Souls who have opened the Path, who keep it open, and who guide the
steps of the hungry searching multitude to its entrance. They have
carved the way through the rock of matter. They have waded through the
mires of delusion. They have cleared away the confusing and entangling
underbrush of doubt. They have hewn down the mighty obstructions. With
dauntless courage each one has destroyed the dragon which guarded the
treasure from himself, thus inspiring all who follow. They have erected
signposts all along the journey, and with their hearts' blood have
written thereon the messages which every pilgrim may read, and so avoid
one step amiss. Not only this, but having achieved the goal, they have
retraced their steps again and again, to direct the uncertain feet of
the children of earth, to combat ignorance, vice, and injustice; to
encourage, uplift, and teach. Though unseen in many times and places,
it is they who keep the lights burning.
Terrible as are the difficulties, the discouragements, the disasters,
which the human children encounter, it is the Great Souls who prevent
them from being impossible; who ward off the clouds of despair lest
they settle over the globe like a pall of darkness paralysing all
effort. Without these Elder Brothers all would be lost in the labyrinth
of matter, never finding the thread which could lead them out. But to
be without them is inconceivable, unthinkable; for all must sometime
find the Path and tread it. No means have been omitted to make it
plain. All nature exists but to point the way. All experiences, all
events, difficulties, disappointments, all good, as well as so-called
bad fortune: all tend to the same issue. It has been described in every
language of heart or head, that all, even the beasts of the fields, in
some vague way, may hear and gradually understand.
One of those who has gone before and returned to show the path to
others, said: "I am the Way." Another, with a different sidelight on
the same truth, said: "Each man is to himself absolutely the way." For
each one in traveling it, does so by passing through the mazes of his
own personality, first as one blindfolded, then as one slowly awakening
to its meaning, and finally as one consciously subduing and transmuting
it. And when he has reached the goal, he _becomes_ the way. His whole
being is an expression, an exposition of the way--the mystic Path,
which lies within and yet without; which is so far, and yet so near.
_Light on the Path_ expresses it as follows:
Seek out the way.... Seek it not by any one road. To each temperament
there is one road which seems the most desirable. But the way is not
found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent
progress, by self-sacrificing labor, by studious observation of life.
None alone can take the disciple more than one step onward. All steps
are necessary to make up the ladder. The vices of men become steps in
the ladder, one by one, _as they are surmounted_. The virtues of men
are steps indeed, necessary--not by any means to be dispensed with.
Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere, and a happy future, they
are useless if they stand alone. The whole nature of man must be used
wisely by the one who desires to enter the way.
SAN DIEGO: by Kenneth Morris
That San Diego has the greatest of futures before it, who shall deny?
Katherine Tingley, Leader of The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical
Society, foresaw its destiny, saw its possibilities, fifteen years
ago, and began forthwith to lay the foundations of peculiar greatness
for it. There are thousands of cities in the United States, doubtless
in Canada too, centers in all the new worlds established from Europe,
that have before them a huge metropolitanism, and are to grow populous
beyond the Old World capitals. Why not? The wind of increase bloweth
where it listeth, and we can only safely prophesy change and reversion,
change and reversion. Where the deserts are now, dwelt of old the
builders of sky-scrapers; aeroplanes soared over lands the oceans
cover; and Dreadnoughts floated and made war, perhaps, where now are
Alps and Andes. Here is a land in its beginnings; many millennia lie
before it in which to grow. We need the grand vision when we look
out on the ages to be; only so can we sow the right seeds for their
harvesting. We cannot tell what nations or cities are destined for
high material greatness; probably there is room for every one to hope.
But for San Diego a peculiar and more excellent fate is reserved,
whose falling she may hasten by her clear-sightedness, or retard by
her perversity; still, it lies before her. She is to be the City of
Righteousness, the metropolis of the world's culture, the Mecca of
distant generations of poets, artists, philosophers, and musicians.
