Pandit Bhavani Shankar (1859-1936) was a disciple of Koot Hoomi. KH wrote of him: "Bhavani Shankar...is stronger and fitter in many a way more than Damodar and even our mutual `female' friend... [HPB]. Bhavani Shankar has seen me in my own physical body and he can point out the way to others. He has been working unselfishly for his fellowmen through the T.S..." [Mahatma Letters, 274 & Letters from the Masters, vol. 1, 29]
The following quotes on the Occult Brotherhood and Avataras are from lectures he gave in Calcutta in 1914. These lectures are in book form under the title The Doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita. This book is still in print from Concord Grove Press in Santa Barbara, California.
"The brotherhood of adepts or Jivanmuktas is as strictly a product of Nature as a tree. It has definite and indispensable purpose and function in the development of the human race, and this function is to keep open the upward path through which descend light and leading. If, on account of increase of materialism and Adharma
[vice], this spiritual connection stops, then Bhagavan Himself [the Avatar] takes up the work of the Brotherhood and provides for the spiritual welfare of humanity..."
"The mergence of the Jivanmukta into Ishwara [divine spirit in man] may be likened to what may happen in the case of the sun when a comet falls upon it; there is in the case of the sun as accession of heat and light; so also, whenever any particular individual reaches the highest state of spiritual culture, develops in himself all the virtues that alone entitle him to a union with Ishwara and finally unites his soul with Ishwara, there is, as it were, a sort of reaction emanating from Ishwara for the good of humanity; and in particular cases an impulse is generated in Ishwara to incarnate for the good of humanity. This is the highest consumation of human aspiration and endeavour. Even in the earlier stages of his spiritual life, an aspirant for the higher life becomes a participator of the grand silent work in
the spiritual enlightenment of his race -- the current of the living moral and spiritual energy flowing from his heart being his humble contribution. As he progresses on the path his contribution increases till by inconceivably arduous tapas [meditation] and renunciation he succeeds in bringing down the great Ishwara Himself to do this work. This is one aspect of the doctrine about Avatara.
The subject is a profound one and touches one of the most jealously guarded secrets of Brahma-Vidya [spiritual wisdom]. If the latter-day Theosophical teachers had even the faintest idea of the sanctity and solemnity of the subject, we would have been spared so much blasphemous talk of preparations for an Avatara and such flippant prattle about sacred things. We see the wisdom of the
ancients in drawing the veil of secrecy on these high subjects; for, when sacred things are bandied about light-heartedly, spiritual degradation is the result."
Mahatma on TS & HPB
The following is from a letter lately received from an Indian brother...[B.K. Lahiri]and is recommended to your attention as independent evidence of the position of H.P.B. and the connection of the Masters with the T.S.
Annie Besant, William Q. Judge
March, 1893.
THE LETTER
K.B., a Brahman Yogi, recently went up to the Himalayas: on his way down to Deccan, he was kind enough to stop at my place for some days... I must mention here also that this gentleman did not know much of H.P.B. before nor of the Theosophical Society, and whenever I spoke to him about them he used to say, as it were passively, that it was a good work, no doubt, and that H.P.B. must have known the occult philosophy... that whenever the Rakshasas [demons] became powerful some goddess is sent to destroy them, and so she was sent to destroy the materialism of the all-powerful western Rakshasas. However, now I shall relate what he told me when he came back from the Himalayas. The first thing he said was: "Go on! go on! go on! Fit yourself; you have much to do: go on, go on, and go on." The next thing he told me was, that this time he considered himself thrice blessed by the sight of a Mahatma... in the snow-covered and impassable cave of the Himalayas...
The Mahatma, he said, he saw perfectly naked; that no living soul could venture to look at his eyes; his color appeared to be of such a peculiar hue that it is not like anything worldly, but when he touched his hand (K.B.'s) between the third and fourth fingers, the latter could not stand the electric shock that ran up to his head from the extreme parts of his feet... He became almost unconscious, although he himself is a real yogi of 22 years' standing... He said the body of the Mahatma, though it looked like butter, proved to be hard as steel, and that it was impossible for him to say of what it is made. The Mahatma does not speak, and
with him only spoke where he could not make the latter understand his thought perfectly well. After he received his instruction, whatever was necessary for him, he asked: "that in India there they have established a society called the Theosophical Society, and that Madame Blavatsky started it with Col. Olcott. What is this? Is there anything real in it? Who was H.P.B.? Was she a yogi? Is Col. Olcott a yogi? What will be end of all this? Is anybody to come in the place of H.P.B.? My certain friend B.K.L. who takes much interest in the T.S. pressed me for the latter information."
...He said, "The T.S. was their work: it was established to change the present current of the human mind and destroy Nastikism, [materialistic atheism]... that he was present when H.P.B. was sent by her Master from the Manasarovara Hills in Tibet... she was sent to carry out the work of the Mahatmas; -- that she was very high up there is not the least doubt, that he himself was one of the Circle, although not so high as the Guru of H.P.B.; that Col. Olcott is a good man no doubt but no yogi, he is entirely different from H.P.B. with whose name you cannot mention Olcott. That what was necessary was done by H.P.B. and the Society is successful... that hitherto the T.S. followed a particular line, but in India there should be a change in that line, but there will be no change in the West, they must go on as they do now."
Since the Svamiji has come back from the Himalayan Hills his ideas about the T.S. and H.P.B. are entirely different; instead of passive tolerance he simply says:
"...Oh! I like to worship the portrait of H.P.B.; no one has done so much good for humanity, especially for India, after Buddha and Shankaracharya... The T.S. is ours, established for certain purposes by our Mahatmas; go on and go on, work and work."
...I must tell you that the Svamji never knew any of these informations about the T.S., the West, or H.P.B. before he went up to the Hills. The Svamji showed me his hand where the Mahatma held it with his two fingers -- there is the white sign of inflammation still existing, and subsequently the skin was off from that place. These are the facts that are revealed to me... It appeared also that the Svamji is the chela of one of the chelas or grand chelas of a Mahatma of the Circle.
*********************************************
[Slightly abridged; from Echoes of the Orient vol. III, 431-32.]