MASTERS, ADEPTS, TEACHERS, AND
DISCIPLES
This article is meant for members of the T.S., and chiefly
for those who keep H.P.B. much in mind, whether out of respect
and love or from fear and envy. Those members who believe that
such beings as the Masters may exist must come to one of two
conclusions in regard to H.P.B.: either that she invented her
Masters, who therefore have no real existence, or that she did
not invent them but spoke in the names and by the orders of such
beings. If we say she invented the Mahatmas, then, of course,
as so often was said by her, all that she has taught and written
is the product of her own brain, from which we would be bound
to conclude that her position on the roll of great and powerful
persons must be higher than people have been willing to place
her. But I take it most of us believe in the truth of her statement
that she had those teachers whom she called Masters and that
they are more perfect beings than ordinary men.
The case I wish to briefly deal with, then, is this: H.P.B.
and her relations to the Masters and to us; her books and teachings;
the general question of disciples or chelas with their grades,
and whether a high chela would appear as almost a Master in comparison
to us, including every member from the President down to the
most recent applicant.
The last point in the inquiry is extremely important, and
has been much overlooked by members in my observation, which
has extended over the larger part of the T.S. An idea has become
quite general that chelas and disciples are all of one grade,
and that therefore one chela is the same as another in knowledge
and wisdom. The contrary, however, is the case. Chelas and disciples
are of many grades, and some of the Adepts are themselves the
chelas of higher Adepts. There is therefore the greatest difference
between the classes of chelas, since among them has to be counted
the very humblest and most ignorant person who has devoted himself
or herself to the service of mankind and the pursuit of the knowledge
of the Self. On the other hand, there are those chelas high in
grade, actual pupils of the Masters themselves, and these latter
have so much knowledge and power as to seem to us to be Adepts.
Indeed, they are such when one compares them with oneself as
a mere product of the nineteenth century. They have gained through
knowledge and discipline those powers over mind, matter, space,
and time which to us are the glittering prizes of the future.
But yet these persons are not the Masters spoken of by H.P.B.
So much being laid down, we may next ask how we are to look at
H.P.B.
In the first place, every one has the right to place her if
he pleases for himself on the highest plane, because he may not
be able to formulate the qualities and nature of those who are
higher than she was. But taking her own sayings, she was a chela
or disciple of the Masters, and therefore stood in relation to
them as one who might be chided or corrected or reproved. She
called them her Masters, ans asseverated a devotion to their
behests and a respect and confidence in and for their utterances
which the chela has always for one who is high enough to be his
Master. But looking at her powers exhibited to the world, and
as to which one of her Masters wrote that they had puzzled and
astonished the brightest minds of the age, we see that compared
with ourselves she was an Adept. In private as in public she
spoke of her Masters much in the same way as did Subba Row to
the writer when he declared in 1884, "The Mahatmas are in
fact some of the great Rishees and Sages of the past, and people
have been too much in the habit of lowering them to the petty
standard of this age." But with this reverence for her teachers
she had for them at the same time a love and friendship not often
found on earth. All this indicates her chelaship to Them, but
in no way lowers her to us or warrants us in deciding that we
are right in a hurried or modern judgment of her.
Now some Theosophists ask if there are other letters extant
from her Masters in which she is called to account, is called
their chela, and is chided now and then, besides those published.
Perhaps yes. And what of it? Let them be published by all means,
and let us have the full and complete record of all letters sent
during her life; those put forward as dated after her death will
count for naught in respect to any judgment passed on her, since
the Masters do not indulge in any criticisms on the disciples
who have gone from earth. As she has herself published letters
and parts of letters from the Masters to her in which she is
called a chela and is chided, it certainly cannot matter if we
know of others of the same sort. For over against all such we
have common sense, and also the declarations of her Masters that
she was the sole instrument possible for the work to be done,
that They sent her to do it, and that They approved in general
all she did. And she was the first direct channel to and from
the Lodge, and the only one up to date through which came the
objective presence of the Adepts. We cannot ignore the messenger,
take the message, and laugh at or give scorn to the one who brought
it to us. There is nothing new in the idea that letters are still
unpublished wherein the Masters put her below them, and there
is no cause for any apprehension. But it certainly is true that
not a single such letter has anything in it putting her below
us; she must ever remain the greatest of chelas.
There only remains, then, the position taken by some and without
a knowledge of the rules governing these matters, that chelas
sometimes write messages claimed to be from the Masters when
they are not. This is an aritificial position not supportable
by law or rule. It is due to ignorance of what is and is not
chelaship, and also to confusion between grades in discipleship.
It has been used as to H.P.B. The false conclusion has first
been made that an accepted chela of high grade may become accustomed
to dictation biven by the Master and then may fall into the false
pretense of giving something from himself and pretending it is
from the Master. It is impossible. The bond in her case was not
of such a character to be dealt with thus. One instance of it
would destroy the possibility of any more communication from
the teacher. It may be quite true that probationers now and then
have imagined themselves as ordered to say so and so, but that
is not the case of an accepted and high chela who is irrevocably
pledged, nor anything like it. This idea, then, ought to be abandoned;
it is absurd, contrary to law, to rule, and to what must be the
case when such relations are established as existed between H.P.B.
and her Masters.
William Q. Judge
Path, June, 1893
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