223. People very often come or write to our President or to myself and say: “Why does not the Master use me ? I am so earnest and devoted to Him. I do so want to be used. I want Him to take me and teach me. Why does He not do so?”
224. There may be many reasons why He does not. Sometimes a person, asking that, has some prominent fault which is in itself quite a sufficient reason. Not infrequently, I regret to say, it is pride. A person may have so good a conceit of himself that he is not amenable to teaching, although he thinks that he is. Very often in this civilization of ours the fault is irritability. A good and worthy person may have his nerves all ajangle, so that it would be impossible for him to be drawn into very close and constant touch with the Master. Sometimes the impediment is curiosity. Some are surprised to hear that that is a serious failing, but certainly it is-- curiosity about the affairs of other people, and especially about their occult standing or development. It would be quite impossible that a Master should draw near to Himself one who had that failing.
225. Another common hindrance is readiness to be offended. Many a good and earnest aspirant is so easily offended as to be of practically no use in the work, because he cannot get on with other people. He will have to wait until he has learnt to adapt himself, and to co-operate with any person whatever.
226. Many people who make the inquiry have failings of this kind, and they do not like it if their fault is pointed out to them. They do not generally believe that they have it, and imagine that we are in error; but in rare cases they are willing to profit by the suggestion. I remember very well a lady coming to me in an American city and asking the question: “What is the matter with me? Why may I not draw near to the Master?” “Do you really want to know?” I asked. Yes, certainly, she really wished to know. She adjured me to look, at her occultly, or clairvoyantly, or in any way I wished, at all her vehicles and her past lives, and to decide thereby. I took her at her word and said: “Well, if you really want to know, there is too much ego in your cosmos. You are thinking all about yourself and not enough about the work.”
227. Of course she was terribly offended; she flounced out of the room, and said she did not think much of my clairvoyance; but that lady had the courage to come back two years later and say: “What you told me was quite true, and I am going to put it right and to work hard at it.” That story has repeated itself many times, except that this is the only case in which the person came back and acknowledged the fault. Unquestionably the disciple who is willing to see himself as others see him may learn much that will help him to progress. I recollect that one of the Masters once remarked that the first duty of a chela is to hear without anger anything the guru may say. He should be eager to change himself, to get rid of his faults. Madame Blavatsky said: “Chelaship has been defined by a Master as a psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind.”1
228. 1 Five Years of Theosophy , Second Edition, p. 36.229. Self-centredness is only another form of pride, but it is very prominent at the present day. The personality which we have been building up for many thousands of years has grown strong and often self-assertive, and it is one of the hardest tasks to reverse its attitude and compel it to acquire the habit of looking at things from the standpoint of others. One must certainly step out of the centre of his own circle, as I explained in The Inner Life, if he wishes to come to the Master.
230. It sometimes happens, however, that those who ask the question have not any particular outstanding defect, and when one looks them over, one can only say: “I do not see any definite reason, any one fault which is holding you back, but you will have to grow a little all round.” That is an unpalatable thing to have to tell a person, but it is the fact ; they are not yet big enough, and must grow before they will be worthy.
231. One thing which often prevents people from coming into touch with the Masters is lack of faith and will; unless a person tries earnestly with the full belief that he can, and with the determination that he will, succeed one day, and that that day shall come as soon as possible, it is fairly certain that he will not prevail. While we know that in some of us there are failings, yet I do think there are at least some cases among us in which it is just the lack of that intense determination which holds us back.
232. It requires some strength and bigness to put oneself in the attitude towards the work which the Master Himself adopts, because, in addition to any defect of our own, we have the whole pressure of the thought of the world against us. Madame Blavatsky gave us the fullest warning in the beginning about both these difficulties. She writes:
233. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a Probationer, certain occult effects ensue. The first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man-- his faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance, if a man be vain or a sensualist, or ambitious. . . these vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed or repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.
