I send you this, and you will keep it, using it later on when I give
the word. It is to be headed by me later.
The Theosophical movement was begun as a work of the Brotherhood of
which H. P. B. is a member, and in which the great Initiate, who was by
her called Master, is one of the Chiefs.
It was started among Western people by Western people, the two chief
agents being H. P. B., a Russian, and H. S. Olcott, an American. The
place where it was started was also Western--the City of New York.
But notwithstanding that the Brotherhood thus had it begun, it must, as
a Society, be kept with a free platform, while, at the same time, its
members are individually free to take and hold what belief they find
approved by conscience, provided that belief does not militate against
Universal Brotherhood. Hence they are at perfect liberty to believe in
the Lodge of that Brotherhood and in its messengers, and also to accept
their doctrines as to man, his nature, powers and destiny as given out
by the messengers on behalf of the Lodge.
The fact is significant that the Theosophical movement was thus, as
said, begun in the Western world, in the country where the preparations
for the new root race are going on, and where that new root is to
appear. This was not to give precedence to any one race or country over
another, or to reduce any race or country, but was and is according to
the law of cycles, which is a part of evolution. In the eye of that
great Law no country is first or last, new or old, high or low, but
each at the right time is appropriate for whatever the work is that
must be performed. Each country is bound up with all the others and
must assist them.
This movement has, among others, an object which should be borne in
mind. It is the union of the West with the East, the revival in the
East of those greatnesses which once were hers, the development in the
West of that Occultism which is appropriate for it, so that it may, in
its turn, hold out a helping hand to those of older blood who may have
become fixed in one idea, or degraded in spirituality.
For many centuries this union has been worked towards and workers have
been sent out through the West to lay the foundations. But not until
1875 could a wide public effort be made, and then the Theosophical
Society came into existence because the times were ripe and the workers
ready.
Organisations, like men, may fall into ruts or grooves of mental and
psychic action, which, once established, are difficult to obliterate.
To prevent those ruts or grooves in the Theosophical movement, its
guardians provided that necessary shocks should now and then interpose
so as to conduce to solidarity, to give strength such as the oak
obtains from buffetting the storm, and in order that all grooves of
mind, act, or thought, might be filled up.
It is not the desire of the Brotherhood that those members of the
Theosophical movement who have, under their rights, taken up a belief
in the messengers and the message should become pilgrims to India. To
arouse that thought was not the work nor the wish of H. P. B. Nor is
it the desire of the Lodge to have members think that Eastern methods
are to be followed, Eastern habits adopted, or the present East made
the model or the goal. The West has its own work and its duty, its own
life and development. Those it should perform, aspire to and follow,
and not try to run to other fields where the duties of other men are
to be performed. If the task of raising the spirituality of India, now
degraded and almost suffocated, were easy, and if thus easily raised
could it shine into and enlighten the whole world of the West, then,
indeed, were the time wasted in beginning in the West, when a shorter
and quicker way existed in the older land. But in fact it is more
difficult to make an entry into the hearts and minds of people who,
through much lapse of time in fixed metaphysical dogmatism, have built,
in the psychic and psycho-mental planes, a hard impervious shell around
themselves, than it is to make that entry with Westerners who, although
they may be meat eaters, yet have no fixed opinions deep laid in a
foundation of mysticism and buttressed with a pride inherited from the
past.
The new era of Western Occultism definitely began in 1875 with the
efforts of that noble woman who abandoned the body of that day not long
ago. This does not mean that the Western Occultism is to be something
wholly different from and opposed to what so many know, or think they
know, as Eastern Occultism. It is to be the Western side of the one
great whole of which the true Eastern is the other half. It has, as its
mission, largely entrusted to the hands of the Theosophical Society, to
furnish to the West that which it can never get from the East; to push
forward and raise high on the circular path of evolution now rolling
West, the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world--the
light of the true self, who is the one true Master for every human
being; all other Masters are but servants of that true One; in it all
real Lodges have their union.
Woe is set apart--not by Masters but by Nature's laws--for those who,
having started in the path with the aid of H. P. B. shall in any way
try to belittle her and her work, still, as yet not understood and
by many misunderstood. This does not mean that a mere person is to
be slavishly followed. But to explain her away, to belittle her, to
imagine vain explanations with which to do away with what is not liked
in that which she said, is to violate the ideal, is to spit back in
the face of the teacher through whom the knowledge and the opportunity
came, to befoul the river which brought you sweet waters. She was and
is one of those servants of the universal Lodge sent to the West to
take up the work, well knowing of the pain and obloquy and the insult
to the very soul--worst of all insults--which were certain from the
first to be hers. "Those who cannot understand her had best not try to
explain her: those who do not find themselves strong enough for the
task she plainly outlined from the beginning had best not attempt it."
She knew, and you have been told before, that high and wise servants
of the Lodge have remained with the West since many centuries for the
purpose of helping it on to its mission and destiny. That work it
would be well for the members of the Theosophical movement to continue
without deviating, without excitement, without running to extremes,
without imagining that Truth is a matter of either longitude or
latitude: the truth of the soul's life is in no special quarter of the
compass, it is everywhere round the whole circle, and those who look in
one quarter will not find it.
(This letter is marked in red pencil, by the hand of Mr. Judge,
"unfinished." In fact, it ends with the word "will," as above, but in
publishing earlier some extracts from this letter, the owner had the
permission of the writer to supply the last three words, which he had
intended to place there when called away, and in his haste for the
post, in returning, had omitted to add.)