Theos-Talk Archives (December 1995 Message tl00166)

Here's one I prepared earlier:
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ON THE HIDDEN MASTERS

Again and again in occult writings reference is made to higher
beings who when the time is right appear to instruct and
enlighten the student pupil or aspirant. While this is
undoubtedly true after a manner of speaking it is clear that
some very strange ideas must exist in the minds of readers of
occult literature. Maybe it is possible for an aspirant to
higher knowledge to flit off in the astral body to mysterious
Tibet or the fastness of the Himalayas there to sit at the
feet of some ancient wizened guru who will either also be in
the astral or will have full astral vision in the physical.
This may be possible certainly but it is not very likely.

We may with considerable justification wonder why such
"masters" do on occasion appear to give countenance to
contradictory statements as contradictory as the very ordinary
differences of opinion which pass among we lesser beings. Let
us endeavour to clarify the situation.

Hidden teachers there most certainly are but to think of them
as knowing all things is unwise. No doubt in their various ways
they may individually be adept in some art or another but that
strangely enough does not for any practical purpose concern
an aspirant to higher knowledge. They are most certainly beings
at a higher level of existence than those of us in the human
state or better higher intelligences with higher but not
necessarily absolute knowledge and understanding. Hidden they
may be but not from choice on their part - they have no
inclination to be either hidden or not hidden from ourselves.
They are hidden simply due to the inability of the average
person to become aware of them.

When a student of life's mysteries raises consciousness to a
sufficiently high level then individual awareness will abut upon
the level at which these intelligences have their being and for
the student the teacher may seem to appear. In truth it is
rather different. In the event that wondering and wandering
consciousness touches upon the experience of a higher
intelligence so will questions be answered from the knowledge
of that intelligence.

Such intelligences or teachers are not however sitting up yonder
somewhere in a higher state waiting for pupils to pop in with
questions. Nor do they spend their time watching benevolently
over any human flock like a shepherd with the sheep. As we at
our level are gathering experience in life so at another
level are higher intelligences. The One Life permeates through
all levels without as Thomas A Kempis put it "respect of
persons." From The point of view of higher intelligences it is
the student who appears as impinging upon their consciousness
where it was not impinged upon before: and they are perfectly
aware of it.

Such a higher consciousness is part of what in Christian terms
may be called the communion of saints. In broader terms this is
a communion of individual intelligences in permanent
communication; but generally speaking at our level of being
unconsciously - which is for most of us very fortunate. When
the aspirant after higher things touches usually briefly the
higher levels he or she becomes for a short time part of this
communion shares in the higher life and knowledge comes
according to need. Not it must be added according to fancy
or ideas of self. In this higher communion there is no
identification no idealisation; here is knowledge of reality;
aspirants are aware in their own higher selves and are their
own teachers by virtue of the higher communion. This is both
more practical and reliable than any form of astral travelling.

As for apparent differences of opinion emanating from various
intelligences it may be that like us they differ among
themselves. It may also be and is very likely so that we have
made contact imperfectly and that the higher "voice" is that of
our own dreams telling us what we would like to hear. On a
contemporary note we may wonder why "masters" and not
"mistresses" are usually mentioned in the older writings. The
answer is most likely that as the study of the Mysteries has
been for at least two thousand years the privilege of men
then these discarnate intelligences are largely former male
human beings. Since the latter part of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth centuries this has begun to change
and we may be sure there are on what Dion Fortune called the
inner planes an increasing number of former female human
beings to keep her company there along with such luminaries as
H.P.Blavatsky.

["Channelled" and reworked over the years with magisterial
approval as a result of direct personal experience by Alan
Bain who hereby places this text in the public domain].

Alan
--
Member Theosophy International.
Member Human Race.