The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Discussion on literature other than by the Star of Azazel.
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by Smaragd »

Thank you fra obnoxion for clearing some things up on last weeks letter!

This week we have Letter No. 10 under our focus. KH is making notes to Hume regarding his article published in The Theosophist. The article might be "Fragments of Occult Truth" reprinted in three parts, starting October 1881. Online Mahatma Letters states the article to have appeared in November issue of The Theosophist. There's a short writing by ”H” in the November issue, but I don't see it linking to this weeks letter, although we have KH slandering Hume by denying his role as god with capital H – creator of cosmogonies. Letter No. 54 (received ~a month after letter No. 10 if the online version is to be trusted) supports my guess as KH writes about three essays written by Hume: ”I dread the appearance in print of our philosophy as expounded by Mr. H. I read his three essays or chapters on God (?) cosmogony and glimpses of the origin of things in general, and had to cross out nearly all.”

KH starts his notes explaining how the philosophy of the Mahatmas builds under inspection of causes and their effects. He sees improbable the existence of ”a supreme, omnipotent, intelligent being of some sort beyond the limits of...” our solar system. The solar system is the manifestation of Parabrahm, which is the natural law and immediately present as the essence of matter. This brings the concept of emanation under Maya. Overall I find this letter particularly helpful for remapping the veils of the universe.

The negativity towards Christian theology and the word God (which I love for almost perverse reasons) is best described in these three quotes, first of which draws line between the words God and Iswar.
KH wrote:Parabrahm is not a God, but absolute immutable law, and Iswar is the effect of Avidya and Maya, ignorance based upon the great delusion. The word God was invented to designate the unknown cause of those effects which man has either admired or dreaded without understanding them
KH wrote:The God of the Theologians is simply and imaginary power, un loup garou as d'Holbach expressed it — a power which has never yet manifested itself.
KH wrote:Theologian nursed on mystery and the most absurd supernaturalism can imagine a self existent being of necessity infinite and omnipresent outside the manifested boundless universe.
Then KH breaks down his criticism towards infinite, conscious, thinking God apart and beyond the manifested world, and further more explains intelligent ”spirit's” such as Dyan Chohans place in this almost matter (nature) centric worldview. It was really hard for me to read this without getting annoyed by KH's use of the word matter instead of nature, but it seems necessary to penetrate matter with meaning and break unnecessary antipathy towards this crude mud or atleast towards the basis of it.
KH wrote:We deny the existence of a thinking conscious God, on the grounds that such a God must either be conditioned, limited and subject to change, therefore not infinite

We deny the absurd proposition that there can be, even in a boundless and eternal universe — two infinite eternal and omni-present existences.

Matter we know to be eternal, i.e., having had no beginning (a) because matter is Nature herself (b) because that which cannot annihilate itself and is indestructible exists necessarily — and therefore it could not begin to be, nor can it cease to be (c) because the accumulated experience of countless ages, and that of exact science show to us matter (or nature) acting by her own peculiar energy, of which not an atom is ever in an absolute state of rest, and therefore it must have always existed, i.e., its materials ever changing form, combinations and properties, but its principles or elements being absolutely indestructible.

