The Inner Life (Annotated) E-Book

Charles Webster Leadbeater

• Herausgeber: ePembaBooks
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

• This edition includes the following editor's introduction: Charles Webster Leadbeater, an eminence of spirituality surrounded by controversy

First published in 1911, “The Inner Life” is a theosophical work by Charles Webster Leadbeater, an influential member of the Theosophical Society and one of the most controversial English writers.

In this study of occultism and mysteries of the universe and nature, Leadbeater defined a clairvoyent as a person who develops " the power to respond to another octave out of the stupendous gamut of possible vibrations" and so is enabled "t o see more of the world..than those of more limited perception." And what a world Leadbeater describes for us in “The Inner Life” - a world of Master adepts and their pupils, untapped human powers and potentials, ancient mysteries, devas and nature spirits - in short, the unseen workings of the universe.

Leseprobe

Table of contents

Charles Webster Leadbeater, an eminence of spirituality surrounded by controversy

THE INNER LIFE

VOLUME ONE

Foreword To The Indian Edition

Introduction

FIRST SECTION: THE GREAT ONES AND THE WAY TO THEM

The Great Ones

The Work Of The Christ

The Work Of The Masters

Masters And Pupils

The Path Of Progress

The Ancient Mysteries

SECOND SECTION: RELIGION

The Logos

Buddhism

Christianity

Sin

The Pope

Ceremonial

Prayer

The Devil

Hinduism

Castes

Spiritualism

Symbology

Fire

THIRD SECTION: THE THEOSOPHICAL ATTITUDE

Common Sense

Brotherhood

Helping The World

Criticism

Prejudice

Curiosity

Know Thyself

Asceticism

Small Worries

Killing Out Desire

The Centre Of My Circle

Our Duty To Animals

Sympathy

Our Attitude Towards Children

The Fear Of Death

Co-Operation

A Day Of Life

Meditation

FOURTH SECTION: THE HIGHER PLANES

Nirvana

The Triple Spirit

Buddhic Consciousness

Experience

The Spheres

FIFTH SECTION: THE EGO AND HIS VEHICLES

The Ego And The Personality

Counterparts

Colors In The Astral Body

The Causal Body

The Desire-Elemental

Lost Souls

The Focus Of Consciousness

Force-Centres

The Serpent-Fire

Obsession And Insanity

Sleep

Somnambulism

The Physical Body

Tobacco And Alcohol

VOLUME TWO

Foreword To American Edition

Author's Note

FIRST SECTION: THE AFTER-DEATH LIFE

The Theosophist After Death

The Relation Of The Dead To Earth

Conditions After Death

Animal Obsession

Individualised Animals

Localisation Of States

Heaven-Life Conditions

Karma In The Heaven Life

SECOND SECTION: ASTRAL WORK

Invisible Helpers

Remembering Astral Experience

The Higher Dimensions

THIRD SECTION: THE MENTAL BODY AND THE POWER OF THOUGHT

The Mental Body

A Neglected Power

Intuition And Impulse

Thought-Centres

Thought And Elemental Essence

FOURTH SECTION: PSYCHIC FACULTIES

Psychic Powers

Clairvoyance

The Mystic Chord

How Past Lives Are Seen

Foreseeing The Future

FIFTH SECTION: DEVAS AND NATURE-SPIRITS

The Aura Of The Deva

The Spirit Of A Tree

SIXTH SECTION: THE WORLDS AND THE RACES OF MEN

The Building Of The System

The Planetary Chains

Successive Life-Waves

The Monads From The Moon

The Earth-Chain

Modes Of Individualisation

The Seven Types

Stray Notes On Races

Mars And Its Inhabitants

SEVENTH SECTION: REINCARNATION

Three Laws Of Human Life

The Return To Birth

Personal Characteristics

Bringing Over Past Knowledge

The Intervals Between Lives

EIGHTH SECTION: KARMA

The Law Of Equilibrium

The Method Of Karma

The Karma Of Death

Karma As An Educator

Varieties Of Karma

Animal Karma

NINTH SECTION: THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND ITS FOUNDERS

What Is The Theosophical Society?

Theosophy And World-Leaders

Reminiscences

Faithful Unto Death

A Course Of Study In Theosophy

Note

Charles Webster Leadbeater, an eminence of spirituality surrounded by controversy

Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society and one of the most controversial English writers, for his books related to the mysteries of the universe and the human being. Leadbeater was the co-founder, with J. I. Wedgwood, of the liberal Catholic Church in which he was appointed bishop.

