Theosophy - The Work of the Ruler and the Teacher - by Annie Besant
Adyar
Pamphlets No. 135
THE WORK OF THE RULER AND THE TEACHER
by Annie Besant
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai, India
March 1930
[Page
1] WHEN
first the charge to work for the Freedom of India was given to me — in
1909, by The King at Shamballa — it was specially marked by two
directions: one was to claim India's place in the Empire; the other was to
be firm but not provocative. I have tried during all these twenty-one years to
carry out that Command. It has been behind the whole of my political work.
The steady claim has been carried out and is now verbally accepted, to be
worked out, we hope at the coming London Conference.
I have tried to
avoid provocative action, though even firmness may be regarded in some quarters
as provocative. And another Order, saying that I must be careful that the
triumph was not stained by excess, has been the secret of the whole of my
policy through all these years, I want my co-workers now to understand this,
because of course [Page
2] it
is to continue during the very critical time that lies in front. There is
no longer any need not to say that it is the Inner Government of the world
that formulated that policy in the outside world. It was that which led me
to oppose Gandhiji, because I knew that the movement that he started must lead
to bloodshed as well as to other dangers, as it did. You can very much strengthen
the work of the Masters for India's Freedom by observing, especially during
the coming months, those Rules, which, though given to myself, personally,
are also useful for others, — a steady claim for India's Freedom;
a firm but not a provocative attitude, notwithstanding the many excuses that
may arise for provocation. Long ago it was said to H.P.B. that one of the
purposes of the Theosophical Society was to raise India among the
Nations of the world. That is the work which is now going on, and it will
be the line that is desired by the Lord Vivasvata Manu, and also by Him whom
we call the Regent of India, the great Rishi Agastya, who has had India in
His charge for many thousands of years, and
who lives in the South of India, as far as His physical body is concerned.
One important matter,
on which the Rishi has laid great stress, especially since 1913, is Social
Reform. That He regards as vital. As India has moved far too slowly in that
direction He has permitted the writing and circulation of what I generally
call a political novel, Miss Mayo's book [Page
3] Mother India.
It is a novel . It is not a valid statement of facts with
grounds; but such grounds as it has form the reason why the Rishi has
permitted it to be circulated. If people will not learn by precept, by the
proclamation of their duty, then the only way is practically to force them
into it; and that is what this very wicked book does. It has held up India
to the world as a country whose only future lies in British rule. But the
fact must specially be remembered that it is the British Government that
has opposed the raising of the age of consent till very lately. Indians have
been working for it for a long time, and they have always been checkmated
by the British Government. This is because they are afraid of the orthodox,
while the Indians are not. All the major Indian States have raised the age
very considerably, boys to eighteen, girls to fourteen. Twelve is the legal
age in England, but of course it is not followed. A very large number of
marriages take place among the poor at the age of fourteen. This is far too
young, of course, but their conditions crowd them into living together, boys
and girls, in the slums, and early marriages are precipitated. The age of
marriage ought to be determined by the readiness of the women for healthy
child-birth. A woman is not ready for that until between sixteen and seventeen.
We have had in the Theosophical Society a Stalwarts' League, and many
of our members have suffered social ostracism for keeping [Page
4] their
daughters unmarried beyond the customary age. All that is part of the
ordinary work of reform; and it is for helping that effort that the Rishi
Agastya has permitted that book to be published.
Turning from that outer work, and especially that outer attitude, I want now
to write about a thing which is very vital to our movement. I want members
to speak and act, of course only if they agree, in the Theosophical Society
and the Star Movement in a way which is absolutely necessary for the
continued success of both. That is, the realization that these two great
Movements are two branches of one work.
This time is marked by the coming of the new Sub-race, in California
especially. There it has drawn great attention, and it is no longer a matter
of Theosophical assertion. I had no need in America in my recent tour
before the visit to the World Congress, to put the Theosophical argument.
