In his book The Masters and the Path, Charles Leadbeater, a famous theosopher and a member of the Theosophical Society, mentions some details of a secluded life of his Master in Tibet:
«...Sometimes, too, He rests in His great armchair, and when His people see Him thus, they know that He must not be disturbed; they do not know exactly what He is doing, but suppose Him to be in samadhi. The fact that people in the East understand this kind of meditation and respect it may be one of the reasons why the Adepts prefer to live there rather than in the West.
In this way we get the effect of the Master sitting quietly for a considerable part of the day and, as we should say, meditating; but while He is apparently resting so calmly, He is in reality engaged all the time in the most strenuous labor on higher planes, manipulating various natural forces and simultaneously pouring forth influences of the most diverse character on thousands of souls. For the Adepts are the busiest people in the world. The Master, however, does much physical-plane work as well; He has composed some music, and has written notes and papers for various purposes. He is also much interested in the growth of physical science, although this is especially the province of one of the other great Masters of the Wisdom.
From time to time the Master Kuthumi rides on a big bay horse, and occasionally, when Their work lies together, He is accompanied by the Master Morya, who always rides a magnificent white horse. Our Master regularly visits some of the monasteries, and sometimes goes up a great pass to a lonely monastery in the hills. Riding in the course of His duties seems to be His principal exercise, but He sometimes walks with the Master Djwal Kul, who lives in a little cabin which He built with His own hands, quite near to the great crag on the way up to the plateau.
Sometimes our Master plays on the organ which is in the large room in His house. He had it made in Tibet under His direction, and it is in fact a combined piano and organ, with a keyboard like those which we have in the West, on which He can play all of our Western music. It is unlike any other instrument with which I am acquainted, for it is in a sense double-fronted, as it can be played either from the sitting-room or the library. The principal keyboard (or rather the three keyboards, great organ, swell and choir) is in the sitting-room, whereas the piano keyboard is in the library; and these keyboards can be used either together or separately.
The full organ with its pedals can be played in the ordinary way from the sitting-room; but by turning a handle somewhat equivalent to a stop, the piano mechanism can be linked with the organ, so that it all plays simultaneously. From that point of view, in fact, the piano is treated as an additional stop on the organ.
From the keyboard in the library, however, the piano can be played alone as a separate instrument, quite dissociated from the organ; but by some complicated mechanism the choir-organ is also linked to that keyboard, so that by it one can play the piano alone precisely as though it were an ordinary piano, or one can play the piano accompanied by the choir-organ, or at any rate by certain stops of that organ. It is also possible, as I said, to separate the two completely, and so, with a performer at each keyboard, to play a piano-organ duet. The mechanism and the pipes of this strange instrument occupy almost the whole of what might be called the upper story of this part of the Master' s house. By magnetization He has placed it in communication with the Gandharvas, or Devas of music, so that whenever it is played they co-operate, and thus He obtains combinations of sound never to be heard on the physical plane; and there is, too, an effect produced by the organ itself as of an accompaniment of string and wind instruments.
The song of the Devas is ever being sung in the world; it is ever sounding in men' s ears, but they will not listen to its beauty.
There is the deep drone of the sea, the sighing of the wind in the trees, the roar of the mountain torrent, the music of stream, river and waterfall, which together with many others form the mighty song of Nature as she lives. This is but the echo in the physical world of a far grander sound, that of the Being of the Devas. As is said in "Light on the Path" :
"Only fragments of the great song come to your ears while yet you are but man. But, if you listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which has reached you is lost, and endeavour to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher. For as the individual has voice, so has that in which the individual exists. Life itself has speech, and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose, a cry; it is a song. Learn from it that you are part of the harmony; learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony."
Every morning a number of people-- not exactly pupils, but followers-- come to the Master' s house and sit on the veranda and outside it. Sometimes He gives them a little talk -- a sort of lecturette; but more often He goes on with His work and takes no notice of them beyond a friendly smile, with which they seem equally contented. They evidently come to sit in His aura and venerate Him. Sometimes He takes His food in their presence, sitting on the veranda, with this crowd of Tibetans and others on the ground around Him; but generally He eats by Himself at a table in His room. It is possible that He keeps the rule of the Buddhist monks, taking no food after noon; for I do not remember ever to have seen Him eat in the evening. It is even possible that He does not need food every day».
(p.22-24) http://www.sanctusgermanus.net/ebooks/masters_of_the_path.pdf
The correspondence of El Morya and Kuthumi to their disciples involved in the Theosophical Society, are published in The Letters of Mahatmas and other books. Some of these letters are kept in the collection of manuscripts in the British Museum.
Kuthumi keeps his focus on Samzhubzê/Shigatse (the Masters and their retreats), Tibet, where, playing his grand organ, the sacred flames of his heart evoke a cosmic harmony. Through his music, he bestows cure and peace around the entire planetary body and reaches the souls that go through a transition (including the death hour) and leads them to the ether retreats of the Great White Brotherhood to receive instructions in preparation for the following earthly lives. He inspires architects, poets, and scientists, awakening mystic memories about their own soul harmony in the geometry and rhythm of stars.
