Theos-Talk Archives (February 1995 Message tl00006)

Sorry to say that I don't know the texts that you refer to; will
have to get my hands on them.

I've been intrigued by the whole matter of the Great White
Brotherhood.  To date the attempts to come to grips with its
origins do not take into account what is blatantly obvious to me:
the bodhisattva sangha.  Your reference to some 200 Tibetan
manuscripts is VERY interesting.  In Blavatsky's day very little
credence was given to Tibetan Buddhism; by and large the early
strata of Anglo-German Buddhology was prejudiced against Tibetan
Buddhism, perhaps finding reinforcement of Victorian Puritanism
in Theravada.  One suspects the erotic aspects of Tibetan
iconography furhter colored perceptions.

Today we know Tibet, as well as China, Korea and Japan share in a
common mythological, symbolic, and soteriological tradition
concerning becoming a bodhisattva in this very life; furthermore,
the vajrayana of the Far East is far older than traditions extant
in Tibet.  Those traditions of what I've named "Bodhisattva
Buddhism" speak of the Bodhisattva Sangha - the assembly of
persons of varying stages and degrees of maturing illumination.
Quite frankly, I find the Great White Brotherhood to be identical
to the Bodhisattva Sangha - and readily available to the Western
mind and heart.  I'd thus be interested to know what mms were
brought from the Tibetan frontier, and shall have to read the
works you've mentioned.

Ignorantly yours.
Ken O'Neill