The American Anthropologists are now agreed on the subject. I was sent a
newspaper from Los Angeles in which articles appeared written by a
Theosophist, but they were articles of the paper, one of the greatest in
California, pointing out that what Theosophists had been talking about for a
long time was now agreed on by men of science. That is the strongest
argument that you can use in conversation, or in members' meetings, or
outside, for the Coming of the World-Teacher. They cannot deny it any
longer, except as ignorant [Page 5] people can deny anything. All we have to
do is to refer them to the people on the spot. The scientists of America
have been working on the subject of the new race for years. I have been
watching them, for I have beam preaching it since 1909. My brother
Leadbeater and I knew it from the direct statement of the Lord Maitreya
Himself. He told us of His approaching visit to your world, and said that He
would use a body which He had already chosen. That was the body of
Krishnaji, as we learned a few months afterwards. Since then I have talked
about it all over the world, very persistently, at first very ineffectively, but
gradually more convincingly from the world standpoint.
That
which is important is that the question of the new Sub-race is no longer
a question of argument but of scientific assertion. It is the only quite
definite physical sign, and we can point to the succession from the great
Mother Race — I still would like to call it the great Aryan Race, for
that is the most useful term for grouping together certain bodies of people.
The name Aryan, with a beginning in Central Asia, is well marked in history,
with the City of Shamballa in the Gobi Desert. That is now beyond dispute.
And the migrations that went out from it are equally beyond dispute.
So we have behind
us five types, each of which was accompanied by the coming of a [Page
6] World-Teacher,
Vyasa for the Mother Race, and then onwards. All that is useful for people
who are impressed by historical sequence. First the Sub-race. Then the coming
of the World-Teacher. Then (what is still in the future — for they
do not take place until He has left the world) — the building up of
a religion and a civilization on the ideals that He has proclaimed. This
sequence is inevitable, and is very convincing to logical minds. The World-Teacher
preaches ideals, not details. After He leaves, a religion is founded on the
ideals He preached; the details vary century after century; a civilization
is founded on the ideals, not on the details.
These questions bear vitally on the tendency that there is at present to
separate the Theosophical Society and what was the Order of the Star.
Now such action shows profound ignorance on the part of the people who
try to carry it out. But as ignorance is a very prevalent quality in human
beings, there is no good in becoming excited over it, or becoming annoyed
by it. We must take it as a matter of course, if foolish people try to separate
the two sides of one work. I circulated very largely over in America a
pamphlet dealing with the work of the Theosophical Society and the Order
of the Star in the Happy Valley as the two sides of the one work. I want you
to understand, because you can do far more than I can in checking the
movement for separation started by [Page 7] well-meaning but excessively
devotional people. You must not let their over-devotion provoke you. What
does it matter what people say ? I wish you would all remember that.
The world is under the guidance of three very highly placed Members of
the Hierarchy Who represent the Three Logoi. First (not in preeminence, of
course, as They are all equal), the Lord Vivasvata Manu, whose work is the
work of Races and Sub-races. In that He is always helped by the
Lieutenant Manu, the Manu of the next Root-Race. The Lieutenant Manu is
the Head of the First Ray, the Chohan Morya.
Occultism
is the most orderly thing in the world. People who are concerned in guiding
occult work — Members of the Great White Brotherhood,
Initiates — co-operate with each other. If they are still very young
on the Great Path they may not always do it, though they ought to do it. In
the Great Brotherhood there is only one Consciousness, and if any separate
Member of the Great Brotherhood does not realize that, it is because he is
young and inexperienced. They do not expect perfection at once. But there
is only one Consciousness in that Brotherhood, and any jar runs through
the whole Brotherhood. Difference of opinion is free and encouraged by the
Brotherhood, but there must be no quarreling or jar, and no sense of
irritation between those who differ. This disturbs the whole Brotherhood — a
very serious [Page
8] thing
to do. All who are aspiring towards Initiation have to remember these conditions.
Of course those who are being pushed on rather more rapidly than in ordinary
times — now when tremendous forces
are working around and through the World-Teacher, with the whole
Hierarchy co-operating in that work — are not all strong enough to
stand these forces, and instead of being pushed on, they are jarred by them.
Every one of us has to be on our guard against that. We must never let
ourselves be irritated. This is a big claim to make, but I must say it to
you, if you want to get on. These times come once in thousands of years.
