On the Future Schools of Meditation

Since its 1922 publication in Letters on Occult Meditation, by Alice Bailey, the information given out by the Master D.K. about future schools of meditation has resulted in or influenced a number of experimental undertakings. Having undertaken one of these ourselves, 1984-1986, I believe it worthwhile to record some results of our experience, for its possible usefulness in other attempts that may follow. Although D.K. calls them, future schools of meditation, he also says here that they will prepare people for initiation, and even says elsewhere that the Rules for Applicants for initiation and the Rules for Group Initiation will form the foundational courses of these coming Schools of the Mysteries, in their two grades, preparatory and advanced.1 This preparation for initiation is what was referred to in earlier Theosophical writings as chelaship training. This is something quite new in the West. In her article, Chelas and Lay Chelas, H. P. Blavatsky says about the selection of chelas, or disciples:
For centuries the selection of Chelasoutside the hereditary group within the gon-pa (temple)has been made by the Himalayan Mahatmas themselves from among the classin Tibet, a considerable one as to numberof natural mystics. The only exceptions have been in the cases of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico della Mirandola, Count de Saint-Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this celestial science more or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal relations with them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) proportion of the whole truth as was possible under their social surroundings.2

In Discipleship in the New Age, D.K. tells us the same thing:

On the Future Schools of Meditation

For me, there is also the problem of excessive expenditure of force as I attempt to reach each of you and to study each of you at certain intervals. There is the work, at long range, of reading your minds, of seeing your light, and of vitalising your auras. This has not hitherto been the problem of the Eastern Teachers, except in very rare cases.3

So any school attempted in the West that is supposed to prepare people for initiation, that is, for chelaship or discipleship, will necessarily face new problems that the Eastern Teachers have not hitherto had. What can we do to make it easier for them, we wondered. The time-honored rule has always been that you come to them, not they to you. We are told in The Mahatma Letters:
True, we have our schools and teachers, our neophytes and shaberons (superior adepts), and the door is always opened to the right man who knocks. And we invariably welcome the new comer; only, instead of going over to him he has to come to us.4 If you really want to be a chela i.e. to become the recipient of our mysteries, you have to adapt yourself to our ways, not we to yours.5 Let him come by all means, as the pupil to the master, and without conditions; or let him wait, as so many others have, and be satisfied with such crumbs of knowledge as may fall in his way.6

How can we adapt ourselves to their ways? The single biggest obstacle, that they called attention to again and again, seemed to be the language barrier.
First of all and again I will draw your attention to the tremendous difficulty of finding appropriate terms in English which would convey to the educated European mind even an approximately correct notion about the various subjects we will have to treat upon.7 Our mystic terms in their clumsy re-translation from the Sanskrit into English are as confusing to us as they are to you8

On the Future Schools of Meditation

Such is unfortunately the inherited and self-acquired grossness of the Western mind; and so greatly have the very phrases expressive of modern thoughts been developed in the line of practical materialism, that it is now next to impossible either for them to comprehend or for us to express in their own languages anything of that delicate seemingly ideal machinery of the Occult Kosmos.9 I would only draw your attention to the formidable difficulties encountered by us in every attempt we make to explain our metaphysics to Western minds, even among the most intelligent. Alas, my friend, you seem as unable to assimilate our mode of thinking, as to digest our food, or enjoy our melodies!10

Seeing this, we determined to help fit ourselves for receiving their teachings by making the study of Sanskrit, the language of the gods, a basic part of our curriculum. Of course, since the time these statements were made, a working English vocabulary was successfully used by D.K. and Alice Bailey in their joint books. These books included so many previously unknown teachings, and were written in such clear language, that readers were perhaps lulled into a false sense that perfection of expression in English had been achieved in them. But as Foster Bailey wrote about these books in 1950, the year after his wife Alices death:
The spiritual truths dealt with involved in many cases the expression by the lower concrete mind (often with the insuperable restrictions of the English language) of abstract ideas and hitherto quite unknown concepts of spiritual realities. This unescapable limitation of truth has been frequently called to the attention of the readers of the books so produced but is all too often forgotten.11

