Inner Difficulties in the
Contact Between Masters and Men
A Mahatma of the Himalayas
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Editorial Note:
The following
text is part of Letter VIII in
“The Mahatma
Letters”, a message received
by Alfred P.
Sinnett about February 20, 1881.
In order to make
a careful reading easier, we
have divided
longer paragraphs into smaller ones.
(CCA)
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There is (…) an almost insurmountable
obstacle - for the present, and one, under which I myself am labouring, while
even I do no more than correspond with you, a simple thing that any other
mortal could do. It is my utter inability to make you understand my meaning in
my explanation of even physical phenomena, let alone the spiritual rationale.
This is not
the first time I mention it. It is, as though a child should ask me to teach
him the highest problems of Euclid before he had even begun studying the
elementary rules of arithmetic. Only the progress one makes in the study of
Arcane knowledge from its rudimental elements, brings him gradually to
understand our meaning. Only thus, and not otherwise, does it, strengthening
and refining those mysterious links of sympathy between intelligent men - the
temporarily isolated fragments of the universal Soul and the cosmic Soul itself
- bring them into full rapport. Once this established, then only will these
awakened sympathies serve, indeed, to connect MAN with - what for the want of a
European scientific word more competent to express the idea, I am again
compelled to describe as that energetic chain which binds together the material
and Immaterial Kosmos, - Past, Present, and Future - and quicken his
perceptions so as to clearly grasp, not merely all things of matter, but of
Spirit also.
I feel even
irritated at having to use these three clumsy words - past, present and future!
Miserable concepts of the objective phases of the Subjective Whole, they are
about as ill adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving. Oh, my poor,
disappointed friend, that you were already so far advanced on THE PATH, that
this simple transmission of ideas should not be encumbered by the conditions of
matter, the union of your mind with ours - prevented by its induced
incapabilities!
Such is
unfortunately the inherited and self-acquired grossness of the Western mind;
and so greatly have the very phrases expressive of modern thoughts been
developed in the line of practical materialism, that it is now next to
impossible either for them to comprehend or for us to express in their own
languages anything of that delicate seemingly ideal machinery of the Occult
Kosmos. To some little extent that faculty can be acquired by the Europeans
through study and meditation but - that’s all. And here is the bar which has
hitherto prevented a conviction of the theosophical truths from gaining wider
currency among Western Nations; caused theosophical study to be cast aside as
useless and fantastic by Western philosophers.
How shall I
teach you to read and write or even comprehend a language of which no alphabet palpable, or words audible to you have yet been invented! How could the phenomena of
our modern electrical science be explained to - say, a Greek philosopher of the
days of Ptolemy were he suddenly recalled to life - with such an unbridged hiatus in discovery as would exist
between his and our age? Would not the very technical terms be to him an
unintelligible jargon, an abracadabra of meaningless sounds, and the very
instruments and apparatuses used, but “miraculous” monstrosities?
And suppose,
for one instant, I were to describe to you the hues of those colour rays that
lie beyond the so-called “visible
spectrum” - rays invisible to all but a very few even among us; to explain, how
we can fix in space any one of the so-called subjective or accidental colours - the complement,
(to speak mathematically) moreover, of
any other given colour of a dichromatic body (which alone sounds like an
absurdity), could you comprehend, do you think, their optical effect or even my
meaning? And, since you see them not, such rays, nor can know them, nor have
you any names for them as yet in Science, if I were to tell you:
- “My good
friend Sinnett, if you please, without moving from your writing desk, try
search for, and produce before your eyes the whole solar spectrum decomposed
into fourteen prismatic colours (seven being complementary), as it is but with
the help of that occult light that you can see me from a distance as I see you”
……..
what think
you, would be your answer? What would you have to reply? Would you not be
likely enough to retort by telling me in your own quiet, polite way, that as
there never were but seven (now three) primary colours, which, moreover, have
never yet by any known physical process - been seen decomposed further than the
seven prismatic hues - my invitation was as “unscientific” as it was “absurd”?
Adding that my offer to search for an imaginary solar “complement” being no
compliment to your knowledge of physical science - I had better, perhaps, go
and search for my mythical “dichromatic” and solar “pairs” in Thibet, for
modern science has hitherto been unable to bring under any theory even so
simple a phenomenon as the colours of all such dichromatic bodies. And yet -
truth knows - these colours are
objective enough!
So you see,
the insurmountable difficulties in the way of attaining not only Absolute but even primary knowledge in
Occult Science, for one situated as you are. How could you make your self
understood - command in fact, those
semi-intelligent Forces, whose means of communicating with us are not through
spoken words but through sounds and colours, in correlations between the
vibrations of the two?
For sound,
light and colours are the main factors in forming these grades of
Intelligences, these beings, of whose very existence you have no conception,
nor are you allowed to believe in
them - Atheists and Christians, materialists and Spiritualists, all bringing
forward their respective arguments against such a belief - Science objecting
stronger than either of these to such a “degrading superstition”!
Thus, because they cannot with one leap over the
boundary walls attain to the pinnacles of Eternity; because we cannot take a savage from the centre
of Africa and make him comprehend at once the Principia of Newton or the “Sociology” of Herbert Spencer; or make
an unlettered child write a new Iliad in old Achaian Greek; or an ordinary
painter depict scenes in Saturn or sketch the inhabitants of Arcturus - because of all this our very existence is denied! Yes; for this reason are
believers in us pronounced impostors and fools, and the very science which
leads to the highest goal of the highest knowledge, to the real tasting of the
Tree of Life and Wisdom - is scouted as a wild flight of Imagination!
Most earnestly
do I ask you not to see in the above a mere ventilation of personal feeling. My
time is precious and I have none to lose. Still less ought you to see in this
an effort to disgust or dissuade you from the noble work you have just begun.
Nothing of the kind; for what I now say may avail for as much as it can and no
more; but - vera pro gratis - I WARN
you, and will say no more, apart from reminding you in a general way, that the
task you are so bravely undertaking, that Missio
in partis infidelium - is the most ungrateful, perhaps, of all tasks! But,
if you believe in my friendship for you, if you value the word of honour of one who never - never during his whole life polluted his
lips with an untruth, then do not forget the words I once wrote to you (see my
last letter) of those who engage
themselves in the occult sciences; he who does it “must either reach the
goal or perish. Once fairly started
on the way to the great Knowledge, to doubt is to risk insanity; to come to a
dead stop is to fall; to recede is to tumble backward, headlong into an abyss.”
Fear not, - if you are sincere, and that you are - now. Are you as sure of yourself, as to future?
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The above text
transcribes part of Letter VIII in “The Mahatma Letters”, A. Trevor Barker
(ed.), 1926 edition, published by T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., in London, UK, 493
pages, pp. 26-37. The specific text is on pp. 29-31. The whole book is
available in PDF at our websites. The pages are
the same in the TUP edition.
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See in our websites the articles “On Contacts With Masters”, “From Ritualism to Raja Yoga” and “Examining Seven Questions”.
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