Masters of Wisdom
                                                    By m.vanaja

During the last seventy or eighty years a section of the public vaguely has heard of mysterious sages with alleged extra- ordinary powers who live somewhere in the, Himalayas.  Those who sought to prove their existence were dismissed either as frauds or cranks or else as persons with highly fertile imagination.  Such an assumption is entirely wrong.  

The present is an age of bewildering contrasts and extremes.  Startling scientific discoveries in the realms of matter and  even more startling ones in the realms of mind are occurring simultaneously .  We are, in fact gradually coming to realise that which was kept aside by the rationalists cannot be disposed of in high handed fashion.

Supernatural phenomena previously supposed to manifest through some sporadic intervention on the part of the deity were believed to be the result  of natural forces in the hands of those who knew how to wield them or of perceptive faculties  notknown to the mankind in general.  Thus what at one time was emotionally termed a miracle is now more level-headedly categorised as an instant of clairvoyance, clairaudience, hypnotism, mesmerism, magnetic healing, metaphysical healing etc.,  as the case may be.   Man has discovered that such faculty lies latent in human organism.  Unless he has acquired himself those faculties, he is dependent on others for the knowledge of these phenomenon. 

The process of developing these has been reduced to an exact science in India known as Raja Yoga.  This science in varying forms has been secretly in existence in every ancient civilisation.  

To quote Swami Vivekananda :  “ When the mind has been  trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power as it were, of flowing in an unbroken current towards that point.  When this power has been so much intensified as to be able to reject theexternal part of perception and remain meditating only on the internal part, the meaning then it acquires knowledge of the finer manifestations of Nature”. This condition is called Samadhi or Super-conscious trance and of what occultists call the higher planes of existence, leading to Nirvana or Liberation. 

When a man has reached Nirvana he is not compelled to retain his physical body or to re-incarnate in another.  The choice is open to him either to live a disembodied existence for all eternity or to remain as a Master of Wisdom for a considerable time at any time on the earth.  In the latter case, He holds some office in the Hierarchy and helps in a large variety of ways for the development of humanity.  

The Masters are human beings who crossed the human limitations.  They know what is required by man and they know how to inspire him into the required objective work.  They know how to aid man to hasten his own evolution without any violation of the Laws of Creation.  They bridge the gulf that lies between the human kingdom and Deva kingdom on this earth.  They work as guides and scouts to co-operate with nature in her working.  They also work as custodiansof the ageless wisdom of man through deluges and hand it over to posterity. 

The activities of these Masters are numerous and varied and have so eloquently delineated by the great chela Dr. Annie Besant  who said, “They (Masters of Wisdom) aid in countless ways, the progress of humanity.  From the highest sphere.  They shed down light and life on all the world, that may be taken up and assimilated as freely as the sunshine, by all who are receptive enough to take it in. 

Next, the Masters specially connected with religions use these religions as reservoirs into which They pour spiritual energy, to be distributed to the faithful in each religion through the duly appointed  “ means of grace “ .  Next comes the great intellectual work, wherein the Masters send out thought-forms of high intellectual power to be caught up by men of genius, assimilated by them and given out to the world ; on this level also They send out Their wishes to Their disciples, notifying them of the tasks to which they should set their hands.  Then comes the work in the lower mental world, the generation of the thought-forms which influences the concrete mind and guides it along useful  lines of activity in this world and the teaching of those who are livingin the heavenly world.  Then the large activities of the intermediate world, the helping of the so-called dead, the general direction and supervision of the teaching of the younger pupils and the sending of aid in numerous cases of need.  In the physical world the watching of the tendencies of events, the correction and neutralising, as far as law permits, of evil currents, the constant balancing of the forces that work for and against evolution, the strengthening of the good, the weakening of the evil.”

Master E K, close associate of the Hierarchy says, “ the Masters know about the obstacles that stand before a man on the way of his progress; the obstacles for his success and the easy and artistic method of eliminating them.  Their method of elimination is not by excluding some beliefs from us but by rearranging the already existing powers latent in man.  This rearrangement brings out some more powers hidden in man.  They can transform the problems of life into the components of one experience of continuous happiness.”

It will be seen from this that  the Masters may have their heads in heaven but their feet are on earth . They are  eminently practical men.