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Starts and Stones On The Path

By C.A. Bartzokas

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Stones On The Path

The beginning is half of the whole. 
— PYTHAGORAS 
Small means are best: Nature puts happiness in each man’s way, Could he the secret guess. 
— CLAUDIUS CLAUDIANUS1

Practical Occultism is fraught with dangers. It requires total, unreserved and unswerving commitment, and loyalty to Truth. As a rule, Occultism is a dangerous, double-edged weapon for one to handle, who is unprepared to devote his whole life to it. The theory of it, unaided by serious practice, will ever remain in the eyes of those prejudiced against such an unpopular cause, an idle, crazy speculation, fit only to charm the ears of ignorant old women.2

The aspirant must choose between the life of the World and the life of Occultism. After a pledge is given, any sensual or even mental selfgratification will forfeit the power of spiritual discrimination. . . . It is useless and vain to endeavour to unite the two, for no one can serve two masters and satisfy both. No one can serve his body and the higher Soul, and do his family duty and his universal duty, without depriving either one or the other of its rights; for he will either lend his ear to the “still small voice” and fail to hear the cries of his little ones, or, he will listen but to the wants of the latter and remain deaf to the voice of Humanity. It would be a ceaseless, a maddening struggle for almost any married man, who would pursue true practical Occultism, instead of its theoretical philosophy. For he would find himself ever hesitating between the voice of the impersonal divine love of Humanity, and that of the personal, terrestrial love. And this could only lead him to fail in one or the other, or perhaps in both his duties. Worse than this. For, whoever indulges after having pledged himself to OCCULTISM in the gratification of a terrestrial love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result; that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal divine state down to the lower plane of matter. Sensual, or even mental selfgratification, involves the immediate loss of the powers of spiritual discernment; the voice of the MASTER can no longer be distinguished from that of one’s passions or even that of Dugpa; the right from wrong; sound morality from mere casuistry.3

And, regardless of motive, the renegade will retrogress and sink deeper into the mire. And once being mistaken and having acted on their mistakes, most men shrink from realising their error, and thus descend deeper and deeper into the mire. And, although it is the intention that decides primarily whether white or black magic is exercised, yet the results even of involuntary, unconscious sorcery cannot fail to be productive of bad Karma. Enough has been said to show that sorcery is any kind of evil influence exercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other persons suffer, in consequence. Karma is a heavy stone splashed in the quiet waters of Life; and it must produce ever widening circles of ripples, carried wider and wider, almost ad infinitum. Such causes produced have to call forth effects, and these are evidenced in the just laws of Retribution.

Only implicit faith to the Teachings and explicit service to mankind can admit the disciple to the Kingdom of Heaven. Besides the danger expressed above, the difficulties to becoming a practical Occultist in this country, are next to insurmountable. Barrier upon barrier, obstacles in every form and shape will present themselves to the student; for the Keys of the Golden Gate leading to the Infinite Truth, lie buried deep, and the gate itself is enclosed in a mist which clears up only before the ardent rays of implicit Faith. Faith alone, one grain of which as large as a mustard-seed, according to the words of Christ, can lift a mountain, is able to find out how simple becomes the Cabala to the initiate, once that he has succeeded in conquering the first abstruse difficulties.2

“Paradox would seem to be the natural language of occultism. . . . And the paradox is one not in words only, but in action, in the very conduct of life. . . . ” . . . The paradoxes of occultism must be lived, not uttered only. Herein lies a great danger, for it is only too easy to become lost in the intellectual contemplation of the path, and so to forget that the road can only be known by treading it.3

Neither success nor safety is to be found outside selfdevelopment. It is this pernicious doctrine of ever relying upon extraneous help that leads to the collapse — physical, mental, moral, and spiritual — of well-meaning, but weak and unbalanced minds. It slays the patient of the mesmeriser and the mental healer, the neophyte of the sorcerer, and the dilettante of Reform.4

