
* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 8 ==

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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*

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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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*

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== Page 11 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T12:30:12Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 5 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such beaues? -magna est veritas et prevalebit''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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* magna est veritas et praevalebit: Truth is mighty, and will prevail

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi Singhs" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T05:53:42Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 5 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly discredited but make it ridiculous & you may write its epitaph. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am truly trying to arrive at), it will outlive & smother a hundred such __ -magnus et veritas et prevale bet''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.''' (5)
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-27T02:27:43Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 11 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as a means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-26T21:30:13Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishmen. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-26T21:28:28Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude '''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,''' this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.''' Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs & water & sleep & live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith & capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey & ask no questions. But if the thing was material, & either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" & make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permanent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __, the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, fawning, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T18:44:15Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 1 transcription, image, and notes */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of mankind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel gratitude to you or anyone else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permananent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T18:06:44Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good faith + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "hakims" were willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permananent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T17:55:23Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''[[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very permananent harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an American of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T17:39:18Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 11 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer & engineer & I a mere day labourer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T14:26:57Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 10 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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*

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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== Page 8 ==

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in former letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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== Page 11 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T14:24:41Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 10 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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*

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== Page 2 ==

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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== Page 4 ==

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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== Page 8 ==

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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== Page 9 ==

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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== Page 10 ==

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'''The most important point of your letter to me is that wherein you say "powerless to send you a neophyte before you have pledged yourself to us". Here perhaps is the real crux. What is the pledge you require? All seems to turn upon this. If it is merely to preserve entire secrecy as to all that we may learn, and is to yourselves, and your followers, never without permission to utilize any knowledge gained from you and always to act in accordance with your wishes in all cases in which it does not seem to be wrong to do so, I at least think that if satisfied on the points referred to in foreseen letters, I could give it. And if I did give it I would abide by it come what might. But if it is the old surrender of "__ ,__,__" proposed to me __ years ago, then I for one will never give it. I feel that I am responsible to higher than earthly intelligences. I don't pretend to know what they are. But I know that they exist, as certainly as I know that sugar is sweet to my taste, tho I can prove neither fact to anyone else. I will resign that responsibility into no earthly hands.'''

'''On the other hand, I do not care to play at Theosophy. Either I go in for it in real earnest or not at all. If my stricture of the right of private judgment renders the real earnnest impossible under your rules - well and good - the thing must be at an end for me. '''

'''It seems to me useless to discuss articles of association and the like unless these fundamental questions are first settled. Sinnett is deeply interested in the phenomena as such. I am not. He thinks'''

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== Page 11 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T13:39:30Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 9 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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== Page 2 ==

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is awfully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T13:35:51Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 9 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.'''
 
 
'''I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is woefully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect my sentiments.'''
 
 
'''As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-25T13:29:44Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 9 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''to aim at. Old, mean? clothes are one thing (though when a man can dress in plain ones I cannot see why he should not), but dirtiness of body is another and I do not believe that where this can be avoided, it should be permitted. And in fact I am unable to believe that any adept can be really dirty or offensive. But even were this so, this would not in the smallest degree repel me, once I knew that it was really an adept I was dealing with and that as foul as the exterior husk might be, the true good seed was within.
 
I am quite sure that if you are true and genuine, and I believe you to be, the kindly feelings that this correspondence has engendered toward you would be in no way weakened, but rather strengthened by personal intercourse with you. I hardly see people's outsides. I often know and care for people without hardly knowing what they are like in body. Men mostly think a great deal of women's looks. and I have been sometimes surprised when promising a woman to a man, at being told "look she may be very good but she is woefully plain" and then again on looking carefully at my lady friend __ cover, tho I had never known it that she was awfully plain. So I am quite certain that nothing in your external personal appearance could in the smallest degree affect any sentiments.
 
