Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett - 1923
By A. T. Barker
Letter No XXXI
Received London, March 26th, 1881.
It is from the depths of an unknown valley, amid the steepcrags and glaciers of Terich-Mir—a vale never trodden by European foot since the day its parent mount was itself breathed outfrom within our Mother Earth's bosom—that your friend sendsyou these lines. For, it is there K.H. received your " Affec-tionate homages," and there he intends passing his ** summervacations." A letter from the abodes of eternal snow andpurity " sent to and received—" At the abodes of vice " ! . . . Queer, n'est-ce pas? Would, or rather could I be with youatthose "abodes" No; but I was at several different times,elsewhere, though neither in " astral " nor in any other tangibleform, but simply in thought. Does not satisfy you? Well, well,you know the limitations I am subjected to in your case, and youmust have patience.
Your future book is a little jewel ; and, small and tiny as it is,it may, one day, be found to soar as high as Mount Everest overyour Simla hills. Among all other works of that class, in thewild jungle of Spiritualistic literature, it shall undoubtedly provethe Redeemer, offered as a sacrifice for the sin of the world ofspiritualists. They will begin by rejecting—nay—^villifying it ; but, it will find its faithful twelve and—the seed thrown by yourhand into the soil of speculation will not grow up as a weed. So I PROBATION, AND CHELASHIP 241 far may be promised. You are oft too cautious. You remind too often the reader of your ignorance ; and presenting but as a modest theory, that, which at the bottom of your heart you know and feel to be an axiom, a primary truth—instead of helping, you but perplex him and—create doubt. But it is a spirited and dis- criminative little memoir, and, as a critical estimate of the phe- nomena witnessed by you personally far more useful than Mr. Wallace's work. It is at this sort of springs that Spiritualists ought to be compelled to slake their thirst for phenomena and mystic knowledge instead of being left to swallow the idiotic gush they find in the Banners of Light and others. The world—meaning that of individual existences—is full of those latent meanings and deep purposes which underlie all the phenomena of the Universe, and Occult Sciences—i.e., reason elevated to super- sensuous wisdom—can alone furnish the key wherewith to unlock them to the intellect. Believe me, there comes a moment in the life of an adept, when the hardships he has passed through are a thousandfold rewarded. In order to acquire further knowledge, he has no more to go through a minute and slow process of in- vestigation and comparison of various objects, but is accorded an instantaneous, implicit insight into every first truth. Having passed that stage of philosophy which maintains that all fundamental truths have sprung from a blind impulse—it is the philosophy of your Sensationalists or Positivists ; and left far behind him that other class of thinkers—the Intellectualists or—Skeptics —who hold that fundamental truths are derived from the intellect alone, and that we, ourselves, are their only originating causes ; the adept sees and feels and lives in the very source of all fundamental truths—the Universal Spiritual Essence of Nature, Shiva the Creator, the Destroyer, and the Regenerator. As Spiritualists of to-day have degraded ** spirit," so have the Hindus degraded Nature by their Anthropomorphistic conceptions of it. Nature alone can incarnate the Spirit of limitless contemplation. " Absorbed in the absolute self-unconsciousness of physical Self, plunged in the depths of true Being, which is no being but eternal, universal Life, his whole form as immoveable and white as the eternal summits of snow in Kailasa where he sits, above care, above sorrow, above sin and worldliness, a mendicant, a sage, a healer, the King of Kings, the Yogi of Yogis," such is the ideal Shiva of Yoga-Shastras the culmination of Spiritual Wisdom. . . . Oh, ye Max Mullers and Monier Williamses, what have ye done with our Philosophy?
But you can hardly be expected to enjoy or even understand the above phanerosis of our teachings. Pardon me. I write but seldom letters; and whenever compelled to do so follow rather my own thoughts than strictly hold to the subject I ought to have in view. I have laboured for more than a quarter of a cen-tury night and day to keep my place within the ranks of thatinvisible but ever busy army which labours and prepares for atask which can bring no reward but the consciousness wearedoing our duty to humanity ; and, meeting you on my way I havetried to—do not fear,—not to enroll you, for that would be impossible, but to simply draw your attention, excite your curiosityif not your better feelings to the one and only truth. Youproved faithful and true, and have done your best. If your effortswill teach the world but one single letter from the alphabet ofTruth—that Truth which once pervaded the whole world—yourreward will not miss you. And now that you have met the*' mystics " of Paris and London what do you think of them? . . .
Yours, K. H.
P.S. —Our hapless " Old Lady " is sick. Liver, kidneys, head,brain, legs, every organ and limb shows fight and snaps its fingersat her efforts to ignore them. One of us will have to "fix her"as our worthy Mr. Olcott says, or it will fare bad with her.