Once some of these insuperable restrictions of the English language have been directly seen through the study of Sanskrit, the inescapable limitations of truth that these cause even in the clear and profound Bailey writings become apparent. It was

On the Future Schools of Meditation

through a comparative study of a dozen or so translations of the Yoga-stras that this truth came home to me, and anyone else can easily do the same thing and see this for themselves. Meditation Instruction On the basic subject of meditation to be taught in these future schools of meditation, we know that meditation is as much a science as any of the physical sciences that are so well developed in modern times. The most systematic account of the science of meditation possessed by humanity, coming down to us from quieter times, is the Yoga-stras of Patajali. This fact is no doubt why the Master D.K. chose to translate or paraphrase this ancient text for us, rather than try to re-map this science himself. This text, then, along with the commentary by Vysa that preserves its traditional exegesis, formed the basis of the teachings on meditation in the three-year foundation course of our curriculum. Our curriculum, it should be noted, was conceived as a preparatory to the preparatory school curriculum, and not the latter as such. It was our understanding that in the real schools there would be initiate consciousness available that could assign specific meditation appropriate to each individuals particular needs. We conceived our task to be preparatory to that. To put it more bluntly, we worked from the premise that the Masters should not have to babysit would-be disciples who did not yet know the basic principles of meditation, or the basic doctrines of the Wisdom Tradition, or who had not yet made compassion part of their daily aspiration. In our own case, we did not wish to passively assume that we would be spoon-fed in English, so we actively sought to adapt ourselves to the teachings by Sanskrit study. We wanted to offer the Masters materials to choose from, in the form of ourselves, that were in some way comparable to what they could choose from on their home turf. These choices, we may recall, were normally people who had spent twenty years mastering the five texts of the Tibetan monastic curriculum, and who were already practicing meditations more advanced than the highest available in the West.

On the Future Schools of Meditation

On more advanced meditation techniques, D.K. tells us in Discipleship in the New Age of the importance of visualization:
All the new processes in meditation techniques (for which the New Age may be responsible) must and will embody visualisation as a primary step. . .12

When reviewing some of the newer truths that he brought out to the world of modern esotericists, he reiterates:
A presentation of the newer type of meditations, with its emphasis upon visualisation and the use of the creative imagination. . .13

In introducing these newer truths, he explained that they were not new to everyone:
There are certain phases of teaching and knowledge which I have given to the world which are relatively newnew to the modern esotericist and occult student though not new to disciples and initiates.14

As we know, most of these disciples and initiates who they were not new to lived in Tibet and India; and indeed, the newer type of meditations in which visualization is primary reached Tibet a thousand years ago, and India long before that. This type of meditation is what is taught in the Buddhist tantras, or Books of Kiu-te.15 These meditations, available only to those who have received initiation into them, are distinguished from the meditations taught in the stras, available to anyone, by the use of visualization as their primary technique.16 They are also distinguished from the publicly available meditations by their use of mantras.17 In D.K.s letter of 1920 on mantric forms, he says that these will some day be in common use among the students of occult meditation, and proceeds to indicate somewhat the types of mantrams there will be in use, or are now in use among those privileged to use them.18 Those privileged to use them have always been the people of India, and in the last thousand

On the Future Schools of Meditation

years, the people of Tibet. That he means the mantras now in use by these people is made clear by a following statement:
These forms or mantrams are much more in use among orientals and in the eastern faiths than at present among occidentals. As the power of sound is more completely understood and its effect studied, these mantrams will be adopted in the occident.19

He concludes this letter on mantric forms by saying:

I have touched upon the matter because no book on meditation would be complete without a reference to what will some day supersede all preliminary meditation. When the race has reached a certain point of development, and when the higher mind holds greater sway, these occult mantramsrightly imparted and rightly enunciatedwill be part of the ordinary curriculum of the student.20

