The criticism of "A Student of Occultism" (whose wits are sharpened by the mountain air of his home) and the answer of "S.T.K. . . . Chary" (June Theosophist) upon a part of your annular and circular expositions need not annoy or disturb in any way your philosophic calm. As our Pondichery chela significantly says, neither you nor any other man across the threshold has had or ever will have the "complete theory" of Evolution taught him; or get it unless he guesses it for himself. If anyone can unravel it from such tangled threads as are given him, very well; and a fine proof it would indeed be of his or her spiritual insight. Some — have come very near it. But yet there is always with the best of them just enough error, — colouring and misconception; the shadow of Manas projecting across the field of Buddhi — to prove the eternal law that only the unshackled Spirit shall see the things of the Spirit without a veil. No untaught amateur could ever rival the proficient in this branch of research; yet the world's real Revelators have been few, and its pseudo-Saviours legion; and fortunate it is if their half-glimpses of the light are not, like Islam, enforced at the sword's point, or like Christian Theology, amid blazing faggots and in torture chambers. Your Fragments contain some — still very few — errors, due solely to your two preceptors of Adyar, one of whom would not, and the other could not tell you all. The rest could not be called mistakes — rather incomplete explanations. These are due, partly to your own imperfect education in your last theme — I mean the ever-threatening obscurations — partly to the poor vehicles of language at our disposal, and in part again, to the reserve imposed upon us by rule. Yet, all things considered, they are few and trivial; while as to those noticed by "A Student, etc." (the Marcus Aurelius of Simla) in your No. VII, it will be pleasant for you to know that every one of them, however now seeming to you contradictory, can (and if it should seem necessary shall) be easily reconciled with facts. The trouble is that (a) you cannot be given the real figures and difference in the Rounds, and (b) that you do not open doors enough for explorers. The bright Luminary of the B.T.S. and the Intelligences that surround her (embodied I mean) may help you to see the flaws: at all events Try. "Nothing was ever lost by trying." You share with all beginners the tendency to draw too absolutely strong inferences from partly caught hints, and to dogmatize thereupon as though the last word had been spoken. You will correct this in due time. You may misunderstand us, are more than likely to do so, for our language must always be more or less that of parable and suggestion, when treading upon forbidden ground; we have our own peculiar modes of expression and what lies behind the fence of words is even more important than what you read. But still — TRY. Perhaps if Mr. S. Moses could know just what was meant by what was said to him, and about his Intelligences, he would find all strictly true. As he is a man of interior growth, his day may come and his reconciliation with "the Occultists" be complete. Who knows?
Meanwhile, I shall, with your permission, close this first volume.
K. H.
Letter No. 112 (ML-81) Rec. July 1883
This is the more private letter which the Mahatma wrote to Sinnett about mid-June and probably sent to him along with Letter No. 111 (ML-59).
In this letter, the Mahatma refers to what he calls Sinnett's "unfortunate inspiration of the 17th, published in the Times," which obviously injured the cause. This was a letter written by Sinnett, although the nature of the letter is not clear.
Received London about July, 1883.
Private but not very Confidential.
I have, you observe, left for a separate private letter — in case you should like to read the other to your British "Brethren and Sisters — " and to the last any reference to the proposed new journal, about whose prospects Col. Gordon has written you so encouragingly. I scarcely knew until I had begun to watch the development of this effort to erect a bulwark for Indian interests, how deeply my poor people had sunk. As one who watches the signs of fluttering life beside a dying bed, and counts the feeble breaths to learn if there may still be room for hope, so we Aryan exiles in our snowy retreat have been attentive to this issue. Debarred from using any abnormal powers that might interfere with the nation's Karma, yet by all lawful and normal means trying to stimulate the zeal of those who care for our regard, we have seen weeks grow into months without the object having been achieved. Success is nearer than ever before, yet still in doubt. The letter of Govindan Lal, which I shall ask Upasika to send you, shows that there is progress. In a few days a meeting of native capitalists is to be held at Madras, which Mr. Olcott is to attend and from which there may be fruits. He will see the Geikwar at Baroda and Holkar at Indore, and do his best — as he has already at Behar and in Bengal. There was never a time when the help of a man like yourself was more needed by India. We foresaw it, as you know and patriotically tried to make your way easy for a speedy return. But, — alas! that it must be confessed — the word Patriotism has now scarcely any electric power over the Indian heart. The "Cradle Land of Arts and Creeds" swarms with unhappy beings, precariously provided for, and vexed by demagogues who have everything to gain by chicane and impudence. We knew all this in the mass, but not one of us Aryans had sounded the depths of the Indian question as we have of late. If it be permissible to symbolize things subjective by phenomena objective, I should say that to the psychic sight India seems covered with a stifling grey fog — a moral meteor228 — the odic emanation from her vicious social state. Here and there twinkles a point of light which marks a nature still somewhat spiritual, a person who aspires and struggles after the higher knowledge. If the beacon of Aryan occultism shall ever be kindled again, these scattered sparks must be combined to make its flame. And this is the task of the T.S., this the pleasant part of its work in which we would so gladly assist, were we not impeded and thrown back by the would-be chelas themselves. I stepped outside our usual limits to aid your particular project from a conviction of its necessity and its potential usefulness: having begun I shall continue until the result is known. But in this uncongenial experience of meddling in a business affair, I have ventured within the very breath of the world's furnace. I have suffered so much from the enforced insight at short distance into the moral and spiritual condition of my people; and been so shocked by this nearer view of the selfish baseness of human nature (the concomitant, always, of the passage of humanity through our stage of the evolutionary circuit): I have seen so distinctly the certainty that it cannot be helped — that I shall henceforth abstain from any repetition of the unbearable experiment. Whether your paper should succeed or not — and if the latter, it will be due to yourself exclusively, to the unfortunate inspiration on the 17th, published in the Times — I shall have no more to do with the financial side of these worldly affairs; but confine myself to our prime duty of gaining knowledge and disseminating through all available channels such fragments as mankind in the mass may be ready to assimilate. I shall, of course, be interested in your journalistic career here — if I am able to overcome and soothe the bitter feelings you have just awakened in those who confided in you most, — by that unfortunate and UNTIMELY confession, honest as its object may have been — and you may always depend upon my practical sympathy; but the genius of Mr. Dare must preside in your Counting Room as your own in the Editor's office. The great pain you have inflicted upon me, shows clearly that either I understand nothing in the fitness of political duties and therefore, could hardly hope to be a wise business and political "control," or that the man whom I regard as a true friend, however honest and willing, will never rise above English prejudices and the sinful antipathy towards our race and colour. "Madame" will tell you more.