The Authentic Letters of
H.P.B., As Edited by One
Of the Main Founders of the
Theosophical Movement
William Q. Judge
H.P.
Blavatsky and W.Q. Judge
Introduction to Chapter 10
of the Present Online Edition:
In
this Chapter H.P.B. again writes as if underestimating her own sufferings and
almost making fun of them.
It is up to the individual who suffers to show courage and detachment.
As we have seen before [1], a sense
humour with regard to the sufferings of one’s lower self is part of the
discipleship training. Not a soul has the right to think of making fun of
anyone else’s sufferings. H.P.B. deserves respect even from adversaries, as
long as they have a sense of ethics.
On the other hand, we must always remember that these letters are
private. They are addressed to the most intimate friends H.P.B. had in her
lower and emotional self.
With regard to H.P.B.’s nervousness as mentioned in the first paragraph
of the chapter, one of the facts related to it is that, as she worked at higher
levels of consciousness, her whole mind and nervous system were made to vibrate
at the highest possible degree of sensitivity. This inevitably resulted in an
excess of sensibility and irritability - once she was back to outer and denser
life. Her vehicle was specifically tuned to be very effective at higher levels of
perception; but not at the lower ones.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
NOTE:
[1] In the
Introduction to Chapter 4 in the present Letters of H.P.B. as edited by W.Q.J.
Letters of H.P. Blavatsky [1]
Chapter X
[THE PATH, Volume X, New York,
September 1895, pp. 169-174.]
The following letter belongs properly to an earlier
part of the series. It was written from Bombay in the autumn of 1882:
“My blood is transformed into water; it oozes
out and forms bags. For this I have to thank, primo, Bombay
heat and dampness, and secundo my eternal irritations, bothers
and troubles. I have become so nervous that the light step of Babula’s bare
feet gives me palpitations of the heart. I have forced Dudley (the Doctor) to
tell me that I may die any moment from any kind of fright, without which I
could live a year or two more. As if it were possible with the life I lead! I
have twenty frights a day, not one. I have put the whole business into the
hands of the Masters. M - wants me to start at the end of September. He has
sent me one of his Chelas from the Nilgiri, to take me with him. Where, I do
not know exactly, but probably into some place in the Himalayas.”
After this there was a long lapse in the
letters, and then H.P.B.’s sister got a few lines from her, dating from
Darjeeling, saying that she had nearly died; that she certainly would not be
among the living if it had not been for the miraculous intervention of her Master,
who had taken her off to the mountains and brought her back to life again by
means of a few passes, when she was to all intents and purposes a corpse.
Madame Jelihovsky often asked H.P.B. in after days for further particulars of
this mysterious episode in her life. “How did she happen to find herself
unconscious and ill in some unreachable and perfectly impassible mountains in
the Himalayas? Who took her there? Where did she spend the time of her
convalescence? How, again, did she return to civilization?” She always answered
that firstly she could not remember everything, and secondly she was not
allowed to tell everything. Madame Jelihovsky writes, however, that, if not at
this time then at some earlier epoch, she is perfectly certain that H.P.B. visited
Lhassa, and that she had also been to the chief religious centre of Thibet,
where among several hundred Lamas lives the Teshu Lama, the spiritual head of
the Buddhists, whom they consider the reincarnation of Buddha. Madame
Jelihovsky is also certain that at some time or other her sister had been in
the Kuen Lun mountains. H.P.B. always told her that the two Mahatmas whom she
knew personally were very different, both in character and in their mode of
living; that the Mahatma K.H. was much more accessible, and lived with his
sister and nephew in Kuen Lun; that Mahatma M., her personal teacher, had no
fixed residence, was much more serious and stern, was always on the move, going
wherever he might be most needed at the moment. The former talked and laughed
at times like any ordinary person; the latter never, being very laconic. He is
the older of the two.
When H.P.B. returned she was almost perfectly
healthy and strong, and, to the great astonishment of the doctors, began her
work again. On the seventeenth of December, 1882, H.P.B., Col. Olcott and
others moved to Adyar. She wrote to Mme. Fadeef:
“It is simply delightful. What air we have
here; what nights! And what marvellous quiet! No more city noises and street
yells. I am sitting quietly writing, and now and then gaze over the ocean
sparkling all over as if a living thing - really. I am often under the
impression that the sea breathes, or that it is angry, roaring and hurling
itself about in wrath. But when it is quiet and caressing there can be nothing
in the world as fascinating as its beauty, especially on a moonlit night. The
moon here against the deep dark-blue sky seems twice as big and ten times
brighter than your European mother-of-pearl ball. Farewell.”