234. On the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has any virtue latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. . . . This is an immutable law in the domain of the occult.1
235. 1 The Secret Doctrine, Vol.5, p. 417236. Does the reader recall the old proverb: “Let sleeping dogs lie?” There is a world of occult meaning in it. No man or woman knows his or her moral strength until it is tried. Thousands go through life very respectably because they have never been put to the test. . . . One who undertakes to try for chelaship by that very act rouses . . . every sleeping passion of his animal nature. . . . The chela is called to face not only all the latent evil propensities of his nature, but in addition the momentum of maleficent forces accumulated by the community and nation to which he belongs. . . . If he is content to go along with his neighbours and be almost as they are-- perhaps a little better or somewhat worse than the average-- no one may give him a thought. But let it be known that he has been able to detect the hollow mockery of social life, its hypocrisy. selfishness, sensuality, cupidity and other bad features, and has determined to lift himself up to a higher level, at once he is hated, and every bad, bigoted or malicious nature sends at him a current of opposing will-power. 1
237. 1 Five Years of Theosophy, Second Edition, p. 35.238. Those who drift along with the current of evolution, and will reach this stage in the very far distant future, will find it much easier, for popular opinion at that period will be in harmony with these ideals. We have now, however, to resist what the Christian would call temptation, the steady pressure of opinion from without, for millions of people all round us are thinking personal thoughts. To make a stand against these needs a real effort, true courage and perseverance. We must doggedly keep to the task, and though we may fail again and again we must not lose heart, but get up and go on.
239. The astral and mental bodies of an aspirant ought to be continually exhibiting four or five big and glowing emotions-- love, devotion, sympathy and intellectual aspiration among them. But instead of a few great feelings vibrating splendidly and clearly with fine colour, one generally sees the astral body spotted over with red and brown and grey and black vortices, often a hundred or more. They are somewhat like a mass of warts on a physical body, preventing the skin from being sensitive as it should be. The candidate must see to it that these are removed, and that the usual tangle of petty emotions is entirely combed away.
240. DEVOTION MUST BE COMPLETE241. There can be no half measures on this Path. Many people are in the position of those much-maligned individuals Ananias and Sapphira. It will be remembered how they (not at all unnaturally nor in a blameworthy manner) wanted to keep something to fall back upon, as they were not quite sure that the new Christian movement was going to be a success. They were very enthusiastic, and wanted to give all that they could; but they did feel that it was the path of wisdom to keep a little back in case the movement failed. For that they were not in the least to be blamed; but what they did do which was most damaging and improper was that, though keeping something back, they did not admit the fact, but pretended that they had given all. There are many to-day who follow their example; I hope the story is not true, because the Apostle was certainly somewhat severe upon them.
242. We do not give everything, but keep back a little bit of ourselves-- I do not mean of our money, but of personal feeling deep down, which holds us back from the Master' s feet. In occultism that will not do. We must follow the Master without reserve, not saying within: “I will follow the Master so long as He does not want me to work with such-and-such a person; I will follow the Master so long as all that I do is recognized and mentioned in the papers!” We must not make conditions. I do not mean that we should give up our ordinary physical plane duties, but simply that our whole self should be at the Master' s disposal. We must be prepared to yield anything, to go anywhere-- not as a test, but because the love of the work is the biggest thing in our lives.
243. Sometimes people ask: “If I do all these things how long will it be before the Master takes me on probation?” There will be no delay, but there is much virtue in the word “if” in this question. It is not so easy to do them perfectly, and were that required it would no doubt be a long time before we could hope for discipleship. But one of the Masters has said: “He who does his best does enough for us.” If one has not delight in service for its own sake, but is only looking for the reward of occult recognition, he has not really the right spirit. If he has the right attitude he will go on tirelessly with the good work, leaving the Master to announce His pleasure when and how He may choose.
244. Our Hindu brethren have a very sound tradition in this matter. They would say: “Twenty or thirty years of service is as nothing; there are many in India who have served for the whole of their lives, and have never had any outward recognition, though inwardly they are being guided by a Master.” I met with an instance of this a few years ago; I had to make some inquiry with regard to some of our Indian brethren about these things, and the answer of the Master was: “For forty years I have had those men under observation. Let them be content with that.” And they were more then content. Since then, I may mention, they have received further recognition and have become Initiates. Our Indian brother knows within himself that the Master is aware of his service; but the pupil does not mind whether He chooses to take any outward notice of it or not. He would, of course, be exceedingly happy if the Master did notice him, but if that does not happen he goes on just the same.
245. CHAPTER IV246. PROBATION
247. THE LIVING IMAGE
248. OUT of the ranks of earnest students and workers of the kind I have already described, the Master has on many occasions selected His pupils. But before He definitely accepts them He takes special precautions to assure Himself that they are really the kind of people whom He can draw into intimate contact with Himself; and that is the object of the stage called Probation. When He thinks of a man as a possible pupil, He usually asks one who is already closely linked with Him to bring the candidate to Him astrally. There is not generally much ceremony connected with this step; the Master gives a few words of advice, tells the new pupil what will be expected of him, and often, in His gracious way, He may find some reason to congratulate him on the work that he has already accomplished.
