It is widely accepted by students of Theosophy that the real Founders of the modern Theosophical Movement were certain “advanced occultists” of the East; Adepts initiated into a hidden esoteric Brotherhood which guides and watches over the spiritual evolution and advancement of humanity.

In the early days of the Movement they were generally referred to as “The Brothers.” Later they were also called Mahatmas (meaning “Great Souls”) and Masters of Wisdom. H. P. Blavatsky was described by these Masters as Their “Direct Agent” and indeed there is plenty of evidence to show that she served as their public representative, spokesperson, and Messenger to the world at large, assisted most ably in this by William Q. Judge.

Hardly anything in the nature of personal details was ever divulged or published by HPB regarding the Masters. The mystic names of a few of them – primarily the two most closely and directly involved with HPB and the establishing of the Movement – were made public but usually they are referred to simply by their initials. As to their grades or degrees of initiation, their previous incarnations, their physical appearances, bodily features, and similar matters, it is hardly surprising that barely anything of such sacred details was made public. What is known, however, is that the Masters are not “Ascended Masters” (as in popular “New Age” ideas) but are generally physically incarnated, right here on this plane, for they have important work to do in this world but tend to dwell in solitary locations away from the often toxic influences of modern everyday life.

Our Movement owes much of its original inspiration to the Masters known as M. and K.H., who are part of a Trans-Himalayan Buddhist Brotherhood presided over by one known as the Maha Chohan. Yet the Trans-Himalayan is not the whole of the GREAT BROTHERHOOD. How, where, and when did it begin? Who established it and what sort of Being is its Supreme Head? Where in the world is its central base? Perhaps surprisingly, this is something gone into to some extent by HPB, particularly in “The Secret Doctrine,” and this is what we will now explore.

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The “Sons of Wisdom” is a name given to a group who incarnated themselves in the early period of the Third Root Race (the Lemurian Epoch) as the very first group of self-conscious, spiritual, intellectually awakened human beings, prior to the awakening of consciousness in the general mass of humanity, which occurred later.

In this early Lemurian period, which we are told was millions of years ago, the “Sons of Wisdom” used Kriyashakti (the objectively creative power of thought and will) to produce the necessary physical vehicle for the embodiment of a great Being who was ready and waiting, destined according to the Law of Karma, to enter upon our globe in order to fulfill the most important and highest possible role and position here. In “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, p. 207, we read:

“This “Wondrous Being” descended from a “high region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race. . . . In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this third race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the “Sons of Wisdom,” who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Third Race, produced by Kriyashakti a progeny called the “Sons of Ad” or “of the Fire-Mist,” the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” etc. They were a conscious production, as a portion of the race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual, superior intelligence. It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the “Initiator,” and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. “Set apart” in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, “Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras” – to form the nursery for future adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle. These “Sons of Will and Yoga” born, so to speak, in an immaculate way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.”

HPB later elucidates: “The Third Race had thus created the so-called SONS OF WILL AND YOGA, or the “ancestors” (the spiritual forefathers) of all the subsequent and present Arhats, or Mahatmas, in a truly immaculate way. They were indeed created, not begotten, . . . They were the “holy seed-grain” of the future Saviours of Humanity.” (S.D. 2:173)

Before these Great Ones had emerged on our Earth, that even Greater Being had appeared.

In “The Secret Doctrine” he is referred to in various ways, such as –

* The Wondrous Being
* The Nameless One
* The Initiator
* The Great Sacrifice
* The Solitary Watcher

– and it is he who “holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world.” It is taught that he changes form or body from time to time, as evolution requires, but in his inner and real nature “remains ever the same.” He “has to remain nameless” although numerous names have been applied to him by different people. It is he who is the Supreme Head of the entire Great Brotherhood, sometimes also called the Great Lodge or Great White Lodge, “white” in the sense of light and goodness, as the antithesis to what is termed black magic.