It is not mainly her own citizens who make this claim. They, with all
their high ambitions, with all their golden dreams, are hardly alive to
the great possibilities of the town.
In an age pre-eminently of material progress, it is natural to lay most
stress on the material advantages of site, climate, etc. So there is
no end to the writing on the Bay--the one bay between San Francisco
and somewhere far away in Mexico--with all it offers for commerce and
for strategy; or on the unwearying efforts of the sun; on the glorious
hinterland, so rich and beautiful; or the new railway that is to open
it up, and link San Diego with the east; on partial awakenings at
Washington to the great strategic importance of this town, and the
certainty that these partial awakenings must become whole-hearted
and thorough some time, and bear fruit a thousandfold. Time, time,
time--there is time for all these things. Innumerable palaces will be
seen, surrounding this blue jewel of a bay; looking down on it from
amidst exquisite parks and gardens on the heights; there will be
drives as famed as any in Switzerland or Italy. Nature herself has
provided for this; and the tide of empire is rolling westward.
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. VIEW OF SAN DIEGO
WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE BAY CORONADO IN THE DISTANCE]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. THE U. S. GRANT
HOTEL, FROM THE PLAZA, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA]
Time and again San Diego has been named with two cities of the Old
World; and there is something instructive in either comparison. She
is "the Naples of California," and again, "the Athens of the Pacific
Coast." Cuyamaca has been likened to Vesuvius, and our bay to the
Bay of Naples. Indeed, no doubt there is a physical resemblance. The
conditions that made Naples are largely historic; but then they are
largely climatic, and matters of situation, also. As for history, the
history of San Diego lies before her. All historic conditions--Camorra,
lazzaroni, plague, pestilence, national inefficiency, vice, and famine,
or the blessings which are the reverse of all these--are the fruitage
of one cannot say what tiny seeds sown, one cannot say when or how
often. You take a child, and give it no training or bad training in
its first years: it was the offspring of highly cultured parents,
perhaps; but what disasters may not lie before it? On the other hand,
you take a child, who has had no advantages, and give it a Râja Yoga
training such as Katherine Tingley is giving to so many at Point Loma
and elsewhere--such, in truth, as only Katherine Tingley knows how to
give--and you need set no particular limits to the hopes you hold for
that child's future. There is a great parallelism with this in the
early years of a city or community.
Up and down the world there are a thousand cities, as was said,
with huge material destinies lying before them, which by their very
situation they will not be able to escape. But in how many cases
have they not been without far foresight in their youth, to guard
them against the perils of that most perilous time? "They sow their
wild oats," we say; a phrase that is meant to cover a multitude of
iniquities. One can no more cheat the Law with such an excusive
expression, than one can write an I O U for one's debts, and
comfortably thank God that one need think no more of _them_. He who has
sown his wild oats may have gained a certain wisdom and experience out
of the sufferings resultant from them; but he will never be the man he
might have been. He will have lowered the whole of his possibilities,
and can pay thereafter only so much per cent of his debt to the world
and humanity.
Climate and situation might have prepared for San Diego only such a
fate as that of Naples; and there are other elements of possible
danger as well, which it would require no ordinary wisdom and foresight
to guard against. Indeed, have there not been revelations here and
there in our cities, which should make us judge charitably the home of
the Camorra? But now there are many thousands up and down the world
who believe in San Diego; who cannot think she will fail or fall into
gross error; who already look on her as a Mecca for their hopes; who
know that she will shed light around the world. Reference is made,
of course, to the great membership of the Universal Brotherhood and
Theosophical Society, which has its ramifications among all the peoples
of the globe. For them, San Diego rose above the horizon when Katherine
Tingley declared her intention, some fifteen years ago, to found the
City of Learning, the World's Theosophical Headquarters, on the heights
of Point Loma, within the city limits of San Diego. They had reason
even then to know that what Katherine Tingley says she will do, is
done; and they have had a million times more reason for that certainty
given them since.
