The Existence of The Masters I.pdf

The Existence Of The Masters

(From The Masters and the Path by Charles W. Leadbeater)

General Considerations

The existence of Perfected Man is one of the most important of the many new facts which

Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great theosophical teachings of

karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we looked round us we see men obviously at all

stages of their evolution--some who, in one way or another, are in advance of others. Since

that is so, there may well be others who are very much further advanced; indeed, if men are

steadily growing better and better through a long series of successive lives, tending toward a

definite goal, there should certainly be some who have already reached that goal. Some of us in

the process of that development have already succeeded in the unfolding some of those higher

senses which are latent in every man, and will be the heritage of all in the future; and by means

of those senses we are enabled to see the ladder of evolution extending far above us as well as

far below us, and we can all see that there are men standing upon every rung of that ladder.

There is a considerable amount of direct testimony to the existence of these Perfected Man

whom we call Masters, but I think that the first step which each one of us should take is to

make certain that there must be such men; only as a later step will it follow that those with whom

we have come into contact belong to that class.

The historical records of every nation are full of the doings of man of genius in all different

departments of human activity, men who in their special lines of work and ability have stood far

above the rest-indeed, so far that at times (and probably more often than we know) their ideals

were utterly beyond the comprehension of the people so that not only the work that they may

have done has been lost to mankind, but their names even have not been preserved. It has been

said that the history of every nation could be written in the biography of a few individuals, and

that is always the few, towering above the rest, who initiate the great fourth steps in art, music,

literature, science, philosophy, philanthropy, statecraft and religion. They stand high sometimes

in love of God and their fellowmen, as great saints and philanthropists, sages and scientists;

sometimes, in work for humanity, as great liberators and reformers. Looking at these men, and

realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it

not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well

have been, and even now maybe, men far further developed even than day, men great in

spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections-

-men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable

privilege to encounter?

This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time

the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners

of the rest, and that they flashed out as beacons, as veritable light bearers to show us the path

which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which are presently be revealed. We have

long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is

the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that life itself, showing that the very

recent for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling life

needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break;

but the spirit grows on eternally, ensoling those forms, and developing by means of experience

gained in and through them; and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside

that another and better form we take its place.

Behind the evolving form burgeons out ever the Life Eternal, the Life Divine. That Life of God

permeates the whole of nature, which is but the many-colored cloak which He has donned; it is

He who lives in the beauty of the flower, in the strength of the tree, in the swiftness and grace of

the animal, as well as in the heart and soul of man. It is because his will is evolution that all life

everywhere is pressing onward and upward; and is therefore that the existence of Perfected

Man at the end of this long line of ever-unfolding power and wisdom and love is the most

natural thing in the world. Even beyond them--beyond our sight and our comprehension--

stretches a vista of still greater glory; some hint of that we may endeavor to give later, but it is

useless to speak of it now.

The logical consequence of all this is that there must be Perfected Man, and there are not

wanting signs of the existence of such men in all ages who, instead of leaving the world entirely

to pursue a life of their own in the divine or superhuman kingdoms, have remained in touch with

humanity, through love it, to assist its evolution in beauty and love and truth, to help, as it were,

to cultivate the Perfect Man-just as here and there we find a botanist who has special love for

plants, and glories in the production of a perfect orange or perfect rose.

The Testimony of the Religions

The records of every great religion show the presence of such Supermen, so full of the Divine

Life that again and again they have been taken as the very representatives of God himself. In

every religion, especially at its founding, has such an One appeared, and in many cases more

than one. The Hindus have their great Avataras or Divine Incarnations, such Shri Krishna, Shri

Shankaracharya, and the Lord Gautama Buddha, whose religion is spread over the far East,

and a great galaxy of Rishis, of saints, of Teachers; and these Great Ones took interest not only

in awakening men's spiritual natures, but also in the affairs that made for their well-being on

earth. All belong to the Christian world know, or ought to know, much about the great

succession of prophets and teachers and Saints in their own dispensation, and that in some way

(perhaps not clearly understood) there supreme teacher, the Christ himself, was and is man as

well as God. And all the earlier Religions (decadent as some of them may be amid the decay of

nations), down even to those of primitive tribes of men, show as outstanding features of the

existence of Supermen, Helpers in every way of the childlike people among whom they dwelt.

An enumeration of these, interesting and valuable as it is, would take us too far aside from our

present purpose.

Recent Evidence

There is much direct and recent evidence for the existence of these Great Ones. In my earlier

days I never needed any such evidence, because I was fully persuaded as a result of my studies

that there must be such people. To believe that there were such glorified men seemed perfectly

natural, and my only desire was to meet them face-to-face. Yet there are many who,

reasonably enough, want to know what evidence there is. There is a considerable amount of

personal testimony. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the co-founders of the

Theosophical Society, Dr. Annie Besant and I myself-all of us have seen some of these Great

Ones, and many other members of the Society have also been privileged to see one or two of

them, and there is ample testimony in what all these people have written.

It is sometimes objected that those who saw them, or fancied that they did so, may have been

dreaming or perhaps deluded. The chief reason, I think, for the possibility of such a suggestion

is that we have very rarely seen the Adepts at time when both they and we were in our physical

bodies. In the early days of the Society, when only Madame Blavatsky had developed higher

faculties, the Masters not infrequently materialized themselves so that all could see them, and

show themselves thus physically on various occasions. You'll find many records of such

happenings in the early history of our society, but of course the great one so showing himself

was not in his physical body, but in a materialized form.

