Now that you are at the centre of modern Buddhistic exegesis, in personal relations with some of the clever commentators (from whom the holy Devas deliver us!) I shall draw your attention to a few things which are really as discreditable to the perceptions of even non-initiates, as they are misleading to the general public. The more one reads such speculations as those of Messrs. Rhys Davids, Lillie, etc. — the less can one bring oneself to believe that the unregenerate Western mind can ever get at the core of our abstruse doctrines. Yet hopeless as their cases may be, it would appear well worth the trouble of testing the intuitions of your London members — of some of them, at any rate — by half expounding through you one or two mysteries and leaving them to complete the chain themselves. Shall we take Mr. Rhys Davids as our first subject, and show that, indirectly as he has done it yet it is himself who strengthened the absurd ideas of Mr. Lillie, who fancies to have proved belief in a personal God in ancient Buddhism. Mr. Rhys Davids' Buddhism is full of the sparkle of our most important esotericism; but always, as it would seem, beyond not only his reach but apparently even his powers of intellectual perception. To avoid "absurd metaphysics" and its inventions, he creates unnecessary difficulties and falls headlong into inextricable confusion. He is like the Cape Settlers who lived over diamond mines without suspecting it. I shall only instance the definition of "Avalokitesvara" on pp. 202 and 203. There, we find the author saying that which to any occultist seems a palpable absurdity: — "The name Avalokitesvara, which means 'the Lord who looks down from on high,' is a purely metaphysical invention. The curious use of the past particle passive avalokita in an active sense is clearly evident from the translations into Tibetan and Chinese."
Now saying that it means "the Lord who looks down from on high," or, as he kindly explains further — "the Spirit of the Buddhas present in the church," is to completely reverse the sense. It is equivalent to saying "Mr. Sinnett looks down from on high (his Fragments of Occult Truth) on the British Theos. Society," whereas it is the latter that looks up to Mr. Sinnett, or rather to his Fragments as the (in their case only possible) expression and culmination of the knowledge sought for. This is no idle simile and defines the exact situation. In short, Avalokita Isvar literally interpreted means "the Lord that is seen," "Iswara" implying moreover, rather the adjective than the noun, lordly, self-existent lordliness, not Lord. It is, when correctly interpreted, in one sense "the divine Self perceived or seen by Self," the Atman or seventh principle ridded of its mayavic distinction from its Universal Source — which becomes the object of perception for, and by the individuality centred in Buddhi, the sixth principle, something that happens only in the highest state of Samadhi. This is applying it to the microcosm. In the other sense Avalokitesvara implies the seventh Universal Principle, as the object perceived by the Universal Buddhi, "Mind" or Intelligence which is the synthetic aggregation of all the Dhyan Chohans, as of all other intelligences whether great or small, that ever were, are or will be. Nor is it the "Spirit of Buddhas present in the Church," but the Omnipresent Universal Spirit in the temple of nature — in one case; and the seventh Principle — the Atman in the temple — man — in the other. Mr. Rhys Davids might have at least remembered the (to him) familiar simile made by the Christian Adept, the Kabalistic Pauclass="underline" "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" — and thus avoided to have made a mess of the name. Though as a grammarian he detected the use of the "past particle passive," yet he shows himself far from an inspired "Panini" in overlooking the true cause and saving his grammar by raising the hue and cry against metaphysics. And yet he quotes Beal's Catena as his authority for the invention when, in truth, this work is perhaps the only one in English that gives an approximately correct explanation of the word, at any rate, on page 374. "Self-manifested" — How? it is asked. "Speech or Vâch was regarded as the Son or the manifestation of the Eternal Self, and was adored under the name of Avalokitesvara, the manifested God." This shows as clearly as can be that Avalokitesvara is both the the un-manifested Father and the manifested Son, the latter proceeding from, and identical with, the other; namely, the Parabrahm and Jivâtman, the Universal and the individualized seventh Principle, — the Passive and the Active, the latter the Word, Logos, the Verb. Call it by whatever name, only let these unfortunate, deluded Christians know that the real Christ of every Christian is the Vâch, the "mystical Voice," while the man Jeshu was but a mortal like any of us, an adept more by his inherent purity and ignorance of real Evil than by what he had learned with his initiated Rabbis and the already (at that period) fast degenerating Egyptian Hierophants and priests. A great mistake is also made by Beal who says: "This name (Avalokiteswara) in Chinese took the form of Kwan-Shai-yin, and the divinity worshipped under that name (was) generally regarded as a female."(374) Kwan-Shai-yin — or the the universally manifested voice is active — male; and must not be confounded with Kwan-yin, or Buddhi the Spiritual Soul (the sixth Pr.) and the vehicle of its "Lord." It is Kwan-yin that is the female principle or the manifested passive, manifesting itself "to every creature in the universe, in order to deliver all men from the consequences of sin" — as rendered by Beal, this once quite correctly (383), while Kwan-shai-yin, "the Son identical with his Father" is the absolute activity, hence — having no direct relation to objects of sense — is Passivity.
What a common ruse it is of your Aristoteleans! With the sleuth hound's persistence they track an idea to the very verge of the "impassable chasm," and then, brought to bay, leave the metaphysicians to take up the trail if they can, or let it be lost. It is but natural that a Christian theologian, a missionary, should act upon this line, since — as easily perceived even in the little I gave out just now — a too correct rendering of our Avalokitesvara and Kwan-Shai-Yin might have very disastrous effects. It would simply amount to showing Christendom the true and undeniable origin of the "awful and incomprehensible" mysteries of its Trinity, Transubstantiation, Immaculate Conception, as also whence their ideas of the Father, Son, Spiritus and — Mother. It is less easy to shuffle al piacere223 the cards of Buddhistic chronology than those of Chrishna and Christ. They cannot place — however much they would — the birth of our Lord Sangyas Buddha A.D. as they have contrived to place that of Chrishna. But why should an atheist and a materialist like Mr. Rhys Davids so avoid the correct rendering of our dogmas — even when he happens to understand them, — which does not happen every day — is something surpassingly curious! In this instance the blind and guilty Rhys Davids leads the blind and innocent Mr. Lillie into the ditch; where the latter, catching at the proffered straw rejoices in the idea that Buddhism teaches in reality — a personal God!!