Chelas and Lay Chelas

Book excerpt: How may it be possible for anyone, who has no independent means, to subsist upon entering Chelaship? Reply by H.P. Blavatsky. During the eleven years of the existence of the Theosophical Society I have known, out of the seventy-two regularly accepted chelas on probation and the hundreds of lay candidates — only three who have not hitherto failed, and one only who had a full success. Can the Mahatmas be selfish? True knowledge consists in getting at the root of all phenomena, and thus arriving at a correct understanding of the primal cause, the “rootless root,” which is not an effect in its turn but THAT, the ever incomprehensible Causeless Cause (Be-ness) of both spirit and matter, and the oldest dogma in Occultism. Is the desire to live selfish? The only difference between an ordinary man, who works along with Nature during the course of cosmic evolution, and an Occultist, is that the latter, by his superior knowledge, adopts such methods of training and discipline as to quicken the process of his evolution, and thus ascend in a comparatively short period of time to that apex of physical and spiritual perfection (a god on earth) towards which the ordinary man may take billions of years to reach. Beyond the Hall of Learning is the Great White Lodge, the magnificent hierarchy of Masters, Gurus and Chelas all over the world. Every aspirant to chelaship has a Guru, although he many not be aware of it. Guru is the chela’s benefactor. If we have reverenced our teacher, we will now revere our unknown Guru. We must place our hand in his hand with all love, and trust, and confidence, for it is to mighty Karma we have appealed, and the Guru is an agent of Karma. The faith and love between Guru and chela act as a stimulus to both, and as a purifier to the mind of the chela. The business of the Guru is to keep adjusting the chela’s progress, and not to submerge him with knowledge, or push him forward. The Guru–chela affinity is sacred and precious, not lightly taken up or lightly dropped.