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Mahatma Letter to Besant - LMW 1 No. 59

2025-06-30T17:08:30Z

Joe Hasiewicz: The word "aside" was missed in the transcription. Please see images of K.H.'s text and Jinarajadasa's typewritten page.

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[Annie Besant]]
| sentvia = unknown{{pad|10em}}
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = August 1900
| otherdate = unknown
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = London
| vialocation = unknown
}}
'''This letter is Letter No. 59 in ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'''''. [[Mahatma]] [[Koot Hoomi]] warns [[Annie Besant]] against allowing the [[Theosophical Society]] to rely on creeds and rituals.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 2011), 122-124, 171.</ref> In editions 1945-1974, before the First Series was resequenced in 1988, this was called '''Letter 46'''. It is sometimes called the "1900 Letter."

'''NOTE: Authorship of this letter has at times been disputed. See [[Mahatma Letter to Besant - LMW 1 No. 59#Commentary about this letter|Commentary about this letter]] below.'''
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma_Letter_to H. P. Blavatsky - LMW 1 No. 58b|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter in LMW 1]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma_Letter_to H. P. Blavatsky - LMW 1 No. 60|Next letter in LMW 1'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
 
== Envelope ==

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Mrs. Annie Besant 
Theosophical Society 
28 Albemarle 
Street London

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images//ML/LMW1-59_env.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_env_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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

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'''Text of the B. W. Mantri letter to Annie Besant to which K.H. added his message:'''

Kalbadevi, Bombay 22nd August

Dear Madam

I have long wished to see you but somehow I have been so confused by many things I heard from several members of the [[Theosophical Society]] that I really do not understand what are really the tenets and beliefs of the Society. What form of yoga do you recommend. I have long been interested in Yoga Studies and I send you the "Panch Ratna Gita" by Anande-bai who is much advanced in this science. I wish you could see her. I am going to Kholapore but have to come back soon and pay my respects to you when you come back to India.

Yours respectfully
B. W Mantri

'''NOTE: This is the complete text of the K.H letter to Annie Besant as first published in [[The Eclectic Theosophist (periodical)|''The Eclectic Theosophist'']] No. 101, September-October 1987, p. 1. Capital letters represent the sections that were replaced by ellipses in previous publications:'''

A psychic and a pranayamist who has got confused by the vagaries of the members. The T.S. and its members are slowly manufacturing a creed. Says a Thibetan

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_1.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_1_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''pranayamist''' practices the yoga of regulation of the breath.

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== Page 2 ==

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proverb "credulity breeds credulity and ends in hypocrisy." How few are they who can know anything about us. Are we to be propitiated and made idols of. IS THE WORSHIP OF A NEW TRINITY MADE UP OF [[Morya|THE BLESSED M.]], [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|UPASIKA]] AND [[Annie Besant|YOURSELF]] TO TAKE THE PLACE OF EXPLODED CREEDS. WE ASK NOT FOR THE WORSHIP OF OURSELVES. THE DISCIPLE SHOULD IN NO WAY BE FETTERED. BEWARE OF AN ESOTERIC POPERY. The intense desire to see Upasika reincarnate at once has raised a misleading [[Maya|Mayavic ideation]]. Upasika has useful work to do on higher planes and cannot come again so soon. The T.S. must safely be ushered into the new century. YOU HAVE FOR SOME TIME BEEN UNDER DELUDING INFLUENCES. SHUN PRIDE, VANITY AND LOVE OF POWER. BE NOT GUIDED BY EMOTION BUT LEARN TO STAND ALONE. BE ACCURATE AND CRITICAL RATHER THAN CREDULOUS. THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST IN THE OLD RELIGIONS MUST NOT BE GLOSSED OVER WITH IMAGINARY EXPLANATIONS. THE [[Esoteric Section|E.S.T.]] MUST BE REFORMED SO AS TO BE AS UNSECTARIAN AND CREEDLESS AS THE T.S. THE RULES MUST BE FEW AND SIMPLE AND ACCEPTABLE TO ALL. No one has the right to claim authority over a pupil or his [[conscience]]. Ask him not what he believes. ALL WHO ARE SINCERE AND PURE MINDED MUST HAVE ADMITTANCE. The crest wave of intellectual advancement must be taken hold of and guided into spirituality. It cannot be forced into beliefs and emotional worship. The essence of the higher thoughts of the members in their collectivity must guide all action in the T.S. and E.S. We never try to subject to ourselves the will of another. At favourable times we let loose elevating influences which strike various persons in various ways. It is the collective aspect of many such thoughts that can give the correct note of action. We show no favours. The best corrective of error is an honest and open-minded examination of all facts subjective and objective. MISLEADING SECRECY HAS GIVEN THE DEATH BLOW TO NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS. The cant about "Masters" must be silently but firmly put down. Let the devotion and service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which each [1] one is a part. Namelessly and silently we work and the continual references to ourselves and the repetition of our names raises up a confused aura that hinders our work. YOU WILL HAVE TO LEAVE ASIDE A GOOD DEAL OF YOUR EMOTIONS AND CREDULITY BEFORE YOU BECOME A SAFE GUIDE

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''popery''' refers to the types of doctrines, practices, and ceremonies associated with a religion such as Roman Catholicism.
* '''Mayavic ideation''' refers to ideas created under the influence of [[Maya|māyā]], or illusion.

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== Page 3 ==

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AMONG THE INFLUENCES THAT WILL COMMENCE TO WORK IN THE NEW CYCLE. The T.S. was meant to be the corner-stone of the future religions of humanity. To accomplish this object those who lead must leave aside their weak predilections for the forms and ceremonies of any particular creed and show themselves to be true Theosophists both in inner thoughts and outward observance. The greatest of your trials is yet to come. We watch over you but you must put forth all your strength.

::K.H.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_3.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_3_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
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== Abridged text from LMW first edition ==

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'''NOTE: The following text is the abridged version given in the first edition of ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'':'''

A PSYCHIC and a prnymist who has got confused by the vagaries of the members. The [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] and its members are slowly manufacturing a creed. Says a Thibetan proverb ‘credulity breeds credulity and ends in hypocrisy’. How few are they who can know anything about us. Are we to be propitiated and made idols of... The intense desire of some to see [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Upasika]] reincarnate at once has raised a misleading [[Maya|Mayavic ideation]]. Upasika has useful work to do on higher planes and cannot come again so soon. The T.S. must safely be ushered into the new century…no one has a right to claim authority over a pupil or his conscience. Ask him not what he believes… The crest wave of intellectual advancement must be taken hold of and guided into Spirituality. It cannot be forced into beliefs and emotional worship. The essence of the higher thoughts of the members in their collectivity must guide all action in the T.S.... We never try to subject to ourselves the will of another. At favourable times we let loose elevating influences which strike various persons in various ways. It is the collective aspect of many such thoughts that can give the correct note of action. We show no favours. The best corrective of error is an honest and open-minded examination of all facts subjective and objective… The cant about ‘Masters’ must be silently but firmly put down. Let the devotion and service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which each one is a part. Namelessly and silently we work and the continual references to ourselves and the repetition of our names raises up a confused aura that hinders our work...The T.S. was meant to be the corner-stone of the future religions of humanity. To accomplish this object those who lead must leave aside their weak predilections for the forms and ceremonies of any particular creed and show themselves to be true Theosophists both in inner thoughts and outward observance. The greatest of your trials is yet to come. We are watching over you but you must put forth all your strength.

::K.H.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Transcription Page 1 ==

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'''This transcription was used to produce the edited letter that was published in [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']]. Sections marked in red were omitted from the book:'''

''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'', First S., pp.99-l00

Letter 46

(The last letter, written in 1900, received nine years after the death of H. P. Blavatsky.)

To Annie Besant

A psychic and a pranayamist who has got confused by the vagaries of the members. The T.S.and its members are slowly manufacturing a creed. Says a Tibetan proverb "credulity breeds credulity and ends in hypocrisy".How few are they who can know anything about us. Are we to be propitiated and made Idols of. Is the worship of a new Trinity made up of the [[Morya|Blessed M.]] [[Upasika]] and yourself to take the place of exploded creeds. We ask not for the worship of ourselves,, The disciple should in no way be fettered. Beware of Esoteric Popery, The intense desire of some to see Upasika reincarnate at once has raised a misleading Mayavic ideation. Upasika has« useful work to do on higher planes and cannot come again so soon. The T.S. must safely be ushered lntо the new Century. You have for some time been under deluding influences. Shun pride, vanity and love of power. Be not guided by emotion but learn to stand alone. Be accurate and critical rather than credulous. The mistakes of the past in the old religions need not be glossed over with imaginary explanations. The E.S.T. must be reformed so as to be as unsectarian and creedless as the T.S. The rules must be few and simple and acceptable to all. No one has a right to claim authority over a pupil or his conscience. Ask him not what he believes. All who are sincere and pure minded must have admittance. The crest wave of intellectual advancement must be taken hold of and guided intо Spirituality. It cannot be forced into beliefs and emotional worship, The essence of the higher thoughts of the members in their collectivity must guide all action in the T.S. and E.S. We never try to subject to ourselves the will of another. At favourable times we let loose elevating influences which strike various persons in various ways. It is the collective aspect of many such thoughts that can give the correct note of action. We show no favours. The best corrective of error is an honest and open-minded examination of all facts subjective and objective. Misleading secrecy has given the death blow to numerous organizations«.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_tr1.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_tr1_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Transcription Page 2 ==

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The cant about "Masters” must be silently but firmly put down. Let the devotion and Service be to that Supreme Spirit alone of which each one is a part. Namelessly and silently we work and the continual references to ourselves and the repetition of our names raises up а confused aura that hinders our work. You will have to leave aside a good deal of your emotions and credulity before you become a safe guide among the influences that will commence to work in the new cycle. The T.S.was meant to be the corner stone of the future religions of humanity. To accomplish this object those who lead must leave aside their weak predilections for the forms and ceremonies of any particular creed and show themselves to be true Theosophists both in inner thought and outward observance. The greatest of your trials is yet to come, We are watching over you but you must put forth all your strength.
K.H.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_tr2.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-59_tr2_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

[[Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa|Mr. Jinarajadasa]] provided these notes about this letter:
<blockquote>
This letter is perhaps the most remarkable of all the letters received bearing the signature ‘K.H.’, as it was received ''nine years after the death of [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Madame Blavatsky]]'' in 1891. The charge that she herself forged all the voluminous letters of the Masters falls utterly to the ground. I have given a photographic reproduction of the letter in ''The Theosophist'' of May 1937, and a comparison with the dozens of letters in the K.H. script will show that it is in the K.H. handwriting. The story of the letter is as follows. On 22 August 1900, a Mr B.W. Mantri wrote a letter to Dr Annie Besant as follows:

::Kalbadevi
::Bombay 22nd August

Dear Madam
I have long wished to see you but somehow I have been so confused by many things I heard from several members of the [[Theosophical Society]] that I really do not understand what are really the tenets and beliefs of the Society. What form of Yoga do you recommend? I have long been interested in Yoga studies and I send you the ‘Panch Ratna Gita’ by Anandebai who is much advanced in this science. I wish you could see her. I am going to Kholapoor but hope to come back soon and pay my respects to you when you come back to India.

::Yours respectfully
::B.W. Mantri

He did not put the year on the letter, but we get that from the postmark on the envelope. The letter was addressed to Dr Annie Besant at 28 Albemarle Street, London, then the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in England. When Dr Besant opened Mr Mantri’s letter, she found in blue handwriting the comment of the Master. The supposition that the K.H. script is a forgery implies that the forgery was done by somebody familiar with the K.H. script ''after'' Mr Mantri posted it in Bombay and ''before'' it was delivered in London. It should here be remembered that before I reproduced the K.H. script in my ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'', Second Series, in 1925, and one letter of the Master was reproduced in [[A. Trevor Barker|Barker’s]] [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett'']] in 1923, the only other reproductions were (so far as I am aware) in the rare volume of the [[Society for Psychical Research]] which investigated the charges of forgery against H.P.B.

The parts in the letter which I have omitted refer to the occult life of Dr Besant which only the Master could have known.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, 172-174.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Physical description of letter ==

According to Mr. Jinaradasa, the original of this letter is preserved at the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)|Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai, India]].

== Publication history ==

A photographic reproduction of the letter was published in [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']] in May, 1937. This letter was not published in the early editions of [[Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (book)|''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'']]. It first appeared as '''Letter 46''' in the 1945 edition, and was renamed as '''Letter 59''' when the First Series was resequenced in 1988.

A complete transcription was published in the [[The Eclectic Theosophist (periodical)|''The Eclectic Theosophist'']] No. 101, September-October 1987, p. 1.

== Commentary about this letter ==

In 1997, Dr. Vernon Harrison (an examiner of questioned documents) wrote:
<blockquote>
The last letter believed to have come from KH was received in 1900 by Annie Besant. I now have a photocopy of this letter and my opinion is that it is a good simulation of KH's hand, but nevertheless a forgery. The literary style is unlike that of KH.<ref>Vernon Harrison, ''H. P. Blavatsky and the SPR: An Examination of the Hodgson Report of
1885.'' Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1997. Available at [https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-spr/hpb-spr2.htm Theosophical University Press website].</ref>
</blockquote>

However, the question of literary style is a difficult one, since the style depends, to a large extent, on the disciple that precipitated the letter.<ref>H. P. Blavatsky, "HPB to Countess Watchmeister on the Mahatma Letters November," The Theosophist 138:2 (November 2016), 25-30.</ref> In fact, the letters published in the book ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' frequently show a markedly different style from those sent to [[A. O. Hume]] and [[A. P. Sinnett]].

Some Theosophists believe that no letters were sent by the Mahatmas after the death of [[H. P. Blavatsky]] in 1891, because as she told [[Constance Wachtmeister]], "the day for phenomena was past."<ref>Constance Wachtmeister, "H.P.B. And The Present Crisis In The Theosophical Society" ''Theosophy in Australasia'' (July 5, 1895), 5-8. Available at [https://theosophists.org/library/books/h-p-b-and-the-present-crisis-in-the-theosophical-society-1895/ Theosophists.org website].</ref>

== Additional resources ==

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Koot Hoomi]]
[[Category:ML to A. Besant]]
[[Category:ML with images]]

Psychism

2025-05-04T18:16:56Z

Joe Hasiewicz:

{{Template:Article needs expansion}}
 
 
 
==Psychic powers==

Psychic powers are extra-sensory abilities known in India as [[Siddhi]]s. They are of two types: the lower and the higher. The lower siddhis can be activated by artificial means such as drugs, manipulation of the breathing, or any method that brings about paralysis of the physical senses. These methods produce only temporary results and are frequently injurious to physical health. [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]] wrote:

<blockquote>The Theosophical Society does indeed desire to promote the spiritual growth of every individual who comes within its influence, but its methods are those of the ancient Rishis, its tenets those of the oldest Esotericism; it is no dispenser of patent nostrums composed of violent remedies which no honest healer would dare to use. 
In this connection we would warn all our members, and others who are seeking spiritual knowledge, to beware of persons offering to teach them easy methods of acquiring psychic gifts; such gifts (laukika) are indeed comparatively easy of acquirement by artificial means, but fade out as soon as the nerve-stimulus exhausts itself. The real seership and adeptship which is accompanied by true psychic development (lokothra), once reached, is never lost.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. VI (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1989), 608.</ref></blockquote>

== Natural vs. Trained ==

In the Theosophical tradition, it is maintained that psychics must undergo a rigorous course of training before their visions can be reliable. As [[Morya|Mahatma M.]] wrote:

<blockquote>There is one general law of vision (physical and mental or spiritual) but there is a qualifying special law proving that all vision must be determined by the quality or grade of man's spirit and soul, and also by the ability to translate divers qualities of waves of [[astral light]] into consciousness. There is but one general law of life, but innumerable laws qualify and determine the myriads of forms perceived and of sounds heard. There are those who are willingly and others who are unwillingly — blind. Mediums belong to the former, sensitives to the latter. Unless regularly initiated and trained — concerning the spiritual insight of things and the supposed revelations made unto man in all ages from Socrates down to Swedenborg and "Fern" — no self-tutored seer or clairaudient ever saw or heard quite correctly.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 31 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 98.</ref></blockquote>

The development and perfecting of the higher ''siddhi''-s, so that they are reliable takes years of training. As [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] stated "it takes even us . . . ten or fifteen years".<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 101 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 347.</ref>

[[C. W. Leadbeater]] recommended that before activating the [[Chakras|etheric chakras]] that will open the waking [[consciousness]] to the higher [[plane]]s the aspirant should follow a spiritual discipline of study and [[meditation]] that will develop his [[Astral Body|astral]] and [[Mental Body|mental bodies]]:

<blockquote>First there should be a development of the astral and mental bodies, so that they may be definite vehicles of consciousness on their own planes; then may come the awakening of the chakras in the etheric double by means of which the valuable knowledge gained through those higher bodies may be brought down to the physical plane consciousness. But all this should be done only when and as the [[Masters of Wisdom|Master]] advises; remember, in [[At the Feet of the Master (book)|''At the Feet of the Master'']] the Teacher said: "Have no desire for psychic powers".<ref>Charles Webster Leadbeater, ''Talks on the Path of Occultism'' Volume 2, (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 47.</ref></blockquote>

== See also ==
*[[Phenomena]]
*[[Siddhi]]

==Online resources==
===Articles and pamphlets===
*[https://cdn.website-editor.net/e4d6563c50794969b714ab70457d9761/files/uploaded/AdyarPamphlet_No64.pdf# Psychic and Spiritual Development] by Annie Besant
*[https://blavatsky.net/psychic-warning/# A Psychic Warning] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.katinkahesselink.net/Progress.htm# Spiritual Progress] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/astral-intoxication.htm# Astral Intoxication] by William Q. Judge
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/occult-powers-their-acquirement.htm# Of Occult Powers and their Acquirement] by William Q. Judge
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/spiritual-gifts-and-attainment.htm# Spiritual Gifts and their Attainment] by William Q. Judge
*[http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/hodson.html# How to become psychic] by Geoffrey Hodson
*[http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other/shearman9.html# Assessing Psychism] by Hugh Shearman
*[https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/questioning-reality-a-physicists-view-of-psychic-abilities Questioning Reality: A Physicist's View of Psychic Abilities] by Russell Targ
*[http://www.austheos.org.au/tsia-article-is-psychism-same.html# Is Psychism the Same as Spirituality?] by The Theosophical Society in Australia

===Books===
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gdpmanu/psychic/psyc-2.htm# Psychic Powers] by Helen Savage
*[https://cdn.website-editor.net/e4d6563c50794969b714ab70457d9761/files/uploaded/VarietiesOfPsychism_JIWedgewood.pdf# Varieties of Psychism] by J.I. Wedgewood

===Video===
*[https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=6xzLu5nNZIg ''Experiments in Telepathy''] by David Bruce

== Additional resources ==
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/library/Bibliography/ParapsychologyandLatentPowers.pdf# Bibliography on Parapsychology and Latent Powers] from the [[Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library]].
[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:Theosophical worldview]]

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:Psychism]]
[[es: Poderes psíquicos]]

Mahatma Letter to F Arundale - LMW 1 No. 20

2025-03-24T00:46:34Z

Joe Hasiewicz: The word 'Master' should be plural according to the image.

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[Francesca Arundale]]
| sentvia = unknown{{pad|10em}}
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = early September 1884
| otherdate = unknown
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = Elberfeld
| vialocation = unknown
}}
'''This letter is Letter No. 20 in ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'''''. [[Mahatma]] [[Koot Hoomi]] helps [[Francesca Arundale]] with advice concerning the [[London Lodge]] and its members.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 2011), 53-58, 156-157.</ref>
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma_Letter_to H. S. Olcott - LMW 1 No. 19|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter in LMW 1]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma_Letter_to W T Brown - LMW 1 No. 21|Next letter in LMW 1'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
 

== Envelope ==

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F. Arundale FTS 
private
::[illegible]

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-20_env.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/LMW1-20_env_thm.jpg]

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

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I have followed your many thoughts. I have watched their silent evolution and the yearnings of your inner soul; and since your pledge permits me to do so, having a few things to tell you concerning yourself and those you love—I take the opportunity, one of the last there are to write to you directly, to say a few words. You know of course that once that H.P.B.’s aura in the house is exhausted you can have no more letters from me.

I want you to be acquainted with the situation as it now stands. Your loyalty to the cause entitles you to this.

First about your friend – [[Laura C. Holloway|Mrs H.]] Poor child! By placing so constantly her [[personality]] over above her inner and better [[Self]] – tho’ she knows it not – she has done all she could for the last week to sever herself from us for ever. Yet so pure and genuine she is that I am ready to leave a chink in the door she slams unconsciously to herself into her own face, and await for the entire awakening of the honest nature whenever that time comes. She is without artifice or malice, entirely truthful and sincere, yet at times quite false to herself. As she says her ways are not our ways, nor can she comprehend them. Her personality coming in so strong in her ideas of the fitness of things, she cannot certainly understand our acts on our plane of life. Tell her in all kindness, that if [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.P.B.]] (as an example) was wrong last night – as she always is, from the Western point of view, in her everlasting natural impulses apparently so rude and indelicate – she did it after all at [[Morya|her Master’s]] direct order. She never stops one moment to consider the propriety of things when concerned in carrying out such orders. In the eyes of

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 2 ==

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you, the civilized and cultured portion of mankind, it is the one unpardonable sin; in our sight – i.e., uncultured Asiatics – it is the greatest virtue; for before it became with her a habit, she used to suffer in her Western nature and perform it as a self-sacrifice of her personal reputation. But, if she was wrong, Mrs H. was not right either. She allowed her womanly pride and personality – which were entirely out of question, at any rate out of H.P.B.’s thoughts – to get mixed up and prime in a question of pure rules and discipline. [[Sorabji J. Padshah|Padshah]] and [[Mohini Mohun Chatterji|Mohini]] were more to be blamed than either of the two. You must remember that both have set themselves voluntarily apart from worldly Society Eastern and Western for a specific object; and to say nothing of the relative decency or indecency of any social custom of any country, there are rules of conduct controlling [[Chela|chelas]] which cannot be departed from in the slightest degree. I pray you, to use your influence with her, if you wish her good, to have [[Man: Fragments of Forgotten History (book)|her book]] published before the years 1885. Tell her also, since she has cut herself away from me, that she will have in good time the help of the adept who writes stories with H.P.B. Yet since novelettes interest her more than metaphysics she has no need for the present of Mohini’s help.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''her book''' is [[Man: Fragments of Forgotten History (book)|''Man: Fragments of Forgotten History'']], published by [[Laura C. Holloway]] and [[Mohini Mohun Chatterji]] in 1885.

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== Page 3 ==

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He is certainly more wanted in London.

Pray place the question at your first meeting before the Council. [[Mohini Mohun Chatterji|He]] can be left in England only if the majority, or at any rate the Inner Circle, will express desire to have his services. Some arrangement will have to be made about him. He has thrown up his profession to serve the [[Theosophy|Cause]] and is dependent now upon the [[Theosophical Society|Parent Body]], which is too poor, as you know, to keep him in London. However, his temporary guardian is [[Henry Steel Olcott|H.S.O.]], and he can only be allowed to lay all the pros and cons before him, and then leave him to make his own decision and face his own [[karma]]. The council will have to address themselves to Col. Olcott.

Having overheard your conversation with H.P.B. on the night of her arrival, I may say, that you are right. To your aged mother, who has trodden with you in many stony paths of belief and experience since your childhood, you owe a great duty. Not a blind and unjust obedience whose consequences may be most harmful to her as to yourself; but a dutiful assiduity, and loving help to develop her spiritual intuitions and prepare her for the future. Many crosses and domestic sorrows have left their bleeding scars on her heart. She is unconsciously doing herself harm – great harm by not curbing her temper. She draws to her bad ‘astral’ influences, and creates a current so antagonistic to
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''your aged mother''' is Mrs. Mary Anne Arundale.

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== Page 4 ==

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ours that we are often forced sorrowfully away. She and you have earned happy rewards for your kindness to our messengers, and [[Karma]] will not forget them. But look to the future; see to it that the continual performance of duty under the guidance of a well developed Intuition shall keep the balance well poised. Ah! If your eyes were opened, you might see such a vista of potential blessings to yourselves and mankind lying in the germ of the present hour’s effort, as would fire with joy and zeal your souls! Strive, towards the Light, all of you brave warriors for the Truth, but do not let selfishness penetrate into your ranks, for it is [un] selfishness alone that throws open all the doors and windows of the inner Tabernacle and leaves them unshut.

To you personally, child, struggling thro’ darkness to the Light, I would say, that the Path is never closed; but in proportion to one’s previous errors so is it harder to find and to tread. In the eyes of the ‘Masters’ no one is ever ‘utterly condemned’. As the lost jewel may be recovered from the very depths of the tank’s mud, so can the most abandoned snatch himself from the mire of sin, if only the precious Gem of Gems, the sparkling germ of the [[Atma]], is

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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developed. Each of us must do that for himself, each can if he but will and [[Try|persevere]]. Good resolutions are mind-painted pictures of good deeds: fancies, day-dreams, whisperings of the [[Buddhi]] to the [[Manas]]. If we encourage them they will not fade away like a dissolving mirage in the Shamo desert, but grow stronger and stronger until one’s whole life becomes the expression and outward proof of the divine motive within. Your acts in the past have been the natural fruit of an unworthy religious ideal, the result of ignorant misconception. They cannot be obliterated, for they are indelibly stamped upon the record of Karma, and neither tears nor repentance can blot the page. But you have the power to more than redeem and balance them by future acts. Around you are acquaintances, friends and associates – in, and outside, the T.S. who have committed the same and even more grievous faults, thro' the same ignorance. Show them the dreadful consequences of it, point them to the Light, lead them to the Path, teach them, be a missionary of love and charity, thus in helping others win your own salvation. There are innumerable pages of your life-record still to be written up; fair and blank they are as yet. Child of your race and of your age, seize the diamond pen and inscribe them with the history of noble deeds, days well spent, years of holy striving. So will you win your way ever upward to the

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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higher planes of spiritual consciousness. Fear not, faint not, be faithful to the ideal you can now dimly see. You have much to unlearn. The narrow prejudices of your people bind you more than you suspect. They make you intolerant, as last night, of the petty offences of others against your artificial standards of propriety, and disposed to lose sight of essentials. You are not yet able to appreciate the difference between inner purity and ‘outer culture’. Were the ‘Masters’ to judge you by your own social canons, where would you stand? The very society whose hypocritical rules of propriety you stand for so vehemently, is a festering mass of brutishness within a shell of decency. From their ignorant and malevolent intolerance you appeal to us, because your intuition tells you that they will not accord you justice. Learn, then, to look at men below the surface and to neither condemn not trust on appearances. [[Try]], child, HOPE, and accept my blessings.

::K.H.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

[[Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa|Mr. Jinarajadasa]] provided these notes about this letter:
<blockquote>
Mrs H. Poor child! Mrs Laura C. Holloway, Most illuminating notes by the Master on Mrs Holloway appear
in [[Mahatma Letter No. 134|The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 64]] pp. 354-359. This Letter appears, in part, as No. 42, page 86 of this volume.

I pray you to use your influence with her … to have her book published before the year 1885... she has no need for the present of Mohini’s help. This refers to ''Man, Fragments of Forgotten History'' which was being written by Mrs Holloway jointly with Mohini M. Chatterjee.

Most illuminating notes by the Master on Mrs Holloway appear in [[Mahatma Letter No. 134|The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, Letter 64]].<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, 139-140.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Physical description of letter ==

According to Mr. Jinarajadasa, the original letter is at the [[Adyar (campus)|Adyar headquarters]] of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)|Theosophical Society]].

== Publication history ==

This letter was published in 1919 as '''Letter 20''' in the first edition of [[Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (book)|''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1881-1888'']], later known as the First Series.<ref>''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1881-1888''. Adyar, Madras, India; London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1919. Foreword by Annie Besant; transcribed and compiled by C. Jinarajadasa.</ref> It has kept this designation as '''Letter 20''' throughout all editions.

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Additional resources ==

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Koot Hoomi]]
[[Category:ML to F. Arundale]]
[[Category:ML with images]]

Try!

2025-02-08T17:46:59Z

Joe Hasiewicz: The quote was actually found in volume 2 of Old Diary Leaves.

[[File:Try in ML1.jpg|right|160px|thumb|[[Koot Hoomi]] writing in [[Mahatma_Letter_No._1#Page_12|Mahatma Letter No. 1]]]]
[[File:Try.jpg|right|200px|thumb|[[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] writing in [[Mahatma_Letter_No._54#Page_5|Mahatma Letter No. 54]]]]
'''Try!''' is an injunction frequently used by the [[Masters of Wisdom]] in their communications to aspirants and [[chela|disciples]]. In a general sense, it is used to encourage the aspirant to keep trying in his treading of the [[Spiritual_Path#Occult_path|Occult Path]]. Energetic effort as a universal force propels life on the spiritual path.

== Use by Mahatmas ==

Between the months of March and August of 1875 [[Henry Steel Olcott|Colonel Olcott]] began to receive various letters from [[Serapis Bey|Master Serapis]] who was known for his simple exhortation – "Try".<ref>Jeffrey D, Lavoie, ''The Theosophical Society: The History of a Spiritualist Movement'' (Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press, 2012), 56.</ref> For example, a message from this Adept transmitted by [[Hillarion|Master Hilarion]] closes with the words: "Try, try—try!"

[[Serapis Bey]] also wrote a letter to [[Henry Steel Olcott]], of which remains only a brief note from the end that seems to have been appended by [[Tuitit Bey]]. He referred to a mundane matter of getting a pamphlet published, exhorting Olcott to '''Try''' to help [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Madame Blavatsky]]: "Try. Her duty to pay for it – yours to suggest it and help her."<ref>Tuitit Bey letter to Henry Steel Olcott, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom Series 2'' (Chicago: Theosophical Press, 1926), 60-61.</ref>
[[File:Serapis note to HSO in MW2.jpg|center|520px|thumb|Note by Tuitit Bey on Letter No. 25 to Olcott]].

In a letter to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]], [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote: "We have one word for all aspirants: TRY".<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 54 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 148.</ref> The advice is repeated in another letter to Mr. Sinnett:

<blockquote>. . .at all events Try. “Nothing was ever lost by trying.” . . . We have our own peculiar modes of expression and what lies behind the fence of words is even more important than what you read. But still — TRY.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 111 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 381.</ref></blockquote>

Similarly, in a letter to [[Mohini Mohun Chatterji|Mohini]] the Master says ". . . go forward to your end thro’ all obstacles and overbearing all opposition. ''Try'' and you will succeed".<ref>Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' First Series No. 23 (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 61.</ref>

[[H. P. Blavatsky]] received such an exhortation from [[Koot Hoomi|Master K. H.]] at the end of [[Mahatma Letter to H. P. Blavatsky - MHM No. 20|Letter No. 20]] in [[Mrs. Holloway and the Mahatmas (book)|''Mrs. Holloway and the Mahatmas'']].

Another case can be found in the closing of a letter to [[Francesca Arundale]]: "Try, child, HOPE, and accept my blessings".<ref>Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' First Series No. 20 (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 56.</ref>

Finally, in one of her instructions to the members of the [[Esoteric Section]], [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] quotes the words of one of the Masters, who said: "THINK; and thinking, TRY: the goal is indeed worth all the possible effort".<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 591.</ref>

The principle behind this injunction is the idea that all the aspirant should do is to earnestly try to lead a spiritual life, regardless of how successful he is in his attempt. In Mme. Blavatsky's words:

<blockquote>With each morning's awakening try to live through the day in harmony with the [[Ātman#The_Higher_Self|Higher Self]]. "Try" is the battle-cry taught by the Teachers to each pupil. Naught else is expected of you. One who does his best does all that can be asked.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 505.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>. . . be not discouraged, but try, ever keep trying; twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many undaunted struggles upward.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 640.</ref></blockquote>

Failure in a particular endeavor may come from [[Karma|causes]] generated in the past, but if the aspirant keeps trying earnestly, he is doing all he is expected to do, and success will eventually crown his efforts.