When this famous humanitarian came to San Diego, grass was growing in
some of the streets there, where there should have been boulevards
bustling with life. The old first "boom" had long since spent itself,
helped to its grave by ready inimical hands; and there seemed no
special reason for its resurrection. It was then that she made her
promises. This little city of the quiet streets should come to be, not
the Naples, but the Athens of the west. It should have population;
it should have riches and commerce and splendor; it should flourish
abundantly when its enemies had long since faded out and been
forgotten; and all this was the very least and most insignificant part
of its destiny. There should be a new and timelong age of Perikles
here; new Phidian studios; new Groves of Akademe. Time--we must not be
niggardly with that, perhaps; these things should not be in a day; but
assuredly _they should be_.
It will be asked, on what grounds Katherine Tingley based these
promises of hers. The answer is: on her own intentions with regard to
the place; and on her knowledge of the laws that govern the growth of
civic and national life. Is there no knowing the future? The farmer
sows his seed under the impression that there is. He has cultivated
the soil; plowed and fertilized it; now he can put the seed in with
a certain confidence. Only it is not everybody that understands the
preparing for these greater national or civic harvests.
It is safe to say that from that time the second great San Diego boom
dates. The Theosophical Center was started on Point Loma, and from the
first has been attracting life to the city across the bay. This is not
the place to give statistics as to the number of thousands of dollars
that have been spent in San Diego each year; nor as to the amount of
labor that has been employed. From the start it was enough to give the
city that new impetus of life which was needed--a fact proven by the
rise in the population from 17,000 to 50,000 in ten years.
Then came the founding of the Râja Yoga system of education, with its
first and chiefest exemplification in the College on Point Loma. Do
all our citizens realize what this has meant for the city? On merely
material lines, for example? Not only from the eastern States, but from
Europe and Asia as well, hundreds have made the pilgrimage to San Diego
to investigate the Râja Yoga College and system on the Point. They
have gone away and filled their own lands with the rumor of the fame
of this wonderful new thing that has its Headquarters--at _San Diego_.
The press of England, of Japan, of Germany, of Holland, of Sweden, have
been made abundantly aware of the fame of this Theosophical Center--at
_San Diego_. A Greek play is given in the open-air theater on Point
Loma, _San Diego_--and we read critiques of it in the morning papers
of Bavaria. We pick up a Tokyo magazine of current date, and find in
it a picture of a group of children who are receiving their education
at Point Loma, _San Diego_. Katherine Tingley landed in Liverpool in
the summer of 1907; and the next morning's London papers teemed with
accounts of her--pages of accounts of her--and of her colossal and
beneficent undertaking at Point Loma, _San Diego_. And so on, and so
on, and so on. With the best facilities in the world and a genius for
advertising, and with the expenditure of millions, San Diego could
hardly have advertised herself in the way that Mrs. Tingley, through
her Theosophical work, has caused her to be advertised; and it has cost
San Diego nothing.
But all this has been merely, or mainly, for the material advantage
of the city. A man (or a place) may acquire a false fame, that he
cannot or will not live up to; and he will be paid with contempt later,
more oppressive than the obscurity he had at first. Mrs. Tingley
has done more than this. She has laid down the lines, and labored
without ceasing, for the real advance and benefit of the city. Is it
nothing that San Diego should have in its core a Center such as this
Theosophical one at Point Loma--a center where the higher life is
being lived, where money is not the motive, where the greatest effort
of the age is being made to uplift humanity? The greatest effort? Yes;
because the one that knows best what must be done to attain success,
and on what foundations in the nature of man this success must be based.
Consider her fame throughout the world; her fame as an orator, that
will crowd the biggest halls in any city in Europe, and bring hundreds
to the doors who cannot gain admission. There _may_ be some other
living Americans of whom as much can be said; but there are not many.
How many visitors are attracted to San Diego yearly by Katherine
Tingley's famous work at Point Loma, and because this world-renowned
orator will certainly be speaking at the Isis Theater twice or three
times, or perhaps more often, in each season? And what will be the
result of these many speeches of hers, that so many thousands have
heard?