Thus, he did not give mantras here, but only called attention to the future basic role they will play in occult meditation in the occident. Since the 1970s, initiations for tantric meditations, which use visualization as their primary technique in conjunction with mantras, have become fairly widely available in the West. This is due to the displacement from their homeland of large numbers of Tibetans, including many high lamas, or teachers. These teachers are qualified to rightly impart these meditations through the initiations they give, something quite impossible in the occident during the time of D.K.s work with Alice Bailey. The coming of Tibetan Buddhism to the West is thought by us to be the Hierarchical effort in the last quarter of the twentieth century,21 through which the key elements of occult meditation, namely, visualization and mantras, became available here. The highest of these teachings is Kalachakra, and this was scheduled in our curriculum for the sixth and seventh years. To undertake this, initiation is an absolute prerequisite, which not only gives permission to practice but also safeguards the practitioner. As I put it elsewhere to emphasize this necessity:

On the Future Schools of Meditation

This is no trifling matter, and the publicly given Kalachakra initiations should not be regarded as mere external ceremonies which are no longer needed by new age disciples.22

The only one of these tantric meditations whose practice can be undertaken without receiving initiation is Vajra-sattva. It is the first tantric meditation taught in the Tibetan tradition. Vajra-sattva is, according to our investigations, what the Ageless Wisdom Tradition calls the Solar Angel. Vajra-sattva meditation includes a detailed visualization, then, of the Solar Angel,23 with its color and sound, the Vajra-sattva mantra. The transmission of mantras, however, presents another problem. Tibetan lamas are certainly qualified to rightly impart meditations such as this, but they give the mantras in a modified Tibetan pronunciation. I do not consider this to be rightly enunciated, in D.K.s terms quoted above. D.K. says about mantras:
Some of them are very old and when enunciated in the original Sanskrit have unbelievably powerful effects.24

All the mantras transmitted by the Tibetan lamas are in fact in the original Sanskrit, since these could not be translated into Tibetan, so were kept in Sanskrit. But to be rightly enunciated, they must be pronounced as in Sanskrit rather than as modified in Tibetan. This is one more reason why Sanskrit was required in our curriculum. The time devoted to meditation in the preparatory school of occult meditation is to be increased gradually by the student, says D.K., until during his final year he will be expected to give five hours a day to meditation.25 A basic purpose of meditation is contact with the soul, or Solar Angel. This, however, cannot go on for long without some manifestation of this soul contact in service. What, then, does the student do in the six quiet months of the year when the sun moves northward, during which the inner life is the focus rather than outer activity? From time immemorial, there has been cultivated in the East what may be called meditation as service. The recitation of the Vedic mantras was performed to perpetuate the cosmic order,

On the Future Schools of Meditation

and the associated yajas, or sacrifices, were performed to bring about planetary attunements or alignments.26 Even up to modern times, these activities would occupy a devout Brahman for five or more hours a day.27 Students of a preparatory school of occult meditation in the occident, however, cannot do this, and something else will have to be found to occupy them for five hours a day of meditation. At a certain point in time, it is reported, the then king of ambhala brought about a transition from the Vedic practices prevalent in his kingdom to the new Kalachakra practices he brought in. These very practices have now become available in the occident. I have called attention to these things in my book, Klacakra Sdhana and Social Responsibility.28 Sdhana is what this type of tantric or occult meditation practice that is based on visualization and the use of mantras is called. Tibetan teachers such as the Dalai Lama spend hours each day performing their sdhanas, that we would call occult meditation. The Kalachakra sdhana, moreover, is different from other sdhanas, in that it affects global society as a whole. As put by the Dalai Lama:
Other Tantric practices are related to the individual, but the Klacakra seems to be related to the community, to the global society as a whole.29

This would be meditation as service, and one could easily spend five hours a day performing the visualizations required in its full length form. A major goal of our curriculum was to eventually enable students to undertake the regular performance of the full Kalachakra sdhana as world service. The Study Curriculum Meditation in all its grades is said by D.K. to be the basic instruction in these schools.
Why? Because in occult schools information, clear instructions, or a conglomerate of facts are never given, nor are the exoteric textbook methods ever employed.30

On the Future Schools of Meditation

But he said shortly thereafter that the student of these schools,

goes through a drastic system of reception, of learning, of hard study, of accumulation of facts and of concrete knowledge. He attends lectures, he wades through many books, . . .31