=== Individual effort ===

The attitude encouraged by this exhortation is based on what Master K.H. mentioned in [[Mahatma_Letter_No._122#Page 3|one of his letters]], about--

<blockquote>. . .the basic law of esotericism that personal psychic growth accompanies pari passu [hand-in-hand with] the development of individual effort, and is the evidence of acquired personal merit.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 122 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 417.</ref></blockquote>

[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] wrote about this law in the [[Fundamental_Propositions#Third_Fundamental_Proposition|Third Fundamental Proposition]] of [[The Secret Doctrine (book)|''The Secret Doctrine'']], as follows:

<blockquote>The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own [[Ego]] through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of [[Metempsychosis|metempsychoses]] and [[reincarnation]]s.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 17.</ref></blockquote>

Another example is in [[Mahatma Letter No. 111]] in which K. H. says,
<blockquote>
If Mr. Crookes would penetrate Arcana beyond the corridors the tools of modern science have already excavated, let him — Try. He tried and found the Radiometer; tried again, and found Radiant matter; may try again and find the "Kama-rupa" of matter — its fifth state. But to find it's Manas he would have to pledge himself stronger to secrecy than he seems inclined to. You know our motto, and that its practical application has erased the word "impossible" from the occultist's vocabulary. If he wearies not of trying, he may discover that most noble of all facts, his true SELF. But he will have to penetrate many strata before he comes to It.
</blockquote>

== Other uses ==
=== Finding the Master ===

A more specific way in which this exhortation was used in [[Theosophy|Theosophical]] literature is in regard to the possibility of entering into relationship with the [[Masters of Wisdom]]. For example, in one of his early letters to [[Henry Steel Olcott|Col. Olcott]], [[Serapis Bey|Master Serapis]] wrote: "He who seeks us finds us. TRY."<ref>Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' Second Series No. 3 (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1977), 11.</ref>

At about the same time, [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] used the injunction in a similar way in a publication that she called "My first ''Occult'' shot". In an article signed by "Hiraf", doubts were expressed about whether there were in existence "regular colleges for the neophytes of this Secret Science". In her answer she wrote:

<blockquote>As in the primitive days of Socrates and other sages of antiquity, so now, those who are willing to learn the Great Truth will find ''the chance'' if they only “try” to meet someone to lead them to the door of one “who knows ''when'' and ''how''.”<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. I (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 103.</ref></blockquote>

A few months later she repeated:

<blockquote>To fervent and persevering candidates for the above science, I have to offer but one word of advice, "Try and become".<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. I (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 133.</ref></blockquote>

=== Inner development ===

In other instances, this exhortation is an encouragement for aspirants to make an effort in a particular direction, in order to develop some aspect of the inner life. An example of this is a letter to [[Henry Steel Olcott|Colonel Olcott]] where [[Serapis Bey|Master Serapis]] wrote:

<blockquote>For he who hopes to solve in time the great problems of the [[Macrocosm and Microcosm|Macrocosmal World]] and conquer face to face [[Dweller on the Threshold|the Dweller]], taking thus by violence the threshold on which lie buried nature’s most mysterious secrets, must Try, first, the energy of his [[Will]] power, the indomitable resolution to succeed, and bringing out to light all the hidden mental faculties of his [[Ātman|Atma]] and highest intelligence, get at the problems of Man’s Nature and solve first the mysteries of his heart.<ref>Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' Second Series No. 3 (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1977), 38.</ref></blockquote>

The reference here is to the awakening of [[Icchāśakti|"will power"]], the reflection in us of a universal force that is able to produce effects when set in motion. [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]], referring to [[William Crookes]]' experiments, wrote:

<blockquote>If Mr. Crookes would penetrate Arcana beyond the corridors the tools of modern science have already excavated, let him — Try. . . . You know our motto, and that its practical application has erased the word "impossible" from the [[Occultism|occultist]]'s vocabulary. If he wearies not of trying, he may discover that most noble of all facts, his true [[Ātman|SELF]]. But he will have to penetrate many strata before he comes to It.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 111 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 374.</ref></blockquote>

Finally, in a letter to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]], the Master writes:

<blockquote>If, throwing aside every preconceived idea, you could TRY and impress yourself with this profound truth that intellect is not all powerful by itself; that to become "a mover of mountains" it has first to receive life and light from its higher principle — Spirit, and then would fix your eyes upon everything occult spiritually trying to develop the faculty according to the rules, then you would soon read the mystery right.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 126 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 426.</ref></blockquote>

=== Treading the Path ===

In one of her articles, [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] uses this expression as a kind of "password" to go from one stage of inner development to the next. She wrote:

<blockquote>A Rosicrucian had to struggle ALONE, and toil long years to find some of the preliminary secrets—the A B C of the great [[Kabbalah|Cabala]]—only on account of his ordeal, during which were to be tried all his mental and physical energies. After that, if found worthy, the word “Try” was repeated to him for the last time before the final ceremony of the ordeal. When the High Priests of the Temple of Osiris, of Serapis, and others, brought the neophyte before the dreaded Goddess Isis, the word “Try” was pronounced for the last time; and then, if the neophyte could withstand that final mystery, the most dreaded as well as the most trying of all horrors for him who knew not what was in store for him; if he bravely “lifted the veil of Isis,” he became an initiate, and had naught to fear more. He had passed the last ordeal, and no longer dreaded to meet face to face the inhabitants from “over the dark river.”<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. I (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 115.</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Try in HPB letter.jpg|right|170px|thumb|HPB letter to Prince Dondakov-Korsakov, Dec. 25, 1882]]
=== By H. P. Blavatsky to a friend ===

In a letter to her friend, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Dondukov-Korsakov, written on December 25, 1882, [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] exhorted him to make use of a remedy she had provided:
<blockquote>
Do not forget, my Prince, to wear the talisman (the excrescence of the elephant). It is in the tobacco box in an envelope. I swear it will bring you happiness and the desired relief Try.<ref>H. P. Blavatsky, ''H. P. B. Speaks 2'' (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1951), 112.</ref>
</blockquote>

=== By Annie Besant ===

[[Annie Besant]] used the word in the policy of her periodical [[The Commonweal (periodical)|''The Commonweal'']] highlighting the idea that the very attempt at doing something noble, even if it fails, has an inherent value. She wrote:

<blockquote>We would fain be the voice of the dumb, the defender of the oppressed, the reformer of evil, the upholder of righteousness. It is a great ambition; but "it is better to try nobly and to fail, than ignobly not to try at all."<ref>C. Hayavando Rao, ''The Indian Biographical Dictionary'' (Adyar: Pillar & Co.,1915), vi. Available online at [http://archive.org/details/indianbiographic00raoc Archive.org.]</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Damodar.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Damodar K. Mavalankar]]
=== By Colonel Olcott ===

[[Henry Steel Olcott|Colonel Henry Steel Olcott]] wrote:
<blockquote>
I taught dear [[Damodar K. Mavalankar|Damodar]] to swim, who was up to a certain point one of the greatest cowards I ever saw in the water. He would shiver and tremble if the water was half-knee high, and you may believe that neither H.P.B. nor I spared him our sarcasms. I remember well how all that changed. "Fie!" said I. "A pretty adept you will make when you dare not even wet your knee." He said nothing then, but the next day when we went bathing ''he plunged in and swam across the stream'': having taken my taunt as meant, and decided that he should swim or die. That's the way for people to grow into adepts. ''Try'', is the first last, and eternal law of self-evolution. Fail fifty, five hundred times, if you must, but try on and try ever, and you will succeed at the end. "I cannot" never built a man or a planet.<ref>Henry S. Olcott, ''Old Diary Leaves'' Vol. 2 (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1900 ), 396-397.</ref>
</blockquote>

[[File:Try-Rosicrucian.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Cover of Clymer book]]
[[File:Try from title page .png|160px|thumb|From title page of Randolph book]]
[[File:Try from Phelons book The Three Sevens.png|160px|right|thumb|From 1977 reprint of ''The Three Sevens'']]
=== In Rosicrucianism ===

Rosicrucian R. Swinburne Clymer used the word TRY printed in gold on the covers of his books that were published through the Philosophical Publishing Company. The [[W. P. Phelon|Phelons]] published ''The Three Sevens'' in 1889, and when it was reprinted in 1977 with notations by Clymer, "Try was on the cover.

Paschal Beverly Randolph used the same image on some covers, and a simpler rendition on title pages at his Randolph Publishing Company. The necessity of individual effort is emphasized throughout the teachings of [[Rosicrucianism]], [[Hermeticism]], and other occult philosophies.

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:Theosophical worldview]]

Mahatma Letter No. 44

2024-06-23T16:37:37Z

Joe Hasiewicz: The word "Cosmological" was misspelled.

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Morya]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = January 1882
| otherdate = unknown
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]]
| vialocation = unknown{{pad|9em}}
}}
This is '''Letter No. 44''' in''' [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'']], 4th chronological edition'''. It corresponds to '''Letter No. 13''' in '''Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 44#Context and background|Context and background]]. This letter gives questions with answers written by [[Morya]], and should be regarded as a continuation of the [[Cosmological Notes]].

Responses to questions are in Morya's characteristic red lettering (or, on the first two pages, a blue-black ink in Morya's hand). See the
[[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Physical_description_of_letter|Physical description of the letter]]. Morya inserted pages or paragraphs, and in some cases continued writing on the backs of pages, so the images of the pages do not match up precisely with the text as it is intended to be read. Explanatory notes have been inserted into the text to allay confusion.
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 43|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 45|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 46|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 66|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
(*) The [[Cosmological Notes]] should be read before Mahatma Letter No. 44.

== Cover sheet ==

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Cosmological Notes. Queries and M.’s Replies. Received January, 1882. Allahabad.
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 1 ==

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'''NOTE:''' Questions are in ''italics'', answers by M are in standard font, and notes are '''bold'''.

''(1) I conceive that at the close of a [[pralaya]] the impulse given by the [[Dhyan Chohans]] does not develop from [[chaos]], a succession of worlds simultaneously, but seriatim. The comprehension of the manner in which each in succession ensues from its predecessor as the impact of the original impulse might perhaps be better postponed till after I am enabled to realize the working of the whole machine — [[Chains and Rounds|the cycle of worlds]] — after all its parts have come into existence.''

(1) Correctly conceived. Nothing in nature springs into existence suddenly, all being subjected to the same law of [[Gradual Evolution|gradual evolution]]. Realize but once the process of the maha [[Cyclic Evolution|cycle]], of one sphere and you have realized them all. One man is born like another man, one race evolves, develops, and declines like another and all other races. Nature follows the same groove from the “creation” of a universe down to that of a mosquito. In studying esoteric cosmogony, keep a spiritual eye upon the physiological process of human birth; proceed from cause to effect establishing as you go along, [[Law of Correspondences|analogies]] between the birth of a man and that of a world. In our doctrine you will find necessary the synthetic method; you will have to embrace the whole [as a one] — that is to say to blend the [[macrocosm]] and [[microcosm]] together — before you are enabled to study the parts separately or analyze them with profit to your understanding. Cosmology is the physiology of the universe spiritualized, for there is but one law.

''(2) Taking the middle of a period of activity between two [[Pralaya|pralayas]], i.e., of a [[manvantara]] — what I understand to happen is this. Atoms are polarized in the highest region of spiritual efflux from behind the veil of primitive [[cosmic matter]]. The magnetic impulse which has accomplished this result flits from one mineral form to another within the [[Globe#Globe A|first sphere]] till having run the [[Globe#World-Periods (Rings) and Root-Races|round of existence]] in that kingdom of the first sphere it descends in a current of attraction to the [[Globe#Globe B|second sphere]].''

'''NOTE: The next 5 words from "Do" to "intervene" at the bottom of the letter's left column have been placed in the [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_2|Page 2]] text as the beginning of question 3.'''

(2) Polarize themselves during the process of motion and propelled by the irresistible Force at work. In Cosmogony and the work of nature the positive and the negative or the active and passive forces correspond to the male and female principles. Your “spiritual efflux” comes not from “behind the veil” but is the male seed falling into the veil of [[cosmic matter]]. The active is attracted by the passive principle and the [[Great Nag]], the serpent emblem of the eternity, [[Ouroboros|attracts its tail to its mouth]] forming thereby a circle (cycles in the eternity) in that incessant pursuit of the negative by the positive. Hence the emblem of the [[lingam]], the [[phallus]] and the [[kteis|cteis]]. The one and chief attribute

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''cosmogony''' refers to a scientific theory concerning the origin of the cosmos or universe, or about how "reality" came to be.
* '''seriatim''' is Latin for "point by point."
* '''efflux''' refers to the physics concept of flow.

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of the universal spiritual principle — the unconscious but ever active life-giver — is to expand and shed; that of the universal material principle to gather in and fecundate. Unconscious and non-existing when separated, they become consciousness and life when brought together. Hence again — [[Brahma]], from the root “brih,” the Sanskrit for “to expand, grow or to fructify,” [[Brahma]] being but the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternal evolution.

'''NOTE: The next 5 words from "Do" to "intervene" are taken from the letter's bottom left column of [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_1|Page 1]].'''

''(3) Do [[worlds of effects]] intervene between the [[worlds of activity]] in the series of descent?''

(3) The [[worlds of effects]] are not [[lokas]] or localities. They are the shadow of the [[world of causes]], their souls — worlds having like men their [[seven principles]] which develop and grow simultaneously with the body. Thus the body of man is wedded to and remains for ever within the body of his planet; his individual [[jivatma]] [[Prāṇa|life principle]], that which is called in physiology animal spirits returns after death to its source — [[Fohat]]; his [[linga shariram]] will be drawn into [[Akasa]]; his [[Kamarupa]] will recommingle with the Universal [[Sakti]] — the Will-Force, or universal energy; his “[[animal soul]]” borrowed from the breath of [[Universal Mind]] will return to the [[Dhyan Chohans]]; his [[Buddhi|sixth principle]] — whether drawn into or ejected from the matrix of the Great Passive Principle must remain in its own sphere — either as part of the crude material or as an individualized entity to be reborn in a higher [[world of causes]]. The [[seventh principle|seventh]] will carry it from the [[Devachan]] and follow the new [[Ego]] to its place of [[re-birth]]. . . .

''(4) The magnetic impulse which cannot yet be conceived of as an [[individuality]] — enters the second sphere in the same (the mineral) kingdom as that to which it belonged in sphere I and runs the [[round]] of mineral incarnations there passing on to sphere III. Our earth is still a sphere of necessity for it. Hence it passes into the upward series — and from the highest of these passes into the vegetable kingdom of sphere I.''
''Without any new impulse of creative force from above, its career round the cycle of worlds as a mineral principle has developed some new attractions or polarizations which cause it to assume the lowest vegetable form. In vegetable forms it passes successively through the cycle of worlds, the whole being still a circle of necessity (as no responsibility can yet have accrued to an unconscious individuality, and therefore it cannot at any stage of its progress do anything to select one or other of divergent paths). Or is there something in the life even of a vegetable which, though not responsibility, may lead it up or down at this critical stage of its progress?''
''Having completed the whole cycle as a vegetable the growing individuality expands on the next circuit into an animal form.''

'''NOTE: These last 16 words from "cycle" to "form" are taken from the letter's top left column of [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_5|Page 5]].'''

(4) The [[evolution]] of the worlds cannot be considered apart from the [[evolution]] of everything created or

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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having being on these worlds. Your accepted conceptions of cosmogony — whether from the theological or scientific standpoints — do not enable you to solve a single anthropological, or even ethnical problem and they stand in your way whenever you attempt to solve the problem of the races on this planet. When a man begins to talk about creation and the origin of man, he is butting against the facts incessantly. Go on saying: “Our planet and man were created” — and you will be fighting against hard facts for ever, analyzing and losing time over trifling details — unable to ever grasp the whole. But once admit that our planet and ourselves are no more creations than the iceberg now before me (in our [[K.H.]]’s home) but that both planet and man are — states for a given time; that their present appearance — geological and anthropological — is transitory and but a condition concomitant of that stage of [[evolution]] at which they have arrived in the [[evolution|descending cycle]] — and all will become plain. You will easily understand what is meant by the “one and only” element or [[principle]] in the universe and that [[androgynous]]; the seven-headed serpent [[Ananta]] of [[Vishnu]], the [[Nag]] around [[Buddha]] — the great dragon eternity [[Ouroboros|biting with its active head its passive tail]], from the [[emanations]] of which spring worlds, beings and things. You will comprehend the reason why the first philosopher proclaimed ALL — [[Maya]] — but that one [[principle]] which rests during the [[Pralaya|maha-pralayas]] only — the “nights of [[Brahmā|Brahm]].”...

Now think: the [[Nag]] awakes. He heaves a heavy breath and the latter is sent like an electric shock all along the wire encircling [[Space]]. Go to your pianoforte and execute upon the lower register of keys the seven notes of the lower octave — up and down. Begin pianissimo, crescendo from the first key, and having struck fortissimo on the last lower note go back diminuendo, getting out of your last note a hardly perceptible sound — “morendo pianissimo” (as I luckily for my illustration find it printed in one of the musick pieces in [[K.H.]]’s old portmanteau). The first and the last notes will represent to you the first and last spheres in the [[Cyclic Evolution|cycle of evolution]] — the highest! the one you strike once is our planet. Remember you have to reverse the order on the pianoforte: begin with the seventh note, not with the first. The seven vowels chanted by the Egyptian priests to the seven rays of the rising sun to which [[Memnon]] responded, meant but that. The [[One Life|one Life-principle]] when in action runs in circuits even as known in physical science. It runs the round in human body, where the head represents and is to the [[Microcosmos]] (the physical world of matter) what the summit of the cycle is to the [[Macrocosmos]] (the world of universal spiritual Forces); and so with

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''pianoforte''' is the musical instrument now called a piano.
* '''pianissimo''' is a musical term or notation for playing softly.
* '''crescendo''' is a musical term or notation for increasing volume.
* '''fortissimo''' is a musical term or notation for playing loudly.
* '''portmanteau''' is a compartmented bag or case used to carry clothes.
* '''morendo''' is a musical term or notation for fading away in tone or tempo.

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the formation of worlds and the great descending and ascending “[[circle of necessity]].” All is one Law. Man has his [[seven principles]], the germs of which he brings with him at his birth. So has a planet or a world. From first to last every [[sphere]] has its [[world of effects]], the passing through which will afford a place of final rest to each of the human [[principles]] — the [[seventh principle]] excepted. The [[Globe#Globe A|world No. A]] is born; and with it, clinging like barnacles to the bottom of a ship in motion, evolute from its first breath of life the living beings of its atmosphere, from the germs hitherto inert, now awakening to life with the first motion of the sphere. With sphere A begins the mineral kingdom and runs the [[round]] of mineral [[evolution]]. By the time it is completed [[Globe#Globe B|sphere B]] comes into objectivity and draws to itself the life which has completed its [[round]] on sphere A, and has become a surplus, (the fount of life being inexhaustible, for it is the true [[Arachne]] doomed to spin out its web eternally — save the periods of [[pralaya]]). Then comes vegetable life on sphere A, and the same process takes place. On its [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|downward course]] “life” becomes with every state coarser, more material; on its [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|upward]] more shadowy. No — there is [not], nor can there be any responsibility until the time when [[matter]] and [[spirit]] are properly equilibrized. Up to man “life” has no responsibility in whatever form; no more than has the foetus who in his mother’s womb passes through all the forms of life — as a mineral, a vegetable, an animal to become finally man.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''NOTE: The 16 words from "cycle" to "form" at the top left of the Page 5 image are included in the text of [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_2|Page 2]], to complete question #4.'''

''(5) Where does it get the [[animal soul]], its [[fifth principle]], from? Has the potentiality of this resided from the first in the original magnetic impulse which constituted the mineral, or at every transition from the last world on the ascending side to sphere I does it, so to speak, pass through an ocean of spirit and assimilate some new [[principle]]?''

(5) Thus you see his [[fifth principle]] is evolved from within himself, man having as you well say “the potentiality” of all the [[seven principles]] as a germ, from the very instant he appears in the first [[world of causes]] as a shadowy breath, which coagulates with, and is hardened together with the parent sphere.

[[Spirit]] or LIFE is indivisible. And when we speak of the [[seventh principle]] it is neither quality nor quantity nor yet form that are meant, but rather the [[space]] occupied in that ocean of [[spirit]] by the results or effects — (beneficent as are all those of a co-worker with nature) — impressed thereon.

''(6) From the highest animal (non-human) form in [[Globe#Globe A|sphere I]] — how does it get to [[Globe#Globe B|sphere II?]] It is inconceivable that it can descend to the lowest animal form there, but otherwise how can it go through the whole circle of life on each planet in turn?''
''If it runs its cycle in a spiral (i.e., from form 1 of sphere I to form 1 of sphere II, etc. — then to form 2 of sphere I, II, III, etc., and then to form 3 of sphere I .... Nth —) then it seems to me that the same rule must apply to the mineral and vegetable individualities if they have such, ''

'''NOTE: The following two paragraphs from "and yet" to "entity" have been inserted here from [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_9|Page 9]] of the letter (left-hand column), to complete question #6.'''

''and yet some things I have been told seem to militate against that.'' [State them and they will be answered and explained.] ''For the moment I must work on that hypothesis, however.''

''Having swept through the cycle in the highest animal form the [[animal soul]] in its next plunge into the ocean of [[spirit]] acquires the [[seventh principle]] which endows it with a [[sixth principle|sixth]]. This determines its future on Earth, and at the close of the earth life has sufficient vitality to keep an attraction of its own for the [[seventh principle]], or loses this and ceases to exist as a separate entity.''

'''NOTE: The following bracketed comments from "All this" to "itself" have been inserted here from [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_9|Page 9]] of the letter (right-hand column).'''

[All this misconceived. [[Seventh principle|7th principle]] always there as a latent force in every one of the [[principles]] — even body. As the [[macrocosm|macrocosmic]] Whole it is present even in the lower sphere, but there is nothing there to assimilate it to itself.]

(6) Why, “inconceivable?” The highest animal form in sphere I or A being irresponsible, there is no degradation for it to merge into sphere II or B as the most infinitesimal of that sphere. While on its [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|upward course]], as you were told, man finds even the lowest animal form there — higher than he was himself on earth. How do you know that men and animals and even life in its

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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incipient stage is not a 1000 times higher there, than it is here? Besides which, every kingdom (and we have 7 — while you have but 3) is subdivided into seven degrees or classes. Man (physically) is a compound of all the kingdoms, & spiritually — his individuality is no worse for being shut up within the casing of an ant than it is for being inside a king. It is not the outward or physical shape that dishonours and pollutes the 5 [[principles]] — but the mental perversity. Then it is but at his [[fourth round]], when arrived at the full possession of his [[Kama]]-energy and completely matured, that man becomes fully responsible “as at the [[Sixth Round|sixth]] he may become a [[Buddha]] & at the [[Seventh Round|seventh]] before the [[Pralaya]] — a [[Dhyan Chohan]].” Mineral, vegetable, animal-man, all of these have to run their seven rounds during the [[Globe#World-Periods (Rings) and Root-Races|period of earth’s activity]] — the [[Maha Yug]]. I will not enter here on the details of mineral & vegetable evolution, but I will notice only man — or — animal-man. He starts downward as a simply spiritual entity — an unconscious [[seventh principle|7th principle]] (a [[Parabrahm]] in contradistinction to Para-parabrahm) — with the germs of the other six [[principles]] lying latent and dormant in him. Gathering solidity at every sphere — his 6 pr[inciples] when passing through the [[worlds of effects]], and his outward form in the [[worlds of causes]] (for these worlds or stages on the [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|descending side]] we have other names), when he touches our planet he is but a glorious bunch of light upon a sphere itself yet pure and undefiled (for mankind and every living thing on it increase in their materiality with the planet). At that stage our [[Globe#Globe D|globe]] is like the head of a newly born babe — soft, & with undefined features, and man — an Adam before the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils (to quote your own bungled up Scriptures for your better comprehension). For man and (our planet’s) nature — it is day — the first (see distorted tradition in your Bible). Man No. 1 makes his appearance at the apex of the [[Chains and Rounds|circle of the spheres]] on sphere No. 1, after the completion of the seven rounds or [[Globe#World-Periods (Rings) and Root-Races|periods]] of the two kingdoms (known to you) and thus he is said to be created on the

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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eighth day (see Bible Chapter II; note verses 5 and 6 and think what is meant there by “mist” — and verse 7 wherein LAW the Universal great fashioner is termed “God” by Christians and Jews, and understood as [[Evolution]] by Kabbalists).
During this first [[round]] “animal-man” runs, as you say, his cycle in a spiral. On the [[descending arc]] — whence he starts after the completion of the seventh round of animal life on his own individual seven rounds — he has to enter every sphere not as a lower animal as you understand it but as a lower man, since during the cycle which preceded his round as a man he performed it as the highest type of animal. Your “Lord God,” says Bible, chapter I, verses 25 and 26 — after having made all said; “Let us make man in our image,” etc., and creates man — an [[androgyne]] ape! (extinct on our planet) the highest in intelligence in the animal kingdom and whose descendants you find in the anthropoids of to-day. Will you deny the possibility of the highest anthropoid in the next sphere being higher in intelligence than some men down here — savages for instance, the African dwarf-race and our own Veddhas of Ceylon? But man has no such “degradation” to go through as soon as he has reached the fourth stage of his cyclic [[rounds]]. Like the lower lives and beings during his first, second and third round and while he is an irresponsible compound of pure [[matter]] and pure [[spirit]] (none of them as yet defiled by the consciousness of their possible purposes and applications) from sphere I, where he has performed his local sevenfold round of evolutionary process from the lowest class of the highest species of — say — anthropoids up to rudimentary

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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man [he] certainly enters No. 2 as an ape (the last word being used for your better comprehension). At this round or stage his individuality is as dormant in him as that of a foetus during his period of gestation. He has no consciousness, no sense, for he begins as a rudimentary astral man and lands on our planet as a primitive physical man. So far it is a mere passing on of mechanical motion. Volition and consciousness are at the same time self-determining and determined by causes, and the volition of man, his intelligence and consciousness will awake but when his fourth principle [[Kama]] is matured and completed by its (seriatim) contact with the Kamas or energizing forces of all the forms man has passed through in his previous three [[rounds]]. The present mankind is at its fourth round (mankind as a genus or a kind, not a RACE nota bene) of the post-pralayan [[Law of Cycles|cycle]] of [[evolution]]; and as its various races, so the individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly sevenfold cycles — hence the vast difference in the degrees of their intelligence, energy and so on. Now every [[individuality]] will be followed on its [[ascending arc]] by the Law of retribution — [[Karma]] and death accordingly. The perfect man or the entity which reached full perfection, (each of his [[seven principles]] being matured) will not be reborn here. His local terrestrial cycle is completed and he has to either proceed onward or — be annihilated as an [[individuality]]. (The incomplete entities have to be reborn or reincarnated)[*]. On their fifth [[round]] after a partial [[nirvana]] when the zenith of the grand cycle is reached, they will be held responsible

[*] By-the-bye, I’ll re-write for you pages 345 to 357, Vol. I., of [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]] — much jumbled, and confused by [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]], who thought he was improving it!

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''seriatim''' is Latin for sequential or "point by point."
* '''nota bene''' is Latin for "take special notice."

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henceforth in their descents from sphere to sphere, as they'll have to appear on this earth as a still more perfect and intellectual race. This [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|downward course]] has not yet begun but will soon. Only how many — oh, how many will be destroyed on their way!
The above said is the rule. The [[Buddhas]] and [[Avatars]] form the exception, as verily we have yet some [[Avatars]] left to us on earth.

'''NOTE: The next words in the right-hand column of the letter have been inserted into the text of [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_5|Page 5]], as the bracketed comments from "All this" to "itself" forming part of the answer to question #6.'''

'''NOTE: In the next section of the right-hand column, the sentences from "Reforming" to "latter" have been inserted into [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_10|Page 10]] to begin the response to question #7.'''

''(7) The [[animal soul]] having in successive passages round the cycle lost, so to speak, the momentum which previously carried it past the divergent path [[Descending arc|downward]] which strikes off here, falls into the lower world, in the relatively brief cycle in which its individuality is dissipated.''

''But this would only be the case with the [[animal soul]] which had not, in

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its union with [[spirit]], developed a durable [[sixth principle|6th principle]]. If it had done this, and if the [[sixth principle|6th principle]], drawing to itself the [[individuality]] of the complete man, had withered the inferior [[fifth principle|5th principle]] by so doing — as the aloe’s flower, when thrown up, withers its leaves — then the [[animal soul]] would not have cohesion enough to enter on another existence in a lower world and would be soon dissipated in the sphere of this earth’s attraction.''

'''NOTE: The following sentences from "Reforming" to "latter" have been inserted here from [[Mahatma_Letter_No._44#Page_9|Page 9]] of the letter (right-hand column), to begin the response to question #7.'''

(7) Reforming your conceptions on what I gave you above you will understand now better.
The whole individuality is centred in the three middle or [[Third principle|3rd]], [[Fourth principle|4th]] and [[Fifth principle|5th]] [[principles]]. During earthly life it is all in the [[Fourth principle|4th]], the centre of energy volition — will. [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]] has perfectly defined the difference between [[Principles#Individuality and personality|personality and individuality]]. The former hardly survives — the latter,

to run successfully its seven-fold [[Evolution#Descending and ascending arcs|downward & upward course]], has to assimilate to itself the eternal life-power residing but in the [[Seventh principle|7th]] and then blend the three ([[Fourth principle|4th]], [[Fifth principle|5th]] & [[Seventh principle|7th]]) into one — the [[Sixth principle|6th]]. Those who succeed in doing so become [[Buddhas]], [[Dhyan Chohans]], etc. The chief object of our struggles and [[initiations]] is to achieve this union while yet on this earth. Those who will be successful have nothing to fear during the 5th, 6th and 7th [[rounds]]. But this is a mystery. Our beloved [[K.H.]] is on his way to the goal — the highest of all beyond as on this sphere.

I have to thank you for all you have done for our two friends. It is a debt of gratitude we owe you.

[[M.]]

For some short time you will not hear of, or from me — PREPARE.

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

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 1. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
[[Alfred Percy Sinnett|APS]] labels this document "Cosmological Notes." Another group of questions and answers generally referred to as "The Cosmological Notes" is found in [[The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett (book)|LBS, Appendix II, p. 376]]. The questions in this letter were written by APS on the left-half of sheets of smooth white note paper, The answers by [[Morya|M]] are mostly on the right-hand side of the sheets opposite the questions. Where space was insufficient, the answer was continued on the back of the sheet. But in some cases, even this was not enough space for the answer, and an additional sheet of a different type of paper was inserted. In the case of sheets 1 and 2, the right side has been cut off and a new right-half pasted on. The replies are in M's script, but in ''blue'' ink, with a few exceptions. The third sheet (inserted) is in red ink. This is followed by another inserted sheet, with writing in red ink.
 
 
The final word "Prepare" is very interesting in that the first five letters are ''printed '' in upper and lower case letters mixed, and the last two letters are in M's script.<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), 91-92.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Morya]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML to A. P. Sinnett]]
[[Category:ML with images]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]

[[es:CM44]]

Cosmological Notes

2024-06-18T23:28:19Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Spelling correction " proposesed" to "proposed".

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Morya]]
| receivedby = [[A. O. Hume]]
| sentvia = [[H. P. Blavatsky]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = Probably October 1881
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = Simla
| vialocation = none
}}
'''The Cosmological Notes were published as ''LBS-Appendix II'' in the chronological edition of ''The Mahatma Letters''.''' They were produced before [[Mahatma Letter No. 29]]. See [[Cosmological Notes#History|below]].

== History ==

The Cosmological notes were given by [[Morya|Master M.]] in answer to questions put by [[A. O. Hume]] and [[A. P. Sinnett]]. It seems the notes were produced by means of a number of literary exchanges with the Master and conversations held with [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H. P. Blavatsky]], who was a guest of the Humes at the time. As Sinnett recalls:

<blockquote>We appointed times each day for these efforts and I still have the M.S. book in which I recorded the results, of a very unsatisfactory character. Some extracts from the volume will show the way we struggled with our difficulties. My notes as they stand are put in the form of question and answer, the questions being rather the outcome of previous conversation than deliberately formulated by ourselves.<ref>See [https://cdn.website-editor.net/e4d6563c50794969b714ab70457d9761/files/uploaded/EarlyDaysOfTheosophyInEurope%2CThe_APSinnett.pdf# ''The Early Days of Theosophy in Europe.''], pp. 14-15, by A. P. Sinnett</ref></blockquote>

The Cosmological material started in late Sept. 1881 (probably after [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] went into his retreat) and took place from two or three weeks, ending around October 18, when Sinnett left to return to Allahabad.

In the chronology of [[Mahatma Letters]], one could tentatively place these notes before letter [[ML29|No. 29]]. However, since letter [[ML44|No. 44]] is a second set of cosmological teachings, these Notes could be read right before letter 44.

== The text ==

[[A. O. Hume]] retained the original of the Cosmological Notes, which is not extant. The copy preserved is the one [[A. P. Sinnett]] made for himself. In a letter to [[Fritz Kunz]], [[Boris de Zirkoff]] described this copy as follows:

<blockquote>The originals of some of the Letters from the Masters, as transcribed in the published volume of Mahatma Letters, were not among the material bequeathed by Sinnett to [[Maud Hoffman|Miss Maud Hoffman]]. They exist only as copies made by Sinnett in a separate leather-bound notebook. This notebook has been filmed also, when microfilm was prepared of the entire material. It is in this notebook that the "Cosmological Notes" are to be found; they are therefore in Sinnett's handwriting. There are 24 pages of this material.<ref>Letter of Boris de Zirkoff to Fritz Kunz. December 23, 1956. Boris de Zirkoff Papers. Records Series 22. Theosophical Society in America Archives.</ref></blockquote>

We reproduce below the text of the Cosmological Notes as well as scanned images of Sinnett's MS notebook from Boris de Zirkoff's microfilm. The answers received from [[Morya|Master M.]] are in bold type. In addition, we are adding some notes that Sinnett attached to a copy of this manuscript that he sent to [[Francesca Arundale]].<ref>These were published by C. Jinarājadāsa in his book ''The Early Teachings of the Masters'', Section VI, Ethics and Philosophy, Letter No. 1.</ref> In these copy, he wrote the following introduction:

<blockquote>Notes from the [[Book of Kiu-te]], the great repository of [[Occultism|occult lore]] in the keeping of the [[Adept]]s in Tibet. I believe there are thirty or forty volumes, a great deal shown only to [[Initiation|Initiates]]. What follows is merely some elementary catechism in the very beginning. We began to get these notes through [[H. P. Blavatsky|Madame Blavatsky]] when [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]] and I first set to work together. But we soon got off on to other lines of rail. 
The very first thing I ever had in the way of philosophical teaching I sent you a copy of last year; it was sketch of the chain of worlds which I suppose you have somewhere still. Then we got in a fragmentary way the materials on which Hume wrote the first of the [[Fragments of Occult Truth (article)|"Occult Fragments"]]--that relating to the [[Principle#Seven_principles_in_human_beings|seven principles in man]]. It is necessary to have an absolute comprehension of that division at starting. It runs through all nature in various shapes and ways. I now copy out of my MS. book.--A. P. Sinnett.<ref>See [http://blavatskyarchives.com/CosmologicalNotes.htm# Cosmological Notes] at Blavatsky Study Center</ref></blockquote>

Additional comments by him will be provided below in the column for "Notes".

== Page 1 ==

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[1] What are the different kinds of knowledge?

'''The real ([[Dzyu|Dgyu]]) and the unreal (Dgyu-mi). Dgyu becomes [[Fohat]] when in its activity — active agent of [[will]] — [[electricity]] — no other name.'''

[2] What is the difference between the two kinds of knowledge?

'''Real knowledge deals with eternal verities and primal causes. The unreal only with [[Māyā|illusory]] effects.'''

'''[[Dzyu|Dgyu]] stands independent of the belief or unbelief of man. Dgyu-mi requires faith — rests on authority.'''

[3] Who possesses the real knowledge?

'''The [[Lha]]s or [[adept]] alone possesses the real, his mind being en rapport'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''with the [[Mahat|Universal Mind]].'''

'''The Lhas has made the perfect junction of his [[soul]] with the [[Mahat|Universal Mind]] in its fulness, which makes him for the time a divine being existing in the region of absolute intelligence, knowledge of natural laws or [[Dzyu|Dgyu]]. The profane cannot become a [[Dangma|Dang-ma]] (purified soul), for he lacks means of perceiving Chhag, Genesis or the beginning of things.'''

[4] Is there any difference between what produces primal causes and their ultimate effects?

'''None. Everything in the occult universe, which embraces all the primal causes, is based upon two principles — Kosmic energy ([[Fohat]] or'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Chhag''' (''chags'') "to cause".
* After question 3, [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote: ''"As I go on copying, I see I shall have to interpolate remarks of an explanatory nature now and then. . . . I wanted to remark that you must not be giving yourself excessive trouble to commit these Tibetan words to memory. We soon got out of the way of using them."''

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'''breath of wisdom), and [[Cosmic Ideation|Kosmic ideation]]. Thyan Kam (= the knowledge of bringing about) giving the impulse to Kosmic energy in the right direction.'''

'''In Fohat all that exists on earth as ultimates exists as primates.'''

[5] What is the one eternal thing in the universe independent of every other thing?

'''[[Space]].'''

[6] What things are co-existent with space?

'''(i) [[Duration]].'''

'''(ii) [[Matter]]'''.

'''(iii) [[Motion]], for this is the imperishable [[life]] (conscious or unconscious as the case may be) of matter, even during the [[pralaya]], or night of mind.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''When Chyang or omniscience, and Chyang-mi-shi-khon — ignorance, both sleep, this latent unconscious life still maintains the matter it animates in sleepless unceasing motion.'''

'''(iv) The [[Ākāśa|Akasa]] (Bar-nang) or Kosmic atmosphere, or [[Astral Light|Astral light]] or celestial ether, which whether in its latent or active condition surrounds and interpenetrates all matter in motion of which it is at once a result and the medium by which the Kosmic energy acts on its source.'''