Woe to those who, driven by selfishness and vanity, dissent from the aim and ideals of the Theosophical Society. It is certainly not the fault of the minority of true Theosophists, who do try to follow the path and who make desperate efforts to reach it, if the majority of their fellow members do not. It is not to them therefore that this 1 is addressed, but to those who, in their fierce love of Self and their vanity, instead of trying to carry out the original programme to the best of their ability, sow broadcast amongst the members the seeds of dissension; to those whose personal vanity, discontentment and love of power, often ending in ostentation, give the lie to the original programme and to the Society’s motto.2

Disunity is the first condition of failure; rivalry, the second. Those who desire to succeed in abstract or practical Theosophy, must remember that disunity is the first condition of failure. Let a dozen determined and united Theosophists get together. Let them work together, each one according to his taste, along this or another line of universal science, if he so prefers, just as long as each is in sympathy with his neighbour. This will be beneficial even to ordinary members who do not care for philosophical research. If such a group, selected on the basis of esoteric rules, were formed amongst mystics alone; if they pursued truth, helping each other with whatever light they may have, we guarantee that each member of such a group would make more progress in the sacred science in one year, than he would make in ten years on his own. In Theosophy, what is required is emulation and not rivalry; otherwise, he who boasts of being the first, will be the last. In true Theosophy, it is the least who becomes the greatest.3

3.    Chelas, Disciples, Shravakas, Upasans: united in thought and deed

Tatius Have I any (revengers or) tormentors in myself, Father? 
Hermes Yea, and those not a few, but many, and fearful ones. 
Tatius I do not know them, Father. 
Hermes One Torment, Son, is Ignorance; a second, Sorrow; 
a third, Intemperance; a fourth Concupiscence; a fifth, Injustice; 
a sixth, Covetousness; a seventh, Deceit; an eighth, Envy; a ninth, Fraud or Guile; 
a tenth, Wrath; an eleventh, Rashness; a twelfth, Maliciousness. 
— HERMES MERCURIUS TRISMEGISTUS 1

The sine qua non of “Chelaship is a spirit of absolute unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then follow self-knowledge and self-mastery.” It should never be forgotten that Occultism is concerned with the inner man who must be strengthened and freed from the dominion of the physical body and its surroundings, which must become his servants. Hence the first and chief necessity of Chelaship is a spirit of absolute unselfishness and devotion to Truth; then follow self-knowledge and selfmastery. These are all-important; while outward observance of fixed rules of life is a matter of secondary moment.2

Chelaship is a psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind. Chelaship was defined, the other day, by a Mahatma as a “psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind.” If the candidate has the latent lust for money, or political chicanery, or materialistic scepticism, or vain display, or false speaking, or cruelty, or sensual gratification of any kind, the germ is almost sure to sprout; and so, on the other hand, as regards the noble qualities of human nature. The real man comes out.3

Real gurus are not simply Adepts in Occult Sciences: they are Living Men of profound knowledge and noble ethics. They are masters of human nature and of the secrets of Nature herself. A “Chela” then, is one who has offered himself or herself as a pupil to learn practically the “hidden mysteries of Nature and the psychical powers latent in man.” The spiritual teacher to whom he proposes his candidature is called in India a Guru; and the real Guru is always an Adept in the Occult Science. A man of profound knowledge, exoteric and esoteric, especially the latter; and one who has brought his carnal nature under the subjection of the WILL; who has developed in himself both the power (Siddhi) to control the forces of nature, and the capacity to probe her secrets by the help of the formerly latent but now active powers of his being — this is the real Guru.1

Entrance to the mysteries of Inner Life requires a pledge of seven years’ probation. Once that a theosophist would become a candidate for either chelaship or favours, he must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if not formally offered and accepted between the two parties, and, that such a pledge is sacred. It is a bond of seven years of probation.2

Unswerving faith, trust, and confidence to the Master are indispensable. Thus, the chief and only indispensable condition required in the candidate or chela on probation, is simply unswerving fidelity to the chosen Master and his purposes. This is a condition sine qua non; not as I have said, on account of any jealous feeling, but simply because the magnetic rapport between the two once broken, it becomes at each time doubly difficult to re-establish it again; and that it is neither just nor fair, that the Masters should strain their powers for those whose future course and final desertion they very often can plainly foresee.3