Take advantage of it when it is here, and try to make your vibrations (on
the lower octave certainly or on more than one octave) harmonious. The
vibrations of a note on the piano are doubled in the octave, only one is
shriller than the other. Each of us, at our own level, has to synchronize
his vibrations as well as he can.
You must try and harmonize yourselves, otherwise you will jar, and jarring
separates. You are not expected to identify your consciousness with that of
other people. But if you want, at this very helpful time, to make rapid
progress, you will do wisely to try to accommodate yourself to the thought
of another. You cannot change another's consciousness, but you can
change your own. If you try to do this, you will gradually succeed. Those of
us who are in the Brotherhood are [Page 9] continually on the look-out to try
to realize how another person is thinking, and then we try to accommodate
ourselves to his thought. That is a very difficult practice, but you must begin
it. Anyhow, you can prevent yourself from openly disagreeing. You may not
at first be able to prevent yourself from having an inner difference. An inner
difference of opinion is not only justifiable but useful. But it must not make a
jar. There must be no feeling of irritation because the other person does
not agree with you. You should welcome a difference of opinion, because it
may show you something of Truth that you have not seen. I often say that I
read the papers that I do not agree with. They show me a little bit of truth
which I may have missed and therefore need, because I am not
omniscient. There is a little bit of truth in everybody's thought which goes
on and lasts. The more you can realize a difference of opinion without
annoyance or irritation, the more rapidly will you approach the first step on
the Path.
I am putting this specially to guard you from the idea that you are wanted to
agree with those in the higher ranks in opinion. One day at Shigatze I was
in a small circle of Initiates, who were being taught by the Chohan. He said
a thing I did not understand. I began thinking: What does it mean ? He was
passing on to something else, but He looked round with an amused smile,
and said:
"You will understand
presently ".
I always say that to myself if I get puzzled. By thinking about the question
while He was talking, I was losing what He was saying. Again, when you
come across something you do not understand, suspend your judgment. Get
into the habit, when you find an opinion expressed by someone who knows
much more than you do, of looking at it carefully; not rejecting it, since
he knows more than you do; but not accepting it, until you understand
it. In any school, where discipleship is prepared for, no one wants the
acceptance of any opinion until the judgment of the student goes with it.
You must not feel that you are doing anything wrong in not forcing yourself
to believe. Your mind can only grow by exercise. An athlete might as well
try to strengthen his muscles by never using them, as you to strengthen
your mind by using that of someone else. You are not obliged to accept.
All you are expected to do is to study, and not reject. Leave it alone,
and say to yourself, as my Guru said to me: "You will understand presently".
Separation arises out of ignorance between members of the Society and
the Star. Many of us belong to both, and the difference arises from the
want of understanding that there are two great branches to the work. The
Lord Vivasvata Manu and the Lord Maitreya work as closely together as
any two lives can work, always co-operating with each other. But their work
is different. The Lord [Page 11] Vivasvata is busy over building up His new
Sub-race, and the Chohan is exceedingly busy in co-operating with Him in
that work, because in the new Sub-race His work lies under the Lord
Vivasvata, and He is going to be the Manu of the next Race. His work lies
in the evolution of this Race, in building up presently the civilisation of the
Race, which will be when it reaches a certain stage, to provide people for
the Sixth Root-race. The segregation for that purpose is partly taking place
in the Happy Valley. The children born there come from all the nations of
the world. But they are born there to get a type of body whose great mark
is the development of intuition. Such children have become so numerous
that the teachers in Californian schools have recently been trying
experiments with them, and have separated them into two classes divided
by two years and a half. In intelligence a child of the new type of five would
be equal to the normal child of seven and a half. This is due to the quality
of the intuition. They do not require argument and reasoning. They see a
thing, if it is true, when presented to them. This requires a very different
type of teaching. Children of this type are being born here and there all
over the world, and by guidance from above either they or their parents will
go over to swell the Colony.
No settlers are
being taken in the Happy Valley for two years. It has to last for many centuries,
and it takes time to start. The Americans complain [Page
12] that they are not accustomed
to work slowly; but they have got to go slowly with the Happy Valley. It
is not a deal on the stock exchange.
