Chapter XVII: Part II: Symbols (4)

It is with sincere and profound regret—though with no surprise, prepared as I am for years for such declarations—that I have read in the Rochester _Occult Word_, edited by Mrs. J. Cables, the devoted president of the T. S. of that place, her joint editorial with Mr. W. T. Brown. This sudden revulsion of feeling is perhaps quite natural in the lady, for she has never had the opportunities given her as Mr. Brown has; and her feeling when she writes that after “a great desire * * to be put into communication with the Theosophical Mahatmas we (they) have come to the conclusion that it is useless to strain the psychical eyes toward the Himalayas * *” is undeniably shared by many theosophists. Whether the complaints are justified, and also whether it is the “Mahatmas” or theosophists themselves who are to blame for it is a question that remains to be settled. It has been a pending case for several years and will have to be now decided, as the two complainants declare over their signatures that “we (they) need not run after Oriental Mystics, _who deny their ability to help us_.” The last sentence, in italics, has to be seriously examined. I ask the privilege to make a few remarks thereon.

To begin with, the tone of the whole article is that of a true _manifesto_. Condensed and weeded of its exuberance of Biblical expressions it comes to this paraphrastical declaration: “We have knocked at their door, and they have not answered us; we have prayed for bread, they have denied us even a stone.” The charge is quite serious; nevertheless, that it is neither just nor fair—is what I propose to show.

As I was the first in the United States to bring the existence of our Masters into publicity; and, having exposed the holy names of two members of a Brotherhood hitherto unknown to Europe and America, (save to a few mystics and Initiates of every age) yet sacred and revered throughout the East, and especially India, causing vulgar speculation and curiosity to grow around those blessed names, and finally leading to a public rebuke, I believe it my duty to contradict the fitness of the latter by explaining the whole situation, as I feel myself the chief culprit. It may do good to some, perchance, and will interest some others.

Let no one think withal, that I come out as a champion or a defender of those who most assuredly need no defense. What I intend, is to present simple _facts_, and let after this the situation be judged on its own merits. To the plain statement of our brothers and sisters that they have been “living on husks,” “hunting after strange gods” without receiving admittance, I would ask in my turn, as plainly: “Are you sure of having knocked at the right door? Do you feel certain that you have not lost your way by _stopping so often on your journey at strange doors, behind which lie in wait the fiercest enemies of those you were searching for_?” Our MASTERS are not “a jealous god;” they are simply holy mortals, nevertheless, however, higher than any in this world, morally, intellectually and spiritually. However holy and advanced in the science of the Mysteries—they are still men, members of a Brotherhood, who are the first in it to show themselves subservient to its time-honored laws and rules. And one of the first rules in it demands that those who start on their journey _Eastward_, as candidates to the notice and favors of those who are the custodians of those Mysteries, should proceed by the straight road, without stopping on every sideway and path, seeking to join other “Masters” and professors often of the Left-Hand Science, that they should have confidence and show trust and patience, besides several other conditions to fulfill. Failing in all of this from first to last, what right has any man or woman to complain of the liability of the Masters to help them?

Truly “‘The Dwellers of the threshold’ are within!”

Once that a theosophist would become a candidate for either _chelaship_ or favours, he must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if not formally offered and accepted between the two parties, and, _that such a pledge is sacred_. It is a bond of _seven_ years of probation. If during that time, notwithstanding the many human shortcomings and mistakes of the candidate (save two which it is needless to specify in print) he remains throughout every temptation _true to the chosen Master_, or Masters, (in the case of _lay_ candidates), and as faithful to the Society founded at their wish and under their orders, then the theosophist will be initiated into—— thenceforward allowed to communicate with his _guru_ unreservedly, all his failings, save this one, as specified, may be overlooked: they belong to his future _Karma_, but are left for the present, to the discretion and judgment of the Master. He alone has the power of judging whether even during those long seven years the _chela_ will be favoured regardless of his mistakes and sins, with occasional communications with, and from the guru. The latter thoroughly posted as to the causes and motives that led the candidate into sins of omission and commission is the only one to judge of the advisability or inadvisability of bestowing encouragement; as he alone is entitled to it, seeing that he is himself under the inexorable law of Karma, which no one from the Zulu savage up to the highest archangel can avoid—and that he has to assume the great responsibility of the causes created by himself.