Her sister and niece visited her at Ostende in
1886. This is what she wrote to them soon after they left:
“I shall take myself to task now that I am
alone; and instead of a restless wandering Jew I shall turn myself into a
‘hermit crab,’ into a petrified sea monster, stranded on the shore. I shall
write and write, - my only consolation! Alas, happy are the people who can
walk. What a life to be always ill - and without legs, into the bargain . . . .
. .”
After her great illness in Ostende in the
Spring of 1887, she wrote to her sister:
“My darling, do not be frightened: once more I
have disappointed the snub-nosed one. [2]
Some people have pulled me through. Such wonderful things happen to me. You
write, ‘How can you be so careless!’ As if I have caught cold through
carelessness. I never rose from my armchair, never left the room, sitting as if
chained to my Secret Doctrine; I have made everyone work at
it: the Countess, Dr. Keightley, the cousin of the one you saw in Paris. He
came as a delegate from London, to invite me to go there - and I put him to
work! Don’t you see how it was: about ten days before my illness the London
Society began to call out vehemently for me - they wanted me, they said; could
not do anything without me. They want to study occultism, and so burn with the
desire of depriving Ostende of my beneficent presence. Before then I got heaps
of imploring letters, but kept silent. Be off with you! I thought to myself,
let me alone to write my book quietly. Not at all: they sent a deputation for
me. Dr. Keightley tells me, ‘We have taken a beautiful house with a garden, we
have got everything ready for you and we shall transport you in our arms. Do be
persuaded!’ And so I was about to make up my mind. The Countess began packing;
her intention was to pack me up first, then to go to Sweden and sell her
property, in order to live with me, never leaving me - and all of a sudden I
dropped down! Such is my planet of destiny, it appears. And besides, here is
another wonder for you: On the 27th of March we were to start, and on the 17th
I went to sleep in my armchair after dinner, without any reason. You know this
never happens to me! I went into a very deep sleep, and suddenly spoke to her,
as she told me afterwards, for I do not remember anything myself: ‘Master says
you must not go away because I shall be mortally ill.’ She shouted, ‘What are
you saying?’ I awoke and also shouted with astonishment, ‘What are you
screaming about? What has happened?’ Tableau! Two days after
we nearly forgot all about it, when I received a letter from a certain London
member, whom I never saw before in my life - Ashton Ellis, a doctor of the
Westminster Dispensary, a mystic, a Wagnerian, great lover of music, still
quite a young man, he also insisted on my coming for the simple reason, don’t
you know, of having seen me before him and having recognized me because of my
portraits. I stood, he says, on the other side of the table on which he was
writing, and gazed at him. I and Constance (the Countess Wachtmeister) were
very much amused by his enthusiastic statement: ‘My life seems strangely linked
with yours,’ he writes, ‘with you and the Theosophical Society. I know I am
bound to see you soon.’ We were amused, but soon forgot all about it. Then I
caught a cold in the throat, I really do not understand how, and then it grew
still worse. When on the fifth day - after I had to go to bed, the Ostende
doctors said there was no hope, as the poisoning of the blood had begun owing
to the inaction of the kidneys, I dozing all the time and doomed to enter
eternal sleep while thus dozing - the Countess remembered that this Ashton
Ellis is a well-known doctor. She telegraphed to him, asking him to send her a
good specialist. And lo! - this perfect stranger wires back: ‘coming myself,
shall arrive in the night.’ Through my sleep I dimly remember someone coming
into the room in the night, taking my hand and kissing it and giving me
something to swallow; then he sat at the edge of my bed and started massaging
my back. Just fancy, this man never went to bed during three days and three
nights, rubbing and massaging me every hour . . . . . . .”
Further Madame Blavatsky’s letter narrates that
she heard some one saying her body would not be allowed to be burned, were she
to die not having signed her will.