The Lord Vivasvata is at the head of all such work, but the work is done by
the coming Manu. I am His agent, and I have later to help to build up the
free civilisation of India and the new civilisation of California.
The
work of the Lord Maitreya is religious work. He is working specially at
the great ideals of the new form of religion that will be founded after He
leaves. The World-Teacher Himself does not found the religion. He gives
out the ideals on which the religion will be based. He does not give many
ideals except in the early stages of the Mother Race. This is necessary, as
the details vary as the centuries go on, and the movement now is very
rapid. When He taught in Palestine as the Christ He gave very few details.
One or two have crept into the so-called Sermon on the Mount. This is not
a sermon at all, but a number of isolated teachings put together. Even then
most of it deals with ideals. He spoke to the people in parables, but when
He went into the house with His disciples, then He explained the meaning
of the parables. His public teaching is very small. His secret teachings gave
details to His disciples, and some have crept into the Gospel story. " If a
man strike thee on one cheek, turn to him the other. If he take thy coat,
give him thy cloak also. If he [Page 13] force
thee to go a mile, go with him twain." No ordinary Christian dreams of carrying
out these injunctions. The late Lord Bishop of Peterborough said that the
Nation that tried to live according to the Sermon on the Mount would go to
pieces in a week. Why did the Christ say such a thing ? The answer is, He
had two sets of teachings, one for His disciples, the other for the people.
These may be teachings to the disciples that came by error of transcription
into the public teaching.
One
time in Benares I had a number of saris stolen. I knew who stole them,
but I did not prosecute, because I am a sannyasini though I do not wear a
yellow robe, and the rule of the sannyasini is not to prosecute. The sense
of detachment is what makes the true sannyasini. You remember King Janaka
and the woman sannyasini. She argued that he could not be a sannyasini with
all his belongings. He pointed out that it was not the things that mattered,
but the detachment from them. That is one of the reasons why the great
Avataras come among the Kshattriyas. They are non-attached. Shri Krishna
said He had nothing to gain in any world, but if He did not continue to
work, the worlds would fall into confusion. That is the position of the
World-Teacher. You may see how it applies in Krishnaji's outer life. He
very much dislikes the European dress because it is uncomfortable and uncongenial.
But he wears it in Europe. I doubt if he will do it in the future.[Page
14]
And
you have to remember that the completion of the union of his consciousness
with that of the World-Teacher (what is called in the Christian creed the
taking of the manhood into God) only took place lately. It has been a long
growth. That is what kept me away from you. The Lord Maitreya asked me
if I were willing to go to California with Krishnaji. My answer was: "I
have no will but Yours". Hence
my disappearance from India.
Now the effect of
Krishnaji on those who live with him is to arouse a profound devotion. He
has always been a delightful creature, but since the completion of the great
change naturally it is very different. In the valley of Ojai he has his own
room, in which his brother passed away, the shrine room. He always sleeps
there alone, and when he is there no one calls him. Occasionally he will
make short journeys to different places in India. This will be an experiment.
Crowds are a difficulty for him, because the inner strain is so great. Their
mixed magnetism is difficult for him. He had to give it up in America. You
must expect him to be very much by himself. My advice to all of you would
be to watch and observe, and gradually learn from what he is, not demand
what you expect. In spite of everything I can say, people will think in a
rut as to what the World-Teacher would do and say, making Him in their own
image. I did not form any opinion. So I learned. You must remember that the
Lord [Page
15] Maitreya
is so great a Being that the Chohan of the second Ray, His own Ray, said
that when He went into His presence, " We feel like the dust of His feet." That
consciousness is omnipresent. Krishnaji does not share that omniscience.