This is followed by a listing of thirty-five subjects to be studied, under six headings.32 So, clearly, there are two different things going on here. I can only assume that meditation pertains to the inner side of a students development, and studies to the outer side, which is obviously also a necessary part of the curriculum of these schools. This may also be seen in the Tibetan monastic curriculum. There the tantric meditations, those which involve visualization and mantra recitation, do not form part of the regular curriculum with its five texts, but are given outside of it on a more individual basis. The study curriculum we developed was influenced by a number of factors, and not only by D.K.s listing of subjects to be studied. The Tibetan monastic curriculum has stood the test of time, and I believe it would be unwise to ignore it. D.K. would necessarily have gone through it himself if he was the abbot or senior executive in a large lamasery,33 as he said he was. This curriculum takes an average of twenty years, during which time the monks thoroughly study and master only five books. Why, we must ask, did they study so few books in all this time? In Blavatskys magazine, Lucifer, was published in 1888 an unusual article called, The Function of Attention in Personal Development.34 It was signed only with the initial, I. Whoever wrote this article gave what impressed me as a deep analysis of the failure of modern educational methods. This failure, he said, is due to their lack of inculcating concentrated attention, or focus, which alone brings in the will, the central, animating force proceeding from the Ego. This lack is a result of having too many subjects and jumping from one to another.
Modern Education, in its multitude of subjects, in its haste in passing from one subject to another, and in its lack of precise aim, exhibits desultoriness in employment of time and faculty.35

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On the Future Schools of Meditation

There would obviously be little desultoriness in the thorough mastery of only five books in twenty years. So I think the Tibetan monastic curriculum demonstrates in its very structure a key factor that is needed for any successful educational endeavor, namely, keeping a focus on the few recognized essentials. Following this principle of successful education, then, we narrowed down our curriculum to four primary lines of study: meditation, the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom Tradition, Sanskrit language, and the path of compassion. These were the four cornerstones of our curriculum.36 While all four had to go on more or less simultaneously, only one would be focused on per year. Thus, the Sanskrit line of study was the focus of the first year, the one that took the lions share of study time, while the other three were given more briefly that year. In the second year the principles of meditation were the focus, taking the bulk of the study time. By then, the Sanskrit technical terms of the Yoga-stras and Vysas commentary could be studied directly. In the third year the wisdom teachings were the focus, reading The Secret Doctrine from cover to cover. The path of compassion however, had to be pervasive, something that was present every day. It was not something that could just be studied for a year, and then left. This was achieved in the Bailey books by their constant emphasis on service. It was achieved in the Tibetan monastic curriculum by starting everything that was done every single day, be it meditation or study, by consciously recalling to mind that the purpose of each of these was solely to benefit other living beings. We tried to do the same. Our curriculum included many parallels with the Tibetan monastic curriculum. The five books of this curriculum covered five subjects.37 First was reasoning. This is well developed in the West in science, but not in Western religion. In Tibet, it was applied entirely to religion. Second was the path to enlightenment, including five stages reminiscent of the five initiations taught by D.K.38 Third was their highest philosophy, known as Madhyamaka, an analysis of the world in terms of its ultimate emptiness, or lack of inherent existence. Fourth was discipline, the rules that the monks were expected to follow. Fifth was higher knowledge, giving the Buddhist worldview in terms of

On the Future Schools of Meditation

11

the ever-changing dharmas, or states of consciousness that make up the world. These are the subjects that the great majority of those who were chosen as chelas or disciples were equipped with. So there would be direct tie-overs to the secret teachings. For example, after thoroughly analyzing the world in terms of its ultimate emptiness, one need only learn that this emptiness is the one element or eternal immaterial substance taught in the Wisdom Tradition.39 An awareness of these subjects will in many cases help us to understand or get a better perspective on the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom Tradition that have now become available to us in the West. In the limited span of time a student would be at one of these future schools of meditation in the occident, we of course had to focus on the hitherto secret teachings that had come out to us through Blavatsky and Bailey. The most advanced of these is usually thought to be Baileys A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. This is supposed to be the psychological key to The Secret Doctrine.40 D.K. had first helped Blavatsky to bring out The Secret Doctrine in what he calls the first phase of the work.41 His work with Bailey was the second phase. The third phase of this work is yet to come. It seems clear that to understand the second phase, one should first know the first phase. This simple truism was borne out by our experience in study groups with these books. Equally clear is that to use a key, here the psychological key, one must know what it unlocks. So before A Treatise on Cosmic Fire we scheduled The Secret Doctrine in the curriculum. But The Secret Doctrine is no easier to understand than is A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. It, too, needed some preparation. While developing our curriculum, we undertook study groups to see what materials would work best for this. By the time we started the three-year foundation course in 1984, we had settled on A. P. Sinnetts book, Esoteric Buddhism, and Blavatskys The Key to Theosophy, for this purpose. Even though these were not entirely adequate, we had found nothing better to cover the necessary ground. Thus in our curriculum, two years of preparatory study was required before tackling The Secret Doctrine. This was studied in the third year. This provided the necessary foundation for the Bailey books, which were to begin in earnest in the fourth year

