Mahatma of the Circle on the Theosophical Society & HP Blavatsky
The following is from a letter lately received from an Indian brother...[B.K. Lahiri] and is recommended to your attention as independent evidence of the position of H.P.B. and the connection of the Masters with the T.S.
Annie Besant, William Q. Judge March, 1893.
THE LETTER
K.B., a Brahman Yogi, recently went up to the Himalayas: on his way down to Deccan, he was kind enough to stop at my place for some days... I must mention here also that this gentleman did not know much of H.P.B. before nor of the Theosophical Society, and whenever I spoke to him about them he used to say, as it were passively, that it was a good work, no doubt, and that H.P.B. must have known the occult philosophy... that whenever the Rakshasas [demons] became powerful some goddess is sent to destroy them, and so she was sent to destroy the materialism of the all-powerful western Rakshasas.
However, now I shall relate what he told me when he came back from the Himalayas. The first thing he said was: "Go on! go on! go on! Fit yourself; you have much to do: go on, go on, and go on." The next thing he told me was, that this time he considered himself thrice blessed by the sight of a Mahatma... in the snow-covered and impassable cave of the Himalayas...
The Mahatma, he said, he saw perfectly naked; that no living soul could venture to look at his eyes; his color appeared to be of such a peculiar hue that it is not like anything worldly, but when he touched his hand (K.B.'s) between the third and fourth fingers, the latter could not stand the electric shock that ran up to his head from the extreme parts of his feet... He became almost unconscious, although he himself is a real yogi of 22 years' standing...
He said the body of the Mahatma, though it looked like butter, proved to be hard as steel, and that it was impossible for him to say of what it is made. The Mahatma does not speak, and with him only spoke where he could not make the latter understand his thought perfectly well. After he received his instruction, whatever was necessary for him, he asked: "that in India there they have established a society called the Theosophical Society, and that Madame Blavatsky started it with Col. Olcott. What is this? Is there anything real in it? Who was H.P.B.? Was she a yogi? Is Col. Olcott a yogi? What will be end of all this? Is anybody to come in the place of H.P.B.? My certain friend B.K.L. who takes much interest in the T.S. pressed me for the latter information."
He said, "The T.S. was their work: it was established to change the present current of the human mind and destroy Nastikism, [materialistic atheism]... that he was present when H.P.B. was sent by her Master from the Manasarovara Hills in Tibet... she was sent to carry out the work of the Mahatmas; -- that she was very high up there is not the least doubt, that he himself was one of the Circle, although not so high as the Guru of H.P.B.; that Col. Olcott is a good man no doubt but no yogi, he is entirely different from H.P.B. with whose name you cannot mention Olcott. That what was necessary was done by H.P.B. and the Society is successful... that hitherto the T.S. followed a particular line, but in India there should be a change in that line, but there will be no change in the West, they must go on as they do now."
Since the Svamiji has come back from the Himalayan Hills his ideas about the T.S. and H.P.B. are entirely different; instead of passive tolerance he simply says:
"Oh! I like to worship the portrait of H.P.B.; no one has done so much good for humanity, especially for India, after Buddha and Shankaracharya... The T.S. is ours, established for certain purposes by our Mahatmas; go on and go on, work and work."
I must tell you that the Svamji never knew any of these informations about the T.S., the West, or H.P.B. before he went up to the Hills. The Svamji showed me his hand where the Mahatma held it with his two fingers -- there is the white sign of inflammation still existing, and subsequently the skin was off from that place. These are the facts that are revealed to me... It appeared also that the Svamji is the chela of one of the chelas or grand chelas of a Mahatma of the Circle