Thus, the chief and the only indispensable condition required in the candidate or chela on probation, is simply unswerving fidelity to the chosen Master and his purposes. This is a condition _sine qua non_; not as I have said, on account of any jealous feeling, but simply because _the magnetic rapport between the two once broken, it becomes at each time doubly difficult to re-establish it again_; and that it is neither just nor fair, that the Masters should strain their powers for those whose future course and final desertion they very often can plainly foresee. Yet, how many of those, who, expecting as I would call it “favours by anticipation,” and being disappointed, instead of humbly repeating _mea culpa_, tax the Masters with selfishness and injustice. They will deliberately break the thread of connection ten times in one year, and yet expect each time to be taken back on the old lines! I know of one theosophist—let him be nameless though it is hoped he will recognize himself—a quiet, intelligent young gentleman, a mystic by nature, who, in his ill advised enthusiasm and impatience, changed _Masters_ and his ideas about half a dozen times in less than three years. First he offered himself, was accepted on probation and took the vow of chelaship; about a year later, he suddenly got the idea of getting married, though he had several proofs of the corporeal presence of his Master, and had several favours bestowed upon him. Projects of marriage failing, he sought “Masters” under other climes, and became an enthusiastic Rosicrucian; then he returned to theosophy as a Christian mystic; then again sought to enliven his austerities with a wife; then gave up the idea and turned a spiritualist. And now having applied once more “to be taken back as a chela” (I have his letter) and his Master remaining silent—he renounced him altogether, to seek in the words of the above manifesto—his old “Essenian Master and _to test the spirits_ in his name.”

The able and respected editor of the “Occult Word” and her Secretary are right, and have chosen the only true path in which with a very small dose of blind faith, they are sure to encounter no deceptions or disappointments. “It is pleasant for some of us,” they say, “to obey the call of the ‘Man of Sorrows’ who will not turn any away, because they are unworthy or have not scored up a certain percentage of personal merit.” How _do_ they know? unless they accept the cynically awful and pernicious dogma of the Protestant Church, that teaches the forgiveness of the blackest crime, provided the murderer _believes sincerely_ that the blood of his “Redeemer” has saved him at the last hour—what is it but _blind_ unphilosophical faith? Emotionalism is _not_ philosophy; and Buddha devoted his long self sacrificing life to tear people away precisely from that _evil breeding_ superstition. Why speak of Buddha then, in the same breath? The doctrine of salvation by _personal_ merit, and _self_ forgetfulness is the corner-stone of the teaching of the Lord Buddha. Both the writers may have and very likely they did—“hunt after _strange_ gods;” but these _were not our_ MASTERS. They have “denied Him thrice” and now propose “with bleeding feet and prostrate spirit” to “pray that He (Jesus) may take us (them) once more under his wing,” etc. The “Nazarene Master” is sure to oblige them so far. Still they will be “living on _husks_” _plus_ “blind faith.” But in this they are the best judges, and no one has a right to meddle with their private beliefs in our Society; and heaven grant that they should not in their fresh disappointment turn our bitterest enemies one day.

Yet, to those Theosophists, who are displeased with the Society in general, no one has ever made to you any rash promises; least of all, has either the Society or its founders ever offered their “Masters” as a _chromopremium_ to the best behaved. For years every new member has been told that _he was promised nothing_, but had everything to expect only from his own personal merit. The theosophist is left free and untrammeled in his actions. Whenever displeased—_alia tentanda via est_—no harm in trying elsewhere; unless, indeed one has offered himself and is decided to win the Masters’ favors. To such especially, I now address myself and ask: Have you fulfilled _your_ obligations and pledges? Have you, who would fain lay all the blame on the Society and the Masters—the latter the embodiment of charity, tolerance, justice and universal love—have you _led the life_ requisite, and the conditions required from one who becomes a candidate? Let him who feels in his heart and conscience that he has,—that he has never once failed seriously, never doubted his Master’s wisdom, never sought _other_ Master or Masters in his impatience to become an Occultist with powers; and that he has never betrayed his theosophical duty in thought or deed,—let him, I say, rise and _protest_. He can do so fearlessly; there is no penalty attached to it, and he will not even receive a reproach, let alone be excluded from the Society—the broadest and most liberal in its views, the most Catholic of all the Societies known or unknown. I am afraid my invitation will remain unanswered. During the eleven years of the existence of the Theosiphical Society I have known, out of the seventy-two regularly accepted chelas on probation and the hundreds of _lay_ candidates—only _three_ who have not hitherto failed, and _one only_ who had a full success. No one forces anyone into chelaship; no promises are uttered, none except the mutual pledge between Master and the would-be-chela. Verily, Verily, many are the called but few are chosen—or rather few who have the patience of going to the bitter end, if bitter we can call simple perseverance and singleness of purpose. And what about the Society, in general, outside of India. Who among the many thousands of members does _lead the life_? shall any one say because he is a strict vegetarian—_elephants and cows are that_—or happens to lead a celibate life, after a stormy youth in the opposite direction; or because he studies the _Bhagavat-Gita_ or the “Yoga philosophy” _upside down_, that he is a theosophist _according to the Master’s hearts_? As it is not the cowl that makes the monk, so, no long hair with a poetical vacancy on the brow are sufficient to make of one a faithful follower of _divine_ Wisdom. Look around you, and behold our UNIVERSAL Brotherhood so called! The Society founded to remedy the glaring evils of christianity, to shun bigotry and intolerance, cant and superstition and to cultivate real universal love extending even to the dumb brute, what has it become in Europe and America in these eleven years of trial? In one thing only we have succeeded to be considered higher than our Christian Brothers, who, according to Lawrence Oliphant’s graphic expression “Kill one another for Brotherhood’s sake and fight as devils for the love of God”—and this is that we have made away _with every dogma_ and are now justly and wisely trying to make away with the last vestige of even nominal authority. But in every other respect we are as bad as they are: backbiting, slander, uncharitableness, criticism, incessant war-cry and ding of mutual rebukes that Christian Hell itself might be proud of! And all this, I suppose is the Masters’ fault: THEY will not help those who help others on the way of salvation and liberation from selfishness—with kicks and scandals? Truly _we are_ an example to the world, and fit companions for the holy ascetics of the snowy Range!