Leadbeater was born in Stockport, England. His father, Charles Leadbeater, was born in Lincoln, his mother Emma in Liverpool. According to public records, he was the only child of the couple. In 1861 the family moved to London, where his father worked on the railroad, and he died of tuberculosis when Leadbeater was still eight years old. Four years later, the bank where the family kept their savings disappeared. With no possibility of studying at university, Leadbeater began working in the workshops after graduating from high school to help his mother financially. His uncle, William Wolfe Capes, his late father's brother and politician, was a well-known Anglican priest. Due to his influence, Leadbeater was ordained an Anglican priest in 1879 in Farnham by the Bishop of Winchester. From 1881 he lived with his mother in a cottage his uncle had built in Bramshott. During that period Leadbeater became interested in spirituality and the occult, after attending lessons in spiritualism at the home of Daniel Dunglas, a supposed medium. His interest in the occult was stimulated by Alfred Percy Sinnett's book "Occult world," and he joined the Theosophical Society, of which Sinnett was a member, in 1883, leaving the Anglican Church. The following year Leadbeater met Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Society, when she visited London; after accepting him as her pupil, Blavatsky pushed him to become a vegetarian. At that time he read the book "Letters from the Mahatma," which tempted him to go to India. He arrived in Adyar in 1884 and while in India, Leadbeater wrote books, received visits and training from his "teachers" who, according to Blavatsky, were an inspiration for the formation of the Theosophical Society and occult guides. In 1889, Sinnett asked Leadbeater to return to England to act as tutor to his son and George Arundale. Leadbeater accepted and brought with him one of his students, Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa. Leadbeater later became one of the main interlocutors of the Society, but lasted only a few years, and Secretary of the London Lodge. In 1885, Leadbeater traveled with Henry Steel Olcott, the first president of the Theosophical Society, to Burma and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In Ceylon they jointly founded the English Buddhist Academy, where Leadbeater acted as the first director of the facility, under very austere conditions. The school gradually expanded and became Ananda College. After Madame Blavatsky left Adyar in 1886 to return to Europe, Leadbeater returned to India and began working at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society. There he met Master Kuthumi, who suggested that he practice Kundalini Yoga to develop the power of clairvoyance; after 42 years of continuous effort, Leadbeater claimed to have obtained an awareness of the astral while still in the waking state, which, according to the Theosophical Society, is the ability to perceive the vibrations of the highest state of matter immediately superior to the physical. This theme would be developed by Leadbeater in his renowned work "The Astral Plane" (1895). In 1891, after the death of Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant took control of the Theosophical Society together with Olcott. Leadbeater met with her in 1894, and was invited by her to live at the Theosophical headquarters in London. In 1906 Leadbeater was accused of forcing teenagers, pupils under his education, to masturbate. Mary Lutyens collected the testimonies of such students in the book "Krishnamurti: the Years of Awakening," where she affirms that the children in question would reveal these practices to their parents; the Theosophical Society of Chicago had launched similar reproaches against Leadbeater. In 1906, a commission of the American branch of the society was appointed to investigate the acts of pederasty in which Leadbater was involved, but, prior to the meeting, Leadbeater resigned to " save the society from embarrassment," as Henry Steel Olcott wrote. Leadbeater responded to the allegations by claiming that compelling adolescent sexuality would lead his students to have meetings with prostitutes, and therefore to " protect" them he had to teach them to regularly discharge sexual energy through masturbation to avoid the karmic and moral consequences of allegedly illicit sexual relations with girls. In the following years, Lutyens investigated the safeguarding of Leadbeater's favorite pupils, some of whom slept with him in his own room and with whom Leadbeater would have actual sexual relations. Other members of the Society accused him of touching the genitals of a prepubescent boy. Despite this and the repetition of similar episodes over the years, none of the accusations made against him led to legal proceedings or trials against Leadbeater, especially since he always managed to escape just in time. A judge in a reported custody case in India (concerning the legal guardian of Jiddu Krishnamurti and his brother Nityananda) noted in his ruling that Leadbeater was anchored in " immoral ideas." This led Annie Besant, Leadbeater's friend and collaborator, to publish articles in his defence in the Times of London. However, it was well known in the Theosophical Society that Leadbeater had a problematic and ambiguous relationship, especially sexual, with the young students he was dealing with. Later, in 1909, he was reinstated in the Theosophical Society as a result of pressure that Annie Besant, who became President after intense infighting in the organization, had exerted on the other members. Leadbeater then took charge of his ward Krishnamurti, then fourteen years old, " discovered" on a private beach near the Theosophical Society's Adyar headquarters. Leadbeater believed that Krishnamurti was the " vessel" into which the world teacher, whose imminent appearance was awaited by the Theosophists, would be channelled. Like Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, Krishnamurti would also create a new religion, according to Leadbeater. Leadbeater moved permanently to Adyar in 1915 to educate Krishnamurti; but he lived out his old age in Australia, in Sydney, where he remained permanently. During this last phase of his life, Krishnamurti renounced the role he and other theosophists would have wanted him to play. Krishnamurti dissociated himself from the Theosophical Society, its doctrines and practices, and during the following decades became known as an influential religious and philosophical speaker, highly critical of Theosophy. Leadbeater met in the same year James Ingall Wedgwood, Theosophist and first bishop of the liberal Catholic Church, who on June 12, 1915 initiated him into Freemasonry and later consecrated him bishop in 1916. From this time on, public interest in Theosophy grew in Australia and New Zealand, and Sydney at that time could be compared with Adyar as the Center of Theosophical activity. In 1922 the Theosophical Society rented a villa known as the Mansion, located in the suburbs of Mosman. Leadbeater came to reside in this place where he led his own community of Theosophists. The mansion expanded, becoming a great theosophical centre, recognized as the greatest house of occult forces. In the same year there was a new scandal about Leadbeater, accused of having been found in bed with Oscar Kellerstrom, son of a priest of the liberal Catholic Church. The mansion also began to accept the presence of women Theosophists, among whom the best known were Clara Codd, future president of the American Theosophical Society, the clairvoyant Dora van Gelder and Mary Lutyens, who wrote an authorized biography of Krishnamurti. In these years Leadbeater worked to change the Catholic liturgy of the liberal Catholic Church, removing from the Creed of the last elements of the Bible and Christianity that he considered inappropriate. Leadbeater died of diabetes and a heart attack in Perth in 1934. For years Leadbeater had felt a desire to push himself beyond the sensory limit of space and time, to know what already is, but which we can only describe as what will be, with the limits of perception of the present. Leadbeater was also instrumental in the theosophical movement in strengthening the trend toward marriage with Christianity, which began with Annie Besant and continued with James Ingall Wedgwood. The interest in the Christian tradition, and in particular the Catholic awakened in Leadbeater as a result of an experience he lived in a Sicilian village, during a mass, in which he says he witnessed the phenomenon of transubstantiation, with his seer's eyes at the moment of the Eucharist. Controversial personage and repeatedly accused of pederasty, Charles Webster Leadbeater is also for many the father and master of the Theosophical movement and the study of occultism and the mysteries of the universe and nature. Among his most outstanding works are "The Astral Plane" (1895), "Clairvoyance" (1899), "An Outline of Theosophy" (1902) and " The Inner Life" (1911).