249. He then makes a living image of the pupil-- that is to say, He moulds out of mental, astral and etheric matter an exact counterpart of the causal, mental, astral and etheric bodies of the neophyte, and keeps that image at hand, so that He may look at it periodically. Each image is magnetically attached to the person whom it represents, so that every variation of thought and feeling in him is accurately reproduced in it by sympathetic vibration, and thus by a single glance at the image the Master can see at once whether during the period since He last looked at it there has been any sort of disturbance in the bodies which it represents-- whether the man has been losing his temper, or allowing himself to be a prey to impure feelings, worry, depression, or anything of the kind. It is only after He has seen that for a considerable time no serious excitement has taken place in the vehicles represented by the image, that He will admit the pupil into near relation with Himself.
250. When the pupil is accepted he must be drawn into a unity with his Master closer than anything we can imagine or understand; the Master wants to blend his aura with His own, so that through it His forces may be constantly acting without special attention on His part. But a relation so intimate as this cannot act in one direction only; if among the vibrations of the pupil there are some which would cause disturbance in the astral and mental bodies of the Adept as they react upon Him, such union would be impossible. The prospective pupil would have to wait until he had rid himself of those vibrations. A probationary pupil is not necessarily better than other people who are not on probation; he is only more suitable in certain ways for the Master' s work, and it is advisable to subject him to the test of time, for many people, swept upwards by enthusiasm, appear at first to be most promising and eager to serve, but unfortunately become tired after a while and slip back. The candidate must conquer any emotional failings that he may have, and go on steadily working until he becomes sufficiently calm and pure. When for quite a long time there has been no serious upheaval in the living image, the Master may feel that the time has come when He can usefully draw the pupil nearer to Him.
251. We must not think of the living image as recording only defects or disturbances. It mirrors the whole condition of the pupil' s astral and mental consciousness, so it should record much of benevolence and joyousness, and should radiate forth peace on earth and goodwill to men. Never forget that not only a passive but also an active goodness is always a prerequisite for advancement. To do no harm is already much; but remember that it is written of our Great-Exemplar that He went about doing good. And when the Lord Buddha was asked to epitomize the whole of His teaching in one verse, He began: “Cease to do evil,” but immediately He continued: “Learn to do good.”
252. If a pupil on probation does something unusually good, for the moment the Master flashes a little more attention on him, and if He sees fit He may send a wave of encouragement of some sort, or He may put some work in the pupil' s way and see how he does it. Generally, however, he delegates that task to some of His senior pupils.. We are supposed to offer opportunities to the candidate, but to do so is a serious responsibility. If the person takes the opportunity, all is well; but if he does not, it counts as a bad mark against him. We should often like to give opportunities to people, but we hesitate, because although if they take them it will do them much good, if they do not take them it will be a little harder to do so next time.
253. It will be seen, then, that the link of the pupil on probation with his Master is chiefly one of observation and perhaps occasional use of the pupil. It is not the custom of the Adepts to employ special or sensational tests, and in general, when an adult is put on probation, he is left to follow the ordinary course of his life, and the way in which the living image reproduces his response to the trials and problems of the day gives quite sufficient indication of his character and progress. When from this the Master concludes that the person will make a satisfactory disciple, He will draw him nearer and accept him. Sometimes a few weeks is sufficient to determine this; sometimes the period stretches into years.
254. YOUNGER PROBATIONERS255. Because the time is exceptional many young people have been put on probation in recent years, and their parents and the older members of The Society have sometimes wondered how it is that, notwithstanding their own sincere sacrifices and labours, often extending over twenty, thirty or even forty years, they are passed over and the young people are chosen. The explanation is simple.
256. It has been your karma to work all this time preparing yourself and preparing the way for the coming of the World-Teacher; and just because you are good old members you have attracted some of the souls who have been working up to a high level of development in previous incarnations, so that they have been born to you as children; and you must not be surprised if you sometimes find that those who in the physical body are your children are in other and higher worlds far older in development than you are. If a boy or a girl suddenly enters into close relations with a Master-- such relations as you have hardly ventured to think of for yourself, even after many years of meditation and hard work-- do not be astonished. Your child may be capable of soaring far beyond you; but it is just because he has that capacity that his birth and education have been entrusted to you, who have been studying and working so long on Theosophical lines. In the course of that study you should have learnt to be the ideal parent-- the kind of parent required for the body of an advanced ego. Instead of being perplexed or surprised, you should rejoice with exceeding great joy that you have been found worthy to train the physical footsteps of one who shall be among the Saviours of the world.
257. You may wonder, perhaps, how mere children can appreciate the honour which comes to them, can grasp the splendour and glory of it all. Do not forget that it is the ego who is initiated, the ego who is taken as a pupil. True, he must obtain such control over his lower vehicles that they will be to a certain considerable extent an expression of him, so that at least they will not get in the way of the work which has to be done; but it is he, the ego, who has to do that work and to make that development, and you do not know how much of it he may have already achieved in previous births. Many of those who are coming into incarnation just now are highly evolved souls; it is precisely of such advanced egos that the great group of disciples who will stand around the World-Teacher must be constituted. Those who become pupils early in this life may well have been pupils for many years in a previous life, and the greatest privilege that we elder people can have is that we find ourselves associated with these young ones, for through them we can further the Lord' s work on earth by training them to do it more perfectly.
258. In the Chapter on “Our Relation to Children” in The Hidden Side of Things I have dealt at considerable length with what is necessary for the training of children, that they may preserve all that is best in what they bring from the past and may develop into full flower the many beautiful characteristics of their nature, which are so generally, alas, ruthlessly destroyed by uncomprehending elders. There I have spoken among other things of the devastating effects of fear induced in children by roughness and cruelty; but on that subject I should like to add here some mention of an experience which illustrated the unspeakably terrible results which sometimes follow in its wake. Parents who have children of an age to be sent to school cannot be too careful and searching in their inquiries before they entrust those children to an instructor, lest ineradicable harm be done to the little ones for whom they are responsible.
259. EFFECT OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN260. Some time ago a very striking instance of the calamity which may in certain cases be brought about by such brutality came prominently before my notice. I had the very great honour of being present at the Initiation of one of our younger members, the Initiator on that occasion being the Lord Maitreya Himself. In the course of the ceremonial the candidate, as usual, had to reply to many questions dealing largely with the manner in which help can best be given in certain difficult or unusual cases, and a special interrogation was added as to whether he forgave and could help a certain man who had treated him with terrible harshness and cruelty in early childhood.
261. The Initiator made an image of an aura with the most wonderfully delicate little puffs or touches or shoots of lovely colour, of light playing over its surface, as it were peeping out of it, and then drawing in again, and said: “Those are the seeds of the highest and noblest qualities of mankind-- fragile, delicate as gossamer, to be developed only in an atmosphere of deepest, purest love, without one touch of fear or shrinking. He who, being otherwise ready, can unfold and strengthen them fully may reach Adeptship in that same life. That was the fate we had hoped for you, that as a great Adept you should have stood beside me when I come to your physical plane ; but those to whom I entrusted you (because they offered you to my service even before birth) allowed you to fall into the hands of this person, who was so utterly unworthy of such a trust. This was your aura before the blight of his wickedness fell upon you. Now see what his cruelty made of you.”
262. Then the aura changed and twisted about horribly, and when it was still again all the beautiful little shoots had disappeared, and in their place were innumerable little scars, and the Lord explained that the harm done could not be cancelled in the present life, and said: “You will still help me when I come, and I hope that in this life you will attain Arhatship; but for the final consummation we must wait awhile. In our eyes there is no greater crime than thus to check the progress of a soul.”
263. As the candidate saw this aura writhe and harden, saw all its fair promise ruthlessly destroyed by the brutality of this man, he felt again for a moment what he had to a great extent forgotten-- the agony of the small boy sent away from home, the ever-hovering fear and shrinking, the incredulous horror, the feeling of flaming outrage from which there is no escape or redress, the sickening sense of utter helplessness in the grasp of a cruel tyrant, the passionate resentment at his wicked injustice, with no hope, no foothold anywhere in the abyss, no God to whom to appeal; and seeing this in his mind, I who watched understood something of the terrible tragedy of childhood, and why its effects are so far-reaching.
264. It is not only when approaching Adeptship that this most loathsome sin of cruelty to children checks progress. All the new and higher qualities which the Aryan race should now be unfolding show themselves in light and delicate buds of a similar nature, though at a lower level than those described above. In thousands of cases these are ruthlessly crushed out by the insensate ferocity of parent or teacher, or repressed by the brutal bullying of bigger boys at a boarding-school; and thus many good people remain at the same level through several incarnations, while their tormentors fall back into lower races. There are certainly many egos coming into incarnation who, although they fall far short of the great heights of Initiation, are nevertheless unfolding rapidly, and need now to add to their characters some of these further and more delicate developments; and for the advancement intended for them also brutality would be fatal.
265. I had not heard, until the occasion mentioned above, that the last life in which Adeptship is attained must have absolutely perfect surroundings in childhood; but the appropriateness of the idea is obvious when once it is put before us. That is probably one reason why so few students gain Adeptship in European bodies, for we are much behind the rest of the world in that particular. It is at any rate abundantly clear that nothing but evil can ever follow from this ghastly custom of cruelty. Our members should certainly work wherever possible for its suppression, and should be, as I said in the beginning, most especially careful to make certain that no children for whom they are in any way responsible shall be in any danger from this particular form of crime.
266. THE MASTER OF CHILDREN267. The Lord Maitreya has frequently been called the Teacher of Gods and Men, and that fact is sometimes expressed in a different way by saying that in the great kingdom of the spiritual work He is the Minister for Religion and Education. It is not only that at certain intervals, when He sees it to be desirable, He either incarnates Himself, or sends a pupil, to state the eternal truth in some new way-- as we may put it, to found a new religion. Quite apart from that, He is constantly in charge of all religions, and whatever new and beautiful teaching is sent out through any of them, new or old, it is always inspired by Him. We know little of the methods of world-wide instruction which He adopts; there are many ways of teaching apart from the spoken word; and it is certain that it is His constant and daily endeavour to raise the intellectual conceptions of millions of Angels and of men.
268. His right-hand man in all this marvellous work is His assistant and destined successor, the Master Kuthumi, just as the assistant and destined successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu is the Master Morya. Just because, then, the Master Kuthumi is the ideal Teacher, it is to Him that we have to bring those who are to be put on probation or accepted at an early age. It may be that later on in life they will be used by other Masters for other portions of the work; but at any rate they all (or almost all) begin under the tutelage of the Master Kuthumi. It has been part of my task for many years to endeavour to train along the right lines any young person whom the Master regards as hopeful; He brings them in contact with me on the physical plane and usually gives brief directions as to what qualities He wants developing in them, and what instruction should be given to them. Naturally He, in His infinite wisdom, does not deal with these younger brains and bodies exactly as with those of older people. Let me quote from an account of the putting on probation some ten years ago of three of our young people:
269. ENTERING UPON PROBATION270. We found the Master Kuthumi seated on the veranda of His house, and as I led the young ones forward to Him, He held out His hands to them. The first boy dropped gracefully on one knee and kissed His hand, and thenceforward remained kneeling, pressing against the Master' s knee. All of them kept their eyes upon His, and their whole souls seemed to be pouring out through their eyes. He smiled on them most beautifully and said:
271. “I welcome you with peculiar pleasure; you have all worked with me in the past, and I hope you will do so again this time. I want you to be of us before the Lord comes, so I am beginning with you very early. Remember, this that you wish to undertake is the most glorious of all tasks, but it is not an easy one, because you must gain perfect control over these little bodies; you must forget yourselves entirely and live only to be a blessing to others, and to do the work which is given us to do.”
272. Putting His hand under the chin of the first boy as he knelt, He said with a bright smile : “Can you do that?”
273. And they all replied that they would try. Then the Master gave some valuable personal advice to each in turn, and asked each one separately: “Will you try to work in the world under My guidance ?” And each said: “I will.”
275. “Then I take you as my pupil on probation, and I hope that you will soon come into closer relationship with me, and therefore I give you my blessing, in order that you may pass it on to others.”
276. As He spoke, the boy' s aura increased wonderfully in size, and its colours of love and devotion glowed with living fire; and he said: “O Master make me really good; make me fit to serve you.”
277. But the Master smilingly replied: “Only you yourself can do that, my dear boy; but my help and blessing will be ever with you.”278. Then He took the others and went through the same little ceremony with each of them, and their auras also increased and grew firmer and steadier as they glowed responsively in the most marvellous manner.
279. Then the Master rose and drew the boys with Him saying:280. “Now come with me, and see what I do.”
281. We all trooped together down the sloping path to the bridge across the river. He took us into the cave, and showed to the boys the living images of all the probationary pupils. Then He said: “Now I am going to make images of you. ” And He materialized them before their eyes, and they were naturally tremendously interested. One of them said in an awed voice : “Am I like that?”
282. In one of the images there was a patch of reddish matter, and the Master said to its original with a humorous glance: “What is that?”283. “I don' t know,” replied the boy; but I think he guessed, for it was the result of an emotional strain the night before. The Master pointed out various colours and arrangements in the auras, and told them what they meant and which He wanted altered. He told them that He should look at these images each day to see how they were getting on, and He hoped that they would so arrange them that they would be pleasant to look upon. Then He gave them His final blessing.
284. ________
285. In the case of elder people put upon probation, they are left to a large extent to find the most suitable work for themselves; but with the younger people He sometimes quite definitely puts a piece of work in the way of one of them and watches to see how he does it. He condescends sometimes to give special messages of encouragement and instruction to individu