I, "annoyed at newspaper ribald notices?" Certainly not. But I do feel a little wrathful at the sacrilegious utterances of J.K.; that I confess. I felt like answering the conceited fool — but "so far shalt thou go and no further" — again. The Khobilgan to whom I showed the passage laughed till the tears streamed down his old cheeks. I wish I could. When the "Old Lady" reads it, there will be a cedar or two damaged at Simla. Thanks indeed for your kind offer to let me have possession of the Review scraps; but I [would] rather you should preserve them yourself as these notices may prove unexpectedly valuable to you in a few years hence.
To your offer to give a solemn pledge never to divulge anything without permission, I can give no answer, at present. Neither its acceptance nor rejection depends on me, to tell you the truth, since it would be quite an unprecedented event to pledge an outsider to our own particular form of oath or promise, and that no other would hold good in my Superior's opinion. Unfortunately for both of us, once — or rather twice — upon a time you made use of an expression which was recorded, and but three days ago, when pleading for some privileges for you, it was brought out before me very unexpectedly, I must say. Upon hearing it repeated and seeing it recorded, I had but to turn, as gently as I could, the other cheek to still more unexpected 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" would 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. The illumination must come from within. Till then no hocus pocus of incantations, or mummery of appliances, no metaphysical lectures or discussions, no self-imposed penance can give it. All these are but means to an end, and all we can do is to direct the use of such means as have been empirically found by the experience of ages to conduce to the required object. And this was and has been no secret for thousands of years. Fasting, meditation, chastity of thought, word, and deed; silence for certain periods of time to enable nature herself to speak to him who comes to her for information; government of the animal passions and impulses; utter unselfishness of intention, the use of certain incense and fumigations for physiological purposes, have been published as the means since the days of Plato and Iamblichus in the West and since the far earlier times of our Indian Rishis. How these must be complied with to suit each individual temperament is of course a matter for his own experiment and the watchful care of his tutor or Guru. Such is in fact part of his course of discipline, and his Guru or initiator can but assist him with his experience and will power but can do no more until the last and Supreme initiation. I am also of opinion that few candidates imagine the degree of inconvenience — nay suffering and harm to himself — the said initiator submits to for the sake of his pupil. The peculiar physical, moral, and intellectual conditions of neophytes and Adepts 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 profane 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 have preserved no consciousness of the event; but let this rest. Only what more can I do? How am I to give expression to ideas for which you have as yet no language? The finer and more susceptible heads get, like yourself, more than others do, and even when they get a little extra dose it is lost for want of words and images to fix the floating ideas. Perhaps, and undoubtedly you know not to what I now refer. You will know it one day — Patience. To give more knowledge to a man than he is yet fitted to receive is a dangerous experiment; and furthermore, other considerations go to restrain me. The sudden communication of facts, so transcending the ordinary, is in many instances fatal not only to the neophyte but to those directly about him. It is like delivering an infernal machine or a cocked and loaded revolver into the hands of one who had never seen such a thing. Our case is exactly analogous. We feel that the time is approaching, and that we are bound to choose between the triumph of Truth or the Reign of Error and — Terror. We have to let in a few chosen ones into the great secret, or — allow the infamous Shammars62 to lead Europe's best minds into the most insane and fatal of superstitions — Spiritualism; and we do feel as if we were delivering a whole cargo of dynamite into the hands of those we are anxious to see defending themselves against the Red Capped Brothers of the Shadow. You are curious to know where I am travelling about; to learn more of my great work and mission? Were I to tell you, you could hardly make anything of it. To test your knowledge and patience, I may answer you though — this once. I now come from Sakya-Jong. To you the name will remain meaningless. Repeat it before the "Old Lady" and — observe the result. But to return. Having then, to deliver with one hand the much needed yet dangerous weapon to the world, and with the other to keep off the Shammars (the havoc produced by them already being immense) do you not think we have a right to hesitate, to pause and feel the necessity of caution, as we never did before? To sum up: the misuse of knowledge by the pupil always reacts upon the initiator; nor do I believe you know yet, that in sharing his secrets with another the Adept, by an immutable Law, is delaying his own progress to the Eternal Rest. Perhaps, what I now tell you may help you to a truer conception of things, and to appreciate our mutual position the better. Loitering on the way does not conduce to a speedy arrival at the journey's end. And, it must strike you as a truism that a Price must be paid for everything and every truth by somebody, and in this case — WE pay it. Fear not; I am willing to pay my share, and I told so those who put me the question. I will not desert you; nor will I show myself less self-sacrificing than the poor, worn-out mortality we know as the "Old Lady." The above must remain between us two. I expect you to regard this letter as strictly confidential for it is neither for publication nor your friends. I want you alone to know it. Only, if all this was more generally known to candidates for initiation, I feel certain they would be both more thankful and more patient as well as less inclined to be irritated at what they consider our reticence and vacillations. Few possess your discretion; fewer still know [how] to appreciate at their true value the results obtained.... Your two letters to S.M. will lead to no result whatever. He will remain as immovable and your trouble will have been taken in vain. You will receive a letter from him full of suspicion and with no few unkind remarks.63 You cannot persuade him that + is a living Brother for that was tried and — failed; unless, indeed, you convert him to popular exoteric Lamaism, which regards our "Byang-chubs" and "Tchang-chubs" — the Brothers who pass from the body of one great Lama to that of another — as Lhas or disembodied Spirits. Remember what I said in my last of Planetary Spirits. The Tchang-chub (an adept who has, by the power of his knowledge and soul enlightenment, become exempt from the curse of UNCONSCIOUS transmigration) — may, at his will and desire, and instead of reincarnating himself only after bodily death, do so, and repeatedly — during his life if he chooses. He holds the power of choosing for himself new bodies — whether on this or any other planet — while in possession of his old form, that he generally preserves for purposes of his own. Read the book of Kiu-te64 and you will find in it these laws. She might translate for you some paras, as she knows them by rote. To her you may read the present.