The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett

Letter No. 70

Please keep this strictly private.

My dear Mr. Sinnett,

My telegram was fruitless then — so be it. You are on a false track and have committed un faux pas. You misunderstood me. He has as much right to call himself Dharbagiri Nath, as "Babaji." There is — a true Dh. Nath, a chela, who is with Master K.H. for the last 13 or 14 years; who was at Darjeeling, and he is he of whom Mahatma K.H. wrote to you at Simla. For reasons I cannot explain he remained at Darjeeling. You heard him once, you never saw him, but you saw his portrait his alter ego physically and his contrast diametrically opposite to him morally, intellectually and so on. Krishna Swami's, or Babaji's deception does not rest in his assuming the name, for it was the mystery name chosen by him when he became the Mahatma's chela; but in his profiting of my lips being sealed; of people's erroneous conceptions about him that he, this present Babaji was a high chela whereas he was only a probationary one and now cast off (of which he knows nothing yet, as I am told, and ordered to tell you privately and confidentially, never to him, as he would either commit suicide, or ruin the Society in his revenge). Now do not ask me anything more, for if I had to be hung, publicly whipped, tortured I would not, never would dare tell you anything more. You speak of "deceptions," mysteries, and concealments in which I ought "never to be involved." Very easily said by one, who is not under the obligation of any pledge or vow. I wish you, with your European notions of truthfulness and "code of honour" and this and that would try for one fort-night. Now choose: — either to proclaim the little you do know, and that I was permitted to let you know for your own guidance — and thus throw one more shadow of opprobrium upon the blessed Masters — upon Mahatma K.H. who introduced to you and recommended His own chela — and will be regarded also as a deceiver, a liar, one who palmed off upon you a probationer of one year, making you believe he was a favourite chela of his having lived with him for ten years — or keep it secret, for people will never understand the whole truth, not even the Spiritualists. Tell a Spiritualist — that a Spirit, a "dear departed one" got into some medium who thus personated that "departed spirit" his very features assuming for the time being the exact likeness of that Spirit — and every Spir.ist will believe and support you. Tell them that one living D.N. came to you at Simla, and another living D.N. the prototype of the first remained at Darjeeling and still remains and lives now even to this day with the Masters — and people will call us all liars, deceivers, and humbugs.

Yet all this would be nothing — in comparison with the new sacrilege — with a loud or even implied inference that a Mahatma whoever he may be had acted deceitfully in the matter. It is that ignorance of Occult transactions that gave such a hold to Hodgson and Massey and others. It is my obligatory absolute silence that now forces me to live under the shower of people's contempt. It is to be or not to be: we Occultists devoted to Masters have either to put up with Their laws and orders, or part company with Them and Occultism. I know one thing, that if it came to the worst and Master's truthfulness and notions of honour were to be impeached — then I would go to a desperate expedient. I would proclaim publicly that I alone was a liar, a forger, all that Hodgson wants me to appear that I had indeed invented the Masters and thus would by that "myth" of Master K.H. and M. screen the real K.H. and M. from opprobrium. What saved the situation in the Report was that the Masters are absolutely denied. Had Hodgson attempted to throw deception and the idea that They were helping, or encouraging or even countenancing a deception by Their silence — I would have already come forward and proclaimed myself before the whole world all that was said of me and disappeared for ever. This I swear "by Master'S blessing or curse" — I will give a 1000 lives for Their honour in the people's minds. I will not see Them desecrated.

Now do as you please. I asked you by telegraph not to say or write anything to Bowaji. Now he has a hold on us not we on him by that accusation; for he is cunning enough to know that whatever you, and the Countess and I know to be the truth — the world in general will not believe it, and that such theosophists as the Gebhards for instance would only have to choose between his word and mine. And he has so prejudiced them against Olcott and myself and the phenomena and even your Esoteric Buddhism doctrines, he has so psychologised them into the belief that I am psychologising the Countess and yourself — that it will be a terrible work to undo what he has done.

Mohini is sure to take his defence as a Hindu; and now that he is himself in trouble may side with him (Bowaji) though I do not know for certain, it all depends upon whether Mohini is guilty or not in the Leonard case. If he is — then he is a ruffian and a hypocrite capable of anything. If he is not then he is a martyr. You see I am kept entirely in the dark about him, Mohini. What do I know about him, his real inner life except what the Masters allow me, know and tell me? He may be the blackest villian and Masters have cast him off as a probationer long ago — for what I know. But I do hope he is innocent for I have a great affection for him more than he knows. I am so lonely, so miserable in my earthly human affections that having lost all those I love — through death and the T.S. associations (my sister, for one, who writes me a thundering letter calling me a renegade a "sacrilegious Julian the Apostate," and a "Judas" to Christ) I love the two boys. Well I feel Mohini is all right morally, but oh God if he stops in London long he is lost.

Well, please a bit of business. I have absolute need of Mohini for S.D. and the glossary of Sanskrit words and other things unless he comes, or copies, all such words from MSS that I will send to you. I can never be ready by next autumn and this work is another kind of a "hairpin" than Isis. There are more secrets of initiation given out in the Introductory Chapt. than in all Isis. And what comes after is still more interesting. But I am utterly miserable about its mechanical arrangement. I have written and rewritten about twenty times this blessed Chapt. I have cut off and shifted the paras: and passages and sections and sub-sections until I am sick of it. Fancy Masters giving out the secret of the "Divine Hermaphrodite" even! and so on.

Please now keep Bowaji's secret. I send you his letter of to-day — copies from yours to him and his to you. Please compare carefully his original and this copy, for I have reasons to believe that he has added something in the copy in which I find plenty of his fibs. But never mind — he is right to call the charge of the name D.N. being a false one "a fib —" for it was never meant so. What I said and repeat is that he is not the real D.N., the Chela who lived with his Master for so many years. Yet he is a Chela so long as Masters have not proclaimed publicly and through the Theosophist that he has failed — and, he is D.N. this being as he truly says — his "mystery name."

Yours
H.P.B.

I have a letter from Russia, Moscow, offering me if I leave the Antichrist (!!) T.S. one thousand roubles in gold (5,000 francs) monthly and a contract for several years to write exclusively for two papers. I wish they may get it.



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