July 2018 Newsletter
The following articles are reproduced from the July 2018 Newsletter to members. Non-members may or may not be able to relate to the contents.
The Asala Festival
Bishop C. W. Leadbeater wrote in The Masters And The Path, which was first published in 1925, the following account of the Asala Festival.
“Besides the great Wesak Festival there is one other occasion in each year when the members of the Brotherhood all meet together officially. The meeting in this case is usually held in the private house of the Lord Maitreya, situated also in the Himalayas, but on the southern instead of the northern slopes. On this occasion no pilgrims on the physical plane are present, but all astral visitors who know of the celebration are welcome to attend it. It is held on the full moon day of the month of Asala, (in Sanskrit Asâdha), usually corresponding to the English July.
This is the anniversary of the delivery by the Lord Buddha of His first announcement of the great discovery—the sermon which He preached to his five disciples, commonly known as the Dhammachakkappavattana Sutta, which has been poetically translated by Rhys Davids as “The Setting in Motion of the Royal Chariot Wheels of the Kingdom of Righteousness”. It is often more briefly described in Buddhist books as “The Turning of the Wheel of the Law”. It explains for the first time the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, expounding the great middle way of the Buddha—the life of perfect righteousness in the world, which lies midway between the extravagances of asceticism on the one hand and the carelessness of mere worldly life on the other.
In His love for His great predecessor the Lord Maitreya has ordained that, whenever the anniversary of that first preaching comes round, the same sermon shall be recited once more in the presence of the assembled Brotherhood; and He usually adds to it a simple address of His own, expounding and applying it. The recitation of the sermon commences at the moment of full moon, and the reading and the address are usually over in about half an hour. The Lord Maitreya generally takes His place upon the marble seat which is set at the edge of a raised terrace in the lovely garden just in front of His house. The greatest of the Officials sit close about Him, while the rest of the Brotherhood is grouped in the garden a few feet below. On this occasion, as on the other, there is often an opportunity for pleasant converse, and kindly greetings and benedictions are distributed by the Masters among Their pupils and those who aspire to be Their pupils.
It may be useful to give some account of the ceremony, and of what is usually said at these Festivals, though it is, of course, utterly impossible to reproduce the wonder and the beauty and the eloquence of the words of the Lord Maitreya on such occasions. The account which follows does not attempt to report any single discourse; it is a combination of, I fear, very imperfectly remembered fragments, some of which have already appeared elsewhere; but it will give to those who have not previously heard of it some idea of the line generally taken.
That great sermon is wonderfully simple, and its points are repeated over and over again. There was no shorthand in those days, so that it might be taken down and read by every one afterwards; His disciples had to remember His words by the impression made on them at the time. So He made them simple, and He repeated them again and again like a refrain, so that the people might be sure of them. One may readily see in reading it that it is constructed for this special purpose—that it may be easily remembered. Its points are arranged categorically, so that when it has once been heard each point reminds one of the next, as though it were a kind of mnemonic, and to the Buddhist each of these separate and easily remembered words suggests a whole body of related ideas, so that the sermon, short and simple as it is, contains an explanation and a rule of life.
One might well think that all that can be said about the sermon has been said already many times over; yet the Lord, with His wonderful eloquence and the way in which He puts it, makes it every year seem something new, and each person feels its message as though it were specially addressed to himself. On that occasion, as in the original preaching, the Pentecostal miracle repeats itself. The Lord speaks in the original sonorous Pâli, but every one present hears Him “in his own tongue wherein he was born,” as is said in the Acts of the Apostles.”
In addition to the account by C. W. Leadbeater we also have the testimonial of Geoffrey Hodson (1886-1983), a renowned theosophist and clairvoyant and also a priest of the Liberal Catholic Church, regarding the Asala Festival. In his occult diary, his wife Sandra Hodson wrote on July 7, 1976, “Geoffrey recorded to me verbally that on one or more occasions he remembered, on awakening, an out-of-the-body experience following the Asala Festival, of attendance at the home and garden of the Lord Maitreya. Geoffrey stated, “As far as my memory goes, not only Adepts, but a considerable number of aspirants to Adeptship—devotees of the Lord Buddha, the Lord Maitreya, and the Masters of the Wisdom—were also present and listened to the discourse. Most of them, in physically influenced memory, were floating in their subtle bodies, as it were, in the air above the Lord’s garden on the southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains.”
