THE IMPORTANCE OF ESOTERIC LIBRARIES

The Role Played by Archives, Books 
and Manuscripts in the Work for Mankind
 

Carlos Cardoso Aveline

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This article was published in “The Aquarian
Theosophist”,  April 2007, under the title of
“The Hidden Importance of Theosophical
Libraries”. The whole collection of “The Aquarian
Theosophist” can be seen at www.teosofia.com .

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One might ask why should 21st century students of Theosophy care about libraries, new research or bibliographical issues.  Is it not enough to study and try to live the Wisdom as taught in the books  written by H.P.B. and W. Q. Judge?  

Things  are rather complex in Occultism. Life often surprises us,  and the right answer to the question is that it is not enough to keep our  reading  limited to Judge  and H.P.B., one of the reasons for  this being that their very teachings refer the student to a  much wider and vast,  almost limitless bibliographical horizon,  to be explored by each truth-seeker along several lifetimes. The writings of H.P.B. and Judge offer criteria and keys to such a reading ;  they do not replace or cancel it. 

In Their Letters, as in “The Secret Doctrine” and elsewhere, Masters of the Wisdom constantly stimulated the study of the classics in every cultural tradition. They discussed from  Dostoievsky to  Socrates, from Ancient History to  Astronomy and  the importance of  reviving Sanskrit. The whole field of human knowledge is Their mental territory,  and all of it should be gradually grasped, in its essence,  by  the aspirants to Their wisdom.

It is therefore not difficult to infer that,  among the practical steps to be taken by  every earnest candidate to esoteric wisdom,  those  suggested by the phrases “an open mind”  and “an eager intellect” are not totally unimportant.  In the 19th century,  an adept wrote in a letter to Mrs. Laura Holloway:

“Learn, child, to catch a hint through whatever agency it may be given. ‘Sermons may be preached even through stones’.” [1]

There are two  extremes to be avoided in the theosophical movement, then.  One is to  limit oneself to the mere and formal letter of what HPB and Judge wrote, thus closing one’s mind to the  ever expanding horizons of living wisdom.  The other extreme would be to accept anything written by anyone, anywhere, as long as it is fashionable or seems to be ‘theosophical’ –  and thus forget that modern  Theosophy does give us the best possible viewpoints and premises from which to look, to assess and to understand  human literature and wisdom as a whole. That includes anything  ranging from Science to Religion, from the Vedas to Plato and Shakespeare; from the Upanishads to Leon Tolstoy and the daily newspapers with the latest news on climate change and nuclear proliferation. Esoteric philosophy does not separate us from Life;  it gives us viewpoints to better understand it.  

Not all that has been published is worthwhile reading, of course.  The student must choose his books with care,  for books –  both good and bad  –  are objects radiating occult energies. In an article recently published by “Theosophy” magazine, one reads:

“Certain books carry  with them unseen influences. Consciously aware of it or not, each time ‘The Bhagavad Gita’ is read we step into a stream of wisdom that cleanses perception and restores it to its natural essence.” [2]

Tuning in with buddhi-manasic books is a sacred challenge. The act of reading has always been linked to Religion, although reading was not always about paper and printed books as we presently know them.  In  ancient times,  for instance, Asian sacred books  were written in palm-leaves –  as H.P.B. refers in the opening sentence of  “The Secret Doctrine”.  If  we investigate the  word “religion”,  we see there are two theories as to its origin.  The best known explanation says the  word comes from the Latin “religare” – meaning “to link again, to bind”,  a meaning similar to that of the word “Yoga”.  But the other hypothesis, offered by Marcus Cicero and later adopted by Augustine, is also interesting. It says the word “religion” comes from “relegere”, Latin for “reading again and  again”. [3] 
  
One of  the main objects of the modern theosophical movement includes a long term, wide-ranging   bibliographical task.  In the opening of her article  “The Organization of the Theosophical Society”, H.P.B. says that the movement had at first four objects, of  which the third was:   “To study the philosophies of the East  – those of India chiefly, presenting them gradually to the public in various works that would interpret exoteric religions in the light of esoteric teachings.”  [4]

Such a “gradual presentation” clearly would  not, and could not be completed in H.P.B.’s  biological lifetime.  That task  –  which poses a stimulating challenge to any tamasic attachments –   would have to be  further and gradually developed by each succeeding generation of students. 