In such books as “The Voice of the Silence” and “The Secret Doctrine” it is explained that there are four basic grades or degrees of initiation but that the fourth of these consists of four possible degrees in itself, thus making an actual total of seven degrees on the Path of Initiation. These are given, in Buddhist terminology, as:

#1. Srotapatti or Srotapanna
#2. Sakridagamin
#3. Anagamin
#4. Arhat or Arhan

[But, says S.D. 1:206, “The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate. . . . Three further higher grades have to be conquered by the Arhan who would reach to the apex of the ladder of Arhatship.”]

#5. Arhat of the 2nd degree
#6. Arhat of the 3rd degree
#7. Arhat of the 4th degree

This “apex of the ladder of Arhatship” is referred to in the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan (in S.D. 1:33) as “THE FOURTH “FRUIT” OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA.” Referring to these very highest Initiates and how they stand in relation to the Wondrous Being, “The Secret Doctrine” says:

“The Arhats of the “fire-mist” of the 7th rung are but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy – the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial chain. This “Root-Base” has a name which can only be translated by several compound words into English – “the ever-living-human-Banyan.” This “Wondrous Being” descended from a “high region,” they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race.” (Vol. 1, p. 206-207)

The symbolism of the Banyan tree is significant, as any Indian or Oriental knows. HPB also uses the phrase “THE TREE FROM WHICH THE ADEPTS GROW.” Also significant is the fact that the word “human” is used in his description and that further down on p. 207 it’s emphasised that despite his great spiritual and divine nature he is also “objective man.”

Let us reflect upon these beautiful and inspiring words:

“He is the “Initiator,” called the “GREAT SACRIFICE.” For, sitting at the threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know – aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its heaven? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.

“It is under the direct, silent guidance of this MAHA – (great) – GURU that all the other less divine Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through these “Sons of God” that infant humanity got its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge; and it is they who have laid the first foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that puzzle so sorely our modern generation of students and scholars. . . .

“It was a child of pure Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, as it drew its intelligence direct from above. It was the living tree of divine wisdom; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legend; which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are gnawed all the time by the dragon Nidhogg; for even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyashakti had his body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven not on earth. He was the first of the FIRST, and he was the seed of all the others. There were other “Sons of Kriyashakti” produced by a second Spiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of divine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial “Sons of Wisdom.” Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every age – aye, even in our own – there have been great intellects who have understood the problem correctly.” (S.D. 1:208, 211)

It is then hinted at (p. 209) that this Great Being dwells at that “certain Sacred Island in Central Asia,” which is often known as Shamballa or Shambhala. Shambhala is a vast subject in itself and thus forms the basis of a separate article titled Blavatsky on Shambhala. In this present article we are concerned specifically with gaining a deeper, clearer, and more meaningful understanding of the Great Sacrifice or Maha-Guru.

There are quite a few questions which cannot currently be answered, such as:

(1) Is the Maha Chohan – the elderly and very stern Tibetan Guru of H. P. Blavatsky’s Gurus – the same as the Maha-Guru or Great Sacrifice spoken of in “The Secret Doctrine”? Quite a few of the quotes compiled in Blavatsky on Shambhala certainly seem to suggest this to be the case but there are other references and details which seem to suggest otherwise.

(2) Is it the Master Serapis – currently in a European body, according to the original Theosophical literature – who is the Maha-Guru? This Master is also called “Maha Sahib” by HPB and the Masters and although the Masters M. and K.H. speak of the Maha Chohan as their “Chief,” they wrote in a letter to Col. Olcott of “our beloved Lord and Chief – him whom you know under the name of S. and Maha Sahib.” In HPB’s diary from her time in New York, there is an entry recording that “Morya walked in . . . with definite orders from Serapis” and HPB in a letter to A. P. Sinnett speaks of the Maha Sahib as “the big one” (presumably a reference to occult status than to physical size, as few could be physically larger or taller than the Master M.) and that he had “insisted with the [Maha] Chohan” that a certain thing be done. 