As for your dear dirty neophyte, I wish he had been sent to me, dirty __ and all, and it would have gone hard with me, if while learning from him higher things, I had not been able to convert him to my views of the beauty and goodness of cleanliness.'''
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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T23:43:03Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's or Mohammedans. Nor do I love any more the similar __ in Germany France or England. Nor do I love the self seeking, __ing, money lenders and the like, who constitute the majority of those who crowd about us official Englishman. I am civil to them, I try, to be kind to them, but I do not like or respect them, not because they are Hindoos Sikhs or Mohammedans, but because they are self seekers. Mean, Base, and because their presence sits on me like a nightmare and weighs down my own thoughts. But there have been natives Hindoos and Mohammedans whom I have loved and respected as much as I could have loved and respected any European. There is no question of race or colour or creed at all. This is a mere question of intrinsic qualities. "__" - '''
 
'''When you say that your highest adepts are "greasy Tibetans & Punjabi __" and that "the lion is proverbially a dirty and offensive beast", I presume you are joking. If not, tho a diamond is a diamond, and I should prize it __ however badly set. I should prefer to get it __ably set; and tho purity of soul is the one great first requisite, & all other things comparatively insignificant, yet in its way purity and cleanliness of body is not to be despised and I confess that I think the perfect jewell, the pure stone set in the pure clean body, the thing'''

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T22:42:58Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I am concerned the words "whose race you have not yet learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class officials and employees, Hindoo's __ or __.''' . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T22:21:21Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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== Page 3 ==

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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== Page 4 ==

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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== Page 7 ==

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm. Then if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or unwise, then I should most distinctly refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that despite any previous doubts, it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you now so dislike the idea of a purely nominal executive supervision by [[H. S. Olcott|Col Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I say __the words "whose race you have __ learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class of''' . . .

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== Page 9 ==

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== Page 10 ==

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T21:06:30Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 5 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence '''and this veil of secrecy is I submit an anachronism. It may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the most highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would at worse entail ridicule & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle)''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person made themselves ridiculous in connexion there with?''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ ridiculous & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if there be a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm - __ if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or __, then I should most __ refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that __ any previous doubts,it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you __ so dislike the idea of a purely __ executive and __ __ by Col [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I say __the words "whose race you have __ learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class of''' . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T18:20:19Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 8 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence. '''had? This veil of secrecy is I submit in __ ___it may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the new & highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would entail __ & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle) ''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person __ themselves__in connexion there with.''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if therebe a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm - __ if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or __, then I should most __ refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that __ any previous doubts,it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you __ so dislike the idea of a purely __ executive and __ __ by Col [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding.
 
'''Truly I should object to the dictation not only of a Hindoo but of any human being - I allow no man to dictate to me. But if a Hindoo comes to me and gives me good advice, and shows me reasons why I should do this or should not do the other I should be as readily guided by that advice as tho it had come from an English man or a French man.'''
 
 
'''So far as I say __the words "whose race you have __ learnt __ to tolerate let alone to love or respect" have no application. I do not love the low lying mookhtears and __,the __ and the bulk of the lower class of''' . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T17:58:01Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 7 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual -- doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditation and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not of a character to produce objective results, or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to ___ to lead others by nature less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence. '''had? This veil of secrecy is I submit in __ ___it may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the new & highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would entail __ & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle) ''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person __ themselves__in connexion there with.''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if therebe a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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== Page 6 ==

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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'''And here I must take my stand - as for physical matters, when where or what one eats or sucks, where or how one lives or sleeps, these are all accidentals - matters of no earthly consequence provided my health does not seriously suffer, I would as soon live on herbs + water + sleep + live in a cave or a mud hut if any good was to come of it, as in any other ways.''' But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. '''Where a matter is immaterial, i.e. as far as my unaided judgement enables me to discern no harm - __ if the persons who asked me to do it were persons in whose good __ + capacity I had confidence I should like [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] be quite willing to obey + ask no questions. But if the thing was material, + either involves consequences which I could not clearly forsee, or appears to me wrong or __, then I should most __ refuse to obey unless the "__" was willing to explain to me the reasons for their "__" + make it clear to me that __ any previous doubts,it was really the right thing to do.'''

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. '''Sinnett thinks this I believe - I do not - given my real vital prior ci? foles? as a basis to the Society and nobody's connections with it could do any very perman__ harm - So I quite agree in all you say about this. But when you go on to say "But if you __ so dislike the idea of a purely __ executive and __ __ by Col [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] - an american of your own race - you would surely rebel against dictation from a Hindoo" you must entirely mistake my feelings at any rate.'''