In fact, there is nothing new about that.  For ages, vast  libraries and painstaking bibliographical research  have been important instruments in the work of  initiates, adepts and their disciples. Phrases like “sacred books” and “sacred literature” must be understood in wider and deeper ways than could be grasped by  lazy minds.  In the Introduction of  “The Secret Doctrine”, for example, H.P.B. dedicates several pages to  describing the existence of  a  worldwide network of secret, esoteric  libraries. She  writes:

“The members  of several esoteric shools – the seat of which is beyond the Himalayas, and whose  ramifications may be found in China, Japan, India, Tibet, and even in Syria, besides South America – claim to have in their possession the sum total of sacred and philosophical works in MSS. and type: all the works, in fact, that have ever been written, in  whatever language or characters, since the art of writing began ; from the ideographic hieroglyphs down to the alphabet of Cadmus and the Devanagari.” ( SD,  p. xxiii)

As anyone can see, this is no simple or  short term task.  H.P.B. adds:

“It has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the Alexandrian Library ( ...) every work  of a character that might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery and comprehension of some of the mysteries of the Secret Science was, owing to the combined efforts of the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched for.  It is added, moreover, by those who know,  that once found, save three copies left and stored safely away, such works were all destroyed.” ( SD, p. xxiii)

Truly esoteric libraries are then both vast and  unknown to the public. H.P.B. explains:

“ . . . In all the large and wealthy lamaseries, there are subterranean crypts and cave-libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa anda the lhakang are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsay-dam, in the solitary passes of Kuen-Lun [Karakorum mountains] there are several such hiding-places.” (SD, p. xxiv)

There must be strong occult reasons to work with such an immense variety of books and manuscripts – whose real contents is mainly at the buddhi-manasic level. H.P.B. goes on: 

“Along the ridge of of Altyn-Toga, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so far, there exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet rather than a monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama, a hermit, living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say that the  subterranean galleries and halls under it contain a collection of books, the number of which, according to the accounts given, is too large to find room even in the British Museum.” (SD, p. xxiv)  

A few pages later, H.P.B. sums it up:

“To recapitulate.  The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the ancient and  prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic records of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence in every land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist to this day  in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.” (SD, p. xxxiv)

It might be surprising for some to know  of such an enormous amount of bibliographical work in the Brotherhood of Initiates.  In order to get us better acquainted with the idea, H.P.B. gives some extra hints: 

“This  statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the following  facts: the tradition of thousands of ancient parchments saved when the Alexandrian library was destroyed ; the thousands of Sanskrit works which disappeared in India in the  reign of Akhbar ;  the universal tradition in China and Japan that the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them comprehensible – amounting to many thousands of volumes  – have long passed out of the reach of profane hands ; the disappearance of the vast sacred and occult literature of Babylon ; the loss of those keys which alone could solve the  thousand riddles of the Egyptian hieroglyphic records ; the tradition in India that the real secret commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible, though no longer visible to profane eyes, still remain for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and crypts ; and an identical belief among Buddhists,  with regard to their secret books.” (SD, p. xxxiv)

In “Isis Unveiled” (first chapter of volume two), H.P.B. gives a detailed account of how the contents of  the Alexandrian  Library and other  ancient libraries which History says were destroyed have been, in fact,   saved into a great extent   before the “official destruction” of those libraries took place.  Such ancient literature shall re-appear in some more enlightened age, as  Blavatsky adds (SD, p. xxxiv). 

One can infer that this global esoteric library  is in fact linked to the  akashic records of all existing books and manuscripts.  In 1884, a Mahatma wrote to Mr. A.P. Sinnett: 

“I have a habit of quoting, minus quotation marks – from the maze of what I get in the countless folios of our Akasic libraries, so to say – with eyes shut.  Sometimes I may give out thought that will see light years later ; at other times what an orator, a Cicero may have pronounced ages earlier .....”  [5]

Reading H.P.B., one sees  that in her time the head of such an occult Library was a most venerable sage, for she writes about  —  “the Chohan-Lama of Rinch-cha-tze (Tibet), the Chief of the Archive-registrars of the secret Libraries of the Dalaï and Ta-shii-hlumpo-Lamas-Rim-boche .......”  [6]

And again she says:

“In the January number of the Theosophist for 1882, we promised our readers the opinions of the Venerable Chohan-Lama – the chief of the Archive-registrars of the libraries containing manuscripts  on esoteric doctrines belonging to the Ta-loï and Tashü-hlumpo Lamas Rim-boche of Tibet .....”  [7]

As above, so below, says the  ancient Tablet  of Emerald. In addition to the  worldwide network of  fully esoteric libraries,  there is a peripherical level of occult libraries,  also scattered through many places,  which is made by the  libraries belonging to individuals, groups and collective organisms dedicated to real Esoteric Philosophy.  While making an assessment of the theosophical work, H.P.B. wrote in 1888 in her Lucifer magazine, acknowledging the importance of theosophical libraries:

“Why omit that branch of our  work, which many deem the noblest, the founding of an Oriental Library which may become the most valuable in India, if present appearances are not deceptive; the opening of many Sanskrit  schools; the publications of the Vedas in the original tongue? ” [8]

Unfortunately, those Adyar appearances did prove to be deceptive. In the absence of a true devotion to the Occult Work, libraries can be instruments of self-delusion and personal pride, and the  history of the theosophical movement  gives us plenty of examples.  Attachment to books in themselves is profoundly mayavic. The key to their value is that books are not physical objects only, but they are tools  to lead one’s consciousness into higher  realms, if one has enough altruism, self-forgetfulness  and common sense.

