(July 1889)
Publications:
- The Path, vol. IV, no. 4, July 1889, pp. 97-105
Read:
CTD entry in Russian: Кейтли Дж. - Судите поступок, а не человека
DATA
Title for references: Keightley J - Judge the Act Not the Person
Short description: A response to Mabel Collins's public retraction of her claim to adept inspiration for Light on the...
97
Adepts and Mediums.
The past month has given us a lesson in occultism. Its bearings are questioned by aching and bewildered minds. Our private lives repeat to-day the frequent experience of History,—that it is the foe of our own household, the traitor high in trust of nation or corporation, who is able to inflict injuries of a magnitude unattainable by the open enemy.
The theosophical ranks held no exponent more valued than the Editor and Scribe of Light on the Path. We gave her the interest and love that attach to the orbit of some bright planet. In the gloom of a material age this gracious personality shone upon us with a chaste and tender splendor. Her gifts prophesied the hidden powers of man. Her influence spanned the globe. The Light that passed along her ray had a glory so serene, a 98strength unwavering yet so deeply human, that while thinkers never mistook the vehicle for the Light, nor identified message and messenger;—while, indeed, they saw that the messenger was, for the most part, an unconscious agent who did not assimilate the message, still they felt her in their hearts as we feel the flower shedding fragrance on the summer night, giving, unconsciously, the sweetness passed through it from the Source of all sweetness, to the darkened world. Suddenly she whom we honored rises distractedly before us and proclaims that in claiming an adept's inspiration for Light on the Path she had not been truthful, but had made the claim at the bidding of H. P. Blavatsky.
So eager is she to lay the blame of temptation upon a woman once her chosen friend, a woman now dying by inches, who has labored as no one of our era ever labored for Humanity; aye, one she swore in the most solemn of pledges to sustain and defend,—that she has not hesitated to cast herself in the dust at our feet; giving herself as tool to an unscrupulous—because insane—agency. Sick at heart, spent with a tempest of anger and pity, of love contending with outraged faith, what are we then to do? Our Duty. In this and in worse upheavals, our Duty to one and to all. If we are torn from this anchorage, the hope of the race may founder with us.
What is our present Duty? Hear the words of the Master. "Judge the action, not the person. You never know the true motives. Never judge human nature on its lowest level. Everyone has a potential Dugpa in him."[1] We are to separate the deed from the doer. To remember that we all share this Karma; it is that of our common Humanity. To return to our lost comrade the immortal spirit of the message she bore; to cast its veil of charity about her. We dare not turn back her weapon against her own breast. While we remain true to the truest in a comrade, she is never wholly lost to us. If she has departed from her better self, we may hold up that ideal as a beacon to guide her back. If never here, then in that bright day when "we receive the new knowledge," may this and other loved ones lost await us there where Life shall have purified and redeemed us all!
The deed we must unflinchingly analyze. Our duty to all demands this. Its bearings can be shown by analogy. Suppose that a soldier is tried for infringement of oath and discipline, and is dismissed the Service. In his rage at the justice he has called down and of whose penalties he was distinctly forewarned, the soldier turns to the enemy with false information,—a spy and traitor,—as a revenge upon his former Chief, and claims that his punishment has released him from his oath of loyalty to a Cause. A pledge, once taken, is forever binding in both the moral and the occult 99worlds. If we break it once and are punished, that does not justify us in breaking it again, and, so long as we do, so long will the mighty lever of the Law react upon us. As for the person who was Mrs. Collins's instrument, and whose wretched tool she has become, not a shadow of doubt as to the immediate cause of his attack upon Madame Blavatsky remains with those who have read his letters to her, demanding an official position which is not within her gift, and threatening to take revenge if his demand was not granted by a certain time. The time elapsed and the attack was instant. There is an eloquent biblical passage which limns the situation. The master is shown as saying: "Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of Man goeth as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!" (St. Luke Ch. 21. V 21-22.) Here is a clear statement of Karmic law, and a no less clear hint that some persons are the weapons of Karma. We can produce an old letter of Madame Blavatsky in which she says that her present betrayer is and will be just such an instrument of Karma. Such an inheritance from his past is of a nature to make any man quail—unless he laughs the laugh of madness.
We then have two similar acts by two different persons. One, a personal intimate friend, suddenly throws forth an accusation against H. P. Blavatsky of tempting to a fraudulent claim for inspiration of a splendid work, the object in view being apparently only that of damaging H. P. B., at the risk of reducing the book to the lowest possible level and the author to a lower. The other actor, believing in no one's truth, rushes into print with the confession of untruth, the object being to damage H. P. B., with the inevitable consequence of lowering the author of Light on the Path in everyone's estimation, for when a woman accuses herself of mendacity the world think her mad if they do not believe the accusation.
