Online Edition published 1999 by The Blavatsky Archives Online.
Letter 4
From H.P. Blavatsky to W.Q. Judge
Dated March 19, 1887
O
stende March 19/87
My Dear W.Q.J.When a fruit has a worm in it, the latter does its work of destruction to the bitter end. But the fruit can't help it — a human fruit endowed with will, intelligence & perambulatory powers can. If the human fruit — who could extract the damaged part 10 years ago did not do it, — for lack of resolution & choice of either one thing or the other — of "to be or not to be" — why should he curse his fate, the web of his own fabrication.
If you went in search of Masters now — you would not find Them. One must be free & unclaimed by man or woman if he would offer himself personally to them. Otherwise the link which binds you to Brooklyn would be like a rope ever pulling back. You have tried it once & went half way to search for & meet the Masters. What has it resulted in? Scandal certainly worse than a clean divorce ever would. You have fettered yourselves with chains & unless you keep within their limit they will be always strangling you. You have to come to a decisive & final determination & she has to choose. It is only womanly accursedness to hold you chained as she does. In this I can give no advice but only point out to the cause in the diagnosis of the mortal disease. You will never be happy outside your natural element.
You have very good & wholesome ideas when sitting bent over your fancy sketches & pen drawings. But these ideas vanish away in thin air as soon as you throw up your pencil or pen. You have been watched my poor old chum. You have all the sympathy of Masters and pupils. But who dares touch the "link" and bonds & break them except yourself?
No: you do not know yourself. The only palliative I know of is for you to come & get strength with me for a month or two this summer. Try to do so.
I have dozens upon dozens of petitions from London to come without delay & take the management, reformation & renewal of the Branch — of the L.L. — into my hands. I am offered a corpse!! I have to galvanize a rotten body like Christ with Lazarus. I must go, nevertheless. The Keightleys have come for me — all is prepared there & it is old, paralyzed, hardly moving old woman who has to build up a new Frankenstein who, when grown & strong again will pounce upon his parent & try to destroy her. So be it — Such is my destiny.
Mrs Cables writes & complains you will not answer her letters — something about Convention. Asks & wants me to tell her whom shall she choose this day — the gods in Washington — or Coues or the god of her fathers — W.Q.J. I answer she might choose who she damn pleased. I opined for Coues. She is too gushy for you.
My advice, our advice is external unity at least. 31 [33?] Counties or States & rings and quarrels do not prevent the US from being one for the outside world. Let the Branches be all as free as every State is in America, all of which recognize one fool, whosoever he be in the White House & yet have their own laws. The Board of Control is abolished isn't it? Why then not let & even help Coues to do his work as an independent President of his Branch. Let each Branch have its own Karma. "There is more joy over one repented sinner than over 99 Saints in Heaven." Make a rule that any fellow found out slandering another — be expelled after the second warning. Make the rule strict & foremost of all. Let every one either peg out of the Society or — hold his tongue & mind his own business. Too many cooks spoil a broth. Make another rule that on that day when one joins the Society a wall should be built between his past & the Fellows of the Society. No one has the right to criticize a fellow for what he was before he joined. But no mercy should be shown to one who goes on whoring & backbiting & leading a bad life when he is in the Society.
He who does all & the best he can & knows how — does enough for them. This is a message for you. Your "Path" begins to beat the Theosophist out of sight. It is most excellent. Bjerregaard's articles are very very good. The Path alone is your certificate for you in Theosophy. — A secret group may be formed in any state the T.S. is in. Join three or five or seven; and work with all your powers on the same & one line. Note every event every casual thing in your daily lives — to the most trifling — then once a week meet & compare them & find out the occult causes & effects & the mutual interaction & correlation of those events & then see whether a hand will not lead you; whether you will not recognize that hand which will retard some events, precipitate others etc. — without interfering with the law of Karma in the least. If your group can be brought into strict union of thought & singleness of purpose — & harmony you will sense orders and the right direction you have to take as plainly as Bishop & Co. sense the hardly perceptible tension of the muscles in the hand that he is in contact with. This is the method of training of the younger chelas — down there at home. They record every small circumstance, compare their accumulated numbers, deduct their conclusions from the premisses & those syllogisms lead them unerringly onward. It helps sharpening intuitions & sensitiveness develops clairvoyance & every chela comes to recognize instantaneously the smallest change in the invisible aura of the ever present thought of his guru who guides the events though he never creates them. Do you understand, Oh lamb of god? Try to.
My poor, poor friend, what a damned fool you are with all your intelligence, Irish-Hindu acuteness of perception etc. It is the worm — that gnaws at your discriminative powers. It is the incubus of the family hearth that sits so heavily on your brain that it can hardly function in the right direction after every Methodist squabble. Oh my poor crushed chum what would I give to help you. But how can I fight against your Irish Self which sits upon & tries to throttle the Hindu Self — the "mild" Hindu?
I try to be with you as much as I can. I am often watching you. Watch the shadows on the walls around you & gather strength from one who is oftener with you than you know of. Do not oppose Coues in his Department. For my external sake do not be against him openly. He is a weapon in the hands of Karma & you are interfering with the Law.
Be strong, calm firm & hopeful. You are not even forty.
yours ever
HPB
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