And now a few words more before I close. I will be asked: “And who are you to find fault with us? Are you, who claim nevertheless, communion with the Masters and receive daily favors from Them; Are you so holy, faultless, and so worthy?” To this I answer: I AM NOT. Imperfect and faulty is my nature; many and glaring are my shortcomings—and for this my Karma is heavier than that of any other Theosophist. _It is_—and must be so—since for so many years I stand set in the pillory, a target for my enemies and some friends also. Yet I accept the _trial_ cheerfully. Why? Because I know that I have, all my faults nothwithstanding, Master’s protection extended over me. And if I have it, the reason for it is simply this: for thirty-five years and more, ever since 1851 that I saw any Master _bodily_ and personally for the first time, _I have never once denied or even doubted Him_, not even in thought. Never a reproach or a murmur against Him has escaped my lips, or entered even my brain for one instant under the heaviest trials. From the first I knew what I had to expect, for I was told that, which I have never ceased repeating to others: as soon as one steps on the Path leading to the _Ashrum_ of the blessed Masters—the last and only custodians of primitive Wisdom and Truth—his Karma, instead of having to be distributed throughout his long life, falls upon him in a block and crushes him with its whole weight. He who believes in what he professes and in his Master, will stand it and come out of the trial victorious; he _who doubts_, the coward who fears to receive his just dues and tries to avoid justice being done—FAILS. He will not escape Karma just the same, but he will only lose that for which he has risked its untimely visits. This is why having been so constantly, so mercilessly slashed by my Karma using my enemies as unconscious weapons, that I have stood it all. I felt sure that Master would not permit that I should perish; that he would always appear at the _eleventh_ hour—_and so he did_. Three times I was saved from death by Him, the last time almost against my will; when I went again into the cold, wicked world out of love for Him, who has taught me what I know and made me what I am. Therefore, I do His work and bidding, and this is what has given me the lion’s strength to support shocks—physical and mental, one of which would have killed any theosophist who would go on doubting of the mighty protection. Unswerving devotion to Him who embodies the duty traced for me, and belief in the Wisdom—collectively, of that grand, mysterious, yet actual Brotherhood of holy men—is my only merit, and the cause of my success in Occult philosophy. And now repeating after the _Paraguru_—my Master’s MASTER—the words He had sent as a message to those who wanted to make of the Society a “miracle club” instead of a Brotherhood of Peace, Love and mutual assistance—“Perish rather, the Theosophical Society and its hapless Founders,” I say perish their twelve years’ labour and their very lives rather than that I should see what I do to-day: theosophists, outvying political “rings” in their search for personal power and authority; theosophists slandering and criticizing each other as two rival Christian sects might do; finally theosophists refusing to _lead the life_ and then criticizing and throwing slurs on the grandest and noblest of men, because tied by their wise laws—hoary with age and based on an experience of human nature milleniums old—those Masters refuse to interfere with Karma and to play second fiddle to every theosophist who calls upon Them and whether he deserves it or not.

Unless radical reforms in our American and European Societies are speedily resorted to—I fear that before long there will remain but one centre of Theosophical Societies and Theosophy in the whole world—namely, in India; on that country I call all the blessings of my heart. All my love and aspirations belong to my beloved brothers, the Sons of old Aryavarta—the Motherland of my MASTER. H. P. BLAVATSKY.

LINES FROM LOWER LEVELS.

Many will turn from this heading. Whether they really live upon the upper levels or only imagine such to be their dwellings, these words are probably mute to them. A laggard in the great race, one who has only just rounded the starting buoy in stress of weather, here signals to his unseen companions amid heavy seas. If a score of blind men, turned loose to beat the city’s by-ways, should meet and compare mischances, some light would presently dawn among them. We are not isolated in spiritual experience. Though Falsehood wears myriad masks, when Truth looks in, she turns the same face on all.

