The Maha Chohan on the Theosophical Society

Gautama Buddha and a Master of Wisdom · The Masters Speak Series · 2 pages

*Two pages set in two columns*, unlike anything else in this section — a letter reproduced as a broadsheet rather than as a study, with no abstract and no apparatus. It carries the reasons given to K.H. by the Maha Chohan for why the Theosophical Society should be a Brotherhood of Humanity, written for the Simla Eclectic Theosophical Society in 1880 or 1881.

The argument begins from confidence rather than complaint: the doctrine being promulgated is called the only true one and, supported by the evidence being prepared, bound to become ultimately triumphant like every other truth — but it must be inculcated gradually, its theories enforced with facts for those who know and with inferences corroborated by modern exact science. From that follows a judgement on priorities within the movement, and it is pointed: Colonel Olcott, who works only to revive Buddhism, is said to labour in the true path of theosophy far more than any man who takes the gratification of his own aspirations for occult knowledge as his goal. Buddhism stripped of its superstitions is called eternal truth. The historical claim is sober — that no messenger of truth and no prophet has ever achieved a complete triumph in his own lifetime, not even Buddha — and it is followed by the reason the Society was founded at all: it was chosen as the corner stone and foundation of the future religion of humanity. What that requires is stated as a practical programme rather than a sentiment. A greater, wiser and more benevolent intermingling of the high and the low, of the alpha and omega of society, was determined upon, with the races to stretch out the hand of fellowship to one another; and it is said flatly that whoever objects to this principle is no theosophist. The closing passage asks how, amid the increasing misuse of free thought and liberty, the combative instinct of man is to be restrained from cruelty, tyranny and injustice, and answers that it can only be through the soothing influence of a brotherhood and the practical application of the esoteric doctrines.

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