Re: THE HIMALAYAN RISHI SANGHA & KUTHUMI LAL
namaste everyone.
Masters Maurya and Kuthumi are reverred spiritual celebrities in Theosophy. Bishop Leadbeater wrote a book titled The Masters and the Path wherein he has described their life and work.
http://www.anandgholap.net/Masters_And_Path-CWL.htm
A few years ago when I was too lazy (and thought it was late for me at this age) to get acquitained with the breadth and some depth of Hindu texts, I tried to take the easy way reading Theosophical books (mainly of Besant and Leadbeater). Although I guessed rightly that they are concerned with investigation of only the three worlds, spurn the path of devotion, and speak very little about mokSha--liberation, I felt satisfied reading them. By the grace of GaNesha, I was course-corrected to be back on the track of reading Hindu texts, and in the process came across an essay by Aurobindo that put Theosophy and the masters in proper perspective:
The Claims of Theosophy by Aurobindo
http://ww1.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/17/0015_e.htm
Will India long keep the temper that submits to unexamined authority and blinds itself with a name? I believe not. We shall more and more return to the habit of going to the root of things, of seeking knowledge not from outside but from the Self who knows and reveals. We must more and more begin to feel that to believe a thing because somebody has heard from somebody else that Mrs Besant heard it from a Mahatma, is a little unsafe and indefinite. Even if the assurance is given direct, we shall learn to ask for the proofs. Even if Kutthumi himself comes and tells me, I shall certainly respect his statement, but also I shall judge it and seek its verification. The greatest Mahatma is only a servant of the Most High and I must see his chapras before I admit his plenary authority. The world is putting off its blinkers; it is feeling once more the divine impulse to see.
It is not that Theosophy is false; it is that Theosophists are weak and human. I am glad to believe that there is much truth in Theosophy. There are also considerable errors. Many of the things they say which seem strange and incredible to those who decline the experiment, agree with the general experience of Yogins; there are other statements which our experience appears to contradict or to which it gives a different interpretation. Mahatmas exist, but they are not omnipotent or infallible. Rebirth is a fact and the memory of our past lives is possible; but the rigid rules of time and of Karmic reaction laid down dogmatically by the Theosophist hierophants are certainly erroneous. Especially is the hotchpotch of Hindu and Buddhist mythology and Theosophic prediction served up to us by Mrs Besant confusing and misleading. At any rate it does not agree with the insight of much greater Yogins than herself. Like most Theosophists she seems to ignore the numerous sources and possibilities of error which assail the Yogin before his intellect is perfectly purified and he has his perfection in the higher and superintellectual faculties of the mind. Until then the best have to remember that the mind even of the fairly advanced is not yet divine and that it is the nature of the old unchastened human element to leap at misunderstandings, follow the lure of predilections and take premature conclusions for established truths. We must accept the Theosophists as enquirers; as hierophants and theocrats I think we must reject them.
रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥
To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.
--viShNu purANam
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