The Inner Life, v. I/First Section/I
THE GREAT ONES
STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM — even those who have been students for many years — sometimes seem to fail to realise the Masters as They truly are. I have often found people thinking of Them as some kind of angels or devas, or, at any rate, as so far removed from us by Their greatness that it is scarcely possible for us to derive much help from Them. Their greatness is indisputable, and from that point of view the gulf between Them and ourselves may well seem incalculable in its extent; and yet from another point of view They are very close to us, so that Their sympathy and help are very near and very real. That our thought on the subject may be clear, let us first of all try to define exactly what we mean by the term “Master.”
We mean by it always one who is a member of the Great White Brotherhood — a member at such a level that He is able to take pupils. Now the Great White Brotherhood is an organization unlike any other in the world, and for that reason it has often been misunderstood. It has sometimes been described as the Himalayan or the Tibetan Brotherhood, and the idea has been conveyed of a body of Indian ascetics residing together in a monastery in some inaccessible mountain fastness. Perhaps this has risen largely from the knowledge of the facts that the two Brothers principally concerned in the foundation and work of the Theosophical Society happen at the moment to be living in Tibet, and to be wearing Indian bodies. To comprehend the facts of the case it may be better to approach its consideration from another point of view.
Most of our students are familiar with the thought of the four stages of the Path of Holiness, and are aware that a man who has passed through them and attained to the level of the Asekha has achieved the task set before humanity during this chain-period, and is consequently free from the necessity of reincarnation on this planet or on any other. Before him then open seven ways among which he must choose. Most of them take him away from this earth into wider spheres of activity, probably connected with the solar system as a whole, so that the great majority of those members of our humanity who had already reached this goal have passed entirely out of our ken.
The limited number who are still working directly for us may be divided into two classes — those who retain physical bodies, and those who do not. The latter are frequently spoken of under the name of Nirmanakayas. They hold themselves suspended as it were between this world and nirvana, and They devote the whole of Their time and energy to the generation of spiritual force for the benefit of mankind. This force They pour into what may be described as a reservoir, upon which the Masters and their pupils can draw for the assistance of Their work with humanity. The Nirmanakaya, because He remains to this extent in touch with the lower planes, has been called `a candidate for woe,' but that is misleading. What is meant is that He has not the joy of the higher work, or of the nirvanic levels. He has chosen to remain upon lower planes in order to help those who still suffer. It is quite true that to came back from the higher life into this world is like going down from the fresh air and glorious sunlight into a dark and evil-smelling dungeon; but the man who does this to help some one out of that dungeon is not miserable and wretched while there, but full of the joy of helping, notwithstanding the greatness of the contrast and the terrible feeling of bondage and compression. Indeed, a man who refused such an opportunity of giving aid when it came to him would certainly feel far more woe afterwards, in the shape of remorse. When we have once really seen the spiritual misery of the world, and the condition of those who need such help, we can never again be careless or indifferent about it, as are those who have not seen.
Fortunately those of us who have seen and realized this have ever at our command a means whereby we can quite really and definitely help. Tiny though our efforts may be as compared with the splendid outpouring of force of the Nirmanakaya, we also can add our little drops to the great store of force in that reservoir. Every outpouring of affection or devotion produces a double result — one upon the being to whom it is sent, and another upon ourselves, who sent it forth. But if the devotion or affection be utterly without the slightest thought of self, it brings in its train a third result also. Ordinary affection or devotion, even of a high kind, moves in a closed curve, however large that curve may be, and the result of it comes back upon the sender. But the devotion or affection of the truly unselfish man moves in an open curve, and though some of its affects inevitably react upon the sender, the grandest and noblest part of its force ascends to the LOGOS Himself, and the response, the magnificent response of benediction which instantly pours forth from Him, falls into that reservoir for the helping of mankind. So that it is within the power of every one of us, even the weakest and the poorest, to help the world in this most beautiful manner. It is this adding to the reservoir of spiritual force which is really the truth that lies et the back of the Catholic idea of works of supererogation.