The Editor, P.C. 2022

THE INNER LIFE

Charles Webster Leadbeater

VOLUME ONE

Foreword To The Indian Edition

Our evening “Talks” at the Theosophical Headquarters at Adyar have become quite an institution, and a very considerable amount of information, due to new research, often arising from some question put by a student, is given in this friendly and intimate circle. Our good Vice-President, Sir S. Subramania Iyer, found so much help and illumination from these talks, that he earnestly wished to share his pleasure with his brethren in the outer world, and gave a sum of money to help in their publication. I cordially endorse his view of their value, and commend this volume and those which will follow it to the earnest study of all our members. A second series is ready for the press, but the date of its issue will depend partly on the reception given to the present.

ANNIE BESANT

Introduction

I wish that I could help my American readers to realise the conditions under which this book has been produced. The Theosophical Society as a whole does not by any means sufficiently understand or appreciate the work done at its Headquarters, and although for you in America it is away on the other side of the earth, I should like to help you to see it as it is. Readers of the Messenger must at least, have some general idea of the appearance of the place, and must know something of the life which is lived here — a long life, a strenuous life, and a life lived under very peculiar conditions. Nowhere else in the world at this present moment is there such a centre of influence — a centre constantly visited by the Great Ones, and therefore bathed in their wonderful magnetism. The vibrations here are marvellously stimulating, and all of us who live here are therefore constant strain of a very peculiar kind, a strain which brings out whatever is in us. Strong vibrations from other planes are playing all the while upon our various vehicles, and those parts of us which can in any sense respond to them are thereby raised, strengthened and purified. But it must be remembered that there is another side to this. There may well be in each of us some vibrations the character of which is too far removed from the level of these great influences to fall into harmony with them, and where that is the case intensification will still take place, but the result may well be evil rather than good. To live at Adyar is the most glorious of all opportunities for those who are able to take advantage of it, but its effect on those who are constitutionally unable to harmonize with its vibrations may be dangerous rather than helpful. If a student can bear it he may advance rapidly; if he cannot bear it he is better away.

The workers here live mostly in the great central building, within the immediate aura of the shrine room and the President. The students live chiefly half-a-mile away at various other houses, though all within the large estate which now belongs to the Society. Each during the day does his own work in his own way, but in the evening we all gather together upon the roof of the central building, in front of the President' s rooms, formerly occupied by Madame Blavatsky herself, and there, under the marvellous night sky of India, so infinitely more brilliant than anything that we know in what are miscalled temperate climes, we sit and listen to her teaching. All through the summer of last year, so much of which she spent in a tour through the United States, it fell to my lot to take charge of the meetings of the students here. In the course of that time I delivered many informal little addresses and answered hundreds of questions. All that I said was taken down in shorthand, and this book is the result of those notes. In a number of cases it happened that what was said on the roof at the meetings was afterwards expanded into a little article for The Theosophist or The Adyar Bulletin; in all such cases I reprint the article instead of the stenographic report, as it has had the advantage of certain corrections and additions. Necessarily a book of this sort is fragmentary in its nature; necessarily also it contains a certain amount of repetition; though this latter has been excised wherever possible. Many of the subjects treated have also been dealt with in my earlier books, but what is written here represents in all cases the result of the latest discoveries in connection with those subjects. The subjects have been classified as far as possible, and this volume represents the first series, containing five sections. The second volume, containing the nine remaining sections, is now in the printer' s hands. A list of the subjects of which it will treat will be found at the end of this volume. C. W. LEADBEATER Adyar, July, 1910

FIRST SECTION: THE GREAT ONES AND THE WAY TO THEM

The Great Ones

STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM — even those who have been students for many years — sometimes seem to fail to realise the Masters as They truly are. I have often found people thinking of Them as some kind of angels or devas, or, at any rate, as so far removed from us by Their greatness that it is scarcely possible for us to derive much help from Them. Their greatness is indisputable, and from that point of view the gulf between Them and ourselves may well seem incalculable in its extent; and yet from another point of view They are very close to us, so that Their sympathy and help are very near and very real. That our thought on the subject may be clear, let us first of all try to define exactly what we mean by the term “Master.”

We mean by it always one who is a member of the Great White Brotherhood — a member at such a level that He is able to take pupils. Now the Great White Brotherhood is an organization unlike any other in the world, and for that reason it has often been misunderstood. It has sometimes been described as the Himalayan or the Tibetan Brotherhood, and the idea has been conveyed of a body of Indian ascetics residing together in a monastery in some inaccessible mountain fastness. Perhaps this has risen largely from the knowledge of the facts that the two Brothers principally concerned in the foundation and work of the Theosophical Society happen at the moment to be living in Tibet, and to be wearing Indian bodies. To comprehend the facts of the case it may be better to approach its consideration from another point of view.

Most of our students are familiar with the thought of the four stages of the Path of Holiness, and are aware that a man who has passed through them and attained to the level of the Asekha has achieved the task set before humanity during this chain-period, and is consequently free from the necessity of reincarnation on this planet or on any other. Before him then open seven ways among which he must choose. Most of them take him away from this earth into wider spheres of activity, probably connected with the solar system as a whole, so that the great majority of those members of our humanity who had already reached this goal have passed entirely out of our ken.

The limited number who are still working directly for us may be divided into two classes — those who retain physical bodies, and those who do not. The latter are frequently spoken of under the name of Nirmanakayas. They hold themselves suspended as it were between this world and nirvana, and They devote the whole of Their time and energy to the generation of spiritual force for the benefit of mankind. This force They pour into what may be described as a reservoir, upon which the Masters and their pupils can draw for the assistance of Their work with humanity. The Nirmanakaya, because He remains to this extent in touch with the lower planes, has been called `a candidate for woe,' but that is misleading. What is meant is that He has not the joy of the higher work, or of the nirvanic levels. He has chosen to remain upon lower planes in order to help those who still suffer. It is quite true that to came back from the higher life into this world is like going down from the fresh air and glorious sunlight into a dark and evil-smelling dungeon; but the man who does this to help some one out of that dungeon is not miserable and wretched while there, but full of the joy of helping, notwithstanding the greatness of the contrast and the terrible feeling of bondage and compression. Indeed, a man who refused such an opportunity of giving aid when it came to him would certainly feel far more woe afterwards, in the shape of remorse. When we have once really seen the spiritual misery of the world, and the condition of those who need such help, we can never again be careless or indifferent about it, as are those who have not seen.

