On False and True Mahatmas (part 2)

Continuation of the Part 1

Undeclared sources

Another remark of Turley, indicating that he did not fully understand what and how I am proving in the article, is the remark that the source of the quotation from the epigraph to Blavatsky's article “Tibetan Teachings” is indicated by her, contrary to what I am reporting, as Kangyur. However, I have no and did not have any claims to the fact that Blavatsky's “mahatmas” (and she herself) cite Buddhist literature without naming a specific work from which a quotation is taken. There is nothing reprehensible in such anonymous quotations in themselves ‒ this is a completely standard technique in Tibetan commentary literature. The problem is that all these quotes from these works, as has been shown, were borrowed not from the conventional “Tashi Lhunpo library,” but from fresh Western publications. And these publications of Blavatsky are not indicated in any way ‒ obviously, with the aim of giving readers the impression that they are available to her and her characters directly, in the original.

In my report, due to its limited volume, not all known cases of hidden borrowing by the author of the ML of quotations from Western translations were mentioned. Thus, a fragment of the letter No. 45 beginning with “Look around ...” and ending with the words “lust and desire” is a free retelling of a fragment from Beal's book [Beal 1871: 196-197]. This was determined by D. Reigle.

From the same place [Beal 1871: 173-188] is a retelling of a large fragment of the mahayanic Parinirvana-sutra, compiled by a “mahatma” (No. 127) into several altered phrases that seemed to be the most expressive. It is very significant that the “mahatma” identifies in the letter the source of the text he cites as “Parinirvana Sutra Kiouen XXXIX,” that is, just like Beal. But whereas Beal had previously told his reader what “kiouen” is ‒ “volume, book” in Chinese, the “mahatma” leaves Sinnett in the dark about this.

Another case of defective copying from Beal is in the letter No. 16. It mentions “Djnana Prasthana Shaster,” which supposedly contains the words: “by personal purity and earnest meditation, we overleap the limits of the World of Desire, and enter in the World of Forms.” This is a word-for-word quotation from Beal's book, but he did not establish the source of this quotation, and the Djnana Prasthana Shaster is mentioned on the same page as a possible source of not this but another quotation given there [Beal 1871: 86].

Blavatsky used the fruits of the works of modern Buddhists not only to present her “mahatmas” as experts in the Buddhist canon, but also to construct Buddhist pseudo-quotations. So, in the letter No. 16 (1882) there is the following fragment:

“... none of these Skandhas is the soul; since the body is constantly changing, and that neither man, animal, nor plant is ever the same for two consecutive days or even minutes. "Mendicants! remember that there is within man no abiding principle whatever, and that only the learned disciple who acquires wisdom, in saying 'I am' ‒ knows what he is saying."”

This is a paraphrase of a paragraph from Rhys Davids's book on the life and teachings of the Buddha, published in the same year [Rhys Davids 1882: 93-94]:

“It is repeatedly and distinctly laid down in the Pitakas that none of the Skandhas or divisions of the qualities of sentient beings is the soul. The body itself is constantly changing, and so of each of the other divisions, which are only functions of the living beings, produced by the contact of external objects with the bodily organs. Man is never the same for two consecutive moments, and there is within him no abiding principle whatever.”

From this description of the doctrine of impermanence and the absence of the true “I,” made by Rhys-Davids himself, Blavatsky constructed a pseudoquote of the Buddha, stylizing it as a fragment of a certain sutra (“Mendicants! Remember…”) and, moreover, putting the words about “I am” and “the learned disciple” into his mouth.

However, the most frank evidence that Blavatsky's “mahatmas” sought to impress the readers of their letters as experts in Buddhist literature and its languages is contained in the famous “Letter about God” (1882, No. 10), which ends with a real quote from the Pali canon. After giving advice to Hume: “Read the Mahavagga and try to understand <...> what the Fully Enlightened one says in the 1st Khandhaka,” “mahatma Koot Hoomi” then says: “Allow me to translate it for you ...” and then quite close to the text rewrites a fragment of the English translation by Rhys-Davids and Oldenberg from the “Vinaya Texts” book [Vinaya 1881: 75-78], published a year earlier. That is, here the “mahatma” not only hints that he has the original text before his eyes and speaks the Pali language, but directly declares that he himself is the author of the translation given in his letter.