'''(v) The [[Puruṣa|Purush]] or [[Seventh Principle|7th principle]] of the universe.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Bar-nang''' (''bar-snang'') is the Tibetan word for "sky," "heaven," or "atmosphere."

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'''[[Liṅga-śarīra|Ling Sharir]] is composed of the ethereal elements of its (? Body's) organism, never leaves body but at [[death]] and remains near.'''

[7] Are we to understand [[Puruṣa|Purush]] as another name for [[space]], or as a different thing occupying every part of space?

'''Same. [[Swayambu]] occupies every part of space which itself is boundless and [[Eternity|eternal]], hence must be space in one sense. Swayambu becomes Purush when coming in contact with [[matter]].'''

[8] The [[Mahat|universal]] mind is the aggregate of all the minds of the [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dyan Chohans]] or [[Planetary Spirit|Planetaries]], the result of the
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'''NOTES:'''
* After the remark on the Ling Sharir, [[A. P. Sinnett]] adds: ''"This note, which is disconnected from the immediate subject of the paper was probably added by [[Morya|M.]] in reply to some current question asked at that time."''

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action of [[Puruṣa|Purush]] on [[matter]], just as the [[Soul#Spiritual soul|spiritual soul]] in man is the action of [[spirit]] on matter?

'''Yes.'''

[9] Are we to look upon the [[Principle|seven principles]] as all [[matter]] and all [[spirit]] — one thing, with spirit as it were at one pole, and matter at the other?

'''Yes, just so.'''

[10]) If so, are we to view them as different states of [[matter]] or [[spirit]], or how?

'''States, conditions, call it whatever you please. I call it Kyen — cause; itself a result of a previous or some primary cause.'''

[11] All [[matter]] consists of ultimate molecules. How may we conceive the different states of matter?

'''As the molecules go on'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Kyen''' (''rkyen'') is a Tibetan word for "cause" or "condition."

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'''rarefying, so in proportion they become attenuated and the greater the distance between our [[globe]] and them — I do not mean here the region within the reach of your science — the greater the change in their polarity, the negative pole acquiring a stronger property of repulsion, and the positive losing gradually its power of attraction. (And now is the time for your men of [[Dzyu|Dgyu]] to set me down as a Thibetan ass, and for me to return the compliment.)'''
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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[12] MAN
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
! Thibetan
! [[Sanskrit]]
! English
|-
|1.
|A-ku
|Rupa
|[[Sthūla-śarīra|Body]]
|-
|2.
|Zer (vital ray)
|[[Prāṇa|Prana]]: [[Jīva#Jivatman|Jivatma]]
|Life-principle
|-
|3.
|Chhu-lung (one of the 3 airs)
|[[Liṅga-śarīra|Ling Sharir]]
|[[Astral Body]]
|-
|4.
|Nga-Zhi (essence of Action)
|[[Kāmarūpa|Kama-Rupa]]
|Will-form
|-
|5.
|Ngë ([[Ego#Lower_ego|Physical Ego]])
|Linga Dha Bhut
|[[Soul#Animal soul|Animal Soul]]
|-
|6.
|Lana Sem-Nyed (Spiritual Soul)
|[[Ātman|Atman]] [[Māyāvi-Rūpa|Mayava-rupa]]
|[[Soul#Spiritual soul|Spiritual Soul]]
|-
|7.
|Hlün Dhüb (Self existing)
|[[Mahātma|Mahatma]]
|[[Spirit]]
|}

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'''NOTES:'''
* [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote: ''"We were anxious to make out the correspondences between the [[Principle#Comparison_between_the_principles_in_human_beings_and_cosmos|seven principles of Man and of the Universe]]. [[Morya|M.]] wrote out the following table."''
* '''3 airs'''. In printed editions this is wrongly transcribed as "3 aims." Sinnett's "r" often looks similar to his "n," but not to his "m."
* Following is the corrected Tibetan spelling of some terms by [[David Reigle]].<ref>David Reigle, ''Blavatsky's Secret Books'' (San Diego, CA: Wizards Bookshelf, 1999), 62</ref>
:- '''A-ku''': ''sku'' (body, Skt. kāya)
:- '''Chhu-lung''': ''chhu'' [?], ''rlung'' (air, Skt. prāṇa).
:- '''Nga Zhi''': ''nga'' [the "I"], ''gzhi'' (basis)
:- '''Lana Sem-Nyed''': ''bla-na'' (above, higher, Skt. uttara), ''nyid'' (mind, heart, soul, Skt. citta), ''sems-nyid'' (Skt. cittam eva, "mind alone").
:- '''Hlün Dhüb''': ''lhun-grub'' (self-existing, without effort, Skt. anābhoga)

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[12] UNIVERSE
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!
! Thibetan
! Sanskrit
! English
|-
|1.
|Sem-Chan (Animated Universe) SSa - earth, as an element
|[[Brahman|Brahm]]. The Universe [[Prakṛti|Prakrit]] = [[Matter]] Iyam = Earth
|Organised matter
|-
|2.
|Zhihna ([[Soul#Vital soul|Vital Soul]])
|[[Puruṣa|Purush]]
|Vivifying, Universal [[Spirit]]
|-
|3.
|Yor Wa (Illusion)
|([[Māyā|Maya]]) [[Ākāśa|Akasa]]
|Astral or Cosmic atmosphere
|-
|4.
|Od. (light, the shining ''active'' [[Astral Light]])
|[[Vāc|Vach]] (the Kamakasa)
|Cosmic Will
|-
|5.
|Nam Kha (Ether passive)
|Yajna (latent form in [[Brahmā|Brahma]] = [[Puruṣa|Purush]] determined by activity of No. 4)
|Viradji (?) Universal Illusion
|-
|6.
|Kon Chhog (Uncreated Principle)
|[[Nārāyaṇa|Narayan]] -- Spirit brooding over the waters and reflecting in itself the Universe
|[[Mahat|Universal Mind]]
|-
|7.
|Nyug ([[Duration]] in eternity or [[space]])
|[[Svayambhū#Svāyambhuva|Swayambuva]] in [?] (space)
|Latent [[Spirit]] [[Ain Soph|Ensoph]]
|}

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'''NOTES:'''
* After the table [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote:''"This may help to throw light on some Eastern metaphysical writings, but it seems to me an effort to put into words some correspondences that are too subtle for such classification."''
* Below is the corrected Tibetan spelling of some terms by [[David Reigle]].<ref>David Reigle, ''Blavatsky's Secret Books'' (San Diego, CA: Wizards Bookshelf, 1999), 64</ref>
:- '''Sem-Chan''': ''sems-can'' (a sentient being, Skt. sattva)
:- '''SSa''': ''sa'' (earth, Skt. pṛthivī, [[bhūmi]])
:- '''Od''': <nowiki>'</nowiki>''od'' (light, Skt. prabhā, āloka)
:- '''Nam Kha''': ''nam-mkha<nowiki>'</nowiki>'' (space, ether, Skt. ākāśa)
:- '''Kon Chhog''': ''dkon-mchog'' (jewel, Skt. ratna)
:- '''Nyug''': ''snyugs'' ("duration," "continuity," "time")

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[13] Sem chan, animated universe: S.Sa, earth as an element. Where then does cosmic or unorganised matter class?

'''Zhi gyu ([[Cosmic Matter|cosmic matter]]), Thog ([[space]]), Nyng ([[duration]]), Khor wa ([[motion]]), all one.'''

'''[[Fire (symbol)|Fire]], as everything else, has seven [[principle]]s. Od, one, but not the most material -- sixth.'''

[14] All [[Cosmic Matter|matter cosmic]] or organised has inherent [[motion]]. What then does Zhihna, [[Soul#Vital soul|vital soul]] or vivifying principle, do to it?

'''There you see. As well ask what [[Prāṇa|vital principle]] does for human body when it'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Nyng''' (''snyugs'') is a Tibetan word for "duration", "continuity", or "time."
* '''Khor wa''' (''<nowiki>'</nowiki>khor-ba'') means "cycle", "revolving," in Tibetan.

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'''comes into it in conjunction with the other five. A dead body is composed of molecules full of life, is it? Yet when [[Soul#Vital soul|vital soul]] has deserted the whole, what is it but a dead body. Give up your pansophy and come down to our [[Dzyu|Dgyu]]. We believe in spontaneous generation and you do not. We say that [[Soul#Vital soul|Zhima]] being positive, and [[Cosmic Matter|Zhi-gyu]] [gyu (material) Earth in this sense] negative, it is only when the two come in contact as the former is brought to act upon the latter, that organised, living, self-acting [[matter]] is produced. Everything invisible, imponderable'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Pansophy'''. In monotheistic belief systems it refers to God as being the ultimate knowing spirit.
* '''Zhima''' was spelled "Zhihna" on the table.

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'''(the [[spirit]] of a thing) is positive, for it belongs to the world of reality; as everything solid, visible, is negative. Primate and ultimate, positive and negative. So much in our manifested world. As the [[force]]s move on and the distance between organised and unorganised [[matter]] becomes greater, a tendency towards the reverse begins to take place. The powers of attraction and repulsion become gradually weaker. Then a complete exchange of properties takes place, and for a time equilibrium is restored in an opposite order. At every grade further'''
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''onward, or away toward their primary chaotic state, shifts no more mutually its property, but weakens gradually until it reaches the [[Be-ness|world of non-being]], where exists the eternal mechanical [[motion]], the uncreated cause from whence proceeds in a kind of incessant downward and upward rotation, the founts of being from non-being, the latter, the reality, the former [[Māyā|maya]], the temporary from the everlasting, the effect from its cause, the effect becoming in'''
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''its turn cause ad infinitum. During the [[pralaya]], that upward and downward [[motion]] ceases, inherent unconscious life alone remaining--all creative forces paralysed, and everything resting in the night of [[Manas|mind]].'''

[15] Are we to consider any of the [[principle]]s as non-molecular?

'''There comes a time when polarity ceases to exist or act, as everything else. In the night of mind, all is equilibrised in the boundless cosmos in a state of non-action or [[Be-ness#Non-being|non-being]].'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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[16] And is cosmic matter non-molecular?

'''[[Cosmic matter]] can no more be non-molecular than organised [[matter]].--[[Seventh Principle|7th principle]] is molecular as well as the first one, but the former differentiates from the latter, not only by its molecules getting wider apart and becoming more attenuated, but also by losing its polarity. Try to understand and realise this idea and the rest will become easy.'''

'''The panspermic and theospermic conceptions will both be in our way as taught by your schools.'''
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''The panspermic theory''' was proposed in the nineteenth century by the scientists Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), and Hermann von Helmholtz. It postulates that life came to Earth by means of meteoroids, asteroids, and comets.
* '''Theospermia''' may refer to creationism.

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'''You will never be able to realise the latter as an absurdity, so long as you comprehend but imperfectly the incessant work of what is called by [[Science#Occult_Science|Occult Science]] the [[Logos|Central Point]] in both its active and passive states. As I said, we believe in spontaneous generation, in the independent origin of [[matter]] whether living or dead, and we prove it, which is more than your Pasteurs and Wymans and Huxleys can say. Did they but know that [[Soul#Vital soul|Zhima]] cannot be shut out or pumped out from a'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Spontaneous generation'''. Aristotle thought that simple living things came forth spontaneously from the ''pneuma'', or "vital heat" present in nonliving things.
* '''Louis Pasteur'''. His experiment is generally known to have refuted the theory of spontaneous generation in 1859.
* '''Zhima''' was spelled "Zhihna" on the table.

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'''glass vessel like air, and that hence, wherever there is [[Puruṣa|purush]] there can be no thermal limit of organic life, they would have bak=baked less and told the world less absurdities than they have. In short, [[motion]], [[cosmic matter]], [[duration]], [[space]], are everywhere and for perspicuity's sake, let us place or fancy this multiplicity in or at the top of a [[Circle (symbol)|circle]], ("boundless"). They are passive, negative, unconscious, yet ever propelled by their inherent latent [[life]] or [[force]]. During the [[Manvantara|day of activity]], that [[Law of Cycles|cyclic]]'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Bak-bak''' is a Hindi expression for "yakking" or "jabbering." [[A. P. Sinnett]] added a note saying: ''"Hindustani for 'purposeless chatter'."''

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'''[[force]] ejecting from the causative latent principle [[cosmic matter]], like the wheel of a water mill ejects showers of water -- dust around its rotating circle, put it in contact with the same principles, but whose condition owing to their finding themselves outside the state of primitive passivity of the eternal immutability has already changed. Thus the same principles begin to acquire so to speak the germs of polarity. Then coming within the [[Mahat|Universal mind]] Dyan Kam develops these germs, conceives, and giving the impulse'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''communicates it to [[Fohat]], who, vibrating along [[Ākāśa|Akasa]], Od (a state of [[cosmic matter]], [[motion]], [[force]], etc.) runs along the lines of cosmic manifestations and frames all and everything; blindly -- agreed, yet as faithfully in accordance with the prototypes as conceived in the [[Mahat|eternal mind]] as a good mirror reflects your face.'''

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[17] On the Hypothetical Absolute and Infinite Final Cause.

'''The [[absolute]] and infinite is composed of the conditioned and finite. Causes are conditioned in their modes'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* Before beginning question 17, [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote: ''"The following notes down to the end of the page are much abbreviated so far as the original essay or memorandum of [[A. O. Hume|Hume]] is concerned, [[Morya|M]]'s notes are just made intelligible by a few lines of the original essay. I am not now abbreviating anything, but am giving you all I thought it necessary to preserve at the time."'' Hume's "original essay or memorandum" may refer to a preliminary chapter on God that he was preparing.

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'''of existence and attributes, and as individual aggregates -- unconditioned and [[Eternity|eternal]] in their sum or as a collective aggregation.'''

[18] If the [[Absolute]] is a blind law, how can it give birth to intelligence?

'''But passive latent intelligence, or that principle diffused throughout the universe which in its pure immateriality is non-intelligence and non-consciousness, and which as soon as it becomes imprisoned in matter is transformed into both -- can.'''

[19] The [[Absolute]] if intelligent, must be omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good?

'''Please give your reasons why?'''
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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In the East the [[Absolute]], itself non-conscious, is linked to intelligence by [[emanation]]s, supposed to be conditioned. "How far this hypothesis satisfies the mind as to the possibility of intelligence evolving out of non-intelligence," depends on the mind addressed. . . .

'''What do you know of the gradual development of brain ever since the Silurian period?'''

[20] The Origin of [[Evil]] difficulty, dealt with by means of the sugar refinery simile.

'''And the more the sugar refined the greater the fermentation produced in the stomach and the more worms.'''

It is useless . . .

'''Show me the philosopher'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''The Silurian Period''' (443.7 to 416.0 million years ago) was a time when the Earth underwent a relative stabilization of its general climate, which led to significant biological events.

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'''who would prove it useless!'''

. . . to say that [[evil]] is as necessary to make good apparent as darkness is to make light cognisable. To the conditioned it may be -- to [[God|the omnipotent]] nothing is necessary.

'''Prove him first.'''

But clearly a conditioned agency is not the final cause. Above it is the law or principle that conditions it. . . .

'''How is this? Where? Not unless you create something outside the [[absolute]] and limitless.'''

Problems lying behind the veil that separates the non-manifested final cause from the manifested universe are beyond the grasp of minds conditioned in that universe.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''Indeed they are not!'''

. . . The [[absolute]] infinite is unthinkable and we can neither comprehend it nor justify its ways to man.

'''Then why lose time over it? Who commissioned you to do so?'''

'''Your all-pervading supreme power exists, but it is exactly [[matter]], whose life is [[motion]], [[will]], and nerve power, [[electricity]]. [[Puruṣa|Purush]] can think but through [[Prakṛti|Prakriti]].'''

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[21] What you would say would be: --

"Whether this be so or not (as regards the hypothesis of an [[Absolute]] beyond the conditioned) it is and must ever

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'''NOTES:'''
* Before question 21, [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote: ''"Following this I have an essay by [[A. O. Hume|Hume]] summing up the previous conclusions, as follows."''

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remain a pure hypothesis. The highest intelligences in the universe know nothing of it--so far as they can explore, the manifested universe is boundless and infinite. [[Esoteric Philosophy|Our philosophy]] admits only of what is known--and knowable. This is admittedly unknowable even to [[Planetary Spirit|Planetaries]], and it is ''ex hypothesi'' non-existent--why then consider it. . . .

"Even were this conception correct, how does it concern us? For thousands of years the highest planetaries have explored the universe; they have found no limits to it, and nothing in it guided or governed by any external impulse, everything on the contrary proceeding from internal impulses which they understand and which suffice to explain everything they

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''ex hypothesi''' - something adopted according to the hypothesis (Latin)

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have ever had cognisance of. A quoi bon then to introduce this unnecessary conception of a something (which as non-existent for us is a nothing) outside and beyond what for us is limitless and eternal, when whether it exists or not it plays no discoverable part in anything that concerns us.

"The fact is your western philosophical conceptions are monarchical; ours democratic. You are only able to think of the universe as governed by a king, while we know it to be a republic in which the aggregate indwelling intelligence rules."

'''We might say more -- never better. That is just what we would say.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''À quoi bon?''' is a French phrase meaning "what's the use?"

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[22] Who are the artificers of the world?

'''[[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dyan Chohans]] -- [[Planetary Spirit|Planetaries]].'''

----------------------------

Pinned to next essay.

'''Gyu-thog -- [[Phenomena]]l or Material Universe (secret name) Aja-sakti. Viswam Zigten-jas -- cosmogony, from Zigten = living world, and jas -- to make. Chh=rab--genesis.'''

(23) The universe may primarily be conceived as [[space]] pervaded by an infinite and [[Eternity|eternal]] and homogeneous congery of molecules, in which [[motion]], their latent unconscious [[life]], is inherent. (In this its passive unmanifested state it may be regarded as [[chaos]]?)

'''Yes; if only people were'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* After question 22, [[A. P. Sinnett]] wrote: ''"Essay by [[A. O. Hume|Hume]], with Notes as before from M."''
* '''Aja-sakti''' from the [[Sanskrit]] ''aja'' "unborn" and ''śakti'' "power."
* '''Viswam''' from the [[Sanskrit]] ''viśvam'' "the all," "the universe," "the world."
* '''Zigten-jas''' (Jigten-jas) from Tibetan ''<nowiki>'</nowiki>jig-rten'' "universe," "world," and ''byas'' "to make," "to create."
* '''Chh-rab''' (''chags-rab'') means "genesis" in Tibetan.
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'''capable of conceiving what real [[chaos]] is, which they are not.'''

Though truly an [[unity]] it may be conceived in its various aspects as (Thog) [[space]], in regard to its boundless extension, co-existing with (Nyng) [[eternity]], in regard to its endless [[duration]], (Zhi-gyu) [[cosmic matter]] in regard to its molecules, and Khorwa -- [[Fohat|cosmic force]] in regard to its all pervading [[motion]].

But these four conceptions must be held to indicate not four elements composing a compound, but rather four properties or attributes of one single thing, just as on earth one thing may be hot, luminous, heavy, and in motion. This universe one and indivisible in its passive [[Pralaya|unmanifested]] form, this

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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[[chaos]] is for us non-existent. . .

'''For you, but why speak for others?'''

. . . but throughout it are scattered centres of activity or [[evolution]], and wherever and whenever activity prevails, there portions of the whole differentiate, and where this occurs, homogeneity ceases. Thus [[Matter#Differentiation_of_matter|differentiation]] is due

(1) To the greater or less proximity of the molecules.

(2) To their greater or less attenuation.

'''(What does (2) mean? How can the primal molecules grow thinner or fatter -- ex-nihilo, etc.?)'''

'''I was not aware that atoms were considered by you as something nihil. Are not the molecules considered in science as compound [of] [[Life-Atom#Atoms|atoms]]?'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Ex-nihilo''' is a Latin phrase meaning "out of nothing". It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in "creation out of nothing."

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'''[[Science#Modern_Science|Your science]] knows only of such compound molecules, and a [[Life-Atom#Atoms|primal atom]] is and will remain for ever as a hypothetical abstraction for it. Science can know nothing of the nature of atoms outside the region of effects on [[Globe#Globe D|her globe]] and even that atom she calls indivisible, which we do not, for we know of the existence and properties of the universal solvent--the essence of the [[Elements#In_Hinduism|Panchamahabutam]]--the five elements. Even the existence of the atoms which compose the unseen medium through'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''which the power which magnetises instantly a short iron rod placed across the centre of a hoop two yards in diameter around which a wire thickly covered with india rubber is coiled, – even the existence of such [[Life-Atom#Atoms|atoms]] I say, remains an open question and [[Science#Modern_Science|science]] remains puzzled and embarrassed to decide whether it is an action at a distance without or with some mysterious medium – or what?'''

(3) To changes in their polarity.

This [[Matter#Differentiation_of_matter|differentiation]] in activity is manifestation, and everything so differentiated comes into existence or becomes conceivable for us. Each

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Action at a distance without'''. In several editions of the Cosmological Notes the word "distance" is erroneously transcribed as "distant." Also, notice than in Sinnett's transcript there is no comma after "without" as it appears in printed editions.

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centre of activity (and these centres are countless) marks a solar system, but these are still rari nantes in gurgite vasto, hanging in the all-pervading ocean of the unmanifested universe, out of which new manifestations are perpetually evolving, and into the oblivion of which others whose cycle has been completed are ever returning.

Alternations of [[Manvantara|activity]] and [[Pralaya|passivity]] constitute the [[Law of Cycles|cyclic law]] of the universe. As the [[Macrocosm and Microcosm|microcosm]] man has his days and nights, his waking and his sleeping hours, so has the earth, which, a macrocosm to him is a microcosm to the solar system, and so has this latter, which, a macrocosm to a single [[globe]], is itself a microcosm to the universe.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Rari nantes in gurgite vasto''' is a Latin phrase found in the Virgil's ''Aeneid'' (I, 118) meaning "rare survivors in the vast abyss."

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That the universe itself must similarly have its days and nights of activity and passivity, is probable by analogy, but if so these cover periods unthinkable, and the fact remains unknowable by the highest intelligences conditioned in the universe.

Is this correct? If not when the entire universe goes into [[pralaya]] (what is your Tibetan word?) how can anyone know anything about it?

'''Maha bar do -- the period between [[death]] and regeneration of man is so called -- also Chhe bar do.'''

'''They can know for this is but our scan, or as you say by [[Law of Correspondences|analogy]].'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Chhe bar do''' (''che bar-do''). The Tibetan word ''che'' (Skt. ''mahā'') means "big," "great," "huge," and ''bar-do'' "intermediate state," "interval."

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The night of the solar system, the [[pralaya]] of the [[Hinduism|Hindus]], the Maha bar do or great night of mind of the Tibetans, involves the disintegration of all form and the return of that portion of the universe occupied by that system, to its [[Laya_Centre#Laya_state|passive unmanifested condition]], [[space]] pervaded by [[Life-Atom#Atoms|atoms]] in [[motion]]. Everything else passes away for the time, but [[matter]] which these ultimate atoms represent (though at times objective, at times potential or subjective, now organised, now unorganised) is eternal and indestructible, and motion is the imperishable [[life]] (conscious or unconscious as the case may be) of matter. Even therefore during the night of mind, when all other [[force]]s are paralysed, when Chyang -- omniscience, and Chyang mi shi kon -- ignorance, both sleep, and

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Maha bar do'''. See note on previous page.
* '''Chang (Chi-ang)''' (tib.) knowing anything, omniscient.
* '''Chang-mi-she(s)-khan''' (tib.) ignorant, stupid.

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everything else rests, this latent unconscious life unceasingly maintains the molecules in which it is inherent in blind resultless and purposeless [[motion]] inter se.

'''Why should it be more purposeless and resultless than the unconscious blind motion of the atoms in any foetus preparing for rebirth?'''

The solar system has disappeared even to the highest intelligences in other solar systems.

Is this correct? Can the [[Planetary Spirit|planetaries]] in any way cognise the passive [[Be-ness#Non-being|non-being]] portions of the universe?

'''They can.'''

[[Adept]]s can at will I know create forms out of [[cosmic matter]], but probably this cosmic matter is many degrees from matter as it

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Inter se''' is Latin for "among themselves."

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exists in the passive latent universe, which perhaps should rather be called potential rather than cosmic matter.

'''Potentiality is a possibility not an actuality. Find a better word.'''

But nothing has been annihilated any more than anything has been ever created; only, this recently active, organised, manifested and existing portion of the universe losing all differentiation of its parts, has passed into its [[Laya_Centre#Laya_state|primordial passive homogeneous unmanifested]], and quoad all intelligences, non-existent or inconceivable state. It has resettled into [[chaos]].

If it is asked whence these [[Law of Cycles|alterations of activity and passivity]] the reply is that they are the law inherent in the universe.

(Here as a footnote would come the

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Quoad''', from the Latin, meaning "regarding, with respect to."

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(purport of the argument approved by you against the unnecessary creation of an [[God|intelligence outside]] the self-governed universe.)

'''If you can show me one being or object in the universe which does not originate and develop through, and in accordance with blind law, then only will your argument hold good and footnote be necessary. The doctrine of [[evolution]] is an eternal protest. Evolution means unfolding of the evolute from the involute, a process of gradual growth. The only thing that could have possibly been spontaneously created is [[cosmic matter]], and'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''primordium with us means not only primogenitureship but [[Eternity|eternalism]], for [[matter]] is eternal and one of the Hlün dhüb not a Kyen -- a cause, itself the result of some primary cause. Were it so, at the end of every [[Pralaya#Maha-pralaya|Maha pralaya]] when the whole cosmos moves into [[Pariniṣpanna|collective perfection]] and every [[Life-Atom#Atoms|atom]] (that you call primordial, and we eternal) emanates from itself a still finer atom -- every individual atom containing in itself the actual potentiality of evoluting milliards of worlds each more perfect'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Hlün dhüb''' (''lhun-grub'') is a Tibetan word for "self-existing," "spontaneous," "without effort."
* '''Kyen''' (''rkyen'') is Tibetan for "cause" or "condition."

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'''and more ethereal, -- how is it that there is no sign of such an intelligence outside the self-governed universe? You take a last hypothesis -- a portion of your [[god]] sits in every [[Life-Atom#Atoms|atom]]. He is divided ad infinitum, he remains concealed in abscondito and the logical conclusion we arrive at is, that as the Infinite mind of the [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dyan Chohans]] knows that the newly emanated atoms are incapable of any conscious or unconscious action, unless they receive the intellectual impulse from them, Ergo your'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''[[god]] is no better than blind [[matter]] ever propelled by as blind eternal force or law, which is that matter's god -- Perchance. Well, well we shall not lose time over such talk.'''

The [[Pralaya|period of passivity]] ends, the night of mind ceases, the solar system awakes and re-emerges into [[Manvantara|manifestation]] and existence, and everything throughout it is once more as it was when the night set in. Though a period inconceivable to human minds has passed, it has passed but as a sound and dreamless sleep. The law of activity comes again into operation, the centre of [[evolution]] resumes its work, the fount of being commences to flow again.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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I conclude this must be so or otherwise the [[matter]] ejected from the vortex or Central point would find none in a differentiated state from which to acquire its own impulse of differentiation.

'''When the hour strikes the cosmic atoms already in a differentiated state remain statu quo, as well as [[globe]]s and everything else in the process of formation. Therefore you have seized the idea.'''

In the still passive portion of the Universe in which, and interpenetrated by which, hangs the remanifested solar system; in the [[Be-ness#Non-being|non-being]] where subsists the eternal mechanical [[motion]], its

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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uncreated cause, a vortex is formed which in its ceaseless rotation perpetually ejects into the polarised active manifested conscious Universe, the unpolarised passive unmanifested and unconscious Universal element.

Call it [[motion]], [[cosmic matter]], [[duration]] or [[space]], for it is all these and yet one, this the Universe manifested and unmanifested and there is nothing else in the Universe. But the moment it passes out of passivity (or [[Be-ness#Non-being|non-being]]) into activity (or being), it begins to change its state and [[Matter#Differentiation_of_matter|differentiate]], from contact with what had formerly changed, and so the eternal wheel rolls on, the effect of to-day becoming the cause of tomorrow for ever and ever. But it must ever be remembered that the non-being -- the passive, is the [[Eternity|eternal]],

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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the real; the being -- the active, the transitory and the [[Māyā|unreal]]. For longer or shorter as its career may be according to the impulses it receives, sooner or later the manifested disintegrates into the unmanifested, and being fades into [[Be-ness#Non-being|non-being]].

But how about the highest [[Planetary Spirit|Planetaries]]? They surely do not return into non-being, but pass on to higher or at any rate different solar systems.

'''The highest state of [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] is the highest state of non-being. There comes a time when the whole infinitude sleeps or [[Pralaya|rests]], when All is reimmersed in the one eternal and uncreated sum of all.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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'''The sum of the latent unconscious potentiality.'''

It has been stated that a [[Matter#Differentiation_of_matter|differentiation]] of the [[Elements#The_One_Element|primordial element]] is the basis of the manifested Universe, and we must now consider the [[Septenary Principle|seven different principles]] that constitute and govern that Universe or in other words the seven different states or conditions in which this element exists in it.

'''There is no finite or primordial design but in conjunction with organised [[matter]]. Design is Kyen, a cause arising from a primary one. The latent design exists from the [[eternity]] in the one unborn eternal'''

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Kyen''' (''rkyen'') is Tibetan for "cause" or "condition."

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'''atom or the [[Logos#First_Logos|central point]] which is everywhere and nowhere, called -- (our most secret incommunicable name given at the [[initiation]] to the highest [[adept]]s). So I can give you the six names of the principles of our solar system, but have to withhold the rest and even the name of the seventh. Call it the unknown and explain why. A Dam-ze (Brahman) will not give you the name of even the crown of the [[Ākāśa|Akasa]], but will'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 45 ==
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'''speak of the six primary [[force]]s in nature represented by the [[Astral Light|Astral light]]. I'll give you the principles by and bye. Study this well first.'''

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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==Online resources==
===Articles===
*[http://prajnaquest.fr/blog/category/cosmological-notes-manuscript/ The Orthography of Dgyu or Dzyu] by Ingmar de Boer

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:Research tools]]
[[Category:ML from Morya]]
[[Category:ML to A. O. Hume]]
[[es: Notas Cosmológicas]]

Maha Chohan Letter

2024-06-01T18:02:39Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Image shows the word "deduced" not "deducted" also makes more sense in the context of the letter.

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Maha Chohan]], [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A.P. Sinnett]], [[Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society|Simla Eclectic TS]]
| sentvia = an accepted chela
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = late 1881 or early 1882
| receiveddate = late 1881 or early 1882
| otherdate = unknown{{pad|10em}}
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = Simla
| vialocation = unknown
}}

The '''Maha Chohan Letter''', also known as the Great Master's Letter, appears in print as '''Appendix II''' in ''' [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'']], 4th chronological edition'''. It was also published as '''Letter No. 1''' in '''[[Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (book)|''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1881-1888'']]'''.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'' (Adyar, Chennai, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 2011), 33-11, 130-136.</ref> This letter, produced around 1881, is a summary by [[Koot Hoomi|Mahatma K.H.]] of a conversation held with the Maha Chohan in reference to some arguments [[A. P. Sinnett]] and [[A. O. Hume]] were posing about reforming the nature of the [[Theosophical Society]]. For more information see below [[Maha_Chohan_Letter#Context and background|Context and background]].

This is considered to be the most important letter received from the [[Mahatmas]], for it contains the views of the [[Maha Chohan]] on the [[Theosophical Society]]. The original letter has not been available, and Theosophists relied on copies of it made by several people. Here we reproduce images of a new copy provided by a private archival collection, and they are followed by copies made in [[A. P. Sinnett|Sinnett]]'s handwriting.

 
 
<big>[[First Letter from K.H. to A. O. Hume|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
{{pad|12em}}
 
{{pad|12em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter to Convention - LMW 1 No. 2|Next letter in LMW 1'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
 

== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==
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(Strictly) (Private) & (Confidential)

Several good reasons, given to [[Koot Hoomi|Mahatma K.H.]] [by the [[Maha Chohan|Chohan]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>, why the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] should be a [[Universal Brotherhood|Brotherhood of Humanity]].
<center>______</center>

The doctrine we promulgate, being the only true one, must - supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give - become ultimately triumphant as every other truth. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually enforcing its theories, unimpeachable facts for those who know, with direct inferences deduced from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by modern exact science. That is why [[Henry Steel Olcott|Col. H.S.O.]] who works but to revive [[Buddhism]] may be regarded as one who labours in the true path of [[theosophy]], far more than any other man who chooses as his goal the gratification of his own ardent aspirations for [[occultism|occult]] knowledge. Buddhism stripped of its superstitions is eternal truth, and he who strives for the latter is striving for theo-sophia - Divine Wisdom, which is a synonym of truth.

For our doctrines to practically re-act on the so-called moral code or the ideas of truthfulness, purity, self-denial, charity, etc., we have to preach and popularise a knowledge of Theosophy. It is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining oneself [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] (the culmination of all knowledge and absolute wisdom) which is, after all only an exalted and glorious selfishness, but the self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path our neighbour, to cause as many of our fellow creatures as we possibly can to benefit by it, which constitutes the true Theosophist.

The intellectual portions of mankind seem to be fast dividing into two classes, the one unconsciously preparing for itself long periods of temporary annihilation or states of non-consciousness owing to the deliberate surrender of their [[Manas|intellect]], its imprisonment

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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in the narrow grooves of bigotry and superstition, a process which cannot fail to lead to the utter deformation of the intellectual principle; the other unrestrainedly indulging its [[Kāma|animal propensities]] with the deliberate intention of submitting to annihilation pure and simple in cases of failure, to millenniums of degradation after physical dissolution. Those "intellectual classes," reacting upon the ignorant masses which they attract and which look up to them as noble and fit examples to follow, degrade and morally ruin those they ought to protect and guide. Between degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal materialism the white dove of truth has hardly room where to rest her weary unwelcome foot. . . .

It's time that [[Theosophy]] should enter the arena. The sons of [[Theosophist]]s are more likely to become in their turn Theosophists than anything else. No messenger of truth, no prophet has ever achieved during his life time a complete triumph, not even [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]]. The [[Theosophical Society]] was chosen as the corner stone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity. To achieve the proposed objects a greater, wiser, and especially a more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, of the alpha and the omega of society, was determined upon. The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship to the dark nations, to call the poor despised "nigger" - brother. This prospect may not smile to all; - He is no Theosophist who objects to this principle.

In view of the ever increasing triumph and at the same time misuse of free-thought and liberty (the Universal reign of [[Lucifer#Satan_as_the_opposer|Satan]], [[Éliphas Lévi Zahed|Eliphas Levi]] would have called it), how is the combative natural instinct of man to be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard of cruelties and enormities, tyranny, injustice, etc., if not through the soothing influence of a [[Universal Brotherhood|brotherhood]] and of the practical application

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''the alpha and the omega of society''' indicates the full range of society. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

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== Page 3 ==
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of Buddha's esoteric doctrines?