12

On the Future Schools of Meditation

with A Treatise on White Magic, even though two came earlier.42 It was not until the fifth year that A Treatise on Cosmic Fire was scheduled. Those going on to the optional sixth and seventh years would then study A Treatise on the Seven Rays. Thus were the major volumes of D.K.s teachings placed in our curriculum. Our school lasted, however, only through the end of the three-year foundation course. Being committed to the rule that D.K. gave, There will be no fees or money charged, and no money transaction,43 which is also the age-old rule in the East, we were then obliged to cease operation for financial reasons. What was accomplished with the three-year foundation course was nonetheless not altogether insignificant. Three individuals started this course, and they all finished it. For comparison, a typical Sanskrit program at a large U.S. university will start with five to twenty students in the first year (the one I was in had eight), then drop to between three and five in the second year, and finish with three in the third year. So our school was not unsuccessful if judged by this standard. We had learned while doing study groups in preparation for the school that many people will attend these who do not read the material. These more mystically inclined people try to intuit it through the experience of the discussion. Our view is that, when dealing with books such as The Secret Doctrine, the books are the teacher, so the student must do the reading for the educational process to work. To try to rely on the human teacher, or in our case the facilitator, is not appropriate for this type of material. As explained by Blavatsky to Robert Bowen:
It is worse than useless going to those whom we imagine to be advanced students (she said) and asking them to give us an interpretation of the S.D. They cannot do it. If they try, all they give are cut and dried exoteric renderings which do not remotely resemble the TRUTH. To accept such interpretation means anchoring ourselves to fixed ideas, whereas TRUTH lies beyond any ideas we can formulate or express.44

Rather, we are to use study of such books as a means of leading us towards the truth:

On the Future Schools of Meditation

Come to the S.D. (she says) without any hope of getting the final Truth of existence from it, or with any idea other than seeing how far it may lead TOWARDS the Truth. See in study a means of exercising and developing the mind never touched by other studies.45

13

She described this type of study and what it does as jna yoga, wherein one continuously refines ones concepts of the truth until at last these can be superseded and the truth seen directly. The work is done through the study of books such as these, which contain deeper truths. These books do not give the truth in their formulations of it, but only lead us towards the truth. The books are therefore the teacher, and the education does not occur unless they are read. So to address this problem we then had to set a rule that if you dont do the assigned reading, dont come to the study group, and that solved it. I might add that to regard the books as the teacher is very different from the age-old tradition in the East insisting on the need of a personal teacher. But it seems that in order to reach the world, D.K. has adopted a new method, putting esoteric instructions in books.46 So with these books we do in effect have a personal teacher. There has long been recognized a distinction between the path of the mystic and the path of the occultist, and D.K. makes clear that his material is for the path of the occultist. This is an issue in the West, because Western religion is almost entirely along the path of the mystic, the few exceptions being such individuals as Meister Eckhart. This has not, however, been an issue in Tibet. Twelve hundred years ago, at the end of the eighth century C.E., a famous debate took place at Samye, Tibet, under the auspices of the king. As a result of this debate, the Indian form of Buddhism teaching the gradual path that is achieved through mental development was adopted in Tibet, rather than the Chinese form of Buddhism teaching the sudden path that does not require mental training. Thus, there was no question of the path of the mystic versus the path of the occultist in the monasteries of Tibet. Everyone followed the path of mental training and development. This must also be expected in the future schools of meditation in the occident.