This is no longer just “some expressions already in common usage in this or that Buddhological or other work,” which, as Bazyukin says, Blavatsky (like her “mahatmas”) could well have used for a Western audience to better understand her thoughts. This is the appropriation of the fruits of someone else's labor, passing off someone else's knowledge as their own. If it seems appropriate for Turley to reproach me for not mentioning in my article the names of those people who had seen the Tibetan “sku” (body) in “A-ku ‒ body” from the “Cosmological Notes” before me, even though it was quite simple for this to look into any English-Tibetan dictionary, with which everyone who has set himself such a task has successfully coped with, then should not the systematic appropriation of other people's merits by the “mahatmas” suggest their dubious honesty?

But one could probably turn a blind eye even to such cases if, along with hidden quotations from Western publications, the “mahatmas” cited at least some Buddhist literature that has not yet been translated into English. But there is nothing like that at all. Instead, the “Indo-Tibetan Brothers” willingly flaunt their knowledge of the philosophy of Hobbes, Bacon, Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Spencer, the prose of Bulwer-Lytton, Shelley, Thackeray and Shakespeare, the poetry of Coleridge, Milton, Arnold, Tennyson and Butler, as well as scabrous French songs. Despite the fact that, according to their own statements, the “mahatmas” knew the words and thoughts of all the people who lived and live, for some reason they used only those of them that happened to catch the eye of only one person ‒ Blavatsky.

Non-Buddhist Buddhism

In the ML and other early philosophical sources, the veneration of Tsongkhapa's figure by the “mahatmas” has been repeatedly declared. Among all the Tibetan mentors, it is Tsongkhapa, along with the Tashi Lama (No. 23b), who “mahatmas” honor in their letters not only by at least some attention and mention but even with membership in their “brotherhood.” The Dalai Lama is mentioned only in passing (No. 54, 98).

Well, I do not argue with the fact that Tsongkhapa was a mahatma ‒ in any case, this is how one of his traditional titles can be translated from Tibetan into Sanskrit ‒ “bdag nyid chen po” (usually preceded by the word “rje” ‒ “lord”). In general, this title, “great being,” is not so rare in Tibetan literature, where it refers to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, as well as to some other eminent mentors. For example, this is the name of the head of the Sakya school, the main monastery of which Blavatsky, following Köppen, declared the main stronghold of the “shammars” ‒ the worst enemies of Tsongkhapa and his teachings.

So, for theosophical “mahatmas” of all Tibetan lamas, only Tsongkhapa and Panchen Lamas have indisputable authority. And yet we do not see in the ML a single quotation from their works ‒ neither direct nor indirect. There is not even the slightest mention of at least some of the teachings and provisions contained in “The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment,” the “Stages of Mantra” or other famous works of Tsongkhapa. True, once in the article “Lamas and Druses” Blavatsky still advises the reader to refer to the “Great Treatise.” But for what? It turns out, to make sure that the lamas, like the Syrian Druze, have the idea that when good and evil shall come to an equilibrium in the scales of human actions, “then the breath of “Wisdom,” will annihilate in a wink of the eye just 666 millions of men. The surviving 666 millions will have “Supreme Wisdom” incarnated in them” [Blavatsky 1981: III-289]. Maybe this “esoteric Lamrim” of the “esoteric Tsongkhapa” is consistent with what “mahatma Morya” whispered to H. Roerich 70 years later: “Leave any regret for the millions condemned to death, devoid of spirit, lifeless. You can ardently say for certain that those who are deprived of spirit are real lifeless ones and cannot incarnate again” [Roerich 1953]. But in the real “Great Treatise” of the real Tsongkhapa, of course, there is and can be nothing of the kind.

In the “teaching of the mahatmas” there are a lot of other statements that directly contradict the content of Je Rinpoche's main work ‒ for example, that it is impossible for a person to be reborn as an animal, etc. I have already written about how their followers relate to the “freedoms and riches” of being born as a person. The word “stong pa nyid” (“emptiness”), denoting the most important concept, to the explanation of which Tsongkhapa devoted the lion's share of the main work of his life, is used in the Letters once, and then ‒ not in its true sense but ... “ironically” (as Turley interprets it). What can we say then about the acquaintance of the “mahatmas” with the works and teachings of some other Tibetan mentors besides Tsongkhapa?

