September 2020 Newsletter
The following articles are reproduced from the September 2020 Newsletter to members. Non-members may or may not be able to relate to the contents.
Significance of Your
Membership
“Think you truth has been shown to you for your sole advantage? That we have broken the silence of centuries for the profit of a handful of dreamers only? The converging lines of your karma have drawn each and all of you into this Society as to a common focus, that you may each help to work out the results of your interrupted beginnings in the last birth. None of you can be so blind as to suppose that this is your first dealing with Theosophy? You surely must realize that this would be the same as to say that effects came without causes. Know then that it depends now upon each of you whether you shall henceforth struggle alone after spiritual wisdom thro’ this and the next incarnate life, or, in company of your present associates and greatly helped by the mutual sympathy and aspiration. Blessing to all—deserving them.”
A Master of the Wisdom
Membership Renewal
We are truly appreciative of your support. You have supported the Singapore Lodge Theosophical Society in various ways. Some of you have volunteered as co-workers of our lodge, helping in the management and running of the T. S. in Singapore. Others have made it a point to come regularly for lodge meetings, thus helping to generate beneficent thought power with far reaching effects and making the lodge a vibrant spiritual centre. Some have donated generously to our coffers. Still, a large percentage of members have not been able to participate actively in the activities of the lodge for one reason or another. Saturday, although the preferred day for lodge meetings for most members, is not the best day for others. Unfortunately, some members have other commitments on Saturdays and are therefore unable to come for lodge meetings. For that very reason, we decided to conduct the Mahatma Letters Study Class on a weekday evening. Indeed, we realize that there is no ‘perfect’ day that can suit all members. Over a period of time, mainly as a result of infrequent attendance, some members begin to lose interest or find themselves increasingly indifferent to our cause. These same members are the ones who are prepared to allow their memberships to lapse. We have lost many members this way.
We need members for very good reasons, not least of which is the financial support required. As our only means of subsistence is membership subscriptions, the more members we have the more viable we will become financially. In this respect, I am happy to say that we do have many members who remain sympathetic to our cause. Many of our members, though not active owing to other commitments, have found it worthwhile to continue paying their subscriptions year after year. Although we hardly see this group of members—shall we call them the invisible helpers—we are grateful to them all the same for their continued financial support. That is perhaps the next best thing that we may expect from members—renewal of subscriptions—if they cannot be with us physically.
It is that time of the year again—membership renewal time. Those members who have the Society’s interest at heart and those who continue to relate to our cause will no doubt continue to support the Society financially, if not physically, by paying their annual subscriptions and continuing their membership. Those members who have not been coming to the lodge may alas wonder if they should or should not continue their memberships with the Society. To those of you, my friends, who find yourselves in such a predicament, may I share some thoughts with you?
All of us joined the Theosophical Society for pretty much the same reasons initially. We had a strong interest in theosophical teachings or we could relate to the ideals and objects of the Society or we believed in spiritual philanthropy and the Society’s cause. All these do not change simply because we do not go to the lodge anymore. Indeed, your support is required more than ever to ensure the survival of the lodge for posterity. In order that future generations will continue to be inspired and guided by Theosophy, we must all do our part to preserve this institution—the Theosophical Society.
Should you think about not continuing your membership, you may wish to ask yourself why not? Just because you don’t have time to go to the lodge anymore? We know that is not a good enough reason, for if we cannot support the T. S. physically, we can certainly support it financially. Because you cannot afford it? At $69 per annum or less than $6 per month, the subscription is quite a nominal sum and should not be a problem for anyone who is gainfully employed. Even at the sacrifice of other things, it is for a noble cause. Consider it charity if you wish. Because you cannot relate to the ideals and objects of the Society? Try to recall why you joined the T. S. in the first place. What has changed? Certainly not the teachings nor ideals.
The Singapore Lodge Theosophical Society needs all the support it can get to carry out its role as a part of the great theosophical movement worldwide. Karma has brought you to the Society for whatever reasons. We hope you will not sever this karmic link.
For those of you who do not wish to be bothered with the annual reminders, you may choose to renew your membership automatically by setting up Giro payments or by standing bank transfer instructions through your own bank. More than 80 members have already made such arrangements. You can join this growing group by giving us your Giro instructions. Your continued membership and financial support will most certainly make a difference to the lodge’s viability. We are counting on your continued financial support!
Guru-Chela Tradition
An extract from Light
of the Sanctuary where an Adept communicates with Geoffrey Hodson
When a student and practitioner of yoga reaches the required state of advancement, he always comes under the direction of a Guru. The Guru-chela tradition and practice correspond very closely to the Mystery System. In fact, apart from some differences of method, they are identical. Every yogi who has attained a certain degree of renunciation, self-purification, and at least the beginnings of Causal consciousness, comes under a Guru.
He or she is then both taught and very secretly and privately submitted to an Initiation. This means that the Guru - himself an Initiate - does actually perform a ceremony upon the chela. Every successful Yogi - from Shri Shankaracharya through Kabir and on to Yogananda and Rama Krishna - passed through the yogic form of Initiation.
The method differs from that of the Ancient Mysteries, but degrees of Egoic consciousness are successfully bestowed and entered. Believe me, despite differences of wording and partial public knowledge in different ages and parts of the world, the system is the same and identical. Those Yogis in India, Shri Shiva and Shri Ramana Maharishi, and their equals had all been Initiated by a Senior, even though, sworn to secrecy, they would not normally reveal the fact. In this Fifth Race period no one can break through from the rupa into the arupa worlds without help.
To this must be added the fact that when a person has once been Initiated (attaining arupa consciousness), there is the possibility of a repetition in a later life, in order to bring about the preceding condition in the physical body. This re-Initiation, occurring whilst out of the body, may or may not be remembered on waking.
Every great and illumined Yogi or Yogini was and is an Initiate. The effects of the occult processes of Initiation and the consequent development of seership depend upon the tremendously complicated problem of the individual karma for that life. If, for example, an aspirant, in all sincerity, asks of the Lords of Karma that all adverse karma be paid off as quickly as possible, no matter what it may cost in pain to the personality, then the concentrated “paying off” may include brain-sickness and so brain bedullment. The Ego is fully initiated and enjoying all the arupa and rupa results from astral body inward, but the poor “crucified” personality and brain cannot know the fact. Hence one interpretation of the cry of the Lord Christ upon the Cross in utter loneliness and darkness, “My God, my God. Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Geoffrey, when I hovered beside your bed in Dunedin [New Zealand], it was not
only to teach you, at that particular time, about our Egyptian symbology. I knew
then of all these possibilities, including the collaboration between you and
Myself that later became established and is now continuing, and, happily, will
still continue for some years. Of this possibility I was well aware, and this is
why, on instruction, I then came. Indeed, such plans for the helping of humanity
and the choosing of human collaborators by an Adept may extend over several
lives. Your contacts with Bacon and Occultism in Elizabethan times contained all
the possibility of the present conjoined work. Moreover, your next life is
included in potential plans for a continuance of Our Work. And, if you can
believe it, even the Egyptian life co-operation included this same possibility;
so also, during the Eleusinian lives in Greece. Thus, a thread runs through, and
conjoins very favourably, a large number of lives.