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding. . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T03:07:47Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 6 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual in doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditations and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not a character to produce objective results or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to __ others __ less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence. '''had? This veil of secrecy is I submit in __ ___it may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the new & highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would entail __ & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle) ''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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== Page 5 ==

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person __ themselves__in connexion there with.''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if therebe a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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. . . But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. . . .

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. . . .

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding. . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-24T03:05:48Z

Ed Moskowitz: /* Page 6 */

[[Category:ML from Hume]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML needs publication history]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]
{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| receivedby = [[Koot Hoomi]]/[[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[A. P. Sinnett]]/[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = November 20, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| receiveddate = December 1, 1880 See [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|below]].
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = [[Simla, India]]
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]], by [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 99 in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 8#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 7|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 9|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 56|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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Simla. 20-11-80.

My Dear [[Koot Humi]],

I have sent [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] your letter to me and he has kindly sent me yours to him — I want to make some remarks on this, not by way of cavil, but because I am so anxious that you should understand me. Very likely it is my conceit, but whether or no I have a deep rooted conviction that I could work effectually if I only saw my way, and I cannot bear the idea of your throwing me over under any misconception of my views. And yet every letter I see of yours, shows me that you do not yet realize what I think and feel.* To explain this I venture to jot down a few comments on your letter to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]].

You say that if Russia does not succeed in taking Tibet, it will be due to you and herein at least you will deserve our gratitude — I do not agree to this in the sense in which you mean it. (1) If I thought that Russia would on the whole govern Tibet or India in such wise as to make the inhabitants on the whole happier than they are under the existing Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>ts, I would myself welcome and work for her advent. But so far as I can judge the Russian Gov<nowiki>[</nowiki>ernmen<nowiki>]</nowiki>t is a corrupt despotism, hostile to individual liberty of action and therefore to real progress '''and it would only be in common with all well wishers of man kind & not as an Englishman (& indeed I have no nationality) that I should feel grateful to you or any one else who by legitimate means (& what are under different'''

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'''sets of circumstances legitimate & illegitimate means may be a matter open to argument) prevented the further extension of a power, which is essentially hostile to the highest interests of humanity.'''
Then about the English-speaking vaquil. Was the man so much to blame? You and yours have never taught him that there was any thing in [[Yog]] [[Vidya]]. The only people who have taken the trouble to educate him at all have in so doing taught him materialism. You are disgusted with him, but who is to blame? '''He who having no teaching but a materialistic one, rejects as reasons, the vague rumours that have reached him as to spiritual possibilities, & you (I mean your brotherhood) who knowing all about these have failed to popularize the knowledge have in fact failed to teach him better?''' I judge perhaps as an outsider, but it does seem to me, that the impenetrable veil of secrecy by which you surround yourselves, the enormous difficulties which you oppose to the communication of your spiritual knowledge, are the main causes of the rampant materialism which you so much deplore. '''You are the only people who possess any real experimental knowledge of things spiritual in doubtless millions upon millions possess a sort of knowledge of these thro faith, pure life, meditations and in fact the higher discipline of all religions worthy of the name. But this knowledge of theirs tho sufficing to their own souls, is not a character to produce objective results or tangible arguments, that they can appeal to __ others __ less spiritually minded to similar convictions to their own.''' You alone do possess the means of bringing home to the ordinary run of men, convictions of this nature,

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but you, apparently bound by ancient rules, so far from zealously disseminating this knowledge, envelope it in such a dense cloud of mystery, that naturally the mass of mankind, disbelieve in its existence. '''had? This veil of secrecy is I submit in __ ___it may have been very necessary in former days when the exhibition of the powers possessed by adepts might have led to prosecutions or persecutions. But now when in the new & highly civilized countries, such exhibitions would entail __ & abuse (both of which the inexorable logic of facts would surely even tho slowly strangle) ''' there can be no justification for not giving clearly to the world the more important features of your philosophy, accompanying the teaching with such a series of demonstrations as should ensure the attention of all sincere minds. That you should hesitate to confer hastily great powers too likely to be abused, I quite understand — but this in no way bars a dogmatic denunciation of the results of your psychical investigations, accompanied by [[phenomena]], sufficiently clear and often repeated to prove that you really did know more of the subjects with which you dealt than Western Science does (2) . . .