But many are unworthy of the honour. “ . . . though they have been repeatedly told of this sine qua non rule on the Path of Theosophy and chelaship, how few of them have given attention to it. Behold, how many of them are sluggards in the morning and time-wasters at night; GLUTTONS, eating and drinking for the sensual pleasure they give; indolent in business; selfish as to the keeping of their neighbours’ (brothers’) interests in view; borrowing from brother-Theosophists, making money out of the loan and failing to return it; lazy in study and waiting for others to think for and teach them; denying themselves nothing, EVEN OF LUXURIES, for the sake of helping poorer brothers; forgetting the Cause in general and its volunteer, hard workers, — and even debauchees, GUILTY OF SECRET IMMORALITY in more than one form. And yet all call themselves Theosophists; all talk with outsiders about ‘Theosophical ethics’ and things, with a puffed up, vain conceit in their hearts.”

“The results have been far from encouraging so far, and it is to show these unfortunates the cause of their failure as much as to warn others against rushing heedlessly upon a similar fate, that the writing of the present article has been ordered.” But since the advent of the Theosophical Society, one of whose arduous tasks it was to reawaken in the Aryan mind the dormant memory of the existence of this science and of those transcendent human capabilities, the rules of Chela selection have become slightly relaxed in one respect.1 Many members of the Society becoming convinced by practical proof upon the above points, and rightly enough thinking that if other men had hitherto reached the goal, they too if inherently fitted, might reach it by following the same path, pressed to be taken as candidates. And as it would be an interference with Karma to deny them the chance of at least beginning — since they were so importunate, they were given it.2

Masters normally select Chelas from natural mystics in the East. Exceptions of accepted Chelas in the West include Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico della Mirándola, and Count de Saint-Germain. For centuries the selection of Chelas — outside the hereditary group within the gon-pa (temple) — has been made by the Himalayan Mahatmas themselves from among the class — in Tibet, a considerable one as to number — of natural mystics. The only exceptions have been in the cases of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico della Mirándola, Count de Saint-Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this celestial science more or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal relations with them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) proportion of the whole truth as was possible under their social surroundings.3

Is there any other Path for those who, though driven outwardly by passions, still yearn for the Eternal in their Heart? But the interest of our readers will probably centre on those who are invincibly attracted towards the “Occult,” yet who neither realise the true nature of what they aspire towards, nor have they become passion-proof, far less truly unselfish.
How about these unfortunates, we shall be asked, who are thus rent in twain by conflicting forces? For it has been said too often to need repetition, and the fact itself is patent to any observer, that when once the desire for Occultism has really awakened in a man’s heart, there remains for him no hope of peace, no place of rest and comfort in all the world. He is driven out into wild and desolate spaces of life by an ever-gnawing unrest he cannot quell. His heart is too full of passion and selfish desire to permit him to pass the Golden Gate; he cannot find rest or peace in ordinary life. Must he then inevitably fall into sorcery and black magic, and through many incarnations heap up for himself a terrible Karma? Is there no other road for him?
Indeed there is, we answer. Let him aspire to no higher than he feels able to accomplish. Let him not take a burden upon himself too heavy for him to carry. Without ever becoming a “Mahatma,” a Buddha or a Great Saint, let him study the philosophy and the “Science of Soul,” and he can become one of the modest benefactors of humanity, without any “superhuman” powers. Siddhis (or the Arhat powers) are only for those who are able to “lead the life,” to comply with the terrible sacrifices required for such a training, and to comply with them to the very letter. Let them know at once and remember always, that true Occultism or Theosophy is the “Great Renunciation of SELF,” unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is ALTRUISM, and it throws him who practises it out of calculation of the ranks of the living altogether. “Not for himself, but for the world, he lives,” as soon as he has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years of probation. But, no sooner is he “accepted” than his personality must disappear, and he has to become a mere beneficent force in Nature. There are two poles for him after that, two paths, and no midward place of rest. He has either to ascend laboriously, step by step, often through numerous incarnations and no Devachanic break, the golden ladder leading to Mahatmaship (the Arhat or Bodhisattva condition), or — he will let himself slide down the ladder at the first false step, and roll down into Dugpaship. . . . 1