A Letter to London
Concatenation of Causes
and Effects in Daily Life
Helena P. Blavatsky
cities may
have changed, most challenges and
opportunities faced by human soul
are very
much the same in 21st century as they were hundreds
or thousands of years ago.
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A 2012 Editorial
Note:
The following undated letter
was
written to London
appeared in various
periodical publications,
including “The Adyar
Bulletin”, in August
1910, “The Theosophical
Forum”, in August
1948, and “The
Theosophist”, Adyar, in
September 1954. Different
editors have diverse
opinions as to its exact
date. It was most likely
written some time in 1887. We reproduce it
from “The Theosophist”
magazine, July 1988,
pp. 386-389, where it
was published under the
title “Extract of a
Letter to a London Group,
1887”. We add a few
explanatory footnotes.
(C. C. A.)
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I can do you no good if
you yourselves fail to place yourselves in the atmosphere of Theosophy and the
Masters; or rather, if you still fail to sense Them around yourselves - as you have done till now. As you say, the
flesh is ever weak and the spirit only occasionally willing in human nature.
Still, who of you can say that this sudden revolution in your minds - in the
minds of a few chosen and exceptional Theosophists I mean and the ensuing awakening
after nearly a year of apathy and inactivity are not due to a guiding hand?
That is a mere evidence and the effect of a cause due to no chance!!!
My dear colleagues, there is an uninterrupted
concatenation of causes and effects, a Nidana
[1] in the life of every Theosophist,
if not of every member of our Society.
[2] And it is this which
distinguishes it chiefly from other Societies whose motors are Science on the
physical plane or Faith, on the
gushing emotional plane, like that of the Salvation Army for instance. No one
seems even to suspect the real, true nature of the Theosophical Society - which cannot die were all Oxford , Cambridge
Please let me explain myself for once so that you may
all know what I mean. I will not speak of Theosophists of the London Lodge, in
general, but will confine what I have to say to your own small group and let
you draw yourselves your inferences and parallels therefrom. I just mentioned the
Nidana (law of cause and effects) in
the life of every Theosophist who is in
dead earnest. I must add a few words to this. To begin with, none of you,
sons of your generation and environments seem to have paid the smallest
attention to that mysterious Nidana,
none - even amongst the most earnest has ever thought of watching, studying and
profiting by the lessons contained therein - the web of life ever woven round
each of you, yet it is in that intangible, yet plainly visible web (to those
who would see its workings), in that ever open book traced in the mystic light
around you, that you could learn - aye, even those possessed of no clairvoyant
powers. If I came and asked you: Why didn’t you, helped merely by the light of
your reasoning powers and intellects - on the physical, let alone the spiritual
plane - why have you never followed those daily records in the life of every
one of you - those trifling events of
which that life is composed, for no better proof can you ever get of the
invisible Presence among yourselves -
what would you say! How could we know? would probably be the answer. But surely
Mohini [3] must have told you! But
whether he has or not, it is so. You speak of contact with the Master or
Masters, saying you have striven to obtain it and you admit that you may have
even shared it, “unconsciously and in a measure”. I say you have, and that
before you can hope to get more you have
to realize that which you had.
I must confess and it is better that I should, that
you have received no active direct
help from the Masters (except Mrs. Cook [Mabel
Collins] on the psychic plane) ever
since the last collapse and the great trial of the London Lodge. For that trial
has engulfed for ever those whom They
sent to help and work and who were the first to desert their duty and even
turns traitors in their hearts to the cause they had pledged themselves to
further. But the trial was meant for all the London Lodge [4], not merely for those who had called the karma upon themselves.
Nevertheless if the Masters had to withdraw from the London Lodge in general,
they have never ceased to have their eye upon isolated individuals in it; upon
those who remained true to themselves and
their personal aspirations, if not to the cause and general good, as they
ought to have done, had they been
Theosophists as well as mystics. And I know that Masters have without interfering
with karma - something even They have no right to meddle with - precipitated
and in other cases retarded some events and contingencies in the lives of all
and each of you who are earnest and true. Had you only paid attention to those
casualities and little events, the working of these might alone have revealed
to you a guiding hand. But, even you seem to have lost sight of a grand truth uttered
by one of you, namely, “that the world, the work-a-day world, in which men live
and move and have their being as though there were no other, is only a
semblance”, and that “beyond these appearances there was hid a reality far
higher, far nobler”. You have seen in certain events nothing to which the above
words, in another connection, would be applied to and thus you have failed to
apply them yourself, as to those with whom you are working in your group. Yet
it is the first rule in the daily life of a student in occultism, namely, to
never take off your attention from the smallest circumstances that may happen, whether
in your own or your fellow-workers’ lives; to record and place them in order on
those records, whether they may or may not be connected with your spiritual
pursuits, and then bind (religare)
them together by comparing notes with the records of the others, and thus
extract from them their inner meaning. This you ought to do at least once a
week. It is from these totals that you would find out the direction and path to
pursue.[5] It is the phenomenon of
“thought-transference” and guessing
thoughts of Bishop and Company applied to the events in life. For once compared
and summed up, those events (the most trifling are often the most
determinative), grouping together and their course, would reveal to you, as a
scarcely perceptible motion of a muscle in the hand (with which he is in
contact) reveals to Bishop the direction he has to follow - the very way you
have to follow to get true light. Working by himself no man can achieve this -
but when you are several it is comparatively easy. It is the method used for
the youngest chelas, and answers several objects pursued. It concentrates their
attention upon the noumena [6] of the simplest phenomena or events
in life (those events being guided and prepared by the invisible Guru) and
draws their attention from things that would only interfere with their mental
training. It sharpens and develops their intuition and at the same time makes
them gradually sensitive for the smallest changes in the spiritual influence of
their Guru.
But if proceeding on the social lines, each fellow of your
group prefers to see in every event or casuality of his life the effect of
either a cause produced by his own free agency or a simple chance, then you
will never establish in your group the first requisite element - perfect unity of thought and harmony between your
spiritual selves. You cannot proceed straight from the Universals but have to
begin from the particulars. Arithmetic and addition before Mathematics and meta-mathematics. Once an earnest mystic
joins the Theosophical Society [7] he
is invisibly and unconsciously to himself placed on quite a different plane
than those around him. There are no more meaningless or trifling
circumstances in his life, for each is a link purposely placed in the chain of
events that have to lead him forward to the “Golden Gate ”
or the “Gates of Gold”. Each step, each person he meets with, every word
uttered may be a word purposely placed in the day’s sentence with the purpose
of giving certain importance to the chapter it belongs to and such or another (Karmic)
meaning to the volume of life.
NOTES:
[1] The Nidana, usually Nidanas, is precisely the uninterrupted
concatenation of causes and effects which tie the individual to the outer
world. The Nidanas (Causes) are described as 12 in Buddhism.
[2]
A reference to the original Theosophical Society,
which ceased to exist by 1895.
[3] Mr. Mohini M. Chatterjee was a disciple of the Masters of the Wisdom
for various years, and he had visited London
[4] This is most likely a reference to the events of 1885 and 1886.
[5] In the text “The 1900 Letter From a Mahatma”, which can be found at the
List of Texts By Alphabetical Order at www.TheosophyOnline.com , one can
read these words from the Master: “At favourable
times we let loose elevating influences which strike various persons in various
ways. It is the collective aspect of many such thoughts that can give the
correct
note of action.”
note of action.”
[6] “Noumena”
- the invisible essence behind outer phenomena.
[7] “Theosophical Society”, id est, the
theosophical movement.
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Date of publication online: February 2012.
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