For as everyone knows, total emancipation from [authority of] the one all pervading power or law called [[God]] by the Theists — [[Buddha]], [[Wisdom#Divine_wisdom|Divine Wisdom]] and Enlightenment or Theosophy by the philosophers of all ages — means also the emancipation from that of human law. Once unfettered [and] delivered from their dead weight of dogmatic interpretations, personal names, anthropomorphic conceptions and salaried priests, the fundamental doctrines of all religions will be proved identical in their esoteric meaning. [[Osiris]], [[Kṛṣṇa|Chrishna]], [[Buddha]], Christ, will be shown as different means for one and the same royal highway to final bliss - [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]].

Mystical [[Christianity]], that is to say that Christianity which teaches self-redemption through one's own [[Ātman|seventh principle]] — this liberated Para-âtma ([[Augoeides]]) called by the one Christ, by others Buddha, and equivalent to regeneration or rebirth in spirit — will be found just the same truth as the [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] of mystical [[Buddhism]]. All of us have to get rid of our own [[Ego]], the illusory apparent self, to recognise our true self in a transcendental divine life. But if we would not be selfish we must strive to make other people see that truth, to recognise the reality of that transcendental self, the Buddh, the Christ or [[God]] of every preacher. This is why even exoteric Buddhism is the surest path to lead men toward the one esoteric truth. As we find the world now, whether Christian, Mussalman or Pagan, justice is disregarded and honour and mercy both flung to the winds.

In a word, how, once that the main [[Objects of the Theosophical Society|objects of the T.S.]] are misinterpreted by those who are most willing to serve us personally, are we to deal with the rest of mankind, with that curse known as the "struggle for life," which is the real and most prolific parent of most woes and sorrows and of all the crimes? Why has that struggle become the almost universal scheme of the universe? We answer, because no religion with the exception of [[Buddhism]]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 4 ==
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has hitherto taught a practical contempt for this earthly life, while each of them, always with that one solitary exception, has through its [[hell]]s and damnations inculcated the greatest dread of [[death]]. Therefore do we find that struggle for life raging most fiercely in [[Christianity|Christian]] countries, most prevalent in Europe and America. It weakens in the Pagan lands and is nearly unknown among Buddhist populations. (In China during famine and where the masses are most ignorant of their own or any religion, it was remarked that those mothers who devoured their children belonged to localities where there were the most of Christian missionaries to be found. Where there were none and the Bonzes alone had the field the population died with the utmost indifference.) Teach the people to see that life on this earth even the happiest is but a burden and an [[Māyā|illusion]], that it is but our own [[Karma]], the cause producing the effect, that is our own judge, our Saviour in [[Reincarnation|future lives]], and the great struggle for life will soon lose its intensity. There are no penitentiaries in Buddhist lands and crime is nearly unknown among the [[Vajrayāna|Buddhist Tibetans]]. (The above is not addressed to you, and has naught to do with the work of the [[Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society|Simla Eclectic Society]]. It is meant only as an answer to the erroneous impression in [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s mind of the "Ceylon work" as no [[theosophy]].)

The world in general and Christendom especially, left for two thousand years to the regime of a [[God|personal God]] as well as its political and social systems based on that idea, has now proved a failure. If the [[Theosophist]]s say, we have nothing to do with all this, the lower classes and the inferior races (those of India for instance in the conception of the British) cannot concern us and must manage as they can, what becomes of our fine professions of benevolence, philanthropy, reform, etc. Are these professions a mockery? And if a mockery, can ours be the true path? Should we devote our selves to teaching a few Europeans fed on the fat of the land, many of them loaded with the gifts of blind fortune, the rationale of bell-ringing, cup-growing, of the spiritual telephone [and [[Astral Body|astral body]] formation], and leave

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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the teeming millions of the ignorant, of the poor and despised, the lowly and the oppressed, to take care of themselves and of their hereafter the best they know how. Never. Perish rather the [[Theosophical Society]] with both its hapless [[Founders#"The Founders"|founders]] than that we should permit it to become no better than an academy of [[magic]] and a hall of [[occultism]]. That we the devoted followers of that spirit incarnate of absolute self sacrifice, of philanthropy, divine kindness, as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, [[Gautama Buddha]], should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a strange idea, my brothers.

Among the few glimpses obtained by Europeans of Tibet and its mystical hierarchy of "perfect [[lama]]s," there is one which was correctly understood and described. "The incarnations of the Boddisatwa Padma Pani or [[Avalokiteśvara|Avalo-Kiteswara]] and of [[Tsongkhapa|Tsong Kapa]], that of Amitabha, relinquish at their death the attainment of Buddhahood — i.e. the summum bonum of bliss, and of individual personal felicity that they might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind."<ref>Clements Robert Markham, ''Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet''. In the printed versions this quote is wrongly assigned to [[Thomas William Rhys Davids|Rhys Davids]].</ref> In other words, that they might be again and again subjected to misery, imprisonment in flesh and all the sorrows of life, provided that by such a self sacrifice repeated throughout long and dreary centuries they might become the means of securing salvation and bliss in the hereafter for a handful of men chosen among but one of the many races of mankind. And it is we, the humble disciples of these perfect lamas, who are expected to allow the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] to drop its noblest title, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity to become a simple school of psychology? No, no, good brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too long already. Let us understand each other. He who does not feel competent enough
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''”Perfect Lamas”''' evidently is a term used at the time to refer to the Bodhisattvas. Blavatsky also quotes the phrase “perfect Lamas or Bodhisatvas” in her article “Who are the Aryas and the Buddhists.” H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings Vol. 3, p. 303
* '''Summum bonum''' is a Latin expression for "the highest good."

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== Page 6 ==
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to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it, need not undertake a task too heavy for him. But there is hardly a theosophist in the whole society unable to effectually help it by correcting the erroneous impressions of the outsiders, if not by actually propagating himself the idea. Oh, for the noble and unselfish man to help us effectually in India in that divine task. All our knowledge past and present would not be sufficient to repay him. . . . Having explained our views and aspirations I have but a few words more to add.

To be true, [[religion]] and philosophy must offer the solution of every problem. That the world is in such a bad condition morally is a conclusive evidence that none of its religions and philosophies, those of the civilised races less than any other, have ever possessed the truth. The right and logical explanations on the subject of the problems of the great dual principles — right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and despotism, pain and pleasure, egotism and altruism — are as impossible to them now as they were 1881 years ago. They are as far from the solution as they ever were but, ––––

To these there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our doctrines will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the first one to confess that must be the true philosophy, the true religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the truth.

<center>----------------------</center>

An abridged version of the view of the [[Maha Chohan|Chohan]] on the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] from his own words.

::::Signed. K.H.

[[File:Six-pointed star with central dot.JPG|center|25px]]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 1 ==
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Several good reasons [given to [[Koot Hoomi|K.H.]] by the [[Maha Chohan|Chohan]]<nowiki>]</nowiki> why the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] should be a [[Universal Brotherhood|Brotherhood of Humanity]] and for the [[Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society|Simla Eclectic T.S.]]

The doctrine we promulgate being the only true one, must, supported by such evidence as we are preparing to give become ultimately triumphant as every other truth. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually enforcing its theories, unimpeachable facts for those who know, with direct inferences deducted from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by modern exact science. That is why [[Henry Steel Olcott|Col H.S.O.]] who works but to revive [[Buddhism]] may be regarded as one who labours in the true path of [[Theosophy]], far more than any other man who chooses as

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

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC1.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC1_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 2 ==
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his goal the gratification of his own ardent aspirations for [[occultism|occult]] knowledge. Buddhism stripped of its superstitions is eternal truth, and he who strives for the latter is striving for theo-sophia, Divine Wisdom, which is a synonym of truth.

For our doctrines to practically react on the so called moral code or the ideas of truthfulness, purity, self-denial, charity, etc., we have to preach and popularise a knowledge of theosophy. It is not the individual and determined purpose of attaining oneself [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] (the culmination of all knowledge and absolute wisdom) which is, after all only an exalted and glorious selfishness, but the self-sacrificing pursuit of the best means to lead on the right path our neighbour, to cause as many of our fellow creatures as we possibly can

{{Col-break|width=3%}}
{{Col-break|width=15%}}

[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC2.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC2_thm.jpg]

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

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 3 ==
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to benefit by it, which constitutes the true Theosophist.

The intellectual portions of mankind seem to be fast dividing into two classes, the one unconsciously preparing for itself long periods of temporary annihilation or states of non-consciousness owing to the deliberate surrender of their [[Manas|intellect]], its imprisonment in the narrow grooves of bigotry and superstition, a process which cannot fail to lead to the utter deformation of the intellectual principle; the other unrestrainedly indulging its [[Kāma|animal propensities]] with the deliberate intention of submitting to annihilation pure and simple in cases of failure, to millenniums of degradation after physical dissolution. Those "intellectual classes," reacting upon the ignorant masses which they attract and which look up to them as noble and

{{Col-break|width=3%}}
{{Col-break|width=15%}}\
[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC3.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC3_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

{{Col-end}}

== Sinnett Transcription Page 4 ==
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fit examples to follow, degrade and morally ruin those they ought to protect and guide. Between degrading superstition and still more degrading brutal materialism the white dove of truth has hardly room where to rest her weary unwelcome foot. . . .

It's time that [[Theosophy]] should enter the arena. The sons of [[Theosophist]]s are more likely to become in their turn Theosophists than anything else. No messenger of truth, no prophet has ever achieved during his life time a complete triumph, not even [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]]; the [[Theosophical Society]] was chosen as the corner stone, the foundation of the future religion of humanity. To achieve the proposed object a greater, wiser, and especially a more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low,

{{Col-break|width=3%}}
{{Col-break|width=15%}}
[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC4.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC4_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 5 ==
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of the alpha and the omega of society, was determined upon. The white race must be the first to stretch out the hand of fellowship to the dark nations, to call the poor despised "nigger" brothers. This prospect may not smile to all. He is no Theosophist who objects to this principle.

In view of the ever increasing triumph and at the same time misuse of free-thought and liberty (the Universal reign of [[Lucifer#Satan_as_the_opposer|Satan]], [[Éliphas Lévi Zahed|Eliphas Levi]] would have called it), how is the combative natural instinct of man to be restrained from inflicting hitherto unheard of cruelties and enormities, tyranny, injustice, etc., if not through the soothing influence of a [[Universal Brotherhood|brotherhood]] and of the practical application of Buddha's esoteric doctrines?

For as everyone knows, total emancipation

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC5.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC5_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''the alpha and the omega of society''' indicates the full range of society. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

{{Col-end}}

== Sinnett Transcription Page 6 ==
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from authority of the one all pervading power or law called [[God]] by the Theists — [[Buddha]], [[Wisdom#Divine_wisdom|Divine Wisdom]] and Enlightenment or Theosophy by the philosophers of all ages — means also the emancipation from that of human law. Once unfettered [and] delivered from their dead weight of dogmatic interpretations, personal names, anthropomorphic conceptions and salaried priests, the fundamental doctrines of all religions will be proved identical in their esoteric meaning. [[Osiris]], [[Kṛṣṇa|Chrishna]], [[Buddha]], Christ, will be shown as different means for one and [the] same royal highway to final bliss, [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]].

Mystical [[Christianity]], that is to say that Christianity which teaches self redemption through one's own [[Ātman|seventh principle]] — the liberated Para-atma ([[Augoeides]])

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC6.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC6_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 7 ==
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called by the one Christ, by others Buddha, and equivalent to regeneration or rebirth in spirit — will be found just the same truth as the [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] of mystical [[Buddhism]]. All of us have to get rid of our own [[Ego]], the illusory apparent self, to recognise our true self in a transcendental divine life. But if we would not be selfish we must strive to make other people see that truth, to recognise the reality of that transcendental self, the Buddh, the Christ or [[God]] of every preacher. This is why even exoteric Buddhism is the surest path to lead men toward the one esoteric truth. As we find the world now, whether Christian, Mussalman or Pagan, justice is disregarded and honour and mercy both flung to the winds.

In a word, how, once that the main
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 8 ==
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[[Objects of the Theosophical Society|objects of the T.S.]] are misinterpreted by those who are most willing to serve us personally, are we to deal with the rest of mankind, with that curse known as the "struggle for life," which is the real and most prolific parent of most woes and sorrows and of all the crimes? Why has that struggle become the almost universal scheme of the universe? We answer, because no religion with the exception of [[Buddhism]] has hitherto taught a practical contempt for this earthly life, while each of them, always with that one solitary exception, has through its [[hell]]s and damnations inculcated the greatest dread of [[death]]. Therefore do we find that struggle for life raging most fiercely in [[Christianity|Christian]] countries, most prevalent in Europe and America. It weakens in the Pagan lands and is
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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC8.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/MC8_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 9 ==
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nearly unknown among Buddhist populations. (In China during famine and where the masses are most ignorant of their own or any religion, it was remarked that those mothers who devoured their children belonged to localities where there were the most of Christian missionaries to be found. Where there were none and the Bonzes alone had the field the population died with the utmost indifference.) Teach the people to see that life on this earth even the happiest is but a burden and an [[Māyā|illusion]], that it is but our own [[Karma]], the cause producing the effect, that is our own judge, our Saviour in [[Reincarnation|future lives]], and the great struggle for life will soon lose its intensity. There are no penitentiaries in Buddhist lands and crime is nearly unknown
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 10 ==
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among the [[Vajrayāna|Buddhist Tibetans]]. (The above is not addressed to you, and has naught to do with the work of the [[Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society|Simla Eclectic Society]]. It is meant only as an answer to the erroneous impression in [[A. O. Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s mind of the "Ceylon work" as no [[theosophy]].)

The world in general and Christendom especially, left for two thousand years to the regime of a [[God|personal God]] as well as its political and social systems based on that idea, has now proved a failure. If the [[Theosophist]]s say, we have nothing to do with all this, the lower classes and the inferior races (those of India for instance in the conception of the British) cannot concern us and must manage as they can, what becomes of our fine professions of benevolence, philanthropy,
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 11 ==
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reform, etc. Are these professions a mockery? And if a mockery, can ours be the true path. Shall we devote our selves to teaching a few Europeans fed on the fat of the land, many of them loaded with the gifts of blind fortune, the rationale of bell ringing, cup growing, of the spiritual telephone and [[Astral Body|astral body]] formation, and leave the teeming millions of the ignorant, of the poor and despised, the lowly and the oppressed, to take care of themselves and of their hereafter the best they know how. Never. Perish rather the [[Theosophical Society]] with both its hapless [[Founders#"The Founders"|founders]] than that we should permit it to become no better than an academy of [[magic]] and a hall of [[occultism]]. That we the devoted followers of that spirit
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 12 ==
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incarnate of absolute self sacrifice, of philanthropy, divine kindness, as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth of sorrow, the man of men, [[Gautama Buddha]], should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a strange idea, my brothers.

Among the few glimpses obtained by Europeans of Tibet and its mystical hierarchy of "perfect [[lama]]s," there is one which was correctly understood and described. "The incarnations of the Boddisatwa Padma Pani or [[Avalokiteśvara|Avalo-Kiteswara]] and of [[Tsongkhapa|Tsong Kapa]], that of Amitabha, relinquish at their death the attainment of Buddhahood — i.e. the summum bonum of bliss, and of individual personal
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Summum bonum''' is a Latin expression for "the highest good."

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 13 ==
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felicity that they might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind."<ref>Clements Robert Markham, ''Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet''. In the printed versions this quote is wrongly assigned to [[Thomas William Rhys Davids|Rhys Davids]].</ref> In other words, that they might be again and again subjected to misery, imprisonment in flesh and all the sorrows of life, provided that by such a self sacrifice repeated throughout long and dreary centuries they might become the means of securing salvation and bliss in the hereafter for a handful of men chosen among but one of the many races of mankind. And it is we, the humble disciples of these perfect lamas, who are expected to allow the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] to drop its noblest title, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity to become a simple school of psychology? No, no, good brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too long already. Let us understand each other. He who
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 14 ==
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does not feel competent enough to grasp the noble idea sufficiently to work for it, need not undertake a task too heavy for him. But there is hardly a theosophist in the whole society unable to effectually help it by correcting the erroneous impressions of the outsiders, if not by actually propagating himself the idea. Oh, for the noble and unselfish man to help us effectually in India in that divine task. All our knowledge past and present would not be sufficient to repay him. . . . Having explained our views and aspirations I have but a few words more to add.

To be true, [[religion]] and philosophy must offer the solution of every problem. That the world is in such a bad condition morally is a conclusive
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'''NOTES:'''
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== Sinnett Transcription Page 15 ==
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evidence that none of its religions and philosophies, those of the civilised races less than any other, have ever possessed the truth. The right and logical explanations on the subject of the problems of the great dual principles — right and wrong, good and evil, liberty and despotism, pain and pleasure, egotism and altruism — are as impossible to them now as they were 1881 years ago. They are as far from the solution as they ever were but, ––––

To these there must be somewhere a consistent solution, and if our doctrines will show their competence to offer it, then the world will be the first one to confess that must be the true philosophy, the true religion, the true light, which gives truth and nothing but the truth.
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Sinnett Transcription Page 16 ==
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An abridged version of the view of the [[Maha Chohan|Chohan]] on the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] from his own words as given last night. My own letter, the answer to yours, will shortly follow.

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'''NOTES:'''
* These words were written by [[Koot Hoomi|Mahatma K.H.]]

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== Context and background ==

In reference to the context for this letter, [[Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa|C. Jinarajadasa]] wrote:

<blockquote>When the [[Adepts]] proclaimed the true significance of their attempt to influence the world through the [[Theosophical Society]], which was to mould the world towards a larger and truer sense of brotherhood than the religions had so far accomplished, [Messrs. [[A. P. Sinnett]] and [[A. O. Hume]]<nowiki>]</nowiki> plainly informed the Adepts that there was no future at all for the theosophical movement in the West along that line. The only way to convince the thoughtful minds of the West, that the ideas of the Adepts were worth examining, was first to perform certain [[phenomena]] under perfect ‘test conditions’. European scientists of the type of Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin and others would then be ready to examine the theosophical thesis concerning life and [[evolution]]. As to the Society’s [[Objects of the Theosophical Society#First_Object|first Object]] of establishing a [[Universal Brotherhood|universal brotherhood]], Mr Sinnett and Mr Hume said that [[Christianity]] had been trying to proclaim brotherhood for 1880 years, with no success whatsoever; why dissipate the energy of [[Theosophist]]s, who desired to serve the Adepts, along that futile line?<ref>Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa, ''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom'' First Series, Notes to Letters (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 131-132.</ref></blockquote>

== Physical description of letter ==

The first transcription shown above, purportedly the original of this letter, is in a private collection. [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett's]] copy is at the British Library.<ref>British Library Folio 6 Additional MS 45289A.</ref> [[Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa|Mr. Jinarājadāsa]] wrote:
<blockquote>
But fortunately for us, copies were made, under instructions from the two Masters, of such parts of their communications to Mr Sinnett and Mr Hume as were instructional in their nature, and which gave an idea of the esoteric philosophy. This letter was copied and cyclostyled in London, and sent to certain selected persons. One such copy is among the papers of [[Charles Webster Leadbeater|C. W. Leadbeater]], and I published the letter from it in my edition of 1919... I found a manuscript volume, in the handwriting of [[Francesca Arundale|Miss Francesca Arundale]], which contained, among other extracts from the letters, this Letter 1. I have recopied the letter from these two manuscripts.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, 135.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

As early as the middle 1880s, this letter was circulated privately, in whole or in part, but it was not published openly until 1886 when John C. Bundy, F.T.S., published it in his '''[[The Religio-Philosophical Journal (periodical)|''Religio-Philosophical Journal'']]'''.<ref>F.T.S., "Several Good Reasons" ''Religio-Philosophical Journal'' 40.18 (June 26, 1886), 2.</ref> At the end the editor noted: "The above is an abridged version of the views of the Chohan on the [[Theosophical Society]] from his own words, as given last night through an accepted [[chela]], and now published for the benefit of those whom it may concern." A cutting from that journal is in HPB's scrapbook No. XXIII, Part II, page 469.

Three paragraphs of the letter were quoted in '''[[The Path (periodical)|''The Path'']]''' issue of February 1893.<ref>One of the Recipients, "What the Masters Have Said" ''The Path'' 7.11 (February, 1893), 333-335.</ref> Apparently [[William Quan Judge|Mr. Judge]] had the cyclostyled copy of the letter.

[[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|HPB]] quoted from the letter in the August 1888 issue of '''[[Lucifer (periodical)|''Lucifer'']]'''.<ref>Burnouf, M. Emile, "The Theosophical Society: Its Mission and Future" ''Lucifer'' 2.12 (August 15, 1888), 431-432.</ref> "HPB also quoted from this letter in her first statement issued in 1888 to the members of the newly formed E.S.T.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, 135.</ref> The August, 1896 issue of ''Lucifer'' claimed to be the first instance of publication of the '''entire letter'''.<ref>Anonymous, "An Important Letter" ''Lucifer'' 18.108 (August 15, 1896), 501-506.</ref>

An abridged version of his letter was the first entry in [[Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (book)|'''''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom''''']], First Series, published in 1919 at the Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar.<ref>''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, 1881-1888''. Adyar, Madras, India; London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1919. Foreword by Annie Besant; transcribed and compiled by C. Jinarajadasa.</ref>

== Commentary about this letter ==

[[Curuppumullage Jinarājadāsa|Mr. Jinarajadasa]] wrote about this letter when he published it in [[Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom (book)|''Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series'']]:

<blockquote>
This is certainly the most important letter ever received from the adept teachers, as it is а communication from the [[Maha Chohan]] (‘to whose
insight the future lies like an open page’ — [[Koot Hoomi|K.H.]], [[Mahatma Letter to H. S. Olcott - LMW 1 No. 16|Letter 16]]), one of the three great [[Adept|Adepts]] who form the ‘triangle’ of the great [[Brotherhood of Adepts|Hierarchy]]. As the note from the Master KH says, the communication is not a letter written by the Maha Chohan himself, but the report of an interview.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa and unnamed subsequent editors, 130.</ref>
</blockquote>

For additional commentary see [https://archive.org/details/JinarajadasaTheMahaChohansLetterWithACommentary '''''The Maha Chohan's Letter with Commentary 1881]'''.

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Maha Chohan]]
[[Category:ML to A. P. Sinnett]]
[[Category:ML to a group]]
[[Category:ML with images|Maha Chohan Letter]]
[[Category:ML with images|LMW1-1]]

[[es:Carta del Maha Chohan]]

Mahatma Letter No. 92

2024-05-12T18:20:17Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Added a space changing "everyone" to "every one" in the phrase "are every one of them endowed".

Mahatma Letter No. 85b

2023-11-19T02:51:39Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Text does not exactly match the the image of the letter.

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = mid-September 1882
| otherdate = unknown
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = "quite near to Darjeeling"
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = unknown{{pad|9em}}
}}
This is '''Letter No. 85b''' in''' [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'']], 4th chronological edition'''. It corresponds to '''Letter No. 24b''' in '''Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 85b#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 86|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 104|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==
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'''[A]'''

At this stage of our correspondence, misunderstood as we generally seem to be, even by yourself, my faithful friend, it may be worth our while and useful for both, that you should be posted on certain facts — and very important facts — connected with adept-ship. Bear in mind then, the following points.

[1] An [[adept]] — the highest as the lowest — is one only during the exercise of his [[Siddhi|occult powers]].

[2] Whenever these powers are needed, the sovereign will unlocks the door to the inner man [the adept] who can emerge and act freely but on condition that his jailor — the outer man will be either completely or partially paralyzed — as the case may require; viz: either (a) mentally and physically; (b) mentally, — but not physically; (c) physically but not entirely mentally; (d) neither, — but with

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''viz.''' represents the Latin adverb videlicet which means "namely", "that is to say", or "as follows".

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== Page 2 ==

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an [[Ākāśa|akasic]] film interposed between the outer and the inner man.

[3] The smallest exercise of [[Siddhi|occult powers]] then, as you will now see, requires an effort. We may compare it to the inner muscular effort of an athlete preparing to use his physical strength. As no athlete is likely to be always amusing himself at swelling his veins in anticipation of having to lift a weight, so no [[adept]] can be supposed to keep his will in constant tension and the inner man in full function, when there is no immediate necessity for it. When the inner man rests the adept becomes an ordinary man, limited to his physical senses and the functions of his physical brain. Habit sharpens the intuitions of the latter, yet is unable to make them supersensuous. The inner adept is ever ready, ever on the alert, and that suffices for our purposes. At moments

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== Page 3 ==

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of rest then, his faculties are at rest also. When I sit at my meals, or when I am dressing, reading or otherwise occupied I am not thinking even of those near me; and, [[Djual Khool]] can easily break his nose to blood, by running in the dark against a beam, as he did the other night — (just because instead of throwing a "film" he had foolishly paralyzed all his outer senses while talking to and with a distant friend) — and I remained placidly ignorant of the fact. I was not thinking of him — hence my ignorance.

From the aforesaid, you may well infer, that an [[adept]] is an ordinary mortal, at all the moments of his daily life but those — when the inner man is acting.

Couple this with the unpleasant fact that we are forbidden to use one particle of our [[Siddhi|powers]] in connexion with the [[Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society|Eclectics]] [for which you have to thank [[Allan Octavian Hume|your President]] and him alone] and that the little

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== Page 4 ==

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that is done, is, so to say, smuggled in — and then syllogize thusly —

[[Koot Hoomi|K.H.]] when writing to us is not an [[adept]].

A non-adept — is fallible.

Therefore, K.H. may very easily commit mistakes; —

Mistakes of punctuation — that will often change entirely the whole sense of a sentence; idiomatic mistakes — very likely to occur especially when writing as hurriedly as I do; mistakes arising from occasional confusion of terms that I had to learn from you — since it is you who are the author of "rounds" — "rings" — "earthly rings" — etc. etc. Now with all this, I beg leave to say, that after having carefully read over and over our "Famous Contradictions" myself; after giving them to be read to [[Morya|M.]]; and then to a high adept whose powers are not in the [[Chohan]]'s chancery sequestered by Him to prevent him from squandering them

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''chancery''' usually means the building that houses a diplomatic mission, such as an embassy.

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== Page 5 ==

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upon the unworthy objects of his personal predilections; after doing all this I was told by the latter the following: "It is all perfectly correct. Knowing what you mean, no more than any other person acquainted with the doctrine, can I find in these detached fragments anything that would really conflict with each other. But, since many sentences are incomplete, and the subjects scattered about without any order, I do not wonder that your [[Chela#Lay Chela|"lay chelas"]] should find fault with them. Yes; they do require a more explicit and clear exposition."

Such is the decree of [[Adept|an adept]] — and I abide by it; I will try to complete the information for your sake.

In one and only case — marked on your pages and my answers
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'''NOTES:'''
* After ". . . your sake." there is a blue dot encircled in red.

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== Page 6 ==

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[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 7|[12A], and [12B]]] the last — is the "plaintiff" entitled to a hearing, but not to a farthing even — for damages; since, as in law, no one — either plaintiff or defendant — has a right to plead ignorance of that law, so in [[Occult Science]]s, the [[Chela#Lay Chela|lay chelas]] ought to be forced to give the benefit of the doubt to their gurus in cases, in which, owing to their great ignorance of that science they are likely to misinterpret the meaning — instead of accusing them point blank of contradiction! Now I beg to state, that, with regard to the two sentences — marked respectively 12A and 12B — there is a plain contradiction but for those who are not acquainted with that tenet; you were not, and therefore I plead "guilty" of an omission, but "not guilty" of a contradiction. And even as regards the former, that omission is so small that, like the girl accused of infanticide, who when brought before
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== Page 7 ==

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the Judge said in her excuse that the baby was so very very little that it was not worth his while calling it a "baby" at all — I could plead the same for my omission, had I not before my eyes your terrible definition of my "exercising ingenuity." Well, read the explanation given in my "Notes and Answers" and judge.

By the bye, my good Brother, I have not hitherto suspected in you such a capacity for defending and excusing the inexcusable as exhibited by you in my defense, of the now famous "exercise of ingenuity." If the article [reply to [[C. C. Massey]]] has been written in the spirit you attribute to me in your letter; and if I, or any one of us has "an inclination to tolerate subtler and more tricksy ways of pursuing an
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== Page 8 ==

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end" than generally admitted as honourable by the truth-loving, straight-forward European (is [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]] included in this category?) — indeed you have no right to excuse such a mode of dealing, even in me; nor to view it "merely in the nature of spots in the sun," since a spot is a spot whether found in the bright luminary or upon a brass candlestick. But you are mistaken, my dear friend. There was no subtle, no tricky mode of dealing, to get her out of the difficulty created by her ambiguous style and ignorance of English, not her ignorance of the subject — which is not the same thing and alters entirely the question. Nor was I ignorant of the fact that [[Morya|M.]] had written to you previously upon the subject since it was in [[Mahatma Letter No. 44|one of his letters]] [the last but one before I took the business off his hands] in which he
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== Page 9 ==

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touched upon the subject of [[Root-Race|"races"]] for the first and spoke of [[reincarnation]]s. If [[Morya|M.]] told you to beware trusting [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]] too implicitly, it was because he was teaching you truth and fact — and that at the time the passage was written we had not yet decided upon teaching the public indiscriminately. He gave you several such instances — if you will but re-read [[Mahatma Letter No. 44|his letter]] — adding that were such and such sentences written in such a way they would explain facts now merely hinted upon, far better.

Of course to [[C. C. Massey|"C.C.M."]] the passage must seem wrong and contradictory for it is "misleading" as M. said. Many are the subjects treated upon in Isis that even [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.P.B.]] was not allowed to become thoroughly acquainted with; yet they are not contradictory if — "misleading." To make her say — as she was made by me to say — that the passage criticized was "incomplete, chaotic, vague . . . clumsy as many more passages in that work"

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''to beware trusting Isis''' refers to a note the Master M. wrote saying "By-the-bye, I’ll re-write for you pages 345 to 357, Vol. I., of Isis". The questionable passages have to do with the denial of the existence of [[Isis Unveiled (book)#Isis on Reincarnation|reincarnation in ''Isis Unveiled'']].
* '''to "C.C.M."''' is a reference to an article published in the English Spiritualist periodical [[Light (periodical)|''Light'']], in July 8, 1882 by C. C. Massey, criticizing those "discrepancies" in ''Isis Unveiled''.

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was a sufficiently "frank admission" I should think, to satisfy the most crotchety critic. To admit "that the passage was wrong," on the other hand, would have amounted to a useless falsehood, for I maintain that it is not wrong; since if it conceals the whole truth, it does not distort it in the fragments of that truth as given in [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]]. The point in [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]]'s complaining criticism was not that the whole truth had not been given, but that the truth and facts of 1877 were represented as errors and contradicted in 1882 and it was that point — damaging for the whole [[Theosophical Society|Society]], its "lay" and inner [[chela]]s, and for our doctrine — that had to be shown under its true colours; namely that of an entire misconception due to the fact that the [[Septenary Principle|"septenary" doctrine]] had not yet been divulged to the world at the time when Isis was written. And thus it was shown. I am sorry you do not find her answer

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== Page 11 ==

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written under my direct inspiration "very satisfactory," for it proves to me only that up to this you have not yet grasped very firmly the difference between the [[Monad#The dual Monad|sixth and seventh]] and the [[Manas#The "fifth principle" in The Mahatma Letters|fifth]], or the immortal and the astral or personal "Monads — Egos." The suspicion is corroborated by what [[Allan Octavian Hume|H — X]] gives in his criticism of my explanation at the end of his "letter" in the September number; your letter before me completing the evidence thereupon. No doubt the "real [[Ego]] inheres in the higher principles which are reincarnated" periodically every one, two, or three or more thousands of years. But the immortal Ego the [[Monad|"Individual Monad"]], is not the personal monad which is the 5th; and the passage in [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]] did not answer Eastern reincarnationists — who maintain in that same Isis — had you but read the whole of it — that the individuality or the immortal "Ego" has to

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'''NOTES:'''
* The answer '''"written under my direct inspiration"''' is the article [http://www.katinkahesselink.net/blavatsky/articles/v4/y1882_091.htm# “Isis Unveiled” and “The Theosophist” on Reincarnation] published by Mme. Blavatsky in August, 1882 in [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']], Vol. III, No. 11, pp. 288-289.

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re-appear in every cycle — but the Western especially the French [[reincarnation]]ists, who teach that it is the personal, or [[Monad#The astral Monad|astral monad]], the "moi fluidique" the [[manas]], or the intellectual mind, the 5th principle in short, that is reincarnated each time. Thus, if you read once more [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]]'s quoted passage from [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]] against the "Reviewer of the Perfect Way," you will perhaps find that [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.P.B.]] and myself were perfectly right in maintaining that in the above passage only the "astral monad" was meant. And, there is a far more "unsatisfactory shock" to my mind, upon finding that you refuse to recognise in the astral monad the [[Ego#Lower ego|personal Ego]] — whereas, all of us call it most undoubtedly by that name, and have so called it for millenniums — than there could ever be in yours when meeting with that monad under its proper name in [[Éliphas Lévi Zahed|E. Levi]]'s Fragment on Death!

The "astral monad" is the "personal
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''moi fluidique" '''refers to the fluidic body, or ''perispirit'' as described by A. Kardec in The Book on Mediums'''
* '''the "Reviewer of the Perfect Way"''' refers to an anonymous review of the book [[The Perfect Way (book)|The Perfect Way]], published in [[The Theosophist (periodical)|''The Theosophist'']], vol. 3, May 1882, p. 207.
* '''Fragment on Death''' refers to an article published in ''The Theosophist'' in October 1881. The page has marginal comments in K.H.'s writing. To read the article click [http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/hpb-aps/bl-ap1.htm# here].

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Ego," and therefore, it never [[Reincarnation|reincarnates]], as the French [[Spiritism|Spirites]], will have it, but under "exceptional circumstances;" in which case, reincarnating, it does not become a [[shell]] but, if successful in its second reincarnation will become one, and then gradually lose its personality, after being so to say emptied of its best and highest spiritual attributes by the immortal [[monad]] or the "[[Ego#Spiritual ego|Spiritual Ego]], during the last and [[Life after Death#The "Death struggle"|supreme struggle]]. The "jar of feeling" then ought to be on my side, as indeed it only "seemed to be another illustration of the difference between eastern and western methods," but was not — not in this case at any rate. I can readily understand, my dear friend, that in the chilly condition you find yourself (mentally) in, you are prepared to bask even in the rays of a funereal pile upon which a living sutti is being performed; but why, why call it a — Sun, and excuse its spot — the corpse?
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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The letter addressed to me, which your delicacy would not permit you to read, was for your perusal & sent for that purpose. I wanted you to read it.

Your suggestion concerning [[Djual Khool|G.K.]]'s next trial in art — is clever, but not sufficiently, as to conceal the white threads of the Jesuitically black insinuation. G.K. was however caught at it. "Nous verrons, nous verrons!" says the French song.