Fortunately those of us who have seen and realized this have ever at our command a means whereby we can quite really and definitely help. Tiny though our efforts may be as compared with the splendid outpouring of force of the Nirmanakaya, we also can add our little drops to the great store of force in that reservoir. Every outpouring of affection or devotion produces a double result — one upon the being to whom it is sent, and another upon ourselves, who sent it forth. But if the devotion or affection be utterly without the slightest thought of self, it brings in its train a third result also. Ordinary affection or devotion, even of a high kind, moves in a closed curve, however large that curve may be, and the result of it comes back upon the sender. But the devotion or affection of the truly unselfish man moves in an open curve, and though some of its affects inevitably react upon the sender, the grandest and noblest part of its force ascends to the LOGOS Himself, and the response, the magnificent response of benediction which instantly pours forth from Him, falls into that reservoir for the helping of mankind. So that it is within the power of every one of us, even the weakest and the poorest, to help the world in this most beautiful manner. It is this adding to the reservoir of spiritual force which is really the truth that lies et the back of the Catholic idea of works of supererogation.

The still more limited number of adepts who retain physical bodies remain in even closer touch with us, in order to fill certain offices, and to do certain work necessary for our evolution; and it is to the latter that the names of the Great White Brotherhood and the Occult Hierarchy have sometimes been given. They are, then, a very small number of highly advanced men belonging not to any one nation, but to the world as a whole. On the physical plane They do not live together, though They are of course in continual communication on higher planes. Since They are beyond the necessity of rebirth, when one body wears out They can choose another wherever it may be most convenient for the work They wish to do, so that we need not attach any special importance to the nationality of the bodies which They happen to be wearing at any particular time. Just now, several of those bodies are Indian, one is Tibetan, one is Chinese, two at least are English, one is Italian, one Hungarian, and one Syrian, while one was born in the island of Cyprus. As I have said, the nationality of these bodies is not a matter of importance, but I mention these in order to show that it would be a mistake to think of the ruling Hierarchy as belonging exclusively to one race.

Reverence restrains us from saying much of the great Head of this Hierarchy, in Whose hands is the fate of the continents, in Whose name all initiations are given. He is one of the very few now remaining upon earth of the Lords of the Flame, the Children of the Fire-mist, the great beings who came down from Venus nearly eighteen million years ago to help and to lead the evolution of humanity on our chain. These Great Ones did not take bodies from our then entirely undeveloped humanity, but made for themselves bodies in appearance resembling ours by the force of Their will, a kind of permanent materialization. At that period, and for long after it, no members of our humanity were sufficiently developed to fill any of the higher offices in this Hierarchy, and consequently we needed and received this help from without. Gradually, as humanity has evolved, it has become more and more able to provide for itself, and the great Lords of the Flame have been set free to go to the help of yet other evolutions. But one of Them still holds this, the highest office of all — the position of the KING Who guides and controls all evolution taking place upon this planet — not only that of humanity and of the animal, vegetable, mineral and elemental kingdoms below it, but also of the great non-human kingdoms of the nature-spirits and the devas, some of which rise so far above it.

Under Him are various Heads of Departments, the broad outlines of whose work are more within our comprehension than His. Though the details are far beyond us, we can form some slight idea of what must be the manifold responsibilities and activities of the Manu of a Root-race; and perhaps we can to some extent image to ourselves the duties of Him who is Minister of Religion in this world-kingdom — who sends forth religion after religion, suiting each to the needs of a particular type of people and to the period of the world' s history in which it is launched, sometimes deputing one of His subordinates to found it, sometimes even incarnating Himself for that purpose, as He may see fit. This Minister of Religion is often called in the East the Bodhisattva — one who is about to become a BUDDHA. The previous holder of that high office was He whom we call the Lord Gautama BUDDHA. The attainment of Buddha-hood is not simply the gaining of enlightenment; it is also the taking of a great and definite initiation, and the man who has taken that step cannot again incarnate upon earth, but hands over His work to His successor, and usually passes away altogether from any connection with earth.

The Lord Gautama, however, still remains to a certain extent within touch of the world, in order that He may still be able to help it. Once in each year He still shows Himself to the brotherhood of adepts, and pours down His blessing upon them, to be passed through them to the world at large; and He may still be reached in certain ways by those who know how. Mrs. Besant has told us, in some of her recent writings, how He incarnated over and over again as the great teacher of the earlier sub-races of the Aryan race, how he was Hermes — the founder of the Egyptian Mysteries — also the first and greatest Zoroaster, the original founder of the worship of the sun and fire, and again He was Orpheus, the founder of the Greek Mysteries. Those mentioned of course were not His only births, for in the course of our researches into the past we have seen Him as founder of other religions than these.

The statement made in some of the earlier Theosophical works that He was reborn as Shankaracharya is an error, for from an occult point of view the two great teachers were on entirely different lines. There was, however, a certain reason at the back of the statement in the fact that some of the vehicles prepared by one of them were also utilized by the other, as Madame Blavatsky has explained in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine.

The deep reverence and the strong affection felt for the Lord Gautama all over the East are due to two facts. One of these is that He was the first of our humanity to attain to the stupendous height of Buddha-hood, and so He may be very truly described as the first-fruits and the leader of our race. (All previous BUDDHAS had belonged to other humanities, which had matured upon earlier chains.) The second fact is that for the sake of hastening the progress of humanity, He took upon Himself certain additional labours of the most stupendous character, the nature of which it is impossible to comprehend. It is stated that when the time came at which it was expected that humanity would be able to provide for itself some one who was ready to fill this important office, no one could be found who was fully capable of doing so. But few of our earthly race had then reached the higher stages of adeptship, and the foremost of these were two friends and brothers whose development was equal. These two were the mighty Egos now known to us as the Lord Gautama and the Lord Maitreya, and in His great love for mankind the former at once volunteered to make the tremendous additional exertion necessary to qualify Him to do the work required, while His friend and brother decided to follow Him as the next holder of that office thousands of years later.

In those far-off times it was the Lord Gautama who ruled the world of religion and education; but now He has yielded that high office to the Lord Maitreya, whom western people call the Christ — who took the body of the disciple Jesus during the last three years of its life on the physical plane; and those who know tell us that it will not be long before He descends among us once again, to found another faith. Anyone whose mind is broad enough to grasp this magnificent conception of the splendid reality of things will see instantly how worse than futile it is to set up in one' s mind one religion as in opposition to another, to try to convert any person from one to another, or to compare depreciatingly the founder of one with the founder of another. In the last case indeed it is especially ridiculous, because the two founders are either two pupils of the same school, or two incarnations of the same person, and so are entirely in accord as to principles, though They may for the time be putting forward different aspects of the truth to suit the needs of those to whom They speak. The teaching is always fundamentally the same, though its presentation may vary widely. The Lord Maitreya had taken various births before He came into the office which He now holds, but even in these earlier days He seems always to have been a teacher or high-priest.

It is now generally known that the two Masters who have been most intimately concerned with the foundation and the work of the Theosophical Society have taken respectively the offices of temporal and spiritual leader of the new sixth root-race, which is to come into existence in seven hundred years' time. The Manu, or temporal leader, is practically an autocratic monarch who arranges everything connected with the physical-plane life of the new race, and endeavours in every way to make it as perfect an expression as possible of the idea which the LOGOS has set before Him for realization. The spiritual teacher will be in charge of all the various aspects of religion in the new race, and also of the education of its children. It is clear that one of the main objects of the foundation of the Theosophical Society was that these two Masters might gather round Them a number of men who would be intelligent and willing co-operators in this mighty work. Round Them will be grouped others who are now Their pupils, but will by that time have attained the level of adeptship.

We may then set before ourselves as a goal the privilege of being chosen to serve Them in this wonderful work for the world which lies before Them. There will be ample opportunity for the display of all possible varieties of talent, for the work will be of the most varied character. Some of us will no doubt be attracted to one side of it and some to the other, largely according to the predominance of our affection for one or other of its great Leaders. It has often been said that the characteristic of one is power, and of the other love and compassion, and this is perfectly true, though, if it is not rightly understood, it may very easily prove misleading. One of the Masters concerned has been a ruler in many incarnations, and was so even in the earlier part of this one, and unquestionably royal power shows forth in His every gesture and in the very look of His eyes, just as surely as the face of His brother adept beams ever with overflowing love and compassion. They are of different rays or types, having risen to Their present level along different lines, and this fact cannot but show itself; yet we should mistake sadly if we thought of the first as in any degree less loving and compassionate than His brother, or of the second as lacking anything of the power possessed by the first. Other Masters also will be engaged in this work, and it may well be that some of us may have made our link through one of Them.

It is probable that even the Masters who are by name best known to you are not so real, not so clear, not so well-defined to you as They are to those of us who have had the privilege of meeting Them face to face and seeing Them constantly in the course of our work. Yet you should endeavour by reading and thinking of Them to gain this realization, so that the Masters shall become to you not vague ideals but living men — men exactly as we are, though so enormously more advanced in every respect. They are men most emphatically, but men without failings, and so to us They seem like gods on account of the power, love and compassion radiating from Them. It is most significant that, in spite of the awe necessarily produced by the sense of this tremendous power, in Their presence one never feels in the least afraid or embarrassed, but always uplifted.

The man who stands before one of Them cannot but feel the deepest humility, because of the greatness of the contrast between himself and the Master. Yet with all this humility he yet feels a firm confidence in himself, for since the Master, who is also man, has achieved, that achievement is clearly possible even for him. In His presence everything seems possible and even easy, and one looks back with wonder on the troubles of yesterday, unable now to comprehend why they should have caused agitation or dismay. Now at least, the man feels, there can never again be trouble, since he has seen the right proportion of things. Now he will never again forget that, however dark the clouds may be, the sun is ever shining behind them. The vibrations of the Masters are so strong that only those qualities in you which harmonize with them are called out, so that you will feel the uttermost confidence and love, and the desire to be always in His presence. It is not that you forget that you have undesirable qualities in you, but you feel that now you can conquer them, and you do not in the least mind His knowing all about them, because you are so certain that He understands perfectly, and to understand all is to pardon all.

It may perhaps help us to realize the human side of our Masters if we remember that many of Them in comparatively recent times have been known as historical characters. The Master K. H., for example, appeared in Europe as the philosopher Pythagoras. Before that He was the Egyptian priest Sarthon, and on yet another occasion chief-priest of a temple at Agade, in Asia Minor, where He was killed in a general massacre of the inhabitants by a host of invading barbarians who swooped down upon them from the hills. On that occasion He took immediately the body of a Greek fisherman, which had been drowned in his attempt to escape, and in that body the Master journeyed on to Persia, where he rendered great assistance to the last of the Zoroasters in the founding of the modern form of the Mazdayaznian religion. Later He was the flamen of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, and later still Nagarjuna, the great Buddhist teacher. We have found Him many times in our researches into the past lives of some members of our group, but almost always as a priest or teacher.

Again, in these researches into the remote past we have frequently found the disciple Jesus, who in Palestine had the privilege of yielding up His body to the Christ. As a result of that act He received the incarnation of Apollonius of Tyana, and in the eleventh century He appeared in India as the teacher Ramanujacharya, who revived the devotional element in Hinduism, and raised it to so high a level.