A fragment of the World-Teacher's consciousness is in him, [Remember
the shloka in the Bhagavad-Gita, “I established this
universe with one fragment of Myself, and I remain”] and his own is
merged in it. And you must remember that that consciousness in him in
the ordinary affairs of life behaves like that of an ordinary man. When
He was here in the body of the disciple Jesus in Palestine, He was a man
among men. He does not bring His own wonderful body down here. If
He did He would have to guard it by a tremendous waste of
power. He has the whole of the religions of the world to attend to all the
time. He puts down as it were a sort of finger of Himself into a human body
specially prepared to stand the strain, a body absolutely pure, a life which
for years has been a perfect human life. The consciousness of Krishnaji is
merged with that Consciousness. This is not what we expected, judging from
ordinary cases such as possession by a Master. Sometimes a Master took possession
of H. P. B. and spoke through her. That was a change of personality. This
is not. It seems to be a merging of consciousness but we cannot expect to
understand [Page
16] its details. If I had determined
to hold to the view of the stepping out and in, I should have taken that
for granted and made a blunder. But I was prepared to take anything that
occurred, and in answer to various questions I have said that I did not know.
People always want to make a greater Being in their own image, and then complain
if He is different. This is very silly. Treat him with great respect. Do
not force yourselves upon him with a kind of physical devotion. It is very
tiresome for anyone to live in a physical body while every one is staring
at him. He has taken this body to help the world by it, and we have to take
Their way of working, not our own. There will be many things said that you
do not understand. Put them by, and think them over.
There were hard
sayings spoken
by the Christ which drove away many of His disciples. He said: "Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you". This
was said to be "a hard saying" and drove many away. Remember He often speaks
in ideals, not in details.
I advise all of
you to read the little pamphlet [The Lord is Here] by
George Arundale, because it gives all his own difficulties. Knowing the Lord
Maitreya in His own home in the Himalayas, he sees the one he knows to
be His chosen vehicle. The pamphlet states his difficulties frankly, and tells
how they disappeared. Take the Life and do not be careful [Page
17] about
the form. Krishnaji will say; "Throw away all forms". Now the
essence of that is: "Do not let the form constrain the life. Let the life
grow". If
the form is still helpful, the Life will make it more helpful. If your inner
life has outgrown its forms, the inner Life will re-form it. If you have
thoroughly outgrown it, the inner Life will break it. He gives the Life.
Our wisdom is to take it, and then let it do with us what it likes, break
anything it chooses to break, remould anything it likes to remould, use anything
it likes to use. You have to be very quiescent and adaptable, and remember
that the people who are swept away completely by devotion feel nothing but
the tremendous downrush of this splendid life, and so they want to imitate
him in all sorts of little ways. The little ways are nothing. George Arundale
says in his pamphlet that if Krishnaji asks people to walk, they want to
drop everything and try to imitate Krishnaji in his steps and gestures. But
he points out that all that matters is to walk, in your own way, not
in Krishnaji's way. You must take the Life, not the details. Imitating the
outside will not help you to express the Life. It is very difficult, of course.
If it was not difficult the Christ would not have had only a hundred and
twenty people at the end of His ministry. If many are swept away by devotion
today, do not get irritated by them. Some say, the Theosophical Society
has done its work. But " the
Theosophical Society is [Page
18] the
corner-stone of the religions of the future," as was once declared. It
will go on to the end of the age. Some said at Ommen that Krishnaji was
everything. Others asked where Annie Besant came in. Annie Besant has
her own place and work. When Krishnaji (Jiddhu Krishnamurti) and I went
about at Ommen evidently very devoted to one another, people wondered what
it was they had been saying. You must try to see the reality, for this
is a time of reality. If anyone refers to the Society, you can answer that
it has done very good work, since but for it they would not have had Krishnaji.
The atmosphere of the Society has been around him all the time. He said
at Ommen that Theosophy was the background of his teaching. But he does
not teach it all over again. Be glad that you have gained the right to
be born in this time. Some who belong to the sixth Ray will be very devotional
and very narrow. But it is better to have too much devotion than too little.
I think he will prevent too much extravagance, because he speaks very clearly
against it.
The best way to
help Krishnaji is to be dead against separateness. If ever you see it, oppose
it. Say, if you like, that we are two sides of one work. Annie Besant is
at the head of one side and Krishnaji of the other. One is the work of the
Manu, the other of the Bodhisattva. They always work together. We, if we
are fit to be Their servants, must be ready to do the same.
|