G. Khool says — presenting his most humble salaams — that you have "incorrectly described the course of events as regards the first portrait." What he says is this: (1) "the day she came" she did not ask you "to give her a piece of" etc. (page 300) but after you had begun speaking to her of my portrait, which she doubted much whether you could have. It is but after half-an-hour's talk over it in the front drawing room — you two forming the two upper points of the triangle, near your office door, and [[Patience Sinnett|your lady]] the lower one (he was there he says) that she told you she would try. It was then that she asked you for "a piece of thick white paper" and that you gave her a piece of a thin letter paper, which had been touched by some very anti-magnetic person. However he did, he says, the best he could. On the day following, as [[Patience Sinnett|Mrs. S.]] had looked at it just twenty seven minutes before he did it, he accomplished his task. It was not "an hour or two before" as you say for he had told the [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|"O.L."]] to let her see it just before breakfast. After breakfast, she asked you for a piece of Bristol board, and you gave her two pieces, both marked and not one as you say. The first time she brought it out
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''nous verrons''' refers to a French song. It means "we shall see, what we shall see."
* '''Bristol board''' is an uncoated, machine-finished paperboard that can be used for drawing on either side.

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it was a failure, he says, "with the eyebrow like a leech," and it was finished only during the evening, while you were at the Club, at a dinner at which the old [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Upasika]] would not go. And it was he again [[Djual Khool|G.K.]] "great artist" who had to make away with the "leech," and to correct cap and features, and who made it "look like Master" (he will insist giving me that name though he is no longer my [[chela]] in reality), since [[Morya|M.]] after spoiling it would not go to the trouble of correcting it but preferred going to sleep instead. And finally, he tells me, my making fun of the portrait notwithstanding, the likeness is good but would have been better had M. sahib not interfered with it, and he, G.K. allowed to have his own "artistic" ways. Such is his tale, and he therefore, is not satisfied with your description and so he said to Upasika who told you
something quite different. Now to my notes.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''eyebrow like a leech''' is probably from the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' that had opened in 1878 and run for 571 performances in London. The phrase is used to describe "Little Buttercup."
* '''Sahib''' means "friend" in Arabic and was commonly used in the Indian Sub-continent as a courteous term in the way that "Mr." and "Mrs." are used in the English language.
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<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 1 transcription, image, and notes|'''[1]''']]</center>

Nor do they fret me — particularly. But as they furnish our mutual friend with a good handle against us, which he is likely to use any day in that nasty way, so pre-eminently his own, I rather explain them once more — with your kind permission.

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 2|'''[2]''']]</center>

Of course, of course; it is our usual way of getting out of difficulties. Having been "invented" ourselves, we repay the inventors by inventing imaginary [[Root-Race|races]]. There are a good many things more we are charged with having invented. Well, well, well; there's one thing, at any rate, we can never be accused of inventing; and that is [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]] himself. To invent his like transcends the highest [[Siddhi]] powers we know of.

And now good friend, before we proceed any further, pray read

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*

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appended [[Mahatma Letter No. 85b#Page 1 transcription, image, and notes|No. [A]]]. It is time you should know us as we are. Only, to prove to you, if not to him, that we have not invented those [[Root-Race|races]], I will give out for your benefit that which has never been given out before. I will explain to you a whole chapter out of [[Thomas William Rhys Davids|Rhys Davids]] work on [[Buddhism]], or rather on [[Tibetan Buddhism|Lamaism]], which, in his natural ignorance he regards as a corruption of Buddhism! Since those gentlemen — the Orientalists — presume to give to the world their soi-disant translations & commentaries on our sacred books, let the [[theosophist]]s show the great ignorance of those "world" pundits, by giving the public the right doctrines & explanations of what they would regard as an absurd, fancy theory.
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''soi-disant''' is a French expression for "self-styled."

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<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 3|'''[3]''']]</center>

And because I admit the superficial or apparent inconsistency — and even that in the case only of one who is so thoroughly unacquainted with our doctrines as you are — is that a reason why they should be regarded as conflicting in reality? Suppose I had written in a previous letter — "the [[moon]] has no atmosphere" and then went on talking of other things; and told you in another letter "for the moon has an atmosphere of its own" etc.: no doubt but that I should stand under the charge of saying to-day black & to-morrow white. But where could a [[Kabbalah|Kabalist]] see in the two sentences a contradiction? I can assure you that he would not. For, a Kabalist who knows that the moon has no atmosphere answering in any respect to that of our [[Globe#Globe D|earth]], but one of its own, entirely different from that your men of science would call one, knows also that like the Westerns
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*

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we Easterns, and [[Occultism|Occultists]] especially, have our own ways of expressing thought as plain to us in their implied meaning as yours are to yourselves. Take for instance into your head to teach your Bearer astronomy. Tell him to-day — "see, how gloriously the sun is setting — see how rapidly it moves, how it rises and sets etc.;" and to-morrow try to impress him with the fact that the sun is comparatively motionless and that it is but our earth that loses and then again catches sight of the sun in her diurnal motion; and ten to one, if your pupil has any brains in his head, he will accuse you of flatly contradicting yourself. Would this be a proof of your ignorance of the heliocentric system? And could you be accused with anything like justice of "writing one thing to-day & denying it to-morrow," though your sense of fairness should prompt you to admit that you "can easily understand" the accusation.

Writing my letters, then, as I do, a few lines now and a few words two hours later; having to catch up the thread of the same subject, perhaps with a dozen or more interruptions between the beginning and the end, I cannot promise you anything like western accuracy.

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<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 3|'''[4]''']]</center>

Ergo — the only "victim of accident" in this case is myself. The innocent cross examination to which I am subjected by you — & that I do not object to — and the positively pre-determined purpose of catching me tripping whenever he can, on [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s part, — a proceeding regarded as highly legal and honest in western law, but to which we, Asiatic savages, object most emphatically — has given my colleagues and [[Masters of Wisdom|Brothers]] a high opinion of my proclivities to martyrdom. In their sight I have become a kind of Indo-Tibetan Simon Stylites. Caught by the lower hook of the Simla interrogation mark and impaled on it, I see myself doomed to equilibrize upon the apex of the semicircle for fear of slipping down at every uncertain motion either backward or forward. — Such is the present position of your humble friend. Ever since I undertook the extraordinary task of teaching two grown up pupils with brains in which the methods of western science had crystallized for years; one of whom is willing enough to make room for the new iconoclastic teaching, but who, nevertheless, requires a careful handling while the other will receive nothing but on

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Simon Stylites''' was one of three similarly-named Greek Orthodox ascetic saints who each lived for many years on top of a pillar.

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condition of grouping the subjects as he wants them to group, not in their natural order — I have been regarded by all our [[Chohan]]s as a lunatic. I am seriously asked whether my early association with Western "Pelings" had not made of me a half-Peling and turned me also into a "dzing-dzing" visionary. All this had been expected. I do not complain; I narrate a fact, and humbly demand credit for the same, only hoping it will not be mistaken again for a subtle and tricky way of getting out of a new difficulty.

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 4|'''[5]''']]</center>

x Every just disembodied four-fold entity — whether it died a natural or violent death, from [[suicide]] or accident, mentally sane or insane, young or old, good, bad, or indifferent — loses at the instant of [[death]] all recollection, it is mentally — annihilated: it sleeps it's [[Ākāśa|akasic]] sleep in the [[Kāmaloka|Kama-loka]]. This state lasts from a few hours (rarely less), days, weeks, months — sometimes to several years. All this according to the entity, to its mental status at the moment of death, to the character of its death, etc. That remembrance will return slowly and gradually toward the end of the

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Peling''' (phyi-gling, 'outer continent') is a Tibetan word meaning outsider or foreigner, particularly a Westerner.

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[[Life after Death#Period of gestation|gestation]] (to the entity or [[Ego]]), still more slowly but far more imperfectly & incompletely to the [[Kāmaloka#Shell|shell]], and fully to the Ego at the moment of its entrance into the [[Devachan]]. And now the latter being a state determined and brought by its past life, the Ego does not fall headlong but sinks into it gradually and by easy stages. With the first dawn of that state appears that life (or rather is once more lived over by the Ego) from its first day of consciousness to its last. From the most important down to the most trifling event, all are marshalled before the spiritual eye of the Ego; only, unlike the events of real life, those of them remain only that are chosen by the new liver (pardon the word) clinging to certain scenes and actors, these remain permanently — while all the others fade away to disappear for ever, or to return to their creator — the shell. Now try to understand this highly important, because so highly just and retributive law, in its effects. Out of the resurrected Past nothing remains but what the Ego has felt spiritually — that was evolved by and through, and lived over by his spiritual faculties — they be love or hatred. All that I am now trying to describe is in truth

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— indescribable. As no two men, not even two photographs of the same person, nor yet two leaves resemble line for line each other, so no two states in [[Devachan|Deva-Chan]] are like. Unless he be an [[adept]], who can realize such a state in his periodical Deva-chan — how can one be expected to form a correct picture of the same?

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 4|'''[6]''']]</center>

Therefore, there is no contradiction in saying, that the [[ego]] once reborn in the Devachan, "retains for a certain time proportionate to its earth life a complete recollection of his (Spiritual) life on earth." Here again the omission of the word "Spiritual" alone, produced a misunderstanding!

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 4|'''[7]''']]</center>

All those that do not slip down into the [[Moon#The Eighth Sphere|8th sphere]] — go to the Devachan. Where's the point made or the contradiction?

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 5|'''[8]''']]</center>

The Devachan State, I repeat, can be as little described or explained, by giving a however minute & graphic description of the state of one ego taken at random, as all the human lives collectively could be described by the "Life of Napoleon" or that of any other man. There are millions of

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various states of happiness & misery, emotional states having their source in the physical as well as the spiritual faculties and senses, and only the latter surviving. An honest labourer will feel differently from an honest millionaire. Miss Nightingale's state will differ considerably from that of a young bride who dies before the consummation of what she regards as happiness. The two former love their families; the philanthropist — humanity; the girl centres the whole world in her future husband; the melomanic knows of no higher state of bliss & happiness than music — the most divine and spiritual of arts. The [[devachan]] merges from its highest into its lowest degree — by insensible gradations; while from the last step of devachan, the [[Ego]] will often find itself in [[Avichi|Avitcha]]'s faintest state, which, towards the end of the "spiritual selection" of events may become a bona fide "Avitcha." X Remember, every feeling is relative. There is neither good nor evil, happiness nor misery per se. The transcendent, evanescent bliss of an adulterer, who by his act murders the happiness of a husband, is no less spiritually

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Miss Nightingale''' refers to Florence Nightingale, an English nurse noted for her work during the Crimean War and for founding nursing schools.
* '''melomanic''' indicates someone with an excessive or abnormal attraction to music.
* '''Bona fide''' is Latin for "genuine."
* '''Avitcha''' is a miswriting by the chela-amanuensis for Avitchi.

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born for its criminal nature. If a remorse of [[conscience]] (the latter proceeding always from the [[Buddhi|6th principle]]) has only once been felt during the period of bliss and really spiritual love, born in the 6th & [[Manas|5th]], however polluted by the desires of the 4th, or [[Kāma|Kamarupa]], — then this remorse must survive and will accompany incessantly the scenes of pure love. I need not enter into details, since a physiological expert, as I take you to be, need hardly have his imagination and intuitions prompted by a psychological observer of my sort. Search in the depths of your conscience and [[memory]], and try to see what are the scenes that are likely to take their firm hold upon you; when once more in their presence you find yourself living them over again; and that, ensnared, you will have forgotten all the rest — this letter among other things, since in the course of events it will come far later on in the panorama of your resurrected life. I have no right to look into your past life.

Whenever I may have caught glimpses of it, I have invariably turned my eyes away, for I have to deal with the

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present [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]] — (also and by far more "a new invention" than the ex A.P.S.) — not with the ancient man.

Yes; Love and Hatred are the only immortal feelings; but the gradations of tones along the 7 by 7 scales of the whole key-board of life, are numberless. And, since it is those two feelings — (or, to be correct, shall I risk being misunderstood again and say those two poles of man's "[[Soul]]" which is a unity?) — that mould the future state of man, whether for [[devachan]] or [[Avitchi|Avitcha]] then the variety of such states must also be inexhaustible. And this brings us to your complaint or charge, number —

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 5|'''[9]''']]</center>

— for, having eliminated from your past life the [[William Henry Rattigan|Ratigans]] and Reeds who with you have never transcended beyond the boundaries of the lower portion of your [[Manas|5th principle]] with its vehicle — the [[Kāma|Kama]] — what is it but the "partial remembrance" of a life? The lines marked with your reddest pencil are also disposed of. For how can you dispute the fact that music and harmony are
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* '''William Henry Rattigan''' purchased [[The Pioneer (periodical)|''The Pioneer'']] in 1882, and the following year Sinnett left the paper where he had been employed for 11 years.

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for a Wagner, a Paganini, the King of Bavaria & so many other true artists and melomans, an object of the profoundest spiritual love & veneration? With your permission I will not change one word in clause 9.

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 6|'''[10]''']]</center>

Pity you have not followed your quotations with personal commentaries. I fail to comprehend in what respect you object to the word "[[dream]]"? Of course both bliss and misery are but a dream; and as they are purely spiritual they are "intensified."

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 6|'''[11]''']]</center>

Answered.

<center>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a#Page 7|'''[12A & 12B]''']]</center>

Had I but written, — when answering [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s objections, who after statistical calculations made with the evident intention of crushing our teaching, maintained that after all [[Spiritualism|spiritualists]] were right and the majority of seance rooms spooks were "Spirits" — "In no case then, with the exception of [[suicide]]s and [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shells]]" — and those accidents who die full of some engrossing earthly passion — is there any possibility for any other, etc., etc." I would have been perfectly right and pucka as a "professor"? To think that, eager

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as you are to accept doctrines that contradict in some most important points physical science from first to last — you should have consented at [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s suggestion to split hairs over a simple omission! My dear friend, permit me to remark that simple common sense ought to have whispered you that one who says one day: "in no case then etc.:" and a few days later denies having ever pronounced the word never — is not only no [[adept]] but must be either suffering from softening of the brain or some other "accident." "On margin I said rarely but I have not pronounced the word never" — refers to the margin of the proof of your letter N. II; that margin — or rather to avoid a fresh accusation — the piece of paper I had written upon some remarks referring to the subject and glued to the margin of your proof — you have cut out as well as the four lines of poetry. Why you have done so is known better to yourself. But the word never refers to that margin.

To one sin though I do, plead "guilty." That sin, was a very acute feeling of irritation against Mr. Hume upon receiving his triumphant statistical letter; the answer to which you found incorporated in yours when I wrote for you the materials for your answer to Mr.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 28 ==

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Khandallawala's letter that you had sent back to [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.P.B.]] Had I not been irritated I would not have become guilty of the omission, perhaps. This now is my [[Karma]]. I had no business to feel irritated, or lose my temper; but that letter of his was I believe the seventh or the eighth of that kind received by me during that fortnight. And I must say, that our friend has the most knavish way of using his intellect in raising the most unexpected sophisms to tickle people's nerves with, that I have ever known! Under the pretext of strict logical reasoning, he will perform feigned thrusts at his antagonist — whenever unable to find a vulnerable spot, and then, caught and exposed, he will answer in the most innocent way: "Why, it is for your own good, and you ought to feel grateful! If I were an [[adept]] I would always know what my correspondent really meant," etc. etc. Being an "adept" in some small matters I do know what he really means; and that his meaning amounts to this: were we to divulge to him the whole of [[Esoteric Philosophy|our philosophy]] leaving no inconsistency unexplained, it would still do no good, whatever.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 29 ==

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For, as in the observation embodied in the Hudibrasian couplet:

"These fleas have other fleas to bite 'em,

And these — their fleas ad infinitum . . . ."

— so with his objections and arguments. Explain him one, and he will find a flaw in the explanation; satisfy him by showing that the latter was after all correct, and he will fly at the opponent for speaking too slow or too rapidly. It is an IMPOSSIBLE task — and I give it up. Let it last until the whole breaks under its own weight. He says "I can kiss no Pope's toe," forgetting that no one has ever asked him to do so; "I can love, but I cannot worship" he tells me. Gush — he can love no one, and nobody but [[Allan Octavian Hume|A. O. Hume]], and never has. And that really, one could almost exclaim "Oh Hume, — gush is thy name!" — is shown in the following that I transcribe from one of his letters: "If for no other reason, I should love [[Morya|M.]] for his entire devotion to you — & you I have always loved (!). Even when most cross with you — as one always is most sensitive with those

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Hudibrasian''' is a verse form of iambic tetrameter in closed couplets. The word is derived from the satiric work ''Hudibras'', a mock-heroic 17th-century narrative poem by Samuel Butler.
* '''These fleas''' was a quotation from Jonathan Swift, or a similar line by Augustus de Morgan.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_infinitum "''Ad infinitum''"] in Wikipedia.</ref>

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== Page 30 ==

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one cares most about — even when I was fully persuaded you were a myth, for Even then my heart yearned to you as it often does to an avowedly fictitious character." A sentimental Becky Sharp writing to an imaginary lover, could hardly express her feelings better!

I will see to your scientific questions next week. I am not at home at present, but quite near to Darjeeling, in [[The Lamasery|the Lamasery]], the object of poor [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.P.B.]]'s longings. I thought of leaving by the end of September but find it rather difficult on account of [[Nobin K. Bannerji|Nobin]]'s boy. Most probably, also I will have to interview in my own skin the [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Old Lady]] if [[Morya|M.]] brings her here. And — he has to bring her — or lose her for ever — at least, as far as the [[Triad#Physical triad|physical triad]] is concerned. And now good-bye, I ask you again — do not frighten my little man; he may prove useful to you some day — only do not forget — he is but an appearance.

Yours,

[[Koot Hoomi|K. H.]]
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Becky Sharp''' is the anti-heroine of W. M. Thackeray's satirical novel ''Vanity Fair'' (1847–48).
* '''my little man''' refers to [[Babaji]], who would "lend" his body to [[Gwala K. Deb]] (whose mystical name was [[Dharbagiri Nath]]), a [[chela]] of Master K.H.

{{Col-end}}

== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 2. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
ML-24B is on 8 folded sheets about 5": x 8" <nowiki>[</nowiki>12.7 x 20.3 cm<nowiki>]</nowiki>, on all sides in KH script and sepia 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), 143.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Koot Hoomi]]
[[Category:ML needs background]]
[[Category:ML to A. P. Sinnett]]
[[Category:ML with images]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]

Masters of Wisdom

2023-09-27T02:52:36Z

Joe Hasiewicz:

The '''Masters of Wisdom''', or simply "The Masters" are [[initiation|initiates]] in the [[occultism|occult]] science and esoteric philosophy, who take disciples or [[chelas]]. [[H. P. Blavatsky]], in the glossary of her book [[The Key to Theosophy (book)|''The Key to Theosophy'']] defined the Theosophical concept of "Master" as follows:

<blockquote>'''Master.''' A translation from the Sanskrit Guru, "Spiritual teacher," and adopted by the Theosophists to designate the Adepts, from whom they hold their teachings.<ref>Helena Ptrovna Blavatsky, ''The Key To Theosophy'', Glossary (Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1972), 348.</ref></blockquote>

The Masters of Wisdom are sometimes referred indistinctly as "Brothers", "[[Adepts]]", or "[[Mahatmas]]."

== General description==

The Masters are [[Occultism|occultists]] who have developed the psychic and spiritual [[Siddhi|powers]] that are still latent in most human beings:

<blockquote>A Mahatma is a personage who, by special training and education, has evolved those higher faculties and has attained that spiritual knowledge which ordinary humanity will acquire after passing through numberless series of incarnations during the process of cosmic evolution, provided, of course, that they do not go, in the meanwhile, against the purposes of Nature. . .<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. VI (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1989), 239.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>The occultist, when he has identified himself thoroughly with his [[Ātman|Atma]], acts upon the [[Buddhi]], for, according to the laws of Cosmic [[Evolution]], the [[Puruṣa|Purusha]] — the universal seventh principle––is perpetually acting upon and manifesting itself through [[Prakṛti|Prakriti]]—the universal [[sixth principle]]. Thus the MAHATMA, who has become one with his [[seventh principle]]—which is identical with Purusha, since there is no isolation in the spiritual [[monad]]—is practically a creator, for he has identified himself with the evoluting and the manifesting energy of nature.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. VI (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1989), 261-262.</ref></blockquote>

However, this should not give the impression that the Masters are "ascended" or incorporeal spirits. Blavatsky stated, "They are living men, not 'spirits' or even [[Nirmanakaya]]s."<ref>Manly P. Hall, "Madam Blavatsky - A Tribute," Theosophia (May-June, 1947), 11.</ref> Similarly, in her book [[The Key to Theosophy (book)|''The Key to Theosophy'']] we find the following dialogue:

<blockquote>ENQUIRER. Who are they, finally, those whom you call your "Masters"? Some say they are "Spirits," or some other kind of supernatural beings, while others call them "myths." 
THEOSOPHIST. They are neither. I once heard one outsider say to another that they were a sort of male mermaids, whatever such a creature may be. But if you listen to what people say, you will never have a true conception of them. In the first place they are living men, born as we are born, and doomed to die like every other mortal.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Key to Theosophy'' (London: Theosophical Publishing House, [1987]), Section 14, p. ???.</ref></blockquote>

The Masters are thus incarnated in a body, and live in physical locations in different parts of the world. For this reason, even Masters are subject to physical limitations when acting through the body. As [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote in [[Mahatma Letter No. 130#Page 10|one of his letters]] to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]]:

<blockquote>For you know — or think you know, of one [[Koot Hoomi|K.H.]] — and can know but of one, whereas there are two distinct personages answering to that name in him you know. The riddle is only apparent and easy to solve, were you only to know what a real Mahatma is. You have seen by [[Henry Kiddle#The Kiddle Incident|the Kiddle incident]] — perchance allowed to develop to its bitter end for a purpose — that even an "[[adept]]" when acting in his body is not beyond mistakes due to human carelessness.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 130 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 433.</ref></blockquote>

Although the Masters known through the Theosophical literature use a male body, there are testimonies by a number of [[chela]]s that there are [[Adepts#Women Adepts|women adepts]], even of the highest degree.

=== Lifespan ===

Blavatsky said that the Masters "have discovered means to make their bodies last far longer than the norm." This is connected to the popular idea of the "elixir of life," which, according to her, is a metaphor for "a real occult process, warding off age and dissolution for periods which would seem fabulous."<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. VIII (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1960) 399-400</ref></blockquote>

In a famous article, [[The "Elixir of Life"]], written by a former disciple of the Masters, the author claims that those who follow this process can live a thousand years or so. However, Blavatsky rejected this notion, saying:

<blockquote>Their [the Masters'] knowledge and learning are immense, and their personal holiness of life is still greater — still they are mortal men and none of them 1,000 years old, as imagined by some.<ref>Manly P. Hall, "Madam Blavatsky - A Tribute," Theosophia (May-June, 1947), 11.</ref></blockquote>

Similarly, she stated:

<blockquote>I have never heard of mortal man, layman, or Adept, who could live even half the [969] years allotted to Methuselah. Some Adepts do exceed, by a good deal, what you would call the ordinary age; yet there is nothing miraculous in it, and very few of them care to live very long.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Key to Theosophy'' (London: Theosophical Publishing House, [1987]), Section 14, p. ???.</ref></blockquote>

A reference as to how long a human body may last was given by [[Damodar K. Mavalankar]] in a letter to [[W. Q. Judge]], saying, "At the most, how long can a human life last? Not more than four hundred years."<ref>See [http://www.dailytheosophy.net/0001-home-2/03-literature-2/03-1-fundamental-theosophical-literature-inleiding-links/eastern-school-of-theosophy/lettres-by-damodar-k-mavalankar-to-william-quan-judge/# Letters by Damodar K. Mavalankar to William Quan Judge]</ref> This is repeated by Judge in his book [[The Ocean of Theosophy (book)|''The Ocean of Theosophy'']].<ref>William Quan Judge, ''The Ocean of Theosophy'', (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2011), 37.</ref>

== Renouncing Nirvana ==

An important feature of the Masters of Wisdom is that, although they have attained the right to enter in [[Nirvāṇa]] they renounce to it in order to stay in touch with humanity. This is the same concept of the [[Bodhisattva]]s in [[Mahayana Buddhism]], which was not very well know at the time to the Western world:

<blockquote>. . .the hitherto very esoteric doctrine of the Nirmanakayas was lately brought forward as a proof and explained in the treatise called ''The Voice of the Silence''. These Nirmanakayas are the Bodhisattvas or late Adepts, who having reached Nirvana and liberation from rebirth, renounce it voluntarily in order to remain invisibly amidst the world to help poor ignorant Humanity within the lines permitted by Karma.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'', vol. 12 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1991), 31. </ref></blockquote>

This is evidently a sacrifice on their part, renouncing to live in a state of bliss on higher planes to incessantly work on the lower ones. As [[Koot Hoomi|Mahatma K.H.]] wrote to [[A. P. Sinnett]]:

<blockquote>I will be busy night and day, morning, noon, and evening. At times I feel a passing regret that the Chohans should not evolute the happy idea of allowing us also a "sumptuary allowance" in the shape of a little spare time. Oh, for the final Rest! for that Nirvana where — "to be one with Life, yet — to live not." Alas, alas! having personally realized that: ". . . the Soul of Things is sweet, The Heart of Being is celestial Rest," one does long for — eternal REST!<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 68 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 203-204.</ref></blockquote>

== The work of the Masters ==

When asked by [[Charles Johnston]] about their work she answered: "You would hardly understand, unless you were an adept. But they keep alive the spiritual life of mankind."<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'', vol. 8 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1960), 401.</ref> He then asked her how the adepts guide the souls of men, to which [[H. P. Blavatsky]] answered:

<blockquote>In many ways, but chiefly by teaching their souls direct, in the spiritual world. But that is difficult for you to understand. This is quite intelligible, though. At certain regular periods, they try to give the world at large a right understanding of spiritual things. One of their number comes forth to teach the masses, and is handed down to tradition as the Founder of a religion. Krishna was such a Master; so was Zoroaster; so were Buddha and Shankara Acharya, the great sage of Southern India. So also was the Nazarene. He went forth against the counsel of the rest, to give to the masses before the time, moved by a great pity, and enthusiasm for humanity; he was warned that the time was unfavorable, but nevertheless he elected to go, and so was put to death at the instigation of the priests. . . . 
But that is not the only work of the adepts. At much shorter periods, they send forth a messenger to try to teach the world. Such a period comes in the last quarter of each century, and the Theosophical Society represents their work for this epoch.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'', vol. 8 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1960), 401-402.</ref></blockquote>

One must bear in mind, however, that there are different types of Adepts corresponding to the [[Seven Rays]] of the Logos, and they may have different functions. As [[T. Subba Row]] stated:

<blockquote>In the adept hierarchy, there are always seven classes of adepts, corresponding to the seven rays of the Logos. Two of these classes of adepts are so mysterious, and their representatives on earth are so rare, that they are seldom spoken of. Perhaps one or two adepts of these two mysterious orders appear every two or three thousand years.<ref>Tallapragada Subba Row, ''Esoteric Writings of T. Subba Row'' (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 106.</ref></blockquote>

There are some references to some kind of involvement of the Masters in political or social matters. For example in [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters'']], the [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]] around November 1880:

<blockquote>A crisis, in a certain sense, is upon us now, and must be met. I might say two crises — one, the Society's, the other for Tibet. For, I may tell you in confidence, that Russia is gradually massing her forces for a future invasion of that country under the pretext of a Chinese War. If she does not succeed it will be due to us; and herein, at least we will deserve your gratitude. You see then, that we have weightier matters than small societies to think about; yet, the T.S. must not be neglected.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 5 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 15.</ref></blockquote>

Another reference by the same Master, written around July, 1882, states:

<blockquote>The Egyptian operations of your blessed countrymen involve such local consequences to the body of [[Occultism|Occultists]] still remaining there and to what they are guarding, that two of our adepts are already there, having joined some Druze brethren and three more on their way. I was offered the agreeable privilege of becoming an eye-witness to the human butchery, but — declined with thanks. For such great emergency is our Force stored up, and hence — we dare not waste it on fashionable tamasha.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 68 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 203.</ref></blockquote>

[[T. Subba Row]] described the function of the Masters in nature as follows:

<blockquote>The adept hierarchy is as strictly a product of nature as a tree is: it has a definite and indispensable purpose and function in the development of the human race: this function is to keep open the upward path, through which descend the light and leading without which our race would require to make each step by the wearisome, never ending method of trial and failure in every direction, until chance showed the right way.

In fact the function of the adept hierarchy is to provide religious teachers for the stumbling masses of mankind.<ref>Tallapragada Subba Row, ''Esoteric Writings of T. Subba Row'' (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 113.</ref></blockquote>

In [[Mahatma_Letter_No._112#Page 3|one of his letters]] to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]], [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] talks about another aspect of their work. He mentions the Masters' "prime duty of gaining knowledge and disseminating through all available channels such fragments as mankind in the mass may be ready to assimilate".<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 112 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 382.</ref></blockquote>

Regarding their roles as teachers, they do not impart information to their chelas as regular teachers do, but rather train them to develop their abilities so that they can perceive truths by their own means. As Subba Row explained:

<blockquote>Our Gurus, be it remember, never teach us as our English school masters. Nothing by word. They simply impress in our minds and help us develop the higher [[Round#Fifth_Round|fifth rounder's]] faculty.<ref>Tallapragada Subba Row, ''T. Subba Row Collected Writings'' vol. I (San Diego, USA: Point Loma Publications, 2001), 15.</ref></blockquote>

This is confirmed in the following testimony from H. P. Blavatsky:

<blockquote>Knowledge comes in visions, first in dreams and then in pictures presented to the inner eye during meditation. Thus have I been taught the whole system of evolution, the laws of being and all else that I know—the mysteries of life and death, the workings of karma. Not a word was spoken to me of all this in the ordinary way, except, perhaps, by way of confirmation of what was thus given me—nothing taught me in writing.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'', vol. 13 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1982), 285.</ref></blockquote>

== According to C. W. Leadbeater ==

<blockquote>The number of adepts who retain physical bodies in order to help the evolution of the world is but small-- perhaps some fifty or sixty in all. But it must be remembered that the great majority of these do not take pupils, as They are engaged in quite other work. Madame Blavatsky employed the term adept very loosely, for in one place she actually speaks of adepts who have been initiated, and adepts who have not been initiated. In all later writings we have reserved the word “initiate” for those who have passed at least the first of the four great stages upon the Path of Holiness, and the word adept we have restricted to those who have attained the Asekha level, and so have finished the evolution required of them in this chain of worlds. The consciousness of the Asekha rests normally upon the nirvanic or atmic plane while his physical body is awake. But out of the number who have already attained adeptship only the very small proportion above-mentioned retain physical bodies, and remain in touch with the earth in order to help it; and out of this a still smaller proportion are willing under certain conditions to accept men as pupils or apprentices; and it is to these last (the smallest number) only that we give the name of Masters. Yet few though They be Their office is of incalculable importance, since without Their aid it would be impossible for man to enter the portals of initiation.<ref>Charles Webster Leadbeater, ''The Inner Life'', (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1942), 18-19.</ref></blockquote>

The work the Masters do on the inner [[plane]]s was explained by [[C. W. Leadbeater]] as follows:

<blockquote>The [[Adept]]s are dealing with the entire world in enormous comprehensive sweeps of power; They are influencing millions in their [[Causal Body|causal bodies]] or on the [[buddhi]]c plane, and all the time steadily, though by almost imperceptible degrees, raising the higher bodies of the people on a wholesale scale. And yet the same Master who spends His life in doing that work will sometimes turn aside and pay personal attention to little details connected with one pupil.<ref>Charles Webster Leadbeater, ''The Masters and the Path'', (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1992), ???.</ref></blockquote>

== See also ==
*[[Mahatma]]
*[[Adepts]]
*[[Brotherhood of Adepts]]
*[[Chela]]
*[[Chelaship]]
*[[Initiation]]
*[[Occultism]]
*[[Portraits of the Masters]]
*[[:Category:Mahatmas and Adepts|A list of Wiki articles on individual Mahatmas and Adepts]]

==Online resources==
===Articles and pamphlets===
*[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/2381# Working as Colleagues of the Masters] by Ed Abdill
*[https://cdn.website-editor.net/e4d6563c50794969b714ab70457d9761/files/uploaded/AdyarPamphlet_No101.pdf# Is Belief in the Masters Superstitious or Harmful?] by Annie Besant
*[http://www.anandgholap.net/Super-Human%20Men-%20Annie%20Besant.htm# Superhuman Men - in History and in Religion] by Annie Besant
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/can-the-mahatmas-be-selfish# Can The Mahatmas Be Selfish?] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/mdm-blavatsky-on-the-himalayan-brothers# Madame Blavatsky on "The Himalayan Brothers"] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/mahatmas-and-chelas# Mahatmas and Chelas] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/theosophical-mahatmas# The Theosophical Mahatmas] by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/key/key-14.htm# The "Theosophical Mahatmas"] in ''The Key to Theosophy'' Section 14, by H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/Masters.pdf# Masters and Gurus] by Radha Burnier
*[http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/mastersencounterswith.htm# A Casebook of Encounters with the Theosophical Mahatmas] Compiled and edited by Daniel H. Caldwell
*[http://blavatskyarchives.com/olcottandmahatmas.htm Colonel Henry S. Olcott's Testimony about His Meetings with the Master Morya] Compiled and edited by Daniel H. Caldwell
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/PerfectedOnes.pdf# The Perfected Ones] by Clara Codd
*[http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/holloway1.htm# The Mahatmas and Their Instruments - Part 1] and [http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/holloway2.htm# Part 2] by Laura Holloway
*[http://www.ultindia.org/pamphlets/wqj/TheosophicalAdepts.pdf# Theosophical Adepts (a collection of articles)] by W. Q. Judge
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/index.php/masters-adepts-teachers-and-disciples# Masters, Adepts, Teachers, and Disciples] by W. Q. Judge
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/Teacher.pdf# Who Is The Teacher?] by Joy Mills
*[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/2383# How the Masters Know Truth] by Shirley J. Nicholson
*[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/2382# Mahatmas versus Ascended Masters] by Pablo Sender
*[http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/2377# Who Are the Masters?] An Interview with Joy Mills by Richard Smoley

===Books===
*[http://blavatskyarchives.com/theosophypdfs/besant_h_p_blavatsky_and_the_masters_of_wisdom_1907.pdf# H. P. Blavatsky and the Masters of the Wisdom] by Annie Besant
*[http://www.anandgholap.net/Masters-AB.htm# The Masters] by Annie Besant
*[http://www.ultindia.org/pamphlets/hpb/TeachersDiscp.pdf# Teachers And Disciples] A compilation of articles H. P. Blavatsky
*[http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/kuhnmahatmaletters.htm# The Mahatmas and Their Letters] by Alvin B. Kuhn
*[http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/gdpmanu/mahat_ch/m_c-hp.htm# Mahatmas and Chelas] by Leoline L. Wright

===Audio===
*[https://archive.org/download/1151_20191125/1151.mp3# The Path to the Masters of Wisdom] by Clara Codd
*[https://archive.org/download/1365_20200103/1365.mp3# The Masters of the Wisdom: The World, and the Theosophical Society Today] by Dora Kunz
*[https://archive.org/download/1364_20191228/1364.mp3# The Masters and the Future of the Theosophical Society] by Dora Kunz
*[http://www.old.theosophical.org/files/resources/Downloads/mp3/sanat/Krishnamurti%20on%20the%20Masters.mp3# Krishnamurti on the Masters] by Aryel Sanat
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/Downloads/mp3/abdill/The%20Adepts:%20Our%20Brothers.mp3# "The Adepts: Our Brothers"] by Ed Abdill

===Video===
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9GWEceDKJA The Masters and Their Wisdom - Part 1] by Pablo Sender
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UslfQvDBB5Q The Masters and Their Wisdom Part 2], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRjpBiOAF3Q Part 3], and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Iy5mv4_bis Part 4] by Tim Boyd

== Additional resources ==
*[http://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/library/Bibliography/Masters_of_Wisdom_and_their_Teachings.pdf# Bibliography on the Masters of Wisdom and their Teachings] from the [[Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library]].

