There are so many questioners who ask about Chelaship[C] that your
letter comes quite apropos to experiences of my own. You say that
these applicants must have some answer, and in that I agree with you.
And whether they are ready or unready, we must be able to tell them
something. But generally they are not ready, nor, indeed, are they
willing to take the first simple step which is demanded. I will talk
the matter over with you for your future guidance in replying to such
questions; perhaps also to clear up my own mind.
The first question a man should ask himself (and by "man" we mean
postulants of either sex) is: "When and how did I get a desire to know
about chelaship and to become a chela?"; and secondly, "What is a
chela, and what chelaship?"
There are many sorts of chelas. There are lay chelas and probationary
ones; accepted chelas and those who are trying to fit themselves to be
even lay chelas. Any person can constitute himself a lay chela, feeling
sure that he may never in this life consciously hear from his guide.
Then as to probationary chelas, there is an _invariable_ rule that
they go upon seven years' trial. These "trials" do not refer to fixed
and stated tests, but to all the events of life and the bearing of the
probationer in them. There is no _place_ to which applicants can be
referred where their request could be made, because these matters do
not relate to places and to officials: this is an affair of the inner
nature. We _become_ chelas; we obtain that position in reality because
our inner nature is to that extent opened that it can and will take
knowledge: we receive the guerdon at the hands of the Law.
In a certain sense every sincere member of the Theosophical Society is
in the way of becoming a chela, because the Masters do some of Their
work with and for humanity through this Society, selected by Them as
Their agent. And as _all_ Their work and aspiration are to the end of
helping the race, no one of Their chelas can hope to remain (or become)
such, if any selfish desire for personal possessions of spiritual
wealth constitutes the motive for trying to be a chela. Such a motive,
in the case of one already a chela, acts instantly to throw him out of
the ranks, whether he be aware of his loss or not, and in the case of
one trying to become a chela it acts as _a bar_. Nor does a real chela
spread the fact that he is such. For this Lodge is not like exoteric
societies which depend upon favor or mere outward appearances. It is
a real thing with living Spirit-men at its head, governed by laws
that contain within themselves their own executioners, and that do
not require a tribunal, nor accusations, nor verdicts, nor any notice
whatever.
As a general thing a person of European or American birth has extreme
difficulty to contend with. He has no heredity of psychical development
to call upon; no known assembly of Masters or Their chelas within
reach. His racial difficulties prevent him from easily seeing within
himself; he is not introspective by nature. But even he can do much if
he purifies his motive, and either naturally possesses or cultivates
an ardent and unshakeable faith and devotion. A faith that keeps him
a firm believer in the existence of Masters even through years of
non-intercourse. They are generous and honest debtors and always repay.
How They repay, and when, is not for us to ask. Men may say that this
requires as blind devotion as was ever asked by any Church. _It does_,
but it is a blind devotion to Masters who are Truth itself; to Humanity
and to yourself, to your own intuitions and ideals. This devotion to
an ideal is also founded upon another thing, and that is that a man
is hardly ready to be a chela unless he is able to stand _alone_ and
uninfluenced by other men or events, _for he must stand alone_, and he
might as well know this at the beginning as at the end.
There are also certain qualifications which he must possess. These are
to be found in _Man, a Fragment of Forgotten History_ towards the
close of the book, so we will not dwell upon them here.
The question of the general fitness of applicants being disposed of,
we come to the still more serious point of the relations of Guru and
Chela, or Master and Disciple. We want to know what it really is to be
a pupil of such a Teacher.
The relation of Guru and Chela is nothing if it is not a spiritual one.
Whatever is merely outward, or formal, as the relation established by
mere asking and acceptance, is not spiritual, but formal, and is that
which arises between _teacher_ and _pupil_. Yet even this latter is
not in any way despicable, because the teacher stands to his pupil,
in so far forth as the relation permits, in the same way as the Guru
to his Chela. It is a difference of degree; but this difference of
degree is what constitutes the distinction between the spiritual and
the material, for, passing along the different shadings from the
grossest materiality to as far as we can go, we find at last that
matter merges into spirit. (We are now speaking, of course, about what
is commonly called _matter_, while we well know that in truth the thing
thus designated is not really matter, but an enormous illusion which
in itself has no existence. The real matter, called _mulaprakriti_ by
the Hindus, is an invisible thing or substance of which our matter
is a representation. The real matter is what the Hermetists called
_primordial earth_; a, for us, intangible phase of matter. We can
easily come to believe that what is really called _matter_ is not
really such, inasmuch as we find clairvoyants and nervous people seeing
through thick walls and closed doors. Were this _matter_, then they
could not see through it. But when an ordinary clairvoyant comes face
to face with _primordial matter_, he or she cannot see beyond, but is
met by a dead wall more dense than any wall ever built by human hands.)
So from earliest times, among all but the modern western people, the
teacher was given great reverence by the pupil, and the latter was
taught from youth to look upon his preceptor as only second to his
father and mother in dignity. It was among these people a great sin, a
thing that did one actual harm in his moral being, to be disrespectful
to his teacher even in thought. The reason for this lay then, and no
less to-day does also lie, in the fact that a long chain of influence
extends from the highest spiritual guide who may belong to any man,
down through vast numbers of spiritual chiefs, ending at last even in
the mere teacher of our youth. Or, to restate it in modern reversion
of thought, a chain extends up from our teacher or preceptors to the
highest spiritual chief in whose ray or descending line one may happen
to be. And it makes no difference whatever, in this occult relation,
that neither pupil nor final guide may be aware, or admit, that this is
the case.
Thus it happens that the child who holds his teacher in reverence and
diligently applies himself accordingly with faith, does no violence
to this intangible but mighty chain, and is benefited accordingly,
whether he knows it or not. Nor again does it matter that a child has
a teacher who evidently gives him a bad system. This is his Karma, and
by his reverent and diligent attitude he works it out, and transcends
erstwhile that teacher.
This chain of influence is called the _Guruparampara chain_.
The Guru is the _guide or readjuster_, and may not always combine the
function of teacher with it.