“L. M. C.”
This is an old, old question, and a still older charge against theosophy, started first by its enemies. We emphatically answer, NO; adding that no theosophical publication could have rendered itself guilty of such a FALSEHOOD and calumny. No follower of theosophy, least of all a disciple of the “Masters of Theosophy” (the chela of a guru), would ever be accepted on such conditions. Many were the candidates, but “few the chosen.” Dozens were refused, simply because married and having a sacred duty to perform to wife and children.[[117]] None have ever been asked to forsake father or mother; for he who, being necessary to his parent for his support, leaves him or her to gratify his own selfish consideration or thirst for knowledge, however great and sincere, is “unworthy” of the Science of Sciences, “or ever to approach a holy Master.”
Our correspondent must surely have confused in his mind Theosophy with Roman Catholicism, and Occultism with the dead-letter teachings of the Bible. For it is only in the Latin Church that it has become a meritorious action, which is called serving God and Christ, to “abandon father and mother, wife and children,” and every duty of an honest man and citizen, in order to become a monk. And it is in St. Luke’s Gospel that one reads the terrible words, put in the mouth of Jesus: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, his own life also, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE.” (xiv. 26.)
Saint (?) Jerome teaches, in one of his writings, “If thy father lies down across thy threshold, if thy mother uncovers to thine eyes the bosom which suckled thee, trample on thy father’s lifeless body, TRAMPLE ON THY MOTHER’S BOSOM, and with eyes unmoistened and dry, fly to the Lord, who calleth thee!”
Surely then, it is not from any theosophical publication that our correspondent could have learnt such an infamous charge against theosophy and its MASTERS—but rather in some anti-Christian, or too dogmatically “Christian” paper.
Our society has never been “more Catholic than the Pope.” It has done its best to follow out the path prescribed by the Masters; and if it has failed in more than one respect to fulfil its arduous task, the blame is certainly not to be thrown on either Theosophy, nor its Masters, but on the limitations of human nature. The Rules, however, of chelaship, or discipleship, are there, in many a Sanskrit and Tibetan volume. In Book IV. of Kiu-ti, in the chapter on “the Laws of Upasans” (disciples), the qualifications expected in a “regular chela” are: (1.) Perfect physical health.[[118]] (2.) Absolute mental and physical purity. (3.) Unselfishness of purpose; universal charity; pity for all animate beings. (4.) Truthfulness and unswerving faith in the laws of Karma. (5.) A courage undaunted in the support of truth, even in face of peril to life. (6.) An intuitive perception of one’s being the vehicle of the manifested divine Atman (spirit). (7.) Calm indifference for, but a just appreciation of, everything that constitutes the objective and transitory world. (8.) Blessing of both parents[[119]] and their permission to become an Upasan (chela); and (9.) Celibacy, and freedom from any obligatory duty.[duty.]
The two last rules are most strictly enforced. No man convicted of disrespect to his father or mother, or unjust abandonment of his wife, can ever be accepted even as a lay chela.
This is sufficient, it is hoped. We have heard of chelas who, having failed, perhaps in consequence of the neglect of some such duty, for one or another reason, have invariably thrown the blame and responsibility[responsibility] for it on the teaching of the Masters. This is but natural in poor and weak human beings who have not even the courage to recognise their own mistakes, or the rare nobility of publicly confessing them, but are always trying to find a scapegoat. Such we pity, and leave to the Law of Retribution, or Karma. It is not these weak creatures, who can ever be expected to have the best of the enemy described by the wise Kirátárjuniya of Bharavi:—
“The enemies which rise within the body.
Hard to be overcome—the evil passions—