The word "Adept" was used by Mme. Blavatsky as a general term to denote people with a varying degree of occult knowledge and initiation. This term does not necessarily imply a person with a high spiritual evolution, and it was sometimes used even to denominate black magicians. Thus, there are good and evil Adepts, of a high or low order.
. . .the hitherto very esoteric doctrine of the Nirmanakayas was lately brought forward as a proof and explained in the treatise called The Voice of the Silence. These Nirmanakayas are the Bodhisattvas or late Adepts, who having reached Nirvana and liberation from rebirth, renounce it voluntarily in order to remain invisibly amidst the world to help poor ignorant Humanity within the lines permitted by Karma.
I will be busy night and day, morning, noon, and evening. At times I feel a passing regret that the Chohans should not evolute the happy idea of allowing us also a "sumptuary allowance" in the shape of a little spare time. Oh, for the final Rest! for that Nirvana where — "to be one with Life, yet — to live not." Alas, alas! having personally realized that: ". . . the Soul of Things is sweet, The Heart of Being is celestial Rest," one does long for — eternal REST!
In many ways, but chiefly by teaching their souls direct, in the spiritual world. But that is difficult for you to understand. This is quite intelligible, though. At certain regular periods, they try to give the world at large a right understanding of spiritual things. One of their number comes forth to teach the masses, and is handed down to tradition as the Founder of a religion. Krishna was such a Master; so was Zoroaster; so were Buddha and Shankara Acharya, the great sage of Southern India. So also was the Nazarene. He went forth against the counsel of the rest, to give to the masses before the time, moved by a great pity, and enthusiasm for humanity; he was warned that the time was unfavorable, but nevertheless he elected to go, and so was put to death at the instigation of the priests. . . .
But that is not the only work of the adepts. At much shorter periods, they send forth a messenger to try to teach the world. Such a period comes in the last quarter of each century, and the Theosophical Society represents their work for this epoch.
A crisis, in a certain sense, is upon us now, and must be met. I might say two crises — one, the Society's, the other for Tibet. For, I may tell you in confidence, that Russia is gradually massing her forces for a future invasion of that country under the pretext of a Chinese War. If she does not succeed it will be due to us; and herein, at least we will deserve your gratitude. You see then, that we have weightier matters than small societies to think about; yet, the T.S. must not be neglected.
The Egyptian operations of your blessed countrymen involve such local consequences to the body of Occultists still remaining there and to what they are guarding, that two of our adepts are already there, having joined some Druze brethren and three more on their way. I was offered the agreeable privilege of becoming an eye-witness to the human butchery, but — declined with thanks. For such great emergency is our Force stored up, and hence — we dare not waste it on fashionable tamasha.
The adept hierarchy is as strictly a product of nature as a tree is: it has a definite and indispensable purpose and function in the development of the human race: this function is to keep open the upward path, through which descend the light and leading without which our race would require to make each step by the wearisome, never ending method of trial and failure in every direction, until chance showed the right way. In fact the function of the adept hierarchy is to provide religious teachers for the stumbling masses of mankind.
In one of his letters to A. P. Sinnett, Master K.H. talks about another aspect of their work. He mentions the Masters' "prime duty of gaining knowledge and disseminating through all available channels such fragments as mankind in the mass may be ready to assimilate".
The number of adepts who retain physical bodies in order to help the evolution of the world is but small-- perhaps some fifty or sixty in all. But it must be remembered that the great majority of these do not take pupils, as They are engaged in quite other work. Madame Blavatsky employed the term adept very loosely, for in one place she actually speaks of adepts who have been initiated, and adepts who have not been initiated. In all later writings we have reserved the word "initiate" for those who have passed at least the first of the four great stages upon the Path of Holiness, and the word adept we have restricted to those who have attained the Asekha level, and so have finished the evolution required of them in this chain of worlds. The consciousness of the Asekha rests normally upon the nirvanic or atmic plane while his physical body is awake. But out of the number who have already attained adeptship only the very small proportion above-mentioned retain physical bodies, and remain in touch with the earth in order to help it; and out of this a still smaller proportion are willing under certain conditions to accept men as pupils or apprentices; and it is to these last (the smallest number) only that we give the name of Masters. Yet few though They be Their office is of incalculable importance, since without Their aid it would be impossible for man to enter the portals of initiation.
Bibliography on the Masters of Wisdom and their Teachings from the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library.
↑ Helena Ptrovna Blavatsky, The Key To Theosophy, Glossary (Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1972), 348.
↑ Tallapragada Subba Row, Esoteric Writings of T. Subba Row (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 106.
↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings, vol. 12 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1991), 31.
↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 68 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 203-204.
↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings, vol. 8 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1960), 401.
↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings, vol. 8 (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1960), 401-402.
↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 5 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 15.
↑ Tallapragada Subba Row, Esoteric Writings of T. Subba Row (Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 113.
↑ Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence No. 112 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 382.
↑ Charles Webster Leadbeater, The Inner Life, (Wheaton, IL: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1942), 18-19.
↑ Charles Webster Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path, (Adyar, Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1992), ???.
This page was last edited on 14 December 2018, at 14:02.