(3) Is the Maha-Guru or Great Sacrifice a Being who is not any of the relatively small number of Masters and Adepts named or referred to in the original Theosophical literature? 

(4) How does all this relate to Buddha – or rather to that Soul who 2,600 years ago incarnated as Gautama Buddha and has appeared as numerous great spiritual figures since – and who the Masters and HPB speak of as the highest Nirmanakaya and greatest of all Beings, and to the statement in S.D. 1:109 that “owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the “Spirit of Buddha” . . . a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator”?

(5) Where does the Panchen Lama of Tashilhunpo, Shigatse, Tibet fit into all this? (See the section “The Theosophical Mahatmas and The Panchen Lamas” in The Dalai Lama, Theosophy & The Gelugpa Tradition) The Panchen Lama is considered the incarnation of Amitabha Buddha, which also makes him in a sense the incarnation of Gautama Buddha, but HPB’s “Tibetan Teachings” article, quoted in Blavatsky on Shambhala, indicates that the Maha Chohan is the incarnation of Amitabha.

We are not expecting, nor even seeking, an answer to the above questions. We present them merely to show how much still remains unrevealed or undisclosed; this is no criticism or complaint but simply an observation and a reminder to all students of Theosophy that none of us have any grounds on which to speak authoritatively, insistently, or dogmatically about the Masters and their Brotherhood. There are answers to all the above questions and many more and when we need to know and are entitled to know, we will know.

But who or what is the Great Sacrifice?

Adi Shankaracharya, the founder or main codifier of the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, was an extremely high Initiate himself and in a certain sense the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha. He wrote a mysterious hymn called the Dakshinamurti Stotra or Stotram, which many Theosophists believe (and Bhavani Shankar in “The Doctrine of The Bhagavad Gita” confirmed) is referring to the nature and the role of this Being:

“It is strange to see the very old disciples, sat around the Teacher of ever-youthful appearance, who sits beneath the Banyan Tree. The Teacher always teaches in silence, yet the disciples receive the answers to all their questions. Salutations to that Dakshinamurti, who is the meaning of the Pranava – OM – who is the personification of unalloyed Wisdom, who is crystal clear in his thought, and who is the epitome of peace. Salutations to that Dakshinamurti, who is the Teacher of the entire world, who is the doctor to those afflicted by the disease of birth and death, and who is the treasure house of all knowledge.”

Shankara said that this was the Adi-Guru, meaning the First Guru, the First of all Spiritual Teachers, and he recognised him as an embodiment of Shiva. In one place where HPB talks about Shambhala (S.D. 2:502) she also makes mention of “Rudra Shiva, the great Yogi, the forefather of all the Adepts – in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of the Divine Dynasties. Called “the Earliest” and the “Last,” he is the patron of the Third [i.e. Lemurian], Fourth [i.e. Atlantean], and the Fifth [i.e. ours] Root-Races.”

The full version of the Hymn to Dakshinamurti or the Dakshinamurti Stotram consists of ten paragraphs or stanzas. It can be read in full by clicking here. “Dakshinamurti” literally means “the one who faces south,” which suggests an image of a great Being who is sat at the top or very highest or uppermost point and embraces the entirety of the world within his far-reaching gaze. A short extract from it used to be included in every issue of “The Theosophical Movement” magazine, when B. P. Wadia was editor: “Ah! the wonder of the Banyan Tree. There sits the Guru Deva, a youth, and the disciples are elders; the teaching is silence, and still the disciples’ doubts are dispelled.” In this connection, one may recall the wording from “The Secret Doctrine” which we quoted earlier: “It is under the direct, silent guidance of this MAHA – (great) – GURU that all the other less divine Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity.”

T. Subba Row stated that the Masters teach that Amitabha Buddha (the Buddha of Infinite Light) himself dwelt at Shambhala and “established the Brotherhood” there. H. P. Blavatsky has indicated that “the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha” refers really to Shambhala.