It is of the beginning of the Way that I speak. Confusions and perplexities beset us. Most of these are of our own conjuring. The insidious canker of Doubt is first, is worst of all. Better stop right where you are for a lifetime than advance with this moral leprosy unexterminated. It will spread through future existences until it has eaten the heart to the core. Now it is in our power. Wrestle boldly with every doubt until you have converted it to a certainty; thus you force it to bless you in departing, as Jacob did the Angel. Why should we doubt? The day on which I first heard of the Wisdom-Religion is for me set apart like a potent jewel in the crest of Time. My thought salutes its messengers with the grand old words,—“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth Peace.” The Peace of this religion is the proof absolute of its Wisdom. Our vitality is exhausted with the life struggle; it seems a dead pull against the current. Reason tells us we ought to be able to move with the stream. Man has a false idea of his own requirements; this is why possession satiates all. We are ignorant that the desire for Unity lies hidden in the deeps of every human heart. This is the Truth at the bottom of the well; it is the basic need of all mankind. Recognise it, and you may sweep unwearied along the resistless current of evolutionary progress. We begin to realize the inability of existing creeds to sound and explain our Being. Every one of us craves a belief which shall not be a formula, but Life itself, which shall develop and complete the constituency of lives.

Our religions violate the golden rule of Architecture,—“Ornament construction; do not construct ornamentation.” Their slight framework is florid with theological detail, garlanded with the varying ideals of centuries. Not so does the Master Builder plan. Yet the keystone of each arch is the Truth manifest in the Past, that Truth which still bears witness to Divinity to the new Age.

When men meet their belief in every department of life, when it assists them on every plane, so that they eat better, sleep better, love better, create better and die better by it, then will it be a vital law to them, not a garment to be laid aside on work days. Theosophy does all this. It informs every deed, makes of each fact a new revelation, and testifies to more religion in one chapter of Natural Philosophy, than in all the sermons of next Sunday. Study these grand similitudes and we find how single is Truth, so that the three great laws of Motion are also those of Emotion, and Newton spoke for my heart, as well as for the universe. All life is thus related; if you doubt the validity of theory or action, test them by this law of correspondence.

Do I revolt from the rule of gentle procedure in the teeth of wrath or abuse. I recall the axiom of mechanics,—“Motion seeks the line of least resistance,”—and my moral force proves itself perpetual motion by its avoidances of friction. _Truth is the same in every part._ You shall pass every beam of thought through this prism; if it is a pure ray each component will have its distinct value on its own plane, and all will blend again to Light.

Sometimes we are chilled as by a sense of isolation from the main body of our kind. This is imaginary; you shall not think we are few, or stand alone. Even now the thoughtful listener hears the soughing of the rising flood of Public Opinion. This was the mainstay of Science in her late tilt with the Church. The People, weary of barren Theology demanded in facts, in laws, the manifestation of the Divine. Now it begins to call Science to account for her limitations. Do we doubt the bubbling interest in Psychology? We should scan our newspapers, novels, magazines, boudoir gossip even, to feel the pulse of the general tide. Science yields so far to the pressure as to explain why she cannot or does not make thorough and sustained psychical investigations, and with a blunt,— “so much the worse for you,” the public turns expectantly to the broader or younger men who better gauge the tendency of our time.

This tendency is to coöperation, to unification. Science and Religion are one, are Truth, and blindness is the portion of those who dismember her kingdom. A pertinent case is that of a physician well known to New York clinics who used his mesmeric power in putting patients to sleep in the presence of his students and maintaining their complete unconsciousness during painful operations, thus carried to successful conclusions without the dangerous drawback of anesthetics. Less gifted confreres frowned down the “irregularity.” This is a thinking Age, and men are losing confidence in the judgment of scientists whose biased attitude would bar them from jury service in the pettiest court of the land.

Again there are those who are tried by the mistakes, the treachery, or the public misunderstanding of other adherents of Theosophy. What does it matter? The world swung on while Galileo recanted, and though a disciple betrayed his Master, the Christian world still kneels. Our noblest opponents are often unconscious Theosophists, judging them by their fervid search for Truth. When _their hour_ strikes, they will find her; meanwhile Wisdom needs no converts. Man passes; _Truth is_, and needs no concern of ours. Do nut think either that the Wisdom-Religion is only for the strong or the intellectual; it is for all. Food is meant to sustain life, and Love to develop it, but excess in either may kill. So those whose nature is morbid, exaggerate the aspect of Truth and go mad of their own phantasms. Every Science, every Art, every Religion has its list of these moral suicides and those who confront you with it are like the old nurses who scare children from the jam closet with “bogies.”

