UNPUBLISHED LETTERS
Extracts from B.P.Wadia Letters
© 2005 Online Teosofiska Kompaniet Malmö
LETTER
14
We have to learn to see the good and the lovely side of beings and things. Nothing can be perfect in this world and we have to build our own complete perfection out of a variety of perfections mixed up with gross imperfections. Of course we must look not only in those we love but everywhere for the good and the beautiful. The Raja-Yoga chapter of the Gita (the 9th) opens with “Unto thee who findeth no fault ...” This is imperative for the esoteric life. Who bothers about your traits which you call undesirable? – and you yourself should not. Just forget about your weaknesses! And who is there who does not feel a hypocrite at times? Our ideals are high, our realizations poor, comparatively speaking. We have to keep on striving and our ideals also ascend higher each time. That is the order of progress. You, like all others, have two natures, but you certainly are not Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Let us be thankful for dismay and some despondency. They are signs that the True is near which we are aspiring to reach. We may throw down our bow and arrows – the Philosophy and its many applications; but we will not, we must not, abandon them. We may, often do, bend like reeds, but we must never break.
Weaknesses leave no void in their departure, nor do we feel frustrated when they depart! Here is a line of thought that needs to be pursued.
Why do we slip into wrongdoing? Well, is not the story explained in the closing portion of the third chapter of the Gita? The foundation of our personal nature (not always evil) is that Rajas which colours the very will to live. Inclinations of the personal soul are a motion in separativeness. Sattva unites, and for that force or motion we are labouring. Rhythm is also motion, but jerks are gone, waywardness is gone, discords are synthesized into chords. We are able to work long and late thus and at long last fatigue must disappear. Is not that the way the Masters work? The crash of kingdoms occurs, but the real Kings go on surviving with a smile, abuilding, abuilding.
What you say about the lower nature is true; animalism becomes an animal. Blood circulates in the living body, congeals in the corpse. Correspondentially, in the animal man conscience is not awake and errors and blunders circulate; but when the discipline of self-examination in the light of the philosophy of the True is practised, our foibles and frailties congeal and solidify and we, so to speak are able to objectivize them. This is related to the phenomenon of the Dweller on the Threshold. Mental errors and mind sins are a terror, and they are the neophyte’s real enemy. HPB’s statement in the Transactions is terrifying if we take this point of view. (Please see p 142.) Both the metaphysical and the psychological aspects are important. Now apply this to your own discovery about your own battlefield of mind and you have taken a new step in the Inward Life.
Of course the lower nature is insidious; machination is its second name. Mortification of the mental nature is the starting point. Mind is the base of the personal nature. Mental asceticism needs knowledge and study for “the gentle breezes of soul wisdom” to brush away the dust and the dirt. Physical exercises involving food, breathing, etc, are a snare and a delusion as causes; as natural effects they have their value.
Numerous are the exercises given for separating, even for a few moments, our mind from Kama-Tanha and turning it to higher Manas-Tanha – the will to live higher ideas. We have to think and translate our thought into silent speech. A Being of triple Light is the Self. – the Inner Guru, the Real Father, the Elder Brother. It creates, sustains and renovates. It is the True, the Good, the Beautiful. Ever a Triad: metaphysically, Atma-Buddhi-Manas – three in One and One in three. He or It is the comforter, the asylum and the friend. Along these lines you can make a start. One more fact: The S D teaches that the Spirit is one and impartite; that Matter-Prakriti is divisible. The One Purusha in the first vehicle of Prakriti is the One Eternal Monad, the Logos, the Ineffable Word, Ishvara. From Ishvara, the Eternal Monad, by the process of emanation (see Glossary) all Monads come forth. Strenuous concentration on that Inner Ruler is not possible at present. We must begin with gentle brooding in a relaxed posture.
It is the mission of Theosophy to arouse the Ego and make him note the defects of his personality. Have you considered the role of Narada, the “Mischief-Maker”? Also, please note, the Kingdom of Heaven is to be taken by violence. One should never even speculate about abandoning the fight. “Hold grimly on,” says Judge; and also, “Press forward.” The peace of the desert is a fiction. Excessive heat, sand-storms, etc, are there and tamas is prolific. We in cities are rajasic, but are now and again attacked by tamas. Sattva’s peace and repose we yearn for and are getting – more indirectly in Sushupti and a little less indirectly in our effort at meditation and the unfoldment of calm and tranquillity. Love for humanity does not suffice; it forces us to pose the question – Why is humanity suffering? Those who are not troubled by that question are not true lovers of their fellow men. Memory-Meditation is necessary for finding the safe spot for the Soul. Without that, real service cannot be rendered. Masters are Servants because They are compassionate and wise.
The causes, or rather the one cause, which led to the development of the inferiority complex in you of which you write are not difficult to understand. Our Eastern psychology teaches the great doctrine of self-reliance and spiritual interdependence and the rejection of all that makes the animal self depend upon its peculiar friends and companions, also animal in nature, which tend to lower our own estimate of ourselves. Theosophy teaches that it is better to know ourselves in our inner nature as we really are and not regard ourselves as a bundle of complexes, which is the mode for the understanding of the human personality, which Eastern psychology gives us. It is imperative that you get a clear-cut philosophical concept of what man is in his entire make-up and in his dual nature of the higher and the lower, or, to use technical terms, as a spiritual individuality and a lower personality made up of his animal nature. The psychology offered by Theosophy for the understanding of man’s make-up has two sides, metaphysical and moral. You will have to get at this if you want to help yourself in the right way. I would suggest that you read carefully the fourth chapter of The Ocean of Theosophy and the section of The Key to Theosophy which deals with the human principles, draw your own conclusions as to man’s make-up and then apply that knowledge to your own make-up. Unless you have cleared the ground of this inferiority complex and its causes, you will find that, under the law of cyclic return of impressions, from time to time you will have this inferiority complex creeping on you and disabling you from prosecuting your life-study and life-work.
B.P. WADIA
The Theosophical Movement,
April 1961, Vol 31, # 6, p 232
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