Intelligence as found in our Dyan Chohans, is a faculty that can appertain but to organized or animated being — however imponderable or rather invisible the materials of their organizations. Intelligence requires the necessity of thinking; to think one must have ideas; ideas suppose senses which are physical material
There's lots of ideas in the text thrown out there for arguments sake, so I feel huge relief when KH actually states what they believe in after rejecting theistic theory and consciousness produced solely by molecules.
KH wrote:Then what do we believe in? Well, we believe in the much laughed at phlogiston (see article What is force and what is matter? (pdf page 29) Theosophist, September), and in what some natural philosophers would call nisus the incessant though perfectly imperceptible (to the ordinary senses) motion or efforts one body is making on another — the pulsations of inert matter —its life. The bodies of the Planetary spirits are formed of that which Priestley and others called phlogiston and for which we have another name — this essence in its highest seventh state forming that matter of which the organisms of the highest and purest Dyans are composed, and in its lowest or densest form (so impalpable yet that science calls it energy and force) serving as a cover to the Planetaries of the 1st or lowest degree. In other words we believe in matter alone, in matter as visible nature and matter in its invisibility as the invisible omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with its unceasing motion which is its life, and which Nature draws from herself since she is the great whole outside of which nothing can exist.
KH wrote:The real evil proceeds from human intelligence and its origin rests entirely with reasoning man who dissociates himself from Nature. Humanity then alone is the true source of evil. Evil is the exaggeration of good, the progeny of human selfishness and greediness.
I've come to understand that in SoA some people rather gravitate towards the idea of Pure spirit (which KH renounces) emanating the world in to existence but Maya's deluding effect leads humans to misunderstand the nature of things and evil ensues. When it comes to practical matters, how we see evil emerge is substantial question. Whether we see the world with Pure spirit in the structures of the universe and within matter or the non-theistic (Buddhist?) way the Mahatmas see it, both ways see the problem of evil rise up approximately from the same place. Which way to see the world I think is a question of individuals location at the ladders of ascension. At some point theistic viewpoint has it's advances and accumulates just the right kind of energies around. Then one sheds the skin and proceeds to open towards new ideas and beyond.
KH wrote:Food, sexual relations, drink, are all natural necessities of life; yet excess in them brings on disease, misery, suffering, mental and physical...
KH's neutral attitude towards sexual relations is interesting considering Blavatskys stance on the subject. Or would you say Blavatskys attitude was strictly in the context of occult practitioners methods, while KH speaks here in much wider context?

Continuing on the subject of evil, corrupted religion and the importance of iconoclasm/blasphemy KH arrives to the four noble truths and the 12 Nidanas — causal chains to contemplate ”the origin and destruction of suffering”. As my knowledge of Buddhist traditions is very narrow I'd like to enquire the reading group about the -agga literature. KH cites the Mahavagga and I've stumbled on the Visuddhimagga name while overlooking the 12 Nidanas. There's few translations found searching by those names; do you know any decent translations of these commentary(?) works included somewhere?
Mahavagga wrote:...from ignorance spring the Samkharas of threefold nature — productions of body, of speech, of thought. From the samkharas springs consciousness, from consciousness spring name and form, from this spring the six regions (of the six senses the seventh being the property of but the enlightened); from these springs contact from this sensation; from this springs thirst (or desire, Kama, Tanha) from thirst attachment, existence, birth, old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection and despair. Again by the destruction of ignorance, the samkharas are destroyed, and their consciousness name and form, the six regions, contact, sensation, thirst, attachment (selfishness), existence, birth, old age, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair are destroyed. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.
KH wrote:Knowing this the Blessed One uttered this solemn utterance. "When the real nature of things becomes clear to the meditating Bikshu, then all his doubts fade away since he has learned what is that nature and what its cause. From ignorance spring all the evils. From knowledge comes the cessation of this mass of misery . . . and then the meditating Brahmana stands dispelling the hosts of Mara like the sun that illuminates the sky.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by Nefastos »

I admire the depth you have went to reach the context of these letters, dear brothers...
Smaragd wrote:The negativity towards Christian theology and the word God


Yes, this is how the "mahatma letters" are composed; a kind of a "Buddhist a-theism" is a red thread of their philosophy. Yet these modes of speech should not, methinks, be taken as the best possible form. Because of their own reasons, the "masters" (I use the quotation marks to point out that they certainly are only masters to some people, like myself, who accept such a claim of authority) clearly sought to undermine Christian thinking of their readers, and how necessary or wise it seems is left for the reader. Personally I have spoken of these same topics with somewhat different vocabulary, and I do not feel that my texts have a different cosmology - just a bit different language. Occultism transcends all formal presentations, like being Christian, Buddhist, Satanist, Atheist, Theist, and so on. Those are just masks or aspects with which to veil the ideas accordingly to the chosen needs of the context.

Smaragd wrote:KH's neutral attitude towards sexual relations is interesting considering Blavatskys stance on the subject. Or would you say Blavatskys attitude was strictly in the context of occult practitioners methods, while KH speaks here in much wider context?


I'm afraid Koot Hoomi as a person was equally or almost as much against sexuality (as it comes to occultism) than Blavatsky. Such things come up in several occasions in the letters and, after all, his and his brethren's was the schooling originally given to Blavatsky in these matters. I think that he speaks here about sex in a so-called lower natural world, which for an occultist can be seen as something to transcend.