Perhaps you will retort "how about Slade's case?" but do not forget that he was taking money for what he did; making a living out of it. Very different would be the position of a man, who came forward to teach gratuitously, manifestly at the sacrifice of his own time, comfort and convenience, what he believed it to be for the good of mankind to know. At first no doubt everyone would say the man was mad or an impostor — but then when [[phenomenon]] on [[phenomenon]] was repeated and repeated, they would have to admit there was something in it, and within three years, you would have all the foremost minds in any civilized country intent upon the question and tens of thousands of anxious enquirers out of whom ten per cent. might prove useful workers, and one in a thousand perhaps develop the necessary qualifications for becoming ultimately an [[adept]]. If you desire to react on the native through the European mind that is the way to work it. Of course, I speak under correction and in ignorance of conditions, possibilities, etc., but

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for this ignorance at any rate I am not to blame. '''Then you say - "It is not possible that there should be much more at best than a benevolent neutrality shown by your people towards ours. There is so very minute a point of contact between the two civilizations they respectively represent that one might at most say they could not touch at all" Now is this correct? - Is it not in the first place misleading to talk of two civilizations? All civilizations have the same necessary ingredients, mental & moral (or if you prefer it a spiritual) culture. The one element may predominate here, the other there, but in both cases there must be a vast amt in common. Essential to every civilization in any way deserving of the name is the intellectual culture necessary for the discrimination of the good, the true & the beautiful & the moral culture essential to the adherence at all cost to these in preference to their opposites. In the one country there may be less intellectual capacity & a purer devotion to the more dimly perceived truths, in the other it may be more of "Meliora videon proboque, deteriora sequor" but in both the essentials are the same & it appears to me to be a contradiction in terms to talk of two civilizations which may almost be said not to touch at all. Nor is this a mere matter of words for starting with such ideas failure is a certainty, whereas if the vast amt that is common to both be realized & recognized & if we seek to build on this common foundation, an active cooperation in lieu of a benevolent neutrality becomes not only a possibility, but is a thing that may be commanded.''' (3)

Then I come to the passage. "Has it occurred to you that the two Bombay publications if not influenced may at least have not been prevented by those who might have done so because they saw the necessity for that much agitation to effect the double result of making a needed diversion after the brooch grenade, & perhaps of trying the strength

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* '''"Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor"''' is a Latin phrase found in the writings of the Roman poet known as ''Ovid'', meaning "I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse."

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of your personal interest in [[occultism]] and [[theosophy]]? I do not say it was, I but enquire whether the contingency ever presented itself to your mind." Now of course this was addressed to [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]], but still I wish to answer it in my fashion. First I should say, cui bono throwing out such a hint? You must know whether it was so or not. If it was not, why set us speculating as to whether it may have been, when you know it was not. But if it was so, then I submit, that in the first place an idiotic business like this could be no test of any man's (there are of course lots of human beings who are only a sort of educated monkey) personal interest in anything. '''Would any man, who felt ever the slightest interest in anything, suffer this interest to be affected by the fact that some other person __ themselves__in connexion there with.''' In the second place if the [[Brothers]] did deliberately allow the publication of those letters, I can only say, that from my worldly non-initiated standpoint, I think they made a sad mistake. '''A cause may involve murder & robbery and yet not be wholly descredited but make __ & you may write __. Mind I do not for one moment defend this. It is monstrous that it should be so - but it is unfortunately a fact,''' and the object of the [[Brothers]] being avowedly to make the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] respected, they could hardly have selected any worse means, than the publication of these foolish letters. '''I do not of course attach any very great importance to them - if therebe a real vital breath underlying the T. S. (& it is this I am __ trying to arrive at), it will outlive & __ a hundred such __''' but still when the question is broadly put, did you ever consider whether the [[Brothers]] allowed this publication, I cannot avoid replying, if they did not, it is futile wasting consideration on the matter, and if they did, it seems to me that they were unwise in so doing.