In a broader perspective the higher levels of vibration in good (“not deceptive”) theosophical libraries may be connected in one way or another  to the “total library” of our present mankind. Occultism does not exclude the physical plane of reality: any “physical” library exists in several levels of reality, and that is the reason for the importance given by the adepts to “physical” libraries. In the  same way,  a physical book on the  divine wisdom is more than a physical object: it helps guide the focus of the learner’s consciousness to the abstract dimension and place where the real records are.  Books are tuning  instruments,  therefore.

In Plato’s Dialogue “Phaedrus”, for instance, after saying that books cannot “defend themselves”  by keeping silent,  and that they  must always repeat themselves, Socrates invites Phaedrus to record in his own soul whatever  he learns: 

“I mean  an intelligent word graven  in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and know when to speak and when to be silent.”   

Phaedrus then asks Socrates: “You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which the written word is properly no more than an image?”   And Socrates answers: “Yes”. [9] 

The real importance of occult books and libraries is then in the fact that they are the outer image of the real teachings.  They open  the doors to them.

Superficial reading is of scarce  use for beginners.  The depth of one’s learning will always correspond to the depth of one’s search,  and W. Q. Judge  wrote this of those  theosophists “who are in earnest” :

“They have learned how all that part of a book which they clearly understand at first is already their own, and that the rest, which is not so  clear or quite obscure, is the portion they are to study, so that it also, if found true, may become an integral part of their constant thought.”  [10]  

An open mind is of the essence, and one should be able to recognize the wisdom under  whatever forms it presents itself.  That is feasible, once we are able to get the key note of the wisdom for our cycle,  which is given by the modern theosophical teachings.

Stones can preach sermons to those who can listen; all of Life can be seen as an immense Library, and it is said that there is a great “Book of  Life” where everything is recorded by the Lipikas (SD I, p. 104).  In the decisive karmic moments to be faced by mankind in this 21st century,  there is  a number of reasons why it may make sense for the theosophical movement to have, to preserve and to expand  the best possible theosophical libraries and  documentation centres, in various parts of the globe. The theosophical movement is often described, at its best,  as the lower degree of a much deeper universal brotherhood.

It is here that  some  U.L.T.  associates may have a specific responsibility. As  the occult importance of the U.L.T. to the theosophical movement may be far greater than numbers and appearances would suggest – and probably greater than some of its own associates would suspect – so also its books and libraries,  whether individual or collective,  have a deeper significance than superficial minds can see.  Of course, the challenge includes every serious student of Theosophy, wherever and however situated  and belonging to any theosophical organism or to none of them.  

The fact is that wide ranging libraries do a lot more than helping students understand and avoid  the ever-disguised  plague of pseudo-theosophy, with its many-faced  pitfalls.   Extensive and active libraries  are powerful centers of beneficent forces,  and their influences may have several noble roles to play in the future, just as they have had in the past.

   
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NOTES:

[1]  “Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom”, edited by C.J., first series,  TPH, 1973, p. 150.

[2]  “The Student and the World”, in “Theosophy”, November/December 2006. p. 01.

[3]  “The Nature of the Gods”, Cicero, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books,   London, UK, 1972, 278 pp., book II, p. 152  and, on Augustine, Introduction,  p. 54.   

[4]  “The Organization of the Theosophical Society”, in “Theosophical Articles” by H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 1980, three volumes,  see volume I, p. 223.

[5]  “The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett”, Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, CA, USA, 1992, 494 pp., see Letter LV, p. 324.

[6]  “Esoteric Axioms and Spiritual Speculations”, in “Theosophical Articles” by H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 1980, three volumes,  see volume III, p. 328. 

[7]  “Tibetan Teachings”, in “Theosophical Articles” by H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophy Company, Los Angeles, 1980, three volumes,  see volume III, p. 337. 

[8]   “Footnotes to ‘A Glance at Theosophy From Outside’ ”, in Lucifer, October 1888, and “Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky”, TPH, volume X, 1988, p. 132.

[9]  “Phaedrus”, by Plato  [276], in “Plato”, Great Books of the Western World, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., Chicago/London/Toronto, 1952, 814 pp., see p. 139.

[10]  “Much Reading, Little Thought”, in “Theosophical Articles”, W. Q. Judge, The Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 1980, two volumes, see volume II, p. 343.

  

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