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:Concepts in The Secret Doctrine]]
[[Category:Mahatmas and Adepts]]

[[es: Maestros de Sabiduría]]
[[ru:Мастера Мудрости]]

Mahatma Letter No. 48

2022-09-25T20:35:24Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Changed Zappan to Tappan. Although in the facsimile the letter resemples a as this was one of the last names of Cora L. V. Scott whom M refers to as "Cora of the 7 husbands"

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Morya]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = [[Damodar K. Mavalankar|Damodar]]
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = March 3, 1882
| otherdate = unknown
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = [[Allahabad, India]]
| vialocation = unknown{{pad|9em}}
}}
This is '''Letter No. 48''' in''' [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett'']], 4th chronological edition'''. It corresponds to '''Letter No. 47''' in '''Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 48#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 47|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 49|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 89|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 49|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Cover sheet ==

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Received Allahabad, 3rd March, 1882.

Reply to my remonstrance against treatment of Europe.

(Through [[Damodar K. Mavalankar|Damodar]].)
{{Col-break|width=3%}}

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-0_Cover_sheet_6710.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-0_Cover_sheet_6710_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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

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Well, say I am an ignoramus in your English ways, and I'll say you are one in our Tibetan customs and we will split the difference and shake our [[astral]] hands over Barnang and square the discussion.

The [[H. P. Blavatsky|old woman]]? Of course she will be frantic — but who cares? It's kept from her however secret. No use making her more miserable than what she is. Cook is a pump of filth, with perpetually working pistons and the sooner he screws them up — the better for him. Your last letter to me is less a "petition" than a protest, my respected Sahib. It's voice is that of the war sankh of my Rajput ancestors, rather than the cooing of a friend. And I like it all the more I promise you. It has the right ring of honest frankness. So let us talk — for sharp as your voice may be, your heart is warm and you end by saying "Whether you decree that what seems to me right be done or not" you are ever ours faithfully etc. Europe is a large place but the world is bigger yet. The sun of [[Theosophy]] must shine for all, not for a part. There is more of this movement than you have yet had an inkling of, and the work of the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] is linked in with similar work that is secretly going on in all

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-1_6711.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-1_6711_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Barnang''' (Tibetan ''bar snang'') means "sky, atmosphere, space." It corresponds to the Sanskrit [[Ākāśa]]. In the printed editions of the ''Mahatma Letters'' it is misspelled as "Barnaway."
* '''Cook''' refers to Rev. Joseph Cook, a Boston preacher who was visiting India and denounced Theosophy and Spiritualism.
* '''Sahib''' means "friend" in Arabic and was commonly used in the Indian Sub-continent as a courteous term in the way that "Mr." and "Mrs." are used in the English language.
* '''War sankh''' (or ''śaṅkha''), refers to a sacred instrument made of a conch shell that signals the beginning and end of each day of warfare.

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== Page 2 ==

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parts of the world. Even in the [[Theosophical Society|T.S.]] there is a division, managed by a Greek [[Brother]] about which not a person in the Society has a suspicion excepting the [[H. P. Blavatsky|old woman]] and [[H. S. Olcott|Olcott]]; and even he only knows it is progressing, and occasionally executes an order I send him in connection with it. The [[cycle]] I spoke of refers to the whole movement. Europe will not be overlooked, never fear; but perhaps you even may not anticipate how the light will be shed there. Ask your Seraph — [[K.H.]] to let you have details thereof. You speak of [[C. C. Massey|Massey]] and [[William Crookes|Crookes]]: do you not recollect that Massey was offered 4 years ago, the chance to head the English movement and — declined? In his place was set up that old grim idol of the Jewish Sinai — Wild, who with his [[Christianity|Christian]] rant and fanatical rot shut us out of the movement altogether. Our [[Chohan]] forbade us absolutely to take any part in it. Massey has to thank but himself for it, and you may tell him so. You ought to have learned by this time our ways. We advise — and never order. But we do influence individuals. Ransack the [[Spiritualism|Spiritualistic]] literature if you will till the year 1877.

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-2_6712.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-2_6712_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''A Greek Brother''' may refer to an [[adept]] know as Master [[Hilarion]], involved in the production of the book [[Light on the Path (book)|''Light on the Path'']].
* '''The Jewish Sinai — Wild''' refers to Dr. [[George Wyld]] of Edinburgh.

{{Col-end}}

== Page 3 ==

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Search and find in it — if you can, one single word about occult philosophy, or [[esotericism]] or anything of that element now so largely infused in the spiritual movement. Ask and enquire whether the very word of "[[occultism]]" was not so completely unknown in America, that we find Cora of the 7 husbands, the Tappan woman and talking [[mediumship|medium]] inspired in her lectures to say that the word was one just coined by the [[Theosophist]]s — then dawning —; that no one ever heard of [[elementary|elementary spirits]] and "[[astral]]" light — save the petroleum manufacturers and so on and on. Well ascertain this and compare. This was the first war cry, and the battle kept raging hot and fierce to the very day of the departure for India. To say and point out to [[Thomas Edison|Edison]] and [[William Crookes|Crookes]] and [[C. C. Massey|Massey]] — would sound much like boasting of that which can never be proven. And Crookes — has he not brought science within our hail in his "[[radiant matter]]" discovery? What but occult research was it that led him first to that. You know [[K.H.]] and me — buss! Know you anything of the whole [[Brotherhood of Adepts|Brotherhood]] and its ramifications? The [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Old Woman]]

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-3_6713.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-3_6713_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Cora of the 7 husbands''' refers to Cora L. V. Scott (also known as Cora Hatch or Cora Tappan), one of the best-known mediums of the Spiritualism movement of the last half of the 19th century.
* '''Buss!''' is an expression used by the [[Master]] that means "Enough!"

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== Page 4 ==

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is accused of untruthfulness, inaccuracy in her statements. "Ask no questions and you will receive no lies." She is forbidden to say what she knows. You may cut her to pieces and she will not tell. Nay — she is ordered in cases of need to mislead people; and, were she more of a natural born liar — she might be happier and won her day long since by this time. But that's just where the shoe pinches, Sahib. She is too truthful, too outspoken, too incapable of dissimulation: and now she is being daily crucified for it. Try not to be hasty, respected Sir. The world was not made in a day; nor has the tail of the yak developed in one year. Let [[evolution]] take its course naturally — lest we make it deviate and produce monsters by presuming to guide it. [[C. C. Massey|Massey]] talks of coming to India — does he not? And supposing that after coming here and doing what is right and spending the needed time for disciplinary training he should be sent back with a message? And supposing that

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-4_6714.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-4_6714_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 5 ==

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[[William Crookes|Crookes]] and [[Thomas Edison|Edison]] and others have other things to discover? So I say, "WAIT." Who knows what may be the situation in November? You might think it such as to justify us in carrying out our "threat" to "lock the door," while it might seem very different to us. Let us all do our best. There are [[cycles]] of 7, 11, 21, 77, 107, 700, 11,000, 21,000 etc.; so many cycles will make a major and so on. Bide your time the record book is well kept. Only, look out sharp: the [[Dugpas]] and the [[Gelupka]]s are not fighting but in Tibet alone, see their vile work in England among the "[[Occultism|Occultists]] and [[seer]]s!" Hear — your acquaintance Wallace preaching like a true "Hierophant" of the "left hand" the marriage of "soul with the spirit" and getting the true definition topsy-turvy seek to prove that every practicing Hierophant must at least be spiritually married — if for some reasons he cannot do so physically there being otherwise a great danger of Adulteration of [[God]] and [[Satan|Devil]]! I tell you the [[Shammar]]s are there already and their

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-5_6715.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-5_6715_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Your acquaintance Wallace"''', refers to Spiritualist Joseph Wallace.

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== Page 6 ==

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pernicious work is everywhere in our way. Do not regard this as metaphorical but as a real fact, which may be demonstrated to you some day.

Its quite useless to say anything more about [[Henry Steel Olcott|Olcott]]'s eccentricity and the inferiority of America to England; all that is real in your point we recognize and knew long ago; but you do not know how much that is mere superficial prejudice glares in your eyes like the reflection of a thin taper on deep water. Take care lest we should some day take you at your thought and put you in Olcott's place, after taking him to our own, as he has longed to have us do these several years. Martyrdom is pleasant to look at and criticise, but harder to suffer. There never was a woman more unjustly abused than [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|H.B.]] See the infamous insulting letters she was sent from England for publication against herself and us and the [[Theosophical Society|Society]]. You may find them undignified perhaps. But the "Answers to Correspondents" in Supplement are written by myself. So do not blame her. I'm curious to know your frank opinion on them. Perchance you might think she might have done herself better.

[[M.]]

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[http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-6_6716.jpg http://www.theosophy.wiki/mywiki/images/ML/48-6_6716_thm.jpg]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"Answers to Correspondents"''' were published in the [http://www.iapsop.com/archive/materials/theosophist/theosophist_v3_n30_march_1882.pdf# ''Supplement to The Theosophist'', vol. 3, number 27, March 1882, p. 6] In this, [[Morya|Master M.]] answers some criticisms from "J. K." (Julius Kohn, "Jewish Kabalist"), Joseph Wallace, and Chandos Leigh Hunt (Mrs. Wallace). [[Boris de Zirkoff]] attributed this "Answer" to [[H. P. Blavatsky]] and published it in her ''Collected Writings'' vol. IV, pp. 44-50.
{{Col-end}}

== Context and background ==

Evidently the letter is in reply to a letter from Sinnett addressed to the Mahatma M. before Sinnett realized that the Mahatma K.H. was again ready to resume correspondence.
Much in this letter seems obscure because we do not have Sinnett’s comments to which the letter is in reply.

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 2. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
In dark red ink, in rather fine M script, on three large-sized sheets of thin paper. The writing on the first page is diagonally across the sheet.<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), 99.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>

[[Category:ML from Morya]]
[[Category:ML to A. P. Sinnett]]
[[Category:ML with images]]
[[Category:ML needs commentary]]

[[it:Lettera dei Mahatma n° 47]]
[[es:CM48]]

Mahatma Letter No. 47

2022-09-11T18:17:34Z

Joe Hasiewicz: sight corrections to previous edit.

Mahatma Letter No. 47

2022-09-11T18:11:53Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Clarification on the page number of location of the article "A Flash of Light Upon Occult Freemasonry" in the Theosophist and provide link to an online copy of: The Theosophist, Vol. III, No.5, February 1882.

Mahatma Letter No. 47

2022-09-11T06:41:18Z

Joe Hasiewicz: Removed extra word, "of" from page 4. It is the first word on page 5 and was redundantly placed on page 4. - "A Flash of Light upon Occult Free Masonry."

Yuga

2022-07-31T19:37:47Z

Joe Hasiewicz: The Kali Yuga is referred to as the "black" age in HPB's CW, see Vol. 12, p. 384 and p.418. This looks like a typographical error that occurs in some editions of HPB's Theosophical Glossary, unless (the old English?) "blaek" is intended.

'''Yuga''' (devanāgarī: युग) is a [[Sanskrit]] word meaning 'epoch' or 'era' used in [[Hinduism|Hindu philosophy]] to refer to a cycle of four ages called Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. The total of the said four Yugas is called Maha Yuga.

== General description ==

[[H. P. Blavatsky]] said that "the exoteric figures accepted throughout India . . . dovetail pretty nearly with those of the Secret works"<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Secret Doctrine'' vol. II, (Wheaton, Ill: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 69-70</ref> so she gives the duration of the yugas as rendered in the Hindu books:

Krita Yuga: 1,728,000 years

Treta Yuga: 1,296,000 years

Dwapara Yuga: 864,000 years

Kali Yuga: 432,000 years

Maha Yuga: 4,320,000 years

One thousand Mahayugas: 4,320,000,000 years (a [[kalpa]] or "day of [[Brahmā]]").

==Kali Yuga==
Kali Yuga (Devanāgarī: कलियुग) literally means the "age of [[Kali]]" and it is frequently referred as the "black age". This is the age humanity is currently in. According to the Surya Siddhanta, Kali Yuga began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE, a date also considered by many Hindus to be the day that [[Krishna]] left Earth to return to his abode. [[Helena Petrovna Blavatsky|Mme. Blavatsky]] wrote:

<blockquote>Kaliyuga (Sk). The fourth, the black or iron age, our present period, the duration of which is 432,000 years. The last of the ages into which the evolutionary period of man is divided by a series of such ages. It began 3,102 years B.C. at the moment of Krishna's death, and the first cycle of 5,000 years will end between the years 1897 and 1898.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Theosophical Glossary'' (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 170.</ref></blockquote>

=== Theosophical view ===

In [[Mahatma_Letter_No._130#Page 3|one of his letters]], [[Koot Hoomi|Master K.H.]] wrote to [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|Mr. Sinnett]]:

<blockquote>Those who have watched mankind through the centuries of this cycle, have constantly seen the details of this death-struggle between Truth and Error repeating themselves. Some of you [[Theosophist]]s are now only wounded in your "honour" or your purses, but those who held the lamp in preceding generations paid the penalty of their lives for their knowledge.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 130 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 431-432.</ref></blockquote>

====1897-1898====

<blockquote>We are at the very close of the cycle of 5,000 years of the present Aryan Kaliyuga; and between this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic science will receive a death-blow.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Secret Doctrine'' vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 612.</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>The world moves in cycles, which proceed under the impetus of two mutually antagonistic and destroying Forces, the one striving to move Humanity onward, toward Spirit, the other forcing Mankind to gravitate downward, into the very abysses of matter. It remains with men to help either the one or the other. Thus, also, it is our present task, as Theosophists, to help in one or the other direction. We are in the very midst of the Egyptian darkness of Kali-yuga, the "Black Age," the first 5,000 years of which, its dreary first cycle, is preparing to close on the world between 1897 and 1898. Unless we succeed in placing the T.S. before this date on the safe side of the spiritual current, it will be swept away irretrievably into the Deep called "Failure," and the cold waves of oblivion will close over its doomed head. Thus will have ingloriously perished the only association whose aims, rules and original purposes answer in every particular and detail--if strictly carried out--to the innermost, fundamental thought of every great Adept Reformer, the beautiful dream of a UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD OF MAN.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 418.</ref></blockquote>

== Notes ==

<references/>

==Online resources==
===Articles===
*[http://www.theosophy.ph/encyclo/index.php?title=Yuga# Yuga] at Theosopedia
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/kali-yuga.htm# The Kali Yuga] by William Q. Judge
*[http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/kali-yuga-present-age.htm# The Kali Yuga - the Present Age] by William Q. Judge
*[https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/path/v05n04p114_the-kali-yuga-in-hindu-chronology.htm# The Kali Yuga in Hindu Chronology] by G. E. W.

[[Category:Sanskrit terms]]
[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:Concepts in The Secret Doctrine]]
[[Category:Hindu concepts]]

[[it:Yuga]]

Universal Invocation

2019-01-21T00:56:36Z

Joe Hasiewicz:

The '''Universal Invocation''', also known as '''Universal Prayer''', was written in 1923 by [[Annie Besant|Dr. Annie Besant]], then president of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)]]. It reads:

<blockquote>
O Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom; 
O Hidden Light, shining in every creature; 
O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness; 
May all who feel themselves as one with Thee, 
Know they are therefore one with every other.
</blockquote>

[[File:Invocation stone.jpg|right|320px|thumb|Garden of Remembrance, Olcott campus. Photo by Glenn Kujansuu.]]
== History and use ==
The verse is recited every international convention of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)|Theosophical Society in Adyar]] in the ceremony of reciting the Prayers of the the Religions, beginning in 1925,<ref>C. Jinarājadāsa, Foreword to ''Bhārata Samāj Pūja,'' (Adyar, Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1948), 6-7.</ref> and daily at many theosophical centers around the world.

"O Hidden Life" is quoted on a plaque in the '''Garden of Remembrance''' on the [[Olcott (campus)|Olcott campus]] of the [[Theosophical Society in America]].

== Variations ==
In the 1930 Lodge Procedure Book of the [[American Theosophical Society]], the final two lines varied, and were followed by an additional line:

:: May each, who feels himself as one with Thee,
:: Know he is therefore one with every other.
:: Let us go forth to sound the note of harmony in the discords of the world.<ref>Sidney A. Cook, "From Lodge Procedure Book" ''The Theosophical Messenger'' 18.12 (December 1930), 280.</ref>

[[File:O Hidden Life.jpg|right|370px|thumb|Title of "O Hidden Life"]]

The Scout Movement in Madras [Chennai] adopted the invocation with another variation:

:: May each, who feels himself as one with Thee,
:: Know he is therefore one with every other.

Mrs. Besant felt that "this word 'therefore' implied certain Theosophical spiritual beliefs and she did not desire to impose such a heavy obligation on the Scouts and so changed the word 'therefore' to 'also'.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, "Dr. Besant and the Scout Movement" ''The Theosophist'' 69 (November, 1947), 158.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Musical settings ==

The words were set to music at least three times, by [[Charles Elliott Fouser]], by J. Eleanor Stakesby-Lewis of South Africa<ref>NOTE: Both versions are available from Theosophical Society in America Archives.</ref> and by Joe Hasiewicz of Glen Ellyn, IL <ref>http://www.joehasiewicz.com/Joe/JoeHasiewicz.htm & http://www.ohiddenlife.org/audios---videos.html</ref> and another member, W. H. Perrins, proposed yet another version.<ref>W. H. Perrins correspondence with James S. Perkins. September-November, 1953. James S. Perkins Papers. Records Series 08.06. Theosophical Society in America Archives.</ref>

==Online resources==
===Articles===
* [http://www.ohiddenlife.org/ OHiddenLife.org]. This website offers links to musical performances of "O Hidden Life" by several groups, plus poetry and commentaries.
* [http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1613# "O Hidden Life"] by Joy Mills

== Notes ==
<references/>
[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:TS Adyar]]

Universal Invocation

2019-01-21T00:54:22Z

Joe Hasiewicz:

The '''Universal Invocation''', also known as '''Universal Prayer''', was written in 1923 by [[Annie Besant|Dr. Annie Besant]], then president of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)]]. It reads:

<blockquote>
O Hidden Life, vibrant in every atom; 
O Hidden Light, shining in every creature; 
O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness; 
May all who feel themselves as one with Thee, 
Know they are therefore one with every other.
</blockquote>

[[File:Invocation stone.jpg|right|320px|thumb|Garden of Remembrance, Olcott campus. Photo by Glenn Kujansuu.]]
== History and use ==
The verse is recited every international convention of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)|Theosophical Society in Adyar]] in the ceremony of reciting the Prayers of the the Religions, beginning in 1925,<ref>C. Jinarājadāsa, Foreword to ''Bhārata Samāj Pūja,'' (Adyar, Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1948), 6-7.</ref> and daily at many theosophical centers around the world.

"O Hidden Life" is quoted on a plaque in the '''Garden of Remembrance''' on the [[Olcott (campus)|Olcott campus]] of the [[Theosophical Society in America]].

== Variations ==
In the 1930 Lodge Procedure Book of the [[American Theosophical Society]], the final two lines varied, and were followed by an additional line:

:: May each, who feels himself as one with Thee,
:: Know he is therefore one with every other.
:: Let us go forth to sound the note of harmony in the discords of the world.<ref>Sidney A. Cook, "From Lodge Procedure Book" ''The Theosophical Messenger'' 18.12 (December 1930), 280.</ref>

[[File:O Hidden Life.jpg|right|370px|thumb|Title of "O Hidden Life"]]

The Scout Movement in Madras [Chennai] adopted the invocation with another variation:

:: May each, who feels himself as one with Thee,
:: Know he is therefore one with every other.

Mrs. Besant felt that "this word 'therefore' implied certain Theosophical spiritual beliefs and she did not desire to impose such a heavy obligation on the Scouts and so changed the word 'therefore' to 'also'.<ref>C. Jinarajadasa, "Dr. Besant and the Scout Movement" ''The Theosophist'' 69 (November, 1947), 158.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Musical settings ==

The words were set to music at least three times, by [[Charles Elliott Fouser]], by J. Eleanor Stakesby-Lewis of South Africa<ref>NOTE: Both versions are available from Theosophical Society in America Archives.</ref> and by Joe Hasiewicz of Glen Ellyn, IL <ref>http://www.joehasiewicz.com/Joe/JoeHasiewicz.htm</ref> and another member, W. H. Perrins, proposed yet another version.<ref>W. H. Perrins correspondence with James S. Perkins. September-November, 1953. James S. Perkins Papers. Records Series 08.06. Theosophical Society in America Archives.</ref>

==Online resources==
===Articles===
* [http://www.ohiddenlife.org/ OHiddenLife.org]. This website offers links to musical performances of "O Hidden Life" by several groups, plus poetry and commentaries.
* [http://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/1613# "O Hidden Life"] by Joy Mills

== Notes ==
<references/>
[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:TS Adyar]]

Seven Rays

2017-04-29T17:51:15Z

2016-12-26T03:59:24Z

Joe Hasiewicz:

{{Infobox MLbox
| header1 = People involved |
| writtenby = [[Koot Hoomi]]
| receivedby = [[A. P. Sinnett]]
| sentvia = unknown
| header2 = Dates
| writtendate = unknown
| receiveddate = October 1882
| otherdate = none
| header3 = Places
| sentfrom = unknown
| receivedat = [[Simla, India]]
| vialocation = none
}}
'''This is Letter No. 23b in Barker numbering.''' See below for [[Mahatma Letter No. 93b#Context and background|Context and background]].
 
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 93a|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter chrono]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 94|Next letter chrono'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>{{pad|3em}}
 
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 93a|'''<nowiki> < </nowiki>'''Prev letter Barker]]</big>{{pad|3em}}
<big>[[Mahatma Letter No. 85a|Next letter Barker'''<nowiki> > </nowiki>''']]</big>
 
 
== Page 1 transcription, image, and notes ==

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II

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 4|(1)]] The latter end of a very important [[Law of Cycles|cycle]]. Each [[Round]], each [[Chains and Rounds#World-Periods (Rings) and Root-Races|ring]], as every [[Root-Race|race]] has its great and its smaller cycles, on every [[Globe|planet]] that mankind passes through.

Our [[Round#Fourth_Round|fourth Round Humanity]] has its one great cycle, and so have her races and sub-races. The "curious rush" is due to the double effect of the former — the beginning of its downward course; — and of the latter (the small cycle of your "sub-race") running on to its apex. Remember, you belong to the [[Root-Race#Fifth_Root-Race|fifth Race]], yet you are but a Western sub-race. Notwithstanding your efforts, what you call civilization is confined only to the latter and its off-shoots in America. Radiating around, its deceptive light may seem to throw its rays on a greater distance than it does in reality. — There is no "rush" in China, and of Japan you make but a caricature.

A student of [[occultism]] ought not to speak of the "stagnant condition of the fourth Round people" since history knows next to nothing of that condition "up to the

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beginning of modern progress" of other nations but the Western. What do you know of America, for instance, before the invasion of that country by the Spaniards? Less than two centuries prior to the arrival of Cortez there was as great a "rush" towards progress among the sub-races of Peru and Mexico as there is now in Europe and the U.S.A. Their sub-race ended in nearly total annihilation through causes generated by itself; so will yours at the end of its cycle. We may speak only of the "stagnant conditions" into which, following the law of development, growth, maturity and decline every race and sub-race falls into during its transition periods. It is that latter condition your Universal History is acquainted with, while it remains superbly ignorant of the condition even India was in, some ten centuries back. Your [[Root-Race#Sub-races|sub-races]] are now running toward the apex of their respective cycles, and that History goes no further back than the periods of decline of a few other sub-races belonging most of them to the preceding [[Root-Race#Fourth_Root-Race|fourth Race]]. And what is the area and the period of time embraced by its Universal eye? — At the

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Cortez''' refers to Hernán Cortés, who caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and established a Spanish colony in Mexico in the early 16th century.

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the utmost stretch — a few, miserable dozens of centuries. A mighty horizon, indeed! Beyond — all is darkness for it, nothing but hypotheses. . . . .

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 4|(2)]] No doubt there was. Egyptian and Aryan records and especially our Zodiacal tables furnish us with every proof of it besides our inner knowledge. Civilization is an inheritance, a patrimony that passes from race to race along the [[Evolution#Descending_and_ascending_arcs|ascending and descending paths of cycles]]. During the minority of a [[Root-Race#Sub-races|sub-race]], it is preserved for it by its predecessor, which disappears, dies out generally, when the former "comes to age." At first, most of them squander and mismanage their property, or leave it untouched in the ancestral coffers. They reject contemptuously the advices of their elders and prefer, boy-like, playing in the streets to studying and making the most of the untouched wealth stored up for them in the records of the Past. Thus during your transition period — the middle ages — Europe rejected the testimony of Antiquity, calling such sages as Herodotus and other learned Greeks — the Father of Lies, until she knew better and changed the appellation into that of "Father of History." Instead of neglecting, you now accumulate and add to your wealth. As every other race you

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had your ups and downs, your periods of honour and dishonour, your dark midnight and — you are now approaching your brilliant noon. The youngest of the [[Root-Race#Fifth_Root-Race|fifth race]] family you were for long ages the unloved and the uncared for, the Cendrillon in your home. And now, when so many of your sisters have died; and others still are dying, while the few of the old survivors, now in their second infancy, wait but for their Messiah — the [[Root-Race#Sixth_Root-Race|sixth race]] — to resurrect to a new life and start anew with the coming stronger along the path of a new [[Law of Cycles|cycle]] — now that the Western Cendrillon has suddenly developed into a proud wealthy Princess, the beauty we all see and admire — how does she act? Less kind hearted than the Princess in the tale, instead of offering to her elder and less favoured sister, the oldest now, in fact since she is nearly "a million years old" and the only one who has never treated her unkindly, though she may have ignored her, — instead of offering her, I say, the "Kiss of peace" she applies to her the lex talionis with a vengeance that does not enhance her natural beauty. This, my good friend, and brother, is not a far stretched allegory but — history.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 4|(3)]] Yes; the fifth race — ours — began in Asia a million years ago. What was it about for the 998,000 years

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Cendrillon''' refers to the fairy-tale character Cinderella.
* '''Less favoured sister, the oldest now''' refers to India, which is the first sub-race of the fifth Root-Race.
* '''lex talionis''' is the law of retaliation, such as Moses' law of "an eye for an eye."

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preceding the last 2,000? A pertinent question; offered moreover in quite a [[Christianity|Christian]] spirit that refuses to believe that any good could ever have come out from anywhere before and save Nazareth. What was it about? Well, it was occupying itself pretty well in the same way as it does now — craving Mr. Grant Allen's pardon, who would place our primitive ancestor the "hedgehoggy" man, in the early part of the Eocene Age! Forsooth, your scientific writers bestride their hypothesis most fearlessly, I see. It will really be pity to find their fiery steed kicking and breaking their heads some day; something that is unavoidably in store for them. In the Eocene Age — even in its "very first part," the great [[Law of Cycles|cycle]] of the [[Root-Race#Fourth_Root-Race|fourth Race men]], the [[Atlantis|Atlanteans]] — had already reached its highest point, and the great continent, the father of nearly all the present continents — showed the first symptoms of sinking — a process that occupied it down to 11,446 years ago, when its last island, that, translating its vernacular name, we may call with propriety Poseidonis — went down with a crash. By the bye, whoever wrote the Review

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Grant Allen''' (1848-1899) was a science writer and novelist who supported the theory of evolution. His suggestion that human ancestors would be found in the Eocene strata was rejected in a [http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd2-3-04.htm footnote] on page 690 of [[The Secret Doctrine (book)|''The Secret Doctrine'']] Volume I.
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of Donnelly's [[Atlantis]] is right: [[Lemuria]] can no more be confounded with the Atlantic Continent than Europe with America. Both sunk and were drowned with their high civilizations and "gods," yet between the two catastrophes, a short period of about 700,000 years elapsed; "Lemuria" flourishing and ending her career just at about that trifling lapse of time before the early part of the Eocene Age, since its race was the third. Behold, the relics of that once great nation in some of the flat headed aborigines of your Australia! No less right is the review in rejecting the kind attempt of the author to people India and Egypt with the refuse of Atlantis. No doubt your geologists are very learned; but why not bear in mind that, under the cont-
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'''NOTES:'''
*'''Ignatius Loyola Donnelly''' (1831 – 1901) was a U.S. Congressman, writer and amateur scientist, known for his theories on Atlantis and an ancient impact event affecting ancient civilizations. In 1882 he wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis:_The_Antediluvian_World ''Atlantis, the Antediluvian World''] in support of [[Plato|Plato's]] account.
* The '''Eocene Age''' was a geologic epoch that occurred from 56 million to 33.9 million years ago.

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inents explored and fathomed by them, in the bowels of which they have found the "Eocene Age" and forced it to deliver them its secrets, there may be, hidden deep in the fathomless, or rather unfathomed ocean beds, other, and far older continents whose stratums have never been geologically explored; and that they may some day upset entirely their present theories, thus illustrating the simplicity and sublimity of truth as connected with inductive "generalization" in opposition to their visionary conjectures. Why not admit — true no one of them has ever thought of it — that our present continents, have — like "[[Lemuria]]" and "[[Atlantis]]" — been several times already, submerged and had the time to reappear again, and bear their new groups of mankind and civilization; and that, at the first great geological upheaval, at the next cataclysm — in the series of periodical cataclysms that occur from the beginning to the end of every [[Round]], — our already autopsized continents will go down, and the Lemurias and Atlantises come up again. Think of the future geologists of the [[Root-Race#Sixth_Root-Race|sixth]] and [[Root-Race#Seventh_Root-Race|seventh races]]. Imagine them digging deep in the bowels of what was Ceylon and Simla, and finding implements of the Veddahs, or of the remote ancestor of the civilized Pahari — every object of the civilized portions of

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'''NOTES:'''
* The '''Veddahs''' (or Veddas) are an indigenous people of Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

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humanity that inhabited those regions having been pulverized to dust by the great masses of travelling glaciers, — during the next glacial period — imagine him finding only such rude implements as now found among those savage tribes; and forthwith declaring that during that period primitive man climbed and slept on the trees, and sucked the marrow out of animal bones after breaking them — as civilized Europeans no less than the Veddahs will often do — hence jumping to the conclusion that in the year 1882 A.D., mankind was composed of "man-like animals," black-faced, and whiskered, "with prominent prognathous and large pointed canine teeth." True, a Grant Allen of the sixth race, may be not so far from fact and truth in his conjecture that during the "Simla period" — these teeth were used in the combats of the "males" for grass widows — but then metaphors has very little to do with anthropology and geology. Such is your Science. To return to your questions.

Of course the [[Root_race#Fourth_Root-Race|4th race]] had its

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Veddahs''' or Veddas are an indigenous people of the interior of Sri Lanka.
* '''Grant Allen''' (1848-1899) was a science writer and novelist who defended the theory of evolution. See Page 5 above.

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periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even Egyptian civilization are nothing compared to the civilizations that began with the [[Root-Race#Third_Root-Race|3rd race]]. Those of the second were not savages but they could not be called civilized. And now, reading one of my first letters on the races (a question first touched by [[Morya|M.]]) pray, do not accuse either him or myself of some new contradiction. Read it over and see, that it leaves out the question of civilizations altogether and mentions but the degenerate remnants of the fourth and third races, and gives you as a corroboration the latest conclusions of your own Science. Do not regard an unavoidable incompleteness as inconsistency. You now ask me a direct question, and, I answer it. Greeks and Romans were small [[Root-Race#Sub-races|sub-races]], and Egyptians part and parcel of our own "Caucasian" stock. Look at the latter and at India. Having reached the highest civilization and what is more: learning — both went down. Egypt as a distinct sub-race disappearing entirely (her Copts are a hybrid remnant).

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India — as one of the first and most powerful off-shoots of the mother Race, and composed of a number of sub-races — lasting to these times, and struggling to take once more her place in history some day. That History catches but a few stray, hazy glimpses of Egypt, some 12,000 years back; when, having already reached the apex of its cycle thousands of years before, the latter had begun going down. What does, or can it know of India 5,000 years ago, or of the Chaldees — whom it confounds most charmingly with the Assyrians, making of them one day "Akkadians," at another Turanians and what not? We say then, that your History is entirely at sea.

We are refused by the Journal of Science — words repeated and quoted by [[William Stainton Moses|M.A. (Oxon)]] with a rapture worthy of a great [[Mediumship|medium]] — any claim whatever for "higher knowledge." Says the reviewer: "Suppose the [[Masters of Wisdom|Brothers]] were to say 'point your telescope to such and such a spot in heavens, and you will find a planet yet unknown to you; or 'dig into the earth . . . . etc., and you will
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find a mineral,' etc." Very fine, indeed, and suppose that was done, what would be the result? Why a charge of plagiarism — since everything of that kind, every "planet and mineral" that exists in space or inside the earth, are known and recorded in our books thousands of years ago; more; many a true hypothesis was timidly brought forward by their own scientific men and as constantly rejected by the majority with whose preconceptions it interfered. Your intention is laudable but nothing that I may give you in answer will ever be accepted from us. Whenever discovered that "it is verily so," the discovery will be attributed to him who corroborated the evidence — as in the case of Copernicus and Galileo, the latter having availed himself but of the [[Pythagoras|Pythagorean]] MSS.

But to return to "civilizations." Do you know that the Chaldees were
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at the apex of their [[Occultism|Occult]] fame before what you term as the "bronze Age"? That the "Sons of Ad" or the [[Sons of the Fire-Mist|children of the Fire Mist]] preceded by hundreds of centuries the Age of Iron, which was an old age already, when what you now call the Historical Period — probably because what is known of it is generally no history but fiction — had hardly begun. We hold — but then what warrant can you give the world that we are right? — that far "greater civilizations than our own have risen and decayed." It is not enough to say as some of your modern writers do — that an extinct civilization existed before Rome and Athens were founded. We affirm that a series of civilizations existed before, as well as after the Glacial Period, that they existed upon various points, of the globe, reached the apex of glory and — died. Every trace
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and memory had been lost of the Assyrian and Phoenikean civilizations until discoveries began to be made a few years ago. And now they open a new, though not by far one of the earliest pages in the history of mankind. And yet how far back do those civilizations go in comparison with the oldest? — and even them, history is shy to accept. Archaeo-geology has sufficiently demonstrated that the memory of man runs back vastly further than history has been willing to accept, and the sacred records of once mighty nations preserved by their heirs are still more worthy of trust. We speak of civilizations of the anteglacial period; and (not only in the minds of the vulgar and the profane but even in the opinion of the highly learned geologist) the claim sounds preposterous. What would you say then to our
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affirmation that the Chinese — I now speak of the inland, the true Chinaman, not of the hybrid mixture between the fourth and the fifth Races now occupying the throne — the aborigines, who belong in their unallied nationality wholly to the highest and last branch of the fourth Race, reached their highest civilization when the fifth had hardly appeared in Asia, and that its first off-shoot was yet a thing of the future. When was it? Calculate. You cannot think that we, who have such tremendous odds against the acceptance of our doctrine would deliberately go on inventing Races and sub-races (in the opinion of [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]]) were not they a matter of undeniable fact. The group of islands off the Siberian coast discovered by Nordeneskjol of the "Vega" was found strewn with fossils of horses, sheep, oxen, etc., among gigantic bones of elephants, mammoths, rhinoceroses and other monsters belonging to periods when man — says your

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* '''Nordeneskjol of the "Vega"''' was Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (1832-1901), a botanist, geologist, and arctic explorer best known for crossing the Northwest Passage in the ''Vega''.

