Letter №20

Just home. Received more letters than I care to answer — yours excepted. Having nothing particular to say, I will simply attend to your questions; a task which may seem an easy one, but is not so, in reality, if we but remember that similar in that to the deity described in Upanishad as "Sokāmayata bahuh syām prajāye yeti"—they "love to be many and to multiply." At any rate, thirst for knowledge was never regarded as a sin and you will always find me prompt to answer such queries—that can be answered.

Certainly I am of opinion that since our correspondence was established for the good of the many it would prove very little profitable to the world at large unless you do recast the teachings and ideas contained therein "in the form of an essay," not only on the occult philosophical view of creation but upon every other question. The sooner you begin your "future book" the better; for who can answer for unexpected incidents? Our correspondence may break off suddenly the obstacle coming from those who know best. Their mind—as you know, is a sealed book for many of us, and which no amount of "art magic" can break open. Further "aids to reflection" will however come in good time; and the little I am permitted to explain, may, I hope, prove more comprehensive than Eliphas Levi's Haute Magie. No wonder you find it cloudy, for it was never meant for the uninitiated reader. Eliphas studied from the Rosicrucian MSS. (now reduced to three copies in Europe). These expound our eastern doctrines from the teachings of Rosencranz, who, upon his return from Asia dressed them up in a semi-Christian garb intended as a shield for his pupils, against clerical revenge.

hardly are they able to outline the paths through which the invisible messengers they call "senses" pass on their way to man's perceptions; their school science is a hot-bed of doubts and conjectures; it teaches but its own sophistry, infects with its emasculation, its scorn for truth, its false morality and dogmatism, and its representatives would boast knowing "the limits of the natural." Bus—my good friend; I would forget you belonged to this generation, and are an admirer of your "modern Science." Her behests and oracular verdicts are on a level with the papal—non possumus. Yes; the Saturday Review has let us off easily enough to be sure. Not so the Spiritualist. Poor perplexed, wee paper! You gave it a tremendous blow. Losing its footing on mediumistic ground, it fights its death struggle for supremacy of English adeptship over Eastern knowledge. I almost hear its sub rosa cry: "If we Spiritualists are shown to be in the wrong box so are you — theosophists." The great "Adept," the formidable J.K. is certainly a dangerous enemy; and I am afraid, our Boddhisatwas will have to confess some day their profound ignorance before his mighty learning. "Real Adepts like Gautama Buddha or Jesus Christ did not shroud themselves in mystery, but came and taught openly," quoth our oracle. If they did it's news to us — the humble followers of the former. Gautama is qualified the "Divine Teacher" and at the same time "God's messenger"!! (See Spt., July 8th, p. 21. para 2.) Buddha has now become the messenger of one, whom He, Sankia K'houtchoo, the precious wisdom, has dethroned 2,500 years back, by unveiling the Tabernacle and showing its emptiness. Where did that cockney adept learn his Buddhism, I wonder? You really ought to advise your

buffets of fortune dealt out by the respected hand of him whom I so revere. Cruel as the reminder seemed to me it was just, for you have pronounced these words at Simla: "I am a member of the Theosophical Society but in no way a Theosophist," you said. I am not breaking confidence in revealing this result of my plaidoyer to you, as I am even advised to do so. We have to travel then, at the same slow rate at which we have hitherto gone, or — halt at once and write Finis at the bottom of our letters. I hope you will give preference to the former.

Once we are upon the topic, I wish you would impress upon your London friends some wholesome truths that they are but too apt to forget, even, when they have been told of them over and over again. The Occult Science is not one, in which secrets can be communicated of a sudden, by a written or even verbal communication. If so, all the "Brothers" should have to do, would be to publish a Hand-book of the art which might be taught in schools as grammar is. It is the common mistake of people that we willingly wrap ourselves and our powers in mystery — that we wish to keep our knowledge to ourselves, and of our own will refuse — "wantonly and deliberately" to communicate it. The truth is that till the neophyte attains to the condition necessary for that degree of Illumination to which, and for which, he is entitled and fitted, most if not all of the Secrets are incommunicable. The receptivity must be equal to the desire to instruct.

alike vary much, as anyone will easily understand; thus, in each case, the instructor has to adapt his conditions to those of the pupil, and the strain is terrible for to achieve success we have to bring ourselves into a full rapport with the subject under training. And as, the greater the powers of the Adept the less he is in sympathy with the natures of the profanes who often come to him saturated with the emanations of the outside world, those animal emanations of the selfish, brutal, crowd that we so dread — the longer he was separated from that world and the purer he has himself become, the more difficult the self-imposed task. Then — knowledge, can only be communicated gradually; and some of the highest secrets — if actually formulated even in your well prepared ear — might sound to you as insane gibberish, notwithstanding all the sincerity of your present assurance that "absolute trust defies misunderstanding." This is the real cause of our reticence. This is why people so often complain with a plausible show of reason that no new knowledge is communicated to them, though they have toiled for it for two, three or more years. Let those who really desire to learn abandon all and come to us, instead of asking or expecting us to go to them. But how is this to be done in your world, and atmosphere? "Woke up sad on the morning of the 18th." Did you? Well, well, patience, my good brother, patience. Something has occurred, though you