Echoes From The Orient: A Broad Outline of Theosophical Doctrines

by William Quan Judge

The other class referred to—Nirmânakâyas—constantly engage in this work deemed by them greater than earthly enterprises: the betterment of the soul of man, and any other good that they can accomplish through human agents. Around them the long-disputed question of Nirvâna revolves, for all that they have not been distinctly considered in it. For, if Max Müller's view of Nirvâna, that it is annihilation, be correct, than a Nirmânakâya is an impossibility. Paradoxically speaking, they are in and out of that state at one and the same time. They are owners of Nirvâna who refuse to accept it in order that they may help the suffering orphan, Humanity. They have followed the injunction of the Book of the Golden Precepts: "Step out from sunlight into shade, to make more room for others."

A greater part is taken in the history of nations by the Nirmânakâyas than anyone supposes. Some of them have under their care certain men in every nation who from their birth are destined to be great factors in the future. These they guide and guard until the appointed time. And such protégés but seldom know that such influence is about them, especially in the nineteenth century. Acknowledgment and appreciation of such great assistance are not required by the Nirmânakâyas, who work behind the veil and prepare the material for a definite end. At the same time, too, one Nirmânakâya may have many different men—or women—whom he directs. As Patanjali puts it, "In all these bodies one mind is the moving cause."

Strange, too, as it may seem, often such men as Napoleon Buonaparte are from time to time helped by them. Such a being as Napoleon could not come upon the scene fortuitously. His birth and strange powers must be in the order of nature. The far-reaching consequences going with a nature like his, unmeasurable by us, must in the eastern Theosophical philosophy be watched and provided for. If he was a wicked man, so much the worse for him; but that could never deter a Nirmânakâya from turning him to his uses. That might be by swerving him, perchance, from a path that would have plunged the world into depths of woe and been made to bring about results in after years which Napoleon never dreamed of. The fear of what the world might think of encouraging a monster at a certain point never can deter a sage who sees the end that is best. And in the life of Napoleon there are many things going to show at times an influence more powerful than he could grapple. His foolhardy march to Moscow was perhaps engineered by these silent campaigners, and also his sudden and disastrous retreat. What he could have done had he remained in France, no present historian is competent to say. The oft-doubted story of the red letter from the Red Man just when Napoleon was in a hesitating mood, may have been an encouragement at a particular juncture. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Nor will the defeat at Waterloo be ever understood until the Nirmânakâyas give their records up.

As a change in the thought of a people who have been tending to gross atheism is one always desired by the Sages of the Wisdom Religion, it may be supposed that the wave of spiritualistic phenomena resulting now quite clearly in a tendency back to a universal acknowledgment of the soul, has been aided by the Nirmânakâyas. They are in it and of it; they push on the progress of a psychic deluge over great masses of people. The result is seen in the literature, the religion and the drama of to-day. Slowly but surely the tide creeps up and covers the once dry shore of Materialism, and, though priests may howl, demanding "the suppression of Theosophy with a firm hand," and a venal press may try to help them, they have neither the power nor the knowledge to produce one backward ripple, for the Master hand is guided by omniscient intelligence propelled by a gigantic force, and—works behind the scene.

XII.

There have been so many secret societies during the Christian era, by whom claims were made to knowledge of nature's secret laws, that a natural question arises: "In what do the Theosophic Eastern Sages differ from the many Rosicrucians and others so often heard of?" The old bookshelves of Germany are full of publications upon Rosicrucianism, or by pretended and genuine members of that order, and to-day it is not uncommon to find those who have temerity enough to dub themselves "Rosicrucians."

The difference is that which exists between reality and illusion, between mere ritualism and the signs printed by nature upon all things and beings passing forever up the road to higher states of existence. The Rosicrucian and Masonic fraternities known to history rely upon outward signs and tokens to indicate the status in the order of their members, who, without such guarantees, are only uninitiated outsiders.

But the Sages we speak of, and their disciples, carry with them the indelible mark and speak the well-known words that show they are beings developed under laws, and not merely persons who, having undergone a childish ordeal, are possessed of a diploma. The Adepts may be called rugged oaks that have no disguise, while the undeveloped man dabbling in Masonic words and formulas is only a donkey wearing a lion's skin.

There are many Adepts living in the world, all of whom know each other. They have means of communication unknown to modern civilization, by using which they can transmit to and receive from each other messages at any moment and from immense distances, without using any mechanical means. We might say that there is a Society of Adepts, provided that we never attach to the word "society" the meaning ordinarily conveyed by it. It is a society which has no place of meeting, which exacts no dues, which has no constitution or by-laws other than the eternal laws of nature; there are no police or spies attached to it and no complaints are made or received in it, for the reason that any offender is punished by the operation of law entirely beyond his control—his mastery over the law being lost upon his infringing it.

Under the protection and assistance and guidance of this Society of Adepts are the disciples of each one of its members. These disciples are divided into different degrees, corresponding to the various stages of development; the least developed disciples are assisted by those who are in advance of them, and the latter in a similar manner by others, until the grade of disciple is reached where direct intercourse with the Adepts is possible. At the same time, each Adept keeps a supervisory eye upon all his disciples. Through the agency of the disciples of Adepts many effects are brought about in human thought and affairs, for from the higher grades are often sent those who, without disclosing their connection with mysticism, influence individuals who are known to be main factors in events about to occur.