Deductions could also be made from “The Secret Doctrine” and elsewhere that he is Avalokiteshvara or Padmapani of Tibetan Buddhism or even the Vedic Vishvakarman, the one who sacrifices himself to himself, for the salvation of all. HPB has also suggested a link with the mysterious Biblical and Kabbalistic figure of Melchizedek, for in her commentary and notes on the Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic Gospel, she says: “For the occult significance of “Melchizedec” compare The Secret Doctrine, I, 208 and 265, on the “Great Sacrifice” and “Silent Watcher.”” Narada, a mysterious figure in both Hinduism and “The Secret Doctrine,” also seems to be another name for this Maha-Guru, for more details of which please see The Mysterious Narada.

The original Theosophical teachings do not state or affirm the now widespread and popularised notion that this Solitary Watcher came to Earth from Venus. Some later, and generally very distorted, versions of Theosophy greatly emphasised this notion but H. P. Blavatsky never says such a thing. This does not necessarily mean it is not so; all we can say on this point is that “The Secret Doctrine” asserts that Venus is the bearer or bringer of mystical Light (as well as physical light) on this Earth and that the Third (Lemurian) Root Race “received its light and life” mystically from the Dhyani who rules and presides over, or is the Regent of, the sacred planet Venus. It was the Light of Manas (Mind) that was most prominently received in that great Epoch (see Manas – The Mystery of Mind) but, earlier in the Lemurian Age, this Maha-Guru of whom we are speaking incarnated on Earth along with the Sons of Will and Yoga and established the Great Brotherhood at Shambhala. We also find these words in “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 32-33: “The Regent (of the planet) Sukra [i.e. a Sanskrit name for Venus] loved his adopted child [i.e. the Earth] so well that he incarnated as Usanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages. . . . Venus . . . It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyan Chohan, that Occult mysticism has to deal.” And also (p. 31), “The Guru of the Daityas [i.e. “Venus or Sukra . . . is Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the primeval giants,” p. 30] is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men.” So we can each reflect on that and make our own deductions about what the situation may be.

Original Theosophy does not say that the Great Sacrifice came here in a fiery chariot flying through the sky, as claimed by some later Theosophists (in fact, “the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” born before the complete separation of the sexes, “matured in the man-bearing eggs produced by the power (Kriyasakti) of the holy sages” of the early Third Race,” according to S.D. 2:181) and also does not say that he is Sanat Kumara or any of the Kumaras. The Sons of Will and Yoga (the Sons of the Fire-Mist, who “are certainly subdivisions of the Third Logos” according to HPB in “Transactions of The Blavatsky Lodge” p. 137) are, however, identified with the Seven Kumaras, in “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 2, p. 281, but in endeavouring to comprehend this accurately, one must forget all ideas about the Kumaras derived from later Theosophical innovations. The original teachings also do not call the Solitary Watcher or Maha-Guru the incarnation of the “Planetary Logos” (a term not used in the original teachings of Theosophy) and they do not call him “God” although it is perhaps understandable why some might feel inclined to do so.

In fact, from “The Secret Doctrine” (Vol. 2, p. 282) we learn that “Out of the seven virgin-men (Kumara) [i.e. a reference to “the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” the immaculate progeny of the Androgynous Third Race,” according to the footnote] four sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara. . . . Higher than the “Four” is only ONE on Earth as in Heavens – that still more mysterious and Solitary Being described in Book I.”

If this is so and this Being is the highest Being on Earth and in the Heavens or Cosmos, it would certainly be reasonable to speak of this Maha-Guru as the one ever-present Supreme Avatar, the supreme and constant incarnation on Earth of the Logos itself. In this connection, HPB’s otherwise enigmatic remark on p. 100 of the “Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge” may begin to make much more sense: “For all you know Vaivasvata Manu may be an Avatar or a personification of MAHAT, commissioned by the Universal Mind to lead and guide thinking Humanity onwards.” Both Manu and Vaivasvata are terms with multiple applications in the esoteric teachings (see Who or What is Manu?) but it seems that one such application may be as one of the many names of the Nameless One.

