Good-bye then, dear Mr. Sinnett and Mrs. Sinnett. Whether I die in a few months or remain two or three years in solitude I am as good as dead — already. Forget me, and try to deserve personal communication with the Master. Then you shall be able to preach him, and if you succeed as I succeeded you shall be hooted and insulted as I was, and see whether you can stand it. The Oakleys urge me to write to my aunt and sister and ask her to send me the design of the pearl brooch I sent them in 1880. I refuse. Why, should I? The brooch phenomenon proven, then will come out some other proved fraudulent by false witnesses. I am tired, tired, tired and so disgusted that Death herself with her first hours of horror is preferable to this. Let the whole world, with the exception of a few friends and my Hindu Occultists, believe me a fraud. I will not deny it — even to their faces. Say so to Mr. Myers and others.
Good-bye, again. May your life be happy and prosperous and Mrs. S.'s old age more healthy than her youth. Forgive me the annoyances I may have caused you and — forget.
Yours to the end
H. P. BLAVATSKY
Letter No. 136 (ML-65) Rec. Spring 1885
This letter from the Mahatma K.H. is enclosed in a letter from H.P.B. found in LBS pp. 75-77. In the postscript to her letter, H.P.B. writes: "At this very instant I receive a letter for you. I enclose it — pardon me, but I do hope — it is the last, for I have no more strength to suffer."
Received London, Summer, 1885.
My friend:
You ask me "to throw light" upon the "new distressing event" arising from Mr. A. Gebhard's fanciful accusation? For the matter of that, dozens of events of a far more distressing character, each of them calculated to crush the hapless woman chosen as victim, are ripe and ready to burst over her head, wounding as badly the Society. Again, I should have imagined that, after my signal failure to satisfy your rigorous logicians in the "Billing — Massey" and "Kiddle — Light" incidents, my personal opinion and explanations were held in small honour in the West? You seem, however, to think with Whewell that "every failure is a step to success" and your confidence in me must alarm seriously your friends?
With your permission, I have left the explanation of the "distressing incident" to Mad. B. herself. As she wrote to you, however, only simple truth, there is very little chance for her of being believed, save perhaps, by her few immediate friends — if she has any left by the time this reaches you.
You must have understood by this time, my friend, that the centennial attempt made by us to open the eyes of the blind world — has nearly failed: in India — partially, in Europe — with a few exceptions — absolutely. There is but one chance of salvation for those who still believe: to rally together and face the storm bravely. Let the eyes of the most intellectual among the public be opened to the foul conspiracy against theosophy that is going on in the missionary circles and in one year's time you will have regained your footing. In India it is: "either Christ or the Founders(!!) Let us stone them to death!" They have nearly finished killing one — they are now attacking the other victim — Olcott. The padris are as busy as bees. The P.R.S. has given them an excellent opportunity of making capital of their ambassador. Mr. Hodgson fell quite easily a victim to false evidence; and the scientific a priori impossibility of such phenomena helping the reality of the phenomena he was sent to investigate and report upon is utterly and totally discredited. He may plead as an excuse the personal disappointment he felt, which made him turn in a fury against the alleged authors of the "gigantic swindle"; but there is no doubt that if the Society collapses it will be due to him. We may add the praiseworthy efforts of our mutual friend of Simla (A.O. Hume) who has not, however, resigned, — and those of Mr. Lane-Fox. What Society could withstand in its integrality the effects of two such tongues as those of Messrs. H. and L.F.! While the former, taking into his confidence every theosophist of note, assures him that since the beginning of the Society not one of the letters alleged to have come from the Masters was genuine, Mr. L. Fox goes about preaching that he is only carrying out the wishes of the Master (M.) in acquainting the theosophists with all the defects of the T.S. and the mistakes of its Founders whose Karma it is to betray the sacred trust they had received from their Gurus.
After this you will, perhaps, blame less our chelas for detesting the Europeans at H.Q., and saying that it is they who have ruined the Society.
Thus, my friend, there comes a forcible end to the projected occult instructions. Everything was settled and prepared. The secret Committee, appointed to receive our letters and teachings and to convey them to the Oriental group, was ready, when a few Europeans — for reasons I prefer not mentioning — took upon themselves the authority of reversing the decision of the whole Council. They declined (though the reason they gave was another one) — to receive our instructions through Subba Row and Damodar, the latter of whom is hated by Messrs. L. Fox and Hartmann. Subba R. resigned and Damodar went to Tibet. Are our Hindus to be blamed for this?
And now Hume and Hodgson have goaded Subba Row to fury by telling him, that as a friend and fellow occultist of Madam B.'s he was suspected by the Government of being also a spy. It is the history of the "Count St. Germain" and Cagliostro told over again. But I may tell you, who have ever been faithful and true to me the fruits of your devotion shall not be allowed to decay and crumble down into dust from the tree of action. And now, may I not say a few words that may prove useful?
It is an old truism that none of you have ever formed an accurate idea of either the "Masters" or the laws of Occultism they are guided by. For instance, I, because I have received a bit of Western education — must needs be fancied as the type of a "gentleman" who strictly conforms his action to the laws of etiquette, and regulates his intercourse with Europeans after the regulations of your world and Society! Nothing could be more erroneous: the absurd picture of an Indo-Tibetan ascetic playing at Sir C. Grandison need hardly be noticed. Nevertheless, having failed to answer to the said description, I was hung in effigy, and publicly branded and degraded, as Mad. B. would say. What a poor parody! When shall you realize that I am nothing of the kind? That if, to a certain extent, I may be familiar with your (to me) peculiar notions about the propriety of this thing or another, and the obligations of a Western gentleman, so are you, to a degree, acquainted with the manners and customs of China and Tibet. For all that, as you would decline to conform yourself to our habits and live according to our customs — so do I, preferring our modes of life to yours, and our ideas to those of the West. I am accused of "plagiarism." We, of Tibet and China, know not what you mean by the word. I do, but this is no reason, perhaps, why I should accept your literary laws. Any writer has the privilege of taking out whole sentences from the dictionary of Pai-Wouen-Yen-Fu the greatest in the world, full of quotations from every known writer, and containing all the phrases ever used — and to frame them to express his thought. This does not apply to the Kiddle case which happened just as I told you. But you may find, perchance throughout my letters twenty detached sentences which may have been already used in books or MSS. When you write upon some subject you surround yourself with books of references etc.: when we write upon something the Western opinion about which is unknown to us, we surround ourselves with hundreds of paras: upon this particular topic from dozens of different works — impressed upon the Akasa. What wonder then, that not only a chela entrusted with the work and innocent of any knowledge of the meaning of plagiarism, but even myself — should use occasionally a whole sentence already existent, applying it only to another — our own idea? I have told you of this before and it is no fault of mine if your friends and enemies will not remain satisfied with the explanation. When I shall undertake to write an original prize-essay I may be more careful. For the Kiddle business it is your own fault. Why have you printed the Occult World before sending it to me for revision? I would have never allowed the passage to pass; nor the "Lal Sing" either foolishly invented as half a nom de plume by Djual K. and carelessly allowed by me to take root without thinking of the consequences. We are not infallible, all-foreseeing "Mahatmas" at every hour of the day, good friend: none of you have even learned to remember so much. And now for Occultism.