The Third Object
By Geoffrey Hodson
For me, the third object of our Society is as important as the first and second. Recognition of brotherhood is the result of an interior awakening, whilst practical brotherhood depends far more upon inner realization than upon obedience to an ethical or social code. The highest religion, philosophy or science is that which is founded upon interior experience, direct knowledge of the hitherto ‘unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man’.
The third object is, I submit, destined to become increasingly prominent and I here suggest means by which this aspect of our movement may best be developed.
Our work in this connection is, I think, to present to the world in terms of modern thought, theosophical teachings along four main lines.
First, exact knowledge concerning the constitution of man.
Sciences based upon a study of the psyche are increasing in number — psychology, psychiatry, and psycho-analysis, for example — and it is evident that man is becoming increasingly soul-conscious.
Second, exact knowledge of the superphysical worlds, forces and intelligences. Of these also man is now becoming increasingly aware.
Third, exact knowledge concerning the senses of man, their evolution, their future natural development, their forced evolution by means of Yoga.
The apparent sensory abnormalities characteristic of the present stage of transition between the fifth and sixth senses become comprehensible in the light of this knowledge.
Fourth, guidance to the increasing number of people in whom the sixth sense, as clairvoyance, clairaudience, intuition or acute mental sensitivity, is appearing.
Children especially are in need of this guidance, lacking which, the treatment meted out to those who are hypersensitive is often cruel and harmful in the extreme. Teachers and parents all need, and will increasingly need, the scientific knowledge of this subject which Theosophy supplies.
A series of books expounding this aspect of Theosophy in non-technical terms, especially addressed to parents and teachers, is urgently needed.
The development of the sixth sense and seventh sense is inevitable. Man cannot avoid increasing sensitivity to the invisible forces continually playing on and about him. He is subjected to a perpetual bombardment of physical and superphysical energies. He lives on a mighty power house, the earth; his bodies are dynamos. Cosmic, solar and planetary forces beat upon him throughout his whole life. The development of appropriate sensory organs and powers will naturally result from response to these experiences. Everywhere are signs of this response, which is especially noticeable in present day science.
The relatively infant branch of psychology studies and classifies subjective experiences. New schools of medical practice have appeared showing an increasing recognition of the influence of physical states upon physical health, as also of the vibrational nature of the body and its organs. Instruments now exist by which the frequency of the force emanations from various tissues and organs in health and disease are measured.
In physics, a superphysical foundation or ultimate substance for the physical universe is suspected and even affirmed by certain thinkers.
Psychical research, scientific and unscientific, by spiritualistic methods is being pursued by an increasing number of people. Yet all these activities are but gropings as of blind men just beginning to see.
The Theosophical contribution surely is to show the ordered place in the universe and in man both of the invisible worlds, their forces and inhabitants, and of human experience of them.
The study of the invisible as a science, and not as a sensation, must be inculcated.
The science of Yoga, which provides the real light, needs a new presentation in terms of advanced western thought.
Lastly, I would urge upon the members of our Society the necessity for a strictly scientific presentation of third object material. Pronouncements by leading scientists now enable one to found statements concerning the invisible upon a scientific basis. Lecturers especially should take particular care to keep abreast of modern thought and to avoid loose thinking on the subject, and the public presentation of imperfectly grasped ideas. All members should refrain from the premature introduction into conversation with new acquaintances of psychical teachings, experiences and theories.
The extreme of sanity must mark every utterance of the Theosophist concerning psychic and occult matters. The inherent reasonableness of Theosophy, and not its more sensational aspects, should be stressed whenever the subject is discussed.
Thus I submit we can render great service to a world uniquely prepared for, greatly needing, the sublime occult teachings of which we are in part the stewards.
Theosophy in Australia, 3, 2 April 1938
Reprinted from Sharing the Light, Volume II