I said that we breed our own perplexities. Take the first day of the new life, when with fledgling resolves aflutter we come glowing and resolute down the stairs. We had ordered a spartan meal which Love has spared us. Frowning, we order the dainties away and sit reflecting on the encumbrances of earthly affection; wounded, it leaves our side. Our plain food comes; it is ill cooked and the retarded servant has a scowl which we resent: the household jangles and jars. The meal has not refreshed us, and the lack of the soothing but condemned cigar brings our irritability to a head. We hasten to lock ourselves into the study for meditation; but a bird sings in at the window, and Love’s voice pleads at the door. We shut out the song and chide the syren. Why is our heart so heavy now when bent on eternal things? Knocking! We open with a martyr face. A friend is there, a dogged churchman; his salvation is in our hands! He chats of the weather, our club, state politics. We broach a higher theme, we denounce, cut and thrust, argue. Surprised he listens in courteous silence, and as he leaves us we remember too late that he too cherishes his religion, we curse the follies of the wretched day and call Theosophy for the nonce “impracticable.” Brothers! the man of creeds who can hear our dogmatism with self control is perhaps nearer the Essential than we are. He who plunges into restraints which unhinge and irritate him is no better than the man who loses his reason through drink. Both lack moderation, the result is the same, and we have only to do with results. Devote your thoughts to ascetic meals, and no Lucullus of the town is more prostrate before his viands than yourself. Moderation declares the sage. Accept all that comes with equal content, the thought held high above all. When the daily functions are fulfilled I have done nothing; the soul is no participant in these. Advance towards the Eternal and the Transient will imperceptibly drop away from you. No shirking of the duties of our position avails. _Comrades! The battle field is there where the long roll finds you standing._ Your past acts enlisted you under just that flag; fight it out there! The universal charge is carried through the vigor of individuals, each acting from his own headcentre and not from that of another. “The duties of a man’s own particular calling, although not free from faults, is far preferable to the duty of another, let it be ever so well pursued.”[147] On this plane we are a body militant; on the next plane we shall transform this activity, but as long as individuality exists, it would seem that each must move in an orbit of his own. There is as much egotism in snatching at the burden not meant for us, as in refusing that which is. Do all necessary acts promptly and with your best ability, abandoning at once all care for the result. Do you say this is not Theosophy? You mistake. True Theosophy is everything that elevates or aids mankind, were it but the singing of a ballad to lighten another’s toil. “It is not that you must rush madly or boldly out _to do, to do_. Do what you find to do. Desire ardently to do it, and even when you shall not have succeeded in carrying out anything but some small duties, some words of warning, your strong desire will strike like Vulcan upon other hearts in the world, and suddenly you will find that done which you had longed to be the doer of. Then rejoice, that another had been so fortunate as to make such a meritorious Karma. Thus like the rivers running into the unswelling passive ocean, will your desires enter into your heart.” Drop this concern for ephemera and forms; heed essentials only. Get to the centre of every vital fact and live there as at the heart of an opal, darting forth prismatic rays of Love and Faith upon all created things.

If we set out upon a journey to lands unknown, we should observe the inhabitants, gathering the spirit of their laws from their manners, ourselves courteous yet cautious with all. So in this passage to the unseen, that which is essential is the spirit of things. What affair is it of mine if this man glows with gratified desire, or that woman shines in undue laces and coquetries? Do I know the principles of their constitution? Can I vouch that these errors are not the mere husk of habit, which dropping off may reveal a larger kernel of Virtue than I possess? Nor will I hastily become the spiritual bondsman of him who stands above me. He has not exhausted the sum of Truth; to-morrow I shall find a fraction of my own. All these finical distinctions are not of the Eternal. The substratum of all things is Wisdom. The twist of Failure has its strands of silver. The pratings of the fool dissuade men from folly. I have never done anything of myself: a clarion impulse commands my best deeds; high thoughts radiate to me from I know not what sphere. Ask yourself before friend or foe,—“How does the spirit manifest in him?” For above and below it manifests equally. The undeviating brute, true to its every principle, has a volume of teaching for us. We cannot read until we know the alphabet and Nature holds our primer daily before us. Do not hawk Truth about to the careless crowd. Not because you belittle it, (that is impossible,) nor yet yourself, (that is immaterial,) but because you must hold fast in silence to all that you possess to support you in the tests of the future. Nor is Truth a nostrum to be forced down the unready throat. Thereby you disgust a man with Truth; who covets that responsibility? Ah, gentle hearts and virile minds! Are you wounded by the wantonness of those you long to save? These errors are perhaps their appointed teachers in your stead. Error is not exempt from the law! Can Love check a cyclone in mid career, or does Reason outrun the whirlwind? Desire has a lustier voice than yours. Let these errant ones wisely alone. Presently when success is at an ebb, or the complacent Ego is stung by pride or pain, they will hear the low plaint of the soul. Then, their state related to yours, they will turn to you as the heliotrope to the sun. Trust to the law of spiritual affinity. He for whom you have a thought will be attracted to you for it; he will in some way ask it of you. Distrust the intellect in these replies. Only the dwellers of the upper levels draw their thought crystal pure from the Fountain-head of Mind. Below, sympathy is the universal solvent; its ardent fusion welds mankind. Speak to me in our common language; it is that of the heart. You cannot so much as tie up a straying rosetree without sympathy. Try it, and the tender shoots are nipped as by a frost. Do you say that it is hard that you should not help others? Perhaps you only want to help them in your own way. The difference between loving a man for himself, and loving him for myself, is the difference between “heaven” and “hell.” There is no hell but that which we create in our hearts, and selfishness is its yawning portal. Effort for Wisdom is help for all; he who thinks wisely does a deed of beneficence. Beneath generous yearnings lurks sometimes the wish that this “I,” shall become influential or admired, have clients and suitors in the anteroom. Lest I deceive myself I will mutely speed my good wishes to all. Only when we have learned how to preserve a wise silence, will the first stammerings of speech come to us. Speak then from your own knowledge, simply, without trying to adorn Truth. Many of our most valued writers are at times too transcendent, too erudite for us of the lower level. As the great orator or actor sees one face grow towards his from out the vast field of faces, and concentrating his burning purpose into that focus, sees streaming thence the homogeneous force which electrifies the throng,—so I would have each writer among you address his thought to some especial comrade within his mind, that you may drop this mantle of remoteness, and let us feel you tense and vibrant with helpfulness, pressing close to our side. The West needs a more ringing note than the mystic Orient mind. Let the spirit of your nation speak through your work and to your fellows every word will be an occult charm.