In general, in the writings of Blavatsky, one can notice a double-natured position in relation to Buddhist literature. On the one hand, she and her characters willingly cite sutras that happened to be translated into English and fall into their hands, as an authoritative source. On the other hand, the mass of other canonical texts, such as, for example, the entire composition of the Tantra Section (“Kiu-te”), are declared by them to be just a blind for the uninitiated ‒ those seem to have “real” analogues available only to the “mahatmas” and their followers. As a rule, Blavatsky declared texts that were inaccessible to her, which, as she knew, had an important status and could potentially conflict with the teachings that she preached, to be “fake.” Thus, Blavatsky did not hesitate to classify as “blinds” and “inventions” even the most famous cycle of five treatises devoted to the doctrine of the Tathagatagarbha, which is known as the “Five Teachings of Maitreya” (byams pa'i chos lnga) [Blavatsky 1925: 195]. She learned about the existence of five short treatises of Buddha Maitreya (“Champai chhos nga”), written in verses, from a book of Schlagintweit [Schlagintweit 1863: 32]. Declaring them fictitious, she declared that the five treatises of Maitreya which are “non-fiction” were written in prose and accessible to her - just as, one must think, to other adherents of the “Secret Doctrine”. Apparently, they did not include dozens of Indian and Tibetan mentors who left comments not on some “secret” but on the well-known five treatises. Even such great teachers as Asanga and Atisha, as well as one of Tsongkhapa's two closest disciples, Gyaltsab Dharma Rinchen, turned out to be so short-sighted that they seriously quoted and interpreted what, according to Blavatsky, was a fiction created only to divert the eyes!

Some excuse for these simple-minded Indians and Tibetans, who were not familiar with the “Secret Doctrine” and therefore failed to recognize the “false” pentateuch of Maitreya, could be the fact that one quote from it sneaked into the “Mahatma Letters.” This is about the phrase “The only refuge for him who aspires to true perfection is Buddha alone,” which “mahatma Koot Hoomi” copied from T. Lewin's manual to the envelope of the letter No. 92. Had Lewin pointed out in his manual that this phrase comes from Ratnagotravibhāga, which is one of the five well-known and therefore “falsified” treatises of Maitreya, he could have saved Koot Hoomi from this annoying oversight. Indeed, can an adherent of the “mahatma teachings” agree that Buddha is the only refuge for those who seek the highest, without making reservations that are irreconcilable with the Buddhist doctrine of refuge in the Three Jewels? The “profaneness” of Ratnagotravibhāga is only aggravated in the stanza following the one that was recklessly quoted by the mahatma. It explains why Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are like jewels: in particular, because they are rare and supreme [Maitreya 2017: 144‒145]. That is why the Three Jewels (rin chen rnam gsum) are also called the “Highest Rarities” (dkon mchog), and it is known from the “Cosmological Notes” that by the term “Kon Chhog” the “mahatmas” called by no means Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, but an “Uncreated Principle,” “Narayan ‒ Spirit brooding over the waters and reflecting in itself the Universe,” as well as “Universal Mind,” which goes far beyond the usual, “exoteric” explanations of this term by Buddhists.

It would seem that both Turley himself and Bazyukin, quoted by him, agree that the “teaching of the mahatmas” “is not at all reduced to Buddhism and is not limited to it,” or even “diverges from the exoteric, i.e. generally accepted provisions of Buddhism.” As we can see, it is impossible to argue with this, especially since it became quite obvious even during Blavatsky's life. Nevertheless, Turley makes an attempt to doubt the words that those rare truly Buddhist terms like “bde ba can,” “sems can,” “dkon mchog” and several others that come across in the “teaching of the mahatmas” are interpreted there in isolation from the Buddhist tradition. It would seem, why undermine own thesis? But here, too, Turley tries to question my words with the following confused reasoning:

“However, “Bde ba can” in the writing of “Devachan” has, among other characteristics, those of Sukhavati. It is hard to say that “Sems can” in the sense of “Animated Universe/Organized matter” (as they are reflected in the “Notes”), which is already close to one of the meanings of purusha, cannot necessarily correspond to Buddhist sattva. “Dkon mchog” in the spelling “Kon Chhog,” as mentioned above, has the meaning of Universal Mind, so that it can correspond to one of the meanings of the Buddhist dictionary, that is the Buddha as God.”

