The word was popularised in theosophical literature in the late 19th century when Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, claimed that her teachers were adepts or Mahatmas who reside in Tibet. The Ascended Masters are sometimes given this title by Theosophists.
The Mahatmas are not disembodied beings, but people involved in overseeing the growth of individuals and the development of civilisations.
"the title of 'Mahatma' that they have won for me has, therefore, even less. Often the title has deeply pained me, and there is not a moment I can recall when it may be said to have tickled me." - M.K. Gandhi, The Ashram, Sabarmati. Autobiography - the story of my experiments with truth, introduction. 1983, Dover publications, inc., New York. Translated by Mahadev Desai.
Mahatmas is Sanskrit for "Great Souls." While the term is popularly applied to people like Mohandas Gandhi, the term is widely used to refer to adepts or liberated souls.
The word was popularized in theosophical literature in the late 19th century when Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, revealed that her teachers were adepts or Mahatmas who reside in Tibet.
The Mahatmas were not disembodied beings, but people with flesh and blood, and who are involved in overseeing the growth of individuals and the development of civilizations.
We may note that Dr. de Purucker calls the mahatmas "Masters of Life," for that is what a mahatma is. He is a graduate in nature's great university of evolutionary development with its immense ranges of knowledge -- knowledge founded upon experience and "self-directed evolution." Thus, the mahatma is the perfect flower of human evolution.
For the mahatmas it is far different, although theosophy tells us that within all people lie sleeping organs of perception belonging to these unknown planes of their being.
The mahatmas are men and women who have awakened and developed these sleeping faculties, and it is from their training of these faculties that they derive their transcendent powers.
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