This is very interesting, if we ponder how universally minded Theosophy was (trying to be), and how even in Tibetan Buddhism there is a ritualistic vein of sexually understood tantra. But as brother Obnoxion had researched and explained above, there seems to be a curious sectarianist attitude even in the mahatma letters. Personally I do not see this as a complete turn-off, for even the most wise teachings are context- and culture-bound: the very sayings of Christ, Buddha & so on have such possibilities for escalating problematic interpretations. I think that as long as a person even is in position to teach (instead of being immersed within innermost divinity as a highest initiate in abscondito) all teaching must be taken with a pinch of salt.
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by obnoxion »

I do not find these letters off-puting. Rather than that, I've been quite immersed in their world, and also into this wonderful little reading group. This has become for me a surprisingly positive endevour.

I agree that teachers have their individual hues, and I love to learn from many teachers, from Abinavagupta to Mohammed. The sectarian tones are mostly just a minor hinderance for me. But I do think the inclusive teachings His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama are more in tune with my own convictions, compared to some of the more exclusivist views of KH & Blavatsky. (In addition, my spiritual disposition tends to be more of the Red Hat variety...)

I've known KH by his fruits - The Blavatskyan Theosophy and the original philosophy of the SoA formulated by fra Nefastos. And these two are unique and exquisit fruits. Though I am only now getting to know these letters, the idea of ascended beings is not uncomfortable concept for me, like, for example, I am comfortable with the Mahayanist idea of multitudes of Boddhisattvas.

When it comes to abstinence in its many forms, I feel it is a necessary part in establishing (and, perhaps, in maintainig) spiritual authonomy. Though I hesitate to draw science in an occulttis speculation when it happens to suite me, neuropsychological findings imply that we are most independent when we say "no". And celibacy is a pretty big "no".
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by Smaragd »

Extra special homework for the interested: Hume under pseudonym H. X. wrote an article called 'A Personal and an Impersonal God' published in the Theosophist, December 1882 (page 74 or 22 in pdf format), some months after KH's notes had arrived.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by obnoxion »

On the extra special homework: Mt. Hume shows his diplomatic tendencies. And as we now know from history, he made good use of these tendencies in politics.

While most of the writing seemed to revolve around pretty basic stuff, I did find one idea that was more interesting and original than the rest: real differences are beneficial, while unreal differences are harmful.

I suppose in this case Mr Hume and KH just cannot find a common ground, because Hume's views on these matters are quite generic, while KH is being very specific.
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by RaktaZoci »

Hello everybody and sorry for the delay. I have gotten some projects finished that have been gnawing on my foot for a long time, so now I finally had the proper time to catch up with this ongoing discussion. As we do not have so many participants in this thread, I thought it would do little harm, if I back-tracked slightly and commented on Letter no. 9, that fra obnoxion presented roughly a week ago.

I won't go into details, and I must say obnoxion's presentation was a remarkable one, but will instead bring up a few notions I myself picked up. To make my trail of thought easier to follow I will use obnoxion's comments as guideposts to the original text.

First of all, I have very little to add to the historical angle of the letter, since I do not know this period very well personally, not to mention all the people involved. Thus I also thank obnoxion for his summary of them in the end of his presentation.

But, to my actual topic:
obnoxion wrote:"KH describes the idea of circular macrocosm where microcosmic worlds are poised epicyclically on the macrocosmic form like pearls on a string. KH describes such ring as if it was a rosary composed with white and black bead alternating with each other, so that the white beads represents worlds of causes (KH says we live in a world of causes), and the black beads are the worlds of effects."
Until the word "epicycloid" came aboard, I was, in a semi-conscious way, following where the text was going. However, when he (KH) returned to the subject mentioning:
KH wrote:"..chain of worlds I have just been telling you about, is not only an epicycloid but an elliptical orbit of existences, having, as every ellipse, not one but two points — two foci, which can never approach each other; man being at one focus of it and pure Spirit at the other.”
This brought me back on the map, or atleast on the map I thought I was on before. This elliptical orbit reminded me of what Nefastos had been talking about in Argarizim, chapter III: Insatiati (page 43 on the Finnish version) about the cycle of manifestation. So now I'm presenting if I could be barking under the same tree here or then I might be way of..(?) If I am not mistaken, then I might have a slight idea of the topic in question.