The still more limited number of adepts who retain physical bodies remain in even closer touch with us, in order to fill certain offices, and to do certain work necessary for our evolution; and it is to the latter that the names of the Great White Brotherhood and the Occult Hierarchy have sometimes been given. They are, then, a very small number of highly advanced men belonging not to any one nation, but to the world as a whole. On the physical plane They do not live together, though They are of course in continual communication on higher planes. Since They are beyond the necessity of rebirth, when one body wears out They can choose another wherever it may be most convenient for the work They wish to do, so that we need not attach any special importance to the nationality of the bodies which They happen to be wearing at any particular time. Just now, several of those bodies are Indian, one is Tibetan, one is Chinese, two at least are English, one is Italian, one Hungarian, and one Syrian, while one was born in the island of Cyprus. As I have said, the nationality of these bodies is not a matter of importance, but I mention these in order to show that it would be a mistake to think of the ruling Hierarchy as belonging exclusively to one race.
Reverence restrains us from saying much of the great Head of this Hierarchy, in Whose hands is the fate of the continents, in Whose name all initiations are given. He is one of the very few now remaining upon earth of the Lords of the Flame, the Children of the Fire-mist, the great beings who came down from Venus nearly eighteen million years ago to help and to lead the evolution of humanity on our chain. These Great Ones did not take bodies from our then entirely undeveloped humanity, but made for themselves bodies in appearance resembling ours by the force of Their will, a kind of permanent materialization. At that period, and for long after it, no members of our humanity were sufficiently developed to fill any of the higher offices in this Hierarchy, and consequently we needed and received this help from without. Gradually, as humanity has evolved, it has become more and more able to provide for itself, and the great Lords of the Flame have been set free to go to the help of yet other evolutions. But one of Them still holds this, the highest office of all — the position of the KING Who guides and controls all evolution taking place upon this planet — not only that of humanity and of the animal, vegetable, mineral and elemental kingdoms below it, but also of the great non-human kingdoms of the nature-spirits and the devas, some of which rise so far above it.
Under Him are various Heads of Departments, the broad outlines of whose work are more within our comprehension than His. Though the details are far beyond us, we can form some slight idea of what must be the manifold responsibilities and activities of the Manu of a Root-race; and perhaps we can to some extent image to ourselves the duties of Him who is Minister of Religion in this world-kingdom — who sends forth religion after religion, suiting each to the needs of a particular type of people and to the period of the world' s history in which it is launched, sometimes deputing one of His subordinates to found it, sometimes even incarnating Himself for that purpose, as He may see fit. This Minister of Religion is often called in the East the Bodhisattva — one who is about to become a BUDDHA. The previous holder of that high office was He whom we call the Lord Gautama BUDDHA. The attainment of Buddha-hood is not simply the gaining of enlightenment; it is also the taking of a great and definite initiation, and the man who has taken that step cannot again incarnate upon earth, but hands over His work to His successor, and usually passes away altogether from any connection with earth.
The Lord Gautama, however, still remains to a certain extent within touch of the world, in order that He may still be able to help it. Once in each year He still shows Himself to the brotherhood of adepts, and pours down His blessing upon them, to be passed through them to the world at large; and He may still be reached in certain ways by those who know how. Mrs. Besant has told us, in some of her recent writings, how He incarnated over and over again as the great teacher of the earlier sub-races of the Aryan race, how he was Hermes — the founder of the Egyptian Mysteries — also the first and greatest Zoroaster, the original founder of the worship of the sun and fire, and again He was Orpheus, the founder of the Greek Mysteries. Those mentioned of course were not His only births, for in the course of our researches into the past we have seen Him as founder of other religions than these.
The statement made in some of the earlier Theosophical works that He was reborn as Shankaracharya is an error, for from an occult point of view the two great teachers were on entirely different lines. There was, however, a certain reason at the back of the statement in the fact that some of the vehicles prepared by one of them were also utilized by the other, as Madame Blavatsky has explained in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine.
The deep reverence and the strong affection felt for the Lord Gautama all over the East are due to two facts. One of these is that He was the first of our humanity to attain to the stupendous height of Buddha-hood, and so He may be very truly described as the first-fruits and the leader of our race. (All previous BUDDHAS had belonged to other humanities, which had matured upon earlier chains.) The second fact is that for the sake of hastening the progress of humanity, He took upon Himself certain additional labours of the most stupendous character, the nature of which it is impossible to comprehend. It is stated that when the time came at which it was expected that humanity would be able to provide for itself some one who was ready to fill this important office, no one could be found who was fully capable of doing so. But few of our earthly race had then reached the higher stages of adeptship, and the foremost of these were two friends and brothers whose development was equal. These two were the mighty Egos now known to us as the Lord Gautama and the Lord Maitreya, and in His great love for mankind the former at once volunteered to make the tremendous additional exertion necessary to qualify Him to do the work required, while His friend and brother decided to follow Him as the next holder of that office thousands of years later.