It is difficult to say how this or that transcription of the same word can influence its meaning, but, be that as it may, Buddhist Devachen (bde ba can; Skt: Sukhāvatī) is the so-called “pure land” of Amitabha Buddha, where after death only a consciousness that had previously established a close connection with him through prayers and good wishes, or thanks to someone else's help through the procedure of “transference” (pho ba), enters. At the same time, there are a number of other “pure lands” ‒ Tushita, Potalaka, Akanishta, Abhirati, etc. And theosophical “Devachan” is an obligatory intermediate state between two births, where the “Higher Ego” of every person gets after death. Thus, the theosophical teaching about Devachen not only does not correspond to the Buddhist but is practically opposite to it.

It is curious to see how “Koot Hoomi” explains the etymology of this word (No. 69):

“The meaning of the terms Devachan and Deva-loka, is identical; “chan” and “loka” equally signifying place or abode. “Deva” is a word too indiscriminately used in Eastern writings, and is at times merely a blind.”

In fact, “bde ba” is “bliss,” and “can” is a particle indicating possession; thus, literally the word is translated as “[land] endowed with bliss.” As for the Tibetan counterpart of the word devaloka, it is “lha'i khams.”

The term “sems can” (literally “[a being] possessing consciousness”; Skt. Sattva) in Buddhism is used in relation to individual living beings ‒ and not at all the universe in which they live, and not the matter of which their bodies are composed. The use of the expression “sems can” when describing “organized matter,” and, moreover, with the clarification that it is “earth, as an element” ‒ definitely does not correspond to the meaning in which this term is used in Tibeto-Buddhist literature.

As for the expression “dkon mchog,” it would be extremely interesting to know in which such “Buddhist dictionary” it is translated “the Buddha as God.” The expression “Kon Chhog” Blavatsky copied not from a “Buddhist dictionary,” but, as we already know, from Jaeschke's dictionary, where it really translates as “Most High, God.” It allowed her to present this expression as a Tibetan analogue of the “Supreme Reason.” Meanwhile, before us is another example of Blavatsky's ignorant reproduction of other people's erroneous fabrications. Literally, “dkon mchog” translates as “rare [and] supreme” and is an epithet of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, emphasizing their outstanding merits and the fact that meeting them in this world is a great rarity and great luck [see Tsongkhapa 1994: 225-238]. At that, there is no question of any “God,” “Universal Mind.” But where does Jaeschke have such an interpretation? The fact is that his predecessors in the field of Christianization of the inhabitants of Western Tibet, Catholic missionaries, saw in the Buddhist doctrine of the “Three rarest and highest” (dkon mchog gsum) a trace of the doctrine of the Trinity, in connection with which translating “dkon mchog” using the word “God” was considered missionarily appropriate. Jaeschke reflected this option in his dictionary, accompanying it, however, with a very eloquent remark: “In the mind of the people, in spite of all my theological superstitions: an otherwise unknown omniscient being, the Most High, God.” Naturally, the expression “dkon mchog” in the meaning of “Supreme Mind” or “Supreme God” occurs in no Buddhist Tibetan text proper.

I cannot but cite here one more passage by Turley, in which he tries to interpret the expression “dkon mchog.” The degree of ignorance in the Tibetan language and the basic teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, coupled with the categorical confidence in his ability to speak out about them, demonstrated in it, is comparable to that of Blavatsky herself:

“But it must be taken into consideration that “san-gye” (སངས་རྒྱས), being a calcque of the Sanskrit Buddha, combines the attributes of enlightenment and awakening. Although the origin of “K'houtchoo” is linked to “Buddha-Kleinod,” the Buddha as one of the jewels of the doctrine, which corresponds to “Dkon mchog,” there is also the consonant གང ཟག (“gang zag”), "person."”