Why are we so impatient that we do not receive the accolade of accepted duty from those Royal Souls who procede us on the Way? “They also serve who only stand and wait.”[148] He who cannot wait contentedly may be sure he cannot serve. We must master the diurnal before we can overcome the spiritual. Some say that a heroic deed is easier than submission to pinpricks. We may survive Niagara when a drop of water per second on the brain is madness. Friends; the struggle for the Eternal is not one daring deed nor yet hundreds of them. It is a calm unbroken forgetfulness of the lower self for all time. Begin it on your present plane. You have within you the same guide that the Masters possess. By obeying It, they have become what they are. Hark! A voice resounds within. “Know thy true Self; it is thy guide.” If the voice seems silent, it is perhaps because you ask with the mind only, which is a higher kind of curiosity. When a spiritual need cries out within you, the answer will come with a flash to the reverent listener. But in all the three worlds there is no power to save you but your own. When we have exhausted the possibilities of growth on our present plane, we rise naturally to a higher level. If here we find a Master, it is because we have come into the region where he dwells. Better than desiring to deserve is deserving to desire. Of this be sure. All that is rightfully yours will come to you. So reads the Law.

As a mountain climber leans forward, treads zig-zag, counteracting gravity and the air’s resistance, so shall you walk with care. We do not know what moral resistance we arouse, what unseen evil lurks near, what stone our passage may loosen to fall on those below. We do not know the delicate adjustment of this aerial world. Keep eyes and mind fixed on the heights above, lest the yawning abyss from which you rose, attract you. Distrust your emotions, your thoughts above all. An insidious thought, like a traitor in the fortress, tends outward to the legions of evil and would deliver you up to them. Who knows where the ripples of a hasty thought may end? We are pledged by our theosophic vow to do naught that can dishonor our Society. What more dishonoring than unjust, angered or vagrant fancies which corrupt the atmosphere of others and may breed a moral pestilence. “He that hateth his brother is a murderer.”[149] Perhaps there are times when this is literally true. “If he does not love his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, Whom he hath not seen?” Pass this word along the line;—“Eternal vigilance is the price of safety.”

You who are inclined to dispute these thoughts, do better; ignore them. They are a life experience, not meant for you who have it not, nor are you once named herein. They are true from one standpoint and for those upon the same plane. Hereafter all must alchemize virtues and vices alike. Be not discouraged at these necessary transitions; they do not convict you of radical error. Give me an unknown seed; its potentiality is a secret from me, but in faith I plant and tend it. As it waxes to the budding glories of branch and flower, and thrills with the fecund boon of fruitage, I am no whit the loser, and hidden at the root of this larger heritage, the same seed remains life bestowing and true. Thus Knowledge is not final; it must expand and germinate or it is but a dead thing. “Veil upon veil shall lift, but there shall be veil upon veil behind.”[150]

Does he who writes thus always follow his own teachings? _No!_ A hundred, a thousand times, no! Deluded, he climbs by devious paths and from the very brink of attainment, falls!

“Jove strikes the Titans down. Not when they set about their mountain piling, but when one stone more would complete the work.”[151]

Then with toil and pain he rises and cons the chart once more. Beloved Brothers!—and there is nowhere one so lost, so estranged, so low or so great whom this name does not call—he will have received these blows to a benign purpose, if their teachings shall roll away a single stone from your upward path. J——.

POETICAL OCCULTISM.

SOME ROUGH STUDIES OF THE OCCULT LEANINGS OF THE POETS.

III.

Many will find in Whitman, the fullest measure of mystic truths, plainly and significantly stated, to be met with in any modern poet. For instance, a recognition of the reality of Reincarnation, and of its necessity, constantly recurs in his poems. Passages like these attest it: “Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years.” Births have brought us richness and variety, and other births have brought us richness and variety. “And as to you Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (no doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)” In contemplating an idiot he muses:

“And I knew for my consolation what they knew not,
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother,
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement,
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and unharmed, every inch
as good as myself.”

Are not the “agents,” mentioned above, the operations of Karmic law? Among the last lines of the closing poem of his volume are the following:

“I receive now again of my many translations, from my avatars
ascending, while others doubtless await me,
An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts
awakening rays about me, _So long!_
Remember my words, _I may again return_.”