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[[science]] — had not yet made his appearance on [[Globe#Globe D|earth]]. How came horses and sheep to be found in company with the huge "ante-diluvians"? The horse, we are taught in schools — is quite a modern invention of nature, and no man ever saw its pedactyl ancestor. The group of the Siberian islands may give the lie to the comfortable theory. The region now locked in the fetters of eternal winter uninhabited by man — that most fragile of animals, — will be very soon proved to have had not only a tropical climate — something your science knows and does not dispute, — but having been likewise the seat of one of the most ancient civilisations of that [[Root_race#Fourth_Root-Race|fourth race]], whose highest relics now we find in the degenerated Chinaman, and whose lowest are hopelessly (for the profane scientist) intermixed with the remnants of the third. I told you before now, that the highest people now on earth (spiritually) belong to the first [[Root_race#Sub-races|sub-race]] of the [[Root_race#Fifth_Root-Race|fifth root Race]]; and those are the Aryan Asiatics; the highest race (physical intellectuality) is the last sub-race of the fifth — yourselves the white conquerors.

The majority of mankind belongs to the
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7th sub-race of the fourth Root race, — the above mentioned Chinamen and their off-shoots and branchlets (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Javanese, etc., etc., etc.) and remnants of other sub-races of the fourth — and the seventh sub-race of the third race. All these, fallen, degraded semblances of humanity are the direct lineal descendants of highly civilized nations neither the names nor memory of which have survived except in such books as Popalvul and a few others unknown to Science.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 5|(4)]] To the Miocene times. Everything comes in its appointed time and place in the [[evolution]] of [[Rounds]], otherwise it would be impossible for the best [[Clairvoyance|seer]] to calculate the exact hour and year when such cataclysms great and small have to occur. All an [[adept]] could do would be to predict an approximate time; whereas now events that result in great geological changes may be predicted with as mathematical a certainty as eclipses and
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* '''Popalvul''' is ''Popol Vuh'' or the "Book of the People," a collection of myths and historical narratives from Guatemala.

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other revolutions in space. The sinking of [[Atlantis]] (the group of continents and isles) begun during the Miocene period — as certain of your continents are now observed to be gradually sinking — and it culminated — first, in the final disappearance of the largest continent an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps; and second with that of the last of the fair Islands mentioned by [[Plato]]. The Egyptian priests of Sais told his ancestor Solon, that Atlantis (i.e. the only remaining large island) had perished 9,000 years before their time. This was not a fancy date, since they had for milleniums preserved most carefully their records. But then, as I say, they spoke but of the "Poseidonis" and would not reveal even to the great Greek legislator their secret chronology. As there are no geological reasons for doubting, but on the contrary, a mass of evidence for accepting the tradition, [[Science]]

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has finally accepted the existence of the great continent and Archipelago and thus vindicated the truth of one more "fable." It now teaches, as you know that [[Atlantis]], or the remnants of it lingered down to post-tertiary times, its final submergence occurring within the palaeozoic ages of American history! Well, truth and fact ought to feel thankful even for such small favours in the previous absence of any, for so many centuries. The deep sea explorations — especially those of the Challenger have fully confirmed the reports of geology and palaeontology. The great event — the triumph of our "[[Sons of the Fire-Mist|Sons of the Fire Mist]]" the inhabitants of "[[Shambhala|Shambullah]]" (when yet an island in the Central Asian Sea) over the selfish if not entirely wicked magicians of Poseidonis occurred just 11,446 ago. Read in this connection the incomplete and partially veiled tradition, in [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]], Volume I, p. 588-94, and some things may be

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come still plainer to you. The corroboration of tradition and history, brought forward by Donnelly I find in the main correct; but you will find all this and much more in [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]].

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 6|(5)]] It certainly does, and I have touched upon the subject long ago. In my notes on [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]]'s MSS., "On [[God]]" — that he kindly adds to our [[Esoteric Philosophy|Philosophy]], something the latter had never contemplated before — the subject is mentioned abundantly. Has he refused you a look into it? For you — I may enlarge my explanations, but not before you have read what I say of the origin of good and [[evil]] on those margins. Quite enough was said by me for our present purposes. Strangely enough I found a European author — the greatest materialist of his times, Baron d'Holbach — whose views coincide entirely with the views of our philosophy. When reading his Essais sur la Nature, I might have
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* '''Baron d'Holbach'''. See note [[Mahatma Letter No. 88#Page 5|here]].

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imagined I had our book of [[Books of Kiu-te|Kiu-ti]] before me. As a matter of course and of temperament our Universal Pundit will try to catch at those views and pull every argument to pieces. So far he only threatens me to alter his Preface and not to publish the philosophy under his own name. Cuneus cuneum, tradit: I begged him not to publish his essays at all.

[[Morya|M.]] thinks that for your purposes I better give you a few more details upon [[Atlantis]] since it is greatly connected with [[evil]] if not with its origin. In the forthcoming [[The Theosophist (periodical)|Theosophist]] you will find a note or two appended to [[Allan Octavian Hume|Hume]]'s translation of [[Eliphas Levi]]'s Preface in connection with the lost continent. And now, since I am determined to make of the present answers a volume — bear your cross with [[Christianity|Christian]] fortitude and then, perhaps, after reading the whole you will ask for no more for some time to come. But what can I add to that already told? I am unable to give you purely scientific
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* '''our Universal Pundit''' refers to [[Allan Octavian Hume]].

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information since we can never agree entirely with Western conclusions; and that ours will be rejected as "unscientific." Yet both geology and palaeontology bear witness to much we have to say. Of course your [[Science]] is right in many of her generalities, but her premises are wrong, or at any rate — very faulty. For instance she is right in saying that while the new America was forming the ancient [[Atlantis]] was sinking, and gradually washing away; but she is neither right in her given epochs nor in the calculations of the duration of that sinking. The latter — is the future fate of your British Islands the first on the list of victims that have to be destroyed by fire (submarine volcanos) and water. France and other lands will follow suit. When they reappear again, the last seventh Sub-race of the [[Root-Race#Sixth_Root-Race|sixth Root race]] of present mankind will be flourishing on "[[Lemuria]]" and "[[Atlantis]]" both of which will have reappeared also (their reappearance following immediately the disappearance of the present isles and continents), and very few seas and great waters will be found then on our [[Globe#Globe D|globe]], waters as well as land appearing and disappearing and shifting periodically and each in turn.
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Trembling at the prospect of fresh charges of "contradictions" at some future incomplete statement I rather explain what I mean by this. The approach of every new "[[Pralaya#Obscuration|obscuration]]" is always signalled by cataclysms — of either fire or water. But, apart from this, every "Ring" or [[Root-Race|Root Race]] has to be cut in two, so to say, by either one or the other. Thus, having reached the apex of its development and glory the [[Root_race#Fourth_Root-Race|fourth Race]] — the [[Atlantis|Atlanteans]] were destroyed by water; you find now but their degenerated, fallen remnants, whose [[Root_race#Sub-races|sub-races]], nevertheless, aye — each of them, had its palmy days of glory and relative greatness. What they are now — you will be some day the law of cycles being one and immutable. When your race — [[Root_race#Fifth_Root-Race|the fifth]] — will have reached at its zenith of physical intellectuality, and developed the highest civilization (remember the difference we make between material and spiritual civilizations); unable to go any higher in its own cycle — its progress towards absolute evil will be arrested (as its predecessors the [[Lemuria]]ns and Atlanteans, the men of the [[Root_race#Third_Root-Race|third]] and fourth races were arrested in their progress toward the same) by one of such cataclysmic changes; its

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great civilization destroyed, and all the [[Root_race#Sub-races|sub-races]] of that race will be found going down their respective [[cycles]], after a short period of glory and learning. See the remnants of the [[Atlantis|Atlanteans]], — the old Greeks and Romans (the modern belong all to the [[Root_race#Fifth_Root-Race|fifth Race]]); see how great and how short, how evanescent were their days of fame and glory! For, they were but sub-races of the seven off-shoots of the "[[Root_race|root race]]." No mother Race, any more than her sub-races and off-shoots, is allowed by the one Reigning Law to trespass upon the prerogatives of the Race or Sub-race that will follow it; least of all — to encroach upon the knowledge and powers in store for its successor. "Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of Knowledge of Good and [[Evil]] of the tree that is growing for thy heirs" we may say with more right than would be willingly conceded us by the [[Allan Octavian Hume|Humes]] of your Sub-race. This "tree" is in our safe-keeping, entrusted to us by the [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dhyan Chohans]], the protectors of our Race and the Trustees for those that are

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coming. Try to understand the allegory, and to never lose sight of the hint given you in [[Mahatma Letter No. 18|my letter]] upon the [[Planetary Spirit|Planetaries]].(1) At the beginning of each [[Round]], when humanity reappears under quite different conditions than those afforded for the birth of each new [[Root-Race|race]] and its [[Root_race#Sub-races|sub-races]], a "Planetary" has to mix with these primitive men, and to refresh their memories, and reveal to them the truths they knew during the preceding Round. Hence the confused traditions about Jehovahs, Ormazds, Osirises, Brahms, and the ''tutti quanti''. But that happens only for the benefit of the [[Root_race#First_Root-Race|first Race]]. It is the duty of the latter to choose the fit recipients among its sons, who are "set apart" to use a Biblical phrase — as the vessels to contain the whole stock of knowledge, to be divided among the future races and generations until the close of that Round. Why should I say more since you must understand my whole meaning; and that I dare not reveal it in full. Every race had its [[adept]]s; and with

(1) The letter in answer to yours, I believe, where you question me about [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]], [[William Stainton Moses|S.M.]] and [[Anna Bonus Kingsford|Mrs. K.]]

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* '''tutti quanti''' is an Italian expression meaning "each and every one" or "the whole lot of them."

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every new [[Root-Race|race]], we are allowed to give them out as much of our knowledge as the men of that race deserve it. The last [[Root_race#Seventh_Root-Race|seventh Race]] will have its [[Buddha]] as every one of its predecessors had; but, its adepts will be far higher than any of the present race, for among them will abide the future [[Planetary Spirit|Planetary]], the [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dhyan Chohan]] whose duty it will be to instruct or "refresh the memory" of the first race of the [[Round#Fifth_Round|fifth Round]] men after this [[Globe#Globe D|planet]]'s future [[Pralaya#Obscuration|obscuration]].

''En Passant'', to show to you that not only were not the "races" invented by us, but that they are a cardinal dogma with the [[Tibetan Buddhism|Lama Buddhists]] and with all who study our [[Esoteric Philosophy|esoteric doctrine]], I send you an explanation on a page or two in [[Thomas William Rhys Davids|Rhys Davids]] "Buddhism," — otherwise incomprehensible, meaningless and absurd. It is written with the special permission of the [[Chohan]] (my Master) and — for your benefit. No Orientalist has ever suspect-
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* '''"En passant"''' means "by the way," in French.

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ed the truths contained in it, and — you are the first Western man (outside [[Tibet]]) to whom it is now explained.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 6|(6)]] What emerges at the end of all things is not only "pure and impersonal [[spirit]]," but the collective "personal" remembrances skimmed off every new [[manas|fifth principle]] in the long series of being. And, if at the end of all things — say in some million of millions years hence, Spirit will have to rest in its pure, impersonal non-existence, as the ONE or the [[absolute]], still there must be "some good" in the [[Evolution#Cyclic_evolution|cyclic process]], since every purified [[Ego]] has the chance in the long interims between objective being upon the [[Globe|planets]] to exist as a [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dhyan Chohan]] — from the lowest "[[Devachan|Deva-Chanee]]" to the highest [[Planetary Spirit|Planetary]], enjoying the fruits of its collective lives.

But what is "Spirit" pure and impersonal ''per se''? Is it possible that you should not have realized yet our meaning? why, such a Spirit is a nonentity, a pure abstraction, an absolute blank to our senses — even to the most spiritual. It becomes something only in union with [[matter]] — hence it is always something since matter is infinite and indestructible and non-existent without Spirit which, in matter is [[Life]]. Separated from matter it becomes the absolute negation of life and being, whereas matter is inseparable from it. Ask those

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who offer the objection, whether they know anything of "[[life]]" and "[[consciousness]]" beyond what they now feel on [[Globe#Globe D|earth]]. What conception can they have — unless natural born [[Clairvoyance|seers]] — of the state and consciousness of one's [[Principle#Individuality_and_personality|individuality]] after it has separated itself from [[Sthūla-śarīra|gross earthly body]]? What is the good of the whole process of life on earth — you may ask them, in your turn — if, we are as good as "pure" unconscious entities before birth, during sleep, and, at the end of our career? Is not [[death]], according to the teachings of [[Science]], followed by the same state of unconsciousness as the one before birth? Does not life when it quits our body become as impersonal as it was before it animated the foetus? Life, after all, — the greatest problem within the ken of human conception is a mystery that the greatest of your men of Science will never solve. In order to be correctly comprehended, it has to be studied in the entire series of its manifestations, otherwise it can never be, not only fathomed, but
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even comprehended in its easiest form — [[life]], as a state of being on this [[Globe#Globe D|earth]]. It can never be grasped so long as it is studied separately and apart from [[Life#Universal life|universal life]]. To solve the great problem one has to become an [[Occultism|occultist]]; to analyze and experience with it personally, in all its phases, as life on earth, life beyond the limit of physical [[death]], [[Kingdoms_of_Life#Mineral_kingdom|mineral]], [[Kingdoms_of_Life#Vegetable_kingdom|vegetable]], [[Kingdoms_of_Life#Animal_kingdom|animal]] and spiritual life; life in conjunction with concrete [[matter]] as well as life present in the imponderable [[Life-Atom|atom]]. Let them try and examine, or analyze life apart from organism, and what remains of it? Simply a mode of [[motion]]; which, unless our doctrine of the all-Pervading, infinite, omnipresent Life is accepted — though it be accepted on no better terms than a hypothesis only a little more reasonable than their scientific hypotheses which are all absurd — has to remain unsolved.

Shall they object? Well, we will answer them by using their own weapons. We will say that it is, and will remain for ever

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demonstrated that since [[motion]] is all-pervading and absolute rest inconceivable, that under whatever form or mask motion may appear, whether as light, heat, magnetism, chemical affinity or [[electricity]] — all these must be but phases of One and the same universal omnipotent [[Force]], a Proteus they bow to, as the Great "Unknown" — (See [[Herbert Spencer]]) and we, simply call the "[[One Life]]" the "One Law" and the "[[Elements#The_One_Element|One Element]]." The greatest, the most scientific minds on earth, have been keenly pressing forward toward a solution of the mystery, leaving no bye-path unexplored, no thread loose or weak in this darkest of labyrinths for them, and all had to come to the same conclusion — that of the [[Occultism|Occultists]] when given only partially — namely, that [[life]] in its concrete manifestations is the legitimate result and consequence of chemical affinity; as to life in its abstract sense, life pure and simple — well, they know no more

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* '''Proteus''' refers to the existence of a primitive formless base of all matter, similar to [[chaos]].

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of it to-day, than they knew in the incipient stage of their Royal Society. They only know that organisms in certain solutions previously free from life will spring up spontaneously (Pasteur and his biblical piety notwithstanding) — owing to certain chemical compositions of such substances. If, as I hope, in a few years, I am entirely my own master — I may have the pleasure of demonstrating to you on your own writing table that [[life]] as life is not only transformable into other aspects or phases of the all-pervading [[Force]], but that, it can be actually infused into an artificial man. Frankenstein is a myth only so far as he is the hero of a mystic tale; in nature — he is a possibility; and the physicists and physicians of the last [[Root-Race#Sub-races|sub-race]] of the [[Root-Race#Sixth_Root-Race|sixth Race]] will inoculate life and revive corpses, as they now inoculate small-pox, and often less comely diseases. [[Spirit]], life and [[matter]], are not natural principles existing independently of each other, but the effects of combinations produced by eternal motion in Space; and they better learn it.

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 8|(7)]] Most undoubtedly I am so permitted. But then comes the most important point: how far satisfactory will my answers appear — even to you? That not every new law brought to light is regarded as adding a link to the chain of human knowledge is shown by the ill-grace with which every fact unwelcome for some reasons to [[science]], is received by its professors. Nevertheless, whenever I can answer you — I will try to do so, only hoping that you will not send it as a contribution from my pen to the Journal of Science.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 8|(8)]] Most assuredly they have. Rain can be brought on in a small area of space — artificially and without any claim to miracle or superhuman powers, though its secret is no property of mine that I should divulge it. I am now trying to obtain permission to do so. We know of no phenomenon in nature entirely unconnected with either [[magnetism]] or [[electricity]] — since, where there are

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[[motion]], heat, friction, light, there [[magnetism]] and its alter ego (according to our humble opinion) — [[electricity]] will always appear, as either cause or effect — or rather both if we but fathom the manifestation to its origin. All the phenomena of earth currents, terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity, are due to the fact that the earth is an electrified conductor, whose potential is ever changing owing to its rotation and its annual orbital motion, the successive cooling and heating of the air, the formation of clouds and rain, storms and winds, etc. This you may perhaps, find in some text book. But then [[Science]] would be unwilling to admit that all these changes are due to [[Ākāśa|akasic]] magnetism incessantly generating electric currents which tend to restore the disturbed equilibrium. By directing the most powerful of electric batteries, — human frame electrified by a certain process, you can stop rain on

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some given point by making "a hole in the rain cloud," as the [[Occultism|occultists]] term it. By using other strongly magnetized implements within, so to say, an insulated area — rain can be produced artificially. I regret my inability to explain to you the process more clearly. You know the effects produced by trees and plants on rain clouds; and how their strong magnetic nature attracts and even feeds those clouds over the tops of the trees. Science explains it otherwise, maybe. Well, I cannot help it, for such is our knowledge and the fruits of milleniums of observations and experience. Were the present to fall into the hands of [[Allan Octavian Hume||Hume]], he would be sure to remark that I am vindicating the charge publicly brought by him against us: "Whenever unable to answer your arguments (?) they (we) calmly reply that their (our) rules do not admit of this or that." — Charge notwithstanding, I am compelled to answer that since the secret is not mine I cannot make of it

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a marketable commodity. Let some physicists calculate the amount of heat required to vaporize a certain quantity of water. Then, let them compute the quantity of rain needed to cover an area — say, of one square mile to a depth of one inch. For this amount of vaporization they will require, of course, an amount of heat that would be equal to at least five million tons of coal. Now the amount of energy of heat that would be equal to at least five million tons of coal. Now the amount of energy of which this consumption of heat would be the equivalent corresponds (as any mathematician could tell you) — to that which would be required to raise a weight of upwards of ten million tons, one mile high. How can one man generate such amount of heat and energy? Preposterous, absurd! — we are all lunatics, and you who listen to us will be placed in the same category if you ever venture to repeat this proposition. Yet I say, that one man alone can do it, and very easily if he is but acquainted with a certain "physico-spiritual" lever

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in himself, far more powerful than that of Archimedes. Even simple muscular contraction is always accompanied with [[electricity|electric]] and [[Magnetism|magnetic phenomena]], and there is the strongest connection between the magnetism of the [[Globe#Globe D|earth]], the changes of weather and man, who is the best barometer living, if he but knew to decipher it properly; again, the state of the sky can always be ascertained by the variations shown by magnetic instruments. It is now several years that I had an opportunity of reading the deductions of [[science]] upon this subject; therefore, unless I go to the trouble of catching up what I may have remained ignorant of, I do not know the latest conclusions of Science. But with us, it is an established fact that it is the earth's magnetism that produces wind, storms, and rain. What science seems to know of it, is but secondary symptoms always induced by that magnetism and she may very soon find out her present errors.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Archimedes of Syracuse''' (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics, and an explanation of the principle of the lever.

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[[Globe#Globe D|Earth]]'s [[Magnetism|magnetic]] attraction of meteoric dust, and the direct influence of the latter upon the sudden changes of temperature especially in the matter of heat and cold, is not a settled question to the present day, I believe.(2) It was doubted whether the fact of our earth passing through a region of space in which there are more or less of meteoric masses has any bearing upon the height of our atmosphere being increased or decreased, or even upon the state of weather. But we think we could easily prove it; and since they accept the fact that the relative distribution and proportion of land and water on our globe may be due to the great accumulation upon it of meteoric dust; snow — especially in our northern regions — being full of meteoric iron and magnetic particles; and deposits of the latter being found even at the bottom of seas and oceans, I wonder how [[Science]] has not hitherto understood that every atmospheric change

(2) Dr. Phipson in 1867 and Cowper Ranyard in 1879 both urged the theory but it was rejected then.

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and disturbance was due to the combined [[magnetism]] of the two great masses between which our atmosphere is compressed! I call this meteoric dust a "mass" for it is really one. High above our earth's surface the air is impregnated and space filled with magnetic, or meteoric dust, which does not even belong to our solar system. [[Science]] having luckily discovered, that, as our earth with all the other planets is carried along through space, it receives a greater proportion of that dust matter on its northern than on its southern hemisphere, knows that to this are due the preponderating number of the continents in the former hemisphere, and the greater abundance of snow and moisture. Millions of such meteors and even of the finest particles reach us yearly and daily and all our temple knives are made of this "heavenly" iron, which reaches us without having undergone any change — the magnetism of the earth keeping them in cohesion. Gaseous matter is

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continually added to our atmosphere from the never ceasing fall of meteoric strongly magnetic [[matter]], and yet it seems with them still an open question whether [[Magnetism|magnetic]] conditions have anything to do with the precipitation of rain or not! I do not know of any "set of motions established by pressures, expansions, etc., due in the first instance to solar energy." [[Science]] makes too much and too little at the same time of "solar energy" and even of the [[Sun]] itself; and the Sun has nothing to do whatever with rain and very little with heat. I was under the impression that science was aware that the glacial periods as well as those periods when temperature is "like that of the carboniferous age" — are due to the decrease and increase or rather to the expansion of our atmosphere, which expansion is itself due to the same meteoric presence? At

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any rate, we all know, that the heat that the earth receives by radiation from the sun is at the utmost one third if not less of the amount received by her directly from the meteors.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 9|(9)]] Call it a chromosphere or atmosphere, it can be called neither; for it is simply the [[Magnetism|magnetic]] and ever present aura of the [[sun]], seen by astronomers only for a brief few moments during the eclipse and by some of our [[chela]]s — whenever they like — of course while in a certain induced state. A counterpart of what the astronomers call the red flames in the "corona" may be seen in Reichenbach's crystals or in any other strongly magnetic body. The head of a man — in a strong ecstatic condition, when all the [[electricity]] of his system is centred around the brain, will represent — especially in darkness — a perfect

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Baron Carl von Reichenbach''' (1788 – 1869) was a notable chemist, geologist, metallurgist, naturalist, industrialist and philosopher, who researched about a field of energy combining electricity, magnetism and heat, emanating from all living things, which he called the [[Odyle|Odic force]].

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simile of the [[Sun]] during such periods. The first artist who drew the aureoles about the heads of his gods and Saints, was not inspired, but represented it on the authority of temple pictures and traditions of the sanctuary and the chambers of [[initiation]] where such [[phenomena]] took place. The closer to the head or to the aura-emitting body — the stronger and the more effulgent the emanation (due to hydrogen [[science]] tells us, in the case of the flames); hence — the irregular red flames around the Sun or the "inner corona." The fact that these are not always present in equal quantity shows only the constant fluctuation of the magnetic matter and its energy, upon which also depend the variety and number of spots. During periods of magnetic inertia the spots disappear, or rather remain invisible. The further the emanation shoots out the more it loses in intensity, until gradually

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*

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subsiding it fades out; hence — the "outer corona," its rayed shape being due entirely to the latter phenomenon whose effulgence proceeds from the [[Magnetism|magnetic]] nature of the matter and the [[electricity|electric energy]] and not at all from intensely hot particles as asserted by some astronomers. All this is terribly unscientific, nevertheless a fact, to which, I may add another by reminding you that the [[Sun]] we see is not at all the central planet of our little Universe, but only its veil or it's reflection. Science has tremendous odds against studying that planet which luckily for us we have not: foremost of all — the constant tremours of our atmosphere which prevent them from judging correctly the little they do see. This impediment was never in the way of the ancient Chaldee and Egyptian astronomers; nor is it an obstacle to us, for we have means of arresting, or counteracting such tremours — acquainted as we are with all the [[Ākāśa|akasic]] conditions. No more than the rain secret, would this secret — supposing we do divulge it — be of any practical use to your men of [[Science]] unless they become [[Occultism|Occultists]] and sacrifice long years to the acquirement of [[Siddhi|powers]]. Only fancy a Huxley or a Tyndall studying Yog-vidya! Hence the many mistakes into which they fall and the conflicting hypotheses of your best authorities. For instance: the Sun is full of iron vapours — a fact that
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*

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was demonstrated by the spectroscope showing that the light of the corona consisted largely of a line in the green part of the spectrum, very nearly coinciding with an iron line. Yet Professors Young and Lockyer rejected that, under the witty pretext, if I remember, that, if the corona were composed of minute particles like a dust cloud (and it is this that we call "magnetic matter") these particles would (1) fall upon the sun's body, (2) comets were known to pass through this vapour without any visible effect on them; (3) Professor Young's spectroscope showed that the coronal line was not identical with the iron one, etc. Why they should call those objections "scientific" is more than we can tell.

(1) The reason why the particles — since they call them so — do not fall upon the sun's body, is self-evident. There are forces co-existent with [[gravitation]] of which they know nothing; besides that other fact that there is no gravitation properly speaking; only attraction and repulsion. (2) How could comets be affected by the said passage since their "passing through" is simply an optical illusion; they could not pass within the area of attraction without being immediately annihilated by that force, of which no [[vril]] can give an adequate idea, since there can be nothing

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*

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on [[Globe#Globe D|earth]] that could be compared with it. Passing as the comets do through a "reflection" no wonder that the said vapour has "no visible effect on these light bodies." (3) The coronal line may not seem identical through the best "grating spectroscope," nevertheless, the corona contains iron as well as other vapours. To tell you of what it does consist is idle, since I am unable to translate the words we use for it, and that no such matter exists (not in our planetary system, at any rate) — but in the sun. The fact is, that what you call the [[Sun]] is simply the reflection of the huge "store-house" of our System wherein ALL its forces are generated and preserved; the Sun being the heart and brain of our pigmy Universe, we might compare its faculae — those millions of small, intensely brilliant bodies of which the Sun's surface away from the spots is made up — with the blood corpuscles of
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'''NOTES:'''
* The high temperature of the Sun's corona gives it unusual spectral features, which led some to suggest, in the 19th century, that it contained a previously unknown element, "coronium". These spectral features have been traced to highly ionized iron (Fe-XIV and Fe-X) in 1941.
* '''"No such matter exists on our planet"''' refers to the fourth state of matter, ''plasma'', unknown at the time by science, which is the major component of the Sun.
* '''faculae''' refers to bright spots that form on the surface of the sun; short-lived convection cells.

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that luminary — though some of them as correctly conjectured by science are as large as Europe. Those blood corpuscles are the [[electricity|electric]] and [[magnetism|magnetic]] matter in its sixth and seventh state. What are those long white filaments twisted like so many ropes, of which the penumbra of the Sun is made up? What — the central part that is seen like a huge flame ending in fiery spires, and the transparent clouds, or rather vapours formed of delicate threads of silvery light, that hangs over those flames — what — but magneto-electric aura — the [[phlogiston]] of the Sun? [[Science]] may go on speculating for ever, yet so long as she does not renounce two or three of her cardinal errors she will find herself groping for ever in the dark. Some of her greatest misconceptions are found in her limited notions on the law of [[gravitation]]; her denial that [[matter]] may

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''penumbra''' is the portion of a shadow where the light source is partially obscured.

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be imponderable; her newly invented term "[[force]]" and the absurd and tacitly accepted idea, that force is capable of existing per se, or of acting any more than [[life]], outside, independent of, or in any other wise than through [[matter]]: in other words that force is anything but matter in one of her highest states, — the last three on the ascending scale being denied because only [[science]] knows nothing of them; and her utter ignorance of the universal Proteus, its functions and importance in the economy of nature — [[magnetism]] and [[electricity]]. Tell Science that even in those days of the decline of the Roman Empire, when the tatooed Britisher used to offer to the Emperor Claudius his nazzur of "electron" in the shape of a string of amber beads that even then, there were yet men remaining aloof from the immoral masses, who knew more of electricity and magnetism than they, the men of science, do now, and science will laugh at you as bitterly as she now does over your kind dedication to me. Verily, when your astronomers speaking of sun-matter, term those lights and flames as "clouds of vapour" and "gases unknown to science" (rather!) — chased by mighty

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Nazzur of electron'''. The "nazzur" was a tributary offering. The "electrum" is an alloy of gold and silver that was used for the earliest metal coins. The scientific term "electron" to explain the phenomenon of [[electricity]] was coined nine years after this letter was written, in 1891 by G. J. Stoney, and the particle was discovered five years after this by J. J. Thomson.

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whirlwinds and cyclones — whereas we know it to be simply magnetic matter in its usual state of activity — we feel inclined to smile at the expressions. Can one imagine the "[[Sun]]'s fires fed with purely mineral matter" — with meteorites highly charged with hydrogen giving the "Sun a far-reaching atmosphere of ignited gas"? We know that the invisible Sun is composed of that which has neither name, nor can it be compared to anything known by your [[science]] — on [[Globe#Globe D|earth]]; and that its "reflection" contains still less of anything like "gases," mineral matter, or fire, though even we when treating of it in your civilized tongue are compelled to use such expressions as "vapour" and "magnetic matter." To close the subject, the coronal changes have no effect upon the earth's climate, though spots have — and Professor N. Lockyer is mostly wrong in his deductions. The Sun is neither a solid nor a liquid, nor yet a gaseous globe; but a gigantic ball of electro-magnetic Forces, the store-house of [[Life#Universal_life|universal life]] and [[motion]], from which the latter pulsate in all directions, feeding the smallest [[atom]] as the greatest genius with the same material unto the end of the [[Yuga|Maha Yug]].
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Norman Lockyer''' was an English astronomer, co-discoverer of helium, who founded the journal ''Nature''. He used electromagnetic spectroscopy to study the sun.

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 9|(10)]] I believe not. The stars are distant from us, at least 500,000 times as far as the [[Sun]] and some as many times more. The strong accumulation of meteoric matter and the atmospheric tremours are always in the way. If your astronomers could climb on the height of that meteoric dust, with their telescopes and havanas they might trust more than they can now in their photometers. How can they? Neither the real degree of intensity of that light can be known on [[Globe#Globe D|earth]] — hence no trustworthy basis for calculating magnitudes and distances can be had, — nor have they hitherto made sure in a single instance (except in the matter of one star in Cassiopeia) which stars shine by reflected and which by their own light. The working of the best double star photometers is deceptive. Of this I have made sure, so far back as in the spring of 1878 while watching the observations made through a Pickering photometer. The discrepancy in the observations upon a star (near Gamma Ceti) amounted at times to half a magnitude.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''500,000 times'''. The nearest star to Earth (Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1915) is about 268,000 times as far as the Sun, that is, in the same order of magnitude that the [[Masters of Wisdom|Master]] said.
* The '''Pickering photometer''' is an instrument for measuring the brightness of stars, developed by E. C. Pickering of Harvard.

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No planets but one have hitherto been discovered outside of the solar system, with all their photometers, while we know with the sole help of our spiritual naked eye a number of them; every completely matured Sun-star having like in our own system several companion planets in fact. The famous "polarization of light" test is as about trustworthy as all others. Of course, the mere fact of their starting from a false premise cannot vitiate either their conclusions or astronomical prophecies, since both are mathematically correct in their mutual relations, and that it answers the given object. The Chaldees nor yet our old Rishis had either your telescopes or photometers; and yet their astronomical predictions were faultless, the mistakes, very slight ones in truth — fathered upon them by their modern rivals — proceeding from the mistakes of the latter.

You must not complain of my too long answers to your very short questions, since I answer you for

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your instruction as a student of [[occultism]], my [[Chela#Lay_Chela|"lay" chela]], and not at all with a view of answering the Journal of Science. I am no man of [[science]] with regard to, or in connection with modern learning. My knowledge of your Western Sciences is very limited in fact; and you will please bear in mind that all my answers are based upon, and derived from, our Eastern occult doctrines regardless of their agreement or disagreement with those of exact science. Hence, I say: —

"The sun's surface emits per square mile, as much light (in proportion) as can be emitted from any body." But what can you mean in this case by "light"? The latter is not an independent principle; and, I rejoiced at the introduction, with a view to facilitate means of observation — of the "diffraction spectrum;" since by abolishing all these imaginary independent existences, such as — heat, actinism, light, etc., it rendered to [[Science#Occult_Science|Occult Science]] the greatest service, by vindicating in the eyes of her modern sister

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''actinism''' is the property of radiation that lets it be absorbed by a molecule and cause a photochemical reaction as a result.

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our very ancient theory that every phenomenon being but the effect of the diversified motions of what we call [[Ākāśa|Akasha]] (not your ether) there was in fact, but [[Elements#The_One_Element|one element]], the causative [[Principle]] of all. But since your question is asked with a view to settling a disputed point in modern [[science]] I will try to answer it in the clearest way I can. I say then, no, and will give you my reasons why. They cannot know it, for the simple reason that heretofore they have in reality found no sure means of measuring the velocity of light. The experiments made by Fizeau and Cornu known as the two best investigators of light in the world of science, notwithstanding the general satisfaction at the results obtained, are not a trustworthy data neither in respect to the velocity with which sunlight travels nor to its quantity. The methods adopted by both these Frenchmen are yielding correct results (at any rate approximately correct, since there is a variation of 227 miles per second

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Fizeau and Cornu''' were H. L. Fizeau and A. Cornu were French physicists who worked to determine the speed of light, using an ingenious toothed wheel and telescopes.<ref>Barry Setterfield, "Part 3: Fizeau and the Toothed-Wheel Experiments," Genesis Science Research [http://www.setterfield.org/000docs/cx3.html]</ref>

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between the result of the observations of both experimenters albeit made with the same apparatus) — only as regards the velocity of light between our [[Globe#Globe D|earth]] and the upper regions of its atmosphere. Their toothed wheel, revolving at a known velocity records, of course, the strong ray of light which passes through one of the niches of the wheel, and then has its point of light obscured whenever a tooth passes — accurately enough. The instrument is very ingenious and can hardly fail to give splendid results on a journey of a few thousand metres there and back; there being between the Paris observatory and its fortifications no atmosphere, no meteoric masses to impede the ray's progress; and that ray finding quite a different quality of a medium to travel upon than the ether of Space, the ether between the [[Sun]] and the meteoric continent above our

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'''NOTES:'''
*'''Medium to travel'''. Although the speed of light (''c'') is constant in vacuum, as the Master says, light does not propagate at speed "''c''" in a medium, and varies according to both the medium and the different types of light wave.