First, the Tibetan “sangs rgyas” is not a copy of the Sanskrit “Buddha.” “Buddha” in Sanskrit literally means “awakened” or “learned,” while Tibetan “sangs” is “purified” (from imperfections, defilements) and “rgyas” is “expanded” (virtues, wisdom). Yes, the Tibetan translators decided not to translate this Sanskrit word literally, considering it more important to convey to their audience the meaning that is reflected in their proposed phrase. In the same way, they did not copy the word “Bodhi” (“Enlightenment,” “Awakening”), translating it as “byang chub.” Although “enlightenment” and “awakening” are simply Western translations of the same Sanskrit term, Turley for some reason separates them in meaning and also states, as if both of these meanings correspond to the meaning of the Tibetan words “sangs” and “rgyas.” I do not undertake to express any assumptions about what allowed him to make such conclusions.

On the other hand, it seems, it is clear why Turley proposes to discern in the crippled transcription “K'ho(n/u)tchoo” the word “gang zag,” or rather, at least some other word that does not form a completely meaningless combination with the first one, “sangs rgyas.” Let me remind you that in one of the letters of “mahatma Koot Hoomi” (No. 49), Shakyamuni Buddha is called “Sankia K'ho(n/u)tchoo, the precious wisdom.” In Köppen's book, to which a number of threads already lead from the writings of the “mahatmas”/Blavatsky (“Chohan,” “Dhyani-,” “toong-ting,” “Dugpas” and “Shammars” as opponents of the “reformer Tsongkhapa”), there is the expression “Sangdsche Kontschog, Buddha-Kleinod.” It would seem that both the English “precious” in “Koot Hoomi” and the German “Kleinod” in Köppen translate as “precious” and fully correspond in meaning to the Tibetan “dkon mchog.” “Sangs rgyas dkon mchog” is a traditional, sustainable combination, the meaning of which had already been said earlier. So why, on what grounds, did Turley need a strained version of “gang zag”? Apparently, only on the fact that “among mahatmas” the expression “dkon mchog” (“rare and supreme”), as has been shown, already means something like “the Highest Mind,” “God” ‒ “the sixth principle of the Universe.” And these concepts do not correlate with the figure of Buddha Shakyamuni. So, it was necessary to find some other version.

Finally, there is one more case of artifacts of Christian missionary work in Western Tibet getting in the writings of Blavatsky, connected with the one just described. Above, I talked about how, in the course of her dashing etymologization, she cited the word “pho nya,” taken from Jaeschke, as an example, interpreting it as “an angel, a messenger of good news.” However, Jaeschke translated not just this word with the word “angel,” but the phrase “dkon mchog gi pho nya,” literally “messenger of the rare and the highest,” which in the understanding of local missionaries, who rethought the Buddhist doctrine in the key they needed, meant “messenger of God.” Jaeschke openly points out that this expression is from the translation of the Gospel into Tibetan. However, in his dictionary, this expression is not written in transcription, but in Tibetan script, which Blavatsky did not know and therefore could not discern her “sixth principle of the Universe” in it. Instead, she, wishing to bring the word “pho nya” closer to the word “‘phags pa” (holy, noble), stated that it translates as “messenger of good news.”

In fact, the Tibetan “pho nya” (messenger, envoy, servant) has a neutral meaning, that is, it does not say anything about the nature of the messages it brings. As for the Tibetan religious literature proper, in it this word is almost most often used in the combination “gshin rje'i pho nya” ‒ “the messenger of the Lord of the Dead.” The news that the messengers of Yamaraja usually bring are usually far from pleasant, and they do not look at all like fine-looking Christian angels ‒ they are with a dark-colored body, horned, with bared fangs.

It is curious that a creature very similar to this description appeared in a vision of Helena Roerich in the fall of 1926, which she spent in Ulan Bator in anticipation of the start of an expedition to Tibet. “The strangest thing is that the creature was surrounded by a silvery glow. This creature, looking at me intently and viciously, said: “It will be worse there!” ‒ [I] realized that it was hinting about the upcoming difficulties on the way to Tibet,” ‒ Roerich wrote in her diary [Roerich 1926: spread 58‒59]. It is well known how the expedition's attempts to get to the Tibetan capital ended. It turned out that the “creature” told the truth, and the voice of “mahatma Morya,” who had repeatedly assured her throughout a year that they would triumphantly enter Lhasa as representatives of Western Buddhists and would be engaged in the reconstruction of Tibetan Buddhism, deceived her expectations.