Many of us habitually and constantly see them during our sleep. We go of our astral bodies (or

in the mental body, according toward development) and we visit them and see them in their

physical bodies; but we are not at that time in hours, and that is why on the physical plane

people tend to be skeptical about such experiences. Men object: "But in these cases either you

who saw them were out of the physical body, and may have been dreaming or deluded, or

those who appear to you came phenomenally and then disappeared again; so how do you know

that they were what you suppose them to be? "

There are few cases in which both the Adept and a person who saw him were in the physical

body. It happened with Madame Blavatsky; I've heard testified that she lived for some time in a

monastery in Nepal, where she saw three of our Masters constantly in their physical vehicles.

Some of them have come down more than once from their mountain retreats into India in their

physical bodies. Colonel Olcott spoke of having seen two of them on these occasions; he had

met the Master Morya and also the Master Kuthumi. Damodar K. Mavlankar, whom I knew

in 1884, had encountered the Master Kuthumi in his physical body. There was a case of S.

Ramaswami Iyer, a gentleman whom I knew well in those days, who had the experience of

meeting the Master Morya physically, and has written an account of that meeting which I shall

quote later; and there was a case of Mr. W. T. Brown of the London Lodge, who also was

privileged to meet one of the Great Ones under similar conditions. There is also a vast amount

of Indian testimony which is never been collected and sifted, mainly because those to whom

these experiences came were so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Supermen and of the

possibility of meeting them that they did not regard any individual case as worthy of record.

Personal Experience

I myself can report to locations on which I have met a Master, both of us being in the physical

vehicle. One of them was the Adept to whom the name Jupiter was assigned in the book, The

Lives of Alcyone , who greatly assisted in the riding of Portions upon Madame Blavatsky's

famous work Isis Unveiled in, when that was being done in Philadelphia and New York.

When I was living at Adyar, he was so kind as to request my revered teacher, Swami T. Subba

Row, to bring me to call upon him. Obeying his summons we journeyed to his house, and were

most graciously received by him. After a long conversation of the deepest interest, we had the

honor of dining with him, Brahmin though he be, and spent the night and part of the next day

under his roof. In that case it will be admitted that there could be no question of illusion. The

other Adept whom I had the privilege of encountering physically was the Master Comte of St.

Germain, called sometimes the Prince Rakowcy. I met him under quite ordinary circumstances

(without any previous appointment, and as though by chance) walking down the Corso in

Rome, dressed just like any Italian gentleman might be. He took me up into the gardens on the

Pincian Hill, and we sat for more than an hour talking about the Society and its work; or

perhaps I should say that he spoke and I listened, although when he asked questions answered.

Other members of the Brotherhood I have seen under varying circumstances. My first to

encounter with one of them was in a hotel in Cairo; I was on my way out to India with Madame

Blavatsky and some others, and we stayed in that city for a time. We all used to gather in

Madame Blavatsky's room for work, and I was sitting on the floor, cutting out and arranging for

her a quantity of newspaper articles which she wanted. She sat at a table close body; indeed

my left arm was actually touching her dress. The door of the room was in full sight, and it

certainly did not open; but quite suddenly, without any preparation, there was a man standing

almost between me and Madame Blavatsky, within touch of both of us. It gave me a great

start, and I jumped up been some confusion; Madame Blavatsky was much amused and said:

"If you do not know enough not to be startled as such a trifle is that, you will not get far in this

occult work." I was introduced to the visitor, who was not then an Adept, but an Arhat, which

is one grade below that state; he has since become the Master Djwal Khul.

Some months after that the Master Morya came to us Monday, looking exactly as though in the

physical body; he walked through the room where I was in order to communicate with Madame

Blavatsky, who was in her bedroom inside. That was the first time I had seen him plainly and

clearly, for I had not then developed might latent senses sufficiently to remember what I saw in

the subtle body. I saw the Master Kuthumi under similar conditions on the roof of our

headquarters at Adyar; he was stepping over a balustrade as though he had just materialized

from the empty air on the other side of it. I have also many times seen the Master Djwal Khul

on that roof in the same way.

This would, I suppose, be considered less certain evidence, since the Adept's came as

apparitions do; but, as I have since learned to use my Higher Vehicles freely, and to visit these

Great Ones in that way, I can testify that those who in the early years of the Society came and

materialized for us are the same men who I have often since seen living in their own homes.

People have suggested that I and others who have the same experience may be but dreaming,

since it these visits take place during the sleep of the body; I can only reply that it is of

remarkably consistent dream, extending in my own case over forty years, and that it has been

dreamt simultaneously by a large number of people.

Those who wish to collect evidence about these matters (and it is quite reasonable that they

should wish to do so) should turn to the earlier literature of the Society. They could have heard

from Dr. Besant how many of the Great Ones she had seen on different occasions; and there

are many of our members who will bear witness without hesitation that they have seen the

Master. It may be that in meditation they have seen his face, and later have had definite proof

that he is a real being. Much evidence can be found in Colonel Olcott's Old Diary Leaves , and

there is an interesting treaties called Do the Brothers Exist? written by Mr. A. O. Hume, a man

who stood behind in the civil service in India, and worked much with our late Vice President

Mr. A. P. Sinnett. It was published in a book entitled Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. Mr.

Hume, who was a skeptical Anglo-Indian with a legal mind, went into the question of the

existence of the Brothers (as the Masters are also called, because they belong to a great

Brotherhood, and also because they are the elder Brothers of humanity) and even at that early

date decided that he had overwhelming testimony that they did exist; and very much more

evidence has accumulated since the book was published.

The possession of extended vision and other faculties resulting from the unfolding of our latent

powers has also brought within our constant experience the fact that there are other orders of

beings than the human, some of whom rank alongside the Adepts in a grade of existence higher

than our own. We meet with some whom we call Devas or angels, and with others whom we

see to be far beyond ourselves in every respect.

The Evolution Of Life

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: