The Testimony of One of Her London Students
William Kingsland
William Kingsland (1855-1936)
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Editorial
Note:
William Kingsland presided the Blavatsky
Lodge,
in
London, during H.P.B.’s life. He was present in
in the 1889 meetings with H.P.B. whose transactions
are transcribed in the volume “The Secret Doctrine
Dialogues”[1]. He took an active part
in all of
those discussions and chaired twelve of the
21 meetings.
Twenty years later, in December 1909, Kingsland
resigned his membership of the Adyar Society.
He then
wrote an Open Letter stating the fact that Mrs. Annie
Besant had abandoned Ethics and Theosophy. A
significant
part of his document is reproduced in the
first chapter of the
book “H. P. Blavatsky, a Great Betrayal”, by Alice Cleather.[2]
The following testimony, written in 1891, is
among the best
written on H.P.B. Original title: “What
She Taught Us”.[3]
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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“…She
did something more than teach
us
a new system of philosophy. She drew
together
the threads of our life, those threads
which
run back into the past, and forward into
the
future, (…..) and showed us the pattern
we
had
been weaving, and the purpose of our work.”
(William
Kingsland)
If I
were to write this short memoir simply as an imperfect expression of what H. P.
B. was to me personally, and of the influence of her life and teachings upon my
own life and aspirations, I should merely be adding one more testimony to that affection
and reverence which she inspired in all who learnt to understand her in some
degree.
There were those who were attracted to her by the
magnetism of her personal influence, by her extraordinary intellect, by her
conversational powers, and even by her militant unconventionality. But I was
not one of these. It was her message that attracted me; it was as a teacher
that I learnt to know and love her. Apart from her teachings I might have
looked upon H. P. B. as an interesting and unique character, but I do not think
I should have been attracted to her, had not her message spoken at once right
home to my heart. It was through that message that I came to know H. P. B., not
as a mere personal friend, but as something infinitely more.
Let me dwell therefore upon H. P. B. as a teacher, let
me endeavour to express what it was that she set before me, and before so many
others, the acceptance of which united us by ties which death cannot sever.
First, and above all else, she showed us the purpose of life.
And when I say this I mean much more than might be
commonly understood by this phrase. I mean much more than that she gave us an
interest and a motive in this present life, and a belief or faith with regard
to the next. Those who have learnt the lesson of the illusory nature of that
which most men call life, whether
here or hereafter, need to draw their inspiration from a deeper source than is
available in the external world of forms. But to the born Mystic there is often
a long period of waiting and seeking before that source is found. Many years
are spent in testing and rejecting first one system, then another, until it
seems perchance as if life could be naught but a hopeless problem. And perhaps
just when all seemed darkest and most hopeless, when it even appeared best to
abandon the quest, to take up the position, “we do not know, and we cannot know”,
just then it has been that the light has dawned, the teacher has been sent, the
word has been spoken, which has recalled the lost memory of that hidden source
of truth for which we have been seeking; and we have taken up once more, at the
point at which we dropped it in a previous life-time, that great task which we
have set ourselves to accomplish.
And thus she did something more than teach us a new
system of philosophy. She drew together the threads of our life, those threads
which run back into the past, and forward into the future, but which we had
been unable to trace, and showed us the pattern we had been weaving, and the
purpose of our work.
She taught us Theosophy - not as a mere form of
doctrine, not as a religion, or a philosophy, or a creed, or a working
hypothesis, but as a living power in our lives.
It is inevitable that the term Theosophy should
come to be associated with a certain set of doctrines. In order that the
message may be given to the world it must be presented in a definite and
systematic form. But in doing this it becomes exoteric, and nothing that
is exoteric can be permanent, for it belongs to the world of form. She
led us to look beneath the surface, behind the form; to make the principle
the real motive power of our life and conduct. To her the term Theosophy
meant something infinitely more than could be set before the world in any “Key
to Theosophy”, or “Secret Doctrine”. The nearest approach to it in any of her
published works is in “The Voice of the Silence”; yet even that conveys but
imperfectly what she would - had the world been able to receive it - have taught
and included in the term Theosophy.