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On the Future Schools of Meditation

In his letters on future schools of meditation, D.K. writes about the one fundamental school, which may be recognized by certain outstanding characteristics. The first of these is the basic truth of the unity of all life. When we look for this truth, we see that it has practically been the sole province of Advaita Vedanta. This is no doubt why Blavatskys teachers Morya and K.H. regarded Advaita Vedanta so highly. So we included in our curriculum the formulations of this basic truth of unity by this traditions greatest teachers, Gaudapada and Shankaracharya. The second of these basic truths is the graded steps of development. We have just seen how the great debate of Samye caused this teaching to become adopted in Tibet instead of its rival teaching of sudden enlightenment. Only remnants of the latter remained in Tibet, in the form of certain Dzogchen teachings, etc. When Tsong-kha-pa arrived on the scene around 1400, he systematized the graded path teachings in his highly influential work, the Lam-rim Chen-mo.47 He also wrote many smaller works on the graded path, or lam-rim, and we have included in our curriculum his brief work, The Three Principles of the Path.48 He is regarded as the reformer of not only the exoteric teachings but also the esoteric teachings, and founder of the esoteric school associated in more recent times with the Masters such as D.K.49 It is interesting about the groups of nine pioneered by D.K. in the West, that the first such was undertaken by Tsong-kha-pa in 1392/93. He went on retreat, taking with him eight carefully picked disciples.50 This retreat culminated five years later in his highest enlightenment experience. Among the characteristics by which the one fundamental school may be recognized, the one that stands out most is what we have called in our curriculum the path of compassion. D.K. calls it service:
By the requirement, demanded of all affiliated pupils without exception, that the life of inner unfoldment and development should be paralleled by a life of exoteric service.51

In the tradition followed and taught by Tsong-kha-pa, it is called bodhi-chitta, the determination to quickly attain enlightenment

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so that one can then liberate all living beings. This is described in a famous verse from a classic work of that tradition:
As long as space abides and as long as the world abides, so long may I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world.52

In Theosophy it is called brotherhood. The Maha-Chohan, the teacher of Blavatskys teachers, explained why they could not permit the Theosophical Society then being started to become no better than an academy of magic and a hall of occultism, to represent the embodiment of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many:
Among the few glimpses obtained by Europeans of Tibet and its mystical hierarchy of perfect lamas, there is one which was correctly understood and described. The incarnations of the Bodhisatwa Padma Pani or Avalokiteswara and of Tsong Khapa, that of Amitabha, relinquish at their death the attainment of Buddhahoodi.e. the summum bonum of bliss, and of individual personal felicitythat they might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind. (Rhys Davids) In other words, that they might be again and again subjected to misery, imprisonment in flesh and all the sorrows of life, provided that by such a self sacrifice repeated throughout long and dreary centuries they might become the means of securing salvation and bliss in the hereafter for a handful of men chosen among but one of the many races of mankind. And it is we, the humble disciples of these perfect lamas, who are expected to allow the T. S. to drop its noblest title, that of the Brotherhood of Humanity to become a simple school of psychology? No, no, good brothers, you have been labouring under the mistake too long already.53

This is something that every prospective student must be made to clearly understand before coming. The true Mystery Schools are not mere schools of magic. Everything done in them is for no other purpose than compassion. Renunciation of self and altruistic concern for the welfare of others must form the basis for entering the path of deeper knowledge.

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On the Future Schools of Meditation

Our little school derived its inspiration not only from the specific teachings D.K. gave on future schools of meditation, but also from the teachings of D.K.s teacher K.H., and K.H.s brother adept Morya. After all, D.K. tells us that the Master Morya is the head of all esoteric schools.54 Morya is described by K.H. as a pukka orthodox Occultist [who] holds religiously to the old traditions and methods.55 Esoteric schools have been in existence in the East down through the ages, and their old traditions and methods have stood the test of time. We cannot neglect these with impunity. Such esoteric schools will certainly be new to the West, but their curriculum, despite the modern language used by D.K. to describe it, cannot really be new. Only its adaptation will be new. And this adaptation, as we know, must be more one of us adapting to it, than it adapting to us.