In those far-off times it was the Lord Gautama who ruled the world of religion and education; but now He has yielded that high office to the Lord Maitreya, whom western people call the Christ — who took the body of the disciple Jesus during the last three years of its life on the physical plane; and those who know tell us that it will not be long before He descends among us once again, to found another faith. Anyone whose mind is broad enough to grasp this magnificent conception of the splendid reality of things will see instantly how worse than futile it is to set up in one' s mind one religion as in opposition to another, to try to convert any person from one to another, or to compare depreciatingly the founder of one with the founder of another. In the last case indeed it is especially ridiculous, because the two founders are either two pupils of the same school, or two incarnations of the same person, and so are entirely in accord as to principles, though They may for the time be putting forward different aspects of the truth to suit the needs of those to whom They speak. The teaching is always fundamentally the same, though its presentation may vary widely. The Lord Maitreya had taken various births before He came into the office which He now holds, but even in these earlier days He seems always to have been a teacher or high-priest.
It is now generally known that the two Masters who have been most intimately concerned with the foundation and the work of the Theosophical Society have taken respectively the offices of temporal and spiritual leader of the new sixth root-race, which is to come into existence in seven hundred years' time. The Manu, or temporal leader, is practically an autocratic monarch who arranges everything connected with the physical-plane life of the new race, and endeavours in every way to make it as perfect an expression as possible of the idea which the LOGOS has set before Him for realization. The spiritual teacher will be in charge of all the various aspects of religion in the new race, and also of the education of its children. It is clear that one of the main objects of the foundation of the Theosophical Society was that these two Masters might gather round Them a number of men who would be intelligent and willing co-operators in this mighty work. Round Them will be grouped others who are now Their pupils, but will by that time have attained the level of adeptship.
We may then set before ourselves as a goal the privilege of being chosen to serve Them in this wonderful work for the world which lies before Them. There will be ample opportunity for the display of all possible varieties of talent, for the work will be of the most varied character. Some of us will no doubt be attracted to one side of it and some to the other, largely according to the predominance of our affection for one or other of its great Leaders. It has often been said that the characteristic of one is power, and of the other love and compassion, and this is perfectly true, though, if it is not rightly understood, it may very easily prove misleading. One of the Masters concerned has been a ruler in many incarnations, and was so even in the earlier part of this one, and unquestionably royal power shows forth in His every gesture and in the very look of His eyes, just as surely as the face of His brother adept beams ever with overflowing love and compassion. They are of different rays or types, having risen to Their present level along different lines, and this fact cannot but show itself; yet we should mistake sadly if we thought of the first as in any degree less loving and compassionate than His brother, or of the second as lacking anything of the power possessed by the first. Other Masters also will be engaged in this work, and it may well be that some of us may have made our link through one of Them.
It is probable that even the Masters who are by name best known to you are not so real, not so clear, not so well-defined to you as They are to those of us who have had the privilege of meeting Them face to face and seeing Them constantly in the course of our work. Yet you should endeavour by reading and thinking of Them to gain this realization, so that the Masters shall become to you not vague ideals but living men — men exactly as we are, though so enormously more advanced in every respect. They are men most emphatically, but men without failings, and so to us They seem like gods on account of the power, love and compassion radiating from Them. It is most significant that, in spite of the awe necessarily produced by the sense of this tremendous power, in Their presence one never feels in the least afraid or embarrassed, but always uplifted.
The man who stands before one of Them cannot but feel the deepest humility, because of the greatness of the contrast between himself and the Master. Yet with all this humility he yet feels a firm confidence in himself, for since the Master, who is also man, has achieved, that achievement is clearly possible even for him. In His presence everything seems possible and even easy, and one looks back with wonder on the troubles of yesterday, unable now to comprehend why they should have caused agitation or dismay. Now at least, the man feels, there can never again be trouble, since he has seen the right proportion of things. Now he will never again forget that, however dark the clouds may be, the sun is ever shining behind them. The vibrations of the Masters are so strong that only those qualities in you which harmonize with them are called out, so that you will feel the uttermost confidence and love, and the desire to be always in His presence. It is not that you forget that you have undesirable qualities in you, but you feel that now you can conquer them, and you do not in the least mind His knowing all about them, because you are so certain that He understands perfectly, and to understand all is to pardon all.
It may perhaps help us to realize the human side of our Masters if we remember that many of Them in comparatively recent times have been known as historical characters. The Master K. H., for example, appeared in Europe as the philosopher Pythagoras. Before that He was the Egyptian priest Sarthon, and on yet another occasion chief-priest of a temple at Agade, in Asia Minor, where He was killed in a general massacre of the inhabitants by a host of invading barbarians who swooped down upon them from the hills. On that occasion He took immediately the body of a Greek fisherman, which had been drowned in his attempt to escape, and in that body the Master journeyed on to Persia, where he rendered great assistance to the last of the Zoroasters in the founding of the modern form of the Mazdayaznian religion. Later He was the flamen of the Temple of Jupiter in Rome, and later still Nagarjuna, the great Buddhist teacher. We have found Him many times in our researches into the past lives of some members of our group, but almost always as a priest or teacher.
Again, in these researches into the remote past we have frequently found the disciple Jesus, who in Palestine had the privilege of yielding up His body to the Christ. As a result of that act He received the incarnation of Apollonius of Tyana, and in the eleventh century He appeared in India as the teacher Ramanujacharya, who revived the devotional element in Hinduism, and raised it to so high a level.
No doubt some of you have heard a good deal about other Masters besides the two who principally take charge of Theosophical work. Another Master, for example, dictated for us Light on the Path and The Idyll of the White Lotus, while yet another has taken charge of a great deal of the work in Europe, and has written for us some of the most splendid works in the whole realm of literary activity. Then the one who was once the disciple Jesus stands ready especially to guide the various activities of the Christian Churches. Yet another looks especially after the work here in India.
Thus it may be seen that the evolution of the world is by no means left to itself, to get along as best it may, as people so often rashly suppose; on the contrary, it is being directed. For this Hierarchy of adepts is actually managing it, as far as it is possible to manage it while leaving its inhabitants their own free-will. The members of the Brotherhood, through Their agents, are constantly trying to work with the important people of the world, putting advice and suggestions into their minds, endeavouring to move them onwards towards the great future of Universal Brotherhood when war shall have disappeared. But we must remember that the karma of all the people concerned has to be considered and respected. It would no doubt be easy to force the world along at a far more rapid rate, but that would not be for the real advantage of the people concerned. The Master K. H. once said in a letter which I received from Him: “Of course I could easily tell you exactly what to do, and of course you would do it, but then the karma of the act would be mine and not yours, and you would gain only the karma of prompt obedience.”
Men have to learn to be not merely intelligent servants; they have to learn to be co-workers, because they themselves will have the same work to do some day, and if they are to be fit for greater responsibilities in the future they must be willing to take up the smaller responsibilities now. Sometimes, it is true, a really great opportunity or responsibility of worldwide importance comes to one of us, but that may perhaps be once in many hundreds of lives. When it comes we shall take it or miss it, according as we have or have not been in the habit of taking the smaller opportunities of daily life, so that we have got into the habit of doing the right thing, and shall do it automatically at the critical moment. Our opportunities of doing good or harm are usually but small as regards the world as a whole; but when we have learnt invariably and automatically to choose the right in these smaller matters, the Great Brotherhood will feel it safe to trust us in larger matters.
It is indeed well that we should try to understand these Great Ones, not as a mere matter of curiosity and interest, but in order that we may realise Them as They are, and comprehend that They are men just as we are, varying among Themselves just as we vary, although at so much higher a level. Wisdom, power and love are present in all of Them equally, yet They are by no means all alike. They are individuals just as we are. They are at the top of the ladder of humanity, but let us not forget that we are somewhere on its lower rungs, and that one day we also shall reach Their level and stand where They stand.
One important fact about Them is Their all-round development. If we examine ourselves we shall be sure to find that we are to some extent disproportionate in our development — one-sided in certain respects. Some of us are full of scientific faculty and intellectual development, but sadly lacking in devotion and compassion; others are full of whole-souled devotion, but defective on the intellectual side. A Master is perfect along both these lines, as may easily be seen when we think of the splendid intellect of Pythagoras along with the love and compassion of the Master K. H.