And another matter, on the following quotations from obnoxion's analysis:
obnoxion wrote:"Now, if I understood correctly, there are two sorts of such barriers that are bordering us. The one is the place where the transmigrating part of deceased beings are in an unconscious state, their individuality dormant like butterfly in its chrysalis. In addition to the thing that such unconscious (and, from our point of view, practically inexistent) beings would have nothing sensible to say, the attempt to disturb such beings would be ethically comparable to harassing an infant.

The other shadowy barrier – the lower world of effects - compares roughly to the ideas of infernal worlds. KH calls it the sphere of distorted thoughts (for example, of anthropomorphic deities) of people who have never outgrown their brutehood on earth."
Do these refer to the similar type of "beings" as described in Nefastos' text Beings of the Mask from Writings of Magic (not yet published in English)? If yes, then I might have a slight clue on this topic as well. :)

That is all, carry on!
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by RaktaZoci »

Hello again. I have finally catched up with the rest of the group. I'll comment briefly on the topic of letter no. 10, which Smaragd presented, after which we can pursue our original schedule with the letter presentations.

In the God-issue I have very little of personal flavor to add. I would take myself as a sort of a pantheist, but my focus in life has been directed perhaps more into the practical means of how to utilize normative ethics than to that of metaphysics, the creation of cosmos etc.

I have no great knowledge of the buddhist or hindu traditions, so the used terminology does very seldom ring a bell in my head, thus leaving the meanings of many paragraphs cryptical.

What I can endorse, however, is the mention of evil being an effect caused by Man, and especially Man's selfishness and that in pure Nature, evil does not exist. As expressed in:
Mahatma letters wrote:"Evil has no existence per se and is but the absence of good and exists but for him who is made its victim. It proceeds from two causes, and no more than good is it an independent cause in Nature. Nature is destitute of goodness or malice; she follows only immutable laws when she either gives life and joy, or sends suffering [and] death, and destroys what she has created. Nature has an antidote for every poison and her laws a reward for every suffering."
I'd recall reading something similar to this notion in Ervast's texts.
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by Yinlong »

The letter no. 11 was received by Hume from Koot Hoomi.

The letter begins with introducing the concept of Swabavat (or Swabhavat), which is a term used by Blavatsky in her writings to describe the root essence of all - that is spirit, matter, consciousness. Before I continue, I have to admit that I was a bit boggled at first, and had to read many times through why Koot Hoomi in this lengthy passage goes to refute, for example, the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy(!) - however, after scrolling through few pages on Theosophy Wiki, I assume the logic behind this is as follows. In Isis Unveiled Blavatsky describes Swabavat as "the Eternal and the uncreated Self-existing Substance which produces all; while everything which is of its essence produces itself out of its own nature”. So, if materia is produced or derivative of Swabavat (which creates itself) then also materia has its ultimate beginning and end in some form.

Perhaps this first part of the letter can be taken as a meditation to if anything can be ultimately or absolutely treated as unknown, immutable or infinite by its nature. This is probably why Koot Hoomi compares theist God and scientific term of force. Though, it seems to me that K.H. perhaps is considering here the less scientific definition of force. In classical physics a force is more like the interaction of materia (or two pieces of things) rather than some hidden element in materia that manifests as gravitation or heat or potential energy. Nevertheless, the whole point is to exemplify that spirit and matter are ultimately one.

The latter part has two quotes that resonated well with my current thoughts - and they perhaps work as a good antidote to my tendency to be very literal and knowledge-oriented.

1. “One has to get a knowledge of spiritual facts by personal experience and from actual observation, for as Tyndall puts it "facts looked directly at are vital, when they pass into words half the sap is taken out of them.”

2. “Men seek after knowledge until they weary themselves to death, but even they do not feel very impatient to help their neighbour with their knowledge; hence there arises a coldness, a mutual indifference which renders him who knows inconsistent with himself and inharmonious with his surroundings. Viewed from our standpoint the evil is far greater on the spiritual than on the material side of man”
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by RaktaZoci »

I have very little to say about the subject of Swabhavat, which YinLong describes. This is probably due to the fact, that I mentioned earlier, that I am not so much interested in the origin of All, but in the means of understanding All and how to reflect this knowledge or realization through my present being as a (physical) operator in this world. I do agree, however, on the presented notion that ultimately matter and spirit are one, or more, are the two ends of the same spectrum, if you will.

