Chelaship

Chelaship or Discipleship is a term that denotes the process of probation and training by which an aspirant is prepared for Initiation by a Master of Wisdom.

Rules for Chelaship

To become an Adept is not an easy task. H. P. Blavatsky stated: "Were adeptship easy of attainment many would achieve it, but it is the hardest task in nature". In 1883, she published some of the rules for chelaship:

From Book IV of Kiu-ti, chapter on “the Laws of Upasana,” we learn that the qualifications expected in a Chela were:

1. Perfect physical health;
2. Absolute mental and physical purity;
3. Unselfishness of purpose; universal charity; pity for all animate beings;
4. Truthfulness and unswerving faith in the law of Karma, independent of any power in nature that could interfere: a law whose course is not to be obstructed by any agency, not to be caused to deviate by prayer or propitiatory exoteric ceremonies;
5. A courage undaunted in every emergency, even by peril to life;
6. An intuitional perception of one’s being the vehicle of the manifested Avalokiteshvara or Divine Atman (Spirit);
7. Calm indifference for, but a just appreciation of everything that constitutes the objective and transitory world, in its relation with, and to, the invisible regions.

Such, at the least, must have been the recommendations of one aspiring to perfect Chelaship. With the sole exception of the first, which in rare and exceptional cases might have been modified, each one of these points has been invariably insisted upon, and all must have been more or less developed in the inner nature by the Chela’s UNHELPED EXERTIONS, before he could be actually put to the test.

In the Theosophical Journal Lucifer, April, 1888, Mme. Blavatsky writes the article "Practical Occultism" where she gives some very specific "conditions under which alone the study of Divine Wisdom can be pursued with safety." In a later issue published in June, 1889, she answers a question about the "practicality" of some of the requirements for chelaship as given in "Practical Occultism":

Chelaship has nothing whatever to do with means of subsistence or anything of the kind, for a man can isolate his mind entirely from his body and its surroundings. Chelaship is a state of mind, rather than a life according to hard and fast rules on the physical plane. This applies especially to the earlier, probationary period, while the rules given in Lucifer for April last pertain properly to a later stage, that of actual occult training and the development of occult powers and insight. These rules indicate, however, the mode of life which ought to be followed by all aspirants so far as practicable, since it is the most helpful to them in their aspirations. It should never be forgotten that Occultism is concerned with the inner man who must be strengthened and freed from the dominion of the physical body and its surroundings, which must become his servants. Hence the first and chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then follow self-knowledge and self-mastery. These are all-important; while outward observance of fixed rules of life is a matter of secondary moment.

According to A. Besant and C. W. Leadbeater

Both Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater promoted the book At the Feet of the Master as "a statement so concise and yet so complete, so simple and yet so all-inclusive" about the necessary preparation to pass through the portal of Initiation. In this book, the qualifications given by Shankaracharya in his Vivekacudamani (viveka, vairagya, shatsampatti, and mumukshutva) are used as a model, though in some cases are translated differently. The qualifications are: Discrimination, Desirelessness, Good Conduct (Self-control as to the Mind, Self-control in Action, Tolerance, Cheerfulness, One-pointedness, and Confidence), and Love. About these qualifications Dr. Besant said:

What of the famous qualifications for initiation which he must now seek to make his own? They are not asked for in perfection, but some possession of them there must be ere the portal may swing open to admit him. . . . The completion of the qualities may be left for the other side, if the beginnings are seen; but the initiate must fill up the full tale, and the more there is lacking the more will there be to be done.

Stages of Chelaship

In the writings of Mme. Blavatsky and the Mahatmas we can see that the would-be disciple has first to go through a period of probation (typically, but not always, lasting seven years) "to prove their fitness, and develop the qualities necessary to the security of both Master and pupil." After this period the disciple is accepted, and eventually can be initiated.

Later teachings

C. Jinarājadāsa wrote:

The first stage is that of the Probationary Pupil, when a Master of the Wisdom puts the aspirant “on Probation”. This is done either on the physical or the astral plane, but more usually on the latter. . . . If, after seven years of testing, the pupil on Probation is found to have grown in self-sacrifice to man and to God, his Master then finally receives the pupil into the stage of Acceptance. . . . A still closer link between Master and pupil takes place at the next stage, when the pupil becomes the “Son of the Master”. . . . Coincident usually with the stage of the Son of the Master, the pupil is presented by his Master to the Great White Brotherhood for Initiation.

Online resources

Articles and pamphlets

• Discipleship in Theosopedia
• Discipleship by Annie Besant
• Qualifications For Chelaship by Mohini M. Chatterjee
• How to Enter the Path to Infinite Life by Franz Hartmann
• To Aspirants for Chelaship by William Q. Judge

Books

• At the Feet of the Master by Alcyone (J. Krishnamurti)
• The Path of Discipleship by Annie Besant

Audio

• Is Discipleship Possible in the West? by L. Gordon Plummer

Video

• Approaches to Discipleship and the Theosophical Society by C.V.K. Maithreya