Rudely dismissed, the Roerichs, at the suggestion of the same “Morya,” immediately became imbued with disgust for Tibet and its “Lamaism,” willingly believing the words of the “mahatma” about its imminent destruction. Therefore, the fact of the death of the old Tibet as a result of the invasion of the Chinese is perceived by today's Roerichites, familiar with the content of Helena Roerich's “secret notebooks,” with secret joy ‒ this is how the prophecy of their “Master” was fulfilled. As for Blavatsky, she did not have such a turning point ‒ from the very beginning she treated Tibetan Buddhism with disdain, considering it possible to juggle its fundamental concepts as she liked and making use of a relatively little knowledge about Tibetan Buddhism in the West at that time. At the same time, Tibet itself was closed to those who, wishing to check the truth of her information about the “mahatmas,” would decide to go to the Panchen Lama in Tashi Lhunpo or to the “Nganglaring-Tso monastery” and find out everything on the spot.

It seems that it is precisely to the inaccessibility of Tibet for Europeans in the 19th century that we owe to a large extent the fact that the “mahatmas,” under the pen of Blavatsky, received exactly a Tibetan residence. If during the period of her life it was not Tibet but, for example, Sri Lanka, that was isolated, then instead of “Tibetan brothers, the keepers of esoteric Buddhism in the strongholds of the Himalayas” the European public could well have learned from her about some “Ceylon brothers, who for thousands of years have kept secret knowledge on their inaccessible island.”

This is the greatest blessing

In conclusion, Turley and Bazyukin advise me to pay “close attention” to the content of the SD, rather than to explore the sources that allowed Blavatsky to create this and her other texts. First, the task of my research was to establish the sources of information about the religion and culture of Tibet contained in the “Mahatma Letters,” and through this ‒ to clarify the attitude of Blavatsky (their author) to Tibetan Buddhism and, accordingly, to concretize her role in the spread of Buddhism to the West. In view of these tasks, I did not need to attract such a source as the SD and analyze the views of Blavatsky reflected in it, especially since the SD “is not at all reduced to Buddhism and is not limited to it, which she says in detail in the introduction to her main printed work,” as, in fact, both of these translators of Theosophical literature remind.

I had no “idea of reducing the appearance of the theosophical texts of the Mahatma letters at all costs to the realization of the vain aspirations” of Blavatsky, as Turley states ‒ even because the authorship of these letters was quite satisfactorily established in the end of the XIX century. Such a subject of research in our time would be, to put it mildly, not particularly relevant. I also did not have any personal special dislike for the work of Blavatsky ‒ on the contrary, before taking up this topic, I felt a certain reverence for this figure in connection with her indirect participation in the popularization of Buddhism in Europe. Like B.S. Grechin, I believed that although the “mahatmas” did not exist exactly as described by Blavatsky, some real Tibetan lamas could well have stood behind these figures, with whom she could occasionally communicate. Alas, the analysis of the ML's Tibetan vocabulary and Blavatsky's articles did not show any signs of the reality of such communication, revealing instead the characteristic features of falsifications and forgeries, same both there and there, which, in general, is not surprising. I did not want to reveal in Blavatsky the contemptuous and indifferent attitude she concealed towards Tibetan Buddhism either. However, the facts revealed testify to this quite unequivocally.

At the same time, I do not in the least deny that Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” is a very original and important monument of the European religious and philosophical thought of the end of the XIX century, and in this sense it undoubtedly deserves the attention of specialists. However, I believe that the overwhelming majority of those who read and translate it today are not interested in it at all in this capacity, but see in it a source of some timeless wisdom ‒ that is, what it declares itself to be.

Why investigate the sources of the Mahatma Letters? Exactly for the same reason why E.V. Turley himself went through all the pages of books I have indicated, trying to find factual and logical flaws in my statements ‒ so that, having ascertained the degree of conscientiousness and competence of the author, he could decide whether it is possible to trust the information and conclusions contained in its text. This is a completely correct and responsible approach. But if, in relation to criticism of the Letters he does not have any questions about the need to check it, then why do the Letters themselves deserve his trust without a preliminary check?