The keynote of her teachings, the keynote of her life,
was Self-sacrifice.
“But stay, Disciple ….. Yet one word. Canst thou destroy divine COMPASSION?
Compassion is no attribute. It is the LAW of LAWS - eternal Harmony, Alaya’s
SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting Right, and
fitness of all things, the law of love eternal …… Now bend thy head and listen
well, O Bodhisattva - Compassion speaks and saith: ‘Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer?
Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?’ ”
And thus though doctrinal Theosophy speaks of Devachan
and Nirvana: of rest for the weary storm-tossed pilgrim of life; of a
final goal of bliss past all thought and conceiving; yet, to those who are able
to receive it, it says that there is something higher and nobler still, that
though thrice great is he who has “crossed and won the Aryahata Path”, he is
greater still, who having won the prize can put it aside, and “remain unselfish
till the endless end.”
And so H.P.B. often pointed out to us those men and
women who were true Theosophists, though they stood outside of the Theosophical
movement, and even appeared antagonistic to it. Already in the world, a Theosophist
has come to mean someone who believes in reincarnation and Karma, or some other
distinctive doctrine. But the term was never so limited in its application by
the great founder of the Theosophical Society. She taught these doctrines in
order that men might dissociate themselves from all forms of doctrine,
and reach “Alaya’s Self”. There is no older doctrine than this of Divine
Compassion, of Universal Brotherhood. It is the essence of all the teachings of
all the Buddhas and Christs the world has ever known. It is above all doctrines,
all creeds, all formulas; it is the essence of all religion. Yet men ever miss
it, miss the one principle which alone can save the world, and take refuge
instead in the selfish desires of their lower nature.
Individualism is the keynote of modern civilization;
competition and survival of the fittest, the practical basis of our morality.
Our modern philosophers and scientific teachers do all that is possible to
reduce man to the level of an animal, to show his parentage, his ancestry and
his genius as belonging to brute creation, and conditioned by brutal laws of
blind force and dead matter. What wonder then that one who believed so ardently
in the divine nature of man, in the divine law of love, should oppose with
scornful contempt the teachings of both religion and science which thus degrade
humanity.
And she paid the inevitable penalty. Misunderstood,
slandered, and vilified to the last degree, she lived a hero’s life, and died a
martyr’s death. Only those who were her intimate friends knew how she suffered,
mentally and bodily. The man who dies with his face to the foe, fighting to the
last though covered with wounds, is accounted a hero. But in the heat of battle
there is oblivion of pain, there is a superhuman strength of madness and frenzy.
How much more should be accounted a hero who could hold on to life, and work as
no other woman has worked, through years of physical and mental torture.
Some few years ago she was at death’s door. Humanly
speaking, she ought to have died then. She was given up by the doctors; she
herself knew she was dying, and rejoiced greatly. But the Master came to her,
showed her the work that must still be done, and have her choice - the bliss of
dying or the cross of living.
She chose the cross. And thus not merely did she teach
us the meaning of Theosophy by precept, but also by example. She was herself
the greatest of the Theosophists, not merely because she founded the movement,
and restored to the world the treasures of ancient wisdom, but because she
herself had made the “Great Renunciation”.
NOTES:
[1]
“The Secret Doctrine Dialogues”, by H. P.
Blavatsky, Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 2014. (CCA)
[2] On Kingsland’s resignation from the Adyar
Society after it abandoned the original theosophy, see “An Open Letter to Annie
Besant”, by Alice Leighton Cleather, which is published in our associated
websites. (CCA)
[3] This article first appeared in July 1891 at
“Lucifer” magazine, London, pp. 385-387. (The reader will remember that the word
“Lucifer” is an ancient name for the planet Venus, whose meaning has been
distorted by theologians since the Middle Ages.) Kingsland’s text was also published
in the volume “In Memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky”, by Some of Her Pupils,
first edition, Theosophical Publishing Society, London, 1891, 96 pp.; facsimile
edition, 1991, The Theosophical Publishing House Ltd., London, see pp. 78-80.
(CCA)
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In September 2016, after a careful
analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided
to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
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