Theosophy; The New Rock'n Roll

Theosophy; The New Rock ‘n Roll

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

1831 -1891

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Masters and Men

Ernest Wood

An abridged extract from The New Theosophy

Published 1930

The theosophical world seems to be dividing itself on the old question; which is more important for educative purposes, environment or character? The suggestion that character can be implanted by environment is a non starter.

No Theosophist proposes the method of the builder, which assumes that a man evolves as a house is built, that he is a vacant site to which you bring various materials and there build them up into a house.

Nor the method of the sculptor, which assumes that human character is crude stone and someone must from the outside chip away the unwanted portions, just as a sculptor takes a block of stone and leaves a statue, which in a sense was in the stone all the time. Thousands of forms were in that stone; the sculptor chooses one. But every man is a living being with a character of his own.

If we speak of Masters we do not mean builders of men or sculptors of men, but we mean gardeners or teachers who recognize that they are dealing with life, that every seed will grow according to its kind, that both the pattern that is to be made and the power with which it is to be built come from within the seed itself. Therefore no one with any credibility has ever suggested that Masters can give life to anybody or can evolve anybody or can help anybody to evolve themselves. They can give money, and have been known to do so. And they can give thought-forms. But they cannot give growth or evolution, understanding or love or power. The Theosophical Society has the same function as the Masters.

Its purpose is not to attempt to feed the people, but to call their attention to great truths with which they can feed, clothe, shelter, amuse and educate themselves as men, without the suffering which they have been bringing upon themselves so long. Its first object — brotherhood — is to be understood in this deep and essential way. Greater than any gift is the offering of wisdom.

Consider understanding. It is one of the powers of our life. It is tested by power, for if I have made a machine, and it will not work, that tells me that my undertaking was wrong. Now let me tell a story about thought-power which is vouched for my some good and honourable friends.

In a certain city in America there was over a deep gully a bridge which came popularly to be known as "suicide bridge", because from it a number of people threw themselves to destruction every year.

A group of friends who were accustomed to experimenting with thought power decided to meet once a week, fix their attention upon that bridge, and think thoughts of cheerfulness, strength and hope. They told me that since they had begun the practice, which was about two years before, there had not been a single suicide from that bridge. I cannot personally vouch for their accuracy, but I can easily believe in such an occurrence because I have had other experiences of the power of thought.

What would happen in this case? The thought-form acts as one speaking; it says: "Come now, things are not as bad as they have appeared, and besides there is a possibility of happy life which you really want. Please do not lose your balance, but consider the facts". Reason prevails, and the would-be suicide changes his mind. The thought-form reminds him at a critical moment of ideas which had been obscured in his troubled mind.

This is good work, of course, in the way of lifting a lame dog over a stile, but now there is life to be lived and it must live in its own strength. Every teacher recognizes that however simple may be the idea which he is putting before his class, no student will grasp it until he has made some effort of attention and of thought.

There is a moment between the hearing of his words or the seeing of the experiment that he is doing, and the student's understanding. In that moment the student thinks, and nobody can do it for him. Consider in the same way the work of an artist. With skill he produces beauty.

Beauty is the test of skill, as power is the test of knowledge, and both these come from inward effort alone. Painting pictures for a man who has no hands will not make him into a painter - or even for a man who has hands.

Carrying babies does not teach them to walk. On the contrary. I knew a naughty little boy who when about four years old would insist upon being carried up hill when out for a walk. He had been carried too much. Similarly, the guiding lines given to us when we are learning to write prevent us from writing straight, because they teach us to think that they are necessary. Only a few days ago I was writing a letter on an unruled writing block. Suddenly I said to myself: "Why, I am writing straight, without lines!" From that moment my writing became crooked. Such is the power of suggestion. Crutches are only for cripples.

You do not teach a baby to walk with crutches. If people think they need a Master, by that thought they destroy their own power and delay their own progress. If they think they could do better with a Master than without one, it is the same thing. If they could, He would be there.

There are two kinds of persons to whom the Masters cannot communicate their contribution to the common brotherhood — those who cannot get on with them and those who cannot get on without them. The Masters work behind the scenes, and are not out of touch with any part of life.