Neither rhyme nor verse are essential to true poetry. Even words are but its vehicle, and not the poetry itself. Poetry is that manifestation of the mind which excites the imagination and arouses in responsive minds a sense of beauty. All that which does this is poetic in quality: that which does not, which awakens no response, leaving one cold and unimpressed, is prosaic. Poetry, therefore, possesses the rythmic quality, for beauty appeals to no sense, except through its power of producing rythmic action upon the brain through the nerves of sight, hearing, etc. Rythm is a product of harmonious vibration and produces the sensation of beauty by its play upon the nerves in a succession of reiterated, regular groups of impressions. All sensations of ugliness, etc., which are the causes of pain and disease, are due to the discordant impressions made by irregularity in the series of vibrations. Thus does strict mathematical law underlie all effects of beauty. All poetry is in some way rythmic, and arouses rythmic action.

The highest poetry is truth made manifest in the guise of beauty. Poets have often expressed in verse their feeling of the total inadequacy of words to present to others the sublimity and beauty of the thoughts which at moments occur to them. The poetic temperament is one which enables an approach to that state which some exalted men attain in perfection, and which is the ultimate destiny of the entire human race. The poet perceives fragments of the Divine thought as embodied in natural materials; he reads pages of the great book of Creation and interprets more or less clearly the significance of the symbols that exist on every hand in growing things, in things inanimate, in the waters and the heavens, and in the thoughts, sentiments, passions and emotions of men. In assuming the mental state which may be called the _poetic attitude_, he throws himself into rapport with his Higher self, his _atma_, and thus obtains a glimpse of the eternal truth, so much of which his memory retains as accords with his personality and with the nature of his mood; of this he incorporates in poetic form that which his power of expression enables him to give. Walt Whitman characterizes this state in his lines:

“I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons
of things,
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen,
I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself—it
is very wonderful!”

The more unconscious one becomes of physical surroundings the more clearly does his mind act; its operations are attended with less friction. By withdrawing his attention from bodily environment he enters upon the plane of the higher consciousness. This accounts for the greater ease with which mental work proceeds after one has been engaged in it for some little time; it absorbs his attention so that the surrounding objects and circumstances no longer distract it. In other words, the mental machinery settles down to smooth running, after overcoming the various hitches and obstructions attending the starting of the train of thought. Everyone knows how earnest devotion to any object makes him oblivious to all else. Under such conditions one, in reality, loses consciousness and is merged in the object. Self, the illusory Self, simply consists in a sense of the existence of the body and the relations borne to it by surrounding objects.

Therefore, in concentration of the mind upon the object lies the true secret of power, and the man who best knows how to do this is the most powerful among his fellows. The best work is that done when one is least conscious of material environment. This accounts for remarkable examples of work done in a somnambulistic state when all consciousness of physical surroundings is lost, and the Self becomes so absorbed in the object that on returning to ordinary consciousness it cannot remember the process of its most perfect activity of thought. And yet people refuse to accept the truth of Reincarnation because they cannot remember, in this gross physical state, their former existences through the intervening _Devachanic_ periods when their consciousness was lifted to a plane above the thralldom of matter!

Whoever knows anything of ceremonial magic, whether practically or theoretically, recognizes the necessity of rythmic action, or the institutions of a regularly recurring set of vibrations. Many will testify to the marvels wrought by the earnest repetitions of a rythmic formula. It seems likely that the transfer of consciousness and the performance of phenomenal feats by Adepts are wrought by their command of some formula or method which enables them instantly and perfectly to achieve the harmonious condition of mental vibration crudely acquired by novices only by elaborate processes. The logical inference may be drawn that the purpose of the rythmic form of poetry is not only to arouse harmonious thoughts in the minds of hearers or readers, but is due to the fact that the poet, by subjecting his mind to a rythmic flow of thought, opens it to the reception of impressions from the highest source of thought. In the words “I nudge myself to listen” the poet strikingly and graphically depicts the effort to maintain his concentration of mind as he lies abstracted when he feels his attention slipping away from the sublime mysteries which, in the greatness of their wonder, are beyond his power to realize in any thoughts he may frame. Poets are often unconscious of the full greatness of the truths they reveal after the moment of their receptive state has passed, but they, perhaps, awake to a sense of the true significance of their words years after.

This concentration of mind is insisted on in the Hindu systems in many different ways. It is called by them Ekkragrata or _one-pointedness_. In the dialogues the expression is constantly used, and Krishna is said to say to Arjuna (in _Bagavad-Gita_). “Has thou listened to me with thy mind fixed on one point?” It is to bring about such a condition that practitioners of Hatha Yoga—which in English simply means any practice tending to develop psychical powers, such as mediumship and the like—prescribe that the Yogee shall sit with his sight concentrated upon the tip of his nose. And this practice, although scarcely commendable, has a scientific basis which shows that the much belittled Aryans had a wonderful fund of knowledge. The fixing of the eyes upon the tip of the nose puts the focus about three inches from the eyeball, and that produces first, concentration, because of the effort to remain fixed, and secondly, a hypnotic state in which trance results with psychic vision and the like. They prescribed it for another reason not likely to be admitted by our science; three inches from the eyes was said by them to be the clairvoyant point.