“Here,” she continues, “consciousness awoke in
me, struck with horror at the thought of being buried, of lying here with
catholics, and not in Adyar . . . . . . . I called out to them and said: ‘Quick, quick,
a lawyer,’ and, would you believe it, I got up! Arthur
Gebhard, who had just returned from America and had come here with his mother,
having heard about my illness, rushed out and brought a lawyer and the American
Consul, and I really don’t know how I could gather so much strength: - I
dictated and signed the will . . . . . . . Having done with it, I felt I could
not keep up any longer. I went back to bed saying to myself: ‘Well, good bye,
now I shall die.’ But Ashton Ellis was positively beside himself; the whole
night he massaged me and continually gave me something nasty to drink. But I
had no hope, for I saw my body was grey and covered with dark yellowish-blue
spots, and loosing consciousness I was bidding good bye to you all in my
thoughts . . . . . . .”
But the cure had taken effect; she slept
twenty-four hours and woke up to life again.
Concerning the same illness she writes to her
aunt, Madame Fadeeff:
“Sunday, Catholic Easter. - My old comrade and friend, I wrote
to you about my illness some ten days ago, when I was still in bed. So what
reason have you to grumble at my playing the dummy[3] again? It
is true, though, that I was nearly about to play the eternal dummy; once more I
had a hair's breadth escape, and once more I have risen from the dead. When and
how I caught cold, having never left my room, - is more than I can understand.
It began with bronchitis, and ended with a complication of kidney disease. The
Ostende doctors tortured me, with no result at all, robbing me of my money and
nearly killing me, but I was saved by a Theosophist of ours, Dr. Ashton Ellis, who
as a reward has lost a situation with good pay, having left the Westminster
Dispensary without permission and having been the last nine days by my side
(massaging my back) . . . . . . When all
the local doctors gave me up, Countess remembered about Ashton Ellis, whom she
knew by reputation, and asked him to give some advice or to send some doctor,
and he answered, he was coming personally in the night. He dropped everything
and came here. And mind you, he had not so much as seen me before, knowing of me
only through my work and articles. I am simply tortured with remorse, he having
lost so much for my sake. At least it is well he is a bachelor . . . . . . He
has saved me with massage, rubbing me day and night, positively taking no rest
whatever. Lately he has been to London and returned yesterday, informing me
that he will not leave me until I am quite recovered and intends to take me to
London personally, the first warm day. Madame Gebhard is still with me; instead
of spending Easter with her family, she is nursing me, as if I was a baby, and
seeing that I take my medicine, whilst the Countess has gone to Sweden, being
compelled to do so, in order to sell her property. In future she proposes to
live with me inseparably, to look after me and to take care of me. And what do
you say about the attachment this Ashton Ellis has shown to me! Where could a
man be found, who would give up a good position and work, all in order to be
free to save from death an old woman, an unknown stranger to him? . . . . . .
And everything at his own expense, - he refuses to take a penny from me,
treating me, into the bargain, to some very old Bordeaux, he has unearthed from
somewhere. And all this from a stranger and an Englishman, moreover. People
say: the ‘English are cold, the English are soulless.’ Evidently not all . . .
. . . . . You ask whether you should send me something, whether I want
something? I do not want anything, darling, except yourself. Send me yourself.
We have not seen each other for a year and a half, and when shall we meet
again? Maybe, never. I am going to London, and in the autumn, if I don’t die by
that time, I want to go to Adyar. They persistently ask for me there . . . . .
. Have you received our new Parisian magazine, Le Lotus? It is
edited, as you will see on the title page, ‘sous l' inspiration de H. P.
Blavatsky’ (!?) What ‘inspiration,’ please, when I have no time
to write a single word for them. ... I have taken three subscriptions: one for
you, one for Vera, and one for Katkoff. I simply adore Katkoff for his
patriotism. I do not mind his not sending me any money again, God bless his
soul. I deeply respect him, because he is a patriot and a brave man, speaking
the truth at whatever cost! Such articles as his are a credit to Russia. I am
sure that if darling uncle were still living he would find an echo of his own
thoughts in them . . . . . . Oh, if only the Regents were hanged in Bulgaria,
and Germany checkmated, I should die in peace.”
NOTES:
[1] Copyright,
1895.
[2] Meaning
death. (W.Q.J.)
[3] Not
writing. (W.Q.J.)
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On the role of the esoteric movement in the
ethical awakening of mankind during the 21st century, see the book “The Fire
and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in 2013 by The Aquarian Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be
obtained through Amazon Books.
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