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    "name": "Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett"
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    "num": 4,
    "slug": "05-first-letter-of-kh-to-a-o-hume",
    "title": "First Letter of K.H. to A. O. Hume",
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    "text": "## First Letter of K.H. to A. O. Hume\n\n\n#### APPENDIX 2 \n\n#### First Letter of K. H. to A. O. Hume\n\nThe original of this letter is not extant, although the major portion\nof it did appear in *The Occult World.* Why it was omitted in *The\nMahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett* is not known. We can only suppose that\nthe copy that Patience Sinnett had made of it was not to hand when Trevor Barker\nwas transcribing the Mahatma letters, otherwise he undoubtedly would have included\nit in his published volume. It follows K. H.'s letter of October 29, 1880, to\nMr. Sinnett (Letter 4).\n\nWe reproduce the letter in its entirety, checked against Mrs. Sinnett's\nhandwritten copy in the British Museum (Mahatma Papers, Vol. VII, Additional\nMS. 45289 B). The copy is liberally blue pencilled, indicating A.P.S.'s editing\nprior to publication, and in three places several sentences deleted —\nappropriately so at the time. As stated, the text used here is verbatim with\nPatience Sinnett's copy.\n\nIt is of note that despite later difficulties which ended in the\nfinal breach between Mr. Hume and the Brothers, his \"first letter was so\nsincere, its spirit so promising, the possibilities it opened for doing general\ngood seemed so great, that . . . I carried it to our venerable Chief\" (K.H.\nto A.O.H., Letter 28). — Grace F. Knoche.\n\nAmritsur Nov. 1st {1880}\n\nDear Sir,\n\nAvailing of the first moments of leisure to formally answer your letter of the\n17th ultimo, I will now report the result of my conference with our chiefs upon\nthe proposition therein contained; trying at the same time to answer all your\nquestions.\n\nI am first to thank you on behalf of the whole section of our fraternity that\nis especially interested in the welfare of India for an offer of help whose\nimportance and sincerity no one can doubt. Tracing our lineage through the vicissitudes\nof Indian civilization to a remote past, we have a love for our motherland so\ndeep and passionate, that it has survived even the broadening and cosmopolitanizing\n(pardon me if this is not an English word) effect of our studies in the hidden\nlaws of nature. And so I and every other Indian patriot feel the strongest gratitude\nfor every kind word or deed that is given in her behalf.\n\nImagine then, that since we are convinced that the degradation of India is largely\ndue to the suffocation of her ancient spirituality; and that, whatever helps\nrestore that higher standard of thought and morals must be a regenerating national\nforce; every one of us would naturally and without urging be disposed to push\nforward a Society whose proposed formation is under debate; especially if it\nreally is meant to become a society untainted by selfish motive, and whose object\nis the revival of ancient science and tendency to rehabilitate our country in\nthe world's estimation. Take this for granted, without further asseverations.\nBut you know, as any man who has read history, that patriots may burst their\nhearts in vain if circumstances are against them. Sometimes, it has happened\nthat no human power, not even the fury and force of the loftiest patriotism,\nhas been able to bend an iron destiny aside from its fixed course, and nations\nhave gone out like torches dropped into water in the engulfing blackness of\nruin. Thus, we who have the sense of our country's fall though not the power\nto lift her up at once, can not do as we would either as to general affairs\nor this particular one. And with the readiness but not the right to meet your\nadvances more than half way we are forced to say that the idea entertained by\nMr. Sinnett and yourself is impracticable in part. It is in a word impossible\nfor myself or any Brother or even an advanced neophyte, to be specially assigned\nand set apart as the guiding Spirit or Chief of the Anglo-Indian Branch. We\nknow it would be a good thing to have you and a few of your selected colleagues\nregularly instructed and shown the phenomena and their rationale. For though\nnone but you few would be convinced, still it would be a decided gain to have\neven *a few* Englishmen of first-class ability enlisted as students of\nAsiatic Psychology. We are aware of all this and much more; hence we do not\nrefuse to correspond with and otherwise help you in various ways. But what we\ndo refuse is to take any other responsibility upon ourselves than this periodical\ncorrespondence and assistance with our advice; and, as occasion favours, such\ntangible, possibly visible proofs as would satisfy you of our presence and interest.