Our poet Whitman, whether he was aware of it or not, constantly enunciated the doctrine of Karma. In “Assurances,” to be found in _Leaves of Grass_, he says:

I need no assurances. I am a man who is pre-occupied of his own soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet and beside the hands and face
I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of,
calm and actual faces.
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in
any iota of the world.
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless;
in vain I try to think how limitless.
I do not doubt that the orbs and the systems of orbs play their swift
sports through the air on purpose, and that I shall one day be
eligible to do as much as they, and more than they.
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on millions of years.
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their
exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the
hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice.
I do not doubt that the passionately-wept deaths of young men are
provided for, and that the deaths of young women and the deaths
of little children are provided for.
(Did you think life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport
of all life, not well provided for?)
I do not doubt that wrecks at sea, no matter what the horror of them,
no matter whose wife, child, husband, father, lover, has gone
down, are provided for to the minutest points.
I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any time,
is provided for in the inherences of things.
I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I
believe Heavenly Death provides for all.

Here he dwells upon the belief that all things are provided for. It would be error to say that he was a fatalist, just as it is a mistake to hold that the Mohammedan doctrine of “Kismet” is pure fatalism. Edwin Arnold in “Pearls of the Faith,” enlarges on that pearl called _Al-Kadar_, in these words:

“When ye say _Kismet_, say it wittingly, O, true believers! under Allah’s throne place is not left for those accursed three, ‘Destiny,’ ‘Fortune,‘ ‘Chance.’ Allah alone ruleth his children: _Kismet_ ye shall deem each man’s alloted portion * * *”

And Whitman plainly states that the provision which is made for all the happenings is a provision existing “in the inherences of things,” and not a fatalistic decree by an irresponsible Almighty.

He also says that he is limitless. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. Everyone is limitless, for Ishwara, the Lord, dwells in the heart of every mortal being. Jesus also, said; “the kingdom of heaven is _within_ you.” Now the kingdom of heaven cannot be apart from God, so that the Nazarene herein says the same thing as the Upanishads.

Again, in the lines, “I do not doubt that interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice,” Whitman might be said to be taking the words from the mouths of those sages who in ancient India penned the Upanishads. In those it is incessantly insisted that these interiors really are the Universal Self which is “the eye of the eye and the hearing of the ear.” And a knowledge of that is the key to unlock the doors of glory and praise. As it is beautifully said in Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad:[152]

“This Self is the footstep of everything, for through it one knows everything. And as one can find again by footsteps what was lost, thus he who knows this finds glory and praise.”

And further, “Therefore, now, also, he who thus knows that he is Brahman (the Self) becomes all this, and even the Devas cannot prevent it, for he himself is their Self.” S. B. J.

APOLLONIUS AND THE MAHATMAS.

[READ BEFORE THE MALDEN BRANCH, T. S.]

(_Concluded._)

When Apollonius asked about the wise men whom Alexander the Great was said to have conquered and then held converse with, Phraotes said that they were the Oxydraks, a warlike people who claimed Wisdom though they knew nothing of consequence; the truly wise men dwelt between the Hyphasis and Ganges. Had Alexander gone thither he could not have conquered them, even with ten thousand Achilles and thirty thousand Ajaxes. “For they fight not in battle against advancing enemies, but being holy men, beloved by God, they repulse them through aerial apparitions and lightning flashes.”

When Apollonius took his departure Phraotes gave him the following significant letter to the Brahmins:

“The King Phraotes greets his teacher Iarchas and the Wise men with him. Apollonius, the wisest of men, regards you as wiser than himself, and comes to learn from you. Let him not depart without knowledge of all which you yourselves know. For thus nothing of your wisdom will be lost; since no one speaks better than he, or has a truer memory. Let him also behold the throne whereon I sat when thou, Father Iarchas, gavest me my kingdom. His attendants also deserve praise for their attachment to such a man. Be thou happy. Be happy all of you.”

When they came near the hill where the wise men dwelt their guide was filled with fear, for the Indians stood more in awe of these men than of their own King, and the King who ruled the land where they lived was accustomed to consult them about everything he said or did.

When near a village not a stadium from the hill, a youth approached them, blacker than any Indian, with a gleaming, moon-shaped mark between his eyebrows. He bore a golden anchor, which in India took the place of the Herald’s staff. He addressed Apollonius in Greek, which did not astonish him, since all the dwellers in the village [a lamasary?] spoke that tongue, but it did astonish the others to hear their master called by name; Apollonius, however, it filled with confidence as he remembered the purpose of his journey. “We have come to men truly wise,” he said to Damis, “for they have a fore-knowledge of things.” Asking the youth what was to be done, he was told: “Those with you remain _here_; thou, however, shalt come just as thou art, for so _They_ command.” In this _They_ Apollonius recognized Pythagorean language and he followed with joy.