Then come your remarks about [[H. S. Olcott|Colonel Olcott]]. Dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], whom everyone who knows must love. I fully sympathize in all you say

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in his favour — but I cannot but take exception to the terms in which you praise him, the whole burthen of which is that he never questions but always obeys. This is the Jesuit organization over again — and this renunciation of private judgment, this abnegation of one's own personal responsibility, this accepting the dictates of outside voices as a substitute for one's own conscience, is to my mind a sin of no ordinary magnitude.'''& involves a principle inimical to all true civilization. Moreover I venture to predict that such system of passive obedience will never obtain the cooperation of the highest minds in any society. ''' Nay further I feel bound to say that if '''as I seem to gather from many incidental passages in our letters,'''this doctrine of blind obedience is an essential one in your system, I greatly doubt whether any spiritual light it may confer can compensate mankind for the loss of that private freedom of action, that sense of personal, individual responsibility of which it would deprive them.'''Nay further I take, unless I wholly misread the teachings of history and the spirit of the age, any organization, which has for the key note passive obedience is itself doomed.'''
 
 
'''Now for the first time I begin to get a glimpse of what you find probably mean by what you so often allude to as the irreconcilable nature of Eastern and Western Ideas. Truly despotism is of the East[;] Freedom of the West. But I confess that I have hitherto been unable to conceive the possibility of a brotherhood like yours accepting as a tenet the principle that underlies all despotisms. Yet when your highest praise is bestowed, not on someone who wisely & cleverly works out a good __ but on one who amidst the inescapable errors "always obeys and never questions" what else, can I conclude?'''

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. . . But if it be intended that I shall ever, get instructions to do this or that and without understanding the why or the wherefore, without scrutinizing consequences, blind and heedless, straightway go and do it, — then frankly the matter for me is at an end — I am no military machine — I am an avowed enemy of the military organization — friend and advocate of the industrial or co-operative system, and I will join no Society or no Body which purports to limit or control my right of private judgment. Of course I am not doctrinaire!,? and do not desire to ride any principle as a hobby horse. . . .

To return to [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]] — I do not think his connection with the proposed Society would be any evil. . . .

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In the first place I should not object in any way to dear old [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]'s supervision, because I know it would be nominal, as even if he tried to make it otherwise, [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]] and I are both quite capable of shutting him up if he interfered needlessly. But neither of us could accept him as our real guide (6), because we both know that we are intellectually his superiors. This is a brutal way, as the French would say, of putting it, but que voulez vous?. Without perfect frankness there is no coming to an understanding. . . .

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'''it marvellous that things should be done which can not be accounted for by any laws known to Western science. I, as I have explained in former letters do not - perhaps I realize more acutely the vastness of our ignorance. I do not care two straws for the powers or the phenomena, except as means. I do not see the slightest prospect of any good coming of the Society, unless it is to be a real & certain stepping stone to higher spiritual knowledge. He does - each man must judge for himself - he I know will wholly disagree with me on many points - but this letter I send thro' him & he will speak for himself. 
'''I am almost sorry that I have wearied you with these long letters for I seem to feel, that I am too essentially a radical at heart, to be acceptable to your naturally conservative order - but you will forgive me in that I am in earnest & tho' nothing further ever come of our interchange of thoughts, think kindly of me as I always shall of you as being fellow workers in the same cause, albeit under different flags, & you an officer of engineers & I a mere day laborer.'''

Yours sincerely,

[[A. O. Hume]].

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 3. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]],
<blockquote>
ML-99 is a letter from [[A. O. Hume|AOH]] to [[Koot Hoomi|KH]], forwarded to [[A. P. Sinnett|APS]] by KH with his comments thereon ([[Mahatma Letter No. 8|ML-98]]). AOH's letter is in black ink on folded paper.<ref>George E. Linton and Virginia Hanson, eds., ''Readers Guide to The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 47.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-23T22:51:57Z

Ed Moskowitz:

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-23T22:46:32Z

Ed Moskowitz:

Mahatma Letter No. 8

2012-08-23T20:11:15Z

Ed Moskowitz: