WHAT WERE THE T. S. MASTERS THE MASTERS OF ? PART III

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WHAT WERE THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY MASTERS THE MASTERS OF ? PART III

 

by H H Tridandi Sannyasi Bhakti Ananda Goswami Maharaja

Shiksha (instructing) Master, Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya lineage of

Vaishnavism

 

TAKING A REAL-WORLD HISTORICAL APPROACH TO THE CONTENT OF THE MAHATMA

LETTERS

 

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR AN INITIAL VAISHNAVA,

PURE LAND BUDDHIST, AND SHIVA-SHAKTI AGAMIC AND TANTRIC REVIEW OF THE

LITERATURE, THE "MAHATMA LETTERS", AS COMPILED BY BARKER, AND

AVAILABLE TO SEARCH ONLINE FROM THE THEOSOPHICAL UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

 

An Historical Approach

 

Whether or not God or gods exist, their worship certainly does, and

such worship can be studied rigorously in an interdisciplinary way in

history, the same as any other real-world phenomenon. In the same

way, the innovation and diffusion of Theosophy can be studied.

Thoughts, theistic, atheistic and agnostic etc., and the symbols,

words and actions which express them have history. While people of

equal intelligence and integrity may dispute the existance of God,

gods, or the Theosophical Masters, the existence of religion and

theosophy is not debated. It is easier to trace the course through

time and territory of the popular exoteric 'Great Religions' than it

is to trace the innovations and diffusions of the elitist esoteric

traditions. Never the less, the esoteric traditions have real-world

history too, and with some additional effort, much can be learned

about these as well. Paul Johnson has noted the sui generis problem

(see below). The historical approach to the study of a religion

(or 'spirituality', I might add), is often experienced as threatening

by faithful.

 

"kpauljohnson"

Wed Nov 20, 2002 7:33 am

Synthetic vs. authentic; why genealogical dissociation

occurs

 

 

 

...."Where authenticity comes in, IMO, is in the frank acknowledgment

of

the synthetic nature of the teaching. Cayceites who insist that the

Readings are direct transcriptions of the Akashic Record; Baha'is who

insist that Baha'u'llah's writings are direct words of God;

Christians who insist that Jesus is the one and only Son of God whose

words are the absolute and ultimate truth; Theosophists who insist

that HPB's Theosophy is the ancient wisdom tradition from which

everything else devolved; ad nauseum are engaged in what David Lane

calls genealogical dissociation. That is, denying the actual, always

complex genealogy of the belief system and pretending that it is sui

generis, direct truth straight from The Source. I don't think

Hinduism or Buddhism are exempt from this behavior pattern, although

they do tend to a bit more self-honesty about the history of ideas."

 

BA G : In fact, that "...self-honesty about the history of

ideas.",is exactly what the system of sampradaya or parampara and

GURU,SHASTRA and SADHU (GSS)is all about in the authentic teaching

lineages of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shakti-ism, Buddhism and

Catholicism etc. These exoteric traditions all attempt to preserve

their sacred heritage, by systems of initiation and apostolic

succession. For example, one cannot just claim to be a Madhvite or

Ramanujite Vaishnava master, any more than one could claim to be a

Coptic Catholic bishop without the authority of the Coptic rite

Patriarch. No one can serve as a bishop in the Roman Rite Catholic

Church, without the proper elevation of the Pope. No one can just

claim to be the next Dalai Lama or Patriarch of any of the Vaishnava,

Shaivite, Shankarite Advaitan, Hasidic Jewish, traditional Sufi or

Catholic Rite lineages. All of these 'apostolic' traditions

zealously guard their teaching authority, which preserves the guru,

shastra and sadhu history of their ideas and practices. The real-

world checks and balances system of guru (living teacher in union

with the magisterium), shastra (scripture, canonical body of

writings) and sadhu (the tradition of the saints, mystics,

theologians and commentators), provides exoteric religions with a way

to try to safe-guard the historical integrity and continuity of their

traditions. Thus the legitimate lineages of Vaishnavsim, Shaivism and

Buddhism etc. are extremely strict about properly identifying their

history of ideas and practices. No one can speak from the

Vyasasana 'ex cathedra' without proper lineage credentials.

 

In practice, this means that I can trace certain ideas in my specific

lineage back thousands of years, because each generation has

identified its accepted sources, heroes and associations with those

of previous generations. I can also trace some of the major and

minor branching-out of ideas and practices from the main 'trunk' of

my lineage, and identify some groups that are proximately or remotely

related to my own today. Because there is such a high value placed on

such parampara or sampradaya lineage affiliations in the main Indic

traditions, studying these has enormous value for an historian of

religion. It is because of this "...self honesty of the history..."

of their ideas, that India and Tibet etc, have any recorded history

to be studied at all. It has been said that Indians wrote no history

of India. However, this cannot be said if one is considering the

histories of the great religious traditions of India, whose vast

libraries were full of detailed accounts of the lives and thought of

the generations transmitting their sacred traditions. One of the

great tragedies of the Muslim invasion of India, was the vast

destruction of Indian religious center monastery-university cities

and all their libraries.

 

Unfortunately in our time such destruction of temples and libraries

is still going on, but this time it is not just fanatical Muslims

doing it. The Sinhalese Buddhist 'Aryans' have recently occupied

hundreds of Tamil (principally Shaivite and Devi)temples, and have

destroyed about a hundred thousand volumes of priceless Tamil

literatures in the last ten years. This campaign for the cultural

annihilation of the Dravidian Tamils by the so-called 'Aryan'

Sinhalese, is one reason that scholars of religion, such as myself,

are concerned about the perpetuation of the 'Aryan' race-myth.

 

Despite such barbarism, and in consideration of the amazing amount of

information still available from ancient texts, archeology and the

intact living GSS traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, there is ample

evidence available for the study of the "Mahatma Letters" in the

historical context of their "...complex genealogy..."

 

Suggestions For an Initial Survey of the Literature

 

Because we have the Theosophical University Library Edition of

the "Mahatma Letters" in a searchable format online, one way to

approach an understanding of the Mahatmas' mastery from the

perspective of the Tibetan Buddhist-related Hindu and Buddhist GSS

traditions, is to search the Letters for key terms associated with

those GSS traditions. Completing such a search can establish the

initial evidentiary parameters of our textual investigation. In

assessing what the Mahatmas were the masters of, we can learn much

from what is NOT INCLUDED IN THE LETTERS.

 

So let us begin with some of these key terms. The Mahatmas claimed

an identity-with and love for India, which they significantly DID NOT

CALL BHARATA. The use of European terms, instead of the ones

like 'Bha_rata", which real ancient Indian Mahatmas would be expected

to use, is one of the most striking things to a real master and lover

of that ancient land and culture.

 

Here are some of the Sanskrit terms I have already searched in the

over 100 "Mahatma Letters", and the results, which are quite

revealing. In my search, I used several variant spellings, and the

singular and plural forms of the word. However for brevity, only the

main search term or name is given with the totals below. Next to the

word is the total number of references in the Mahatma Letters, pulled-

up by the Theosophical University search program. There seems to be

no reflection of Agamic or Dravidian Vedic spirituality in

the "Mahatma Letters".

 

Places / States

 

goloka 0

bhuloka 0

bhumi 0

vrindavan 0

bharata 0

kailasa 1

vaikuntha 0

sukhavati 1

loka 8

swarga 0

vyuha 0

 

Giver (masculine) Deity Names

 

Vaishnava

 

chrishna 2

vishnu 4

hari 0

purusha 4

narayana 0

avatar 3

devadeva 0

surya 2

indra 0

chandra 1

kama 12

vishvakarman 0

brahma 6

deva(s) 21

 

Shaivite

 

shiva 2

kala 0

hara 0

maruga(n) 0

kartikeya 0

skanda 0

ganesha 0

ganapati 0

 

 

 

Related Receiver (Feminine) Divine Names

 

Vaishnava

 

radha 0

sakti 2

prakriti 3

ganga 0

ma 2

sarasvati 0

lakshmi 0

sri 1

padma 1

narayani 0

tara 0

gayatri 0

tulasi 0

 

 

Shaivite

 

kali 1

uma 0

parvati 0

durga 0

maya 16

devi 0

yogamaya 0

 

 

The Tradition of Sita-Rama

 

ramayana 0

valmiki 0

tulsidas 0

rama 1

ramachandra 0

sita 0

janaki 0

hanuman 0

ravana 0

 

Some Shastra Titles, Important Names and Terms

 

vyasa 1

vyasadeva 0

mahabharata 0

veda 1

upanishads 0

agama 0

tantra 0

shastra 1

samhita 0

sutra (s) 3

sama 0

rig 0

yajur 0

ayurveda 0

saddharma pundarika 0

bhagavadgita 0

bhagavat 1

bhagavatam 0

gita 1

jataka 0

hitopedesha 0

pancatantra 0

 

Mahatmas Identified themselves as Buddhists

 

buddha 18

buddhism 24

buddhist 13

bodhisattva 0

 

Aryan and Race Term Search

 

arya 1

aryan 9

aryans 4

 

race 31

races 16

varna 0

dravidian 0

 

 

Material Modes of Nature

 

sattva 0

raja 3

tama 0

guna 0

 

Some Additional Important Terms

 

bhakti 0

kama 12

jnana 0

vidya 4

dharma 0

karma 38

vishva karman 0

 

Ages and Cycles

 

kalpa 1

yuga (s)1

sattya

treta 0

dvarpara 0

kaliyuga 0

 

Worship and Sacrifice Related terms

 

mantra 0

japa 0

puja 3

pujari 0

purohita 0

murti 0

soma 0

agni 0

yupa 0

nama 0

rupa 9

yoga 4

 

Some Great Masters Accepted by the Vaishnavas

 

caraka 0

madhva 0

jayatirtha 0

vyasatirtha 0

ramanuja 0

vallabha 0

vishnuswami 0

nimbarka 0

jayadevagoswami 0

caitanya 0

shankara 0

 

Some Master Titles and Lineage Words

 

acharya 0

goswami 0

alvars 0

sadhu 0

saddhus 1

sampradaya 0

parampara 0

diksha 0

siksha 0

sannyasi 0

 

Finite and Supreme Spirit Words

atma 5

atman 2

jiva 2

jivatma 4

paramatma 0

parabrahmn 6

brahman 1

[Vishal_Sharma 0]

dear gurubhaiyo,

 

i am new at this website and i am keenly interested to learn different sadhna but i am unable to find a GURU who can lead me to the path of SADHNA.

 

pls help me..........

 

 

regards

Vishal