NOTES 1. The Rays and the Initiations, by Alice A. Bailey, 1960, p. 262: I would call to your attention that in the Fourteen Rules for Applicants and in the Fourteen Rules for Disciples and Initiates you have the two great foundational courses of the coming Schools of the Mysteries, for which I have prepared the world in Letters on Occult Meditation. 2. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, p. 607. See also: The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, letter #5, 2nd and 3rd eds., p. 19: There is a distinct group or section in our fraternity who attend to our casual and very rare accessions of another race and blood, and who brought across the threshold Captain Remington and two other Englishmen during this century. 3. Discipleship in the New Age, by Alice A. Bailey, vol. 1, 1944, p. 6. 4. The Mahatma Letters, letter #2, 2nd and 3rd eds., p. 8. 5. The Mahatma Letters, letter #30, 2nd ed., p. 235; 3rd ed., p. 232. 6. The Mahatma Letters, letter #2, 2nd and 3rd eds., p. 9. 7. The Mahatma Letters, letter #11, 2nd and 3rd eds., p. 60. 8. The Mahatma Letters, letter #14, 2nd ed., p. 84; 3rd ed., p. 83. 9. The Mahatma Letters, letter #8, 2nd and 3rd eds., p. 29. 10. The Mahatma Letters, letter #25, 2nd ed., p. 193; 3rd ed., p. 190. 11. A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, by Alice A. Bailey, 1925, p. vi. 12. Discipleship in the New Age, vol. 1, p. 89.

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13. The Rays and the Initiations, p. 252. 14. The Rays and the Initiations, p. 250. 15. See: The Books of Kiu-te, or the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras: a Preliminary Analysis, by David Reigle, San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1983. 16. The use of visualization in tantric meditations as their primary technique is known as deity yoga, because one visualizes oneself as a divine form, or deity, in a divine residence, or maala. It is this that distinguishes these meditations from those taught in the stras. See: Reason as the Prime Principle in Tsong kha pas Delineation of Deity Yoga as the Demarcation Between Stra and Tantra, by Jeffrey Hopkins, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, 1984, pp. 95-115. 17. This is the criterion on which was based whether a particular text would be placed in the stra or tantra section of the Tibetan Buddhist canon. Thus, for example, the famous Heart Sutra, which clearly belongs in the stra section, was also placed in the tantra section because it includes the mantra, o gate gate pragate prasagate bodhi svh. 18. Letters on Occult Meditation, by Alice A. Bailey, 1922, p. 162. 19. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 162. 20. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 166. 21. See: The Centennial Cycle, by David Reigle, Theosophical History, forthcoming [now published, vol. 11, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 5-15]; also available at: www.easterntradition.org 22. DK and Kalachakra, by David Reigle, The Beacon, vol. 54, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 1991, p. 25; also available at: www.easterntradition.org 23. See: Invoking the Solar Angel: Vajrasattva Meditation in the Ageless Wisdom Tradition, by David Reigle, unpublished; to be available at: www.easterntradition.org 24. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 162. 25. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 327. 26. See: Some Thoughts on the Gita, by a Brahmin F.T.S., 1893; reprint, Talent, Oregon: Eastern School Press, 1983. 27. The Brahman Tradition, by Daniel Ingalls, in Traditional India: Structure and Change, ed. Milton Singer, Philadelphia: The American Folklore Society, 1959, p. 6: The head of the family might spend five hours or more of the day in ritual performances, in the sadhy or crepuscular ceremony, in the bathing, the offerings, the fire ceremony, the Vedic recitations. 28. Klacakra Sdhana and Social Responsibility, by David Reigle, Santa Fe: Spirit of the Sun Publications, 1996. The Kalachakra sdhana is considered by Tibetan tradition as the most advanced form of tantric