Another matter, even though the title of this section 2 is "philosophical teachings", to me they represent something else than what I have been used to when talking of philosophy. I realize, however, that this is probably due to me being accustomed to Western philosophy and not being able to grasp the big picture (read. being dumb). I mean, at first I got lost with all the Eastern terminology used in the letters, now I'm supposed to also know all the basics of the theories of science too? ;)
Yinlong wrote:"In classical physics a force is more like the interaction of materia (or two pieces of things) rather than some hidden element in materia that manifests as gravitation or heat or potential energy."
I am not, by any means, a man of (modern) science, but this notion reminded me of a program I watched recently about Faraday and his findings and work on magnetism. Earlier science thought his ideas as nonsense and his findings of electromagnetism incorrect, but aren't these findings exactly these kinds of "invisible" forces at work in Nature? As I see it, modern science is slowly starting to find the same "laws", which have been known for ages, just not by Western minds.
Mahatma Letters wrote:"1. “One has to get a knowledge of spiritual facts by personal experience and from actual observation, for as Tyndall puts it "facts looked directly at are vital, when they pass into words half the sap is taken out of them.”"
This reminded me of what I've been reading about the so-called "silent knowledge", which is often of the pragmatic kind and cannot be transferred through text. This element must exist in all, or most, topics of which books have been written about.

About the "powers" discussed in the letter, I think these quotes summarize them well:
Mahatma Letters wrote:"..the iron rule is that what powers one gets he must himself acquire. And when acquired and ready for use the powers lie dumb and dormant in their potentiality like the wheels and clockwork inside a musical box; and only then does it become easy to wind up the key and set them in motion...There are the powers of all nature before you; take what you can."
PS. I must look into this Schoppenhauer business more closely..
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Re: The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett (Reading Group)

Post by Nefastos »

The next letter is number twelve. It is a part of Koot Hoomi -- A.P. Sinnett correspondence, but in KH's place we now have "M", or Morya. This name was a pseudonyme (of course we do not know these adepts' given names, but their "brotherhood names" or working titles, so to say). Morya was H.P. Blavatsky's own master, and is seldom present in this correspondence. Not particularly in this letter, but often when he is in contact with the theosophists, his style is sardonic and almost rude.

In case someone wants to take the "masters" as part of Blavatsky's own subsuperconscious, M is the "will" part when KH is the "intellect" part, perhaps. Most theosophists might consider such a stance to be outrageous, just like most non-theosophists might think equally outrageous to actually believe in Himalayan masters of magic. I gladly leave this question open for everyone to think themselves – and maybe reconsider at some point in their future path – for I have already stated my own opinion. Namely, that there actually exist and act in the world (of thought) such luminaries who have gradually surpassed the normal limitations of the normal, profane human mind, and these beings together are the factual "central lodge" of defacto individual adepts, both living in body and out of it, and these use personalities as masks in occult working. To summarize this very mystic and esoteric subject in brief: A human being who has evolved into understanding of the worth of his personality has in that process transcended it, and can after that point use that personality, and others, like we use clothes. We might, and do, prefer some over others, but we know that these clothes are not a necessity in forming of our "self".

But onwards from this necessary - I claim - digression, to the actual letter:

It deals mostly with the manvantara or the period of objective existence for the world, or the same of the planet. (We know that in occultism the law of correspondence dictates that what is true for one can deduce what is true, mutatis mutandis, with the other.) Morya also speaks of pralaya, which is the state of total - or, as we learn here, partial - disintegration. Every planet has its "rings", as Sinnett has called them, or "race births", as KH & M have called them. The term "root race" is, I remind once again, is in the theosophical teachings of the 19th century meant to present the mankind as a whole; and these "race births" are thus something that we might compare to the geological epoch in humankind's evolution. Different (root) races are like completely different human species. Of these species, each stems seven main aspects, which also are called "races": but these races are more like each other, they co-exist together, and it would be foolish to try to put them in any order of valuation: those seven, not unlike our seven brotherhood aspects, are co-dependent and reflect different features of the "root race" or the mankind as a whole.

