DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Letters That Have Helped Me" by William Quan Judge, Julia Wharton Lewis Campbell Ver Planck Keightley. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
These nuggets of wisdom are offered by an Academy Award–nominated actor (James Woods), a popular comedian (Aasif Mandvi), and a world-famous novelist (Jodi Picoult) to their sixteen-year-old selves. No matter how accomplished and confident they seem today, at sixteen, they were like the rest of us—often unsure, frequently confused, and usually in need of a little reassurance. In Dear Me, 75 celebrities, writers, musicians, athletes, and actors have written letters to their younger selves that give words of comfort, warning, humor, and advice. These letters present intimate, moving, and witty insights into some of the world’s most intriguing and admired individuals. By turns funny, surprising, raw, and uplifting, this singular collection captures the universal conditions that are youth, life, and growing up.
I am so far off the one who pointed out to me the way that must bring us, if followed, to the light and peace and power of truth. It is not membership of the Theosophical Society, or any other mystical body for that matter, that will bring us near to the Masters, but loving kindness and tender affection for suffering humanity — expressed with pure heart and unselfish mind. Doubt and despair are the bitter fruits of separateness, ruses and wiles of the lower mind to keep us back, among the mediocre of the race. “Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.” Duty (dharma) is the Royal Talisman. Steadfast devotion to duty is the true yoga, and infinetly better than mantrams and postures. Masters are Atma and therefore the very law of Karma itself. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. When not enlightened by the Higher Self, who alone is truly cosmopolitan, impartial, unsectarian, and pre-eminently altruistic, the good intentions of co-operative schemes are doomed to perish in the struggle of existence. They give utopia a bad name, for the personal element has a tendency to delude us as it hides behind various walls and clothes in the faults, real or imaginary, of others. It is not the cowl that makes the monk. Celibacy is not enforced either in the Theosophical Society or its inner circle any more than vegetarianism. Be that as it may, celibacy, vegetarianism, and especially total abstinence from wine and alcoholic beverages, are essential for the acquisition of Occult Knowledge. Even if the ethical scruples for the health and welfare of animals are dismissed, still vegetarianism is suggested to rich and poor for their own health, as well as the health of our planet. Great intellectual powers are no proof of, but are impediments to spiritual insight; witness most of the great men of science. We must rather pity than blame them. Each mind runs along idiosyncratic grooves of prejudice and suspicion, and is therefore unwilling to run in the grooves of another mind — hence friction and wrangle. And so the lives of our fellow men, and companions along the same journey, remain unnoticed and unused because of our dogmatic narrow-mindedness, which can do honour to no one. What is our object and what of the future? Our object is the enlightenment of oneself for the good of others. Our future comes from each moment, here and now. Future is a word for present not yet come. As we live in the moment, so we shift the future up or down for good or ill. If the present is full of doubt or vacillation, so will be the future; if full of confidence, calmness, hope, courage, and intelligence, thus also will be the future. When we begin awakening our spiritual consciousness, the Divine Ray will unveil to our highest perceptions a world entirely different from the world represented to us by our external senses. But before we become a centre of beneficent force, we should make an effort: 1. To overpower the stirring principle within us by detaching our mind from the allurements of the material world. 2. To accumulate as much merit as we can by unselfish thoughts and deeds of kindness, as directed by the power of a soul attuned with that of humanity. What we do now, in this transitional age, it will be like what the Dhyani-Chohans did in the midway point of evolution, when matter was in a critical semi-spiritual fluidic state. They then gave an impulse for new types, which resulted later in the vast varieties of nature. Let each one of us be a centre of light; a picture gallery from which shall be projected on the astral light such scenes, such influences, such thoughts, as may influence many for good, shall thus arouse a new current, which will draw back the great and the good from other spheres from beyond this earth.
Author: Jerome A. Anderson, H.P. Blavatsky, J.D. Buck, J.H. Connelly, Robert Crosbie, Thomas Green, G. Hijo, Katherine Hillard, Charles Johnston, Archibald Keightley, Julia W.L. Keightley, August Lindström, W. Main, E. August Neresheimer, Elliott B. Page, Ernest E. Pelletier, E.B. Rambo, A.H. Spencer, Claude Falls Wright.
William Quan Judge cast no one out of the sanctuary of his heart. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was the Knight errant, who fought amid the beating of drums, and the clash and clamour, the excitement and glory of a princely tournament. Blavatsky on Judge: · I trust Judge more than anyone in the whole world. · My heart beats only for the cause you represent so well and serve so faithfully. · He does the Master’s work to the best of his ability. · Nothing that you will do will ever be discountenanced by me, my beloved. · “Lucifer” is Theosophy militant; “Path,” the Star of Peace; the one is combative Manas; the other, shinning Buddhi. There now follow tributes to William Quan Judge by his Students and Friends. While we reverence the Adept, let us not lose sight of the Man, for even in his simplest life he was great. To the children and the humble and lowly in the society, he was a revelation. His devotion never wavered; his anchorage was sure and steadfast, and herein lay his strength. His skill in the performance of actions was marvellous, his executive ability of the highest order. He was never narrow, never selfish, never conceited. He would drop his own plan in a moment if a better were suggested, and was delighted if someone would carry on the work he had devised, and immediately inaugurate other lines of work. His demeanour was uniformly the same: kindly, considerate and self-restrained, not merely in such measure of polite self-control as might be expected of a gentleman, but as if inspired by much higher regards than mere respect for the covenances of good society. Careful deliberation upon things was one of his strongest characteristics. His mind was very active, quick and resourceful in suggestion, but I do not recall having ever known of his trusting its impulses until he had thoroughly weighed and considered them. I trusted him then, as all those whom he trusted; to me it seems that trust is the bond that binds, that makes the strength of the Movement, for it is of the heart. Judge was humble, unassuming, modest, strong, patient, meek, courageous, an organizer beyond comparison, with powers similar to those possessed by Madame Blavatsky, and never using them in any way but to smooth the path for those who desired to follow the road to knowledge. There was no difficulty he would not take infinite pains to unravel, no sore spot in the heart he did not sense and strive to heal. We mourn the tenderest of friends, the wisest of counsellors, the bravest and noblest of leaders. William Q. Judge was the nearest approach to my ideal of a man that I have known. His most lovable trait was his exquisite sympathy and gentleness. No one ever touched a sore spot with such infinite tenderness, and I know many that would rather have been scolded and corrected by Mr. Judge than praised by anyone else. I thank the gods that I was privileged to know him. It was a benediction to call him friend. He was the best of friends, for he held you firmly, yet apart. He realized the beautiful description Emerson gives of the ideal friend, in whom meet the two most essential elements of friendship — tenderness and truth. It is necessary that just those souls in whom we have felt most of reality should disappear from us into the darkness, in order that we may learn that not seeing, but inwardly touching, is the true proof that our friend is there. As I think of what those missed who persecuted him, of the loss in their lives, of the great jewel so near to them which they passed by, I turn sick with a sense of their loss. In him his foes lost their truest friend. His heart was set upon the promise of the future and the song of his soul echoed the music of cycles yet to come. We think of him not as of a man departed from our midst, but as a soul set free to work its mighty mission, rejoicing in that freedom and resplendent with compassion and power. Close up the ranks, and let Fidelity be the agent of heavenly powers. Judge’s head evidenced a high and uniform development of all the faculties, a tremendous will-power combined with gentleness; a thorough practicability and adaptability conjoined to a highly idealistic nature, and a gigantic intellect hand-in-hand with selflessness and modesty. Those who have heard him speak, know the singular directness with which his mind went to the marrow of a subject, the simplicity of his words, the unaffected selflessness that radiated from the man. His sentences were short and plain; his manner cool and quiet: but what he said was remembered, for his words appealed to the sense of truth; they seemed to “soak in,” like the showers which the farmers prize, while a “torrent of eloquence” would have run off, leaving dry ground. Judge was an Occultist. He had the power of self-control, and could subdue the turbulent wanderings of the mind, sit still in the midst of his own nature, supported by his ideal, and view any and every situation dispassionately. He was the soul of unselfishness, honour, generosity, and all the other virtues that men hold so dear in other men. He seemed never to rest, for work was his rest. He swore no one to allegiance, he asked for no one’s love or loyalty: but his disciples came to him of their own free will and accord, and then he never deserted them. but gave more freely than they asked, and often in greater measure than they could or would use. A good homely face and unpretentious manner, a loving disposition, full of kindliness and honest friendship, went with such strong common sense and knowledge of affairs that his coming was always a pleasure and his stay a delight. In other bodies, and known under other names, Judge has played an important part in the world’s history, sometimes as a conspicuous visible figure. At other times, he worked quietly behind the scenes, or, as in his last life, as a leader in a philanthropical and philosophical movement.
A guide to becoming empowered in today's world addresses a wide range of topics, from establishing a unique identity and confronting racism and sexism to engaging in responsible relationships with the opposite sex and managing finances.
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