The result may not be so visible yet that "he who runs may read";
neither is the result of the great fertilizing you gave your
field--until the grain has sprouted, and the brown earth is covered
with greenness. But the result is that seeds of coming greatness, in a
real sense--seeds of a higher, cleaner, saner life--have been sown in
the life and thought of the city. In time you shall see the harvest.
It will be a clean city, such as Calvin, for example, strove to make
of his Geneva; a city without stain or blemish, without saloon or
redlight. Beyond that, it will be a city perhaps of many theaters, in
which the highest, the most classical and beautiful of the world's
dramas will be shown--and in which there will never be anything shown
approaching the commonplace, the vulgar, the stupid. It will be a City
Beautiful, a place of marvelous architecture, exquisite gardening. It
will be a city whose press will be clean, elevating, unsensational,
instructive; a press that will not lie nor slander nor _touch personal
themes_; that will give the news, and not rake hell and the gutters,
fact and fancy, for all kinds of nauseousness and nonsense; a press
that will be a model to the press of the world. From all the world the
best people will be sending their children to be educated here.
There is no limit to the high possibilities of San Diego--the high
possibilities that Katherine Tingley has helped to make possible. How
long, O San Diego, before these things shall be? It is for you to
answer; it is for you to answer.
The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society
Established for the Benefit of the People of the Earth and all Creatures
OBJECTS
This Brotherhood is part of a great and universal movement which has
been active in all ages.
This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. Its
principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demonstrate that it is a
fact in Nature, and make it a living power in the life of humanity.
Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern religions,
science, philosophy and art; to investigate the laws of Nature and the
divine powers in man.
[Illustration]
H. P. BLAVATSKY, FOUNDRESS AND TEACHER
The present Theosophical Movement was inaugurated by Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky in New York in 1875. The original name was "The Theosophical
Society." Associated with her were William Q. Judge and others.
Madame Blavatsky for a time preferred not to hold any outer official
position except that of Corresponding Secretary. But later, in 1888,
she dissolved a Center in France and cancelled its by-laws, which
action was afterwards formally ratified by the Executive Council of the
Society. Referring to this she wrote in her English magazine as follows:
This settles the question of the actual right of the Corresponding
Secretary--one of the founders--to interfere in such exceptional cases
when the welfare and reputation of the Theosophical Society are at
stake. In no other, except such a case, would the undersigned have
consented or taken upon herself the right of interfering.
Later she assumed the Presidency of the British Section of the
Theosophical Society. Further, in response to the statement published
by a then prominent member in India that Madame Blavatsky is "loyal to
the Theosophical Society and to Adyar," Madame Blavatsky wrote:
It is pure nonsense to say that "H. P. B. ... is loyal to the
Theosophical Society and to Adyar"(!?). _H. P. B. is loyal to death to
the Theosophical cause and those Great Teachers whose philosophy can
alone bind the whole of Humanity into one Brotherhood_.... The degree
of her sympathies with the Theosophical Society and Adyar depends upon
the degree of the loyalty of that Society to the CAUSE. Let it break
away from the original lines and show disloyalty in its policy to the
cause and the original program of the Society, and H. P. B., calling
the T. S. disloyal, will shake it off like dust from her feet.
All true students know that Madame Blavatsky held the highest
authority, the only real authority which comes of wisdom and power, the
authority of Teacher and Leader, the real head, heart, and inspiration
of the whole Theosophical Movement. It was through her that the
teachings of Theosophy were given to the world, and without her the
Theosophical Movement could not have been.
BRANCH SOCIETIES IN EUROPE AND INDIA
In 1878 Madame Blavatsky left the United States, first visiting
Great Britain and then India, in both of which countries she founded
branch societies. The parent body in New York became later the Aryan
Theosophical Society and HAS ALWAYS HAD ITS HEADQUARTERS IN AMERICA;
and of this, William Q. Judge was President until his death in 1896.