Here Morya says that five of these races are now present, and later in the Secret Doctrine Blavatsky wrote, that the sixth is soon to be born in America. That is: the mindset of the American people, and how "racial" features come together and evolve in that continent, will make possible for a different mindset known as the "sixth race" (not the sixth root race, but the sixth branch of the fifth root race). He also presses the point that in the end of the seventh race, far in the future when the human evolution is made perfect, the human race will reach nirvâna en masse, i.e. the whole human evolution has been, at last, fully spiritualized to the point where objective existence is needless. Then even the "last world disappears or passes into subjectivity", and this is pralaya or disintegration. Namely, disintegration for the form, as it is consummation and absolute existence for then purified mind. Morya points to Blavatsky's use of term "snuff out" here, which naturally is a nod to the literal meaning of the Sanskrit word nirvâna.

Many of our brotherhood members and also of the interested outsiders have also some interest in Kabbalist doctrine of Qlippoth, which also mean shells. Of these shells the letter speaks as "dead worlds left behind", which however "do not continue dead" (emphasis is from the original text). This doctrine of the "garment" (the lower, formal principles) cast off by its former owner in the process of transcendence and becoming as an inner (!) garment for the other souls afterwards is one of the extremely interesting and deep secrets of occultism. In this particular letter, the "dead worlds" are macrocosmic planetary bodies; the dead mineral spheres in space. Theosophy teaches us that not many of the celestial bodes that seem lifeless to us are so, but there are some which actually are "dead" in this way, including Moon.

It is interesting to note that Morya says that the teaching about the periodic manifestation of the both subjective and objective worlds can also "throw some light, I hope, upon the vexed question of good and evil". Extremely important is the part where "the law of perfect justice and equilibrium which pervades nature" is mentioned. Without this stable conviction and faith to "karmic" universe one cannot, I think, advance very far in the path. For in occultism, standard morals soon become useless, and without some objective foundations of universal empathy, compassion, law and love, the work will be ruined when the mind collapses to amorality or anti-ethics sooner or later.

Just before these quoted parts (in page 3/5) Morya speaks about compensation coming to those who have suffered, and makes plain that such periods can last extremely long; but at the same time he takes it as granted that what is meaningful are the active periods, not the times when we enjoy the earned feeling of (mostly subjective?) satisfaction. This is, I think, one of the important differences between the theosophical and exoterically religious doctrines. Where a believer of some religion may think that his life means but a little if he can afterwards partake in a "neverending" bliss in heaven (this neverending being actually finite, but it lasts so long that the ego actually will kind like "dissolve" in that happiness, so it really is its subjective eternity), theosophical teaching almost hand-waves that bliss as uninteresting, since it does very little to help the other people or even that one person's monadic development. Obnoxion wrote about earlier letter about those "bliss"-worlds, for they are the worlds of results, thus not so interesting as these worlds of action, like ours. Using this approach, we might even variate Milton:

Paradise Lost wrote:To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.


- to understand that "reign" in form of "act", "to make the difference", to make the world a better place, to help the spiritual evolution even though it means "hell" for ourselves (and that it does, as anyone who has walked the "razor path" can tell). No wonder Blavatsky used this very same quote more than once in her works.

In the very end, there's a curious mention of Subba Row. SR was an Advaita-Vedantist Brahmin, another pupil of Morya's, who helped Blavatsky to write some Hindu parts of the Secret Doctrine. But even though he was ingenious, he wrote extremely little himself, for he was also, as Morya says "very jealous and regards teaching an Englishman as a sacrilege" (!). You know, Europeans did not invent racism, even though we have honed that skill carefully. From some theosophical sources (I suggest Eek's Dâmodar and the Pioneers of Theosophical Movement) we learn that it was actually the local Hindu members who helped the schisms and problems to escalate in the Blavatsky crises, for they thought that the esoteric side of their religions should be kept secret, and the public should not be convinced that occultism had some merit, even if they as the chosen elite (esoterically initiated Vedantist Brahmins) knew its worth. This is very interesting and, as far as I know, never much discussed part of the original theosophical crises (Blavasky's disgracement in media & by the Society of the Psychic Research).
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