\nTo \"guide\" you we will not consent. However much we may be able to\ndo, yet we can promise only to give you the full measure of your deserts. Deserve\nmuch and we will prove honest debtors; little and you need only expect a compensating\nreturn. This is not a mere text taken from a school boy's copybook, though it\nsounds so, but only the clumsy statement of the law of our order; and we can\nnot transcend it. Utterly unacquainted with Western, especially English modes\nof thought and action, were we to meddle in an organization of such a kind you\nwould find all your fixed habits and traditions incessantly clashing, if not\nwith the new aspirations themselves, at least with their modes of realisation\nas suggested by us. You could not get unanimous consent to go even the length\nyou might yourself. I have asked Mr. Sinnett to draft a plan embodying your\njoint ideas for submission to our chiefs, this seeming the shortest way to a\nmutual agreement. Under our \"guidance\" your Branch could not live,\nyou not being men to be guided at all in that sense. Hence the Society would\nbe a premature birth and a failure, looking as incongruous as a Paris Daumont\ndrawn by a team of Indian yaks or camels. You ask us to teach you true Science,\nthe occult aspect of the known side of nature: and this you think can be as\neasily done as asked. You do not seem to realize the tremendous difficulties\nin the way of imparting even the rudiments of *our* Science to those\nwho have been trained in the familiar methods of *yours*. You do not\nsee that the more you have of the one the less capable you are of intuitively\ncomprehending the other, for a man can only think in his worn grooves, and unless\nhe has the courage to fill up these and make new ones for himself he must perforce\ntravel on the old lines. Allow me a few instances.\n\nIn conformity with exact modern Science you would define but one cosmic energy,\nand see no difference between the energy expended by the traveller who pushes\naside the bush that obstructs his path, and the scientific experimenter who\nexpends an equal amount of energy in setting a pendulum in motion! We do. For\nwe know there is a world of difference between the two. The one uselessly dissipates\nor scatters force, the other concentrates and stores it. And here please understand\nthat I do not refer to the relative utility of the two as one might imagine;\nbut only to the fact, that in the one case, there is but brute force flung out\nwithout any transmutation of that brute energy into the higher potential form\nof spiritual dynamics, and, in the other there is just that. Please do not consider\nme vaguely metaphysical. The idea I wish to convey is, that the result of the\nhighest intellection in the scientifically occupied brain is the evolution of\na sublimated form of spiritual energy, which, in the cosmic action, is productive\nof illimitable results, while the automatically acting brain holds or stores\nup in itself only a certain quantum of brute force that is unfruitful of benefit\nfor the individual or humanity. The human brain is an exhaustless generator\nof the most refined quality of cosmic force, out of the low, brute energy of\nnature; and the complete adept has made himself a centre from which irradiate\npotentialities that beget correlations upon correlations through Aeons to come.\nThis is the key to the mystery of his being able to project into and materialise\nin the visible world the forms that his imagination has constructed out of inert\ncosmic matter in the invisible world. The adept does not create anything new,\nbut only utilises and manipulates materials which nature has in store around\nhim; a material which throughout eternities has passed through all the forms;\nhe has but to choose the one he wants and recall it into objective existence.\nWould not this sound to one of your \"learned\" biologists like a madman's\ndream?\n\nYou say there are few branches of science with which you do not possess more\nor less acquaintance, and that you believe you are doing a certain amount of\ngood, having acquired the position to do this by long years of study. Doubtless\nyou do. But will you permit me to sketch for you still more clearly the difference\nbetween the modes of — physical called exact — often out of mere\npoliteness — and metaphysical sciences? The latter, as you know, being\nincapable of verification before mixed audiences, is classed by Mr. Tyndall\nwith the fictions of poetry. The realistic science of fact, on the other hand,\nis utterly prosaic. Now for us poor and unknown philanthropists, no fact of\neither of these sciences is interesting except in the degree of its potentiality\nof *moral* results, and in the ratio of its usefulness to mankind. And\nwhat, in its proud isolation, can be more utterly indifferent to every one and\neverything, or more bound to nothing, but the selfish requisites for its advancement\nthan this materialistic and realistic science of fact? May I not ask then without\nbeing taxed with a vain \"display of science\" what have the laws of\nFaraday, Tyndall, or others to do with philanthropy in their abstract relations\nwith humanity viewed as an integral whole? What care they for\nman as an isolated atom of this great and harmonious\nWhole, even though they may sometimes be of practical use to him? Cosmic energy\nis something eternal and incessant, matter is indestructible, and there stand\nthe scientific *facts.* Doubt them and you are an ignoramus; deny them,\na dangerous lunatic, a bigot; pretend to improve upon the theories — an\nimpertinent charlatan. And yet even these scientific facts never suggested any\nproof to the world of experimenters, that nature consciously prefers that matter\nshould be indestructible under organic rather than under inorganic forms; and\nthat she works slowly but incessantly towards the realisation of this object —\nthe evolution of conscious life out of inert material. Hence their ignorance\nabout the scattering and concretion of cosmic energy in its metaphysical aspects;\ntheir division about Darwin's theories; their uncertainty about the degree of\nconscious life in separate elements; and, as a necessity, the scornful rejection\nof every phenomenon outside their own stated conditions and the very idea of\nworlds of semi-intelligent if not intellectual forces at work in hidden corners\nof nature. To give you another practical illustration. We see a vast difference\nbetween the qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, of\nwhom one, let us suppose, is on his way to his daily quiet work, and another\non his way to denounce a fellow creature at the police station, while the men\nof science see none. And we — not they — see a specific difference\nbetween the energy in the motion of the wind and that of a revolving wheel.\nAnd why? Because every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner\nworld and becomes an active entity by associating itself — coalescing,\nwe might term it — with an elemental; that is to say with one of the semi-intelligent\nforces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active intelligence, a creature of\nthe mind's begetting, for a longer or shorter period proportionate with the\noriginal intensity of the cerebral action which generated it. Thus, a good thought\nis perpetuated as an active beneficent power; an evil one as a maleficent demon.\nAnd so man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his\nown, crowded with the offsprings of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions,\na current which reacts upon any sensitive or and nervous organisation which\ncomes in contact with it in proportion to its dynamic intensity. The Buddhist\ncalls this his \"Skandha,\" the Hindu gives it the name of \"Karma\";\nthe Adept evolves these shapes consciously, other men throw them off unconsciously.\n\nThe adept to be successful and preserve his power must dwell in solitude and\nmore or less within his own soul. Still less does exact science perceive that\nwhile the building ant, the busy bee, the nidifacient bird accumulate, each\nin their own humble way as much cosmic energy in its potential form as a Haydn,\na Plato, or a ploughman turning his furrow, in theirs; the hunter who kills\ngame for his pleasure or profit, or the positivist who applies his intellect\nto proving that + x + = -, are wasting and scattering energy no less than the\ntiger which springs upon its prey. They all rob nature instead of enriching\nher, and will all in the degree of their intelligence find themselves accountable.\n\nExact experimental Science has nothing to do with morality, virtue, philanthropy,\ntherefore can make no claim upon our help, until it blends itself with the metaphysics.\nBeing but a cold classification of facts outside man, and existing before and\nafter him, her domain of usefulness ceases for us at the outer boundary of these\nfacts; and whatever the inferences and results for humanity from the materials\nacquired by her methods, she little cares. Therefore as our sphere lies entirely\noutside hers — as far as the path of *Uranus* is outside the earth's —\nwe distinctly refuse to be broken on any wheel of her construction. Heat is\nbut a mode of motion to her, and motion developes heat; but why the mechanical\nmotion of the revolving wheel should be metaphysically of a higher value than\nthe heat into which it is gradually transformed — she has yet to discover.\nThe philosophical but transcendental (hence absurd?) notion of the mediaeval\ntheosophists that the final progress of human labour aided by the incessant\ndiscoveries of man, must one day culminate in a process, which in imitation\nof the sun's energy — in its capacity of a direct motor — shall\nresult in the evolution of nutritious food out of inorganic matter — is\nunthinkable for men of science. Were the sun, the great nourishing father of\nour planetary System, to hatch granite chickens out of a boulder \"under\ntest conditions\" tomorrow, they (the men of Science) would accept it as\na scientific fact, without wasting a regret that the fowls were not alive so\nas to feed the hungry and the starving. But let a *Shaberon* cross the\nHimalayas in a time of famine, and multiply sacks of rice for the perishing\nmultitudes — as he could — and your magistrates and collectors would\nprobably lodge him in jail, to make him confess what granary he had robbed.\nThis is exact science and your realistic world. And though as you say you are\nimpressed by the vast extent of the world's ignorance on every subject, which\nyou pertinently designate as \"a few palpable facts collected and roughly\ngeneralized and a technical jargon invented to hide man's ignorance of all that\nlies behind these facts\"; and though you speak of your faith in the infinite\npossibilities of nature — yet you are content to spend your life in a\nwork which aids only that same exact science. You cause a waste of cosmic energy\nby tons, to accumulate hardly a few ounces in your volumes — to speak\nfiguratively. And despite your intuitive perceptions of the boundless reaches\nof nature, you take up the position that unless a proficient in arcane knowledge\nwill waste upon your embryonic Society an energy which without moving from his\nplace he can usefully distribute among millions, you, with your great natural\npowers will refuse to give a helping hand to humanity by beginning the work\nsingle handed, and trusting to time and the great Law to reward your labour.\n([1])\n\nOf your several questions we will first discuss, if you please, the one relating\nto the presumed failure of the \"Fraternity\" to \"leave any mark\nupon the history of the world.\" They ought, you think, to have been able\nwith their extraordinary advantages to have \"gathered into their schools\na considerable portion of the more enlightened minds of every race.\" How\ndo you know they have made no such mark? Are you acquainted with their efforts,\nsuccesses, and failures? Have you any dock upon which to arraign them? How could\nyour world collect proofs of the doings of men who have sedulously kept closed\nevery possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon them.\nThe prime condition of their success was, that they should never be supervised\nor obstructed. What they have done they know; all those outside their circle\ncould perceive was results, the causes of which were masked from view. To account\nfor these results, men have in different ages invented theories of the interposition\nof \"Gods,\" Special providences, fates, and the benign or hostile influences\nof the stars. There never was a time within or before the so-called historical\nperiod when our predecessors were not moulding events and \"making history,\"\nthe facts of which were subsequently and invariably distorted by \"historians\"\nto suit contemporary prejudices. Are you quite sure that the visible heroic\nfigures in the successive dramas were not often but their puppets? We never\npretended to be able to draw nations in the mass to this or that crisis in spite\nof the general drift of the world's cosmic relations. The cycles must run their\nrounds. Periods of mental and moral light and darkness succeed each other, as\nday does night. The major and minor yugas must be accomplished according to\nthe established order of things. And we, borne along on the mighty tide, can\nonly modify and direct some of its minor currents. If we had the powers of the\nimaginary Personal God, and the universal and immutable laws were but toys to\nplay with, then indeed might we have created conditions that would have turned\nthis earth into an Arcadia for lofty souls. But having to deal with an immutable\nLaw, being ourselves its creatures, we have had to do what we could and rest\nthankful. There have been times when \"a considerable portion of enlightened\nminds\" were taught in our schools. Such times there were in India, Persia,\nEgypt, Greece and Rome. But, as I remarked in a letter to Mr. Sinnett, the adept\nis the efflorescence of his age, and comparatively few ever appear in a single\ncentury. Earth is the battle ground of moral no less than of physical forces;\nand the boisterousness of animal passions under the stimulus of the rude energies\nof the lower group of etheric agents, always tends to quench spirituality.\n\nWhat else could one expect of men so nearly related to the lower kingdom from\nwhich they evolved? True also, our numbers are just now diminishing but this\nis because, as I have said, we are of the human race, subject to its cyclic\nimpulse and powerless to turn that back upon itself. Can you turn the Gunga\nor the Brahmaputra, back to its sources; can you even dam it so that its piled\nup waters will not overflow the banks? No, but you may draw the stream partly\ninto canals and utilize its hydraulic power for the good of mankind. So we,\nwho can not stop the world from going in its destined direction, are yet able\nto divert some part of its energy into useful channels. Think of us as demi-gods\nand my explanation will not satisfy you; view us as simple men — perhaps\na little wiser as the result of special study — and it ought to answer\nyour objection.\n\n\"What good,\" say you, \"is to be attained for my fellows and myself\n(the two are inseparable) by these occult sciences?\" When the natives see\nthat an interest is taken by the English and even by some high officials in\nIndia in their ancestral science and philosophies, they will themselves take\nopenly to their study. And when they come to realise that the old \"divine\"\nphenomena were not *miracles,* but scientific effects, *superstition*\nwill abate. Thus the greatest evil that now oppresses and retards the revival\nof Indian civilisation will in time disappear. The present tendency of education\nis to make them materialistic and root out spirituality. With a proper understanding\nof what their ancestors meant by their writings and teachings, education would\nbecome a blessing whereas now it is often a curse. At present the non-educated\nas much as the learned natives regard the English as too prejudiced, because\nof their Christian religion and modern science, to care to understand them or\ntheir traditions. They mutually hate and mistrust each other. This changed attitude\ntoward the older philosophy would influence the native Princes and wealthy men\nto endow normal schools for the education of pundits; and old MSS. hitherto\nburied out of the reach of the Europeans would again come to light, and with\nthem the key to much of that which was hidden for ages from the popular understanding;\nfor which your skeptical Sanscritists do not care, which your religious missionaries\ndo not *dare,* to understand. Science would gain much — humanity\nevery thing. Under the stimulus of the Anglo Indian Theosophical Society, we\nmight in time see another golden age of Sanscrit literature. Such a movement\nwould have the entire approbation of the Home Government as it would act as\na preventive against discontent; and the sympathy of European Sanscritists who,\nin their divisions of opinion need the help of native pundits, now beyond their\nreach in the present state of mutual misunderstanding. They are even now bidding\nfor such help. At this moment two educated Hindus of Bombay are assisting Max\nMüller; and a young Pundit of Gu{j}erat a Fellow of the T.S. is aiding Prof. Monier\nWilliams at Oxford and living in his house. The first two are materialists and\ndo harm; the latter single handed can do little, because the man whom he is\nserving is a prejudiced Christian. ([2])\n\nIf we look to Ceylon we shall see the most scholarly priests combining under\nthe lead of the Theos. Society in a new exegesis of Buddhistic philosophy and —\nat Galle on the 15th of September, a secular Theosophical school for the teaching\nof Singhalese youth opened, with an attendance of over 300 scholars: an example\nabout to be imitated at three other points in that island. If the T.S. \"as\nat present constituted,\" has indeed no \"real vitality\" and yet\nin its modest way has done so much of practical good, how much greater results\nmight not be anticipated from a body organized upon the better plan you could\nsuggest!\n\nThe same causes that are materialising the Hindu mind are equally affecting all\nWestern thought. Education enthrones skepticism but imprisons spiritualism.\nYou can do immense good by helping to give the Western nations a secure basis\nupon which to reconstruct their crumbling faith. What they need is the evidence\nthat Asiatic psychology alone supplies. Give this and you will confer happiness\nof mind on thousands. The era of blind faith is gone; that of enquiry is here.\nEnquiry that only unmasks error, without discovering anything upon which the\nsoul can build, will but make iconoclasts. Iconoclasm from its very destructiveness\ncan give nothing, it can only raze. But man can not rest satisfied with bare\nnegation. Agnosticism is but a temporary halt.\n\nThis is the moment to guide the recurrent impulse which must soon come, and which\nwill push the age toward extreme atheism, or drag it back to extreme sacerdotalism,\nif it is not led to the primitive and soul-satisfying philosophy of the Aryans.\nHe who observes what is going on today, on the one hand among the Catholics,\nwho are breeding miracles as fast as the white ants do their young, on the other,\namong the free thinkers, who are converting by masses into agnostics —\nwill see the drift of things. The age is revelling at a debauch of phenomena.\nThe same marvels that the spiritualists quote in opposition to the dogmas of\neternal perdition and atonement, the catholics swarm to witness as the strongest\nproof of their faith in miracles. The skeptics make game of both. All are blind\nand there is no one to lead them! You and your colleagues may help furnish the\nmaterials for a needed universal religious philosophy; one impregnable to scientific\nassault because itself the finality of absolute science; and, a religion, that\nis indeed worthy of the name, since it includes the relations of man physical\nto man psychical, and of the two to all that is above and below them. Is not\nthis worth a slight sacrifice? And if after reflection you should decide to\nenter this new career, let it be known that your Society is no miracle-mongering\nor banqueting club, nor specially given to the study of phenomenalism. Its chief\naim is to extirpate current superstitions and skepticism, and, from long sealed\nancient fountains to draw the proof that man may shape his own future destiny,\nand know for a certainty that he can live hereafter, if he only wills; and that\nall \"phenomena\" are but manifestations of natural law, to try to comprehend\nwhich is the duty of every intelligent being. ([3])\nYou have personally devoted many years to a labour benevolently conceived and\nconscientiously carried out. Give to your fellow creatures half the attention\nyou have bestowed on your 'little birds,\" and you will round off a useful\nlife with a grand and noble work.\n\nSincerely your friend\n\n---\n\nView of the Chohan on the T.S.\n\nChronological Order\n\n\nor Mahatma Letter 106\n\n\n---\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n1. The last several lines of this paragraph [from \"You cause\na waste . . .\"] were omitted in *The Occult World.* (return to text)\n\n2. The last several lines of this paragraph [from \"Such a\nmovement would have . . .\"] were omitted in *The Occult World.*\n(return to text)\n\n3. In *The Occult World,* the letter ends here. (return to text)\n\n---\n\n####### Theosophical University Press Online Edition",
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