Someone wrote to Madame Blavatsky and asked to be put in connection with the Brothers. Her reply was: "Do you know so little of the laws of Their order as not to understand that by this very act of yours - which was entirely unsolicited and a spontaneous proof of your loyalty - you have drawn their attention to you already, and that you have established relations with them yourself?.....It is not within our power to do anything for you more. Occultism is not like Christianity, which holds out to you the false promise of mediatorial interference and vicarious merit.

Every one of us must work his way up towards the Brothers. If you want to see Them, act as to compel Them to let you do so.

They are equally with all of us subject to the laws of attraction and repulsion; those who most deserve Their companionship get it. Take a half hour each morning upon first rising, and in an undisturbed place free from all noises and bad influences concentrate your thoughts upon them and upon your own higher selves, and will that you shall become wise, and illuminated and powerful......."

The Master’s Work

What then does a Master do? He is a witness to the life beyond all appearances, even his own. As fire tells us not to burn ourselves, so does the Master tell us not to forget ourselves. People forget themselves no only in anger sometimes, but in a thousand things and nearly always. The Master's human for is beautiful because his life is true. Consider the beautiful limbs of a race horse. They have been produced quite naturally by life trying to run. What would be the use of a small horse worshipping that beauty of limb?

He must run. So the Master says to us: "Do not worship me. Know that there is life which can be fulfilled in full living, and from which all beauty, truth and love will flow". In China people tried to produce small and beautiful feet by binding them, so that women might be beautiful and spiritual like flowers which sway on a slender stem. They have had to give it up and recognize the folly of external means. Small and beautiful feet relative to the size of the body belong to those who balance themselves and walk and dance well. In the West people tried tight-lacing the figure, but they have now recognized that the shapely waist is produced by healthy activity. If we have it not when we are old as well as young it is our own fault.

There is a great danger in what is usually called devotion. True devotion is respect for the beautiful, the good and the true, wherever it may be seen. It is respect for life. But most devotion implies disrespect for life, inasmuch as it singles out one expression of life for its fervent admiration, and almost equally despises the rest. So is God shut away, as people go into caves to worship the sun.

True devotion has nothing to do with that self-abasement which makes a man think that because he is inferior to another he must not rely on his judgment. However evolved or unevolved he may be, that is exactly what he must do. The man who does not make his own vision of the goal for himself does not awaken to the full his own life in the present moment of living, and therefore does not make the most use possible for him of that moment.

I have come across some cases of partial mental paralysis due to misuse of the idea of Masters. I have heard one say: "This work has failed; that shows that the Master did not want it". It was perfectly obvious to me that the cause of the failure was that he had not used his brains in the work under reference.

Then again, when the thought is habitually turned to the Master as if he were a separate entity, in moments of difficulty, for example when there was a blank in conversation, the man would find himself able to think only of the Master's name. And also in danger, or in any crisis, do you pray or do keep your head? You cannot do both. Every occasion is a crisis, did people but recognize it.

But what of Master's authority? Does He not know more than we? Authority is witness. It has to do with facts, not with opinions.

The Master is a witness of the light, and it is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. His form is only an illusion; it is not our goal, but our life, which is also his life, is our goal. There is nothing unusual in this. In a chemistry class the professor is not our goal, but chemistry is our goal. Leaf whispers to leaf, and tells rejoicingly of the life it feels, like lovers hand in hand looking at the same moon. It is the power of love that with it we thus at last come to look with all eyes at all things.

And Master's work and orders? I see no use in them unless they are our own work and orders at the same time. If a man does his honest best he will be doing what the Master wants to have done. If our understanding rises to what the Masters call their mind-plane their ideas become our ideas, we think their thoughts with them, and there is nothing to be gained by insisting that the ideas or purposes are theirs, not ours, which is a mode of separation of the Masters and ourselves, and tends to prevent our union in the one life. You cannot have this separation in fact. You cannot have men gradually making their own noses perfect according to their own thoughts, feelings and actions, and at the same the Masters moulding those noses according to some external plan.

Masters' work and orders are surely a question of our being attuned to their spirit and their law, which is our own true spirit and law. In that service (if such it can be called) is perfect freedom. Their teaching is an intuition, but not usually peculiar and distinguishable from what we call our own thought.

There is no necessity to import into the idea of our relation to Masters the dramatic and separative characteristics of human domination or interference by man with man.

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