No doubt some of you have heard a good deal about other Masters besides the two who principally take charge of Theosophical work. Another Master, for example, dictated for us Light on the Path and The Idyll of the White Lotus, while yet another has taken charge of a great deal of the work in Europe, and has written for us some of the most splendid works in the whole realm of literary activity. Then the one who was once the disciple Jesus stands ready especially to guide the various activities of the Christian Churches. Yet another looks especially after the work here in India.

Thus it may be seen that the evolution of the world is by no means left to itself, to get along as best it may, as people so often rashly suppose; on the contrary, it is being directed. For this Hierarchy of adepts is actually managing it, as far as it is possible to manage it while leaving its inhabitants their own free-will. The members of the Brotherhood, through Their agents, are constantly trying to work with the important people of the world, putting advice and suggestions into their minds, endeavouring to move them onwards towards the great future of Universal Brotherhood when war shall have disappeared. But we must remember that the karma of all the people concerned has to be considered and respected. It would no doubt be easy to force the world along at a far more rapid rate, but that would not be for the real advantage of the people concerned. The Master K. H. once said in a letter which I received from Him: “Of course I could easily tell you exactly what to do, and of course you would do it, but then the karma of the act would be mine and not yours, and you would gain only the karma of prompt obedience.”

Men have to learn to be not merely intelligent servants; they have to learn to be co-workers, because they themselves will have the same work to do some day, and if they are to be fit for greater responsibilities in the future they must be willing to take up the smaller responsibilities now. Sometimes, it is true, a really great opportunity or responsibility of worldwide importance comes to one of us, but that may perhaps be once in many hundreds of lives. When it comes we shall take it or miss it, according as we have or have not been in the habit of taking the smaller opportunities of daily life, so that we have got into the habit of doing the right thing, and shall do it automatically at the critical moment. Our opportunities of doing good or harm are usually but small as regards the world as a whole; but when we have learnt invariably and automatically to choose the right in these smaller matters, the Great Brotherhood will feel it safe to trust us in larger matters.

It is indeed well that we should try to understand these Great Ones, not as a mere matter of curiosity and interest, but in order that we may realise Them as They are, and comprehend that They are men just as we are, varying among Themselves just as we vary, although at so much higher a level. Wisdom, power and love are present in all of Them equally, yet They are by no means all alike. They are individuals just as we are. They are at the top of the ladder of humanity, but let us not forget that we are somewhere on its lower rungs, and that one day we also shall reach Their level and stand where They stand.

One important fact about Them is Their all-round development. If we examine ourselves we shall be sure to find that we are to some extent disproportionate in our development — one-sided in certain respects. Some of us are full of scientific faculty and intellectual development, but sadly lacking in devotion and compassion; others are full of whole-souled devotion, but defective on the intellectual side. A Master is perfect along both these lines, as may easily be seen when we think of the splendid intellect of Pythagoras along with the love and compassion of the Master K. H.

We must not misunderstand Their wonderful knowledge. In order to attain the level of adeptship They must have cast off among others the fetter of avidya or ignorance, and it is often said that to cast off ignorance one must attain all-knowledge. Yet we know from personal acquaintance with Them that this is not so in the mere literal sense; for example, there are Masters who do not know all languages, others who are not artists and musicians, and so on. I think that what is really meant by casting off the fetter of ignorance is the acquisition of a power by which They can at any moment command any knowledge upon any subject which They happen to require. They certainly have not all facts stored within Their physical brains but equally certainly They can very quickly obtain any knowledge of which They have need. As to the question of languages, for example, if a Master wishes to write a letter in a language which He does not know, He very frequently employs the brain of a pupil who is acquainted with that language, throwing the ideas into that pupil' s brain, and then employing the words in which He sees them clothe themselves. If a man speaks to Them in a language which They do not understand, They can instantly grasp on the mental plane the thought that lies behind the incomprehensible words.

It is often asked whether an ordinary man who met a Master on the physical plane would instantly recognize Him as such. I do not see any reason why he should. He would certainly find the Adept impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene. He could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man; but to know certainly that that man was an adept it would be necessary to see His causal body, which of course the ordinary man could not do. In that causal body the development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special arrangement of the colours, which would differ for each of the seven great types. But all this would be quite out of the reach of the ordinary man whom we are postulating.

Adepts have no definite external peculiarities by which They may be recognized, though there is a great calmness and benevolence common to Them all; Their faces are stamped always with a joyous serenity, the peace which passeth all understanding. Most of Them are distinctly handsome men, because Their physical bodies are perfect, for They live in an absolutely hygienic way, and above all They never worry about anything. In the case of most of us there is still a great deal of karma of various kinds to be worked out and among other things this modifies the appearance of our physical bodies. In Their case all karma is long ago exhausted, and consequently the physical body is a perfect expression on the physical plane of the Augoeides or glorified body of the Ego. Not only therefore is the body of a Master usually splendidly handsome, but also any new body that He may take in a subsequent incarnation will be an almost exact reproduction of the old one, because there is nothing to modify it.

Another remarkable fact is that They are able to preserve Their physical bodies very much longer than we can — owing no doubt to the perfect health and absence of worry which we have already mentioned. Almost all of the Masters whom we know appear as men in the prime of life, yet in many cases there is testimony to prove that Their physical bodies must have long passed the ordinary age of man. I have heard Madame Blavatsky say that her Master as He appears now does not look a day older than when she first saw Him in her childhood sixty years before. In one case only, that of a Master who has recently attained adeptship in the body which He is still wearing, there is a certain ruggedness in the face; which is doubtless the result of some remainder of past karma brought over into this incarnation, but I think we may feel sure that when He chooses to take another body that characteristic will not persist.

Probably They are more silent than most men; busy people have not much time for casual talk, and They are out of all proportion the busiest people in the world. Their pupil Madame Blavatsky was the most brilliant conversationalist that I have ever met, but she never made talk for the sake of making it. So with Them; a Master never speaks without a definite object in view, and His object is always to encourage, to help or to warn. He speaks always gently and with the greatest kindness, though He often betrays a very keen sense of humour; yet the humour itself is always of the kindly order, and is used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of the way, or to soften some necessary rebuke. Certainly a man who has no sense of humour would not be likely to make much progress in occult matters.

The number of adepts who retain physical bodies in order to help the evolution of the world is but small — perhaps some fifty or sixty in all. But it must be remembered that the great majority of these do not take pupils, as They are engaged in quite other work. Madame Blavatsky employed the term adept very loosely, for in one place she actually speaks of adepts who have been initiated, and adepts who have not been initiated. In all later writings we have reserved the word “initiate” for those who have passed at least the first of the four great stages upon the Path of Holiness, and the word adept we have restricted to those who have attained the Asekha level, and so have finished the evolution required of them in this chain of worlds. The consciousness of the Asekha rests normally upon the nirvanic or atmic plane while his physical body is awake. But out of the number who have already attained adeptship only the very small proportion above-mentioned retain physical bodies, and remain in touch with the earth in order to help it; and out of this a still smaller proportion are willing under certain conditions to accept men as pupils or apprentices; and it is to these last (the smallest number) only that we give the name of Masters. Yet few though They be Their office is of incalculable importance, since without Their aid it would be impossible for man to enter the portals of initiation.

The Work Of The Christ

You ask about the Great One whom we call the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, and about His work in the past and in the future. The subject is a wide one — one also about which it is somewhat difficult for us to speak with freedom, on account of the restrictions with which we are hedged round. Possibly the suggestion may be of use to you that there is what we may call a department of the inner government of the world which is devoted to religious instruction — the founding and inspiring of religions, and so on. It is the Christ who is in charge of that department; sometimes He Himself appears on earth to found a great religion and sometimes He entrusts such work to one of His more advanced assistants. We must regard Him as exercising a kind of steady pressure from behind all the time, so that the power employed will flow as though automatically into every channel anywhere and of any sort which is open to its passage; so that He is working simultaneously through every religion, and utilizing all that is good in the way of devotion and self-sacrifice in each.

The fact that these religions may be wasting their strength in abusing one another upon the physical plane is of course lamentable, but it does not make much difference to the fact that whatever is good in each of them is being simultaneously utilized from behind by the same great Power. This is true of course of all movements in the world; every ounce of the good in them is being used as a channel, while the evil in them is in each case just so much regrettable waste of force which might have been utilized if the people had been more sensible. The section in The Secret Doctrine entitled The Mystery of Buddha gives a good deal of information as to the relations between the Heads of this department of Religion, and it may give some useful hints as to the Christ also. This is a subject of paramount interest to the members of our Society, since one of our Masters has a specially close relation with that department.

As to the approaching advent of the Christ and the work which He has to do, you cannot do better than read Mrs. Besant's book on The Changing World. The time of His advent is not far distant, and the very body which He will take is even already born among us.

All this was decided many thousands of years ago — some of it decided apparently in minute details, though it would seem that there is a good deal of flexibility with regard to other points. The utter certainty with which these Great Ones lay Their plans many thousands of years ahead is one of the most wonderful features of this stupendous work that They do. Sometimes it is open to those of us who have been able to develop the faculties of the higher planes to be allowed a glimpse of Their mighty schemes, to witness the lifting of a tiny corner of the veil which shrouds the future. Sometimes also we have glimpsed Their plans in another way, for in looking back into the records of the distant past we have found Them making prophecies, the fulfilment of which is even now passing before our eyes.

I know of nothing more stirring, more absorbingly interesting, than such a glimpse. The splendour, the colossal magnitude, of Their plans takes away one' s breath, yet even more impressive is the calm dignity, the utter certainty, of it all. Not individuals only, but even nations are the pieces in this game; but neither nation nor individual is compelled to play any given part. The opportunity to play that part is given to it or to him; if he or it will not take it there is invariably an under-study ready to step in and fill the gap. But, whoever may be the instrument, this one thing at least is utterly certain, that the intended end will be achieved; through whose agency this will be done matters very much to the agent but nothing at all to the total progress of the world. Nineteen hundred years ago Appollonius of Tyana was sent out by the Brotherhood upon a mission, one feature of which was that he was to found, in various countries, certain magnetic centres. Objects of the nature of talismans were given to him, which he was to bury at these chosen spots, in order that the force which they radiated might prepare these places to be the centres of great events in the future. Some of those centres have already been utilized, but some have not, and all these latter are to be employed in the immediate future in connection with the work of the coming Christ. So that much of the detail of His work was already definitely planned nearly two thousand years ago, and arrangements even on the physical plane were being made to prepare for it. When once we realize this utter certainty, doubt and hesitation, anxiety and worry, all fade away and we gain a perfect peace and content, and the most absolute confidence in the Powers who are governing the world.

The Work Of The Masters

The work of the Masters on Their own planes is not easy for us to comprehend, though we can readily see that Their activity must be tremendous. The number of adepts still retaining physical bodies is but small, and yet in Their hands is the care of all the evolutions which are taking place on this globe. As far as humanity is concerned They seem to divide the world into parishes, but Their parishes are continents, and an adept is appointed to look after each. The Theosophical Society appears to be rather of the nature of a mission sent out from Headquarters, so that those who take part in its activities are working not for any particular parish or any particular form of religion, but for humanity as a whole; and it is upon humanity as a whole, or at least upon humanity in the mass, that the Masters chiefly act. They have a department which devotes itself to endeavouring to influence in the right direction the important people of the world — to affect kings and statesmen in the direction of peace, to impress more liberal ideas upon great preachers and teachers, to uplift the conceptions of artists, so that through them the whole world may be made a little happier and a little better.

