Mahatma Letter to H. S. Olcott - LMW 1 No. 54
Quick Facts | |
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People involved | |
Written by: | Narayan |
Received by: | Henry Steel Olcott |
Sent via: | unknown |
Dates | |
Written on: | unknown |
Received on: | August 1877 |
Other dates: | none |
Places | |
Sent from: | unknown |
Received at: | New York |
Via: | unknown |
This is Letter No. 54 in Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, in which Master Narayan comments to Henry Steel Olcott about Emily Kislingbury.[1] In editions 1945-1974, before the First Series was resequenced in 1988, this was called Letter 41.
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Note by Master Narayan
Note written in red following postscript: She is a sweet, truthful, sincere nature. Would to heavenly powers there were a few more like her in London. Teach her & take care of her.
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Page 1 transcription, image, and notes
Emily Kislingbury letter to Col. Olcott: Niagara Falls. Sept 30th 1877 Dear Col. Olcott Very many thanks for so fully answering my letter. I hope I am not bothering you too much by writing some more. It is time that I shall see you in a few days, but I can think so much better alone, & my travelling companion having just left me, I have a whole day's complete solitude & silence, and you can answer me when I come. 1) If Jesus had the complete knowledge of man's true nature & of the powers appertaining thereto, why did he not teach the same to his disciples who were, as shown in some recorded instances, anything by self-controlled? 2) Why did not he, or they, frame |
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a system of self-discipline, or make a training in the same a condition of baptism, or true membership of their churches, instead of framing a system of theology built upon faith, which has been a subject of dispute ever since, & productive of some of the worst passions? 3) if Jesus had understood his own mission, could he have been so misunderstood by his followers, & would the Christian Church have been so great a failure as it is now? What I find in the teaching of Jesus, is the substitution of unselfish for selfish motives, of unselfish for selfish aims. Love your enemies & do good, hoping for nothing again; "be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." But the means to |
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Note attached to letter
Letter 41 See comment in red pencil by Master Agastya at end of letter following postscript "She is a sweet, truthful, sincere nature. Would to heavenly powers there were a few more like her in London. Teach her & take care of her. [Signature] Tell her I was several times with her at the Hdqrs." |
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Context and background
Mr. Jinarajadasa provided this background information:
There is a photographic reproduction of this Letter in The Theosophist, December 1933, p. 310. It appears at the bottom of the last page of a letter written by Miss Emily Kislingbury to Colonel Olcott. She was the secretary of the British National Association of Spiritualists of London. She went to the U.S.A. on a holiday in August 1877. She had already joined the Society in February of that year. She wrote to Colonel Olcott from Niagara Falls to announce her arrival in New York, and on opening her letter he found this message. The Master who wrote it is the same as the writer of Letter 24 in the second series of these letters. At the bottom of Letter 24, H.P.B. has written in blue pencil, ‘the old gentleman your Narayan’, as the signature in it is in an unknown script. The handwriting of the letter which is at the end of Miss Kislingbury’s note is the same, though the signature, again in an unknown script, is different. This Adept is he who helped H.P.B. constantly in he writing of Isis Unveiled, and was often in her body writing and meeting people. He is known in India by the name which he bore thousands of years ago, the Rishi Agastya, and is one of the few adepts who are in old bodies. In 1885, he was living not far from Madras, and C.W. Leadbeater has narrated how T. Subba Row and he went by train to visit the venerable Master. The Master has all India under his charge as the occult administrator of her destinies, and has been therefore called by some, the Regent of India. I have been unable to find where the original letter is, though a speech of Miss Kislingbury’s after her return to London is pasted in H.P.B.’s scrap-book, vol. IV. It describes phenomena by H.P.B., and states about her, ‘my acquaintance — my friendship — a friendship to last I hope for life and for ever, with the being called Madame Blavatsky’. ‘Headquarters’ evidently refers to the offices of the Spiritualist Association. Miss Emily Kislingbury was faithful to the end, and was of the group round H.P.B. when she passed away. A faded photograph of her is reproduced in The Golden Book of the Theosophical Society, p.25.[2]
Physical description of letter
The original of this letter is preserved at the Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai, India.
Publication history
There is a photographic reproduction of this Letter in The Theosophist, December 1933, p. 310. It was not published in the early editions of Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series. It first appeared as Letter 41 in the 1945 edition, and was renamed as Letter 54 when the First Series was resequenced in 1988.