Buddha Shakyamuni himself, whose followers “Moriya,” “Koot Hoomi” and Blavatsky called themselves, advised not to take his word for it, even if out of faith and respect, but on the contrary, to check his teachings as carefully as merchants check gold in the bazaar ... Only after making sure of the truth of those of his words, which you can check, and thereby establishing whether you can trust the speaker, you should take on faith those of his words, the truth of which you are not yet able to establish for one reason or another. Actually, it is precisely this instruction of the Buddha that is reflected in one of the stanzas of the Maha-Mangala Sutta (Tib. “Bkra shis chen po'i mdo”), that is part of the “Short passages” (Khuddakapatha), which, according to “Mahatma Moriya” (No. 43), is allegedly passed down in his family from generation to generation: “Not to associate with the foolish, but to associate with the wise; and to honor those who are worthy of honor ‒ this is the greatest blessing.”

So, the Buddha advises not to honor everyone who declares himself a sage, but only those who are really worthy of respect; believe those who are worthy of faith. The decision about this worthiness should be made not according to some “call of the heart,” but based on one's own impartial consideration of the merits and merits of a person. Likewise, Tsongkhapa, who is supposedly revered by the “mahatmas,” does not say that one should follow anyone who claims to be a spiritual master and wears lama’s clothing. Providing in “The Great Treatise” a whole list of conditions that the one must meet, he notes that “if you rely without knowing how, you will not profit, but lose” [Tsongkhapa 1994: 89]. The head of Buddhist monasticism in the capital of Mongolia in the 1830s, the famous Hambo Lama Agwan-Haidav, spoke out on this matter even more categorically: “Unreasonable following [a spiritual mentor] is a sign of a fool, and it is not included in the list of conditions for receiving the Dharma.” [“Ngag dbang mkhas grub”, leaf 12a].

Please do not consider these quotes as unsolicited advice of a spiritual nature. I just wanted to show that the “exoteric” Buddha, the “exoteric” Tsongkhapa and their followers did not demand unconditional faith in themselves, even when they taught the most simple and “profane” things. Seeing the benefits for the students in this approach, they called for their trust in anyone else to rest on solid foundations. Why should blind faith be required regarding the esoteric revelations of theosophical “mahatmas,” which they declare to be incomparably more important than “moral platitudes for the common people”?

Also, I hope, these quotes will answer the question: why am I, being a Buddhist myself, and therefore, trusting some of the Buddha's teachings, which have not been confirmed by Western science until now, so categorically refuse to the “mahatmas” in trust and “the right to a miracle”? Let me remind you that initially I was not so categorical. But if the study of even such a particularity as the Tibetan vocabulary in the ML has exposed their author (or authors, whoever they are) in such an unattractive light, then not only trusting their other works, but simply being interested in them seems to me extremely doubtful business, unless, of course, one studies the history of the Theosophical movement on a professional basis. Fortunately, my own research interests only touch on this topic in passing, and I hope that after completing my excursion into the “caves and jungles” of Blavatsky's writings, I will never have to return there again.

བ་ལབ་སི་ཀི་མིང་ལྡན་བུད་མེད་ཀྱིས

ལབ་ལབ་མང་པོས་གཞན་གྱི་རྣ་བ་ཁེངས

སི་སི་སྒྲ་ཆེས་ལམ་ནོར་འཁྲིད་པ་དང

ཀི་ཀི་བརྗོད་ཅིང་མུ་སྟེག་ལྷ་ལ་བསྟོད

སྐུ་ཐུ་མེད་དང་མུ་ར་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི

བདག་ཆེན་བཅོས་མའི་རྗེས་སུ་འགྲོ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས

རང་གི་བསྟན་པ་གང་ཡང་མི་སྦས་པའི

བདག་ཉིད་ཆེན་པོ་བདེན་ལ་བརྟེན་གྱུར་ཅིག

དམ་ཆོས་གསལ་ཕྱིར་གསུངས་རབ་འོད་གསལ་ཀྱིས

མ་རིག་ཕུག་གྱི་མུན་པ་ཡང་དག་སེལ

ལོག་ལྟའི་ནགས་ཚལ་རལ་གྲིས་གཅོད་མཛད་པ

འོ་ཅག་དྲོངས་ཤིག་བླ་མ་འཇམ་པའི་དབྱངས

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