and
disputes and arguments arose. And if you turn back to the
_Theosophist_ of those days you will see a great deal of discussion
going on as to who were the Brothers, and what They did, and what
relation they bore to the Society, and so on; until at last They grew
a little weary of this continual challenging of Their life, and work,
and interest, and gave the warning which still exists amongst the
papers of the Society, that unless before a very short time these
questions were set at rest, and the fact of Their relation to the
Society was generally recognised, They would withdraw again for a time
into the silence in which They had remained so long, and would wait
until conditions were more favorable before they again took Their
active part in the guiding of the Society's work. Unfortunately the
warning was not taken, and so the withdrawal into the comparative
silence took place, and the Society entered on that other cycle of its
work on which, as you know, the judgment of the Master was passed in
the quotation I made the other day, that "the Society has liberated
itself from our grasp and influence, and we have let it go; we make no
unwilling slaves. It is now a soulless corpse, a machine run so far
well enough, but which will fall to pieces when.... Out of the three
objects, the second alone is attended to; it is no longer either a
Brotherhood, nor a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from
beyond the great Range." Thus Their relations to the Society of the
time altered, became less direct, less continual. Their direct
influence was confined to individuals and withdrawn for the Society at
large, save as to general strengthening, not because They desired it
should be so, but because so the Society desired, and the Society is
master of its own destiny, and may shape its own fate according to the
will of its majority. Still They watched over it, though not permitted
to "interfere" with its outer working so much as They had done in the
earlier days, and H.P.B. was obliged to declare that They did not
direct it. The relation remained, but was largely in abeyance, latent
to some extent, as we may say, and They were waiting for the time when
again the possibility might open before Them of more active work
within the movement which They had started, whose heavy karma They
were compelled to bear.

The fact that They bear the karma of the Society as a whole, seems to
me one which members of the Society ought never t