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meditation, and would therefore be in our terms the most advanced form of occult meditation. As I have mentioned in my article, DK and Kalachakra, (see note 22 above) the Kalachakra six-limbed yoga is likely what D.K. describes as the six stages of building the rainbow bridge, or antakaraa. He says in The Rays and the Initiations, p. 122: Today, the true teaching of meditation and the construction of the bridge of light between the Triad and the personality are the most advanced teaching given anywhere. These are apparently given in Kalachakra. 29. The Bodhgaya Interviews: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, edited by Jos Ignacio Cabezn, Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1988, p. 75. 30. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 312. 31. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 325. 32. Letters on Occult Meditation, pp. 328-330. 33. The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, by Alice A. Bailey, 1957, p. 682. Not even the Dalai Lama is exempt from going through the Tibetan monastic curriculum. 34. The Function of Attention in Personal Development, by I., Lucifer, A Theosophical Magazine, vol. 3, no. 15, Nov. 1888, pp. 190-194; reprinted in A Guide to the Path, Talent, Oregon: Eastern School Press, 1988, pp. 37-48. 35. The Function of Attention . . . , A Guide to the Path, p. 44. 36. See: A Curriculum in the Wisdom Tradition, by David Reigle; adapted from Eastern School and Its Curriculum, published in The Eclectic Theosophist, n.s. vol. 22, no. 4, Winter 1993, pp. 23-27; available at: www.easterntradition.org 37. For a brief listing, see: The Door of Liberation: Essential Teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, trans. by Geshe Wangyal, rev. ed., Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995, p. xxiv. For a full account, see: The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk, by Georges B. J. Dreyfus, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2003. 38. See: On the Alleged Tibetan Source of Alice Baileys Writings, by David Reigle, Fohat, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 1997, pp. 9-11, 22; also available at: www.easterntradition.org 39. See: The Doctrine of Svabhva or Svabhvat and the Questions of Antman and nyat, by David Reigle, in Blavatskys Secret Books: Twenty Years Research, San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1999, p. 120; also available at: www.easterntradition.org 40. A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. viii.

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41. For D.K.s role in the writing of The Secret Doctrine, see Initiation, Human and Solar, by Alice A. Bailey, 1922, p. 58. For the three phases of the teachings, see The Rays and the Initiations, p. 255. 42. These two are: Initiation, Human and Solar, with its all-important Rules for Applicants, scheduled in the first half of the first year, and Letters on Occult Meditation, read in the second half of the first year. 43. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 320. 44. The Secret Doctrine and Its Study, notes from H.P.B. by Robert Bowen, 1891; reprinted in An Invitation to The Secret Doctrine, Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1988, p. 3. 45. The Secret Doctrine and Its Study, by Robert Bowen, p. 3. 46. See: The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, pp. 322, 682. 47. The Lam-rim Chen-mo has now been translated into English, and published in three volumes, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2000-2004. 48. The Three Principles of the Path is included in The Door of Liberation: Essential Teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, trans. by Geshe Wangyal, 1973; rev. ed., Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. 49. Tsong-kha-pa is regarded by Theosophists as the reformer of esoteric as well as of vulgar Lamaism, as the founder of the Gelukpa (yellow-cap) Sect, and of the mystic Brotherhood connected with its chiefs, and the founder of the secret School near Shigatse, attached to the private retreat of the Teshu-Lama. For these references, see notes 22-24 of Theosophy in Tibet: The Teachings of the Jonangpa School, by David Reigle, in Blavatskys Secret Books, p. 94; also available at: www.easterntradition.org 50. Tsong Khapas Speech of Gold in the Essence of True Eloquence: Reason and Enlightenment in the Central Philosophy of Tibet, trans. by Robert A. F. Thurman, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 83. 51. Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 304. 52. This is verse 55 of chapter 10 of The Bodhicaryvatra, by ntideva, trans. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton, Worlds Classics series, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 143. The introduction, p. ix, notes that the Dalai Lama frequently cites this verse as his highest inspiration. 53. View of the Chohan on the T.S., in Combined Chronology for Use with The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Margaret Conger, Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1973, pp. 46-47. 54. See: Discipleship in the New Age, vol. I, pp. 226, 622; The Rays and the Initiations, pp. 373, 380. 55. The Mahatma Letters, letter #53, 2nd ed., p. 299; 3rd ed., p. 294.

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[The foregoing article was written by David Reigle, and published in The Esoteric Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1, Winter 2006, pp. 17-28, found at: http://www.esotericstudies.net/quarterly. The present online edition is published by Eastern Tradition Research Institute, 2006.]