To one who accepts the teachings of Theosophy it is plain to see that
although Theosophy is of no nationality or country but for all, yet
it has a peculiar relationship with America. Not only was the United
States the birthplace of the Theosophical Society, and the home of the
Parent Body up to the present time, but H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress
of the Society, although a Russian by birth, became an American
citizen; William Q. Judge, of Irish parentage and birth, also became
an American citizen; and Katherine Tingley is American born. America
therefore not only has played a unique part in the history of the
present Theosophical Movement, but it is plain to see that its destiny
is closely interwoven with that of Theosophy; and by America is meant
not only the United States or even the North American continent, but
also the South American continent, and, as repeatedly declared by
Madame Blavatsky, it is in this great Western Hemisphere as a whole,
North and South, that the next great Race of humanity is to be born.
ENEMIES OF PROGRESS
While the main object of the Society from the first was to establish a
nucleus of Universal Brotherhood, there were some, we regret to state,
who joined the Society from far different motives. Many were wholly
sincere in their interest and efforts to benefit the human race, but as
in other societies, so in this, there were a few who entered its ranks
seeking an opportunity to gratify their ambition and love of power.
Still others, in their carping egotism thought that they knew more
than their Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, and were jealous of that Teacher,
and later of the one whom she left as her successor and Teacher in her
place.
Thus it was that there were attacks from the very first against the
teachings of Theosophy, but more than all against the one who brought
again these teachings to the world--Madame H. P. Blavatsky--and on
handing the guidance of the Theosophical Movement on to her successors
they too have been subject to similar attacks from the forces of evil,
whose very existence is threatened by the spread of the teachings of
Theosophy, which are the teachings of truth.
Madame Blavatsky's mission was in part to tear down the materialism
of the age on one hand, and dogmatic domination on the other, and
this made for her many bitter enemies. It was not long before enmity
and unbrotherliness met her on every side, and these culminated in
a plan to overthrow the influence of Theosophy and discredit her
before the world. It was in India, in 1884, that this plan unfolded.
Two ingrates, (French people, man and wife) who had been befriended
by Madame Blavatsky when they were starving and ragged, and who
later attempted to blackmail some of the members of the Society,
and confessed themselves to be bribe-takers, liars, and forgers,
associated themselves with the Christian College of Madras, India, and
sought to destroy Madame Blavatsky and her work. It was afterwards
discovered--admitted by the missionaries themselves, and published
in the Madras _Mail_--that these missionaries had agreed to pay a
large sum of money to the above-referred-to people for letters of
Madame Blavatsky. These letters, as was afterwards proven, were gross
forgeries.
At the same time the Psychical Research Society sent out as its agent a
young man who had just left college, to investigate and make a report.
This young man, wholly inexperienced, had all his traveling expenses
paid on his long trip of sight-seeing, and no doubt felt that he must
make some report to warrant the large outlay for his expenses, and
in order to earn his salary. The whole source of this young man's
information, on which he based his report, was the testimony of the two
people above referred to, who later confessed their fraud. Furthermore,
the young man published as his own a drawing made by William Q. Judge
of something that the young man had no possibility of seeing, as it
did not exist in that state when the young man arrived in India.
Nevertheless, the Psychical Research Society accepted the young man's
unsupported testimony, without asking for any answer from Madame
Blavatsky, nor did they ask her friends, but made their report solely
on the testimony of two perjured ingrates, and of a young man, who
appropriated the work of another as his own.
MADAME BLAVATSKY FOUNDS THE ESOTERIC SCHOOL
HER LIFE-LONG TRUST IN WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
In 1888, H. P. Blavatsky, then in London, on the suggestion and at the
request of her Colleague, William Q. Judge, founded the Esoteric School
of Theosophy, a body for students, of which H. P. Blavatsky wrote
that it was "the heart of the Theosophical Movement," and of which
she appointed William Q. Judge as her sole representative in America.
Further, writing officially to the Convention of the American Societies
held in Chicago, 1888, she wrote as follows: