Dara Eklund – USA
Dara Eklund and Nicholas Weeks n front of their Moorpark house. This photo was probably taken in 2012
The ancient sages recognized that proof of reality lies ultimately in man himself, testing and discerning the facts of Nature with his divine counterpart within. Know Man and you can know God, say the mystics. According to the Pantheists: know Nature and you may know God. Every outward scene has a counterpart within to be discerned.
In his Introduction to The Esoteric Tradition, G. de Purucker wrote:
Believe nothing that your conscience tells you is wrong, no matter whence it comes. If the very divinities came to earth and taught in splendor on the mountain-tops, believe naught that they tell you, if your own spirit- soul tells you that it is a lie.(1)
This reflection is balanced by the idea that Elder Brothers are the culmination of a natural evolutionary stage, forming a bridge between Divine Beings and men. This evolutionary drama unfolds a hierarchy of conscious Life, beings from life-atoms to gods, from Buddhas to Dhyani-Buddhas and beyond. So that, while it is claimed that "Truth is a Pathless Land," there is still a rugged pathway that leads to that condition where "we see the world as one vast plain, one boundless reach of sky.". There are those who can guide us to it -- those who have gone on before. We in turn have the obligation to aid our younger brothers as well.
G. de Purucker devoted an entire little booklet to The Masters and The Path of Occultism. He states:
Records exist -- to be investigated by anyone who has an open mind and who can see, and has brains enough to judge according to the preponderance of evidence -- showing that the great Seers of the ages have penetrated behind and beyond the veil of appearances; have gone behind that veil to the roots of things; have sent their souls deep into the womb of being and have brought back knowledge therefrom. Wonderful indeed are the systems of thought that these great Seers and Sages of the ages have formulated in human language, touching every phase of the human being; systems which are so symmetrical, so profound in philosophical and scientific reach, that every fact that exists in human psychology finds its proper niche ...
Great Intellects, titanic spiritual Seers, have sent their consciousness behind the veils of the outward seeming ... have formulated their knowledge into a grand system of thought. This system of thought we today call Theosophy. It is the Mother of all the great religions and great philosophies of the past time, and will be so of those of the future; for this reason: that every one of these other great systems of thought has been founded upon the teaching of some great spiritual Seer and Sage. (2)
Who then are the Masters? How may we know them? For the beginning student it is first vital to know their message. If we, illumined by the heart, act by the heart's guidance, we will by this light reveal them to ourselves. This "light" does not mean astral light, but the light of intuition, a wisdom of our divine link with all Beings, both higher and lower than ourselves. Some persons, using psychic means, claim they have seen the adept's rooms clairvoyantly, and have cited their locales or identified their previous incarnations. Yet, neither the brain-mind, nor the psychic approach work. Why? Because:
The real MAHATMA is ... not his physical body but that higher Manas which is inseparably linked to the Atma and its vehicle (the 6th principle) ... (3)
In The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, we learn how rarely they interact with Westerners. Yet, for the sake of their beloved Aryavarta and to forestall the ever steeper decline towards materialism in the 19th Century, they did so. In the Master's philosophical teachings we find how we may touch the "garment hem of truth", and in time achieve their wisdom. One necessary condition is to become utterly impersonal. Another is to cultivate the gratitude due to those from whom we receive the teaching. Realizing ourselves as an integral part of the One Life, there is service to others; there is a labor of lifetimes to perfect. By such sacrifice alone may we hope to join them in this endeavor, and become companions in the effort to uplift mankind.
Why not study the Masters' letters for their advice on how to reach them. In Some Words on Daily Life (4) we are told repeatedly that if we expect to have their help, we must apply ourselves to the work of helping humanity. We are also told that the highest Adepts work on the inner planes. Only through interior development and constant upliftment of the One Life in All can we achieve a similar state. The "revelation" must come from within. This applies even with respect to the highly revered Lord Buddha, who admonished:
Do not regard the Tathagata as a form. Regard him as the (embodiment of the) qualities of the dharmakaya, the Dharma Body." (Thrangu Rinpoche comments) What does this mean? 'Form' here means matter. Of course the enlightened state possesses three kayas, but the form-body is not the true Buddha. It means we should not think of the Buddha as being composed of physical characteristics, but should consider him as the embodiment of dharmakaya. 'Dharmakaya' means the 'body of enlightened qualities' [of perfect knowledge, perfect love and perfect capability]. This is the ultimate way of regarding the Buddha.(5)
In Letters to a Lodge Jasper Niemand (=Julia Keightley) wrote upon the matter as follows:
Those who come to rely upon appearances (or sounds) of a Master, such as may be experienced by physical or psychic (lower) sense, soon lose touch with His true and real Being, for the cheating powers gladly rush in to deceive that person ...
When the Master Himself uses such forms as His temporary vehicles or modes, reaching a man by the only avenue as yet opened by that man, He trains the disciple to the use of the "spiritual quality," and the disciple is soon beyond the need and reach of form and sound manifestations, in the usual acceptation of "sound" and "form." In other words, the disciple is helped to enter that condition which is the One Master, Alaya's Self ...
Niemand goes on to say that chelas under the DIRECT supervision are taught in more particular ways. However, regarding their statement to "Form an image of the Master in your heart as a focus of will-power," she states that this does not mean a image of the Master's physical body.
It means that you should dwell in thought upon the great qualities of the real Master, the perfected Being (not his house, or form, which he uses) and do this until your imagination warms to the sublime conception of absolute justice and wisdom, and the heart (the inner heart) kindles and emits its energies: the divine conception, immaculate, invokes the Soul; it arises in majesty and goes forth to find its own ....
To take in a literal sense the directions given to disciples living under conditions quite different from our own is to make a grave mistake. We live where gross magnetisms, lower psychic action and low grade emissions of nervous ether make up picture-forms which will vibrate into objectivity under the play of currents corresponding in grade wherever and however such currents arise. Therefore let us arise and go unto the Master within ...(6)
References:
1. Point Loma, California, Theosophical University Press, 1935, p.12.
2. Point Loma, TUP, 1939, p.17, 19.
3. Blavatsky, Collected Writings, Vol. VI, p. 239, TPH, Wheaton, 1975.
4. B.C.W., Vol. VII, pp.173-75
5. KING OF SAMADHI, COMMENTARIES ON THE SAMADHI RAJA SUTRA, by Thrangu Rinpoche, p.95. Hong Kong, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 1994.
6. The Irish Theosophist, September 15, 1895, Vol.III, No.12, pp. 209-11.
