Read the Mahavagga and try to understand, not with the prejudiced Western mind but the spirit of intuition and truth what the Fully Enlightened one says in the 1st Khandhaka. Allow me to translate it for you.
"At the time the blessed Buddha was at Uruvela on the shores of the river Neranjara as he rested under the Bodhi tree of wisdom after he had become Sambuddha, at the end of the seventh day having his mind fixed on the chain of causation he spake thus: 'from Ignorance spring the samkharas of threefold nature — productions of body, of speech, of thought. From the samkharas springs consciousness, from consciousness springs name and form, from this spring the six regions (of the six senses, the seventh being the property of but the enlightened); from these springs contact from this sensation; from this springs thirst (or desire, kama, tanha), from thirst attachment, existence, birth, old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair. Again by the destruction of ignorance, the samkharas are destroyed, and their consciousness, name and form, the six regions, contact, sensation, thirst, attachment (selfishness), existence, birth, old age, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair are destroyed. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering."
Knowing this the Blessed One uttered this solemn utterance:
"When the real nature of things becomes clear to the meditating Bhikshu, then all his doubts fade away since he has learned what is that nature and what its cause. From ignorance spring all the evils. From knowledge comes the cessation of this mass of misery, and then the meditating Brahmana stands dispelling the hosts of Mara like the sun that illuminates the sky."
Meditation here means the superhuman (not supernatural) qualities, or arhatship in its highest of spiritual powers.
Copied out Simla, Sept. 28, 1882.
Letter No. 89 (ML-46) Rec. September 1882
This is a letter from the Mahatma M. asking a favor of Sinnett. Mainly this seems to be that he try to get Hume under some control and that he help the Mahatma K.H. in his efforts to save the Simla Eclectic T.S., which appears to have been degenerating considerably. At this time Hume was still president of that branch.
The first paragraph refers to a telegram sent by H.P.B. to Hume on the 5th of September 1882 which undoubtedly had to do with the HX letter and the PROTEST by the chelas. The telegram and the answer on the back of it are as follows (LBS, p. 311):
To: A. O. Hume
Rothney Castle, Jakko, Simla
From: H.P. Blavatsky
Bombay, Byculla
Our ways not their ways. Brothers may not care, but dare not go against oldest rules. Two Chohans' Chelas protested and ten more signed, Subba Row first. Dangerous experiments.
Letter Written on Back of Above.
Dear Old Lady,
Just received this — not sure if I understand it — if the Brothers understand
things so little that they allow not only you, but all their Chelas to misconceive wholly alike the purport, spirit and practical bearing of a thing, so that they protest against what they ought to give thanks for — I really think the thing is hopeless — and I give it up — no ship can make anything of a voyage unless the captain knows navigation — his being a great chemist will not help the matter and the great powers and virtues of the Brothers will not help the Society, if they, the Captains, are so ignorant as this incident seems to indicate of the navigation of the ocean of worldly life. Ta-ta.
Yours ever,
A.O. Hume
Received Simla, 1882.
I will thank you, my dear Sinnett Sahib, for a personal favour. Since K.H. is too much of a perfect Yogi-Arhat, to stop the hand that undaunted by failure keeps on trying to catch the Tibetan yak by the neck to bend it under its yoke, then all that remains for me to do is to make once more my appearance on the natakashala to put a stop to a performance that threatens to become monotonous even to us — well trained in patience. I cannot avail myself of your kind advice to write to Mr. Hume in my brightest red since it would be opening a new door for an endless correspondence, an honour I would rather decline. But I write to you instead, and send you a telegram and answer on back on't, for your perusal. What talk of his is this? Reverence may not be in his nature, nor does any one claim or care for it any way! But I should have thought that his head, that is capacious enough to hold anything, had a corner in it for some common sense. And that sense might have told him that either we are what we claim, or we are not. That in the former case, however exaggerated the claims made on behalf of our powers still, if our knowledge and foresight do not transcend his, then we are no better than shams and impostors and the quicker he parts company with us — the better for him. But if we are in any degree what we claim to be, then he acts like a wild ass. Let him remember, that we are not Indian Rajahs in need of and compelled to accept political Ayahs, and nurses to lead us on by the string. That the Society was founded, went on and will go on with or without him — let him suit himself as to the latter.
So far his help, that he thrusts on us, much after the fashion of Spanish mendicant hidalgos, who offer their sword to protect the traveller with one hand and clutch him by the throat with the other, has not — as far as I can find [been] very beneficial to the Society so far. Not to one of its founders, at any rate, whom he has nigh killed last year at Simla and whom he now harasses, sticking to her like grim death, turning her blood into water and eating her liver out.
Therefore I expect you to impress upon his mind that all we should "give thanks for," would be to see him take care of his Eclectic and to leave the Parent Society to take care of itself. His advice and help to the editor of the Theosophist has no doubt been very advantageous to the editor, and she does feel grateful to him for it after deducting the large share she owes to yourself. But we beg leave to state, that some line ought to be drawn somewhere — between said editor and ourselves; for we are not quite the Tibetan triplets he takes us to be. Therefore, whether we be the ignorant savages and Orientals of his making — every wolf being master in his own den — we claim the right to know our own business best, and respectfully decline his services as a captain to steer our Theosophical ship even on "the ocean of worldly life" as he metaphorizes in his sloka. We have allowed him, under the good pretext of saving the situation with the British theosophists, to ventilate his animosity against us in the organ of our own Society and to draw our portrait-likenesses, with a brush dipped in haughty bile — what more does he want? As I ordered the old woman to telegraph him back — he is not the only skilful navigator in the world; he seeks to avoid Western breakers, and we to steer our canoe clear off Eastern sandbacks. Does he mean in addition to this to dictate from the Chohan down to [D]juala Khool and Deb what we shall and what we shall not do? Ram, Ram and the holy Nagas! is it after centuries of independent existence that we have to fall under a foreign influence, to become the puppets of a Simla Nawab? Are we school boys, or what, in his fancy to submit to the rod of a Peling schoolmaster. . . .