We must not misunderstand Their wonderful knowledge. In order to attain the level of adeptship They must have cast off among others the fetter of avidya or ignorance, and it is often said that to cast off ignorance one must attain all-knowledge. Yet we know from personal acquaintance with Them that this is not so in the mere literal sense; for example, there are Masters who do not know all languages, others who are not artists and musicians, and so on. I think that what is really meant by casting off the fetter of ignorance is the acquisition of a power by which They can at any moment command any knowledge upon any subject which They happen to require. They certainly have not all facts stored within Their physical brains but equally certainly They can very quickly obtain any knowledge of which They have need. As to the question of languages, for example, if a Master wishes to write a letter in a language which He does not know, He very frequently employs the brain of a pupil who is acquainted with that language, throwing the ideas into that pupil' s brain, and then employing the words in which He sees them clothe themselves. If a man speaks to Them in a language which They do not understand, They can instantly grasp on the mental plane the thought that lies behind the incomprehensible words.
It is often asked whether an ordinary man who met a Master on the physical plane would instantly recognize Him as such. I do not see any reason why he should. He would certainly find the Adept impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene. He could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man; but to know certainly that that man was an adept it would be necessary to see His causal body, which of course the ordinary man could not do. In that causal body the development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special arrangement of the colours, which would differ for each of the seven great types. But all this would be quite out of the reach of the ordinary man whom we are postulating.
Adepts have no definite external peculiarities by which They may be recognized, though there is a great calmness and benevolence common to Them all; Their faces are stamped always with a joyous serenity, the peace which passeth all understanding. Most of Them are distinctly handsome men, because Their physical bodies are perfect, for They live in an absolutely hygienic way, and above all They never worry about anything. In the case of most of us there is still a great deal of karma of various kinds to be worked out and among other things this modifies the appearance of our physical bodies. In Their case all karma is long ago exhausted, and consequently the physical body is a perfect expression on the physical plane of the Augoeides or glorified body of the Ego. Not only therefore is the body of a Master usually splendidly handsome, but also any new body that He may take in a subsequent incarnation will be an almost exact reproduction of the old one, because there is nothing to modify it.
Another remarkable fact is that They are able to preserve Their physical bodies very much longer than we can — owing no doubt to the perfect health and absence of worry which we have already mentioned. Almost all of the Masters whom we know appear as men in the prime of life, yet in many cases there is testimony to prove that Their physical bodies must have long passed the ordinary age of man. I have heard Madame Blavatsky say that her Master as He appears now does not look a day older than when she first saw Him in her childhood sixty years before. In one case only, that of a Master who has recently attained adeptship in the body which He is still wearing, there is a certain ruggedness in the face; which is doubtless the result of some remainder of past karma brought over into this incarnation, but I think we may feel sure that when He chooses to take another body that characteristic will not persist.
Probably They are more silent than most men; busy people have not much time for casual talk, and They are out of all proportion the busiest people in the world. Their pupil Madame Blavatsky was the most brilliant conversationalist that I have ever met, but she never made talk for the sake of making it. So with Them; a Master never speaks without a definite object in view, and His object is always to encourage, to help or to warn. He speaks always gently and with the greatest kindness, though He often betrays a very keen sense of humour; yet the humour itself is always of the kindly order, and is used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of the way, or to soften some necessary rebuke. Certainly a man who has no sense of humour would not be likely to make much progress in occult matters.
The number of adepts who retain physical bodies in order to help the evolution of the world is but small — perhaps some fifty or sixty in all. But it must be remembered that the great majority of these do not take pupils, as They are engaged in quite other work. Madame Blavatsky employed the term adept very loosely, for in one place she actually speaks of adepts who have been initiated, and adepts who have not been initiated. In all later writings we have reserved the word “initiate” for those who have passed at least the first of the four great stages upon the Path of Holiness, and the word adept we have restricted to those who have attained the Asekha level, and so have finished the evolution required of them in this chain of worlds. The consciousness of the Asekha rests normally upon the nirvanic or atmic plane while his physical body is awake. But out of the number who have already attained adeptship only the very small proportion above-mentioned retain physical bodies, and remain in touch with the earth in order to help it; and out of this a still smaller proportion are willing under certain conditions to accept men as pupils or apprentices; and it is to these last (the smallest number) only that we give the name of Masters. Yet few though They be Their office is of incalculable importance, since without Their aid it would be impossible for man to enter the portals of initiation.