Below, we enumerate some incarnations of Kuthumi:
In approximately 582-507 BC, he was Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, the “fair-haired Samian,” who was regarded as the son of Apollo. Among others, he had a special gift: he remembered his previous incarnations. Here is what ancient philosophers wrote about it:
«...(according to Heraclides Ponticus,) Pythagoras used to say that in former times he was Aethalides and was regarded as a son of Hermes. Hermes offered him to choose any gift except immortality and Pythagoras asked to leave him, both alive and dead, a memory of what has happened to him. That is why during his life and in the moment of death he had the same memory. Subsequently, he became Euphorbus and was wounded by Menelaus. Euphorbus used to say that he had been Aethalides, that he had received a gift from Hermes, how his soul traveled, which animals and plants it had entered, what it had experienced in Aida, and what other souls experienced there.” After Euphorbus’s death, his soul entered Hermotimus, who came to Branchĭdae to prove his memory of past lives and in the Temple of Apollo pointed at a shield that Menelaus dedicated to god. Euphorbus said: “Leaving the shore of Troy, Menelaus dedicated this shield to Apollo, but now it is all rotten, only ivory decoration is left.” After Hermotimus’s death, he became Pyrrhus, a Delian fisherman, and still remembered how he was Aethalides first, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus. After Pyrrhus’s death, he became Pythagoras and still kept the memory of everything mentioned above».
(Diogenes Laertius. About Life, Teachings, and Aphorisms of famous philosophers) http://krotov.info/lib_sec/05_d/dio/gen_09.htm)
In his book Pythagoras’s Life, Porphyry narrates about other special qualities of Pythagoras
(http://krotov.info/lib_sec/05_d/dio/gen_09.htm) :
«...The same day, he was present in Italic Metapontum and Sicilian Tauromena, talking to his disciples in both places simultaneously. Everybody could prove that it is a long way between those cities by both land and sea, and it is impossible to cover this distance even over many days. It is generally known that Pythagoras showed Abaris the Hyperborean, a priest of Apollo, his golden hip to prove his words that Pythagoras was Apollo, the hyperborean, himself. Once Pythagoras’s friends were looking at a ship sailing by, guessing and estimating its cargo, and Pythagoras said: “You have a dead man!” – He was right, a dead man happened to be on the ship. There exist countless other stories, even more divine and wondrous, which all show that no other man is spoken of as much and as extraordinarily as Pythagoras.
It is also known through the word of mouth that he accurately predicted earthquakes, quickly stopped epidemics, averted rain-and hail-storms, tamed rivers and sea waves to ensure a safe and easy passage for his fellow-travelers and himself. Empedokles, Epimenides, and Abaris adopted this ability of Pythagoras. As their poems prove, all of them did the same miracles, which is why Empedokles was called the Windblocker, Epimenides the Purifier, and Abaris the Windrunner, as if he had got an arrow from Apollo as a gift, on which he flew over impassible rivers and seas as if he had run in the air. Some people think that Pythagoras did the same, when one and the same day he spoke with his disciples in Metapontum and Tauromena. He soothed soul and body illnesses with singing and lyre playing; he taught his friends to do so too. He was able to hear even the harmony of the Universe, catching accords of all spheres and heavenly bodies moving within those spheres. We are not able to hear those accords because of the weakness of human nature».
While a youth, Pythagoras associated with scholars and priests, passionately seeking scientific prooof of the internal law, which was revealed to him in his meditation on Demeter – the Mother of The Earth. The search of the great synthesis of the truth first lead him to famous Greek philosophers of the time (Pherecydes, Herdomas, Anaximander, Thales), and then to the temples of Egypt, where he gained the trust of Memphis priests and was allowed into the mysteries of Isis in Thebes.
When Cambyses, an Asian military leader, violently invaded Egypt in about 529 BC, Pythagoras was exiled to Babylon. There, rabbis (Jewish Prists) revealed to him secret teachings, which had been given by Moses. Zoroastrian magi taught him music, astronomy, and the sacred science of appeals.
After twelve years in Babylon, Pythagoras left for Crotona, a populous Dorian port city located in the south of Italy now, and founded a brotherhood of the initiated. His “CITY OF THE CHOSEN” was a school of the mysteries of the Great White Brotherhood. In Crotona, thoroughly chosen men and women followed the philosophy, based on the mathematical expression of the Universal law, manifested in music, rhythm, and harmony of the life path, and characterized by strict discipline. After five years of testing by silence, Pythagoras’s “mathematicians” went through a series of initiations, developing intuitive abilities of the heart. Due to these abilities, every God’s son or daughter, as Pythagoras says in his Golden Poems, could become “the immortal wondrous God".