Although, as mentioned, the authentic Theosophical teachings “do not say that he is Sanat Kumara or any of the Kumaras,” it is of course still possible that he might be capable of being described as a Kumara but if this is so, it would seemingly be Sanat Sujata, sometimes written Sanatsujata and Sanat-Sujata, since HPB has repeatedly spoken of the three higher or esoteric Kumaras, the chief of whom she identifies as the figure referred to in Hindu mythology and literature as Sanat Sujata, whilst Sanat Kumara is not counted among those three. For more on this, please see Understanding The Seven Kumaras.

“Chagpa-Thog-med is the Tibetan name of Aryasanga, the founder of the Yogacharya or Naljorchodpa School. This Sage and Initiate is said to have been taught “Wisdom” by Maitreya Buddha Himself, the Buddha of the Sixth Race, at Tushita (a celestial region presided over by Him), and as having received from Him the five books of Champai-chos-nga [i.e. the Tibetan name of Maitreya]. The Secret Doctrine teaches, however, that he came from Dejung, or Shambhala, called the “source of happiness” (“wisdom-acquired”) and declared by some Orientalists to be a “fabulous” place.” (HPB, “The Doctrine of the Eye and The Doctrine of the Heart”)

As the “he” in “he came from Dejung, or Shambhala” is uncapitalised in contrast with the “Him” used for Maitreya, this is saying that, according to the Esoteric Doctrine of the Masters, Aryasanga (who is very important in relation to the Trans-Himalayan Esoteric School; see The REAL Esoteric Buddhism) came from Shambhala and that this mysterious and mystical location on Earth was where he received the teaching that forms his “Five Books of Maitreya” which were considered so extremely important by the Yogacharya or Yogachara or Yogācāra School of Mahayana Buddhism. In that case, Maitreya is “merely” a synonym, yet another name, for that Nameless One, the Maha-Guru, the Initiator of all Initiates, the Guru of Gurus, the Lord of Shambhala, the Supreme Head of the School and Brotherhood of Adepts.

In “The Secret Doctrine,” when talking about Avalokiteshwara (called in Tibetan Buddhism the Bodhisattva of Compassion and, in “The Theosophical Glossary,” “the LOGOS, both celestial and human” as well as capable of being a name for Atman, the Higher Self of each and all) and Maitreya, HPB discloses that “the two [i.e. Avalokiteshwara and Maitreya] are one. He [i.e. Avalokiteshwara] will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avatars and Buddhas, in the seventh Race. This belief and expectation are universal throughout the East.” (Vol. 1, p. 470)

You can explore the subject of Avatars further in the article The Avatar.

At one point in “The Secret Doctrine” when speaking about the Great Sacrifice, HPB speaks of Him as “The “BEING” just referred to,” i.e. “BEING” is in inverted commas, possibly a hint that what we are talking about is not actually a Being in the ordinary and typical sense of an individual entity. Could it be that what we have been speaking about as the Maha Guru is actually in some mysterious and indescribable way the synthesising source of the Sons of Will and Yoga and thus the synthesis of the Seven Kumaras? Who can say?!?

Numerous names could be applied to this Nameless One but it ultimately only aids our understanding a little. Names sometimes get in the way and become self-imposed mental barriers and obstructions to comprehension. It may be noticed that comparatively little of a definite, detailed, and precise nature has been disclosed on these matters but what could we expect with regard to something so profoundly sacred? We should be grateful that even as much as this has been considered fit to be divulged to the world at large at this point in humanity’s evolution. As HPB said, “Of this subject we can say no more.” This greatness, this majesty, this love, this sacrifice, is barely within the realms of our comprehension anyway.

The divine love that blazes ever bright within the Silent Watcher’s heart will not allow him to pass onward into infinite peace and liberation because “he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. . . . in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.”

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