Arhans and Sages of the boundless Vision [superhuman sight and knowledge] are rare as is the blossom of the Udumbara tree. Arhans are born at midnight hour, together with the sacred plant of nine and seven stalks, the holy flower that opens and blooms in darkness, out of the pure dew and on the frozen bed of snow-capped heights, heights that are trodden by no sinful foot.

—The Voice of the Silence, pp. 42-43

It is said that a "blue lotus" burst forth just before the birth of Gautama Buddha and another before the birth of Tsong-kha-pa. Nila Udumbara or "blue lotus" is a lotus of gigantic size, and is regarded as a supernatural omen whenever it blossoms, for it flowers once every three thousand years (The Theosophical Glossary). Thus, Arhans and sages are rare and are born at midnight hour just like the blossom of the Udumbara tree. H. P. Blavatsky like Shri Krishna, was born at the midnight hour of 11-12 August, in Russia, in 1831. The world at large has heard too much about Madame Blavatsky, but has known too little. For one reason or another, the world keeps talking of her, defending or assailing her character and motives. Many compliments and criticisms, brickbats and bouquets have gone her way in the last 110 years. Franz Hartmann wrote:

It is doubtful whether there ever was any great genius and saviour of mankind, whose personality while upon this earth, was not misunderstood by his friends, reviled by his enemies, mentally tortured and crucified, and finally made an object of fetish-worship by subsequent generations. H.P.B. seems no exception to the rule. The world, dazzled by the light of her doctrines, which the majority of men did not grasp, because they were new to them, looked upon her with distrust, and the representatives of scientific ignorance, filled with their own pomposity, pronounced her to be "the greatest impostor of the age," because their narrow minds could not rise up to a comprehension of the magnificence of her spirit. (In Memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, p. 122)

People were constantly in awe of her even during her childhood and adolescence. Later, crowds of visitors were constantly calling at her rooms in Irving Place. The newspapers were full of narratives of her supposed powers or deriding her assertion of the possibilities of the same in everyone. A prominent New York daily wrote of her thus:

A woman of as remarkable characteristics as Cagliostro himself, and one who is every day as differently judged by different people as the renowned Count was in his day. By those who know her slightly she is called a charlatan; better acquaintance made you think she was learned; and those who were intimate with her were either carried away with belief in her power or completely puzzled. (U.L.T. Pamphlet No. 14, p. 6)

She was called "the Sphinx of the 19th century," because she was an enigma to most people. In Bombay, and later in Adyar, Madras, H.P.B. worked assiduously, day after day. The Hindoos believed in her, and always said that she could explain to them their own scriptures and philosophies when the real key to it was lost or concealed. She performed experiment after experiment for the instruction of those who personally sought her. The phenomena she performed in the initial years of the Society, were meant not to overwhelm people but to show that when a Yogi produces ash out of thin air or lifts himself up into the air, such feats appear miraculous, but there are no miracles. Everything happens under Law. There is an invisible side to both man and nature. Just as there are physical laws governing the physical universe, so also there are occult laws and occult forces and processes that are known to an occultist. She always deprecated the craving for wonders. She steadily refused to vulgarize her mission by any kind of "general performance of phenomena," which could only gratify curiosity and serve no useful purpose. When urged to "show her powers" merely to convince people, who cared nothing for the Theosophical teaching, she answered that they might believe it or not as they chose. Franz Hartmann wrote:

The true life of every spiritually awakened human being is not his external but his interior life. To describe merely the events that took place in the earth-life of an embodied genius and not mention her inner life, her thoughts and feelings, is like describing the history of the house ignoring its inhabitant. (In Memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, p. 123)

To know the real H.P.B. one must have patience and perseverance to go through the teachings in three major works—The Secret Doctrine, Isis Unveiled and The Key to Theosophy. Isis Unveiled—a master key to ancient and modern Science and Theology, written in 1877—was a book which was to be found in the library of every scholar of that time. It attracted wide attention, and all the New York papers reviewed it, each saying that it exhibited immense research. In this book she provides the rationale for various phenomena and carries out an impartial comparison of major world religions. She writes in the Preface:

The work now submitted to public judgement is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science....It is meant to do even justice, and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice....Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day. TRUTH, high seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme.

Hence the motto of the Theosophical Society: "There is no Religion higher than Truth." The Secret Doctrine [S.D.] comprised two volumes—Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis—treats of the genesis and evolution of worlds and man. As Robert Bowen remarks:

Every form, no matter how crude, contains the image of its "creator" concealed within it. So likewise does an author's work, no matter how obscure, contain the concealed image of the author's knowledge....