These acts are untheosophical, no matter who are the actors. They cannot be excused nor forgotten.
These facts are outside the chief teaching of this event, which is that we do not sufficiently discriminate. We judge by the external, by persons and personalities; we neglect the study of laws; we permit the spirit of things and deeds to escape us. This spiritual energy can only be touched by the Intuition: what that is, and what the spirit of things material is, we will hereafter attempt in some measure to explain. If it can be shown that abrupt disintegration of the moral forces is not unprecedented and should serve us as a warning and a guide, then we shall not have suffered in vain. It ought to be known, and earnest students have long known it, that the relation of the writer of Light on the Path was that of a transmitting medium. The term "transmitting medium" is here divested of all reproach or slur. The colorless term per se is used to indicate a person 100to and through whom something is given, and stands in contradistinction to the word Adept, or one who takes what he requires. Adepts, too, are of all grades within the two orders, the Black and the White. A question has been asked by a few students. They say: What difference is there between the instrumentality of H. P. B. and that of any transmitting medium? There is that radical difference which exists between the two extremes called by us poles. H. P. B. is an Adept; the other not. The adept is such by virtue of the active principle. The medium is such by virtue of the passive principle. When the adept is in trance, his spiritual nature is the centre of activity. When the medium is entranced, his astral nature is that centre. The medium, when he goes into trance (when not hypnotized by another or in the catalepsy of disease), does so because his bodily senses become controlled by an outside force while his soul will remain passive. His vitality and consciousness are then transferred to the astral body. In this condition he is a spectator. What he sees, and the height or depth of his insight, are regulated by the purity of his auric sphere. Truths or falsehoods may be impressed upon him. He may or may not remember them afterwards; he may report them correctly or misinterpret them. If a powerful Force uses him as its agent, that Force can and does stamp its information upon him with a sharpness of outline which his waking brain cannot blur. During this process his consciousness is discontinuous so far as he knows. From the standpoint of his normal condition there are the same gaps in it that there are in the consciousness of the ordinary man.
The adept does not make the outer body passive. He paralyzes it and remains master of all his nature above the body. He retreats deeper within than the medium, and does it consciously to himself. During his volitional and successive transfer of vitality and action from plane to plane, or from seat to seat of force, no breaks in consciousness occur. In all places and states the adept is self-identified. He moves from state to state at will. When he reaches the spiritual centre, from it he controls all the rest. This centre is universal and is not his own. The Higher Self of one is that of all. And, finally, the consciousness by which the adept does this is not at all the consciousness known as such among ordinary men. How shall the secret of the ages be put into words at all? It cannot be done for us by those who know unless we first give them the word and sign. Not the word of any order, but the self communicated sign. Who has wakened at midnight and felt the mystic breath within himself; who has trembled as Woman trembles when first she recognizes a life within her body, a life of consciousness and motion proper to itself and necessary to its existence, which yet she does not share or understand? Who, amid thrills of physical terror, has waited 101till the Power expanded and opened, till the Voice spoke, overcoming the physical and merging him into Itself; who has learned that this Power is the man, and, coming out of the awful experience, has resolved to lose his (lower) soul, in order to gain it? For him there is no return; he and such as he alone understand that the Adept is not an instrument. But then, too, the adept is not the person and body we see; they are His instrument and He is that hidden Voice come to self-consciousness in its temple. It is referred to in Rule 21, Light on the Path, Part I. Also in the second password of the T. S. In Becoming, the adept may pass through the phase of mediumship, while still a pupil, and this is why it is better not to enter that astral plane until we can do so with a guide, or, in mystic language, until we can do so "from above." When first the "mysterious event" occurs, we think some power extraneous to ourselves is acting; later we find that this Power is indeed our Self of selves. This all-seeing Power is not answerable to any human rule, or to any law but its own, the Law of laws. The personality governed by It may do much that conflicts with every opinion of men; they cannot expect to understand It, but they may recognize it. It is Itself a cause, and acts only upon the plane of cause, and the body subservient to it is above all Karma. Of course also there are grades of adepts and steps in Becoming. Still, the least among adepts acts with a knowledge of realities far above our own, sees what we see not, and cannot be judged by our rules. His acts have results that we know not, causes that we see not.
We shall be asked what evidence we have to offer that H. P. B. is an Adept, or the other a medium. Our evidence is of two kinds. (A.) That which appeals to occultists only. (B.) That which appeals to the average man.
To deal first with B. one proof is, of course, the manipulation of natural forces due to the knowledge of them. Putting this proof aside, however, H. P. B. is an active, conscious agent, acting through will power, having attained the power of perfect registration and trained concentration, able at all times to give a full account of all she knows, and one fitted to the development of the questioner, one responding to his physical, astral, or spiritual sense. She is learned, acute, profound; disease of the body has not impaired her work, its quality, quantity, or her fidelity to it. The great proof is thorough comprehension, to the fullest depth, of all she has taken or received, and the body of H. P. B. is her own instrument; she even holds it back from dissolution.
M. C. has never understood what was given through her. She is not at any time able to give a full account of it. She has said to many "she knew nothing about philosophy or the laws of occultism, of Karma or any far reaching theosophical doctrine." Advanced occultists identify Light 102on the Path with an ancient, untranslated and unpublished M. S. S. called "The Book of the * * *", to which M. C. could not have had access, and whose precepts must have been communicated to her through occult methods. The inadequate comments on Light on the Path, published by her in Lucifer, prove that she spoke the truth in this. She says that the work is "written in astral cipher and can only be deciphered by one who reads astrally." The comments only bear upon the ethical and intellectual part of the Rules; they remind us of false starts made at a race that is finally abandoned. They explain but a little of the surface meaning of the noble original. The deeper meanings are untouched by the Scribe, such as that same astral one, or, again, that bearing upon practical occultism. For there is, within those Rules, a statement of number, of centre, of order of procedure from seat to seat of force. Chela-initiates know this. Subba Row's able comments on the Idyll contain more than hints of it. To illustrate one concealed aspect of the Rules, inclusive in part of the key just alluded to, let us read some remarks from an Oriental Adept which came into our possession many months ago.
"Kill out all sense of separateness." "Union with the Higher Self is the best manner of killing out the Sense of separateness. Therefore man must become a Slave of his Higher Self. No two men pass through the same experiences in effecting the union with the Higher Self. The true Higher Self is the Warrior referred to in L. O. P., and it never acts on this plane where the active agent is the manas, etc. A sense of freedom is one of the marked characteristics of the higher consciousness, and the will-effort needed to silence the body is much the same as that needed to forget pain. The Higher Self is shapeless, sexless, formless. It is the perfect quaternary, Nirvana; above which there is the first [principle]. It is a state of consciousness; a breath, not a body or form. It is always to be sought for within; to look outside is a fatal mistake. The effort to be made is to reach the Highest State of which you are capable and to hold yourself there. Concentrate on the idea of the Higher Self, say for one-half hour at first. Permit no other thought. By degrees you will grow able to unite your consciousness with the Higher Self * * *" (Here follow rules for concentration) "The registration of the consciousness of this plane takes place at the last moment of the passage back to the physical, and this, together with the fact that the double is often active, often produces a kind of state of double consciousness, and the latter is a source of error. In acquiring the power of concentration the first step is one of blankness. Then follows by degrees consciousness, and finally the passage between the two states becomes so rapid and easy as to be almost unnoticed. The great difficulty to be overcome is the registration of the knowledge of the Higher Self on the 103physical plane. To accomplish this, the physical brain must be made an entire blank to all but the higher consciousness, and the double or astral body must be paralyzed, or error and confusion will result." (Here is developed one allusion to centres of force; the seats of the astral force must be paralyzed and inhibition of the cortex of the brain must be accomplished.) "In the first place, try to put yourself into such a state as not to feel anything that happens to the physical body, in fact, to separate yourself from the body—"
Enough has been quoted to let in some light upon the vital grasp of these precepts. Also to show that she who reported them never understood them. Madame Blavatsky has long been urged to unveil their meaning further, and we trust that she will do so. If M. C. had drawn from her highest centre the knowledge stored in that centre, she would be mistress of it, as H. P. B. is of hers.
Various conditions must combine to render any person a good instrument. There must be a certain mediumistic quality, or, in other words, physical passivity and loose tenure of certain principles or forces. There must be what we may call a Karmic permission, or current. It is desirable that the person should have the power to make himself heard, as, for instance, a literary person. We do not frequently find all these conditions combined in one person. After a time the nervous conditions of natural mediums and their physical passivity break down their health, and a stage is reached where moral disintegration manifests in a centre of hopeless disease and commands our profound commiseration. Colonel Olcott never made a truer remark than when he said the moderns ought to learn from the ancients how to isolate their mediums. Light on the Path is a jewel shining by its own light. Its precepts would in any case have been given to the world by the hand of whomsoever was available; it is much to have been that hand, and, for the sake of its deed, let us love it even when it is raised against all that we prize, even while we strike the poisoned weapon from its grasp.
As regards proof A. The case of Madame Blavatsky is sui generis. She is not only the messenger; she is herself a part of the message, is herself a revelation and a test. Many of us firmly believe that faith in her is the real test in Theosophy. Why? Because Theosophy primarily teaches the within of all things, the latent divinity. It urges us to look deeper than the apparent, further than the goal of sense. Its first test is made upon our Intuition. By that light we must read the spirit within Madame Blavatsky, or we shall never read her. Clairvoyance, psychometry, and the rest may be false guides. The seer looks outward from within himself, and, if his sphere be clouded, so shall his interpretation be. Such visions are spasmodic, precarious, subject to no rule, unless a course of occult training 104under an adept has been had. Intuition at all times serves us when once developed. It is always present to be drawn upon. It is sure, because it is the Voice of the Higher Self, Its messenger through which action occurs on this plane. Not that guesswork which some persons call intuition, but that force to which the occultist gives this name. Manifesting in sheeted light within a centre in himself similar to the one in which it has arisen (whether in macrocosm or microcosm), it imparts to him a knowledge of the real spirit or essence of what he hears or sees, through a similar essential and vibratory quality. It is often confirmed by the physical senses, and the conjunction forms a sure guide in ordinary life. But when the senses conflict with Intuition, we must let the senses go and trust to the Voice alone. Modern Science demonstrates the insecurity of the senses. Rules governing the credibility of testimony show that no two honest witnesses describe a scene alike. We constantly suppose ourselves to have had experiences which never took place. The severance of sense and sign need not cost us too much. Everything bears about it its own password and sign, founded on laws of number. The occultist senses this within himself; it is stamped there, as it were, in a corresponding centre of force: all centres are sub-centres of the universal seat of that force. Once trained and self-initiated, the occultist cannot be deceived. The vibratory ratio (and "spirit") of a given sub-centre outside him registers first in a similar sub-centre within him, together with a peculiar sheet of light through and from a certain organ, and is then conveyed to the brain. The subject is more explicitly stated than is common because it is highly desirable to show that persons governed by Intuition will believe it rather than their ordinary senses. Such persons know that Madame Blavatsky has never deceived anyone, though she has often been obliged to let others deceive themselves. That which she has done has not been correctly reported with those persons who think she has deceived. The vibration of their own sphere was such that direct transmission from hers was impossible. The whole secret of the transfer of nervous vibration to the brain where it somehow becomes translated into thought, is locked up in this subject. Untrue thought would be impossible if our specific vibratory ratio did not render synchronous vibration with the universal mind impossible; it impedes and alters that coming to us from the Oversoul, and from any other centre. We believe, on the word of science, that water is a union of gases, though most of us have never seen it. Many believe that color is a thing in itself. All our records teem with the fact that our senses are false witnesses, and we are fools to trust them. The inner centres of force are true witnesses, but we must learn their language. Then and only then can we judge of the forces acting through persons, and whether a force uses a body which is its own habitat, or a body owned by a latent ray. We must also learn the language of the heart. We must love our 105Intuition and trust it. It must be more to us than our personality. It leads away from personality. When results seem to disprove it, we must remember that results are often incorrectly estimated, that Truth has no compact with results or circumstances. It stands to itself alone.
A comrade writes: "This battle does not seem like the real one. That will come when, for purposes of testing the staying force of her supporters and the influence on them of theosophy, H. P. B. will seem to give herself away."
We put it on record now that some of us stand ready to face this event, and that, should it come, we shall intuitively comprehend it. Without some such record, we should not be believed. We are not looking at H. P. Blavatsky, but through her. What she is, may not be for us to know, but the manifestation through her we do know. By internal, ineffaceable, undeviating testimony, based on law and number, witnessed by analogy and carrying conviction to the soul, the occultists of every era have known the Power. To it they look and not to the person. What is it she wrote? "Follow the path I show, the masters who are behind. Do not follow me or my path."
We speak to those who read by interior light. Wherefore let every man hearken greatly within himself. Let him catch the winged messengers. Let him trust no event, no circumstance, that conflicts with the swift and shining Voice. Let him not look to see it confirmed by the world, but rather out of itself, out of its own life. Let him know that faith and love open a door for it into the nature. Above all, let him remember its first lesson, which includes every other. We are one in all; there is no real and efficient way in which we can serve Humanity except in seeking that Truth incarnate in us, in holding to It, living it, taking heed lest we deny it while approving ourselves. Eternally the divine Voice repeats: Be true; be true; be true!
Jasper Niemand.
Footnotes
- ↑ Dugpa, a black magician; one devoted wholly to self. This and other quotations are from the private letters of the Adept.