Pythagoras gave his teachings hidden from the sight of his disciples. He used a language of symbols, which was understandable for only the most profound disciples. The most significant topic for him was the fundamental understanding that the number was the form and the essence of creation. He formulated the basic parts of Euclidian geometry and developed astronomic views that eventually lead to Copernic’s theory. According to chronicles, two thousands of Crotona’s inhabitants gave up their habitual way of life and gathered together in Pythagoras’s society under the wise rule of the Council of the Three Hundred(s) – an executive, scientific, and religious order that eventually had great political influence in Magna Graecia.
His doctrines influenced a great number of philosophers.
Pythagoras, “a restless adapt”, was ninety years old when Cylon, who was refused admission to the school of mysteries, instigated persecution of the philosopher. Facing the charges of Croton, Cylon read out loud Pythagoras’s secret book, Hieros Logo (The Sacred Word), distorting and ridiculing the teachings. When Pythagoras and forty head-members of the order held council, Cylon set on fire the building, where the council took place. Everyone in the building, except two people, died. As a result, the society disintegrated and most of the teachings was lost. However, the Teacher influenced many great philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Francis Bacon.
Kuthumi was Balthazar, first century AD, one of the three Magi (astronomers and adepts), who followed the star (I AM the Presence) of the Baby-Son, delivered by Virgin Mary, and who made a trip from the East to do honors to Baby-Jesus. There is a hypothesis, that he was a king of Ethiopia and brought Christ the treasures of his country – the gift of incense.
Kuthumi was also Saint Francis of Assisi (about 1181-1226, Italy). He was a founder of the Order of Saint Francis and a divine mendicant, who rejected family and treasures and was betrothed with “Madame Poverty.” He was the first saint to receive the stigma.
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Saint Francis of Assisi – was one of the most famous Christian saints; possibly, the most attractive and doubtlessly, the most popular among not only non-Catholics, but also atheists.
For 800 years, the personality of Saint Francis of Assisi had been of interest to people of most diverse views: church hierarchs and philosophers, kings and revolutionaries. He was seen as a founder of subjectivism and individualism, a precursor of the Renaissance, a reformer, a socialist, a first hippy, a fighter for ecology, and a romantic hero. Surprisingly enough, the life of Francis of Assisi was nothing but an exact following of the ideal of Christianity and imitating Christ.
People believe, that it was Saint Francis of Assisi who brought the spirit of happiness into gloomy austere Christianity of the Middle Ages. However, this is not entirely true – the joy/happiness of gratitude to the Creator, the joy/happiness of Resurrection were inherent features of Christianity. In Eastern Christianity, Clement of Alexandria and John Chrysostom were the propagators of happiness; in Western Christianity, it was Saint Benedict. Francis of Assisi did not invent anything that could be a discovery in Christianity; however, without him Christianity would not become as attractive to millions of believers as it is today.
Francis (Francesco) Bernardone was born in 1181 (or 1182) in Assisi to the family of a merchant of fabric. Francesco had a carefree and cheerful childhood and youth. When he was twenty-four he heard a voice of Christ in the church of St. Damian. Christ called him to service, at least, this is what his hagiographers say. As a young man, Francesco left his family and started living in poverty, taking care of lepers and restoring desolate churches. On Febuary, 24 in 1209, on the day of St. Mathew, during the mass, he had a revelation that his mission was to follow the Gospel word by word; so the lonely hermit became a traveling preacher. He gained some companions. He gave them the regulations of evangelical life, of which Pope Innocent III approved in 1210. Thus, in medieval Europe, another cloistral order appeared. Saint Francis preached, performed miracles like many other Christian saints, and passed away suffering from the incipient disregard of his regulations.
Why then was he outstanding and what brought the volunteering pauper from Assisi this glory? Saint Francis was a founder of proactive monasticism – missionary activity; his spirituality gave meaning to the art of the early Italian Renaissance, especially, to the art of Giotto. His “Hymn the Sun” became the first poem in the Italian language, which gave a push to the development of poetry in national languages and inspired great Dante. However, probably the most important and attractive feature about Saint Francis was the atmosphere of love, kindness, and simplicity which he was able to maintain around him in his lifetime and which was well conveyed by his contemporaries in the hagiography preserved to the present day, especially, in Flowerets of Saint Francis (Flowerets of Saint Francis of Assisi, M., “EKSMO-Press,” 2000.)
God opened to Saint Francis the divine presence in the “brother-Sun” and in the “sister-Moon” and rewarded him for his loyalty to the stigmas of crucified Jesus. Saint Frances’s prayer is known around the world. People of all religions chant it:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Shah Jahan (1592-1666) was another incarnation of Kuthumi. Shah Jahan was an Indian emperor from the dynasty of the Mughals. After Jahangir’s death ( his father), Shah Jahan inherited the throne and partly restored the noble ethics of his grandfather – Akbar the Great. During his reign, the greatness of the Mughals reached its apogee and India witnessed a rapid growth in art and architecture. Taj Mahal, erected in the capital of India -- Agra, became an example of this growth. Shah Jahan spent funds from the state treasury on music, painting, and building of majestic monuments – mosques, public buildings around India, some of which survived to the present day.
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