But the working of such departments as these is mainly entrusted to Their pupils, They themselves dealing rather with the egos in their causal bodies; They devote themselves to pouring spiritual influence upon them — raying out upon them as the sunlight radiates upon the flowers, and thereby evoking from them all that is noblest and best in them, and so promoting their growth. Many people are sometimes conscious of helpful influences of this description, but are quite unable to trace them to their source. The causal body of the average man has as yet almost no consciousness of anything external to itself on its own plane. It is very much in the condition of the chicken within the egg, which is entirely unconscious of the source of the heat which nevertheless stimulates its growth. When any person reaches the stage where he breaks through his shell, and becomes capable of some sort of response, the whole process takes on a different form, and is enormously quickened. Even the group-souls of animals on the lower part of the mental plane are greatly affected and assisted by such influence, for like sunlight the force floods the entire plane and affects to some extent everything which is within its radius. In pouring out this force the Masters frequently take advantage of special occasions and of places where there is some strong magnetic centre. Where some holy man has lived and died, or where some relics of such a person create a suitable atmosphere, They take advantage of such conditions and cause Their own force to radiate along the channels which are already prepared. When some vast assemblage of pilgrims comes together in a receptive attitude, again They take advantage of the occasion by pouring Their forces out upon the people through the channels by means of which they have been taught to expect help and blessing.

It is owing to assistance of this nature given to us from above that humanity has progressed even to its present position. We are still in the fourth round, which should naturally be devoted to the development of desire and emotion, and yet we are already engaged in the unfolding of the intellect, which is to be the special characteristic of the fifth round. That this is so is due to the immense stimulus given to our evolution by the descent of the Lords of the Flame from Venus, and by the work of the adepts who have preserved for us that influence and steadily sacrificed Themselves in order that we might make the better progress.

Those who understand anything of this work, and most especially those of us who have been privileged to see the Masters doing it, would never for a moment think of interrupting Them in such altruistic labour as this by propounding any personal requests. The vast importance of the work which They are doing, and the enormous amount of it, make it obviously impossible that They should take up personal work with individuals. In the cases where such work has to be done it is always delegated to pupils or performed by means of elementals and nature-spirits. Therefore it becomes emphatically the duty of the student to fit himself to do some of this lower work, for the very good reason that if he does not do so, the work will for the present be left undone, since it would be obviously impossible for the Masters to turn aside from Their far greater work for the whole world to attend to individual cases. The work of the invisible helpers on the astral plane would simply not be done unless there were pupils at the stage where that is the best work that they can do; for so soon as they pass beyond that stage and can do higher work, the higher work will certainly be given to them.

People sometimes ask why the Masters so often work through imperfect instruments; the answer is obviously because They have not time to do the work themselves, and They must therefore employ such instruments as They have, or the work will not be done at all. Take for example the writing of books for the helping of humanity. It is obvious that the Masters could do this very far better than any of Their pupils can, and by doing it They could entirely avoid any possibility of erroneous or imperfect statements. But They have absolutely no time to devote to such work, and therefore if it were not done by pupils it would remain undone. Besides, if the Masters did it They would take away the opportunity of making good karma from those who can do it — certainly not as well as They, but yet after all well enough for the use of those who know so very much less.

We must remember that every Master has at His command only a certain amount of force which, enormous as it seems to us, is still a limited quantity, and it is His duty to employ this force to the best possible advantage for the helping of humanity. Therefore it would, if we may say so without irreverence, be absolutely wrong for Him to waste that force upon anything lower than the very highest that it can reach, or to spend upon individual cases, however deserving, that which can be so much better employed for the welfare of all.

Masters And Pupils

It has already been said that out of the comparatively small number of adepts who retain Their physical bodies and fill the offices connected with the administration of the world under the Great Hierarchy, there is a still smaller number who accept pupils, and to whom therefore we give the name of Masters. Let us see then what it means to be a pupil of one of these Masters, what is expected of one who aspires to this position and what is the work which he has to do.

First let us have it clearly in our minds that the Masters have absolutely dedicated themselves to the service of humanity, and that They are utterly absorbed in the work to the entire exclusion of every other consideration. In speaking to you on this subject before, I have mentioned that a Master has only a certain definite amount of force to expend, and that though the amount of that force seems to us almost incalculable, He is nevertheless exceedingly careful to use every ounce of it to the best possible advantage. Obviously to take in hand and instruct a pupil will make some demand upon His time and upon this store of energy, and since He regards everything from the standpoint of its use in regard to the promotion of evolution He will not expend this time and energy upon any man unless He can see that it is a good investment.

He will take a man as a pupil; or perhaps we should rather say as an apprentice, when He sees that the amount of time and strength spent in training him will produce more result eventually than any other way of expending the same amount — but not otherwise For example, a man might have many qualifications which would make him useful as an assistant, but at the same time some one great fault which would be a constant obstacle in his way, which would nullify much of the good that he might otherwise do. No Master would accept such a man as a pupil; but he might say to him: “Go to work and conquer that special fault of yours, and when you have succeeded I will take you as my assistant, and will train you further.”

So many of our earnest students are full of the most benevolent and altruistic feeling, and, knowing themselves to be in this way very different from the majority of mankind, they sometimes say to themselves, “I am so deeply anxious to work for humanity; why will not the Master take me in hand and train me?”

Let us face the facts boldly. The Master will not train you because you are still full of all sorts of minor imperfections. It is quite true, as you no doubt feel within yourselves, that your benevolence, your kindliness, your earnest wish to be helpful, are far greater things on the credit side of the account than are all these small faults on the debit side. But try to realize that there are thousands of people in the world who are benevolent and well-meaning, and that you differ from them only in the fact that you happen to have a little more knowledge, and so you are able to direct your benevolence into more definitely useful channels than those others. If these were all the qualifications required for discipleship, each Master might have thousands of pupils, and His whole time would be taken up in endeavouring to bring into shape those few thousands of people, with all their petty little faults on the astral and physical planes, and in the meantime the Master's splendid work with the egos on the higher levels would have to be entirely neglected.