Every form of art has the distinctive mark of its creator. We see that a painting of Van Gogh would be different from a painting of Picasso in terms of colour-combination, style, brushstrokes, etc. A connoisseur of art could make out one from the other. It is said that Michelangelo made stone sculptures, which at one time used to get stolen and others would sell them in their name. Then he decided that he would make such statues as would carry his distinctive mark, so that when people looked at them they would be convinced that the same must be by Michelangelo and none other. So also in a written work we come in contact with the author's mind.

The S.D. contains all that H.P.B. knew. It has been said that a piece of art is not like a pebble lying on the sea-shore to be picked up by any careless passer-by. To understand it completely we must repeat the adventure of an artist. We need to raise our consciousness to that of the artist or writer who created that work of art or piece of writing. "Knowledge is the function of Being." The more we change inwardly, the more our perceptions open, enabling us to have greater understanding of the work and vice versa. This is applicable especially to the study of the S.D., as it is not a book to be understood using mere intellect. In "Some Observations on the Study of the Secret Doctrine of H.P.B." we are told that the S.D. is written in an unusual style, and the specific method used is to bring out the faculty of spiritual perception in the reader. It is the power of the mind to alight upon a subject and be able to suck everything that is in the subject. This is the penetrative faculty of mind. We are required to read "not only between the lines, but within the words as well." Further:

In the study of The Secret Doctrine, an attempt should be made by each student to contact the Mind of the writer. If the student sits down to his study with his lower mind emptied of all thoughts, and entirely at rest, at peace with itself and all the world, if he approaches his study with a feeling of willingness, nay eagerness, to grapple with a difficult subject and a determination to attempt to contact the Mind of the writer of the book, then may he hope for real results. And...help and illumination will come not only from the student's mind but also from the Mind that recorded the teachings, for that Mind is very much alive and will help the students of the book if they proceed in the right manner, along the occult and spiritual line....In proportion as the mind of each student is concentrated and perfectly at rest, ideas will begin to strike him....Information will begin to come to him from within, not from without. (pp. 18-20)

As we study the S.D., we realize that truth has many aspects and H.P.B. seems to have responded to them. We find that she is not tied down by only one explanation on a subject, but brings out various aspects. Shakespeare was called "myriad-minded" and the same epithet is applicable to H.P.B.

She never wanted a great following. She said: "We are not working merely that people may call themselves 'Theosophists,' but that the doctrines we cherish may affect and leaven the whole mind of this century." The aim and object of her life was to break the shackles forged by priestcraft for the mind of man. She wished all men to know that they are potentially divine and that they must bear the burden of their own sins. Hence, she brought forward to the West the old Eastern doctrines of Karma and Rebirth. Her object was to make religion scientific and science religious. She laid emphasis on the practice of ethics and considered them more important than the development of psychical powers.

Her teachings influenced several distinguished men and women all over the world, past and present—poets, writers, statesmen, philosophers and scientists. Several of them have found in her writings a deep mine of wisdom. In his Autobiography, Gandhiji relates that "toward the end of my second year in England I came across two theosophists...they talked to me about the Gita....they invited me to read the original with them. I felt ashamed, as I had read the divine poem neither in Sanskrit nor in Gujarati...I recall having read, at the brothers' insistence, Madame Blavatsky's The Key to Theosophy. This book stimulated in me the desire to read books on Hinduism...."

Some day, let us hope, as an editorial in New York Tribune expressed after her death, "the loftiness and purity of her aims, the wisdom and scope of her teachings, will be recognized more fully, and her memory will be accorded the honour to which it is justly entitled." (In Memory of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, p. 197)

According to her [H.P.B.], there are certain persons on this earth, living and working as ordinary human beings and members of society, whose informing divine part is so immeasurably high in development that they as such high beings have a definite status and function in the "supersensuous regions." We should say—assuming the correctness of the author's statement—that she herself was such a case, and that "H.P.B.," whether hourly in the day or at night when all around was still, had a "status and function" in other spheres where she consciously carried on the work of that high station, whatever it was. There were many events in her daily life known to those who were intimate with her that this hint may ravel, or at least shed much light upon. And in one of her letters this sentence appears—in substance—"The difference between you and me is that you are not conscious except at day, while I am conscious day and night, and have much to do and to endure in both of these existences from which you, being thus half-conscious, are happily saved.

—W. Q. Judge