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heads, the velocity of light will of course show some 185,000 and odd miles per second, and your physicists shout "Eureka"! Nor do any of the other devices contrived by [[science]] to measure that velocity since 1887 answer any better. All they can say is that their calculations are so far correct. Could they measure light above our atmosphere they would soon find that they were wrong.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 9|(11)]] It is — so far; but is fast changing. Your science has a theory, I believe, that if the earth were suddenly placed in extremely cold regions — for inst: were it to exchange places with Jupiter — all our seas and rivers would be suddenly transformed into solid mountains; the air, — or rather a portion of the aeriform substances which compose it — would be metamorphosed from their state of invisible fluid owing to the absence of heat into liquids (which now
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Eureka''' means "I have found it," and was reportedly exclaimed by Archimedes in his discovery of the displacement of water.
* '''aeriform''' means gaseous.

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exist on Jupiter, but of which men have no idea on earth). Realize, or try to imagine the — reverse condition, and it will be that of Jupiter at the present moment.

The whole of our system is imperceptibly shifting its position in space. The relative distance between planets remaining ever the same, and being in no wise affected by the displacement of the whole system; and the distance between the latter and the stars and other suns being so incommensurable as to produce but little if any perceptible change for centuries and milleniums to come; — no astronomer will perceive it telescopically, until Jupiter and some other planets, whose little luminous points hide now from our sight millions upon millions of stars (all but some 5000 or 6000) — will suddenly let us have a peep at a few of the Raja-Suns they are now hiding. There is such a king-star right behind Jupiter, that no mortal physical

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'''NOTES:'''
*'''Of which men have no idea on earth'''. The composition of Jupiter includes a layer of ''liquid metallic hydrogen''--a phase of hydrogen predicted theoretically only in 1935, more than 50 years after this letter. This is thought to be present in the gravitationally compressed interiors of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
*'''Shifting its position in space'''. The motion of stars was proposed for the first time by Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn in 1897.
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eye has ever seen during this, our [[Round]]. Could it be so perceived it would appear, through the best telescope with a power of multiplying its diameter ten thousand times, — still a small dimensionless point, thrown into the shadow by the brightness of any planet; nevertheless — this world is thousands of times larger than Jupiter. The violent disturbance of its atmosphere and even its red spot that so intrigues science lately, are due — (1) to that shifting and (2) to the influence of that Raja-Star. In its present position in space imperceptibly small though it be — the metallic substances of which it is mainly composed are expanding and gradually transforming themselves into aeriform fluids — the state of our own earth and its six sister globes before the [[Round#First_Round|first Round]] — and becoming part of its atmosphere. Draw your inferences and deductions from this, my dear [[Chela#Lay_Chela|"lay" chela]], but beware lest in doing so you sacrifice your humble instructor and the occult doctrine itself, on the altar of your wrathful Goddess — [[Science#Modern_Science|modern science]].

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*

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 10|(12)]] I am afraid not much, since our [[Sun]] is but a reflection. The only great truth uttered by Siemens is that inter-stellar space is filled with highly attenuated matter, such as may be put in air vacuum tubes, and which stretches from planet to planet and from star to star. But this truth has no bearing upon his main facts. The sun gives all and takes back nothing from its system. The sun gathers nothing "at the poles" — which are always free even from the famous "red flames" at all times, not only during the eclipses. How is it that with their powerful telescopes they have failed to perceive any such "gathering" since their glasses show them even the "superlatively fleecy clouds" on the photosphere? Nothing can reach the sun from without the boundaries of its own system in the shape of such gross matter as "attenuated gases." Every bit of [[matter]] in all its seven states is necessary to the vitality of the various and numberless systems — worlds in formation, suns awakening anew to life, etc., and they have none to spare even for their best neighbours and next of kin. They are mothers, not stepmothers, and would not take away one

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Charles William Siemens''' suggested a hypothesis on which the sun conserves its heat by a circulation of its fuel in space, which was found to be false.
* '''Attenuated''' here means of low density, rarefied.
* '''Photosphere''' is the portion of a star from which light is emitted.

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crumb from the nutrition of their children. The latest theory of radiant energy which shows that there is no such thing in nature, properly speaking, as chemical light, or heat ray is the only approximately correct one. For indeed, there is but one thing — radiant energy which is inexhaustible and knows neither increase nor decrease and will go on with its self-generating work to the end of the [[Manvantara#Solar_manvantara|Solar manvantara]]. The absorption of Solar Forces by the earth is tremendous; yet it is, or may be demonstrated that the latter receives hardly 25 per cent. of the chemical power of its rays, for these are despoiled of 75 per cent. during their vertical passage through the atmosphere at the moment they reach the outer boundary "of the aerial ocean." And even those rays lose about 20 per cent. in illuminating
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*

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and caloric power — we are told. What with such a waste must then be the recuperative power of our Father-Mother Sun? Yes; call it "Radiant Energy" if you will: we call it [[Life]] — all-pervading, omnipresent life, ever at work in its great laboratory — the SUN.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 10|(13)]] None can ever be given by your men of [[Science]], whose "bumptiousness" makes them declare that only to those for whom the word [[magnetism]] is a mysterious agent the supposition that the [[Sun]] is a huge magnet can account for the production by that body of light, heat and the causes of magnetic variations as perceived on our [[Globe#Globe D|earth]]. They are determined to ignore and thus reject the theory suggested to them by Jenkins of the R.A.S. of the existence of strong magnetic poles above the surface of the earth. But the theory, is the correct one nevertheless, and one of these poles revolves around the north pole in a periodical
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Bumptiousness''' is the quality of being crudely or loudly assertive or pushy.
* '''R.A.S.''' is Royal Astronomical Society.

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cycle of several hundred years. Halley and Handsteen — besides Jenkins — were the only scientific men that ever suspected it. Your question is again answered by reminding you of another exploded supposition. Jenkins did his best some three years ago to prove that it is the north end of the compass needle that is the true north pole, and not the reverse as the current scientific theory maintains. He was informed that the locality in Boothia where Sir James Ross located the earth's north magnetic pole, was purely imaginary: it is not there. If he (and we) are wrong, then the magnetic theory that like poles repel and unlike poles attract, must also be declared a fallacy; since if the north end of the dipping needle is a south pole then its pointing to the ground in Boothia — as you call it — must be due to attraction? And if there is anything there to attract it, why is it that the needle in London is attracted neither to the ground in Boothia nor to the earth's centre? As very correctly argued, if the north pole of the needle pointed almost perpendicularly to the ground in Boothia, it is simply because it was

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Halley''' refers to Edmond Halley (1656–1742), the English "father of geophysics," who in 1700 produced the first map showing the variation of the Earth's magnetic field.
* '''Handsteen''' refers to Christopher Hansteen (1784–1873) was a Norwegian geophysicist, astronomer and physicist engaged in mapping of Earth's magnetic field.
* '''Jenkins''' was B. G. Jenkins of the Royal Astronomical Society.
* '''Boothia''' is the name of a peninsula and bay in the Canadian Arctic region.
* '''Sir James Ross''' explored the Arctic and Antarctic regions. He located the north magnetic pole in 1831. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_Ross Wikipedia].

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repelled by the true north magnetic pole when Sir J. Ross was there about half a century ago.

No; our "Lordships" have nothing to do with the inertia of the needle. It is due to the presence of certain metals in fusion in that locality. Increase of temperature diminishes magnetic attraction, and a sufficiently high temperature destroys it often altogether. The temperature I am speaking of is, in the present case rather an aura, an emanation than anything [[science]] knows of. Of course, this explanation will never hold water with the present knowledge of science. But we can wait and see. Study [[magnetism]] with the help of [[Science#Occult Science|occult doctrines]], and then that which now will appear incomprehensible, absurd in the light of physical science, will become all clear.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 11|(14)]] They must be. Not all of the Intra-Mercurial planets, nor yet those in the orbit of Neptune are yet discovered, though they are strongly suspected. We know that such exist and where they exist; and that there are innumerable planets "burnt out" they say, — in [[obscuration]]

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Intra-Mercurial planets''', meaning planets in orbit between Mercury and the Sun, were a subject of scientific observation and speculation in 19th century, with major papers written in 1860 and 1878.

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we say; — planets in formation and not yet luminous, etc. But then "we know" is of little use to [[science]], when the [[Spiritualism|Spiritualists]] will not admit our knowledge. [[Thomas Alva Edison|Edison]]'s tasimeter adjusted to its utmost degree of sensitiveness and attached to a large telescope may be of great use when perfected. When so attached the "tasimeter" will afford the possibility not only to measure the heat of the remotest of visible stars, but to detect by their invisible radiations stars that are unseen and otherwise undetectable, hence planets also. The discoverer, an F.T.S., a good deal protected by [[Morya|M.]] thinks that if, at any point in a blank space of heavens — a space that appears blank even through a telescope of the highest power — the tasimeter indicates an accession of temperature and does so invariably, this will be a regular proof that the instrument is in range with the stellar body either non-luminous or so

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Edison's tasimeter''' was a scientific instrument for use in detecting and measuring infinitesimal degrees of temperature. He first used it in 1878 to observe a total eclipse of the sun.<ref>Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, "Chapter VII: Edison's Tasimeter," ''Edison: His Life and Inventions'', [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/820/820-h/820-h.htm#2H_4_0041]</ref>
* '''the discoverer, an F.T.S.''' points out that Edison was a Fellow (member) of the Theosophical Society in New Jersey.
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distant as to be beyond the reach of telescopic vision. His tasimeter, he says, "is affected by a wider range of etheric undulations than the eye can take cognizance of." Science will hear sounds from certain planets before she sees them. This is a prophecy. Unfortunately I am not a Planet, — not even a "[[Planetary Spirit|planetary]]." Otherwise I would advise you to get a tasimeter from him and thus avoid me the trouble of writing to you. I would manage then to find myself "in range" with you.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 12|(15)]] No, good friend; I am not as indiscreet as all that, I left you simply to your own reminiscences. Every mortal creature, even the less favoured by Fortune, has such moments of relative [[happiness]] at some time of his life. Why shouldn't you?

Yes, it was an X quantity I referred to.

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''"This is a prophecy"'''. In 1931 Karl Jansky built the first radio telescope thus fulfilling the Master's prophecy almost 50 years later.

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 13|(16)]] It is a widely spread belief among all the [[Hinduism|Hindus]] that a person's future pre-natal state and birth are moulded by the last desire he may have at the time of [[death]]. But this last desire, they say, necessarily hinges on to the shape which the person may have given to his desires, passions, etc., during his past life. It is for this very reason, viz. — that our last desire may not be unfavourable to our future progress — that we have to watch our actions and control our passions and desires throughout our whole earthly career.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 13|(17)]] It cannot be otherwise. The experience of dying men — by drowning and other accidents — brought back to life, has corroborated our doctrine in almost every case. Such thoughts are involuntary and we have no more control over them than we would over the eye's retina to prevent it perceiving

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that colour which affects it most. At the last moment, the whole life is reflected in our memory and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners picture after picture, one event after the other. The dying brain dislodges memory with a strong supreme impulse, and memory restores faithfully every impression entrusted to it during the period of the brain's activity. That impression and thought which was the strongest naturally becomes the most vivid and survives so to say all the rest which now vanish and disappear for ever, to reappear but in [[Devachan]].(3) No man dies insane or unconscious — as some physiologists assert. Even a madman, or one in a fit of delirium, tremens will have his instant of perfect lucidity at the moment of death, though unable to

(3) Good gracious! had I forgotten in my hurry to add the last five words, would not I have caught it as a charge of flat contradiction!

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''delirium tremen''' is Latin for "shaking frenzy," an acute form of delirium due to withdrawal from alcohol or some drugs.

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say so to those present. The man may often appear dead. Yet from the last pulsation, from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body — the brain thinks and the [[Ego]] lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life over again. Speak in whispers, ye, who assist at a death-bed and find yourselves in the solemn presence of [[Death]]. Especially have you to keep quiet just after Death has laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say, lest you disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the busy work of the Past casting on its reflection upon the Veil of the Future.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 14|(18)]] Yes; the "full" remembrance of our lives (collective lives) will return back at the end of all the seven [[Round]]s, at the threshold of the long,

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long [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] that awaits us after we leave [[Globe#Globe G or Z|Globe Z]]. At the end of isolated [[Round]]s, we remember but the sum total of our last impressions, those we had selected, or that have rather forced themselves upon us and followed us in [[Devachan]]. Those are all "probationary" lives with large indulgences and new trials afforded us with every new life. But at the close of the minor cycle, after the completion of all the [[Manvantara#Duration of the cycles|seven Rounds]], there awaits us no other mercy but the cup of good deeds, of merit, outweighing that of [[evil]] deeds and demerit in the scales of [[Karma|Retributive Justice]]. Bad, irretrievably bad must be that [[Ego]] that yields no mite from its [[Manas|fifth Principle]], and has to be annihilated, to disappear in the [[Moon#The_Eighth_Sphere|Eighth Sphere]]. A mite, as I say, collected from the [[Ego#Lower ego|Personal Ego]]

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suffices to save him from the dreary Fate. Not so after the completion of the [[Manvantara#Duration of the cycles|great cycle]]: either a long [[Nirvāṇa|Nirvana]] of Bliss (unconscious though it be in the, and according to, your crude conceptions); after which — life as a [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dhyan Chohan]] for a whole [[Manvantara]], or else "[[Avichi#Avichi_Nirvana|Avitchi Nirvana]]" and a Manvantara of misery and Horror as a —— you must not hear the word nor I — pronounce or write it. But "those" have nought to do with the mortals who pass through the [[Planetary Chain|seven spheres]]. The collective [[Karma]] of a future [[Planetary Spirit|Planetary]] is as lovely as the collective Karma of a —— is terrible. Enough. I have said too much already.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 15|(19)]] Verily so. Until the [[Life_after_death#The_.22Death_struggle.22|struggle between the higher and middle duad]] begins — (with the exception of [[suicide]]s who are not [[Death|dead]] but have only killed their physical triad, and whose Elemental parasites, therefore, are not naturally separated

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from the [[Ego]] as in real [[death]]) — until that [[Life_after_death#The_.22Death_struggle.22|struggle]], I say, has not begun and ended, no [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]] can realize its position. When the [[Buddhi|sixth]] and [[Ātman|seventh]] principles are gone, carrying off with them the finer, spiritual portions of that, which once was the personal [[consciousness]] of the [[Manas|fifth]], then only does the shell gradually develop a kind of hazy consciousness of its own from what remains in the shadow of personality. No contradiction here, my dear friend, — only haziness in your own perceptions.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 15|(20)]] All that which pertains to the materio-psychological attributes and sensations of the five lower [[skandha]]s; all that which will be thrown off as a refuse by the newly born [[Ego]] in the [[Devachan]], as unworthy of, and not sufficiently related to the purely spiritual perceptions, emotions and feelings of the [[Buddhi|sixth]], strengthened, and so to say, cemented by a portion of the [[Manas|fifth]], that portion which is necessary in the devachan for the retention of a divine spiritualized notion of the "I"

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in the [[Monad]] — which would otherwise, have no [[consciousness]] in relation to object and subject at all — all this "becomes extinct for ever": namely at the moment of physical [[death]], to return once more, marshalling before the eye of the new [[Ego]] at the threshold of [[Devachan]] and to be rejected by It. It will return for the third time fully at the end of the [[Manvantara#Duration_of_the_cycles|minor cycle]], after the completion of the seven [[Round]]s when the sum total of collective existences is weighed — "merit" — in one cup, "demerit" in the other cup of the scales. But in that individual, in the [[Ego]] — "good, bad, or indifferent" in the isolated personality, — consciousness leaves as suddenly as "the flame leaves the wick." Blow out your candle, good friend. The flame has left that candle "for ever"; but are the particles that moved, their motion producing the objective flame annihilated or dispersed for all that? Never. Relight the candle and the same particles drawn by mutual affinity will return

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to the wick. Place a long row of candles on your table. Light one and blow it out; then light the other and do the same; a third and fourth, and so on. The same matter, the same gaseous particles — representing in our case the [[Karma]] of the [[Principle#Individuality_and_personality|personality]] — will be called forth by the conditions given them by your match, to produce a new luminosity; but can we say that candle No. 1 has not had its flame extinct for ever? Not even in the case of the "failures of nature," of the immediate [[reincarnation]] of children and congenital idiots, etc., that so provoked the wrath of [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]], can we call them the identical ex-personalities; though the whole of the same life-principle and identically the same [[Manas|MANAS]] (fifth principle) re-enters a new body and may be truly called a "reincarnation of the personality" — whereas, in the rebirth of the [[Ego]]s from [[devachan]]s and [[Avichi|avitchis]] into Karmic life it is only the spiritual attributes of the [[Monad]] and its [[Buddhi]] that are reborn. All we can say of the reincarnated "failures"

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is, that they are the reincarnated [[Manas]], the fifth principle of Mr. Smith or Miss Grey, but not certainly that these are the [[reincarnation]]s of Mr. S. and Miss G. Therefore, the explanation, clear and concise (though perhaps less literary than you might make it) given to [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]] in [[The Theosophist (periodical)|the Theosophist]] in answer to his spiteful hit in [[Light (periodical)|Light]], is not only correct but candid also; and both yourself and C.C.M. were unjust to [[Upasika]] and even to myself who told her what to write; since even you mistook my wail and lament at the confused and tortured explanations in [[Isis Unveiled (book)|Isis]] (for its incompleteness no one but we, her inspirers are responsible) and my complaint of having had to exercise all my "ingenuity" to make the thing plain, for an avowal of ingeniousness in the sense of cunning and craft, whereas ingenuousness — a sincere desire (though very difficult of realization) to mend and clear up the misconception — was meant by me. I do not know of anything since the very beginning of our correspondence that displeased the [[Chohan]] so much as that. But we must not return to the subject again.

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But what is then "the nature of the remembrance and [[Consciousness#Self-consciousness|self-consciousness]] of the [[Kamaloka#Shells|shell]]?" you ask. As I said in your note — no better than a reflected or borrowed light. "[[Memory]]" is one thing, and "perceptive faculties" quite another. A madman may remember very clearly some portions of his past life; yet he is unable to perceive anything in its true light for the higher portion of his [[Manas]] and his [[Buddhi]] are paralysed in him, have left him. Could an animal — a dog, for instance — speak, he would prove you that his memory in direct relation to his canine personality, is as fresh as yours; nevertheless his memory and instinct cannot be called "perceptive faculties." A dog remembers that his master thrashed him when the latter gets hold of his stick — at all other times he has no remembrance of it. Thus with a shell; once in the [[aura]] of a [[Mediumship|medium]], all he perceives through the borrowed organs of the medium and of those in magnetic sympathy with the latter, he will perceive very clearly

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— but not further than what the [[Kamaloka#Shells|shell]] can find in the perceptive faculties and [[Memory|memories]] of circle and [[Mediumship|medium]] — hence often the rational and at times highly intelligent answers; hence also a complete oblivion of things known to all but that medium and circle. The shell of a highly intelligent, learned, but utterly unspiritual man who died natural death, will last longer and the shadow of his own memory helping — that shadow which is the refuse of the sixth principle left in the fifth — he may deliver discourses through trance speakers and repeat parrot-like that which he knew of and thought much over it, during his life-time. But find me one single instance in the annals of Spiritualism where a returning shell of a Faraday or a Brewster (for even they were made to fall into the trap of mediumistic attraction) said one word more than it knew during its life-time. Where is that scientific shell, that ever gave evidence of that, which is claimed on behalf of the "disembodied Spirit"

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Faraday or a Brewster''' refers to: Michael Faraday (1791- 1867), an English physicist and chemist who worked on electromagnetism and invented the electric motor; and David Brewster (1781-1868), a Scottish physicist who studied optics and biaxial crystals.

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— namely, that a free [[Soul]], the Spirit disenthralled from its body's fetters perceives and sees that which is concealed from living mortal eyes? Challenge the [[Spiritualism|Spiritualists]] fearlessly, I say! Defy the best, the most reliable of mediums — [[William Stainton Moses|Stainton Moses]] for one — to give you through that high disembodied [[Kamaloka#Shells|shell]], that he mistakes for the [[William_Stainton_Moses#Imperator|"Imperator"]] of the early days of his [[mediumship]], to tell you what you will have hidden in your box, if S.M. does not know it; or to repeat to you a line from a [[Sanskrit]] manuscript unknown to his medium, or anything of that kind. Prohpudor! Spirits they call them? Spirits with personal remembrances? As well call personal remembrances the sentences screeched out by a parrot. Why don't you ask [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]] to test [[William_Stainton_Moses#Imperator|+]]? Why not settle his and your mind at rest by suggesting to him to ask a friend or an acquaintance unknown to S.M. — to select an object the nature of which

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* '''Prohpudor''' or proh pudor is a Latin phrase meaning "for shame."

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will remain in its turn unknown to [[C. C. Massey|C.C.M.]], and then see whether [[William_Stainton_Moses#Imperator|+]] will be able to name that object — something possible even to a good [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyant]]. Let the "Spirit" of [[Johann Friedrich Zöllner|Zollner]] — now that he is in the [[Fourth Dimension|"fourth dimension of space"]], and has put up an appearance already with several mediums — tell them the last word of his discovery, complete his astro-physical philosophy. No; Zollner when lecturing through an intelligent medium, surrounded with persons who read his works, are interested in them — will repeat on various tones that which is known to others (not even that which he alone knew, most probably), the credulous, ignorant public confounding the post-hoc with the propter-hoc and firmly convinced of the Spirit's identity. Indeed, it will be worth your while to stimulate investigation in this direction. Yes; personal [[consciousness]] does leave everyone at [[death]]; and when even the centre of [[memory]] is re-established in the [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]], it will remember and speak out its recollections but through the brain of some living human being. Hence —

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Johann K. F. Zöllner''' (1834 – 1882) was a German astrophysicist who studied optical illusions. He became interested in [[Spiritism]] in 1875 when he visited the scientist [[William Crookes]] in England. Zollner wanted a physical scientific explanation for Spiritism and came to the conclusion that physics of a four-dimensional space may explain spiritualism.

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 16|(21)]] — A more or less complete, still dim recollection of its [[Principle#Individuality_and_personality|personality]], and of its purely physical life. As in the cases of complete insanity the final severance of the two higher duads ([[Ātman|7th]] [[Buddhi|6th]] and [[Manas|5th]] [[Kāma|4th]]) at the moment of the former going into [[Life_after_Death#Period_of_gestation|gestation]], digs an impassable gulf between the two. It is not even a portion of the fifth that is carried away — least of all 2 1/2 principles as [[Allan Octavian Hume|Mr. Hume]] crudely puts it in his [[Fragments of Occult Truth (article)|Fragments]] that go into [[Devachan]] leaving but l 1/2 principles behind. The [[Manas]] shorn of its finest attributes, becomes like a flower from which all the aroma has suddenly departed, a rose crushed, and having been made to yield all its oil for the attar manufacture purposes; what is left behind is but the smell of decaying grass, earth and rottenness.

(a) Question the second is sufficiently answered, I believe. (Your second para.) The [[Ego#Spiritual_ego|Spiritual Ego]] goes on evolving personalities, in which "the sense of identity" is very complete while living. After

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their separation from the physical [[Ego]], that sense returns very dim, and belongs wholly to the recollections of the physical man. The Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]] may be a perfect [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|Sinnett]] when wholly engrossed in a game of cards at his club, and when either losing or winning a large sum of money — or a Babu Smut Murky Dass trying to cheat his principal out of a sum of rupees. In both cases — ex-editor and Babu will — as shells, remind anyone who will have the privilege of enjoying an hour's chat with the illustrious disembodied angels, more of the inmates of a lunatic asylum made to play parts in private theatricals as means of hygienic recreation, than of the Caesars and Hamlets they would represent. The slightest shock will throw them off the track and send them off raving.

(b) An error. A. P. Sinnett is not "an absolutely new invention." He is the child and creation of his antecedent personal self; the [[Karma|Karmic]] progeny

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for all he knows, of Nonius Asprena, Consul of the Emperor Domitian — (94 A.D.) together with Arricinius Clementus, and friend of the Flamen Dealis of that day (the high priest of Jupiter and chief of the Flamenes) or of that Flamens himself — which would account for [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A. P. Sinnett]]'s suddenly developed love for [[mysticism]]. A.P.S. — the friend and brother of [[Koot Hoomi|K.H.]] will go to [[Devachan]]; and A.P.S., the Editor and the lawn-tennis man; the Don Juan, in a mild way, in the palmy days of "Saints, Sinners and Sceneries," identifying himself by mentioning a usually covered mole or scar, — will, perhaps, be abusing the Babus through a [[Mediumship|medium]] to some old friend in California or London.

(c) It will find "enough decent material" and to spare. A few years of [[Theosophy]] will furnish it.

(d) Perfectly correctly defined.
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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Nonius Asprena''' was Lucius Nonius Calpurnius Torquatus Asprenas, who served as consul in AD 94. Consul was the highest political office in the Roman Republic.
* '''Domitian''' was last emperor of the Flavian dynasty, comprising the years AD 81 to 96.
* '''Flamen Dealis''' indicates the high priest of Jupiter in the ancient Roman religion.
* '''Don Juan''' is a legendary, fictional libertine, used synonymously for "womanizer", especially in Spanish slang.

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== Page 78 ==

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(e) As much as there is of the [[Principle#Individuality_and_personality|personality]] — in [[Alfred Percy Sinnett|A.P.S.]]'s reflection in the looking glass — of the real, living A.P.S.

(f) The [[Ego#Spiritual ego|Spiritual Ego]] will not think of the A.P.S. the [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]], any more than it will think of the last suit of clothes it wore; nor will it be conscious that the [[Principle#Individuality_and_personality|individuality]] is gone, since that only individuality and Spiritual personality it will then behold in itself alone. ''Nosce te ipsum'' is a direct command of the oracle to the Spiritual [[monad]] in [[Devachan]]; and the [[Skandha#Esoteric_skandhas|"heresy of Individuality"]] is a doctrine propounded by [[Gautama Buddha|Tathagatha]] with an eye to the Shell. The latter whose bumptiousness is as proverbial as that of the [[Mediumship|medium]] when reminded that it is A.P.S. — will echo out: "Of course, no doubt, hand me over some preserved peaches I devoured with such an appetite for breakfast, and a glass of claret!" — and who after this who knew A.P.S. at Allahabad, will dare doubt his identity? And, when left alone for one short instant by some disturbance

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Nosce te ipsum''' is the Latin aphorism "Know thyself."
* '''Tathagatha''' is the name by which [[Gautama Buddha]] referred to himself.
* '''bumptiousness''' is the quality of being crudely or loudly assertive or pushy.

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== Page 79 ==

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in the circle, or the thought of the [[Mediumship|medium]] wandering for a moment to some other person — that [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]] will begin to hesitate in its thoughts whether it is A.P.S., S. Wheeler, or [[Clive Rattigan|Ratigan]]; and end by assuring itself it is Julius Caesar. (g) — and by finally "remaining asleep."

(h) No; it is not conscious of this loss of cohesion. Besides, such a feeling in a shell being quite useless for nature's purposes, it could hardly realize something that could be never even dreamed by a medium or its affinities. It is dimly conscious of its own physical [[death]] — after a prolonged period of time though — that's all. The few exceptions to this rule — cases of half successful [[Black Magic|sorcerers]], of very wicked persons passionately attached to Self — offer a real danger to the living. These very material shells, whose last dying thought was Self, — Self,
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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Page 80 ==

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— Self — and to live, to live! will often feel it instinctively. So do some [[suicide]]s — though not all. What happens then is terrible for it becomes a case of post mortem licanthropy. The [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]] will cling so tenaciously to its semblance of life that it will seek refuge in a new organism in any beast — in a dog, a hyæna, a bird when no human organism is close at hand — rather than submit to annihilation.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 19|(22)]] A question I have no right to answer.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 20|(23)]] Mars and four other planets of which astronomy knows yet nothing. Neither A, B, nor Y, Z, are known; nor can they be seen through physical means however perfected.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 20|(24)]] Most decidedly not. Not even a [[Dhyāni-Chohan|Dhyan Chohan]] of the lower orders could approach it without having its body consumed, or rather annihilated. Only the highest [[Planetary Spirit|"Planetary"]] can scan it. (b) Not unless

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''licanthropy''' or lycanthropy is the professed ability or power of a human being to transform into a wolf or werewolf.

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we call it the vertex of an angle. But it is the vertex of all the [[Planetary Chain|"chains"]] collectively. All of us dwellers of the chains — we will have to [[Evolution|evolute]], live and run the up and down scale in that highest and last of the septenaries chains (on the scale of perfection) before the [[Pralaya#Solar_pralaya|Solar Pralaya]] snuffs out our little system.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 21|(25 & 26)]] . . . "in which case it" — the "it" relates to the [[Buddhi|sixth]] and [[Ātman|seventh]] principles, not to the fifth, for the [[manas]] will have to remain a [[Kāmaloka#Shells|shell]] in each case; only in the one in hand it will have no time to visit [[Mediumship|mediums]]: for it begins sinking down to the [[Moon#The_Eighth_Sphere|eighth sphere]] almost immediately. "Then and there" in the [[eternity]] may be a mighty long period. It means only that the [[monad]] having no [[Karma|Karmic]] body to guide its rebirth falls into non-being for a certain period and then [[reincarnation|reincarnates]] — certainly not earlier than a thousand or two thousand years.

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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No, it is not an "exceptional case." Save a few exceptional cases in the case of the initiated such as our [[Lama#Panchen Lama|Teshu-Lamas]] and the [[Bodhisattva|Boddhisatwas]] and a few others, no [[monad]] gets ever [[reincarnation|reincarnated]] before its appointed cycle.

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 22|(27)]] "How does he toss into confusion." . . . If instead of doing to-day something you have to do you put it off till the next day — does not even this — invisibly and imperceptibly at first, yet as forcibly — throw into confusion many a thing, and in some cases even shuffle the destinies of millions of persons, for good, for [[evil]], or simply in connection with a change, — may be unimportant in itself — still a change? And do you mean to say that such an unexpected, horrid murder has not influenced the destinies of millions?

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''Teshu-Lama''' is a variant spelling for Tashi Lama, also called Panchen Lama, who holds the second highest rank in the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, after the [[Lama#Dalai Lama|Dalai Lama]].

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[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 23|(28)]] Here we are, again. Verily ever since I had the folly of touching upon this subject — i.e. of harnessing the cart before the horse — my nights are bereft of their hitherto innocent sleep! For Heaven's sake take into consideration the following facts and put them together, if you can. (1) The individual units of mankind remain 100 times longer in the transitory spheres of effects than on the globes; (2) The few men of the [[Round#Fifth Round|fifth Round]] do not beget children of the fifth but of your [[Round#Fourth_Round|fourth Round]]. (3) That the [[Pralaya#Obscuration|"obscurations"]] are not [[Pralaya]]s, and that they last in a proportion of 1 to 10, i.e., if a Ring or whatever we call it, the period during which the [[Root-Race|seven Root races]] have to develop and reach their last appearance upon a [[globe]] during that Round — lasts say 10 millions of years, (of course it lasts far longer) then the "obscuration" will last no longer than

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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one million. When our globe having got rid of its last [[Round#Fourth_Round|fourth Round]] men and a few, very few of the [[Round#Fifth Round|fifth]], goes to sleep, during the period of its rest the fifth Round men will be resting in their [[devachan]]s and Spiritual [[loka]]s — far longer at any rate than the fourth Round "angels" in theirs since they are far more perfect. A contradiction, and a "lapsus calami of [[Morya|M.]]" — says Hume; because M. wrote something quite correct though he is no more infallible than I am and might have expressed himself, more than once, very carelessly.

"I want to make out how the next superior Round forms are evolved." My friend, try to understand that you are putting me questions pertaining to the highest [[initiation]]s. That I can give you a general view, but that I dare not nor will I enter upon details

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''lapsus calami''' is a Latin expression for a slip of the pen, an error in writing.

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— though I would if I could satisfy you. Do not you feel that it is one of the highest mysteries than which there is no higher one?

(a) "Dead" but to resurrect in greater glory. Is not what I say, plain?

[[Mahatma_Letter_No._93a#Page 24|(29)]] Of course not, since it is not destroyed, but remains crystallized, so to say — statu quo. At each [[Round]] there are less and less [[Kingdoms_of_Life#Animal_kingdom|animals]] — the latter themselves [[evolution|evoluting]] into higher forms. During the [[Round#First_Round|first Round]] it is they that were the "kings of creation." During the [[Round#Seventh_Round|seventh]] men will have become Gods and animals — intelligent beings. Draw your inferences. Beginning with the [[Round#Second_Round|second Round]], already evolution proceeds on quite a different plan. Everything is evolved and has but to proceed on its

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'''NOTES:'''
* '''statu quo''' or status quo, is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs.

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[[Evolution#Cyclic_evolution|cyclic journey]] and get perfected. It is only the first Round that man becomes from a human being on [[Globe#Globe B|Globe B.]] a mineral, a plant, an animal on [[Globe#Globe C|Planet C]]. The method changes entirely from the second Round; but — I have learned prudence with you; and will say nothing before the time for saying it has come. And now, you had a volume; when will you digest it? Of how many contradictions will I have to be suspected before you understand the whole correctly?

Yours nevertheless, and very sincerely,

[[Koot Hoomi|K. H.]]

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'''NOTES:'''
*

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== Context and background ==

== Physical description of letter ==

The original is in the British Library, Folio 1. According to [[George Linton]] and [[Virginia Hanson]], the letter was written:
<blockquote>
The first part of this letter consists of a long list of questions from APS to KH, written on note paper. Some marginal notes and underscorings have been made by KH in blue pencil and some reference numbers inserted. Part B consists of KH's answers to APS's questions, on full-sized sheets of paper, some folded, some single sheets. The first part is on a rippled white paper, and the latter part is on a smooth, bright pink paper. The KH script is in dull black ink through the answer to Q. 5, then changes to pale blue ink. There are a few marks in blue pencil. The letter gives the impression of having been written intermittently. (See to of p. 439 and top of p. 317.)<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), 157.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Publication history ==

== Commentary about this letter ==

== Notes ==
<references/>
 

== Additional resources ==

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

Mahatma Letter No. 70c

2016-02-21T22:49:53Z

Joe Hasiewicz: /* Page 22 */

Mahatma Letter No. 70c

2016-02-21T22:48:55Z

Joe Hasiewicz: /* Page 22 */

2015-02-08T05:22:55Z

Joe Hasiewicz: