The Masters And The Path

by

C. W. Leadbeater 

FOREWORD

THERE is only one reason why I should write this Foreword to the book written by my honoured colleague. It speaks of many things which have hitherto been studied and discussed within a comparatively small circle, consisting of students well versed in Theosophical knowledge, and ready to study statements concerning regions which they could not yet enter for themselves, but hoped to enter later, and then to verify for themselves the statements made by their seniors. The rapid changes in the world of thought, arising from the nearness of the Coming of the World-Teacher, render useful some information as to a part of the world in which He lives, information which may, perhaps, to some extent prepare the public mind for His teachings.

Be that as it may, I desire to associate myself with the statements made in this book, for the accuracy of nearly all of which I can personally vouch; and also to say on behalf of my colleague as well of myself, that the book is issued as a record of observations carefully made and carefully recorded, but not claiming any authority, nor making any demand for acceptance. It makes no claim to inspiration, but is only an honest account of things seen by the writer.

ANNIE BESANT

 

PART I

THE MASTERS

CHAPTER I

THE EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1.                  THE existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages of their evolution-- many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or another are distinctly in advance of us. Since that is so, there may well be others who are very much further advanced; indeed, if men are steadily growing better and better through a long series of successive lives, tending towards a definite goal, there should certainly be some who have already reached that goal. Some of us in the process of that development have already succeeded in unfolding some of those higher senses which are latent in every man, and will be the heritage of all in the future; and by means of those senses we are enabled to see the ladder of evolution extending far above us as well as far below us, and we can also see that there are men standing upon every rung of that ladder.

2.                  There is a considerable amount of direct testimony to the existence of these Perfected Men whom we call Masters, but I think that the first step which each one of us should take is to make certain that there must be such men; only as a later step will it follow that those with whom we have come into contact belong to that class.

3.                  The historical records of every nation are full of the doings of men of genius in all the different departments of human activity, men who in their special lines of work and ability have stood far above the rest-- indeed, so far that at times (and probably more often than we know) their ideals were utterly beyond the comprehension of the people, so that not only the work that they may have done has been lost to mankind, but their very names even have not been preserved. It has been said that the history of every nation could be written in the biography of a few individuals, and that it is always the few, towering above the rest, who initiate the great forward steps in art, music, literature, science, philosophy, philanthropy, statecraft, and religion. They stand high sometimes in love of God and their fellow-men, as great saints and philanthropists; sometimes in understanding of man and Nature, as great philosophers, sages and scientists; sometimes in work for humanity, as great liberators and reformers. Looking at these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further developed even than they, men great in spirituality as well as knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections-- men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable privilege to encounter?

4.                  This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners of the rest, and that They flash out as beacons, as veritable light-bearers to show us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be revealed. We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.

5.                  Behind the evolving form burgeons out ever the Life eternal, the Life Divine. That Life of God permeates the whole of nature, which is but the many-coloured cloak which He has donned; it is He who lives in the beauty of the flower, in the strength of the tree, in the swiftness and grace of the animal, as well as in the heart and soul of man. It is because His will is evolution that all life everywhere is pressing onward and upward; and it is therefore that the existence of Perfected Men at the end of this long line of ever-unfolding power and wisdom and love is the most natural thing in the world. Even beyond Them-- beyond our sight and our comprehension-- stretches a vista of still greater glory; some hint of that we may endeavour to give later, but it is useless to speak of it now.

6.                  The logical consequence of all this is that there must be Perfected Men, and there are not wanting signs of the existence of such Men in all ages who, instead of leaving the world entirely, to pursue a life of their own in the divine or superhuman kingdoms, have remained in touch with humanity, through love of it, to assist its evolution in beauty and love and truth, to help, as it were, to cultivate the Perfect Man-- just as here and there we find a botanist who has special love for plants, and glories in the production of a perfect orange or a perfect rose.

7.                  THE TESTIMONY OF THE RELIGIONS

8.                  The records of every great religion show the presence of such Supermen, so full of the Divine Life that again and again they have been taken as the very representatives of God Himself. In every religion, especially at its founding, has such an One appeared, and in many cases more than one. The Hindus have their great Avataras or divine incarnations, such as Shri Krishna, Shri Shankaracharya, and the Lord Gautama Buddha, whose religion has spread over the Far East, and a great galaxy of Rishis, of Saints, of Teachers; and these Great Ones took interest not only in awakening men' s spiritual natures, but also in all affairs that made for their well-being on earth. All who belong to the Christian world know, or ought to know, much about the great succession of prophets and teachers and saints in their own dispensation, and that in some way (perhaps not clearly understood) their Supreme Teacher, the Christ Himself, was and is Man as well as God. And all the earlier religions (decadent as some of them may be amid the decay of nations), down even to those of primitive tribes of men, show as outstanding features the existence of Supermen, helpers in every way of the childlike people among whom They dwelt. An enumeration of these, interesting and valuable as it is, would take us too far aside from our present purpose, so I will refer the reader for it to Mr. W. Williamson' s excellent book The Great Law.

9.                  RECENT EVIDENCE

10.              There is much direct and recent evidence for the existence of these Great Ones. In my earlier days I never needed any such evidence, because I was fully persuaded as a result of my studies that there must be such people. To believe that there were such glorified Men seemed perfectly natural, and my only desire was to meet Them face to face Yet there are many among the newer members of the Society who, reasonably enough, want to know what evidence there is. There is a considerable amount of personal testimony. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the co-founders of The Theosophical Society, Dr. Annie Besant, our present President, and I myself-- all of us have seen some of these Great Ones, and many other members of the Society have also been privileged to see one or two of Them, and there is ample testimony in what all these people have written.

11.              It is sometimes objected that those who saw Them, or fancied that they did so, may have been dreaming or perhaps deluded. The chief reason, I think, for the possibility of such a suggestion is that we have very rarely seen the Adepts at a time when both They and we were in our physical bodies. In the early days of the Society, when only Madame Blavatsky had developed higher faculties, the Masters not infrequently materialized Themselves so that all could see Them, and showed Themselves thus physically on various occasions. You will find many records of such happenings in the earlier history of our Society, but of course the Great One so showing Himself was not in His physical body, but in a materialized form.

12.              Many of us habitually and constantly see Them during our sleep. We go out in our astral bodies (or in the mental body, according to our development) and we visit Them and see Them in Their physical bodies; but we are not at that time in ours, and that is why on the physical plane people tend to be sceptical about such experiences. Men object: “But in these cases either you who saw Them were out of the physical body, and may have been dreaming or deluded, or Those who appeared to you came phenomenally and then disappeared again; so how do you know that They were what you suppose Them to be?”

13.              There are a few cases in which both the Adept and the person who saw Him were in the physical body. It happened with Madame Blavatsky; I have heard her testify that she lived for some time in a monastery in Nepal, where she saw three of our Masters constantly in Their physical vehicles. Some of Them have come down more than once from Their mountain retreats into India in Their physical bodies. Colonel Olcott spoke of having seen two of Them on those occasions; he had met the Master Morya and also the Master Kuthumi. Damodar K. Mavalankar, whom I knew in 1884, had encountered the Master Kuthumi in His physical body. There was the case of S. Ramaswami Iyer, a gentleman whom I knew well in those days, who had the experience of meeting the Master Morya physically, and has written an account of that meeting which I shall quote later; and there was the case of Mr. W. T. Brown of the London Lodge, who also was privileged to meet one of the Great Ones under similar conditions. There is also a vast amount of Indian testimony which has never been collected and sifted, mainly because those to whom these experiences came were so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Supermen and of the possibility of meeting Them that they did not regard any individual case as worthy of record.

14.              PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

15.              I myself can report two occasions on which I have met a Master, both of us being in the physical vehicle. One of Them was the Adept to whom the name of Jupiter was assigned in the book of The Lives of Alcyone, who greatly assisted in the writing of portions of Madame Blavatsky' s famous work Isis Unveiled, when that was being done in Philadelphia and New York. When I was living at Adyar, He was so kind as to request my revered teacher, Swami T. Subba Row, to bring me to call upon Him. Obeying His summons we journeyed to His house, and were most graciously received by Him. After a long conversation of the deepest interest, we had the honour of dining with Him, Brahman though He be, and spent the night and part of the next day under His roof. In that case it will be admitted that there could be no question of illusion. The other Adept whom I had the privilege of encountering physically was the Master the Comte de St. Germain, called sometimes the Prince Rakoczy. I met Him under quite ordinary circumstances (without any previous appointment, and as though by chance) walking down the Corso in Rome, dressed just as any Italian gentleman might be. He took me up into the gardens on the Pincian hill, and we sat for more than an hour talking about the Society and its work; or perhaps I should rather say that He spoke and I listened, although when He asked questions I answered.

16.              Other members of the Brotherhood I have seen under varying circumstances. My first encounter with one of them was in a hotel in Cairo; I was on my way out to India with Madame Blavatsky and some others, and we stayed in that city for a time. We all used to gather in Madame Blavatsky' s room for work, and I was sitting on the floor, cutting out and arranging for her a quantity of newspaper articles which she wanted. She sat at a table close by; indeed my left arm was actually touching her dress. The door of the room was in full sight, and it certainly did not open; but quite suddenly, without any preparation, there was a man standing almost between me and Madame Blavatsky. Within touch of both of us. It gave me great start, and I jumped up in some confusion; Madame Blavatsky was much amused and said: “If you do not know enough not to be startled at such a trifle as that, you will not get far in this occult work.” I was introduced to the visitor, who was not then an Adept, but an Arhat, which is one grade below that state; He has since become the Master Djwal Kul.

17.              Some months after that the Master Morya came to us one day, looking exactly as though in a physical body; He walked through the room where I was in order to communicate with Madame Blavatsky, Who was in her bedroom inside. That was the first time I had seen him plainly and clearly, for I had not then developed my latent senses sufficiently to remember what I saw in the subtle body. I saw the Master Kuthumi under similar conditions on the roof of our Headquarters at Adyar; He was stepping over a balustrade as though He had just materialized from the empty air on the other side of it. I have also many times seen the Master Djwal Kul on that roof in the same way.

18.              This would, I suppose, be considered less certain evidence, since the Adepts came as apparitions do; but, as I have since learned to use my higher vehicles freely, and to visit these Great Ones in that way, I can testify that Those who in the early years of the Society came and materialized for us are the same Men whom I have often since seen living in Their own homes. People have suggested that I and others who have the same experience may be but dreaming, since these visits take place during the sleep of the body; I can only reply that it is a remarkably consistent dream, extending in my own case over forty years, and that it has been dreamt simultaneously by a large number of people.

19.              Those who wish to collect evidence about these matters (and it is quite reasonable that they should wish to do so) should turn to the earlier literature of the Society. If they meet our President, they can hear from her how many of the Great Ones she has seen on different occasions; and there are many of our members who will bear witness without hesitation that they have seen a Master. It may be that in meditation they have seen His face, and later have had definite proof that He is a real being. Much evidence may be found in Colonel Olcott' s Old Diary Leaves, and there is an interesting treatise called Do the Brothers Exist? written by Mr. A. O. Hume, a man who stood high in the Civil Service in India, and worked much with our late Vice-President, Mr. A. P. Sinnett. It was published in a book entitled Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. Mr. Hume, who was a sceptical Anglo-Indian with a legal mind, went into the question of the existence of the Brothers (as the Masters are also called, because They belong to a great Brotherhood, and also because they are the Elder Brothers of humanity) and even at that early date decided that he had overwhelming testimony that They did exist; and very much more evidence has accumulated since that book was published.

20.              The possession of extended vision and other faculties resulting from the unfolding of our latent powers has also brought within our constant experience the fact that there are other orders of beings than the human, some of whom rank alongside the Adepts in a grade of existence higher than our own. We meet with some whom we call Devas or Angels, and with others whom we see to be far beyond ourselves in every respect.

21.              THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE

22.              Since in the course of our development we have become able to communicate with the Adepts, we have naturally asked Them with all reverence how They have attained to that level. They tell us with one accord that no long time ago They stood where we stand now. They have risen out of the ranks of ordinary humanity, and They have told us that we in time to come shall be as They are now, and that the whole system is a graded evolution of Life extending up and up, further than we can follow it, even unto the Godhead itself.

23.              We find that as there are definite stages in the earlier evolution-- the vegetable above the mineral, the animal above the vegetable and the human above the animal-- so in the same way the human kingdom has a definite end, a boundary at which it passes into a kingdom distinctly higher than itself, that beyond men there are the Supermen.

24.              In the study of this system of evolution, we have learnt that there are in every man three great divisions-- body, soul and spirit; and each of these is capable of further subdivision. That is the definition which was given by St. Paul two thousand years ago. The Spirit or Monad is the breath of God (for the word spirit means breath, from the Latin spiro ), the divine spark which is truly the Man, though it may more accurately be described as hovering over man as we know him. The scheme of its evolution is that it should descend into matter, and through its descent obtain definiteness and accuracy in material detail.

25.              So far as we able to see, this Monad, which is a spark of the Divine Fire, cannot descend as far as our present level, cannot directly reach this physical plane in which we are now thinking and working-- probably because the rates of its vibration and those of physical matter differ too widely, so that there must be intermediate states and conditions. On what plane of nature that divine spark originally exists we do not know, for it is far above out of our reach. The lowest manifestation of it, which might be called a reflection of it, descends into the lowermost of the Cosmic Planes, as described in A Text Book of Theosophy.

26.              We speak commonly of seven planes of existence, which are subdivisions or subplanes of the lowest Cosmic Plane, called in our books the Prakritic, meaning the physical plane of the Cosmos. The Monad can descend to the second of these subplanes (which we consequently call the Monadic plane) but it does not seem able to penetrate lower than this. In order to obtain the necessary contact with still denser matter, it put down part of itself through two whole planes, and that fragment is what we call the ego or soul.

27.              The Divine Spirit far above us merely hovers over us; the soul, which is a small and partial representation of it (it is as though the Monad puts down a finger of fire, and the end of that finger is the soul) cannot descend below the higher part of the mental plane (which is the fifth plane counting downwards, the physical being the seventh and lowest); and, in order that it may reach a still lower level, it must in turn put down a small portion of itself, which becomes the personality that we know. So this personality, which each person commonly thinks to be himself, is in truth but the fragment of a fragment.

28.              All the evolution through the lower kingdom is preparatory to the development of this human constitution. An animal during its life on the physical plane (and for some time after that in the astral world) has a soul just as individual and separate as a man' s; but when the animal comes to the end of its astral life, that soul does not reincarnate again in a single body, but returns to a kind of reservoir of soul-matter, called in our books a group-soul. It is as though the group-soul were a bucket of water, supplying the need of several animals of the same kind-- say, for example, twenty horses. When a horse is to be born from that group-soul, it is as though one dipped a vessel into that bucket and brought it out full of water. During the life of that horse all kinds of experiences come to him which modify his soul, from which it learns lessons, and these may be compared to various kinds of colouring matter cast into the vessel of water. When the horse dies, the water in the vessel in emptied back into the bucket, and the colouring matter which it has acquired spreads all through the whole bucket. When another horse is born from the same group-soul, another vessel of water is filled from the bucket; but it will be obvious that it is impossible to take out it exactly the same drops of water which constituted the soul of the previous horse.¹

29.              ¹ For further details of this process see A text Book of Theosophy.

30.              When an animal has developed far enough to become human, that means that at the end of his life his soul is not poured back again into the group-soul, but remains as a separate entity. And now a very curious but very beautiful fate befalls him. The soul-matter, the water in the vessel, becomes itself a vehicle for something much higher, and instead of acting as a soul, it is itself ensouled. We have no exact analogy on the physical plane, unless we think of pumping air into water under high pressure, and thereby making it aerated water. If we accept that symbolism, the water which was previously the animal soul has now become the causal body of a man ; and the air pumped into it is the ego of which I have spoken-- that soul of man which is but a partial manifestation of the Divine Spirit. This descent of the ego is symbolized in ancient mythology by the Greek idea of the krater or Cup, and by the mediaeval story of the Holy Grail; for the Grail or the Cup is the perfected result of all that evolution, into which is poured the Wine of the Divine Life, so that the soul of man may be born. So, as we have said, this which has previously been the animal soul becomes in the case of man what is called the causal body, which exists in the higher part of the mental plane as the permanent vehicle occupied by the ego or human soul; and all that has been learnt in its evolution is transferred to this new centre of life.

31.              The evolution of this soul consists in its gradual return to the higher level on the plane next below the Monadic, carrying with it the result of its descent in the shape of experiences gained and qualities acquired. The physical body in all of us is fully developed, and because that is so we are supposed to have conquered it; but it should be fully under the control of the soul. Among the higher races of mankind at the present day it usually is so, though it may break away and run wild for a little at times. The astral body is also fully developed, but it is not yet by any means under perfect control; even among the races to which we belong, there are many people who are the victims of their own emotions. Instead of being able to govern them perfectly, they too often allow themselves to be governed by them. They let their emotions run away with them, just as a wild horse may run away with its rider, and take him into many places whereto he does not wish to go.

32.              We may take it, then, that in all the best men of the more advanced races at the present day the physical body is fully developed, and fairly under control; the astral body is also fully developed, but not by any means under perfect control; the mental body is in process of unfoldment, but its growth is yet very far from complete. They have a long way to go yet before these three bodies, the physical, the astral and the mental, are entirely subordinate to the soul. When that happens the lower self will have been absorbed into the higher self, and the ego, the soul, will have dominated the man. Though the man is not yet perfect, the different vehicles are so far harmonized that they have but one aim.

33.              Up to this time the soul has been slowly controlling the personal vehicles until they become one with it, but now the Monad in its turn begins to dominate the soul; and there will presently come a time when, just as the personality and the soul have become one, the Spirit and the soul will become one in their turn. This is the unification of the ego with the Monad; and when that is achieved the man has attained the object of his descent into matter-- he has become the Superman, or Adept.

34.              SUPERHUMAN LIFE

35.              Now only, for the first time; does he enter upon his real life, for the whole of this stupendous process of evolution (through all the lower kingdoms and then through the human kingdom up to the attainment of Adeptship) is but a preparation for that true life of the Spirit which begins only when man becomes more than man. Humanity is the final class of the world-school; and when a man has been trained therein he passes out into the real life, the life of the glorified Spirit, the life of the Christ. What that is we know but little as yet, though we see some of Those who are sharing it. It has a glory and a splendour which is beyond all comparison, beyond our comprehension ; and yet it is a vivid and living fact, and the attainment of it by every one of us is an absolute certainty from which we cannot escape even if we would. If we act selfishly, if we set ourselves against the current of evolution, we can delay our progress; but we cannot finally prevent it.

36.              Having finished with human life, the Perfected Man usually drops His various material bodies. but He retains the power to take up any of them if ever He should need them in course of His work. In the majority of cases, one who gains that level no longer needs a physical body. He no longer retains an astral, a mental or even a causal body, but lives permanently at His highest level. Whenever for any purpose He needs to deal with a lower plane, He must take a temporary vehicle belonging to that plane, because only through the medium of its matter can He come into contact with those who live therein. If He wishes to talk to men physically, He must take a physical body; He must have at least a partial materialization, or He cannot speak. In the same way, if He wishes to impress our minds, He must draw round himself a mental body. Whenever He needs in His work to take a lower vehicle, He has the power to do so; but He holds it only temporarily. There are seven lines of still further progress along which the Perfected Man can go, a list of which we shall give in a later chapter.

37.              THE BROTHERHOOD OF ADEPTS

38.              The world is guided and directed to a large extent by a Brotherhood of Adepts to which our Masters belong. Theosophical students make all sorts of mistakes about Them. They often regard Them as a great monastic community, all living together in some secret place. They suppose Them sometimes to be Angels, and many of our students have thought that They were all Indian, or that They all resided in the Himalayas. None of these hypotheses is true. There is a great Brotherhood, and its Members are in constant communication with one another; but Their communication is on higher planes and They do not necessarily live together. As part of Their work, some of these great Brothers whom we call Masters of the Wisdom are willing to take pupil-apprentices and teach them; but They form only a small section of the mighty Body of Perfected Men.

39.              As will be explained later on, there are seven types of men, for every one belongs to one of the seven Rays into which the great wave of evolving life is distinctly divided. It would seem that one Adept on each of the Rays is appointed to attend to the training of beginners, and all those who are coming along His particular Ray of evolution pass through His hands.

40.              No one below the rank of Adept is permitted to assume full responsibility for a novice, though those who have been chelas for a number of years are often employed as deputies, and receive the privilege of helping and advising promising young aspirants. These older pupils are gradually being trained for their future work when they in turn shall become Adepts, and they are learning to take more and more of the routine work off the hands of their Masters, so that the latter may be set free for higher labours which only They can undertake. The preliminary selection of candidates for discipleship is now left to a large extent in the hands of these older workers, and the candidates are temporarily linked with such representatives rather than directly with the great Adepts. But the pupils and the Master are so wonderfully one that perhaps this is almost “a distinction without a difference.”

41.              THE POWERS OF THE ADEPT

42.              The powers of the Adept are indeed many and wonderful, but they all follow in natural sequence from faculties which we ourselves possess. It is only that They have these faculties in a very much greater degree. I think that the outstanding characteristic of the Adept, as compared with ourselves, is that He looks upon everything from an absolutely different point of view; for there is in Him nothing whatever of the thought of self which is so prominent in the majority of men. The Adept has eliminated the lower self, and is living not for self but for all, and yet, in a way that only He can really understand, that all is truly Himself also. He has reached that stage in which there is no flaw in His character, nothing of a thought or feeling for a personal, separated self, and His only motive is that of helping forward evolution, of working in harmony with the Logos who directs it.

43.              Perhaps the next most prominent characteristic is His all-round development. We are all of us imperfect; none has attained the highest level in any line, and even the great scientist or the great saint has usually reached high excellence in one thing only, and there remain other sides of his nature not yet unfolded. All of us possess some germ of all the different characteristics, but always they are but partially awakened, and one much more than another. An Adept, however, is an all-round Man, a Man whose devotion and love and sympathy and compassion are perfect, while at the same time His intellect is something far grander than we can as yet realize, and His spirituality is wonderful and divine. He stands out above and beyond all men whom we know, because of the fact that He is fully developed.

44.              CHAPTER II

45.              THE PHYSICAL BODIES OF THE MASTERS

46.              THEIR APPEARANCE

47.              THERE has been among Theosophical students a great deal of vagueness and uncertainty about the Masters, so perhaps it may help us to realize how natural Their lives are, and how there is an ordinary physical side to them, if I say a few words about the daily life and appearance of some of Them. There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be infallibly distinguished from other men, but He always appears impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene, and anyone meeting Him could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man. He is the strong but silent man, speaking only when He has a definite object in view, to encourage, to help or to warn, yet He is wonderfully benevolent and full of a keen sense of humour-- humour always of a kindly order, used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of life. The Master Morya once said that it is impossible to make progress on the occult Path without a sense of humour, and certainly all the Adepts whom I have seen have possessed that qualification.

48.              Most of Them are distinctly fine-looking men; Their physical bodies are practically perfect, for They live in complete obedience to the laws of health, and above all They never worry about anything. All Their evil karma has long been exhausted, and thus the physical body is as perfect an expression of the Augoeides or glorified body of the ego as the limitations of the physical plane will allow, so that not only is the present body of an Adept usually splendidly handsome, but also new body that He may take in a subsequent incarnation is likely to be an almost exact reproduction of the old one, allowing for racial and family differences, because there is nothing to modify it. This freedom from karma gives Them, when for any reason They choose to take new bodies, entire liberty to select a birth in any country or race that may be convenient for the work that They have to do, and thus the nationality of the particular bodies which They happen to be wearing at any given time is not of primary importance.

49.              To know that a certain man is an Adept it would be necessary to see His causal body, for in that His development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special arrangement of its colours into concentric spheres, such as is indicated to some extent in the illustration of the causal body of an Arhat (Plate xxvi) in Man, Visible and Invisible.

50.              A RAVINE IN TIBET

51.              There is a certain valley, or rather ravine, in Tibet, where three of these Great Ones, the Master Morya, the Master Kuthumi and the Master Djwal Kul are living at the present time.

52.              A Ravine in Tibet

53.             

54.              The Master Djwal Kul, at Madame Blavatsky' s request, once made for her a precipitated picture of the mouth of that ravine, and the illustration given herewith is a reproduction of a photograph of that. The original, which is precipitated on silk, is preserved in the shrine-room of the Headquarters of The Theosophical Society at Adyar. On the left of the picture the Master Morya is seen on horse-back near the door of His house. The dwelling of the Master Kuthumi does not appear in the picture, being higher up the valley, round the bend on the right. Madame Blavatsky begged the Master Djwal Kul to put himself into the picture; He at first refused, but eventually added Himself as a small figure standing in the water and grasping a pole, but with His back to the spectator! This original is faintly tinted, the colours being blue, green and black. It bears the signature of the artist-- the nickname Gai Ben-Jamin, which He bore in His youth in the early days of the Society, long before He reached Adeptship.¹ The scene is evidently taken early in the day, as the morning mists are still clinging to the hillsides.

55.              ¹ This signature was upon the lower margin outside the actual picture, and consequently it does not appear in our reproduction.

56.              The Masters Morya and Kuthumi occupy houses on opposite sides of this narrow ravine, the slopes of which are covered with pine trees. Paths run down the ravine past Their houses, and meet at the bottom, where there is a little bridge. Close to the bridge a narrow door, which may be seen on the left at the bottom of the picture, leads to a system of vast subterranean halls containing an occult museum of which the Master Kuthumi is the Guardian on behalf of the Great White Brotherhood.

57.              The contents of this museum are of the most varied character. They appear to be intended as a kind of illustration of the whole process of evolution. For example, there are here the most life-like images of every type of man which has existed on this planet from the commencement-- from gigantic loose-jointed Lemurians to pigmy remains of even earlier and less human races. Models in alto relievo show all the variations of the surface of the earth-- the conditions before and after the great cataclysms which have changed it so much. Huge diagrams illustrate the migrations of the different races of the world, and show exactly how far they spread from their respective sources. Other similar diagrams are devoted to the influence of the various religions of the world, showing where each was practised in its original purity, and where it became mingled with and distorted by the remains of other religions.

58.              Amazingly life-like statues perpetuate the physical appearance of certain of the great leaders and teachers of long-forgotten races; and various objects of interest connected with important and even unnoticed advancements in civilization are preserved for the examination of posterity. Original manuscripts of incredible antiquity and of priceless value are here to be seen-- a manuscript, for example, written by the hand of the Lord Buddha Himself in His final life as Prince Siddartha, and another written by the Lord Christ during His birth in Palestine. Here is kept that marvellous original of the Book of Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky describes in the opening of The Secret Doctrine. Here too are strange scripts from other worlds than ours. Animal and vegetable forms are also depicted, some few of which are known to us as fossils, though most of them are unimagined by our modern science. Actual models of some of the great cities of remote and forgotten antiquity are here for the study of the pupils.

59.              All statues and models are vividly coloured exactly as were the originals; and we may note that the collection here was intentionally put together at the time, in order to represent to posterity the exact stages through which the evolution or civilization of the time was passing, so that instead of mere incomplete fragments, such as our museums so often present to us, we have in all cases an intentionally educative series of presentations. There we find models of all the kinds of machinery which the different civilizations have evolved, and also there are elaborate and abundant illustrations of the types of magic in use at the various periods of history.

60.              In the vestibule leading to these vast halls are kept the living images of those pupils of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi who happen at the time to be on probation, which I will describe later. These images are ranged round the walls like statues, and are perfect representations of the pupils concerned. It is not probable, however, that they are visible to physical eyes, for the lowest matter entering into their composition is etheric.

61.              Near the bridge there is also a small Temple with turrets of somewhat Burmese form, to which a few villagers go to make offerings of fruit and flowers, and to burn camphor and recite the Pancha Sila. A rough and uneven track leads down the valley by the side of the stream. From either of the two houses of the Masters the other house can be seen ; they are both above the bridge, but both cannot be seen from it, since the ravine bends round. If we follow the path up the valley past the house of the Master Kuthumi it will lead us to a large pillar of rock, beyond which, the ravine bending round again, it passes out of sight. Some distance further on the ravine opens out into a plateau on which there is a lake, in which, tradition tells us, Madame Blavatsky used to bathe ; and it is said that she found it very cold. The valley is sheltered and faces south, and though the surrounding country is under snow during the winter, I do not remember having seen any near the Masters' houses. These houses are of stone, very heavily and strongly built.

62.              THE HOUSE OF THE MASTER KUTHUMI

63.             

64.              The house of the Master Kuthumi is divided into two parts by a passage-way running straight through it. As will be seen from our diagram 1 (p.32), which shows the ground plan of the southern half of the house, on entering the passage, the first door on the right leads into the principal room of the house, in which our Master usually sits. It is large and lofty (about fifty feet by thirty feet), in many ways more like a hall than a room, and it occupies the whole of the front of the house on that side of the passage. Behind that large room are two other nearly square rooms, one of which He uses as a library, and the other as a bedroom. That completes that side or division of the house, which is apparently reserved for the Master' s personal use, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. The other side of the house, on the left of the passage as one enters, seems to be divided into smaller rooms and offices of various kinds ; we have had no opportunity of closely examining them, but we have noted that just across the passage from the bedroom is a well-appointed bathroom.

65.              The large room is well supplied with windows, both along the front and the end-- so well that on entering one gets the impression of an almost continuous outlook ; and under the windows runs a long seat. There is also a somewhat unusual feature for that country, a large open fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the front windows. This is so arranged as to heat all three rooms, and it has a curious hammered iron cover, which I am told is unique in Tibet. Over the opening of that fire-place is a mantelpiece, and near by stands the Master' s armchair of very old carved wood, hollowed to fit the sitter, so that for it no cushions are required. Dotted about the room are tables and settees or sofas, mostly without backs, and in one corner is the keyboard of the Master' s organ. The ceiling is perhaps twenty feet high, and is very handsome, with its fine carved beams, which descend into ornamental points where they meet one another and divide the ceiling into oblong sections. An arched opening with a pillar in the centre, somewhat in the Gothic style, but without glass, opens into the study, and a similar window opens into the bedroom. This latter room is very simply furnished. There is an ordinary bed, swung hammock-like between two carved wooden supports fixed in the wall (one of these carved to imitate a lion' s head, and the other an elephant' s), and the bed when not in use folds up against the wall.

66.              The library is a fine room, containing thousands of volumes. Running out from the wall there are tall book-shelves, filled with books in many languages, a number of them being modern European works and at the top there are open shelves for manuscripts. The Master is a great linguist, and besides being a fine English scholar has a thorough knowledge of French and German. The library also contains a typewriter, which was presented to the Master by one of His pupils.

67.              DIAGRAM 1

68.              Of the Master' s family I know but little. There is a lady, evidently a pupil, whom He calls ` sister' . Whether she is actually His sister or not I do not know; she might possibly be a cousin or a niece. She looks much older than He, but that would not make the relationship improbable, as He has appeared of about the same age for a long time. She resembles Him to a certain extent, and once or twice when there have been gatherings she has come and joined the party; though her principal work seems to be to look after the house-keeping and manage the servants. Among the latter are an old man and his wife, who have been for a long time in the Master' s service. They do not know anything of the real dignity of their employer, but regard Him as a very indulgent and gracious patron, and naturally they benefit greatly by being in His service.

69.              THE MASTER' S ACTIVITIES

70.              The Master has a large garden of His own. He possesses, too, a quantity of land, and employs labourers to cultivate it. Near the house there are flowering shrubs and masses of flowers growing freely, with ferns among them. Through the garden there flows a streamlet; which forms a little waterfall, and over it a tiny bridge is built. Here He often sits when He is sending out streams of thought and benediction upon His people; it would no doubt appear to the casual observer as though He were sitting idly watching Nature, and listening heedlessly to the song of the birds, and to the splash and tumble of the water. 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.

71.              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 most strenuous labour on higher planes, manipulating various natural forces and pouring forth influences of the most diverse character on thousands of souls simultaneously; 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.

72.              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.

73.              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 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.

74.              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.

75.              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 bourdon 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 :

76.              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.

77.              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, and takes 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. Most probably when He feels inclined He orders the food that he would like, and does not take His meals at stated times. I have seen Him eating little round cakes, brown and sweet ; they are made of wheat and sugar and butter, and are of the ordinary kind used in the household, cooked by His sister. He also eats curry and rice, the curry being somewhat in the form of soup, like dhal. He uses a curious and beautiful golden spoon, with an exquisite image of an elephant at the end of the handle, the bowl of which is set at an unusual angle to the stem. It is a family heirloom, very old and probably of great value. He generally wears white clothes, but I do not remember ever having seen Him wearing a head-dress of any kind, except on the rare occasions when He assumes the yellow robe of the Gelugpa sect or clan, which includes a hood somewhat of the shape of the Roman helmet. The Master Morya, however, generally wears a turban.

78.              OTHER HOUSES

79.              The house of the Master Morya is on the opposite side of the valley, but much lower down-- quite close, in fact, to the little temple and the entrance to the caves. It is of an entirely different style of architecture, having at least two stories, and the front facing the road has verandas at each level which are almost entirely glassed in. The general method and arrangement of His life is much the same as that already described in the case of the Master Kuthumi.

80.              If we walk up the road on the left bank of the stream, rising gradually along the side of the valley, we pass on the right the house and grounds of the Master Kuthumi, and further up the hill we find on the same side of the road a small hut or cabin which He who is now the Master Djwal Kul constructed for Himself with His own hands in the days of His pupilage, in order that He might have an abiding-place quite near to His Master. In that cabin hangs a sort of plaque upon which at His request one of the English pupils of the Master Kuthumi precipitated many years ago an interior view of the large room in the house of the Master Kuthumi, showing the figures of various Masters and pupils. This was done in commemoration of a certain especially happy and fruitful evening at the Master' s house.

81.              THE FIRST RAY ADEPTS

82.              Turning now to a consideration of the personal appearance of these Great Ones; that is modified to some extent by the Ray or type to which each of Them belongs. The First Ray has power for its most prominent characteristic, and those who are born upon it are the kings, the rulers, the governors of the world-- of the inner and spiritual world in the first place, but also of the physical plane. Any man who possesses in a very unusual degree the qualities which enable him to dominate men and to guide them smoothly along the course which he desires is likely to be either a First-Ray man or one who is tending towards the First Ray.

83.              Such a kingly figure is the Lord Vaivasvata Manu, the Ruler of the fifth root race, who is the tallest of all the Adepts, being six feet eight inches in height, and perfectly proportioned. He is the Representative Man of our Race, its prototype, and every member of that race is directly descended from Him. The Manu has a very striking face of great power, with an aquiline nose, a full and flowing brown beard, brown eyes, and a magnificent head of leonine poise. “Tall is He,” says our President, “and of King-like majesty, with eyes piercing as an eagle' s, tawny and brilliant with golden lights.” He is living at present in the Himalaya mountains, not far from the house of his great Brother, the Lord Maitreya.

84.              Such a figure also is the Master Morya, the lieutenant and successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu, and the future Manu of the sixth root race. He is a Rajput King by birth, and has a dark beard divided into two parts, dark, almost black, hair falling to His shoulders, and dark and piercing eyes, full of power. He is six feet six inches in height, and bears Himself like a soldier, speaking in short terse sentences as if He were accustomed to being instantly obeyed. In His presence there is a sense of overwhelming power and strength, and He has an imperial dignity that compels the deepest reverence.

85.              Madame Blavatsky has often told us how she met the Master Morya in Hyde Park, London, in the year 1851, when He came over with a number of other Indian Princes to attend the first great International Exhibition. Strangely enough, I myself, then a little child of four, saw Him also, all unknowing. I can remember being taken to see a gorgeous procession, in which among many other wonders came a party of richly-dressed Indian horsemen. Magnificent horsemen they were, riding steeds as fine, I suppose, as any in the world, and it was only natural that my childish eyes were fixed upon them in great delight, and that they were perhaps to me the finest exhibit of that marvellous and fairy-like show. And even as I watched them pass, as I stood holding my father' s hand, one of the tallest of those heroes fixed me with gleaming black eyes, which half-frightened me, and yet at the same time filled me somehow with indescribable happiness and exaltation. He passed with the others and I saw Him no more, yet often the vision of that flashing eye returned to my childish memory.

86.              Of course, l knew nothing then of who He was, and I should never have identified Him had it not been for a gracious remark which He made to me many years afterwards. Speaking one day in His presence of the earlier days of the Society I happened to say that the first time I had had the privilege of seeing Him in materialized form was on a certain occasion when He came into Madame Blavatsky' s room at Adyar, for the purpose of giving her strength and issuing certain directions. He Himself, who was engaged in conversation with some other Adepts, turned sharply upon me and said: “No, that was not the first time. You had seen me before then in my physical body. Do you not remember, as a tiny child, watching the Indian horsemen ride past in Hyde Park, and did you not see how even then I singled you out?” I remembered instantly, of course, and said “Oh, Master, was that you? But I ought to have known it.” I do not mention this incident among the occasions when I have met and spoken with a Master, both parties to the interview being in the physical body, because I did not at the time know that great horseman to be the Master, and because the evidence of so small a child might well be doubted or discounted.

87.              Mr. S. Ramaswami Iyer, in his account of the experience mentioned in Chapter I, writes:

88.              I was following the road to the town, whence, I was assured by people I met on the road, I could cross over to Tibet easily in my pilgrim' s garb, when I suddenly saw a solitary horseman galloping towards me from the opposite direction. From his tall stature and skill in horsemanship, I thought he was some military officer of the Sikkhim Rajah. . . . As he approached me, he reined up. I looked at and recognized him instantly… I was in the awful presence of him, of the same Mahatma, my own revered Guru, whom I had seen before in his astral body on the balcony of the Theosophical Headquarters. It was he, the Himalayan Brother of the ever-memorable night of December last, who had so kindly dropped a letter in answer to one I had given but an hour or so before in a sealed envelope to Madame Blavatsky, whom I had never lost sight of for one moment during the interval. The very same instant saw me prostrated on the ground at his feet. I arose at his command, and, leisurely looking into his face, forgot myself entirely in the contemplation of the image I knew so well, having seen his portrait (that in Colonel Olcott' s possession) times out of number. I knew not what to say; joy and reverence tied my tongue. The majesty of his countenance, which seemed to me to be the impersonation of power and thought, held me rapt in awe. I was at last face to face with the Mahatma of the Himavat, and he was no myth, no creation of the imagination of a medium, as some sceptics had suggested. It was no dream of the night; it was between nine and ten o' clock of the forenoon. There was the sun shining and silently witnessing the scene from above. I see him before me in flesh and blood, and he speaks to me in accents of kindness and gentleness. What more could I want? My excess of happiness made me dumb. Nor was it until some time had elapsed that I was able to utter a few words, encouraged by his gentle tone and speech. His complexion is not as fair as that of Mahatma Kuthumi; but never have I seen a countenance so handsome, a stature so tall and so majestic. As in his portrait, he wears a short black beard, and long black hair hanging down to his breast; only his dress was different. Instead of a white, loose robe he wore a yellow mantle lined with fur, and on his head, instead of the turban, a yellow Tibetan felt Cap, such as I have seen some Bhutanese wear in this country. When the first moments of rapture and surprise were over, and I calmly comprehended the situation, I had a long talk with him.¹

89.              ¹ Five Years of Theosophy (2nd Edition), p.284.

90.              Another such regal figure is the Lord Chakshusha Manu, the Manu of the fourth root race, who is Chinese by birth, and of very high caste. He has the high Mongolian cheek-bones, and His face looks as though it were delicately carven from old ivory. He generally wears magnificent robes of flowing cloth-of-gold. As a rule we do not come into contact with Him in our regular work, except when it happens that we have to deal with a pupil belonging to His root race.

91.              THE SECOND RAY ADEPTS

92.              In the persons of our Lord the Bodhisattva, the World-Teacher, and of the Master Kuthumi, His principal lieutenant, the influence that is especially noticeable is the radiance of Their all-embracing Love. The Lord Maitreya is wearing a body of the Keltic race at the present time, though when He comes forth to the world to teach His people, as He intends to do very shortly, He will make use of a body prepared for Him by one of His disciples. His is a face of wondrous beauty, strong and yet most tender, with rich hair flowing like red gold about His shoulders. His beard is pointed, as in some of the old pictures, and His eyes, of a wonderful violet, are like twin flowers, like stars, like deep and holy pools filled with the waters of everlasting peace. His smile is dazzling beyond words, and a blinding glory of Light surrounds Him, intermingled with that marvellous rose-coloured glow which ever shines from the Lord of Love.

93.              We may think of Him as seated in the great front room of His house in the Himalayas, the room with many windows, that overlooks the gardens and the terraces and, far below, the rolling Indian plains; or in flowing robes of white, edged with a deep border of gold, as walking in His garden in the cool of the evening, among the glorious flowers, whose perfume fills the surrounding air with a rich, sweet fragrance. Wondrous beyond measure is our Holy Lord the Christ, wondrous beyond any power of description, for through Him flows the Love which comforts millions, and His is the Voice that speaks, as never man spake, the words of teaching that bring peace to angels and to men. Within a very few years that Voice will be heard and that Love be felt by those who dwell in the dark ways of earth; may we prepare ourselves to receive Him when He comes and give Him fitting welcome and faithful service!

94.              The Master Kuthumi wears the body of a Kashmiri Brahman, and is as fair in complexion as the average Englishman. He, too, has flowing hair, and His eyes are blue and full of joy and love. His hair and beard are brown, which, as the sunlight catches it, becomes ruddy with glints of gold. His face is somewhat hard to describe, for His expression is ever changing as He smiles; the nose is finely chiselled, and the eyes are large and of a wonderful liquid blue. Like the great Lord, He, too, is a Teacher and Priest, and many centuries hence He will succeed Him in His high Office, and will assume the sceptre of the World-Teacher, and become the Bodhisattva of the sixth root race.

95.              THE OTHER RAYS

96.              The Mahachohan is the type of the Statesman, the great Organizer, though He too has many military qualities. He wears an Indian body, and is tall and thin, with a sharp profile, very fine and clear-cut, and no hair on the face. His face is rather stern, with a strong, square chin; His eyes are deep and penetrating, and He speaks somewhat abruptly, as a soldier speaks. He generally wears Indian robes and a white turban.

97.              The Master the Comte de St. Germain resembles Him in many ways. Though He is not especially tall, He is very upright and military in His bearing, and He has the exquisite courtesy and dignity of a grand seigneur of the eighteenth century; we feel at once that He belongs to a very old and noble family. His eyes are large and brown, and are filled with tenderness and humour, though there is in them a glint of power; and the splendour of His Presence impels men to make obeisance. His face is olive-tanned; His close-cut brown hair is parted in the centre and brushed back from the forehead, and He has a short and pointed beard. Often He wears a dark uniform with facings of gold lace-- often also a magnificent red military cloak-- and these accentuate His soldier-like appearance. He usually resides in an ancient castle in Eastern Europe that has belonged to his family for many centuries.

98.              The Master Serapis is tall, and fair in complexion. He is a Greek by birth, though all His work has been done in Egypt and in connection with the Egyptian Lodge. He is very distinguished and ascetic in face, somewhat resembling the late Cardinal Newman.

99.              Perhaps the Venetian Chohan is the handsomest of all the Members of the Brotherhood. He is very tall-- about six feet five inches, and has a flowing beard and golden hair somewhat like those of the Manu; and His eyes are blue. Although He was born in Venice, His family undoubtedly has Gothic blood in its veins, for He is a man distinctly of that type.

100.          The Master Hilarion is a Greek and, except that He has a slightly aquiline nose, is of the ancient Greek type. His forehead is low and broad, and resembles that of the Hermes of Praxiteles. He too is wonderfully handsome, and looks rather younger than most of' the Adepts.

101.          He who was once the disciple Jesus is now wearing a Syrian body. He has the dark skin, dark eyes and black beard of the Arab, and generally wears white robes and a turban. He is the Master of devotees, and the key-note of His Presence is an intense purity, and a fiery type of devotion that brooks no obstacles. He lives amongst the Druses of Mount Lebanon.

102.          Two of the Great Ones with whom we have come into contact diverge slightly from what perhaps we may call, with all reverence, the usual type of the physical body of the Adept. One of these is the spiritual Regent of India, He of whom Colonel Olcott several times writes, to whom the name Jupiter was assigned in the book Man: Whence, How and Whither. He is shorter than most members of the Brotherhood, and is the only one of Them, so far as I am aware, whose hair shows streaks of grey. He holds Himself very upright and moves with alertness and military precision. He is a landed proprietor, and during the visit which I paid to Him with Swami T. Subba Row, I saw Him several times transacting business with men who appeared to be foremen, bringing reports to Him and receiving instructions. The other is the Master Djwal Kul, who is still wearing the same body in which He attained Adeptship only a few years ago. Perhaps for that reason it has not been possible to make that body a perfect reproduction of the Augoeides. His face is distinctly Tibetan in character, with high cheek bones, and is somewhat rugged in appearance, showing signs of age.

103.          Sometimes an Adept for some special purpose wants a body to use temporarily amid the bustle of the world. That will be the case when the World-Teacher comes, and we have been told that several other Adepts also may then appear, to act as His lieutenants and assist Him in His great work for humanity. Most of these Great Ones will follow the example of Their Chief, and borrow temporarily the bodies of Their pupils, so it is necessary that a certain number of such vehicles should be ready for Their use. Students sometimes ask why, since the Adepts have physical bodies already, They will need others on this occasion.

104.          PERFECT PHYSICAL VEHICLES

105.          Those who, attaining the level of Adeptship, choose as Their future career to remain upon this world and help directly in the evolution of Their own humanity, find it convenient for Their work to retain physical bodies. In order to be suitable for Their purposes, these bodies must be of no ordinary kind. Not only must they be absolutely sound in health, but they must also be perfect expressions of as much of the ego as can be manifested on the physical plane.

106.          The building up of such a body as this is no light task. When the ego of an ordinary man comes down to his new baby body, he finds it in charge of an artificial elemental, which has been created according to his karma, as I have described in The Inner Life. This elemental is industriously occupied in modelling the form which is soon to be born in the outer world, and it remains after birth and continues that moulding process usually until the body is six or seven years old. During this period the ego is gradually acquiring closer contact with his new vehicles, emotional and mental as well as physical, and is becoming accustomed to them ; but the actual work done by himself upon these new vehicles up to the point at which the elemental withdraws is, in most cases, inconsiderable. He is certainly in connection with the body, but generally pays but little attention to it, preferring to wait until it has reached a stage where it is more responsive to his efforts.

107.          The case of an Adept is very different from this. As there is no evil karma to be worked out, no artificial elemental is at work, and the ego himself is in sole charge of the development of the body from the beginning finding himself limited only by its heredity. This enables a far more refined and delicate instrument to be produced, but it also involves more trouble for the ego, and engages for some years a considerable amount of his time and energy. In consequence of this, and no doubt for other reasons as well, an Adept does not wish to repeat the process more often than is strictly necessary, and He therefore makes His physical body last as long as possible. Our bodies grow old and die for various reasons, from inherited weakness, disease, accident and self-indulgence, worry and overwork. But in the case of an Adept none of these causes is present, though we must of course remember that His body is fit for work and capable of endurance immeasurably beyond those of ordinary men.

108.          The bodies of the Adepts being such as we have described, They are usually able to hold possession of them much longer than an ordinary man can, and the consequence is that we find on inquiry that the age of any such body is usually much greater than from appearances we had supposed it to be. The Master Morya, for example, appears to be a man absolutely in the prime of life-- possibly thirty-five or forty years of age ; yet many of the stories which His pupils tell of Him assign to Him an age four or five times greater than that, and Madame Blavatsky herself told us that when she first saw Him in her childhood He appeared to her exactly the same as at the present time. Again, the Master Kuthumi has the appearance of being about the same age as His constant friend and companion, the Master Morya; yet it has been said that He took a University Degree in Europe just before the middle of last century, which would certainly make Him something very like a centenarian. We have at present no means of knowing what is the limit of prolongation, though there is evidence to show that it may easily extend to more than double the three-score years and ten of the Psalmist.

109.          A body thus made suitable for higher work is inevitably a sensitive one, and for that very reason it requires careful treatment if it is to be always at its best. It would wear out as ours do if it were subjected to the innumerable petty frictions of the outer world, and its constant torrent of unsympathetic vibrations. Therefore the Great Ones usually live in comparative seclusion, and appear but rarely in that cyclonic chaos which we call daily life. If They were to bring Their bodies into the whirl of curiosity and vehement emotion which is likely to surround the World-Teacher when He comes, there can be no doubt that the life of these bodies would be greatly shortened, and also, because of their extreme sensitiveness, there would be much unnecessary suffering.

110.          BORROWED VEHICLES

111.          By temporarily occupying the body of a pupil, the Adept avoids these inconveniences, and at the same time gives an incalculable impetus to the pupil' s evolution. He inhabits the vehicle only when He needs it-- to deliver a lecture, perhaps, or to pour out a special flood of blessing; and as soon as He has done what He wishes, He steps out of the body, and the pupil, who has all the while been in attendance, resumes it, as the Adept goes back to His own proper vehicle to continue His usual work for the helping of the world. In this way His regular business is but little affected, yet He has always at His disposal a body through which He can co-operate, when required, on the physical plane, in the beatific mission of the World-Teacher.

112.          We can readily imagine in what way this will affect the pupil who is so favoured as to have the opportunity of thus lending his body to a Great One, though the extent of its action may well be beyond our calculation. A vehicle tuned by such an influence will be to him verily an assistance, not a limitation ; and while his body is in use he will always have the privilege of bathing in the Adept' s marvellous magnetism, for he must be at hand to resume charge as soon as the Master has finished with it.

113.          This plan of borrowing a suitable body is always adopted by the Great Ones when They think it well to descend among men, under conditions such as those which now obtain in the world. The Lord Gautama employed it when He came to attain the Buddha-hood, and the Lord Maitreya took the same course when He visited Palestine two thousand years ago. The only exception known to me is that when a new Bodhisattva assumes the office of World-Teacher after His predecessor has become the Buddha, on His first appearance in the world in that capacity He takes birth as a little child in the ordinary way. Thus did our Lord, the present Bodhisattva, when He took birth as Shri Krishna on the glowing plains of India, to be reverenced and loved with a passion of devotion that has scarcely ever been equalled.

114.          This temporary occupation of a pupil' s body should not be confused with the permanent use by an advanced person of a vehicle prepared for him by some one else. It is generally known among her followers that our great Founder, Madame Blavatsky, when she left the body in which we knew her, entered another which had just been abandoned by its original tenant. As to whether that body had been specially prepared for her use, I have no information; but other instances are known in which that was done. There is always in such cases a certain difficulty in adapting the vehicle to the needs and idiosyncrasies of the new occupant; and it is probable that it never becomes a perfectly fitting garment. There is for the incoming ego a choice between devoting a considerable amount of time and trouble to superintending the growth of a new vehicle, which would be a perfect expression of him, as far as that is possible on the physical plane; or of avoiding all that difficulty by entering the body of another-- a process which will provide a reasonably good instrument for all ordinary purposes; but it will never fulfil in every respect all that its owner desires. In all cases, a pupil is naturally eager to have the honour of giving up his body to his Master; but few indeed are the vehicles pure enough to be so used.

115.          The question is often raised as to why an Adept, whose work seems to lie almost entirely on higher planes, needs a physical body at all. It is really no concern of ours, but if speculation on such a matter be not irreverent, various reasons suggest themselves. The Adept spends much of His time in projecting streams of influence, and while, so far as has been observed, these are most often on the higher mental level, or on the plane above that, it is probable that they may sometimes at least be etheric currents, and for the manipulation of these the possession of a physical body is undoubtedly an advantage. Again, most of the Masters whom I have seen have a few pupils or assistants who live with or near Them on the physical plane, and a physical body may be necessary for their sake. Of this we may be certain, that if an Adept chooses to take the trouble to maintain such a body, He has a good reason for it; for we know enough of Their methods of working to be fully aware that They always do everything in the best way, and by the means which involve the least expenditure of energy.

116.          PART II

117.          THE PUPILS

118.          CHAPTER III

119.          THE WAY TO THE MASTER

120.          THE ENTRANCE TO THE PATH

121.          THERE has always been a Brotherhood of Adepts, the Great White Brotherhood; there have always been Those who knew, those who possessed this inner wisdom, and our Masters are among the present representatives of that mighty line of Seers and Sages. Part of the knowledge which They have garnered during countless aeons is available to every one on the physical plane under the name of Theosophy. But there is far more behind. The Master Kuthumi Himself once said smilingly, when some one spoke of the enormous change that the Theosophical knowledge had made in our lives, and of the wonderful comprehensiveness of the doctrine of reincarnation: “Yes, but we have lifted only a very small corner of the veil as yet.” When we have thoroughly assimilated the knowledge given us, and are all living up to its teaching, the Brotherhood will be ready to lift the veil further; but only when we have complied with those conditions.

122.          For those who wish to know more and to draw nearer, the Path is open. But the man who aspires to approach the Masters can reach Them only by making himself unselfish as They are unselfish, by learning to forget the personal self, and by devoting himself wholly to the service of humanity as They do. In her article on Occultism versus the Occult Arts Madame Blavatsky has expressed this necessity in characteristically vigorous language :

123.          True Occultism or Theosophy is the great renunciation of self unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is altruism, and it throws him who practises it out of the calculations of the ranks of the living altogether. Not for himself but for the world he lives, as soon as he has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years of probation. But no sooner is he accepted than his personality must disappear, and he has to become a mere beneficent force in Nature. . . . It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether, and when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an unflinching will; when not only all the lusts and longings of the flesh are dead, but also the recognition of the personal self is killed out and the astral has been reduced in consequence to a cipher, that the union with the Higher Self can take place. Then, when the astral reflects only the conquered man-- the still living, but no more the longing, selfish personality-- then the brilliant Augoeides, the divine Self, can vibrate in conscious harmony with both the poles of the human entity-- the man of matter purified, and the ever pure Spiritual Soul-- and stand in the presence of the Master-Self, the Christos of the mystic Gnostic, blended, merged into, and one with It for ever. . . . The aspirant has to choose absolutely between the life of the world and the life of Occultism. It is useless and vain to endeavour to unite the two, for no man can serve two masters and satisfy both.

124.          The point of view of the Masters is so radically different from ours that it is difficult at first for us to grasp it. They have Their private affections just as we have, and assuredly They love some men more than others; but They will never allow such feelings as those to influence Their attitude in the very slightest degree when the work is in question. They will take much trouble over a man if They see in him the seeds of future greatness, if They think that he will prove a good investment for the amount of time and force spent upon him. There is no such possibility as the faintest thought of favouritism in the minds of these Great Ones. They consider simply and solely the work which has to be done, the work of evolution, and the value of the man in relation to it; and if we will fit ourselves to take part in that, our progress will be rapid.

125.          THE MAGNITUDE OF THE TASK

126.          Few people realize the magnitude of this undertaking, and therefore the seriousness of what they are asking when they want to be taken as pupils. The Adepts are dealing with the entire world in enormous comprehensive sweeps of power; They are influencing millions in their causal bodies or on the buddhic plane, and all the time steadily, though by almost imperceptible degrees, raising the higher bodies of the people on a wholesale scale. And yet the same Master who spends His life in doing that work will sometimes turn aside and pay personal attention to little details connected with one pupil.

127.          All who dare to ask to become pupils should try to realize the stupendous character of the forces and the work, and the magnitude of the Beings with whom they propose to come into contact. The least understanding of the greatness of all these things will make it clear why the Adepts will not spend some of Their energy on a pupil unless They have evidence that in a reasonable time he will add to the support of the world a strong current of strength and power in the right direction. They live to do the work of the Logos of the system, and those of us who wish to draw near to Them must learn to do likewise, and live only for the work. Those who do that will certainly attract the attention of the Holy Ones, and be trained by Them to help and bless the world.

128.          Human progress is slow, but it is constant; therefore the number of the Perfected Men is increasing, and the possibility of attaining to Their level is within the reach of all who are willing to make the stupendous effort required. In normal times we should need many births before we could gain Adeptship, but just now it is possible for us to hasten our progress on that Path, to compress into a few lives the evolution which otherwise would take many thousands of years. That is the effort which is being made by many members of The Theosophical Society; for there is in that Society an Inner School which teaches men how to prepare themselves more rapidly for this higher work. That preparation needs great self-control, determined effort carried on year after year, and often with but little to show outwardly in the way of definite progress ; for it involves the training of the higher bodies far more than the physical body, and the training of the higher does not always manifest itself very obviously on the physical plane.

129.          THE IMPORTANCE OF WORK

130.          Anyone who hears about the Masters and Their teaching, if he has any grasp at all of what it means and involves, must instantly be seized with a most intense desire to understand Them and enter Their service; the more he learns the more does he become filled with the wonder and beauty and glory of God' s plan, and the more anxious does he become to take part in the work. Once he has realized that God has a plan of evolution, he wants to be a fellow-labourer with God, and nothing else can possibly bring satisfaction.

131.          Then he begins to ask himself the question: “What must I do next?” and the answer is: “Work. Do what you can to help the progress of humanity in the Master' s way. Begin with what you have the opportunity to do and what you can do, which may be any little external thing at first, and presently, as you acquire the necessary qualities of character, you will be drawn into the higher side of it all, until, through striving to be and do your best, you will find yourself possessed of the qualifications which admit to Initiation and membership in the Great White Brotherhood itself.” When first I had the privilege of coming into somewhat closer touch with the Master, I asked Him in a letter what I should do. He answered to the following effect: “You must find work for yourself; you know what we are doing. Throw yourself into our work in any way you can. If I gave you a definite piece of work to do you would do it, but in that case the karma of what was done would be mine, because I told you to do it. You would have only the karma of willing obedience, which of course is very good, but it is not the karma initiating a fruitful line of action. I want you to initiate work for yourself, because then the karma of the good deed will come to you.”

132.          I think we might all take that unto ourselves. We might realize that it is our business not to wait until we are asked to do something, but to set to work. There is a good deal of quite humble work to be done in connection with Theosophy. Often perhaps some of us would prefer the more spectacular part; we should like to stand up and deliver lectures in public to large audiences. We can generally find people who are willing to offer themselves for that; but there is a great deal of humdrum office work to be done in connection with our Society, and we do not always find so many volunteers for that. Reverence and love for our Masters will lead us to be willing to do anything whatever in Their service, however humble; and we may be sure that we are working in Their service when we are helping the Society which two of Them founded.

133.          THE ANCIENT RULES

134.          The qualifications for admission to the Great White Brotherhood, which have to be acquired in the course of the work in the earlier part of the Path, are of a very definite character, and are always essentially the same, although they have been described in many different terms during the last twenty-five centuries. In the early days of The Theosophical Society, when all its wonderful teaching was new to us, this question of qualifications was naturally one of those about which some of us were most eager to learn; and before Madame Blavatsky wrote down for us that most marvellous manual The Voice of the Silence she had already given us two lists of the requirements for chelaship. I cannot do better than quote them here for comparison with the later directions. She writes :

135.          A Chela is a person who has offered himself to a master as a pupil to learn practically the hidden mysteries of nature and the psychical powers latent in man. The master who accepts him is called in India a Guru; and the real Guru is always an Adept in the Occult Science. A man of profound knowledge, exoteric and esoteric, especially the latter, and one who has brought his carnal nature under the subjection of the will; who has developed in himself both the power (Siddhi) to control the forces of Nature, and the capacity to probe her secrets by the help of the formerly latent but now active powers of his being-- this is the real Guru. To offer oneself as a candidate for Chelaship is easy enough; to develop into an Adept is the most difficult task any man could possibly undertake. There are scores of natural-born poets, mathematicians, mechanics, statesmen, etc., but a natural-born Adept is something practically impossible. For, though we do hear at very rare intervals of one who has an extraordinary innate capacity for the acquisition of Occult knowledge and power, yet even he has to pass the self-same tests and probations, and go through the self-same training as any less endowed fellow-aspirant. In this matter it is most true that there is no royal road by which favourites may travel.

136.          For centuries the selection of Chelas-- outside the hereditary group within the Gon-pa (temple)-- has been made by the Himalayan Mahatmas themselves from among the class-- in Tibet a considerable one as to number-- of natural mystics . The only exceptions have been in the cases of Western men like Fludd, Thomas Vaughan, Paracelsus, Pico de Mirandolo, Count St. Germain, etc., whose temperamental affinity to this celestial science more or less forced the distant Adepts to come into personal relations with them, and enabled them to get such small (or large) proportion of the whole truth as was possible under their social surroundings. From Book IV of Kiu-te, Chapter on “The Laws of Upasanas,” we learn that the qualifications expected in a Chela were :

137.          Perfect physical health;

138.          Absolute mental and physical purity;

139.          Unselfishness of purpose; universal charity; pity for all animate beings;

140.          Truthfulness and unswerving faith in the law of Karma, independent of the intervention of any power in Nature-- a law whose course is not to be obstructed by any agency, not to be caused to deviate by prayer or propitiatory exoteric ceremonies;

141.          A courage undaunted in every emergency, even by peril of life ;

142.          An intuitional perception of one' s being the vehicle of the manifested Avalokiteshvara or Divine Atma (Spirit);

143.          Calm indifference for, but a just appreciation of, everything that constitutes the objective and transitory world, in its relation with, and to, the invisible regions.

144.          Such, at the least, must have been the recommendations of one aspiring to perfect Chelaship. With the sole exception of the first, which in rare and exceptional cases might have been modified, each one of these points has been invariably insisted upon, and all must have been more or less developed in the inner nature by the Chela' s unhelped exertions, before he could be actually put to the test.

145.          When the self-evolving ascetic-- whether in, or outside the active world-- has placed himself, according to his natural capacity, above (and hence made himself master of) his (1) Sharira, body; (2) Indriya, senses ; (3) Dosha, faults; (4) Dukkha, pain; and is ready to become one with his Manas, mind, Buddhi, intellection or spirit intelligence, and Atma, highest soul, i.e. , spirit ; when he is ready for this, and, further, to recognize in Atma the highest ruler in the world of perceptions, and in the will the highest executive energy (power)-- them may he under the time-honoured rules, be taken in hand by one of the Initiates. He may then be shown the mysterious path at whose farther end is obtained the unerring discernment of Phala, or the fruits of causes produced, and given the means of reaching Apavarga-- emancipation from the misery of repeated births, Pretyabhava, in whose determination the ignorant has no hand.¹

146.          ¹ Five Years of Theosophy, Second Edition, pp. 31-2.

147.          The second set of rules which she gives us occurs in her book Practical Occultism. They are twelve in number, but she tells us that they are taken from a list of seventy-three, to enumerate which would be useless, as they would he meaningless in Europe, though she says that every instructor in the East is furnished with them. The explanations in brackets are by Madame Blavatsky herself. They are as follows:

148.          The place selected for receiving instruction must be a spot calculated not to distract the mind, and filled with influence-evolving (magnetic) objects. The five sacred colours gathered in a circle must be there among other things. The place must be free from any malignant influences hanging about in the air.

149.          (The place must be set apart, and used for no other purpose. The five sacred colours are the prismatic hues arranged in a certain way, as these colours are very magnetic. By malignant influences are meant any disturbances through strifes, quarrels, bad feelings, etc., as these are said to impress themselves immediately on the astral light, i.e. , in the atmosphere of the place, and to hang about in the air. This first condition seems easy enough to accomplish, yet-- on further consideration, it is one of the most difficult to obtain.)

150.          2 . Before the disciple shall be permitted to study face to face, he has to acquire preliminary understanding in a select company of other lay upasaka (disciples), the number of whom must be odd.

151.          (“Face to face” means in this instance a study independent or apart from others, when the disciple gets his instruction face to face either with himself (his higher, Divine Self) or-- his guru. It is then only that each receives his due of information, according to the use he has made of his knowledge. This can happen only toward the end of the cycle of instruction.)

152.          Before thou (the teacher) shalt impart to thy Lanoo (disciple) the good (holy) words of Lamrin, or shall permit him to make ready for Dubjed, thou shalt take care that his mind is thoroughly purified and at peace with all, especially with his other Selves. Otherwise the words of Wisdom and of the good Law shall scatter and be picked up by the winds.

153.          (Lamrin is a work of practical instructions, by Tson-kha-pa, in two portions, one for ecclesiastical and exoteric purposes, the other for esoteric use. To make ready for Dubjed is to prepare the vessels used for seership, such as mirrors and crystals. The “other selves” refers to the fellow-students. Unless the greatest harmony reigns among the learners, no success is possible. It is the teacher who makes the selections according to the magnetic and electric natures of the students, bringing together and adjusting most carefully the positive and the negative elements.)

154.          The upasaka while studying must take care to be united as the fingers on one hand. Thou shalt impress upon their minds that whatever hurts one should hurt the others, and if the rejoicing of one finds no echo in the breasts of the others, then the required conditions are absent, and it is useless to proceed.

155.          (This can hardly happen if the preliminary choice made was consistent with the magnetic requirements. It is known that chelas otherwise promising and fit for the reception of truth had to wait for years on account of their temper and the impossibility they felt to put themselves in tune with their companions. For-- )

156.          The co-disciples must be tuned by the guru as the strings of a lute (vina), each different from the others, yet each emitting sounds in harmony with all. Collectively they must form a key-board answering in all its parts to thy lightest touch (the touch of the Master). Thus their mind shall open for the harmonies of Wisdom, to vibrate as knowledge through each and all, resulting in effects pleasing to the presiding gods (tutelary or patron-angels) and useful to the Lanoo. So shall Wisdom be impressed for ever on their hearts and the harmony of the law shall never be broken.

157.          Those who desire to acquire the knowledge leading to the Siddhis. (occult powers) have to renounce all the vanities of life and of the world (here follows enumeration of the Siddhis).

158.          None can feel the difference between himself and his fellow-students, such as “I am the wisest,” “I am more holy and pleasing to the teacher, or in my community, than my brother,” etc.,-- and remain an upasaka. His thoughts must be predominantly fixed upon his heart, chasing therefrom every hostile thought to any living being. It (the heart) must be full of the feeling of its non-separateness. from the rest of beings as from all in Nature; otherwise no success can follow.

159.          A Lanoo (disciple) has to dread external living influence alone (magnetic emanations from living creatures). For this reason while at one with all in his inner nature, he must take care to separate his outer (external) body from every foreign influence: none must drink out of, or eat in his cup but himself. He must avoid bodily contact ( i.e., being touched or touch) with human, as with animal being.

160.          (No pet animals are permitted and it is forbidden even to touch certain trees and plants. A disciple has to live, so to say. in his own atmosphere in order to individualize it for occult purposes.)

161.          The mind must remain blunt to all but the universal truths in nature, lest the Doctrine of the Heart should become only the Doctrine of the Eye ( i.e., empty exoteric ritualism).

162.          No animal food of whatever kind, nothing that has life in it, should be taken by the disciple. No wine, no spirits, or opium should be used ; for these are like the Lhamayin (evil spirits), who fasten upon the unwary; they devour the understanding.

163.          (Wine and spirits are supposed to contain and preserve the bad magnetism of all the men who helped in their fabrication; the meat of each animal, to preserve the psychic characteristics of its kind.)

164.          Meditation, abstinence in all, the observation of moral duties, gentle thoughts, good deeds and kind words, as goodwill to all and entire oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of obtaining knowledge and preparing for the reception of higher wisdom.

165.          It is only by virtue of a strict observance of the foregoing rules that a Lanoo can hope to acquire in good time the Siddhis of the Arhats, the growth which makes him become gradually One with the Universal All.

166.          The first set of rules calls for no comment, as they are evidently of universal application, and differ only in the form of their expression from those which have been given in later books.

167.          The second set is obviously on a very different footing. It is clearly formulated for Eastern students, and even among them chiefly for those who are able to devote their whole lives to their study, and to live secluded from the world in a monastery or occult community. The mere fact that there are sixty-one other rules which would be meaningless to European pupils show that they are neither intended for all nor necessary for progress upon the Path, since many have trodden that Path without knowing them. They are nevertheless of great interest and value as recommendations. The moral and ethical regulations are familiar to us, and so is the insistence upon the necessity of perfect harmony and mutual understanding among those disciples who have to learn and work together. It is to this latter object that most of the rules here quoted are directed, and in the case of a group of students its importance can scarcely be exaggerated. In Western life we have insisted so strongly upon individualism, and upon the undoubted right of each person to live his own life so long as he does not incommode other, that we have to a large extent forgotten the possibility of a really intimate union. Instead of being united as the fingers of one hand, we live together as a number of marbles in a bag, which is far from ideal from the inner point of view.

168.          It might be supposed that these earnest exhortations to close comradeship are inconsistent with rule 8, in which the chela is instructed to avoid contact with others. This is not so, for the directions refer to entirely different matters. The suggestion that each should have his own cup (yes, and his own plate, knife, fork and spoon also) is most excellent, for our present scheme of the promiscuous use of half-washed cutlery and crockery is revolting to persons of taste. The avoidance of unnecessary contact with others has its advantages, for the indiscriminate mingling of auras is highly undesirable. In the leisurely Indian life of the old days it was so easy to escape uncomfortable proximity; now that trains and tramways have been introduced, and that the hurry of modern business compels people to use them, even in the immemorial East it is somewhat more difficult, and in Europe it would be practically impossible. That is why a different method of dealing with this problem of propinquity is now offered to us.

169.          We can readily and effectively protect ourselves against undesirable magnetism by forming round our bodies a shell which will exclude it. Such a shell may be of etheric, astral or mental matter, according to the purpose for which it is required. A description of the various kinds and the way to make them will be found in my book on The Hidden Side of Things, which also includes the beautiful story of the Alexandrian monks, showing that there is another way of protecting oneself from evil influence which is even better than the formation of a shell; and that is by so filling one' s heart with Divine Love that it radiates perpetually in all directions in the shape of torrents of love for one' s fellow-men, so that that mighty stream acts as the most perfect of shields against the entrance of any current from without.

170.          The regulation against keeping pet animals leaves out of account the fact that it is only through association with man that these creatures can be individualized. It appears to consider only the possibility that the man may allow himself to be adversely affected by the animal, and to forget altogether the beneficent influence which the man may intentionally bring to bear upon his younger brother. But quite possibly in the remote ages in which these rules were formulated there were no animals sufficiently developed to be approaching individualization.

171.          In writing of the progress of the pupil, Madame Blavatsky advises strongly against marriage, maintaining that he cannot devote himself both to occultism and to a wife. It occurs to one that if the wife shared his devotion to occultism, this rather severe stricture would no longer be applicable. While it is true that the bachelor is in certain ways freer-- as, for example, to throw up his business and start off to take up work in some foreign country, which he could hardly do if he had the responsibility of a wife and family-- it must never be forgotten that the married man has the opportunity of serving the Cause in quite another way, by providing suitable vehicles and favourable surroundings for the many advanced egos who are waiting to descend into incarnation. Both types of work are needed, and there is room among the ranks of the disciples for both married and single. We find no condemnation of the married state in any of the three great guide-books which are given to us to light us on our way. The latest and simplest of these is Mr. J. Krishnamurti' s wonderful little book, At the Feet of the Master.

172.          AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER

173.          Although Mr. Krishnamurti puts this book before the world, the words which it contains are almost entirely those of the Master Kuthumi. “These are not my words,” the author says in his Foreword ; “they are the words of the Master who taught me.” When the book was written, Mr. Krishnamurti' s body was thirteen years old, and it was necessary for the Master' s plans that the knowledge requisite for Initiation should be conveyed to him as quickly as possible. The words contained in the book are those in which the Master tried to convey the whole essence of the necessary teaching in the simplest and briefest form. But for the requirements of this particular case, we might never have had a statement so concise and yet so complete, so simple and yet so all-inclusive. Many books have been written expounding the details of the stages of this preparatory path, and there has been much argument over the exact shades of meaning of Sanskrit and Pali words; but in this little manual the Master boldly brushes all that aside and gives nothing but the essence of the teaching, expressed as far as may be in modern terms and illustrated from modern life.

174.          For example, He translates the four qualifications Viveka, Vairagya, Shatsampatti and Mumukshutva as Discrimination, Desirelessness, Good Conduct and Love. By no possible licence can the English word love be taken as a literal translation of the Sanskrit word Mumukshutva, for that unquestionably means simply the desire for liberation. The Master apparently argues thus: that the intense desire for freedom is desire for escape from all worldly limitations, so that even, when among them, one may be absolutely free from the slightest feeling of bondage to them. Such freedom can be attained only by union with the Supreme, with the one who is behind all, that is to say, by union with God-- and God is Love. Therefore only by our becoming thoroughly permeated with the Divine Love can freedom become possible for us.

175.          There is no more beautiful or satisfactory description of the qualifications than that given in this book, and one may say with confidence that anyone who will thoroughly carry out its teaching will certainly pass immediately through the portal of Initiation. It was a very exceptional case for the Master to spend so much of His time in the direct teaching of one individual, but through Mr. Krishnamurti it has reached tens of thousands of others, and helped them to an immeasurable extent.

176.          The story of how this little book came to be written is comparatively simple. Every night I had to take this boy in his astral body to the house of the Master, that instruction might be given him. The Master devoted perhaps fifteen minutes each night to talking to him, but at the end of each talk He always gathered up the main points of what He had said into a single sentence, or a few sentences, thus making an easy little summary which was repeated to the boy, so that he learnt it by heart. He remembered that summary in the morning and wrote it down. The book consists of these sentences, of the epitome of the Master' s teaching. made by Himself, and in His words. The boy wrote them down somewhat laboriously, because his English was not then very good. He knew all these things by heart and did not trouble particularly about the notes that he had made. A little later he went up to Benares with our President. While there he wrote to me, I being down at Adyar, and asked me to collect and send to him all the notes that he had made of what the Master had said. I arranged his notes as well as I could, and typed them all out.

177.          Then it seemed to me that as these were mainly the Master' s words I had better make sure that there was no mistake in recording them. Therefore I took the typewritten copy which I had made to the Master Kuthumi and asked Him to be so kind as to read it over. He read it, altered a word or two here and there, added some connecting and explanatory notes and a few other sentences which I remembered having heard Him speak to Mr. Krishnamurti. Then He said: “Yes, that seems correct; that will do” ; but He added : “let us show it to the Lord Maitreya.” And so we went together, He taking the manuscript, and it was shown to the World-Teacher Himself, who read it and approved. It was He who said: “You should make a nice little book of this to introduce Alcyone to the world.” We had not meant to introduce him to the world; we had not considered it desirable that a mass of thought should be concentrated on a boy of thirteen, who still had his education before him. But in the occult world we do what we are told, and so this book was put into the printers' hands as soon as possible.

178.          All the inconveniences which we expected from premature publicity came about; but still the Lord Maitreya was right and we were wrong; for the good that has been done by that book far outweighs the trouble it brought to us. Numbers of people, literally thousands, have written to say how their whole lives have been changed by it, how everything has become different to them because they have read it. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages. There have been some forty editions of it, or more, and over a hundred thousand copies have been printed. Even now an edition of a million copies is being prepared in America. A wonderful work has been done by it. Above all, it bears that special imprimatur of the coming World-Teacher, and that is the thing that makes it most valuable-- the fact that it shows us, to a certain extent, what His teaching is to be. Other books also there are which the pupil will find of the utmost use to him in his endeavour to enter upon this Path : The Voice of the Silence and Light on the Path were given to us for this purpose, and our President' s wonderful books In the Outer Court and The Path of Discipleship will also be found of inestimable value. Since the first edition of this book was published the President and I have jointly issued a volume entitled Talks on the Path of Occultism, which is a commentary on the three classics above mentioned.

179.          THE DISCIPLE' S ATTITUDE

180.          Having these books before him the pupil is left in no doubt as to what he should do. He should obviously make efforts along two particular lines-- the development of his own character, and the undertaking of definite work for others. Clearly what is set before him in this teaching implies an altogether different attitude towards life in general; that has been expressed by one of the Masters in the phrase: “He who wishes to work with us and for us must leave his own world and come into ours.” That does not mean, as might usually be supposed by students of Oriental literature, that the pupil must abandon the ordinary world of physical life and business, and retire to the jungle, the cave or the mountain; but it does mean that he must abandon altogether the worldly attitude of mind and adopt instead of it the attitude of the Master.

181.          The man of the world thinks of the events of life chiefly as they affect himself and his personal interests; the Master thinks of them only as they affect the evolution of the world. Whatsoever on the whole tends to progress, and helps humanity along its path-- that is good and to be supported; whatsoever in any way hinders these things-- that is undesirable and should be opposed or set aside. That is good which helps evolution; that is evil which retards it. Here we have a criterion very different from that of the outer world; a touchstone by means of which we can quickly decide what we must support and what we must resist; and we can apply it to qualities in our own character as well as to outer events. We shall be of use to the Master just in so far as we can work along with Him, in however humble a fashion; we can best work along with Him by making ourselves like to Him, so that we shall regard the world as He regards it.

182.          THE THREE DOORS

There is a poem which says:

Three doors there are to the Temple--

To know, to work, to pray:

And they who wait at the outer gate

May enter by either way.

183.          There are always the three ways; a man may bring himself to the Master' s feet by deep study, because in that way he comes to know and to feel; and certainly He may be reached by deep devotion long continued, by the constant uplifting of the soul towards Him. And there is also the method of throwing oneself into some definite activity for Him. But it must be something definitely done for Him with that thought in mind: “If there be credit or glory in this work I do not want it; I do it in my Master' s name; to Him be the glory and praise.” The poem quoted above also says: “There be who nor pray nor study, but yet can work right well.” And that is true. There are some who cannot make anything much of meditation, and when they try to study they find it very hard. They ought to continue to try both these things, because we must develop all sides of our nature, but most of all they should throw themselves into the work, and do something for their fellow-men.

184.          That is the surest of all appeals-- to do a thing in His name, to do a good act thinking of Him, remembering that He is much more sensitive to thought than ordinary people. If a man thinks of a friend at a distance, his thought goes to that friend and influences him, so that the friend thinks of the sender of the thought unless his mind is much engaged at the moment with something else. But however much occupied a Master may be, a thought directed to Him makes a certain impression, and although perhaps at the moment He may not take any notice, yet the touch is there, and He will know of that and will send out His love and His energy in response to it.

185.          THE MASTER' S WORK

186.          The question is sometimes asked as to what particular labour should be undertaken. The answer is that all good work is the Master' s work. Every one can find some good that he is able to do. In addition, some of the pupil' s activity must consist in preparing himself for greater responsibility in the future. The duties of common life often combine something of both these things, for they provide a splendid training and education for those who do them well, and also offer many occasions for helping other people to progress in character and ideals, which is most emphatically the Master' s business. All the varied activities of daily life come within our endeavour to serve the Master, when we learn to do all in His name and for Him.

The common course of life,

The daily round we plod,

The tasks that seem so wearisome

May all be done for God.

All may of Him partake;

Nothing can he so mean

Which, with this tincture, for His sake,

Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine.

Who sweeps a room, as for His laws

Makes that small action fine.¹

¹Rev George Herbert (A.D. 1593).

187.          The Master' s work is not something peculiar and apart from our fellows. To raise a good family who will serve Him in turn, to make money to use in His service, to win power in order to help Him with it-- all these may be part of it; yet in doing these things the disciple must be ever on guard against self-deception, must see that he is not cloaking with the holiness of the Master' s name what is, underneath, a selfish desire to wield power or handle money. The disciple of the Master has to look round and see what there is to do which is within his power. He must not look with disfavour upon the humblest task, thinking: “I am too good for this.” In the Master' s business no part is more important than any other, though some portions are more difficult than others, and therefore require special training or unusual faculties or abilities.

188.          At the same time certain organized efforts are being made in which the Masters take special interest. Foremost among these is The Theosophical Society, which was founded at Their bidding and for Their purposes. So unquestionably anything that one can do for his Theosophical Lodge is the very best thing to do. It may easily happen in many cases that one has no opportunity to do that; he must then find some other way of service. The Masters are also deeply interested in Co-Masonry and in the Liberal Catholic Church; I shall say something later of the great work which these are doing on occult lines. There is also the Order of the Star in the East, which is preparing for the coming of the World-Teacher, and there are a variety of movements for the benefit of young people, among which the Order of the Round Table plays a leading part. To this must be added activity in the field of education on new lines, and work in connection with such bodies as the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides. The Boy Scout movement is worthy of all the support that can be given to it, for the training which it supplies in the way of honour, helpfulness and general efficiency is exactly what is needed to develop in the average boy the characteristics which will prepare him for the Masters service later. It is of far more value to him, both physically and spiritually, than any education given in an ordinary school. It is not without significance to those of us who understand, that our President holds the position of Honorary Chief Commissioner of Scouts in India, and has done much to promote the spread of the organization.

189.          In quite unorganized ways also a great deal can be done. For example, the influence of beauty in human life is immeasurably uplifting, for beauty is God' s manifestation in Nature, so-- to give one instance-- the roadside gardens of all who are striving along these lines should be notable for their neatness and beauty. Many people are careless in these small matters; they are untidy; they leave rubbish in their wake; but all that indicates a character very far removed from the spirit of the Master.

190.          If we work along the same lines as the Master works we shall come more and more into sympathy with Him, and our thoughts will become more and more like His. This will bring us nearer and nearer to Him both in thought and activity, and in so doing presently we shall attract His attention, for He is all the time watching the world in order to find those who will be of use in His work. Noticing us, He will presently draw us nearer to Him for still closer and more detailed observation. That is usually done by bringing us into contact with one who is already His pupil. It is thus quite unnecessary for anyone to make any direct effort to attract His attention.

191.          MAKING THE LINK

192.          Madame Blavatsky told us that whenever a person joined the outer Theosophical Society the Master looked at him, and furthermore she said that in many cases the Great Ones guided people to join the Society because of their previous lives. So it would seem that They usually know great deal about us before we know anything about Them. The Adept never forgets anything. He appears to be always in full possession of all that has happened to Him, and so if He does cast even a most casual glance at a person He will never thereafter overlook that person. When a person joins the Inner School a definite link is formed not yet directly with an Adept, but first of all with the Outer Head of the School, and through her with her Master, who is the Inner Head.

193.          That link so made with the Outer Head is increased and strengthened at each step further into the School. In the introductory stages there is but a slight connection; something much more definite comes with the taking of the pledge of the School, and those who take the pledges of the higher degrees draw a little nearer still. This mainly shows itself in a thickening of the line of communication, for there is a line of thought connecting each member of the School with the Outer Head, because he constantly thinks of her in his meditation. That keeps the link bright and strong.

194.          She on her part has become one with her Master. Therefore a connection with her is in that sense a connection with Him. All those in the Inner School are thus in touch with her Master, the Master Morya, though they are often working on other lines than His, and will become pupils of other Masters when they are taken on probation. Under such circumstances, however, they will receive the influence of their own future Master through these channels, because the Adepts, although living far apart physically, are in such very close contact that to be in touch with one of Them is really to be linked with all. It seems to us a round-about connection; but it is much less so than we think down here, because of the amazingly close unity between the Great Ones on higher levels.

195.          Even at the early stage of this indirect link through the Outer Head, the Master can work to a certain extent through any of those people if He wishes to do so. It is a little out of His way to send His force through a channel not specially prepared, so He does not usually do it. But He has some sort of consciousness of those who are in His School, which sometimes manifests itself in the way of sending to them a helpful thought when they are doing some work for Him. I have known Him to utilize a member of the School who was giving a lecture, in order to put some fresh point before the people. Of course, He does that far more frequently with His pupils, but it has certainly been done with others as well.

196.          NONE IS OVERLOOKED

197.          When a student understands all this he will no longer ask: “What can I do that will attract the Master' s attention?” He will know that it is quite unnecessary that we should try to do so, and that there is not the slightest fear that anyone will be overlooked.

198.          I remember very well an incident of the early days of my own connection with the Great Ones, which bears on this point. I knew on the physical plane a man of vast erudition and of the most saintly character, who believed thoroughly in the existence of the Masters, and devoted his life to the one object of qualifying himself for Their service. His seemed to me a man in every way so entirely suitable for discipleship, so obviously better than myself in many ways, that I could not understand how it was that he was not already recognized; and so, being young in the work and ignorant, one day, when a good opportunity offered itself, very humbly and as it were apologetically, I mentioned his name to the Master, with the suggestion that he might perhaps prove a good instrument. A smile of kindly amusement broke out upon the Master' s face as He said:

199.          “Ah, you need not fear that your friend is being overlooked; no one can ever be overlooked; but in this case there still remains a certain karma to be worked out, which makes it impossible at the moment to accept your suggestion. Soon your friend will pass away from the physical plane, and soon he will return to it again, and then the expiation will be complete, and what you desire for him will have become possible.”

200.          And then, with the gentle kindness which is always so prominent a characteristic in Him, He blended my consciousness with His in an even more intimate manner, and raised it to a plane far higher than I could then reach, and from that elevation He showed me how the Great Ones look out upon the world. The whole earth lay before us with all its millions of souls, undeveloped, most of them, and therefore inconspicuous; but wherever amidst all that mighty multitude there was one who was approaching even at a great distance the point at which definite use could be made of him, he stood out among the rest just as the flame of a lighthouse stands out in the darkness of the night.

201.          “Now you see,” said the Master, “how utterly impossible it would be that anyone should be overlooked who is even within measurable distance of the possibility of acceptance as a probationer.”

202.          We can do nothing on our side but steadily work at the improvement of our character, and endeavour in every possible way, by the study of Theosophical works, by self-development, and by the unselfishness of our devotion to the interests of others, to fit ourselves for the honour which we desire, having within our minds the utter certainty that as soon as we are ready the recognition will assuredly come. But until we can be utilized economically-- until, that is to say, the force spent upon us will bring forth, through our actions, at least as much result as it would if spent in any other way, it would be a violation of duty on the part of the Master to draw us into close relations with Him.

203.          We may be quite sure that there are in reality no exceptions to this rule, even though we may sometimes think that we have seen some. A man may be put upon probation by an Adept while he has still some obvious faults, but we may be sure that in such a case there are good qualities under the surface which far more than counterbalance the superficial defects. It is only the Master who can judge how far our faults affect our usefulness to Him. We cannot tell exactly to what extent any failings of ours would react upon His work; but He, looking at the problem from above, can see quite clearly all the factors in the case, so that His decision is always just, and in the best interests of all. Sentimental considerations have no place in occultism, which has been defined as the apotheosis of common sense, working always for the greatest good of the greatest number. In it we learn of many new facts and forces, and we remodel our lives in accordance with this additional knowledge.

204.          This after all differs in no way from our practice (or what ought to be our practice) on the physical plane. New discoveries along scientific lines are constantly being made, and we use them and adapt our lives to them. Why should we not do the same when the discoveries are on higher planes and connected with the inner life? To understand the laws of nature and to live in harmony with them is the way to comfort, health and progress, both spiritual and physical.

205.          Another consideration which sometimes comes into play is the working of the law of karma. Like the rest of us, the Great Masters of Wisdom have a long line of lives behind Them, and in those lives They, like others, have made certain karmic ties, and so sometimes it happens that a particular individual has a claim on Them for some service rendered long ago. In the lines of past lives which we have examined we have sometimes come across instances of such a karmic link.

206.          THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TEACHER

207.          It is obviously necessary that a Master should be cautious in selecting candidates for discipleship. not only because His own work might be prejudicially affected by an unworthy pupil, but because the Teacher has a certain definite responsibility for the mistakes of the chela. Madame Blavatsky writes on this subject as follows:

208.          There is one important fact with which the student should be made acquainted, namely, the enormous, almost limitless, responsibility assumed by the Teacher for the sake of the pupil. From the Gurus of the East who teach openly or secretly, down to the few Kabalists in Western lands who undertake to teach the rudiments of the Sacred Science to their disciples-- those western Hierophants being often themselves ignorant of the danger they incur-- one and all of these Teachers are subject to the same inviolable law. From the moment they begin really to teach, from the instant they confer any power-- whether psychic, mental or physical-- on their pupils, they take upon themselves all the sins of that pupil, in connection with the Occult Sciences, whether of omission or commission, until the moment when initiation makes the pupil a Master and responsible in his turn. . . .Thus it is clear why the Teachers are so reticent, and why chelas are required to serve a seven years' probation to prove their fitness, and develop the qualities necessary to the security of both Master and pupil.¹

209.          ¹ Practical Occultism, p. 4, et seq.

210.          The Spiritual Guru, taking the student by the hand, leads him into and introduces him to a world entirely unknown to him. . . Even in common daily life, parents, nurses, tutors and instructors are generally held responsible for the habits and future ethics of a child. . . . So long as the pupil is too ignorant to be sure of his vision and powers of discrimination, is it not natural that it is the guide who should be responsible for the sins of him whom He has led into those dangerous regions ?²

211.          ² Lucifer, Vol. ii, 257.

212.          As we shall see in subsequent chapters, when a man comes into close relation with the Master he has much more power than he had before. One who becomes a pupil of a Master can therefore do much more good, but he could also do much more harm if he happened to let his force go in the wrong direction. Very often the young disciple does not realize the power of his own thought. The man in the street may think something foolish or untrue without producing any serious effect, because he does not know how to think strongly; he may think ill of someone else without making any very great impression upon that person; but if a disciple, who has the power of the Master within him, and has trained himself by long practice and meditation to use it, should misunderstand another person and think evil of him, his strong thought-current would act prejudicially upon that person, and might even seriously affect the whole of his future career.

213.          If the victim really bad the undesirable quality attributed to him, the pupil' s potent thought would intensify it; if no such quality existed, the same thought-form would suggest it, and might easily awaken it if it were latent-- might even plant its seeds if there were as yet no signs of it. Sometimes the mind of a human being is in a condition of balance between a good course and an evil one; and when that is the case the impact of a vivid thought-form from without may be sufficient to turn the scale, and may cause the weaker brother to embark upon a line of action the result of which, for good or evil, may extend through many incarnations. How careful then must the pupil be to see that the enhanced thought-power, with which his connection with his Master has endowed him, shall be used always to strengthen and never to weaken those towards whom it is directed!

214.          Everything depends upon the form in which the thought is cast. We are of course assuming that the intention of the disciple is always of the noblest, but his execution may be defective. Suppose, for example, a weaker brother is addicted to the vice of intemperance. If the thought of the pupil should happen to turn in the direction of that man, his musings might obviously take several different lines. Let us hope that there would be no danger of his despising the man for his weakness, or shrinking from him with aversion or disgust. But it is quite possible that he might think: “What a frightful crime is that man' s drunkenness; how terrible is its effect upon his wife and children! How can he be so inconsiderate, so selfish, so cruel?” Every word of it true, quite a reasonable thought, fully justified by the circumstances, and in no way unkind; but not helpful to the victim. However correct and unimpeachable is the sentiment, the prominent idea is that of blame to the sinner, and the effect of the thought-form is to crush him still further into the mire. Why not take the far stronger line of definite mental action: “I invoke the God within that man; I call upon the ego to assert himself, to conquer the weakness of the lower self, to say ` I can and I will' ”? If that be done, the dominant idea is not blame but encouragement, and the effect is not to depress the sufferer, but to help him to raise himself from the slime of his hopelessness to the firm ground of virility and freedom.

215.          WRONG IDEAS

216.          Another quality most essential for the aspirant is open-mindedness and freedom from bigotry of any sort. Madame Blavatsky once told us that her Master had remarked that erroneous beliefs were sometimes a great obstacle. As an example He said that there were a hundred thousand of the Indian sannyasis who were leading the purest lives and were quite ready for discipleship, except for the fact that their ingrained wrong thought on certain subjects made it impossible for even the Masters to penetrate their auras. Such thoughts, He said, drew round them undesirable elementals, most unpleasant influences, which reacted upon them and intensified their misconceptions, so that until they developed enough reason and intuition to shake themselves free from these they were practically impervious to suggestion.

217.          It has been said that an honest man is the noblest work of God; and Colonel Ingersoll once parodied that proverb by reversing it, and saying that an honest God was the noblest work of man-- by which he meant that each man arrives at his conception of God by personifying those qualities in himself which he thinks most worthy of admiration, and then raising them to the n th power. So if a man has a noble conception of God, it shows that there is much nobility in his own nature, even though he may not always live up to his ideal.

218.          But a wrong conception of God is one of the most serious hindrances under which a man can suffer. The idea of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, bloodthirsty, jealous, mean and cruel, has been responsible for an amount of harm in the world that cannot easily be estimated. Any thought of God which induces fear of Him is absolutely disastrous, and precludes all hope of real progress; it shuts a man up in the darkest of dungeons instead of leading him onward and upward into the glory of the sunlight. It draws round him a host of the type of elemental which revels in fear, gloats over it and intensifies it by every means within his power. When a man is in that parlous condition it is all but impossible to help him; wherefore to teach a man (still more, a child) such a blasphemous doctrine is one of the worst crimes that anyone can commit. The disciple must be utterly free from all cramping superstitions of this kind.

219.          THE EFFECT OF MEDITATION

220.          Remember also that every one who meditates upon the Master makes a definite connection with Him, which shows itself to clairvoyant vision as a kind of line of light. The Master always subconsciously feels the impinging of such a line, and sends out in response a steady stream of magnetism which continues to play long after the meditation is over. The methodical practice of such meditation and concentration is thus of the utmost help to the aspirant, and regularity is one of the most important factors in producing the result. It should be undertaken daily at the same hour, and we should steadily persevere with it, even though no obvious effect may be produced. When no result appears we must be especially careful to avoid depression, because that makes it more difficult for a Master' s influence to act upon us, and it also shows that we are thinking of ourselves more than of Him.

221.          In beginning this practice of meditation it is desirable to watch closely its physical effects. Methods prescribed by those who understand the matter ought never to cause headache or any other pain, yet such results do sometimes occur in particular cases. It is true that meditation strains the thought and attention a little further than its customary point in any individual, but that should be so carefully done, so free from any kind of excess, as not to cause any physical ill-effects. Sometimes a person takes it up too strenuously and for too long at a time, or when the body is not in a fit state of health, and the consequence is a certain amount of suffering. It is fatally easy to press one' s physical brain just a little too far, and when that happens it is often difficult to recover equilibrium. Sometimes a condition may be produced in a few days which it will take years to set right; so anyone who begins to feel any unpleasant effects should at once stop the practice for a while and attend to his physical health, and if possible consult someone who knows more than he does about the subject.

222.          COMMON HINDRANCES

223.          People very often come or write to our President or to myself and say: “Why does not the Master use me ? I am so earnest and devoted to Him. I do so want to be used. I want Him to take me and teach me. Why does He not do so?”

224.          There may be many reasons why He does not. Sometimes a person, asking that, has some prominent fault which is in itself quite a sufficient reason. Not infrequently, I regret to say, it is pride. A person may have so good a conceit of himself that he is not amenable to teaching, although he thinks that he is. Very often in this civilization of ours the fault is irritability. A good and worthy person may have his nerves all ajangle, so that it would be impossible for him to be drawn into very close and constant touch with the Master. Sometimes the impediment is curiosity. Some are surprised to hear that that is a serious failing, but certainly it is-- curiosity about the affairs of other people, and especially about their occult standing or development. It would be quite impossible that a Master should draw near to Himself one who had that failing.

225.          Another common hindrance is readiness to be offended. Many a good and earnest aspirant is so easily offended as to be of practically no use in the work, because he cannot get on with other people. He will have to wait until he has learnt to adapt himself, and to co-operate with any person whatever.

226.          Many people who make the inquiry have failings of this kind, and they do not like it if their fault is pointed out to them. They do not generally believe that they have it, and imagine that we are in error; but in rare cases they are willing to profit by the suggestion. I remember very well a lady coming to me in an American city and asking the question: “What is the matter with me? Why may I not draw near to the Master?” “Do you really want to know?” I asked. Yes, certainly, she really wished to know. She adjured me to look, at her occultly, or clairvoyantly, or in any way I wished, at all her vehicles and her past lives, and to decide thereby. I took her at her word and said: “Well, if you really want to know, there is too much ego in your cosmos. You are thinking all about yourself and not enough about the work.”

227.          Of course she was terribly offended; she flounced out of the room, and said she did not think much of my clairvoyance; but that lady had the courage to come back two years later and say: “What you told me was quite true, and I am going to put it right and to work hard at it.” That story has repeated itself many times, except that this is the only case in which the person came back and acknowledged the fault. Unquestionably the disciple who is willing to see himself as others see him may learn much that will help him to progress. I recollect that one of the Masters once remarked that the first duty of a chela is to hear without anger anything the guru may say. He should be eager to change himself, to get rid of his faults. Madame Blavatsky said: “Chelaship has been defined by a Master as a psychic resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind.”1

228.          1 Five Years of Theosophy , Second Edition, p. 36.

229.          Self-centredness is only another form of pride, but it is very prominent at the present day. The personality which we have been building up for many thousands of years has grown strong and often self-assertive, and it is one of the hardest tasks to reverse its attitude and compel it to acquire the habit of looking at things from the standpoint of others. One must certainly step out of the centre of his own circle, as I explained in The Inner Life, if he wishes to come to the Master.

230.          It sometimes happens, however, that those who ask the question have not any particular outstanding defect, and when one looks them over, one can only say: “I do not see any definite reason, any one fault which is holding you back, but you will have to grow a little all round.” That is an unpalatable thing to have to tell a person, but it is the fact ; they are not yet big enough, and must grow before they will be worthy.

231.          One thing which often prevents people from coming into touch with the Masters is lack of faith and will; unless a person tries earnestly with the full belief that he can, and with the determination that he will, succeed one day, and that that day shall come as soon as possible, it is fairly certain that he will not prevail. While we know that in some of us there are failings, yet I do think there are at least some cases among us in which it is just the lack of that intense determination which holds us back.

232.          It requires some strength and bigness to put oneself in the attitude towards the work which the Master Himself adopts, because, in addition to any defect of our own, we have the whole pressure of the thought of the world against us. Madame Blavatsky gave us the fullest warning in the beginning about both these difficulties. She writes:

233.          As soon as anyone pledges himself as a Probationer, certain occult effects ensue. The first is the throwing outward of everything latent in the nature of the man-- his faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or indifferent. For instance, if a man be vain or a sensualist, or ambitious. . . these vices are sure to break out, even if he has hitherto successfully concealed or repressed them. They will come to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.

234.          On the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has any virtue latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest. . . . This is an immutable law in the domain of the occult.1

235.          1 The Secret Doctrine, Vol.5, p. 417

236.          Does the reader recall the old proverb: “Let sleeping dogs lie?” There is a world of occult meaning in it. No man or woman knows his or her moral strength until it is tried. Thousands go through life very respectably because they have never been put to the test. . . . One who undertakes to try for chelaship by that very act rouses . . . every sleeping passion of his animal nature. . . . The chela is called to face not only all the latent evil propensities of his nature, but in addition the momentum of maleficent forces accumulated by the community and nation to which he belongs. . . . If he is content to go along with his neighbours and be almost as they are-- perhaps a little better or somewhat worse than the average-- no one may give him a thought. But let it be known that he has been able to detect the hollow mockery of social life, its hypocrisy. selfishness, sensuality, cupidity and other bad features, and has determined to lift himself up to a higher level, at once he is hated, and every bad, bigoted or malicious nature sends at him a current of opposing will-power. 1

237.          1 Five Years of Theosophy, Second Edition, p. 35.

238.          Those who drift along with the current of evolution, and will reach this stage in the very far distant future, will find it much easier, for popular opinion at that period will be in harmony with these ideals. We have now, however, to resist what the Christian would call temptation, the steady pressure of opinion from without, for millions of people all round us are thinking personal thoughts. To make a stand against these needs a real effort, true courage and perseverance. We must doggedly keep to the task, and though we may fail again and again we must not lose heart, but get up and go on.

239.          The astral and mental bodies of an aspirant ought to be continually exhibiting four or five big and glowing emotions-- love, devotion, sympathy and intellectual aspiration among them. But instead of a few great feelings vibrating splendidly and clearly with fine colour, one generally sees the astral body spotted over with red and brown and grey and black vortices, often a hundred or more. They are somewhat like a mass of warts on a physical body, preventing the skin from being sensitive as it should be. The candidate must see to it that these are removed, and that the usual tangle of petty emotions is entirely combed away.

240.          DEVOTION MUST BE COMPLETE

241.          There can be no half measures on this Path. Many people are in the position of those much-maligned individuals Ananias and Sapphira. It will be remembered how they (not at all unnaturally nor in a blameworthy manner) wanted to keep something to fall back upon, as they were not quite sure that the new Christian movement was going to be a success. They were very enthusiastic, and wanted to give all that they could; but they did feel that it was the path of wisdom to keep a little back in case the movement failed. For that they were not in the least to be blamed; but what they did do which was most damaging and improper was that, though keeping something back, they did not admit the fact, but pretended that they had given all. There are many to-day who follow their example; I hope the story is not true, because the Apostle was certainly somewhat severe upon them.

242.          We do not give everything, but keep back a little bit of ourselves-- I do not mean of our money, but of personal feeling deep down, which holds us back from the Master' s feet. In occultism that will not do. We must follow the Master without reserve, not saying within: “I will follow the Master so long as He does not want me to work with such-and-such a person; I will follow the Master so long as all that I do is recognized and mentioned in the papers!” We must not make conditions. I do not mean that we should give up our ordinary physical plane duties, but simply that our whole self should be at the Master' s disposal. We must be prepared to yield anything, to go anywhere-- not as a test, but because the love of the work is the biggest thing in our lives.

243.          Sometimes people ask: “If I do all these things how long will it be before the Master takes me on probation?” There will be no delay, but there is much virtue in the word “if” in this question. It is not so easy to do them perfectly, and were that required it would no doubt be a long time before we could hope for discipleship. But one of the Masters has said: “He who does his best does enough for us.” If one has not delight in service for its own sake, but is only looking for the reward of occult recognition, he has not really the right spirit. If he has the right attitude he will go on tirelessly with the good work, leaving the Master to announce His pleasure when and how He may choose.

244.          Our Hindu brethren have a very sound tradition in this matter. They would say: “Twenty or thirty years of service is as nothing; there are many in India who have served for the whole of their lives, and have never had any outward recognition, though inwardly they are being guided by a Master.” I met with an instance of this a few years ago; I had to make some inquiry with regard to some of our Indian brethren about these things, and the answer of the Master was: “For forty years I have had those men under observation. Let them be content with that.” And they were more then content. Since then, I may mention, they have received further recognition and have become Initiates. Our Indian brother knows within himself that the Master is aware of his service; but the pupil does not mind whether He chooses to take any outward notice of it or not. He would, of course, be exceedingly happy if the Master did notice him, but if that does not happen he goes on just the same.

245.          CHAPTER IV

246.          PROBATION

247.          THE LIVING IMAGE

248.          OUT of the ranks of earnest students and workers of the kind I have already described, the Master has on many occasions selected His pupils. But before He definitely accepts them He takes special precautions to assure Himself that they are really the kind of people whom He can draw into intimate contact with Himself; and that is the object of the stage called Probation. When He thinks of a man as a possible pupil, He usually asks one who is already closely linked with Him to bring the candidate to Him astrally. There is not generally much ceremony connected with this step; the Master gives a few words of advice, tells the new pupil what will be expected of him, and often, in His gracious way, He may find some reason to congratulate him on the work that he has already accomplished.

249.          He then makes a living image of the pupil-- that is to say, He moulds out of mental, astral and etheric matter an exact counterpart of the causal, mental, astral and etheric bodies of the neophyte, and keeps that image at hand, so that He may look at it periodically. Each image is magnetically attached to the person whom it represents, so that every variation of thought and feeling in him is accurately reproduced in it by sympathetic vibration, and thus by a single glance at the image the Master can see at once whether during the period since He last looked at it there has been any sort of disturbance in the bodies which it represents-- whether the man has been losing his temper, or allowing himself to be a prey to impure feelings, worry, depression, or anything of the kind. It is only after He has seen that for a considerable time no serious excitement has taken place in the vehicles represented by the image, that He will admit the pupil into near relation with Himself.

250.          When the pupil is accepted he must be drawn into a unity with his Master closer than anything we can imagine or understand; the Master wants to blend his aura with His own, so that through it His forces may be constantly acting without special attention on His part. But a relation so intimate as this cannot act in one direction only; if among the vibrations of the pupil there are some which would cause disturbance in the astral and mental bodies of the Adept as they react upon Him, such union would be impossible. The prospective pupil would have to wait until he had rid himself of those vibrations. A probationary pupil is not necessarily better than other people who are not on probation; he is only more suitable in certain ways for the Master' s work, and it is advisable to subject him to the test of time, for many people, swept upwards by enthusiasm, appear at first to be most promising and eager to serve, but unfortunately become tired after a while and slip back. The candidate must conquer any emotional failings that he may have, and go on steadily working until he becomes sufficiently calm and pure. When for quite a long time there has been no serious upheaval in the living image, the Master may feel that the time has come when He can usefully draw the pupil nearer to Him.

251.          We must not think of the living image as recording only defects or disturbances. It mirrors the whole condition of the pupil' s astral and mental consciousness, so it should record much of benevolence and joyousness, and should radiate forth peace on earth and goodwill to men. Never forget that not only a passive but also an active goodness is always a prerequisite for advancement. To do no harm is already much; but remember that it is written of our Great-Exemplar that He went about doing good. And when the Lord Buddha was asked to epitomize the whole of His teaching in one verse, He began: “Cease to do evil,” but immediately He continued: “Learn to do good.”

252.          If a pupil on probation does something unusually good, for the moment the Master flashes a little more attention on him, and if He sees fit He may send a wave of encouragement of some sort, or He may put some work in the pupil' s way and see how he does it. Generally, however, he delegates that task to some of His senior pupils.. We are supposed to offer opportunities to the candidate, but to do so is a serious responsibility. If the person takes the opportunity, all is well; but if he does not, it counts as a bad mark against him. We should often like to give opportunities to people, but we hesitate, because although if they take them it will do them much good, if they do not take them it will be a little harder to do so next time.

253.          It will be seen, then, that the link of the pupil on probation with his Master is chiefly one of observation and perhaps occasional use of the pupil. It is not the custom of the Adepts to employ special or sensational tests, and in general, when an adult is put on probation, he is left to follow the ordinary course of his life, and the way in which the living image reproduces his response to the trials and problems of the day gives quite sufficient indication of his character and progress. When from this the Master concludes that the person will make a satisfactory disciple, He will draw him nearer and accept him. Sometimes a few weeks is sufficient to determine this; sometimes the period stretches into years.

254.          YOUNGER PROBATIONERS

255.          Because the time is exceptional many young people have been put on probation in recent years, and their parents and the older members of The Society have sometimes wondered how it is that, notwithstanding their own sincere sacrifices and labours, often extending over twenty, thirty or even forty years, they are passed over and the young people are chosen. The explanation is simple.

256.          It has been your karma to work all this time preparing yourself and preparing the way for the coming of the World-Teacher; and just because you are good old members you have attracted some of the souls who have been working up to a high level of development in previous incarnations, so that they have been born to you as children; and you must not be surprised if you sometimes find that those who in the physical body are your children are in other and higher worlds far older in development than you are. If a boy or a girl suddenly enters into close relations with a Master-- such relations as you have hardly ventured to think of for yourself, even after many years of meditation and hard work-- do not be astonished. Your child may be capable of soaring far beyond you; but it is just because he has that capacity that his birth and education have been entrusted to you, who have been studying and working so long on Theosophical lines. In the course of that study you should have learnt to be the ideal parent-- the kind of parent required for the body of an advanced ego. Instead of being perplexed or surprised, you should rejoice with exceeding great joy that you have been found worthy to train the physical footsteps of one who shall be among the Saviours of the world.

257.          You may wonder, perhaps, how mere children can appreciate the honour which comes to them, can grasp the splendour and glory of it all. Do not forget that it is the ego who is initiated, the ego who is taken as a pupil. True, he must obtain such control over his lower vehicles that they will be to a certain considerable extent an expression of him, so that at least they will not get in the way of the work which has to be done; but it is he, the ego, who has to do that work and to make that development, and you do not know how much of it he may have already achieved in previous births. Many of those who are coming into incarnation just now are highly evolved souls; it is precisely of such advanced egos that the great group of disciples who will stand around the World-Teacher must be constituted. Those who become pupils early in this life may well have been pupils for many years in a previous life, and the greatest privilege that we elder people can have is that we find ourselves associated with these young ones, for through them we can further the Lord' s work on earth by training them to do it more perfectly.

258.          In the Chapter on “Our Relation to Children” in The Hidden Side of Things I have dealt at considerable length with what is necessary for the training of children, that they may preserve all that is best in what they bring from the past and may develop into full flower the many beautiful characteristics of their nature, which are so generally, alas, ruthlessly destroyed by uncomprehending elders. There I have spoken among other things of the devastating effects of fear induced in children by roughness and cruelty; but on that subject I should like to add here some mention of an experience which illustrated the unspeakably terrible results which sometimes follow in its wake. Parents who have children of an age to be sent to school cannot be too careful and searching in their inquiries before they entrust those children to an instructor, lest ineradicable harm be done to the little ones for whom they are responsible.

259.          EFFECT OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN

260.          Some time ago a very striking instance of the calamity which may in certain cases be brought about by such brutality came prominently before my notice. I had the very great honour of being present at the Initiation of one of our younger members, the Initiator on that occasion being the Lord Maitreya Himself. In the course of the ceremonial the candidate, as usual, had to reply to many questions dealing largely with the manner in which help can best be given in certain difficult or unusual cases, and a special interrogation was added as to whether he forgave and could help a certain man who had treated him with terrible harshness and cruelty in early childhood.

261.          The Initiator made an image of an aura with the most wonderfully delicate little puffs or touches or shoots of lovely colour, of light playing over its surface, as it were peeping out of it, and then drawing in again, and said: “Those are the seeds of the highest and noblest qualities of mankind-- fragile, delicate as gossamer, to be developed only in an atmosphere of deepest, purest love, without one touch of fear or shrinking. He who, being otherwise ready, can unfold and strengthen them fully may reach Adeptship in that same life. That was the fate we had hoped for you, that as a great Adept you should have stood beside me when I come to your physical plane ; but those to whom I entrusted you (because they offered you to my service even before birth) allowed you to fall into the hands of this person, who was so utterly unworthy of such a trust. This was your aura before the blight of his wickedness fell upon you. Now see what his cruelty made of you.”

262.          Then the aura changed and twisted about horribly, and when it was still again all the beautiful little shoots had disappeared, and in their place were innumerable little scars, and the Lord explained that the harm done could not be cancelled in the present life, and said: “You will still help me when I come, and I hope that in this life you will attain Arhatship; but for the final consummation we must wait awhile. In our eyes there is no greater crime than thus to check the progress of a soul.”

263.          As the candidate saw this aura writhe and harden, saw all its fair promise ruthlessly destroyed by the brutality of this man, he felt again for a moment what he had to a great extent forgotten-- the agony of the small boy sent away from home, the ever-hovering fear and shrinking, the incredulous horror, the feeling of flaming outrage from which there is no escape or redress, the sickening sense of utter helplessness in the grasp of a cruel tyrant, the passionate resentment at his wicked injustice, with no hope, no foothold anywhere in the abyss, no God to whom to appeal; and seeing this in his mind, I who watched understood something of the terrible tragedy of childhood, and why its effects are so far-reaching.

264.          It is not only when approaching Adeptship that this most loathsome sin of cruelty to children checks progress. All the new and higher qualities which the Aryan race should now be unfolding show themselves in light and delicate buds of a similar nature, though at a lower level than those described above. In thousands of cases these are ruthlessly crushed out by the insensate ferocity of parent or teacher, or repressed by the brutal bullying of bigger boys at a boarding-school; and thus many good people remain at the same level through several incarnations, while their tormentors fall back into lower races. There are certainly many egos coming into incarnation who, although they fall far short of the great heights of Initiation, are nevertheless unfolding rapidly, and need now to add to their characters some of these further and more delicate developments; and for the advancement intended for them also brutality would be fatal.

265.          I had not heard, until the occasion mentioned above, that the last life in which Adeptship is attained must have absolutely perfect surroundings in childhood; but the appropriateness of the idea is obvious when once it is put before us. That is probably one reason why so few students gain Adeptship in European bodies, for we are much behind the rest of the world in that particular. It is at any rate abundantly clear that nothing but evil can ever follow from this ghastly custom of cruelty. Our members should certainly work wherever possible for its suppression, and should be, as I said in the beginning, most especially careful to make certain that no children for whom they are in any way responsible shall be in any danger from this particular form of crime.

266.          THE MASTER OF CHILDREN

267.          The Lord Maitreya has frequently been called the Teacher of Gods and Men, and that fact is sometimes expressed in a different way by saying that in the great kingdom of the spiritual work He is the Minister for Religion and Education. It is not only that at certain intervals, when He sees it to be desirable, He either incarnates Himself, or sends a pupil, to state the eternal truth in some new way-- as we may put it, to found a new religion. Quite apart from that, He is constantly in charge of all religions, and whatever new and beautiful teaching is sent out through any of them, new or old, it is always inspired by Him. We know little of the methods of world-wide instruction which He adopts; there are many ways of teaching apart from the spoken word; and it is certain that it is His constant and daily endeavour to raise the intellectual conceptions of millions of Angels and of men.

268.          His right-hand man in all this marvellous work is His assistant and destined successor, the Master Kuthumi, just as the assistant and destined successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu is the Master Morya. Just because, then, the Master Kuthumi is the ideal Teacher, it is to Him that we have to bring those who are to be put on probation or accepted at an early age. It may be that later on in life they will be used by other Masters for other portions of the work; but at any rate they all (or almost all) begin under the tutelage of the Master Kuthumi. It has been part of my task for many years to endeavour to train along the right lines any young person whom the Master regards as hopeful; He brings them in contact with me on the physical plane and usually gives brief directions as to what qualities He wants developing in them, and what instruction should be given to them. Naturally He, in His infinite wisdom, does not deal with these younger brains and bodies exactly as with those of older people. Let me quote from an account of the putting on probation some ten years ago of three of our young people:

269.          ENTERING UPON PROBATION

270.          We found the Master Kuthumi seated on the veranda of His house, and as I led the young ones forward to Him, He held out His hands to them. The first boy dropped gracefully on one knee and kissed His hand, and thenceforward remained kneeling, pressing against the Master' s knee. All of them kept their eyes upon His, and their whole souls seemed to be pouring out through their eyes. He smiled on them most beautifully and said:

271.          “I welcome you with peculiar pleasure; you have all worked with me in the past, and I hope you will do so again this time. I want you to be of us before the Lord comes, so I am beginning with you very early. Remember, this that you wish to undertake is the most glorious of all tasks, but it is not an easy one, because you must gain perfect control over these little bodies; you must forget yourselves entirely and live only to be a blessing to others, and to do the work which is given us to do.”

272.          Putting His hand under the chin of the first boy as he knelt, He said with a bright smile : “Can you do that?”

273.          And they all replied that they would try. Then the Master gave some valuable personal advice to each in turn, and asked each one separately: “Will you try to work in the world under My guidance ?” And each said: “I will.”

274.          Then He drew the first boy in front of Him, and placed both His hands upon his head, the boy once more sinking to his knees. The Master said:

275.          “Then I take you as my pupil on probation, and I hope that you will soon come into closer relationship with me, and therefore I give you my blessing, in order that you may pass it on to others.”

276.          As He spoke, the boy' s aura increased wonderfully in size, and its colours of love and devotion glowed with living fire; and he said: “O Master make me really good; make me fit to serve you.”

277.          But the Master smilingly replied: “Only you yourself can do that, my dear boy; but my help and blessing will be ever with you.”

278.          Then He took the others and went through the same little ceremony with each of them, and their auras also increased and grew firmer and steadier as they glowed responsively in the most marvellous manner.

279.          Then the Master rose and drew the boys with Him saying:

280.          “Now come with me, and see what I do.”

281.          We all trooped together down the sloping path to the bridge across the river. He took us into the cave, and showed to the boys the living images of all the probationary pupils. Then He said: “Now I am going to make images of you. ” And He materialized them before their eyes, and they were naturally tremendously interested. One of them said in an awed voice : “Am I like that?”

282.          In one of the images there was a patch of reddish matter, and the Master said to its original with a humorous glance: “What is that?”

283.          “I don' t know,” replied the boy; but I think he guessed, for it was the result of an emotional strain the night before. The Master pointed out various colours and arrangements in the auras, and told them what they meant and which He wanted altered. He told them that He should look at these images each day to see how they were getting on, and He hoped that they would so arrange them that they would be pleasant to look upon. Then He gave them His final blessing.

284.          ________

285.          In the case of elder people put upon probation, they are left to a large extent to find the most suitable work for themselves; but with the younger people He sometimes quite definitely puts a piece of work in the way of one of them and watches to see how he does it. He condescends sometimes to give special messages of encouragement and instruction to individuals among these young people, and even to give advice as to their training. For the guidance of other young people who desire to follow along the same path extracts from some of those messages are given here :

286.          ADVICE FROM THE MASTER

287.          “I know that your one object in life is to serve the Brotherhood; yet do not forget that there are higher steps before you, and that progress on the Path means sleepless vigilance. You must not only be always ready to serve; you must be ever watching for opportunities-- nay, making opportunities to be helpful in small things, in order that when the greater work comes you may not fail to see it.

288.          “Never for a moment forget your occult relationship; it should be an ever-present inspiration to you-- not only a shield from the fatuous thoughts which float around us, but a constant stimulus to spiritual activity. The vacuity and pettiness of ordinary life should be impossible for us, though not beyond our comprehension and compassion. The ineffable bliss of Adeptship is not yet yours, but remember that you are already one with Those who live that higher life; you are dispensers of Their sunlight in this lower world, so you, too, at your level, must be radiant suns of love and joy. The world may be unappreciative, uncomprehending; but your duty is to shine.

289.          “Do not rest on your oars. There are still higher peaks to conquer. The need of intellectual development must not be forgotten; and we must unfold within ourselves sympathy, affection, tolerance. Each must realize that there are other points of view than his own, and that they may be just as worthy of attention. All coarseness or roughness of speech, all tendency to argumentativeness, must absolutely disappear; one who is prone to it should check himself when the impulse towards it arises; he should say little, and that always with delicacy and courtesy. Never speak without first thinking whether what you are going to say is both kind and sensible. He who tries to develop love within himself will be saved from many mistakes. Love is the supreme virtue of all, without which all other qualifications water but the sand.

290.          “Thoughts and feelings of an undesirable kind must be rigorously excluded; you must work at them until they are impossible to you. Touches of irritability ruffle the calm sea of the consciousness of the Brotherhood. Pride must be eliminated, for it is a serious bar to progress. Exquisite delicacy of thought and speech is needed-- the rare aroma of perfect tact which can never jar or offend. That is hard to win, yet you may reach it if you will.

291.          “Definite service, and not mere amusement, should be your aim; think, not what you want to do, but what you can do that will help someone else; forget about yourself, and consider others. A pupil must be consistently kind, obliging, helpful-- not now and then, but all the time. Remember, all time which is not spent in service (or fitting yourself for service) is for us lost time.

292.          “When you see certain evils in yourself, take them in hand manfully and effectively. Persevere, and you will succeed. It is a question of will-power. Watch for opportunities and hints; be efficient. I am always ready to help you, but I cannot do the work for you; the effort must come from your side. Try to deepen yourself all round and to live a life of utter devotion to service.”

293.          _______

294.          “You have done well, but I want you to do better yet. I have tested you by giving you opportunities to help, and so far you have taken them nobly. I shall therefore give you more and greater opportunities, and your progress will depend upon your recognizing them and availing yourself of them. Remember that the reward of successful work is always the opening out before you of more work, and that faithfulness in what seem to you small things leads to employment in matters of greater importance. I hope that you will soon draw closer to me, and in so doing will help your brothers along the Path which leads to the feet of the King. Be thankful that you have a great power of love, that you know how to flood your world with sunlight, to pour yourself out with royal prodigality, to scatter largess like a king; that indeed is well, but take care lest in the heart of this great flower of love there should be a tiny touch of pride, which might spread as does an almost invisible spot of decay, until it has tainted and corrupted the whole blossom. Remember what Our great Brother has written: ` Be humble if thou wouldst attain to wisdom; be humbler still when wisdom thou hast mastered.' Cultivate the modest fragrant plant humility, until its sweet aroma permeates every fibre of your being.

295.          “When you try for unity, it is not enough to draw the others into yourself, to enfold them with your aura, to make them one with you. To do that is already a long step, but you must go yet further, and make yourself one with each of them ; you must enter into the very hearts of your brothers, and understand them; never from curiosity, for a brother' s heart is both a secret and sacred place; one must not seek to pry into it or discuss it, but rather endeavour reverently to comprehend, to sympathize, to help. It is easy to criticize others from one' s own point of view; it is more difficult to get to know them and love them; but that is the only way to bring them along with you. I want you to grow quickly that I may use in the Great Work; to help you in that I give you my blessing.”

296.          __________

297.          “Daughter, you have done well in exercising your influence to civilize as far as may be the rougher elements around you, and to help another pure soul upon her way to me. That will be ever a bright star in your crown of glory; continue your help to her, and see whether there be not other stars which you can presently add to that crown. This good work of yours has enabled me to draw you closer to me far earlier than would otherwise have been the case. There is no more certain method of rapid progress than to devote oneself to helping others upon the upward Path. You have been fortunate, too, in meeting a comrade from of old, for two who can really work together are more efficient than if they were putting forth the same amount of strength separately. You have begun well ; continue to move along the same line with swiftness and certainty.”

298.          ________

299.          “I welcome you, the latest recruit to our glorious band. It is not easy for you to forget yourself entirely, to yield yourself without reservation to the service of the world; yet that is what is required of us-- that we should live only to be a blessing to others, and to do the work which is given us to do. You have made a good beginning in the process of self-development, but much yet remains to be done. Repress even the slightest shade of irritability, and be ready always to receive advice and instruction; cultivate humility and self-sacrifice, and fill yourself with a fervid enthusiasm for service. So shall you be a fitting instrument in the hand of the Great Master, a soldier in the army of Those who save the world. To help you in that I now take you as a probationary pupil.”

300.          _________

301.          “I am pleased with you, but I want you to do more yet. For you, my child, you have the capacity of making rapid progress, and I want you to set this before yourself as an object which you are determined at all costs to achieve. Some of the obstacles which you are instructed to overcome may seem to you unimportant, but in reality they are not so, because they are the surface indications of an interior condition which must be altered if you wish to be of use to Our Lord when He comes. That means a radical change which it will not be easy for you to make, but the effort is well worth your while. The rules which I wish you to make for yourself are these:

302.          “(1) Forget yourself and the desires of your personality, and remember only the service of others, devoting your strength, your thought, your enthusiasm wholly to that.

303.          “(2) Do not offer an opinion on any matter unless directly asked for it.

304.          “(3) Before speaking, always consider how what you say will affect others.

305.          “(4) Never betray, or comment upon a brother's weakness.

306.          “(5) Remember that you have yet much to learn, and therefore may often be in error; so speak with becoming modesty.

307.          “(6) When called, move at once, not waiting to finish what you happen to be reading or doing; if you are performing a duty of importance, explain very gently what it is.

308.          “I wish to draw you closer to me, and if you will keep these rules I shall soon be able to do so. Meantime, my blessing rests upon you.”

309.          BECOME AS LITTLE CHILDREN

310.          Many who read these instructions may be surprised by their extreme simplicity. They may even despise them as being little suited to guide and help people in the immense complexity of our modern civilization. But he who thinks thus forgets that it is of the essence of the life of the pupil that he shall lay aside all this complexity, that he shall, as the Master put it, “come out of your world into ours,” come into a world of thought in which life is simple and one-pointed, in which right and wrong are once more clearly defined, in which the issues before us are straight and intelligible. It is the simple life that the disciple should be living; it is the very simplicity which he attains which makes the higher progress possible to him. We have made our life an entanglement and an uncertainty, a mass of confusion, a storm cross-currents, in which the weak fail and sink; but the pupil of the Master must be strong and sane, he must take his life in his own hands, and make it simple with a divine simplicity. His mind must brush aside all these man-made confusions and delusions and go straight as an arrow to its mark. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And the kingdom heaven, remember, is the Great White Brotherhood of the Adepts.1

311.          ¹See The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals , pp. 12, 446.

312.          We see from these extracts how high is the ideal which the Master sets before His pupils, and perhaps it may seem to some of them to be what in theology we call a counsel of perfection-- that is to say, a goal or condition impossible to reach perfectly as yet, but still one at which we must constantly aim. But all aspirants are aiming high, and no one yet can fully reach that at which he aims; otherwise he would not need to be in physical incarnation at all. We are very far from being perfect, but the young people who can be brought close to the Great Ones have a most wonderful opportunity, just because of their youth and plasticity. It is so much easier for them to eliminate those things which are not quite what they should be than it is for older people. If they can cultivate the habit of taking the right point of view, of acting for the right reasons, and of being in the right attitude, the whole of their lives, they will steadily draw nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Masters. If the pupil who has been put on probation could see while awake in his physical body the living images that the Master makes, he would understand much more fully the importance of what may seem to be but minor details.

313.          EFFECTS OF IRRITABILITY

314.          Irritability is a common difficulty; as I have already explained, to be irritable is a thing which is likely enough to happen to anyone living in this present civilization, where people are always very highly strung. We live to a large extent in a civilization of torturing noises; and above all things noise jars the nerves and causes irritation. The experience of going down into the city and returning home feeling quite shattered and tired is a common one for sensitive people. Many other things are contributory, but principally the weariness is due to the constant noise, and the pressure of so many astral bodies vibrating at different rates, and all excited and disturbed by trifles. It makes it very difficult to avoid irascibility-- especially for the pupil, whose bodies are more highly strung and sensitive than those of the ordinary man.

315.          Of course, this petulance is somewhat superficial; it does not penetrate deeply; but it is better to avoid even a superficial peevishness as far as possible, because its effects last so much longer than we usually realize. If there is a heavy storm, it is the wind that first stirs the waves; but the waves will continue to swell long after the wind has died down. That is the effect produced on water, which is comparatively heavy; but the matter of the astral body is far finer than water, and the vibrations set going penetrate much more deeply, and therefore produce a more lasting effect. Some slight, unpleasant, temporary feeling, which passes out of mind in ten minutes, perhaps, may yet produce an effect on the astral body lasting for forty-eight hours. The vibrations do not settle down again for a considerable period of time.

316.          When such a fault as this is known, it can most effectually be removed not by focusing attention upon it, but by endeavouring to develop the opposite virtue. One way of dealing with it is to set one' s thought steadfastly against it, but there is no doubt that this course of action arouses opposition in the mental or astral elemental, so that often a better method is to try to develop consideration for others, based of course fundamentally on one' s love towards them. A man who is full of love and consideration will not allow himself to speak or even to think irritably towards them. If the man can be filled with that idea the same result will be attained without exciting opposition from the elementals.

317.          SELFISHNESS

318.          There are many other forms of selfishness that can delay the pupil' s progress very seriously. Laziness is one of these. I have seen a person enjoying himself very much with a book, who did not like to leave it in order to be punctual; another perhaps writes very badly, careless of the inconvenience and the damage to eyes and temper of those who have to read his calligraphy. Little negligences tend to make one less sensitive to high influences, to make life untidy and ugly for other persons, and to destroy self-control and efficiency. Efficiency and punctuality are essential, if satisfactory work is to be done. Many people are inefficient; when a piece of work is given to them, they do not finish it thoroughly, but make all kinds of excuses; or when they are asked for some information, they do not know how to find it. People differ much in this respect. We may ask a question of someone, and he will answer: “I don't know”; but another will say: “Well, I don' t know”, but I will go and find out,” and he returns with the required information. In the same way one person goes to do a thing, and comes back and says he could not do it; but another holds on until it is done.

319.          Yet in all good work the pupil must always think of the benefit that will result to others and of the opportunity to serve the Master in these matters-- which even when they are small materially are great in spiritual value-- not of the good karma resulting to himself, which would be only another and very subtle form of self-centredness. Remember how the Christ put it: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done It unto me.”

320.          Other subtle effects of the same kind are to be seen in depression and jealousy, and aggressive assertion of one' s rights. An Adept has said: “Think less about your rights and more about your duties.” There are some occasions in dealing with the outside world when the pupil might find it necessary gently to state what he needs, but amongst his fellow-pupils there are no such things as rights, but only opportunities. If a man feels annoyed, he begins to project from himself aggressive feelings; he may not go so far as actual hatred, but he is creating a dull glow in his astral body and affecting the mental body as well.

321.          WORRY

322.          Similar disturbances are frequently produced in the mental body, and are equally disastrous in their effects. If a man allows himself to be greatly worried over some problem, and turns it over and over again in his mind without reaching any conclusion, he has thereby caused something like a storm in his mental body. Owing to the exceeding fineness of the vibrations at this level, the word storm only partially expresses the reality; we should in some ways come nearer to the effect produced if we thought of it as a sore place in the mental body, as an irritation produced by friction. We sometimes encounter argumentative people, people who must argue about everything, and apparently love the exercise so much that they scarcely care on which side of the problem they are engaged. A person of that sort has his mental body in a condition of perpetual inflammation, and the inflammation is liable on very slight provocation to break out at any moment into an actual open sore. For such an one there is no hope of any kind of occult progress until he has brought balance and common sense to bear on this diseased condition.

323.          Fortunately for us, the good emotions persist even longer than the evil, because they work in the finer part of the astral body; the effect of a feeling of strong love or devotion remains in the astral body long after the occasion that caused it has been forgotten. It is possible, though unusual, to have two sets of vibrations going on strongly in the astral body at the same time-- for example, love and anger. At the moment of feeling intense anger a man would not be likely to have any strong affectionate feeling, unless the anger were noble indignation; in that case the after results would go on side by side, but one at a much higher level than the other, and therefore persisting longer.

324.          LAUGHTER

325.          It is very natural for boys and girls to wish to enjoy themselves, to be merry, to read and to hear amusing things, and to laugh at them; that is quite right, and it does no harm. If people could see the vibrations set up by jovial, kindly laughter they would realize at once that while the astral body is disturbed to some extent, it is the same thing as shaking up the liver in riding; it actually does good, not harm. But if the results of some of the less pleasant stories that foul-minded people are in the habit of telling were visible to them they would realize a ghastly difference; such thoughts are altogether evil, and the forms produced by them remain clinging for a long time to the astral body, and attract all kinds of loathsome entities. Those approaching the Masters must be utterly free from this coarseness, as well as from all that is boisterous and rough; and the younger must constantly be on their guard against any relapse into childishness or silliness.

326.          There is sometimes a tendency towards inane giggling, which must be avoided at all costs, as it has a very bad effect on the astral body. It weaves round it a web of grey-brown threads, very unpleasant to look upon, which forms a layer which hinders the entrance of good influences. It is a danger against which young people should sedulously guard themselves. Be as happy and as joyous as you can; the Master likes to see it, and it will help you on your path. But never for a moment let your joyousness be tinged by any sort of roughness or rudeness, never let your laughter become a boisterous guffaw; never let it, on the other hand, degenerate into silly giggling.

327.          There is a definite line of demarcation in this, as in other matters, between what is harmless and what may easily become harmful. The most certain method of determining it is to consider whether the amusement passes beyond the point of delicacy and good taste. The moment that the laughter oversteps these-- the moment that there is in it the least touch of boisterousness, the moment that it ceases to be perfect in its refinement, we are passing on to dangerous ground. The inner side of that distinction is that so long as the ego is fully in control of his astral body, all is well; as soon as he loses control, the laughter becomes vacuous and meaningless-- the horse is, as it were, running away with its rider. An astral body thus left unchecked is at the mercy of any passing influence, and may easily be affected by most undesirable thoughts and feelings. See to it also that your mirth is ever pure and clean-- never tinged for a moment with a malicious delight in the suffering or discomfiture of another. If a mortifying accident should happen to someone, do not stand there laughing idly at the ridiculous side of the incident, but rush forward at once to help and console. Loving-kindness and helpfulness must be always your most prominent characteristics.

328.          IDLE WORDS

329.          A clairvoyant who can see the effect upon the higher bodies of the various undesirable emotions finds no difficulty in understanding how important it is that they should he controlled. But because most of us do not see the result we are liable to forget it, and allow ourselves to become careless. The same thing is true of the effect produced by casual or thoughtless remarks. The Christ in His last incarnation on earth is reported to have said that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment. That sounds a cruel thing to say, and if the orthodox view of judgment were correct, it would indeed be unjust and abominable. He did not mean in the least that every idle word spoken would condemn a man to eternal torture-- there is no such thing as that; but we know that every word and every thought has its karma, its result, and when foolish things are repeated again and again, it makes an atmosphere round the person which does keep out good influences. To avoid this, constant attention is required. It would he a superhuman ideal to expect a person never to forget himself for a moment; but disciples are after all trying to become superhuman, because the Master is beyond man. If the pupil could live the perfect life, he would himself already he an Adept; he cannot he that yet, but if he constantly remembered his ideal he would approach much nearer to it. Every idle word that he speaks is certainly affecting for the time his relations with the Master; so let him watch his words with the utmost care.¹

330.          ¹See also Chapter xiv, On Right Speech.

331.          FORMS MADE BY SPEECH

332.          The pupil should watch the manner of his speech, as well as its matter, so that it may he graceful, beautiful and correct, and free from carelessness and exaggeration. His words should be well chosen and well pronounced. Many people think that in daily life it is not necessary to take the trouble to speak clearly; it matters much more than they think, because we are all the time building our own surroundings, and these react upon us. We fill our rooms and houses with our own thoughts, and then we have to live in them. If, for example, a man allows himself to be overcome by depression, his room becomes charged with that quality, and any sensitive person coming into it becomes conscious of a certain lowering of vitality, a loss of tone. Much more he himself, who lives in that room much of the time, is perpetually affected by the depression, and cannot easily throw it off. In the same way the man who surrounds himself with unpleasant sound-forms by careless and uncultured speech produces an atmosphere in which these forms constantly react upon him. Because of this perpetual pressure the man is likely to reproduce these unpleasant forms; if he is not careful he will find himself getting into the habit of speaking roughly and coarsely.

333.          I have heard again and again from school-teachers: “We can do nothing with the children' s speech. While we have them here in school we try to correct them, but when they go home they hear the wrong pronunciation of the words, and that always persists, and makes it impossible for us to counteract it.” The children are in school for perhaps five hours a day, and are in and about the home most of the remaining time. In that home an atmosphere of undesirable sound-forms is pressing on them all the time, so that they are absolutely enslaved by it; there are certain words they actually cannot say, for they cannot utter a pure sound. In some parts of Australia, for example, when they try to say: “Now it is time to go to school,” they say something like: “Naow it is toime to gauw to skyule.” That will not do. You may think that a small thing and unimportant; it is by no means small, and a number of such things perpetually repeated produce a great effect. It is surely better that we should surround ourselves with beauty than with ugliness, even though it be in etheric matter. It is of great importance to speak correctly, clearly and beautifully, for that leads to refinement inwardly as well as outwardly. If we speak in a coarse and slovenly manner, we degrade the level of our thought; and such a manner of speech will repel and disgust people whom we wish to help. Those who cannot be accurate in their use of words, cannot be precise in their thinking; even in morality they will be vaguer, for all these things react one upon another.

334.          Each word as it is uttered makes a little form in etheric matter, just as a thought does in mental matter. Some of those forms are most objectionable. The word “hate,” for instance, produces a horrible form, so much so that, having seen its shape, I never use the word. We may say that we dislike a thing, or that we do not care about it, but we should never use the word “hate” more than we can help, for merely to see the form that it makes gives a feeling of acute discomfort. There are words, on the other hand, which produce beautiful forms, words which it is well to recite. All this might be worked out scientifically, and will be some day, I have no doubt, when people have time to do it. It may be said, however, in general that the words which are connected with desirable qualities produce pleasant forms, and those which are associated with evil qualities produce ugly forms.

335.          Such word-forms are not determined by the thought which accompanies the word; the thought builds its own form in a higher type of matter. For example, that word “hate” is often used quite casually without any real hatred at all, when speaking, perhaps, of some article of food; that is a perfectly unnecessary use of the word, and it obviously does not convey any serious emotion; so that the astral hate-form is not produced; but the ugly etheric sound-form appears just as though the speaker really meant it. So clearly the word itself is not a good word. The same is true of the oaths and obscene words so often used amongst uneducated and uncultured people; the forms produced by some of these are of a peculiarly horrible nature when seen by clairvoyant sight. But it is unthinkable that anyone aspiring to be a disciple would pollute his lips with these. We often hear people using all sorts of loose slang phrases which in reality have no meaning or legitimate derivation. It is important that all these should be avoided by the student of occultism.

336.          The same thing is true with regard to the habit of exaggeration. People sometimes talk in a most extravagant way. If a thing is a hundred yards distant they say it is “miles off”. If a day comes that is hotter than usual, they say it is “boiling”. Our command of English is poor if we are not able to find words to express different gradations of thought without plunging into these wild, meaningless superlatives. Worst of all, if they wish to convey the idea that something is especially good, they describe it as “awfully” good, which is not only a contradiction in terms, and therefore an utterly silly and meaningless expression, but it is also a shocking misuse of a word which has a solemn connotation of its own which renders its employment in such a sense grotesquely inappropriate. All such abominations should be strictly avoided by one who aspires to become a student of occultism.

337.          We emphasize control of speech from the point of view of regulating the meaning of our words-- and quite rightly; nothing is more necessary; I wish we could all control the pronunciation of our words, and regard that also as an act of self-training. The importance of accuracy and refinement in speech cannot be exaggerated.

338.          Whenever we speak or laugh we make colour as well as sound. If it is the right kind of laughter, hearty and kindly, it has a very pleasant effect, and spreads a feeling of joyousness all round. But if it should be a sneering or sarcastic laugh, a coarse guffaw, a snigger or a giggle, the result is very different, and exceedingly unpleasant. It is remarkable how closely all shades of thought and feeling mirror themselves in other planes. This is very evident when we pass from one country to another, and find the air filled with quite different sound-effects. If one crosses the Channel from England to France, one sees at once that the sound-forms made by the French language are quite different from those produced by the English. It is especially noticeable with regard to certain sounds, because every language has some sounds peculiar to itself, and it is those which are the principal features which distinguish the appearance of one language from that of another.

339.          The colour of the forms produced depends more upon the spirit in which we speak. Two people may speak the same words, and so make broadly the same form, but the forms may have a different spirit behind them. When you are parting with someone you say “Good-bye”. Those words may be accompanied by a real outrush of friendly feeling; but if you say “Good-bye” in a casual tone, without any special thought or feeling behind it, that produces a totally different effect on the higher planes. One is just a flash in the pan, meaning little, doing little; the other is a definite outpouring which you give to your friend. It is well to remember that the expression means “God be with you”; therefore it is a blessing which you are giving. In France we say “Adieu,” “To God I commend you”. If you would think of the meaning of such words whenever you say them, you would do much more good than you do, for then your will and your thought would go with the words, and the blessing would be a real help and not a mere casual flicker.

340.          In all these ways the disciple' s speech should be refined and evolved. Remember how it is said in The Light of Asia that the King, the Self, is within you, and that whatever comes out of your mouth in His presence should be a golden thought expressed in golden words:

Govern the lips

As they were palace doors, the King within;

Tranquil and fair and courteous be all words

Which from that presence win.

341.          FUSS

342.          Especially is it necessary for the aspirant to avoid all fidgetiness or fussiness. Many an energetic and earnest worker spoils most of his efforts and makes them of no effect by yielding to these failings; for he sets up around him such an aura of tremulous vibrations that no thought or feeling can pass in or out without distortion, and the very good that he sends out takes with it a shiver that practically neutralizes it. Be absolutely accurate; but attain your accuracy by perfect calmness, never by hurry or fuss.

343.          Another point that it is necessary to impress upon our students is that in occultism we always mean exactly what we say, neither more or less.

344.          When a rule is laid down that nothing unkind or critical must be said about another, just that is exactly what is meant-- not that when we happen to think of it we should slightly diminish the number of unkind or critical things that we say every day, but that they must definitely altogether cease. We are so much in the habit of hearing various ethical instructions which no one seems to endeavour to put seriously into practice, that we have a habit of thinking that a perfunctory assent to an idea, or an occasional feeble effort to approximate to it, is all that religion requires of us. We must put aside that frame of mind altogether and understand that exact and literal obedience is required when occult instruction is given, whether by a Master or by His pupil.1

345.          ¹For additional instructions on these lines the reader is referred to Talks on the Path of Occultism.

346.          THE VALUE OF ASSOCIATION

347.          Very much help in all these matters is often given to the aspirant, both probationary and accepted, by the presence of an older pupil of the Masters. In the early days in India, when a guru selected his chelas, he formed them into a group and took them about with him wherever he went. Now and then he taught them, but often they received no instructions; yet they made rapid progress, because all the time they were within the aura of the teacher and were being brought into harmony with it, instead of being surrounded by ordinary influences. The teacher also assisted them in the building of character, and always watched the tyros carefully. Our Masters cannot adopt that plan physically, but They have sometimes arranged matters so that some of Their elder representatives can draw round themselves. a group of the younger neophytes, and attend to them individually, much as a gardener would deal with his plants, raying upon them day and night the influences needed to awaken certain qualities or strengthen weak points. The older helper rarely receives direct instructions with regard to this work; though now and then the Master may make some remark or comment.

348.          The fact that the novices are together in a group also assists their progress; they are influenced in common by high ideals, and this hastens the growth of desirable characteristics. It is probably inevitable in the course of karmic law that one who is aspiring shall be brought into contact with someone more advanced than himself, and receive much benefit through his ability to respond to him; and it is generally the fact that the Master does not advance or raise any person unless he has been with an older student who can guide and help him. There are, however, exceptions, and each Master has His own way of dealing with His catechumens. In one case, it has been said by our President, the Master makes a practice of sending His pupils “to the other end of the field,” so that they may gain great strength by the development of their powers with the minimum of external assistance. Each individual is treated as is best for him.

349.          It has been asked whether advancement is possible for a lonely student, whose karma has placed him on some remote farm or plantation, or has bound him to some spot where he is not likely to meet anyone already established on the Path. Undoubtedly such a man may make progress, and though his task is harder because he has less physical-plane help, he will learn to rely upon himself, and will probably develop greater will-power and determination just because he is so much alone. It will be well for him to get into correspondence with some older student, who can answer his questions and advise him in his reading, as by that means much time may be saved, and his way may be made smoother for him.

350.          CHAPTER V

351.          ACCEPTANCE

352.          ACCOUNT OF AN ACCEPTANCE

353.          THOUGH the acceptance of the pupil by the Master produces so great a difference in his life, there is but little more of external ceremony attached to it than there was in the case of probation. The following account of the acceptance of some of our young people is given for comparison with the corresponding account of probation in the last chapter:

354.          Going as usual to the house of our Master Kuthumi, we found the Master Morya sitting in earnest conversation with Him. We naturally stood aside for a moment, but the Master called us forward with His dazzling smile of welcome, and we made the customary salutation.

355.          The first of our candidates, whom his Master had once called “an ever-glowing Love-Star,” is so full of love for his Master that he looks upon Him as an elder Brother, and is absolutely free and at home with Him, though he never speaks to Him without deep reverence. It is indeed beautiful to see them together.

356.          On this occasion our Master smiled kindly upon him and said: “Have you finally decided that you will work under me and devote yourself to the service of humanity?” The boy replied very earnestly that he meant to do so, and our Master continued: “I have been much pleased with the efforts that you have made, and I hope that you will not relax them. Do not forget under the new conditions what I told you a few months ago. Your work and your determination have enabled me to shorten the period of your Probation, and I am pleased that you have chosen the shortest of all roads to progress, that of bringing others with you along the Path. Absolutely unselfish love is the strongest power in the world, but few are they who can keep it pure from exaction or jealousy, even if it be for one object alone. Your advancement is due to your success in keeping that flame burning ardently for several objects simultaneously. You have done much to develop strength, but you need still more of it. You must acquire discrimination and alertness, so that you see what is wanted at the right moment, instead of ten minutes afterwards. Before you speak or act, think carefully what the consequences will be. But you have done remarkably well, and I am much pleased with you.”

357.          Then the Master laid His hand upon the head of each of the candidates separately, saying: “I accept you as my chela according to the ancient rite.” He drew each in turn into His aura, so that for a few moments the pupil disappeared in Him, and then emerged looking inexpressibly happy and noble, showing forth the special characteristics of the Master as he had never done before. When all this was over our Master said to each one: “I give you my blessing.” And then speaking to all together: “Come with me ; I must present you in your new character for official recognition and registration.” So He took them to the Mahachohan, who looked them over keenly, and said: “You are very young. I congratulate you on reaching such a position so early. See that you live up to the level which you have attained.” And He entered their names in the imperishable record, showing them the columns opposite their names which had still to be filled, and expressing a hope that He might soon have other entries to make for them.

358.          On the way back from the visit to the Mahachohan, the Master took His new pupils once more into the cave near His house, and they watched Him dissolve into thin air the living images of themselves which He had made a short time before. “Now that you are actually part of me all the time,” He said, “we shall not need those any longer.”

359.          UNION WITH THE MASTER

360.          If one observes this ceremony with the sight of the causal body, one sees the Master as a glorious globe of living fire, containing a number of concentric shells of colour, His physical body and its counterparts on other planes being in the centre of the glowing mass, which extends to a radius of many hundreds of yards.

361.          In approaching the physical body of the Master, the pupil advances into that glowing globe of finer material, and when he finally reaches the feet of his Master he is already in the heart of that splendid sphere; and when the Master embraces the neophyte as described above, and expands Himself to include the aura of the pupil, it is really the central heart of fire which so expands and includes him, for all through the ceremony of acceptance he is already far within the outer ring of that mighty aura. Thus for a few moments they two are one, and not only does the Master' s aura affect that of the pupil as described above, but any special characteristics attained by the latter act upon the corresponding centres of the Master' s aura, and that flashes out in response.

362.          The inexpressible union of the pupil with the Master which begins during the ceremony of acceptance is a permanent thing, and after that, though the pupil may be far distant from the Master on the physical plane, his higher vehicles are vibrating in common with those of his Teacher. He is all the time being tuned up, and thus growing gradually more and more like his Master, however remote the resemblance may have been in the beginning; and thus he becomes of great service in the world as an open channel by means of which the Master' s force may be distributed on the lower planes. By constant meditation upon his Guru, and ardent aspiration towards Him, the pupil has so affected his own vehicles that they are constantly open towards his Master and expectant of His influence. At all times they are largely preoccupied with that idea, waiting the word of the Master and watching for something from Him, so that while they are keenly and sensitively open to Him they are to a considerable extent closed to lower influences. Therefore all his higher vehicles, from the astral upwards, are like a cup or funnel, open above but closed at the sides, and almost impervious to influences touching him at the lower levels.

363.          This tuning-up of the pupil continues throughout the period of discipleship. At first his vibrations are many octaves below those of the Master, but they are in tune with them, and are gradually being raised. This is a process that can take place only slowly. It could not be done at once, like the stamping out of a piece of metal with a die, or even comparatively quickly, as one would tune a violin or piano string. Those are inanimate things; but in this case a living being is to be moulded, and in order that the life may be preserved, the slow growth from within must adapt the form to the outside influence, as a gardener might gradually direct the limbs of a tree, or a surgeon with proper appliances might by degrees straighten a crooked leg.

364.          We know that throughout this process the Master is not giving His full attention to each individual pupil, but is working upon thousands of people simultaneously, and all the time doing much higher work as well-- playing a great game of chess, as it were, with the nations of the world and with all the different kinds of powers, of Angels and men, as pieces on the board. Yet the effect is as though He were watching the pupil and thinking of no one else, for the attention that He can give to one among hundreds is greater than ours when we concentrate it entirely upon one. The Master often leaves to some of His older pupils the work of tuning the lower bodies, though He Himself is allowing a constant flow between His vehicles and those of His pupil. It is in this way that He does most for His pupils, without their necessarily knowing anything about it.

365.          The accepted pupil thus becomes an outpost of the Master' s consciousness-- an extension of Him, as it were. The Adept sees, hears and feels through him, so that whatever is done in his presence is done in the Master' s presence. This does not mean that the Great One is necessarily always conscious of such events at the time when they are going on, though He may be so. He may be absorbed in some other work at the time; nevertheless the events are in His memory afterwards. What the pupil has experienced with reference to a particular subject will come up in the Master' s mind among His own knowledge when He turns His attention to that subject.

366.          When a pupil sends a thought of devotion to his Master, the slight flash which he sends produces an effect like the opening of a great valve, and there is a tremendous downflow of love and power from the Master. If one sends out a thought of devotion to one who is not an Adept, it becomes visible as a fiery stream going to him; but when such a thought is directed by a pupil to his Master, the pupil is immediately deluged by a stream of fiery love from the Master. The Adept' s power is flowing outwards always and in all directions like the sunlight; but the touch of the pupil' s thought draws down a prodigious stream of it upon him for the moment. So perfect is the union between them that if there is any serious disturbance in the lower bodies of the pupil it will affect also those of the Master; and, as such vibration would interfere with the Adept' s work on higher planes, when this unfortunately happens He has to drop a veil that shuts the pupil off from Himself until such time as the storm settles down.

367.          It is of course sad for the pupil when he has to he cut off in this manner; but it is absolutely his own doing, and he can end the separation at once as soon as he can control his thoughts and feelings. Usually such an unfortunate incident does not last longer than forty-eight hours; but I have known cases much worse than that, in which the rift endured for years, and even for the remainder of that incarnation. But these are extreme cases, and very rare, for it is little likely that a person capable of such defection would be received as a pupil at all.

368.          THE ATTITUDE OF THE DISCIPLE

369.          No one is likely to become an accepted pupil unless he has acquired the habit of turning his forces outwards and concentrating his attention and strength upon others, to pour out helpful thoughts and good wishes upon his fellow-men. Opportunities for doing this are constantly offering themselves, not only among those with whom we are brought into close contact, but even among the strangers whom we pass in the street. Sometimes we notice a man who is obviously depressed or suffering; in a flash we can send a strengthening and encouraging thought into his aura. Let me quote once again a passage which I saw a quarter of a century ago in one of the New-Thought books:

370.          Knead love into the bread you bake; wrap strength and courage in the parcel you tie for the woman with the weary face; hand trust and candour with the coin you pay to the man with the suspicious eyes.

371.          A lovely thought quaintly expressed, but conveying the great truth that every connection is an opportunity, and that every man whom we meet in the most casual manner is a person to be helped. Thus the student of the Good Law goes through life distributing blessings all about him, doing good unobtrusively everywhere, though often the recipient of the blessing and the help may have no idea whence it comes. In such benefactions every man can take his share, the poorest as well as the richest; all who can think can send out kindly and helpful thoughts, and no such thought has failed, or ever can fail while the laws of the universe hold. You may not see the result, but the result is there, and you know not what fruit may spring from that tiny seed which you sow in passing along your path of peace and love.

372.          If the student has a little knowledge of the resources of nature he can often call them to his aid in work of this description. There are large numbers of nature-spirits, of a certain type, both in the woods and in the water, who are especially suitable for the ensouling of thought-forms, and take very great delight in being employed in that work. The student, when walking in the fields and in forests or sailing over the water, may invite such creatures to accompany him-- may even draw them into his aura, and carry them along; and then, when he reaches a city, and begins to project his good thoughts upon those whom he meets, he can ensoul each such thought-form with one of these little helpers. By doing that, he gives radiant joy and a certain amount of evolution to the friendly nature-spirit, and also greatly prolongs the life and activity of his thought-form.

373.          THE DISTRIBUTION OF FORCE

374.          Practically all the ordinary people in the world turn their forces inwards upon themselves, and because they are self-centred their forces are jangling together inside. But the pupil has to turn himself inside out, and maintain a constant attitude of giving in affection and service. We have in the pupil, therefore, a man whose higher vehicles are a funnel open to the highest influences from his Master, while his lower vehicles at the bottom of the funnel have been trained into the constant habit of radiating those influences out upon others. This makes him a perfect instrument for his Master' s use, for the translation of His force to the outer planes.

375.          If an Adept in Tibet wanted to distribute some force at the etheric level in New York, it would not be economical to direct the current etherically for that distance; He would have to transmit His force on much higher levels to the point required, and then excavate a funnel downwards at that point.

376.          Another simile which might be suggested is that of the transmission of electricity at enormous voltages across country, and the stepping of it down through transformers which give great current and low voltage at the place where the power is to be used. But to excavate such a funnel, or to step the force down at New York, would involve a loss to the Adept of nearly half of the energy that He had available for the piece of work to be done. Therefore the pupil on the spot is an invaluable labour-saving apparatus, and he must remember that above all things he must make himself a good channel, because that is most of all what the Master needs from him. Thus the pupil may be regarded in another way as an additional body for the Master' s use in the place where he happens to be.

377.          Every human body is in reality a transmitter for the powers of the Self within. Through many ages it has been adapted to carry out the commands of the will in the most economical manner; for example, if we wish for any reason to move or to overturn a tumbler standing upon the table, it is easy enough to stretch out one' s hand and do so. It is also possible to overturn that tumbler by mere force of will without physical contact; indeed one of the earliest members of The Theosophical Society tried this experiment and actually succeeded, but only at the expense of devoting an hour' s strenuous effort to it every day for two years. It is obvious that to use the ordinary physical means is in such a case far more economical.

378.          In the earlier stages of the pupil' s relation with his Master, he will often feel that a vast amount of force is poured through him, without his knowing where it is going; he feels only that a great volume of living fire is rushing through him and flooding his neighbourhood. With a little careful attention he can soon learn to tell in which direction it is going, and a little later he becomes able to follow with his consciousness that rush of the Master' s power, and can actually trace it down to the very people who are being affected and helped by it. He himself, however, cannot direct it; he is being used simply as a channel, yet is at the same time being taught to co-operate in the distribution of the force. Later, there comes a time when the Master, instead of pouring force into His pupil and aiming it at a person in a distant place, tells him to seek out the person and then give him some of the force, for this saves the Master some energy. Whenever and wherever a pupil can do a little of the Master' s work, He will always give it to him, and as the pupil increases in usefulness, more and more of the work is put into his hands, so as to relieve, by however slight an amount, the strain upon the Master. We think much, and rightly so, about the work that we can do down here; but all that we can imagine and carry out is as nothing to what He is doing through us. There is always a gentle radiation through the pupil, even though he may not be conscious of it, yet the same pupil will feel it distinctly whenever an usual amount of force is being sent.

379.          This transmission of force from a particular Master is generally confined to His pupils, but any person who is seriously trying to live a life of service, purity and refinement may be used as a channel for force. It might well happen that in any given place there was no pupil quite fitted for a certain kind of outpouring; but there might be some other person who, though not so far advanced, could yet be employed for that particular purpose. In such a case the Master would probably use him. Many varieties of force are poured out by the Master for different purposes; sometimes one person is suitable, and sometimes another. Watching the case of two pupils side by side, one sees that one is used always for one type of force and the other for another kind.

380.          This outpouring is physical as well as astral, mental and buddhic, and on the physical plane it issues mainly through the hands and feet. On this account-- as well as for general reason-- very great care must be taken about cleanliness. If the physical body of the person selected failed for a moment in this important matter, the Master could not utilize him, because the man would not be a suitable channel. It would be like pouring pure water through a dirty pipe-- it would be fouled on the way. Therefore those who are in close relation with the Master are exceedingly vigilant about perfect bodily cleanliness. Let us take care, then, that we shall be fit in this respect if we are needed.

381.          Another point about which we need to be watchful if we wish to be of use is to avoid distortion, especially of the feet. Not long ago I stayed for a few weeks in a community where it is the custom to walk barefooted, and I was horrified to see the twisted and crippled appearance of the feet of many of the students, and to observe how seriously this deformity interfered with their usefulness as channels of the Master' s force. The natural course for that force under ordinary conditions is to fill the whole body of the pupil and rush out through the extremities; but in cases where unhygienic foot-gear has produced permanent malformation the Adept can utilize only the upper half of the body; and as that imposes upon Him the additional trouble of constructing each time a sort of temporary dam or barrier in the neighbourhood of the diaphragm of the pupil, it inevitably follows that others who are free from this disfigurement are employed far more frequently.

382.          THE TRANSMISSION OF MESSAGES

383.          Sometimes the Master sends a definite message through His pupil to a third party. I remember once being told to deliver such a message to a very highly intellectual member whom I did not know very well. I felt a little embarrassment in approaching him on such a subject, but of course I had to do it; so I said to the recipient: “I have been told by my Master to give this message, and I am simply doing as I am told. I am perfectly aware that I cannot give you any evidence that this is a message from the Master, and I must leave you to attach to it just as much importance as you feel disposed. I have no alternative but to carry out my instructions.” I was of course conscious of the contents of the message, because I had had to take it down; and I aver that, on the face of it, it was a perfectly simple and friendly message, such as might have been sent by any kindly person to another, without appearing to bear any special significance whatever. But evidently appearances were deceptive; the old gentleman to whom I delivered it looked much startled, and said: “You need not take any trouble to try to persuade me that that is a message from your Master; I know it instantly from the wording; it would have been absolutely impossible for you to know the meaning of several of the references that He makes.” But to this day I have no idea what he meant.

384.          It is, however, but rarely that a message is given in such a form as that. There seems to be much misconception on this subject, so it may be useful to explain exactly how messages are usually conveyed from higher to lower planes. We shall understand this more easily if we consider the relation between these planes, the difficulties in the way of communication between them, and the various methods by which these difficulties are overcome.

385.          SENSITIVENESS, MEDIUMSHIP AND PSYCHIC POWERS

386.          In the ordinary man of the world, who has made no special study of these matters and no effort to develop the powers of the soul, these planes are as separate worlds, and there is no conscious communication between them. When he is what he calls “awake,” his consciousness works through his physical brain, and when his body is asleep it works through his astral vehicle. If, therefore, a dead man or a kamadeva wishes to communicate with such a man, there are two ways in which he can do it. He can meet the man face to face in the astral world and converse with him just as though they were both in physical life; or he can in any one of various ways manifest himself upon the physical plane, and yet set up some kind of communication there.

387.          The first method is obviously both easier and more satisfactory; but the drawback is that the average man brings through no reliable recollection from his astral to his physical life; so that efforts to inspire and guide him are usually only very partially successful. Every man meets astral friends every night of his life, and conversations and discussions take place between them precisely as they do in the daytime in this denser world; the “living” man rarely remembers these in his waking consciousness, but his thoughts and actions may be, and often are, considerably influenced by advice given and suggestions made in this way, though when awake he is quite ignorant of their source, and supposes the ideas thus presented to his mind to be his own.

388.          The astral entity who wishes to communicate, therefore frequently adopts the second method, and tries to produce effects upon the physical plane. This again can be done in two ways. The first of these is by causing certain physical sounds or movements which can be interpreted according to a pre-arranged code. Raps can be produced upon a table, or the table can be tilted at selected letters as someone repeats the alphabet, or the Morse telegraphic code may be employed if both parties happen to know it. Or the pointer of a ouija board can be moved from letter to letter so as to spell out a message.

389.          Another way, less crude and tedious but more dangerous to the physical participant, is the employment by the astral entity of some of the organs of his friend on this plane. He can seize upon the vocal cords of the latter, and speak through him; he can use the hand of the “living” man to write messages or make drawings of which his physical instrument knows nothing. When the “dead” man speaks through the “living,” the latter is usually in a condition of trance; but the hand can be used for writing or drawing while its legitimate owner is wide awake, reading a book or conversing with his friends.

390.          Not every one can be thus utilized by astral entities-- only those who are specially amenable to such influences. Such persons are often described as psychics, mediums or sensitives; perhaps the last of these titles is the most appropriate in the cases which we are considering. But however sensitive a person may be to influences from another plane, he has a strongly defined personality of his own which usually cannot be entirely repressed. There are many degrees of sensitivity to influences from higher planes. Some people are born with this quality; others acquire it by effort; in both cases it can be developed and intensified by practice. That is what is usually meant in spiritualistic circles by “sitting for development”; someone who is by nature readily impressible is advised to render himself as negative as possible, and to sit day after day for hours in that attitude. Naturally, he becomes more and more impressible, and if some astral entity comes and acts upon him day after day, they become accustomed to each other, and the transference of ideas is greatly facilitated.

391.          At a certain stage in that process the physical body of the victim is usually entranced-- which means that the ego no longer controls his vehicles, but for the time hands them over to the astral influence. The vehicles, however, still bear the strong impress of the ego, so that, although the intelligence which is using them is quite different, they will nevertheless move to a considerable extent along their accustomed ruts. The sentiments of the communicating entity may be of the most exalted kind, but if the sensitive happens to be uneducated, ungrammatical or slangy, the expression of those exalted sentiments on the physical plane will be likely to exhibit those characteristics in a very marked manner. When we hear of Julius Caesar or Shakespeare or the Apostle St. John manifesting at a séance, we generally find that they have somehow vastly deteriorated since the time of their last earth-life; and naturally and rightly enough we decide that these great men of old are not really present at all, but that the whole thing is merely an impudent impersonation. That is no doubt a perfectly just conclusion; but what we sometimes forget is that, even if such a communication were genuine, it would still in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred be subject to exactly the same disabilities.

392.          There is a condition of trance-control so perfect that the defects inherent in the personality of the instrument are entirely overcome; but such complete control is very rare indeed. When it exists we may have a strikingly accurate reproduction of the voice and intonation and the habitual expressions of the dead man, or an exact imitation of his handwriting; but even in such an extreme case we are far from having an absolute guarantee that we are dealing with the person whose name is given. In these higher planes thought-reading, thought-transference of all kinds, is so exceedingly easy that there is comparatively little information which can be regarded as in any sense private or exclusive.

393.          All this so-called development is exceedingly bad for the poor sensitive; more and more, as he grows in susceptibility of this kind, the ego loses his grasp of his vehicles. He becomes increasingly amenable to astral influences, but he has no guarantee whatever as to their nature, which means that he is just as readily impressible by evil as by good. And the promise frequently given, that some “spirit-guide” will protect him, is of little value, as the power of such guides is very limited. He is in the position of one who lies bound and helpless by the roadside, at the mercy of the next passer-by, who may of course be a good Samaritan, who will release him from his bonds and minister to his needs, but may also be a robber, who will take from him all that has been left to him; and perhaps robbers are on the whole more common than good Samaritans. From my own point of view, based upon no inconsiderable experience, I should strongly warn my brethren against engaging in any kind of mediumship.

394.          The title of medium might, I think, well be reserved for those through whom physical phenomena are produced-- people from whom what is now technically termed ectoplasm can be withdrawn, so that materialization may take place, and heavy objects of various kinds can be moved.

395.          Another and very different kind of development is that which may legitimately be denominated psychic, for psyche in Greek means “the soul”. The soul has its powers as well as the body; though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that all powers which a man possesses are the powers of the soul, though they manifest on different planes. It is after all not the body which sees or hears, which writes or draws or paints; it is always the man himself working through the body. And when a man develops these psychic powers it really means only that he has learnt to function through other vehicles than the physical and that he can to some extent bring the results through into his waking consciousness.

396.          It is the point last mentioned which creates the difficulty in almost every case. Any man, functioning on the astral plane during the sleep of his physical body or after the death of that body, is aware of his astral surroundings, but it does not follow that the will remember them when he wakes. The difficulty therefore is not in having the experiences, but in being able to impress them upon the physical brain; the power to do that can be acquired only by long-continued effort. There seems to be a general impression that the possession of such powers indicates high moral and spiritual development, but this is not necessarily so. A sufficiently strenuous and persevering effort will unfold these powers in anyone, quite irrespective of his moral character; but it is true that they usually develop spontaneously when a man reaches a certain stage of spiritual advancement.

397.          It is generally in that way that these powers come to the pupils of the Masters; and though they are not without their especial dangers, they are certainly on the whole very useful and valuable. But it is necessary that those to whom they come should try to understand them-- to comprehend something of their mechanism; they must not suppose that, even if the powers come to them as the result of general advancement, the recipients are thereby freed from the ordinary laws under which such faculties work. There are many difficulties connected with the bringing through of clear recollection, and these exist for us just as they do for the spiritualistic sensitive, though our long course of careful study ought to fit us to meet them and to understand them better than he does.

398.          Above all, we must not forget that we also have our personalities, which are likely to be even stronger than those of our neighbours, just because we have been trying to develop strength and definiteness of character. Of course, we have also been trying for years to dominate the personality by the individuality, but that does not alter the fact that we are likely to be colourful persons with decided characteristics, and that whatever comes through us is liable to be modified by those precise characteristics.

399.          Let me try to illustrate what I mean by quoting one or two instances which have come under my personal observation. I remember one lady who was an exceedingly good clairvoyant, capable of looking back into the past, and describing historical events with great accuracy and wealth of detail. She was a very devout Christian, and I think she was never quite able to feel that any other religion could be as full an exposition of the truth as her own. She might be said (using the word in no invidious sense) to have a strong prejudice in favour of Christianity. The result of that upon her clairvoyance was very striking-- in fact, almost amusing sometimes. She might be describing, let us say, a scene in ancient Rome; so long as nothing directly connected with religion came into her purview, the description would be quite accurate, but the moment that it appeared that one of the characters in the scene was a Christian she immediately displayed a remarkable strong bias in his favour. Nothing that he did or said could be wrong, whereas anything whatever that was said or done against him was always indicative of the greatest wickedness. When this factor was introduced her clairvoyance became absolutely unreliable. One supposes that she must have seen the facts as they occurred, but the account she gave of them and the interpretation which she placed upon them were certainly entirely untrue.

400.          Another lady whom I knew had a brilliantly poetical imagination, which induced her in ordinary conversation to magnify everything which she related-- not in the slightest degree intentionally to falsify it, but simply so to embroider it as to make it in every way greater and more beautiful than the actual fact had been-- quite a happy attitude of mind, of course, in many ways, but somewhat fatal to scientific observation. The same thing occurred with regard to her remembrance and description of a scene on other planes, whether it were contemporaneous or something from past history. A quite ordinary little ceremony on the physical plane, attended perhaps by some friendly devas and a few dead relations of the parties concerned, would in her report of it be magnified into a tremendous initiation attended by all the great Adepts and most of the celebrated characters of history, and blessed by the presence of a whole army of Archangels.

401.          One may see from these small examples how necessary it is for the budding clairvoyant to watch himself very carefully and to allow a liberal discount from his early impressions. It must never be forgotten that one has to become accustomed to the use of faculties on these higher planes just as a man has to familiarize himself with the use of new tools of any kind in this physical world. The little child learns only by degrees to understand perspective: he has his eyes from the first, but he must learn how to use them. The man who has the misfortune to be blind can learn to read by the Braille system with great ease and rapidity, but most of us who have the use of our eyes would find it practically impossible to distinguish one letter of that system from another without a long and tiresome training.

402.          Just so a man whose astral faculties are beginning to open finds it at first a practical impossibility to describe what he sees and hears; everything appears so different, and he finds what he would probably call his sight acting in all sorts of unexpected directions. It is only after years of experience that he becomes fully reliable; and even then it is only a mere reflection of what he sees that he can bring through into the lower consciousness. There is always a side of any astral happening which cannot be expressed in physical words; and as the man rises to higher levels more and more of these additional sides or aspects confront him, and he finds it less and less within his power to give even the slightest idea of his experiences, and even what he is able to bring through is certain to be coloured by his own idiosyncrasies.

403.          MESSAGES FROM ADEPTS

404.          Many of us have been long meditating daily upon our great Masters-- some of us for years; we have drawn ourselves near to Them by the intensity of our reverence and devotion, and it often happens to the more fortunate among us to come into personal touch with Them and sometimes to be charged by Them with messages for less fortunate brethren. Anyone who is honoured by being charged with such a message will, I am sure, make every effort to transmit it with painstaking accuracy, but he must remember that he is by no means free from the general law in such matters, and he must be very definitely on his guard lest his own predilections or dislikes should in any way colour what he is directed to say. You may think that that is impossible-- that a Master would take the trouble to ensure the accurate delivery of any message which He sent. But you must remember that the great Adepts Themselves work under universal law, and that They cannot alter its provisions for our convenience. There are cases, such as that which I have just mentioned, in which a direct charge of great importance is dictated word by word, and written down on the physical plane at the time by the recipient: but such cases are exceedingly rare. Let me try to describe, as far as physical words will do it, what usually takes place when a Master conveys a message through one of Him disciples.

405.          In the first place let it be understood that an Adept habitually keeps His consciousness focused upon a very high plane-- usually that which we call nirvana. He can of course in an instant bring it down to any level where He wishes to work; but to descend below the causal body involves a limitation which it is rarely worth His while to undertake. The pupil when out of his body functions at different levels according to his development; but anyone who is likely to be entrusted with a message would probably be using at least his causal body, and it often happens that communication are exchanged at that level. To understand this transference of ideas, therefore, we must try to see what form such a communication would take.

406.          Here on the physical plane we may put our thought or our emotion into spoken words; we know that such words are not used in the higher life, but that the emotions and thoughts take definite floating forms on the astral and mental planes respectively. As a rule each thought and each emotion makes its own separate form, though when they are mixed we find forms in which the colours are curiously blended. Suppose that we try to raise ourselves in imagination to that high part of the mental plane on which the ego functions in his causal body, and let us see how his ideas express themselves there. As usual, language fails us; but one principal point of difference is that the ego does not use words and sentences at all, nor does he express such things in a succession of thoughts. He does not appear to think about a subject in our sense of the word at all; he never argues it out and thereby arrives at a conclusion as we do down here.

407.          When a subject comes before him he sees it and knows all about it; if he wishes to convey an idea to another it is as though he threw at him a kind of ball which somehow includes knowledge and inferences all in one. Nor does he in the least confine himself to projecting a single idea. The thought of an Adept showers upon His pupil a kind of hailstorm of lovely little spheres, each of which is an idea with its relation to other ideas quite clearly worked out; but if the pupil is fortunate enough to remember and clever enough to translate such a hailstorm, he is likely to find that it may need twenty pages of foolscap to express that one moment' s deluge, and even then of course the expression is necessarily imperfect.

408.          Furthermore, it has to be recognized that no words have been given to him-- only ideas; and therefore he must of necessity express those ideas in his own language. The ideas are the Master' s, if he is fortunate enough to have caught and interpreted them accurately; but the form of expression is entirely his own. Therefore his idiosyncrasies will certainly appear, and people reading the message will say: “But surely that is so-and-so' s style”-- referring to the intermediary to whom the message was confided. In saying so they are of course quite right, but they must not allow that obvious fact to blind them to the spirit or the importance of the message.

409.          Long ago Madame Blavatsky, referring to the letters which were at that time (1888) frequently received from the Adepts, wrote:

410.          It is hardly one out of a hundred occult letters that is ever written by the hand of the Master in whose name and on whose behalf they are sent, as the Masters have neither need nor leisure to write them; and when a Master says “I wrote that letter,” it means only that every word in it was dictated by him and impressed under his direct supervision. Generally they make their chela, whether near or far away, write (or precipitate) them, by impressing upon his mind the ideas they wish expressed, and if necessary aiding him in the picture-printing, process of precipitation. It depends entirely upon the chela' s state of development, how accurately the ideas may be transmitted and the writing-model imitated.¹

411.          ¹ Lucifer, Vol. III, p.93.

412.          When the pupil has for years been accustomed to transmit messages for the Master he will attain by constant practice a far greater facility and accuracy in translation; but that is because he has learnt to allow for his own personal equation, so that he is able practically to rule it out. Even so, modes of expression which he is in the habit of using are likely to occur, simply because they are to him the best way of expressing certain ideas; but when a person of the development and extensive experience of our great President (for example) conveys a message, we may be quite certain that its sense is accurate and that the form of its expression is the best that can be attained on this plane.

413.          THE PERSONAL EQUATION

414.          For those of us who have not yet attained to that level the personal equation is certain to intrude itself. Unfortunately, it often does so not only with regard to the style of the communication (which, after all, is not so very important, and can easily be discounted) but also with regard to its substance. To understand why and how this is so, we must consider for a moment the constitution and development of the man through whom the messages come.

415.          Our older students will remember that in the book Man Visible and Invisible I gave a number of illustrations of the astral and mental bodies of men at various stages of their progress. Those illustrations, however, gave only the exterior appearance of those bodies-- that part of each vehicle which is always in relation with the astral or mental world round the man, and is therefore kept in a condition of fairly constant activity. We must remember that these ovoids of astral and mental matter are only superficially vitalized, and that in the case of the average man the surface layer which is thus affected is usually thin. There is always a large proportion in each vehicle which is not yet vivified-- a heavy core which takes almost no part in the outer activities of the vehicle, and is indeed but little moved by them. But though this mass of comparatively inert matter is scarcely influenced by the more awakened portion, it is quite capable of acting upon the latter in certain ways.

416.          We have spoken of the personality as being in fact a fragment of the ego working through these lower vehicles-- the mental, astral and physical bodies. A fairly full account of the method and detail of this working will be found in Chapter viii of this book, in The Inner Life, under the heading “Lost Souls,” and in Talks on the Path of Occultism, pp. 257-261. It is explained there that the ego is by no means fully alert as yet, but that in many cases what I suppose we must call a large portion of him (absurd as it sounds) is not yet in activity. It is the Monad which vivifies the ego, but in all of us as yet the ego is only partially awakened. Exactly in the same way it is the ego which animates the personality, but that work also is very far from being perfectly done as yet; and because of these facts certain conditions are set up of which it behoves us to take careful note. In some exalted moment an inrush of power from the ego may temporarily raise the standard of the personality, while on the other hand a steady pressure from the unused portion of the astral or mental body may for the time appreciably lower it.

417.          The lethargic mass of unilluminated matter has a certain life and tendencies of its own, which assert themselves when the more active part of the personality is somewhat in abeyance, and that happens more especially when the man himself is not actively using those bodies. These qualities naturally vary with different people, but an intense egotism is almost always prominent. The thoughts and impressions generated by this sluggish kernel are often those of conceit and self-glorification, and also of instinctive self-preservation in the presence of any danger, whether real or imaginary. Before we reach the flashing glories of the developed man (see Man Visible and Invisible, Plate xxi) there is a long period of slow unfoldment during which this heavy core is being gradually permeated by the light, being warmed and thawed into glowing response. But it is a slow process to escape from this subtle domination of the personality. It will of course be gradually eliminated as the man brings the whole of his nature under control, but meanwhile he will be very wise to doubt most seriously any communications which glorify the personality, or suggest to him that he alone is chosen out of all mankind to received some stupendous revelation which is to revolutionize the world.

418.          Some such promise is the regular stock-in-trade of the communicating spirit in many private inspirational séances; but we must not therefore assume intentional deceit on the part of that spirit. He is very often so strongly impressed by certain great facts which loom large before him in the astral life that he feels that, if only these could be adequately presented to the world, its attitude would indeed be wholly changed-- forgetting that the same ideas were promulgated again and again during his physical life-time, and that he himself did not take the slightest notice of them. It illustrates the old remark of Dives to Abraham: “If one went to them from the dead they would repent”; and the result shows the wisdom of Abraham' s reply: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded even though one rose from the dead.” It is precisely the insidious but constant pressure of this subconscious self which lays a man (otherwise of average common sense) open to extraordinary self-deception, so that he is ale to accept without protest flattery which without that influence he would at once see to be ridiculous.

419.          It was to this strange undeveloped subconsciousness that M. Coué appealed with much success. One of its peculiarities is that it seems always to resent any effort of the awakened part of the personality to impress it by means of the will. Being indolent and prejudiced, it sets itself always against any change, any attempt to arouse it and set it to work. Therefore M. Coué especially advised his patients not to use their will at all, for that would only awaken opposition, but simply and quietly to repeat a suggestion until this subconscious self absorbed it. It will be recollected that one of the methods used to impose such an impression upon another was to make it during the sleep of his physical body. Even the auto-suggestion was to be done as nearly as possible in the same way; the patient was adjured to sink into slumber softly murmuring: “Every day and in every way I am growing better and better.” And such is the power of a constantly reiterated insinuation, that the subconscious self presently became fully charged with this idea (which readily harmonized with its irrepressible egotism) and radiated it steadily upon the more active consciousness until definite results were produced. So the undeveloped mass, which to the ignorant may prove a danger and a source of weakness, may actually be used by the wise man to help him on his upward way.

420.          The moral of all this is that ignorance is always dangerous, and that even the noblest intentions cannot always atone for lack of scientific knowledge. Any sportive or scheming entity can beguile a man who is little acquainted with the hidden laws of nature, while he who has studied them can avoid many pitfalls. Yet even he should not presume upon his knowledge, for unceasing vigilance is the price of accuracy. Much advice has been given as to this, and assuredly we shall do well to heed it. Avoid all personal feeling-- pride most of all; distrust profoundly all glorification of the individual, for “ambition is the first curse” and “the power which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.” “Be humble if thou wouldst attain to wisdom: be humbler still when wisdom thou hast mastered.” He who forgets himself utterly, and devotes his life wholly to the service of others, will be saved thereby from many dangers; his heart will be pure as crystal, so that the light of the Logos may shine through it unsullied; his whole nature will respond so truly to the vibrations of his Master that thoughts and messages from higher planes will flow through him undistorted, uncontaminated by any lower touch. So shall he serve our Masters best, by serving the humanity which They love.

421.          TESTING THOUGHT

422.          Another most valuable privilege which the accepted pupil enjoys is that of laying his thought on any subject beside that of his Master, and comparing them. It will be readily understood how the frequent use of this power will keep the pupil' s thought running along noble and liberal lines-- how he will constantly be able to correct any mistakes, any tendencies towards prejudice or lack of understanding. There may be various ways in which he can exercise this power; my own method was always to lie down in meditation and endeavour to reach up into the consciousness of the Master just as far as I possibly could. When I had reached the highest point that was for the time possible to me, I suddenly turned and looked back, as it were, upon the subject in question, and instantly received an impression of how it appeared to the Master. It was probably very far from being a perfect impression, but at least it showed me what He thought on the matter, as far as I was able to enter into His thought.

423.          Care, however, must be taken that this wonderful privilege is not misused. It is given to us as a power of ultimate reference in questions of great difficulty, or in the cases where we have no sufficient ground for judgment, and yet have to come to some decision; but it is by no means intended to save us the trouble of thinking, or to be applied to the decision of ordinary everyday questions which we are perfectly competent to settle for ourselves.

424.          Those who meditate long upon a Master and form a strong thought-image of Him, as do the members of the Esoteric School, presently find that that thought-image is definitely vivified by that Master, so that they receive through it an unmistakable outpouring of spiritual force. This is as it should be; this is precisely the object of such meditation; and through it the pupil comes to know the influence so well that he can always recognize it. There have been cases, though they are happily rare, in which some evil entity has personated a Master in order to deceive a student; but such an attempt can succeed only if there is in the latter some subtle weakness, such as conceit, ambition, jealousy or selfishness, which an insidious tempter can arouse and foster until it becomes a fatal bar to spiritual progress. Unless the roots of such qualities are sternly and thoroughly eliminated, the aspirant is never free from the possibility of deception; but if he be truly humble and selfless he need have no fear.

425.          The candidate for Acceptance must necessarily watch himself closely. If he has not received any direct hint from his Master or from some older pupil as to the special failings which he must try to avoid, he will do his best to observe these for himself, and having once decided upon them or been told of them, he will exercise unceasing vigilance against them. At the same time he should be warned on no account to overdo his introspection and allow himself to become morbid. The safest of all lines for him to take is to concentrate his attention on the helping of others; if his mind is full of that thought he will instinctively move in the right direction. The desire to fit himself thoroughly for that work will impel him to brush all obstacles out of the way, so that without consciously thinking of his own development at all, he will yet find that it is taking place.

426.          RELAXATION

427.          It is not expected that a pupil shall be ever actively thinking of nothing else but the Master; but it is expected that the form of the Master shall be always in the background of his mind, always within immediate reach, always there when needed in the vicissitudes of life. Our minds, like bowstrings, cannot be kept always taut; reasonable relaxation and change of thought is one of the necessities of mental health. But the pupil should be exceedingly careful that there is no slightest tinge of impurity or unkindness about his relaxation; no thought should ever be permitted, even for a moment, which the pupil would be ashamed that his Master should see.

428.          There is no harm whatever in reading a good novel for the sake of diversion; the thought-forms engendered by it would not in any way interfere with the current of the Master' s thought; but there are many novels full of evil insinuation, novels which bring impure thought-forms before the mind, novels which glorify crime, and others which concentrate the thought of their readers on the most unsavoury problems of life, or vividly depict scenes of hatred and cruelty; all such should be rigorously avoided. In the same way, there is no harm in taking part in or watching all ordinary games which are fairly played; but any which are rough and boisterous, any in which any sort of cruelty is involved, any in which there is likelihood of injury to man or beast-- all these are absolutely barred.

429.          CALM AND BALANCE

430.          In all the work which the disciple has to do he must be careful to preserve calm and balance, and that in two ways. Over-work, which is not uncommon among the young and enthusiastic, shows lack of wisdom. Each of us should do as much as he can, but there is a limit which it is not wise to exceed. I have heard our great President say: “What I have not time to do is not my work.” Yet no one labours more strenuously and unceasingly than she. If we use our forces reasonably for the task of to-day, we ought to be stronger to face the duties which to-morrow brings; to overstrain ourselves today so that we shall be useless to-morrow is not really intelligent service, for we spoil our power for future work in order to gratify to-day' s unbalanced enthusiasm. Of course emergencies occasionally arise in which prudence must be cast aside in order that some piece of work may be finished in time, but the wise craftsman will try to look ahead sufficiently to avoid unnecessary crises of that sort.

431.          The second way in which the disciple must endeavour to preserve calm and balance is with regard to his own interior attitude. A certain amount of fluctuation in his feelings is inevitable, but he must try to minimize it. All sorts of exterior influences are always playing upon us-- some astral or mental, some purely physical; and though we are usually entirely unconscious of them, nevertheless they affect us more or less. On the physical plane the temperature, the state of the weather, the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, over-fatigue, the condition of one' s digestive organs-- all these things and many more are factors in our feeling of general well-being. And that feeling in turn affects not only our happiness but our capacity for work.

432.          Equally without our knowledge, we are liable to be affected by astral conditions, which vary in different parts of the world just as climates, temperatures and physical surroundings do. Sometimes in the life of the outer world an unpleasant companion attaches himself to us, and is dismissed only with difficulty; in the astral world it is far less easy to rid oneself of some parasitically-disposed degenerate or even of some unfortunate defunct person drowned in the depths of despair. Such an one, clinging convulsively to a man, may drain away much of his vitality and flood him with gloom and depression, without being in the slightest degree helped thereby. We may be quite unaware of such an entity, and even if we know of it, it is often no easy matter to relieve his distress or (if that be impossible) to shake off the incubus of his presence. There are unconscious vampires on the astral plane just as there are on the physical, and in both cases they are most difficult to help.

433.          The general development of the pupil makes him readily responsive to all these influences, whether he is aware of them or not; so he is likely to find himself occasionally inexplicably elated or depressed.

434.          The astral elemental immensely enjoys violent alternations of feeling, and does all that he can to encourage them; but the disciple should not allow himself to be the playground of all these changing moods. He should endeavour to maintain a steady level of joyous serenity, unruffled by passing agitations.

435.          Sometimes he will have the good karma to encounter some great encouragement, some definite stimulation of his progress, such as was afforded, for example, by the opportunity to attend the magnificent Jubilee Convention at Adyar. That was indeed an occasion to be remembered for the extraordinary stimulus and help which it gave to all those who opened their hearts to its influence. Such a happening may well be a milestone on the upward path of the student, from which he may date the opening of additional power, the attainment of a fuller realization of what brotherhood really means.

436.          He will, however, do well to remember that after a splendid outpouring, an unusual upliftment of that sort, there necessarily comes a certain reaction. There is nothing in the least alarming or unnatural about that. It is a manifestation of a law of Nature, of which we see constant examples in everyday life. Many of us for example, live rather sedentary lives, doing a great deal of reading and writing; probably most of us do not give our physical bodies quite enough exercise-- not as much as they need. Then that fact suddenly occurs to us, and we make a great spurt. We play some violent games, perhaps, or go off for a long walk or something of that sort. As long as we do not overdo it, that is very good. But when we have done it, when we have played our game or had our walk, a feeling of lassitude comes over us, and we want to sit down and rest. That, again, is quite right and quite natural. We have been perhaps a little overstraining a number of muscles which we do not generally use, or at least we do not use them so violently, and consequently they are tired and need relaxation. Therefore we have rather a limp feeling; we sit down or lie down, and after half-an-hour' s or an hour' s repose, under ordinary circumstances we are all right again.

437.          But during that half-hour of quiet which we have to take, we must remember that we are in a passive condition; and therefore if there happen to be disease-germs in the air, as there generally are, we are a little more likely to be affected by them just at that time than at any other. The same thing is true at other levels, and when we have had a great upliftment and stimulation, our various vehicles have been strained a little more than they are accustomed to be. I do not say that it is a bad thing for us in any way; it has been a very good thing for us; but still the fact remains that our various bodies have done more than they generally do, and consequently there comes this period when they need relief from the strain.

438.          There are various ways in which that period of rest has its little dangers. The relaxation, the slipping back from the height at which we have been living, brings first of all a certain risk that we may slip back a trifle too far-- that, letting ourselves subside somewhat from that exalted spiritual condition, we may glide further down into materiality than in ordinary life; so that some little casual temptation, which in a general way would have no effect upon us, may possibly catch us unawares. That is one possibility against which we may not be on our guard-- some little temptation which usually we should hardly notice. In that slight reaction of fatigue we might feel a little more self-indulgent than we should normally be, and so we might make some quite foolish mistake which commonly we should not make.

439.          There is a correspondence to the disease-germ, too. While we are resting there are all sorts of thought-forms floating about, some pleasant enough and some distinctly unpleasant; many of them, at any rate, below the level at which our thought ordinarily works. We should be more likely to be affected by those during that reaction period.

440.          THE DARK POWERS

441.          There are other considerations about which it is just as well that we should know something. At such a time of upliftment as that of which we have spoken, we receive a very unusual outpouring of spiritual force from on high, from the Great White Brotherhood, from our individual Masters and teachers. There is an obscure law in Nature which produces this rather curious result, that whenever there is a great outrush of higher and grander forces, there is also a corresponding efflux undesirable energy. It may seem strange, but it undoubtedly is so; it has been put sometimes that when the Great Ones, working on the side of evolution, permit Themselves to give an unusual benediction, in some curious kind of balance or fairness, They must allow a similar outflow of force on the other side. We have heard much of Darker Powers, of black magicians, of Brothers of the Shadow. These men are following an absolutely different line from ours, a line which brings them into collision with the Masters of the Wisdom, with the Hierarchy which directs the world and the solar system. Naturally that opposition acts not only upon those great Adepts, but upon us, Their humble followers.

442.          I do not wish to devote much space to these people in this book. I have written of them at considerable length in Talks on the Path of Occultism, pp. 632-5. I have little to add to what is there stated, except to say that one theory, on which they justify to themselves their amazing proceedings, is that the Logos does not really wish for union-- that His intention in evolution is the development of each individual to the highest possible level. (You will note, by the way-- though they would never admit it-- that that level is not very high, after all, because their scheme keeps them working at the strengthening of the ego, and will not carry them on to the buddhic and nirvanic planes, which are planes of union.) They say: “You think you see about you signs of evolution towards union; you think that is the will of the Logos. On the contrary, that is a temptation which the Logos is putting in your way. Instead of wanting you to become one, He wants you to assert your individuality in spite of all this which tempts you to be absorbed into an undistinguished unity.”

443.          People who really believe that find themselves in conflict with us and with our Masters at every point and all the way through; we follow our own Masters, who know much more about the Will of the Logos than anyone taking that wrong line can ever come to know, because They can attain union with Him, which is impracticable for the advocates of separateness.

444.          Therefore it comes that these men oppose us; they attempt to obtain recruits; like every one else, they want to convert others to their own opinions, and if we are developing and refining ourselves a little more than the average man in some ways, we are the very people of whom they want to get hold. Many of the more intellectual of them are as little enmeshed in materiality as any great ascetic. They quite agree that man should put aside lower things and aim at the higher; but they aim at an intensified individuality which in the end can only come to grief. So they are very likely to try to influence us, to intensify the individuality in us, to awaken a subtle conceit in us. Remember that it is part of their creed to be utterly unscrupulous; to them scrupulosity would seem a foolish and despicable weakness, so they will play the meanest tricks.

445.          There is one of our special dangers. The more advanced we can become, the better prey we should be for these Brothers of the Shadow if they could get hold of us. But they cannot get hold of us, they cannot touch us, as long as we can keep ourselves in full community of thought with our Masters; as long as we can keep ourselves steadfastly along the line of unselfishness, of the constant outpouring of love.

446.          Our strength against these Darker Powers is our union with our Masters, and our power to keep ourselves in Their attitude-- open always towards influences from above, but resolutely closed against all separative agencies which may try to affect us. Anything which tends to accentuate separateness is simply playing into the hands of the enemy; and this is true in small things as well as in those which we think greater. So we must put aside all silly little jealousies and animosities; every time that we yield ourselves to them we make ourselves weak spots in the Theosophical citadel, breaches in its defences; each time we indulge our lower nature by letting it have a gleeful little orgy of pride and spite, of feeling itself offended by some perfectly innocent brother, we are to just that extent traitors to our Masters. We might think: “Surely our Masters will save us from any such downfall as that.” They will not, because They cannot interfere with our liberty; we must learn to stand alone. Besides, we do not want to give our Masters the trouble of watching over us as a nurse watches over a little toddling child. The Adepts are the busiest people in the world; They deal with egos in blocks; They deal with souls by the million, not with personalities one by one. Still, if in real extremity one calls upon a Master, a response certainly comes. We should be very sorry to cause the Master even that moment' s trouble if we could possibly help it, but when really necessary the aid does come.

447.          In the early days of this Society, while Madame Blavatsky was still alive, we had a member who was in many ways a man of tremendous power. If he had chosen to become a Black Magician he would have been a very effective specimen. Sometimes he was slightly unscrupulous; he had a passion for knowledge; he would have done almost anything-- even something a little shady-- to gain further information. He was a doctor of medicine, and in attending upon one of our members he discovered her to be a clairvoyant of rather rare powers in certain ways. Finding this, when she was convalescent he asked her to join him in certain experiments. He said to her quite openly on the physical plane: “You have a very wonderful power; if you will allow me to mesmerize you, to put you into a trance, I am sure that you can attain heights which I myself can never touch, and in that way we should gain much knowledge which at present is out of our reach.” The lady refused-- I think quite rightly; for such domination is a most dangerous thing, and should certainly not be undertaken except under exceptional conditions and with elaborate safeguards.

448.          At any rate, she refused absolutely. The doctor was very much dissatisfied and declined to take “No” for an answer; but for the time he went his way. That same night he materialized in her bedroom and began to attempt mesmeric passes. Not unnaturally she was intensely angry; she felt a great sense of flaming outrage that he should dare to intrude upon her, that he should try to force upon her what she had definitely and after due consideration declined; and she set herself to fight against his influence with all her strength. But she quickly realized that her mental power was nothing as compared to his; that her will was being slowly but surely overborne: so, knowing that she was fighting a losing battle, she called upon her Master (the Master Kuthumi) for help.

449.          The result was not only instantaneous, but it astonished her beyond words. Remember that she was filled with the most violent and passionate sense of outrage. In a flash, in a moment, as she made the call, she saw the doctor disappearing in the far distance. That was perhaps not quite so wonderful; but what struck her, what she never forgot, was that in one moment her whole feeling was absolutely changed. The anger was gone, the sense of outrage was gone, and all that she felt towards the disappearing doctor was profound regret that a man who had such wonderful powers should misuse them in that way. So, you see, when there is a real extremity help is at hand; but I think none of us will call for it unless we are absolutely forced to do so.

450.          Think of others and not of yourself; think of loyalty and love to your Master, and how you can serve Him best by spreading His influence among your brethren; then you need not be afraid that you will lose instead of gaining by any wonderful inspiration that has come to you.

451.          THE CERTAINTY OF SUCCESS

452.          The pupil must make up his mind that with regard to his efforts towards self-improvement he will never allow himself to be discouraged by failure, even though it be often repeated. However many times he may have failed in his effort, however many falls he may have on the path which he sets before himself, there is exactly the same reason for getting up and going on after the thousandth fall that there was after the first. In the physical plane there are many things which are frankly impossible; but that is not the case in the higher worlds. We cannot lift a ton weight without machinery, but in the higher worlds it is possible with perseverance to lift the weight of our many imperfections. The reason for this is obvious if we think. Human muscles are not so constructed as to be able to lift a ton, and no conceivable training of them could enable them to do it, because the force behind them is limited. In spiritual matters, the man has behind him the whole divine power on which he can draw, and so little by little and by repeated efforts he will become strong enough to overcome any obstacle.

453.          People often say: “I can deal with things on the physical plane, but on the astral and mental I can do very little; it is so difficult.” That is the reverse of the truth. They are not accustomed to thinking and working in that finer matter, and so they believe that they cannot. But as soon as their will is set, they will find that things will follow the direction of that will in a way impossible in the physical world.

454.          Some pupils have found themselves much helped in this work by the use of a talisman or amulet. That may be a very real aid, since the physical nature has to be dealt with and brought into subjection, as well as the mind and the emotions, and it is without doubt the hardest to influence; a talisman strongly charged with magnetism for a particular purpose by someone who knows how to do it may be an invaluable help, as I have explained at considerable length in The Hidden Side of Things . Many people hold themselves superior to such aids, and say that they need no help; but for myself, I have found the task so arduous that I am glad to avail myself of any assistance that may be offered to me.

455.          CHAPTER VI

456.          OTHER PRESENTATIONS

457.          THE MASTERS AND THE BROTHERHOOD

458.          ALL this while, the Adept, besides using His pupil as an apprentice, has been preparing him for presentation to the Great White Brotherhood for Initiation. The whole object of the existence of that Brotherhood is to promote the work of evolution, and the Master knows that when the pupil is ready for the stupendous honour of being received as a member of it, he will be of very much more use in the world than before. Therefore it is His wish to raise His pupil to that level as soon as possible. In the Oriental books on the subject, written thousands of years ago, are to be found many accounts of this preparatory period of instruction; and when reference has been made to it in the earlier Theosophical literature it has been called the Probationary Path-- the term referring not to being put upon probation by any individual Adept, but to a course of general training preparatory to Initiation. I myself used the term in Invisible Helpers, but have lately avoided it on account of the confusion caused by the employment of the same word in two distinct senses.

459.          The method really adopted is readily comprehensible, and is in fact much like that of some of our older Universities. If a student wishes to take a degree at one of those, he must first pass the entrance examination of the University and then be admitted to one of the Colleges. The Head of that College is technically responsible for his progress, and may be regarded as his tutor-in-chief. The man will have to work to a large extent by himself, but the Head of his College is expected to see that he is properly prepared before he is presented to take his Degree. The Head does not give the Degree; it is conferred by that abstraction called the University-- usually at the hands of its Vice-Chancellor. It is the University, not the Head of the College, that arranges the examination and confers the various Degrees; the work of the Head of the College is to see that the candidate is duly prepared, and generally to be to some extent responsible for him. In the process of such preparation he may, as a private gentleman, enter into whatever social or other relations with his pupil he may think proper; but all that is not the business of the University.

460.          Just in the same way the Great White Brotherhood has nothing to do with the relations between a Master and His pupil; that is a matter solely for the private consideration of the Master Himself. The Initiation is given by an appointed Member of the Brotherhood in the name of the One Initiator; that is the only way in which an Initiation can he obtained. Whenever an Adept considers that one of His pupils is fit for the first Initiation, He gives notice of that fact and presents him for it; the Brotherhood asks only whether the man is ready for Initiation, and not what is the relationship between him and any Adept. It is not Their affair whether he is at the stage of probation, acceptance or sonship. At the same time it is true that a candidate for Initiation must be proposed and seconded by two of the higher members of the Brotherhood-- that is to say, by two who have reached the level of Adeptship; and it is certain that no Master would propose a man for the tests of Initiation unless He had with regard to him the certainty of his fitness which could only come from very close identification with his consciousness.

461.          The Probationary Path is thus a stage leading up to the Path Proper, which begins at the first Initiation. In the Oriental books both these Paths are described quite impersonally, as though no private Masters existed. The questions are first raised: “How is a man living in the ordinary world brought to this Probationary Path, and how does he come to know that such a thing exists?”

462.          FOUR WAYS TO THE PATH

463.          In the books we are told that there are four ways, any one of which may bring a man to the commencement of the Path of development. First, by being in the presence of, and getting to know, those who are already interested along that line. Some of us, for example, may have been monks or nuns in the Middle Ages. We may have come into contact in that life with an abbot or abbess who had deep experience of the inner world-- a person like St. Theresa. We may, looking up to that leader, have earnestly wished that such experience should come to us; and our wish for that may have been quite unselfish. It may be that we did not think of the importance that would come to us or of the satisfaction of achievement, but simply of the joy of helping others, as we saw the abbot able to help others through his deeper discernment. Such a feeling in that life would certainly bring us in the next incarnation into touch with teaching on the subject.

464.          It happens that, in lands which have the European culture, almost the only way in which we can get the inner teaching put clearly before us is by coming into The Theosophical Society, or by reading Theosophical works. There have been mystical or spiritualistic works which have given some information, which have gone a long way, but there are none, so far as I know, which state the case so clearly, so scientifically, as the Theosophical literature has done. I know of no other book which contains such a wealth of information as The Secret Doctrine.

465.          There are, of course, the sacred books of the Hindus and of other nations, and there is a great deal on this subject in those, but it is not put in a way which makes it easy for us, with our training, to assimilate it or to appreciate it. When, having read Theosophical books, we take up some of those beautiful translations of Oriental works, we can see our Theosophy in them. In the Christian Bible (though that is in many places not well translated from our point of view) we shall find a great deal of Theosophy; but before we can find it we must know the system. When we have studied Theosophy we see at once how many texts supports it, and cannot rationally be explained without it; we see how Church ceremonies, before apparently meaningless, leap into life under the illumination of the teaching, and become vivid and full of interest. Yet I never heard of anyone who was able to deduce the Theosophical system from either the texts or the ceremonies.

466.          So one way of approaching the Path is by being with those who are already treading it. Another way is by reading or hearing about it. All this teaching came to me in 1882 through Mr. Sinnett' s book The Occult World ; and immediately after that I read his second book Esoteric Buddhism . I knew at once instinctively that what was written was true, and I accepted it; and to hear and to read about it at once fired me with the desire and the determined intention to know more, to learn all I could on the subject, to pursue it all over the world if necessary until I found it. Shortly after that I gave up my position in the Church of England and went out to India because it seemed that more could be done there.

467.          Those are two ways in which people are led to the Path-- by reading and hearing of it, and by being in close association with those who are already treading it. The third way which is mentioned in Oriental books is by intellectual development; by sheer force of hard thinking a man may come to grasp some of these principles, though I think that method is rare. Again, they tell us of a fourth way-- that by the long practice of virtue men may come to the beginning of the Path-- that a man may so develop the soul by steadily practising the right so far as he knows it that eventually more and more of the light will open before him.

468.          THE BUDDHIST CLASSIFICATION

469.          Forty years ago, when the Qualifications for the Path were first put before me from the Esoteric Buddhist point of view, they were given as follows: the first of them, Discrimination, called by the Hindus Viveka , was described as Manodvaravajjana , which means the opening of the doors of the mind, or perhaps escaping by the door of the mind. That is a very interesting way of putting it, since Discrimination arises from the fact that our minds have been opened in such a way that we can understand what is real and what unreal, what is desirable and what undesirable, and can distinguish between the pairs of opposites.

470.          The second qualification, Desirelessness, known as Vairagya among the Hindus, was taught to me as Parikamma, meaning preparation for action, the idea being that we must prepare ourselves for action in the occult world by learning to do right purely for right' s sake. This involves the attainment of a condition of higher indifference in which one certainly no longer cares for the results of action; and so it comes to mean the same thing as Desirelessness, though it is put from a different point of view.

471.          The Six Points of Good Conduct, called Shatsampatti in the Hindu scheme, were given as Upacharo, which means attention to conduct. For the convenience of the student who would like to compare the Six Points with those given in At the Feet of The Master, I will reprint here what I said about them in Invisible Helpers.

472.          These are called in Pali:

(a)    Samo (quietude)-- that purity and calmness of thought which comes from perfect control of the mind-- a qualification exceedingly difficult of attainment, and yet most necessary, for unless the mind moves only in obedience to the guidance of the will, it cannot be a perfect instrument for the Master' s work in the future. This qualification is a very comprehensive one, and includes within itself both the self-control and the calmness necessary for astral work.

(b)   Damo (subjugation) -- a similar mastery over, and therefore purity in, one' s actions and words-- a quality which again follows necessarily from its predecessor.

(c)    Uparati (cessation) -- explained as a cessation from bigotry or from belief in the necessity of any act or ceremony prescribed by a particular religion-- so leading the aspirant to independence of thought and to a wide and generous tolerance.

(d)   Titikkha (endurance or forbearance) -- by which is meant the readiness to bear with cheerfulness whatever one' s karma may bring upon one, and to part with anything and everything worldly whenever it may be necessary. It also includes the idea of complete absence of resentment for wrong, the man knowing those who do him wrong are but instruments of his own karma.

(e)    Samadhana (intentness) -- one-pointedness, involving the incapability of being turned aside from one' s path by temptation.

(f)     Saddha (faith)-- confidence in one' s Master and oneself: confidence, that is, that the Master is a competent teacher, and that, however diffident the pupil may feel as to his own powers, he has yet within him that divine spark which, when fanned into a flame, will one day enable him to achieve even as his Master has done.

473.          The fourth qualification in the Hindu classification is called Mumukshutva, usually translated as an ardent longing for liberation from the wheel of births and deaths, while among the Buddhists the name given to it is Anuloma, which means direct order or succession, signifying that its attainment follows as a natural consequence from the other three.

474.          HINDU YOGA

475.          The series of qualifications described above is at once seen to be quite in accord with those given in At the Feet of the Master, which in turn have exactly the same framework as those mentioned in the books ascribed in India to Shankaracharya and his followers, for the use of candidates aiming at yoga. The term yoga, which has long been used in India, means union, and as that is generally considered to imply union with the Divine, it is in fact unity. But the expression refers in all the different schools of yoga in India not only to the distant goal of union, but also to the methods of training prescribed as leading to that goal; therefore some say that the meaning of yoga is meditation, which plays a large part in most of the systems.

476.          It must not to be assumed, however, that meditation is the only or even the principal means to yoga, for there have been and still are many different schools, each having its own special methods. Professor Ernest Wood has described the seven principal schools of yoga in Raja Yoga: The Occult Training of the Hindus, and has shown how they belong each to one of the seven Rays, so that they must be regarded as complementary, and not as rival methods of practice. Each great Teacher expounded a method suited to one type of ego-- a fact so well known among the Hindus that they are always liberal and tolerant in their thought, and consider it perfectly right for each man to follow the method which suits his temperament.

477.          This book explains that in each school there are certain characteristics similar to those which prevail in the teaching of our Masters; there is always a preliminary training-- accompanied by the requirement of high moral attainments-- before the candidate can enter the Path Proper, and on reaching that Path he is always advised to seek a master or guru. In the school of Patanjali, for example, which is the first to be treated, as it is the oldest of which we have any written record, there are ten commandments, the first five of which are negative (prohibiting injury to others, untruth, theft, incontinence and greed) and the second five positive (enjoining cleanliness, contentment, effort, study and devotion).

478.          In the preliminary course of training there are three requirements-- tapas or effort, svadhyaya or study of one' s own nature with the aid of the Scriptures, and Ishvara-pranidhana or devotion to God at all times; these the author compares respectively with our three qualifications of shatsampatti or good conduct, which involves the use of the will in a number of efforts, viveka or discrimination, which implies understanding of the true and the false, inside and outside oneself, and vairagya or desirelessness, since personal emotions can best be transcended by devotion. After developing these preliminary requirements the candidate on the path uses his will to master and employ every part of his nature in a series of steps, physical, etheric, astral, mental and beyond; and because of this the school is described as of the first Ray, on which the use of the will predominates.

479.          The second school of yoga is that of Shri Krishna, particularly expounded in the great poem The Bhagavad-Gita, which has been translated with such accuracy and beauty by our President, and also in a freer rendering by Sir Edwin Arnold under the title of The Song Celestial. This teaches above all else the doctrine of love. The disciple Arjuna, to whom the Guru spoke, was a great lover of mankind; according to the scripture this great soldier sank down upon the floor of his chariot before the battle of Kurukshetra began, full of sorrow because he loved his enemies and could not bear to injure them. The teacher Shri Krishna then explained to him, amid much philosophical teaching, that the greatest thing in life is service, that God Himself is the greatest server-- for He keeps the wheel of life revolving, not because any benefit can possibly accrue to Him in consequence, but for the sake of the world-- and that men should follow His example and work for the welfare of mankind. Many Great Ones, He said, had reached perfection by following this path of life, by doing their duty without personal desire. To love without ceasing is the way of the second Ray; in the Gita it is shown how this love should be directed to men and other beings in karma yoga (the yoga by action or work) and to God in bhakti yoga (the yoga by devotion).

480.          Once more three preliminary teachings are given. To reach the love-wisdom a candidate must practise devotion or reverence, inquiry or investigation, and service-- the first involving right emotion, the second right thought and understanding, and the third right use of the will in practical life-- which again are compared to our first three qualifications. It is particularly interesting to notice that the Teacher says that when the candidate has prepared himself in this triple way, “The Wise Ones, who know the essence of things, will teach you the Wisdom” -- in other words, the aspirant will find the Masters.

481.          The third school, that of Shankaracharya, as already mentioned, presents the qualifications in the order in which we have them, placing viveka or discrimination first. It is intended for those people whose temperament leads them to want to understand what they are about-- not only what service they ought to perform, but in what way their contribution fits into the scheme of things and the development of mankind. It must be noted that the Master Kuthumi, in presenting these qualifications, has interpreted them all newly in the light of love.

482.          The fourth school is that of hatha yoga. Rightly understood, this involves a severe physical purification and training, intended to bring the body into a perfect state of health, orderly functioning and refinement, so as to enable the ego using it to attain as much as is possible for him in the present incarnation. To this end there are many practices, including breathing exercises, intended to act upon the nervous system and the etheric double as well as upon those parts of the dense body usually trained in courses of physical culture. Unfortunately very much of what appears in the popular literature on this subject reflects only a superstitious distortion of the real teaching, and describes various repellent forms of subjugation and mortification of the body which were common also in Europe a few centuries ago; but in all the Sanskrit books dealing with hatha yoga it is clearly stated that the object of the physical practices is to bring the body into the highest state of health and efficiency.

483.          The fifth school, denominated laya yoga, aims at awakening the higher faculties of man through a knowledge of kundalini, the “serpent power” which in most people lies latent at the base of the spine, and of the seven chakras or force-centres through which the awakened power is guided. Of these centres and this force I have already written to some extent in The Inner Life and The Hidden Side of Things. I have now gathered this material together, made some additions to it, and published a monograph on the subject with large coloured illustrations of the seven chakras and of the courses of the various pranas or streams of vitality. (See the author' s book The Chakras , issued by The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Madras.) The methods of this and the previous school are not, however, recommended to Western students, or indeed to anyone who is not specially directed by a competent teacher to practise them. They are suitable only for those who have the Oriental physical heredity, and can live as simply and peacefully as do some Orientals; for others they are not only unlikely to be successful, but are distinctly dangerous to health, and even to life. I have known many sad cases of disease and madness to result from attempts on these lines, especially in America.

484.          The sixth school is that of bhakti or devotion. This is also taught to a large extent in The Bhagavad-Gita; indeed, we find it in every religion among those true devotees who put their trust entirely in the Divine-- who do not pray for personal favours, but are quite convinced that God is perfect master of His world, that He knows what He is doing, and that therefore all is well; they are therefore more than content, they are thrilled with ecstasy, if they can but have the opportunity and the privilege to serve and obey Him in any way.

485.          MANTRAS

486.          Lastly we have the seventh school, which in India is called mantra yoga . It may be well to expound its principle here at somewhat greater length than the others, for the Ray of which it is one of the principal expressions is just now becoming dominant in the world, and is playing a large and increasing part among us in both East and West. Two great examples of its method are to be seen in the work of the Liberal Catholic Church and Co-Masonry, in which our Masters are keenly interested; indeed, They are employing them with great benefit to mankind, and for the rapid advancement on the Path of those who take active part in these movements.

487.          The word mantra is Sanskrit, and is practically equivalent to our word charm or spell. The majority of mantras used in India for good purposes are verses from the Vedas, pronounced with intention according to the traditional methods, which are the outcome of practical occult knowledge. There are also many mantras employed by men who follow the Tantras, and those are just as often used for evil as for good; so we find afloat in India a great number of them, both desirable and undesirable. If we are to classify them from our Western point of view, I should say that there are five main types of these mantras :

Those that work simply by faith.

Those that work by association.

Those that work by agreement or covenant.

Those that work by their meaning.

Those that work by their sound, without reference to meaning.

488.          THE EFFECT OF FAITH

489.          The first class produce their effort simply because of the strong conviction of the operator that the result must follow, and because of the faith of the person upon whom they are operating. If both men are quite sure that something will happen-- say the cure of a wound or a disease-- then that thing does happen; and in some cases the faith of only one of the parties seems to be sufficient. In England, and indeed among the peasants in all countries, quite a number of such charms are being used in country places. People have little forms of words, generally semi-religious in character, which have been handed down to them by their forefathers, and these are supposed to produce definite results. They often seem the merest nonsense; the wording is frequently not even coherent. They are probably corruptions of certain forms of words, either in English or in some cases Latin or French. They do not work by sound, for they have none of the sonority indispensable to the true mantra; but when recited over patients under certain conditions they are at times unquestionably effective. In such cases it must be faith in the ancient formula which produces the result.

490.          Many similar charms found in Oriental countries appear to act through faith. I can give one example from my personal knowledge which I suspect to be of that nature. Once when I was in the interior of Ceylon I was bitten rather badly in the hand by a dog. The wound was bleeding considerably. A casual passer-by, an agricultural labourer by the look of him, rushed up, snatched a leaf off the nearest shrub, pressed it on the wound and muttered some words which I could not understand; and the wound immediately stopped bleeding. This charm, therefore, undoubtedly worked, and certainly not through any faith of mine, for I had no idea of what the man was going to do. As is always the case in the East, the man would not take any money for the exercise of his powers. So far as I was able to hear the words, I should say that they were incoherent, or if coherent were at any rate neither Sinhalese, which would have been the man' s own language, nor Sanskrit. I have been told that there are similar charms against snakebite in Ceylon, and they also appear to work-- again by faith, I imagine; everyone concerned is sure that something is going to happen, and so it does happen.

491.          There is a variant of this type in which success is achieved by the strength of will of the operator. As he speaks his word or makes his sign he is utterly determined that a given result shall follow, and accordingly it does follow. I have seen Prince Harisinghji Rupsinghji, of Kathiawar, cure instantaneously a man suffering from the sting of a scorpion. The man was already pallid and half-fainting from fright, writhing and groaning in acute pain, and scarcely able to drag himself along with the assistance of two friends; the Prince made over the wound the sign of the five-pointed star, spoke sharply one Sanskrit word, and in a moment the victim, who had sunk to the ground, staggered to his feet, declaring himself well and entirely free from pain, and then proceeded to prostrate himself before the Prince in gratitude.

492.          ASSOCIATION OF THOUGHT

493.          2 . There are mantras which work by association. Certain forms of words bring with them definite ideas, and quite change the current of our thoughts and feelings. An example of this is the National Anthem. The tune is simple and strong, but hardly of high rank as a melody; the words, regarded merely as poetry, have in themselves no especial merit. If it were to us but one song among many other songs, it would probably attract but little attention. But our association with it is that of loyalty to the King, and through him to the Spiritual King whose Representative he is; and so powerful is this association that as soon as we hear that strain we straighten ourselves up instinctively and pour out our loyalty and goodwill towards the Ruler of the land. And this evokes a definite response, for, according to the law, force so outpoured unselfishly must call down a corresponding descent of power from on high. This response comes through certain types of Angels connected with the work of the first Ray, and the attention of these is attracted whenever the National Anthem is sung, and they pour out their blessing upon and through the people whose loyalty has been thereby stimulated.

494.          Another example, though far less powerful, of a similar type of mantra is “The Voice that breathed o' er Eden”; we cannot hear that hymn without thinking strongly of a wedding, and all the festive feeling of goodwill usually connected with such a function. Various Christmas hymns and carols also invoke in our minds a very definite stream of thought. The war-cries which played so prominent a part in the battles of mediaeval times were mantras of this type. There are a number of such forms which instantly call up corresponding ideas, and they produce results because of their associations, and not because of anything inherent in themselves.

495.          ANGELIC CO-OPERATION

496.          There are certain mantras which work by agreement or by covenant. Most religions appear to have some examples of this type. The great Muhammadan call from the minaret partakes of this character, although it has also something about it of the type which we have last considered. It is a declaration of faith: “There is no God but God” (or, as some have translated it, “There is nothing but God,” which is an eternal truth) “and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.” It is interesting to see the effect produced upon the people by these words. It is far more than the mere thought of their meaning, for it calls up in those who hear it a fiery faith, a fanatical outburst of devotion, which is quite beautiful in its way, and very characteristic of Muhammadanism. This might be a mere instance of association, but for the fact that Angels of a certain type are evoked by the call, and it is their action which causes much of the enthusiasm which is exhibited.

497.          It is perhaps in the Christian religion that we find the best examples of this third type of mantra, as those who know anything of the Services of the Church will realize. The greatest of them all is Hoc est Corpus Meum, “This is My Body”; for the Christ Himself has made a covenant with His Church that whenever that call is uttered, whenever those words are pronounced in any language by one of His duly ordained Priests, He will respond thereto. But this power is given under conditions, given only to those who are prepared by another mantra of the same type to receive it-- a mantra also prescribed by Christ Himself-- the words “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

498.          The power which with these words He gave to His disciples just before He left them has been handed down with the same words in an unbroken chain for nigh two thousand years, and constitutes what is called the Apostolic Succession. Whenever a Priest who has been duly ordained in that Succession pronounces with intention those other words “This is My Body,” a certain wonderful change is thereby brought about in the bread over which he speaks them, so that though its outward appearance remains the same its higher principles or counterparts are superseded by the very life of the Christ Himself, so that it becomes just as truly His vehicle as was the body which He wore in Palestine.

499.          There is no doubt of the working of this mantra “This is My Body,” for its action can he seen to-day by those who have eyes to see. Lord Tennyson tells us in The Idylls of the King that Galahad, describing the celebration of the Eucharist, said:

500.          I saw the fiery face as of a child

501.          That smote itself into the bread.

502.          And just so any clairvoyant who watches the offering of that same Holy Sacrifice to-day may see the counterpart of the bread flash out into a line of living light when the same sacred mantra is spoken. All the branches of the Christian Church-- the Roman Catholic, the Greek orthodox, the Anglican and the Liberal Catholic Churches-- that celebrate the Holy Eucharist at all in the form which was laid down by the Christ, use those Words of Institution as part of their Liturgy, and in all of them that wonderful result is produced. All these branches of the Church, too, invoke the Angelic Hosts to assist in the Service, and that is done not only by a particular form of words, but also (when the Service is sung) by a particular form of music, by an arrangement of sounds which has persisted with but slight variation from an early period in the history of the Church. The Angels of a special type take those words as a call, and at once attend to play their part in the Service which is to be held. 1

503.          1 For a full account of the working of this most marvellous mantra, see The Science of the Sacraments.

504.          THE EFFECT OF REPETITION

505.          We come now to a class of mantras which act by virtue of the meaning of the words repeated. A man recites a certain form of words with firm confidence over and over again, so that their meaning beats very strongly upon his brain and upon his mental body; and if he is trying, for instance, to do a certain piece of occult work, such a repetition will greatly strengthen his will. Such mantras can be used in many different ways. As far as the man is concerned, they produce one of two effects; either they strengthen his will to do that which he is trying to do, or they impress upon him the absolute conviction that it will be done. Mantras of this type appear in the daily meditations prescribed for the Hindus, and in most occult schools; the repetition of certain sentences at fixed points during the day tends to impress the ideas contained in the sentences strongly upon the mind. “More radiant than the Sun, purer than the Snow, subtler than the Ether, is the Self, the Spirit within my heart. I am that Self; that Self am I,” is a good example of this type of mantra, and it is of course just as effective when thought as when spoken aloud.

506.          BLESSINGS

507.          Under this heading should come the various types of blessings such as are given in the Church, in Freemasonry, and by the pupils of our Masters. Blessings may be arranged in two sections-- those which a man gives from himself, and those which are given through him as an official by a higher power. The first kind of blessing is merely an expression of an earnest good wish. A typical instance of this is the blessing sometimes given by a father to his son, either on the death-bed of the former, or when the latter is about to start on some long and possibly dangerous journey. The blessing of the dying Isaac to his Sons Esau and Jacob is a good illustration, though in that particular case complications were introduced by the scandalous duplicity of Jacob. Readers of the Scripture account of this incident will remember that Isaac was fully persuaded of the effectiveness of his blessing, and when he discovered the deceit which had been practised upon him, he was unable to reverse the wish which he had expressed.

508.          The question then arises, does a blessing of this nature bring any result, and if so how is that result produced? The only reply that can be given is that this will depend upon the earnestness of the good wish and the amount of spiritual force put into it. The blessing makes a thought-form which attaches itself to the person who is blessed; the size, strength and persistence of that thought-form depend upon the will-power of the person giving the benediction. If the words were uttered as a matter of form, without much feeling or intention behind them, the effect would be slight and transient; on the other hand, if they came from a full heart and were uttered with definite determination, their effect would be deep and lasting.

509.          The second type of blessing is that which is uttered by an official appointed for the purpose, through whom power flows from some higher source. A good example of this is the benediction with which most Church services conclude. This may not be given by anyone whose ecclesiastical rank is lower than that of Priest; and to this extent the blessing may be said to partake of the character of mantras of the third class, since the power of giving a definite blessing is one of those conferred upon the Priest at his ordination. In this case he is simply a channel for the power from on high, and if it should unfortunately happen that he speaks it merely as a matter of course and as part of his ritual, that would make no difference to the spiritual power outpoured.

510.          The blessing flows equally over all, but the amount of the influences which any individual can obtain from it depends upon his receptivity. If he is full of love and devotion, he may be very greatly helped and uplifted; if he is carelessly thinking of some other matter, he will gain only the benefit of the impact of a higher vibration. It will be noted that when a Bishop is present at a service he always pronounces the benediction. The reason for that is that at his Consecration his higher principles are opened up much beyond those of the Priest; therefore power at those higher levels can be poured through him. The same general principle holds in Freemasonry also, for it is only either an Installed Master or an ordained Chaplain who pronounces the words of blessing in the course of the closing of the Lodge.

511.          We have already seen that one who has been accepted as a pupil of a Master has thereby become a channel for His influence; and while that influence is always flowing through the pupil, he can certainly direct its force for the moment upon any person, as he wishes. In the same way, one who is an Initiate can give the blessing of the Brotherhood, which is in truth that of the King who is its Head.

512.          THE POWER OF SOUND

513.          We may now consider the type of mantra which works only by its sound. The vibration which the sound sets in motion impinges upon the various bodies of man, and tends to bring them into harmony with it. A sound in the first place is an undulation in the air, and every musical sound has a number of overtones which it sets in motion as well. Four or five or more overtones are detected and recognized in music, but the oscillations extend a great deal further than the ear can follow. Corresponding waves are set up in higher and finer matter altogether, and therefore the chanting of a note or a series of notes produces effects upon the higher vehicles. There are sounds (I suppose we must still call them sounds) overtones which are too fine to affect the air; nevertheless they set etheric matter in motion, and that etheric matter communicates its oscillations to the man who recites the mantra and also to other people around him, and if he is directing his will towards any particular person, to that person the vibration will assuredly go. Thus the mantras which work by sound may produce decidedly material results on the physical plane, though there are other and finer waves sent forth at the same time which may affect the higher vehicles.

514.          Such a mantra usually consists of several ordered sounds, very resonant and sonorous in character. Sometimes a single syllable only is used, as in the Sacred Word Om; but there are several ways of saying that, and they produce quite different results according to the notes upon which its syllables are chanted, and the way in which they are pronounced. For some purposes we emphasize and prolong the open sound; we combine the A U into O, strengthen that and carry it on for perhaps half the time of recitation, and then change to the M sound. But for other purposes the O should be quite short, and the humming inside the head and in the centres, which is a very powerful sound, should be prolonged. The results of these two methods differ greatly. When the O is prolonged we are affecting one another and the surrounding world, but with the long M almost the entire effect produced acts upon ourselves. Sometimes the three letters A U M are sounded separately. Again, it may be taken on many different notes in succession, in a sort of arpeggio. I have heard that according to the Indian books there are supposed to be about one hundred and seventy ways of pronouncing the Word, each with its different effect, and it is thought to be the most powerful of all mantras.

515.          This Hindu sacred word corresponds to the Egyptian amen. From that word also was made the aion of the Greeks and the aivum in Latin. The word aeon is one derivative of it. It has been said that Om is the word which represents the name of the Logos, the Ineffable Name, in our fifth root race, and that the word used in a similar way in the fourth root race was Tau. Swami T. Subba Row once told us that these substituted words, which are given in each root race, are all syllables of a great word which will be complete in the seventh root race.

516.          The special effect of this word when properly sounded at the beginning of meditation or in a meeting is always like a call to attention. It arranges the particles of the subtle bodies in much the same way as an electric current acts upon the atoms in a bar of iron. Before the passing of such a current, the ultimate atoms in the metal lie pointing in various directions, but when the bar is magnetized by the electric current, they all turn over and lean in one direction. Just so, at the sound of the sacred word every particle in us responds, and we are then in the best condition to benefit by the meditation or study which is to follow. At the same time it acts as a call to other beings-- human and non-human-- who at once gather round, some with understanding of the meaning and power of the word, and others brought by the strangely attractive sound.

517.          This matter of sound is one that penetrates very deeply. “By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made” in the first place. The Logos or Word is the first Emanation from the Infinite, and that quite certainly is far more than a mere figure of speech. It represents a fact, although that Emanation takes place at a level where there could not be anything such as we mean by sound, for there would be no air to convey it. Yet that which corresponds to and acts like sound is the power which is employed to create the Universe.

518.          I do not know that we can hope to have any understanding on this plane, in this world down here, of what is meant by that Creative Word. “He spake, and it was done.” God said: “Let there be Light, and there was Light.” This was the first Expression of the Deity; the Eternal Thought concealed in darkness comes forth as the Creative Word. Perhaps because of this great Truth, words sung or spoken down here invoke higher power-- power out of all proportion to the level to which they themselves belong. I am sure that there is another side of this whole question of sound which our minds cannot reach at present; we can only faintly adumbrate it. But at least we can see that the power of sound is a very great and wonderful thing.

519.          All mantras that depend upon the power of sound are valuable only in the language in which they have been arranged. If we translate such an one into another language, we shall have another and quite different group of sounds. Broadly speaking, the good mantra which is intended to harmonize the body and to produce beneficent results consists largely of long open vowels. We find this in our own Sacred Word, and the same is true of the Amen of the Egyptians, which has been handed down into the Christian Church. It is, by the way, best sounded on two notes. The Church has its traditional way of taking it on two notes a semitone apart-- usually F sharp and G.

520.          Mantras which are used for evil purposes contain nearly always short vowels and consonants of a tearing and disruptive character, such as hrim, kshrang or phut. These uncouth exclamations are delivered with a furious energy and spitefulness which certainly makes them terribly powerful for evil. Sometimes all the vowels in turn are inserted into these cacophonous combinations of consonants, and their utterances conclude with some peculiarly explosive curses which it seems impossible to express in any ordinary system of letters. In Oriental countries, where they know something about these things, I fear that the mantra is often used for evil purposes. That is so also among the negroes. l have come across a good deal of that in connection with Voodoo and Obeah ceremonies, of which I saw something both in the West Indies and South America, and I know that there is much hatred put into such spells and incantations.

521.          Our connection with mantras will be only with those of a beneficent and kindly nature, and not with the maleficent. But good and ill alike have the same method of working; they are all intended to produce vibrations in the subtle bodies, either of the reciter or of those at whom he aims the mantra. Sometimes they are intended to impose entirely new rates of oscillation. It strikes Western minds oddly that people should be recommended to recite a mantra three thousand times. Our first feeling is: How can we find time ? We say that time is money; the Oriental says that time is naught; it is a difference in the point of view. The Oriental methods and ideas are often unsuited to our Western lives; but none the less they have their value for those for whom they are intended. Some have felt that the study and meditation prescribed for the members of our Esoteric School are a heavy burden for those who are unaccustomed to such exercises; but no Oriental would ever think so.

522.          The Brahmana practically spends his life in religious recitations, for every act that he performs all through the day is always accompanied by some text or pious thought. It is a life lived absolutely in religion, or rather it is supposed to be such. In many cases to-day it is an outer form only, a sort of shell; but men still recite the words, even though they may not put the old life and energy into them. They have plenty of time; they can well afford to repeat a phrase a hundred and eight times a day; and the object of their doing so is perfectly clear.

523.          The Christ is said to have warned His disciples not to use vain repetitions when they prayed, as did the heathen; and from that text the deduction has been made that all repetitions are useless. They assuredly would be so in an invocation addressed to the Deity, for they would imply that He had not heard the first request! They would be (or should be) unnecessary for disciples-- for men who have already made some progress along the path of development; to formulate an intention clearly and to express it once strongly should surely be sufficient for them. But the ordinary man of the world has by no means reached that stage; it often needs a long course of steady hammering to impress a new vibration upon him, and so for him repetition are far from useless, for they are deliberately intended to produce definite results. The constant impinging of these sounds (and of the various undulations which they set up) upon the different vehicles does tend steadily to bring those vehicles into harmony with a particular set of ideas.

524.          This tuning-up of vibrations is analogous to the work done by an Indian Guru upon his pupils, which has already been mentioned in Chapter IV. All the time the waves radiating from his astral body are playing upon their astral bodies, the waves from his mental and causal bodies are playing upon theirs; and the result is that, because his vibrations are by the hypothesis stronger than those of his pupils, he gradually brings them into closer and closer harmony with himself, if they are in any way capable of being so tuned. The constant recitation of a mantra is intended to tune up the particular part of the mental and astral bodies at which it is aimed, and there is no doubt at all that it can and does produced powerful results.

525.          The same methods are prescribed in Christian lands. One may often see a Roman Catholic reciting his “Aves” and “Paternosters” many times over. Generally he just mutters them, and so they are of little use to him, except for the thoughts that they may suggest to him. In India mantras are always chanted, and the chanted mantra does produce an effect. That is one reason why the older languages are better in this respect than modern tongues. Modern languages are generally spoken quickly and abruptly, and only the Italian, Spanish and Greek peasants seem to speak in the old way in long, musical cadences. In the Liberal Catholic Church, however, we especially recommended that its service shall always be in the language of the country, because we find that far more devotion is aroused in the people if they understand clearly what is being said and can join intelligently in the ceremonies. But there can be no question that the Latin is more sonorous. Many mantras of this nature have no special meaning; are little more than a mere collection of vowels. In the Pistis Sophia, the well-known Gnostic treatise, there are a number of such meaningless mantras, marked in a way that must have indicated chanting.

526.          Such rolling sonorous sounds as we find in the Indian mantras impose their rates of vibrations gradually on the various bodies, and so can be used to economize force. Anything whatever that we do by a mantra we could do by our will without the mantra; but the mantra is like a piece of labour- saving machinery. It sets up the required vibrations, doing part of the work for us and making it easier in consequence; we may therefore regard it as a means for economizing force.

527.          Another point with regard to mantras which is stressed in the Indian books is that students are forbidden to use them in the presence of coarse or evil-minded people, because the power of a mantra will often intensity evil as well as good. If there were a person present who could not answer to the vibrations in their higher form, he might well received a lower octave, which would be quite likely to strengthen the evil in him. We should never use a mantra where there are people who are likely to be injured by it.

528.          Madame Blavatsky told us, I remember, that a mantra might be recited not for oneself at all, but with a special view to someone whom it was thought it might help. In this way we might recite the Sacred Word or the Gayatri, or any of those beautiful Buddhist mantras which flow so sweetly, thinking strongly of a special person and projecting towards him the force of the mantra. But she advised us to use these things with care. Again, she gave a caution that no one should attempt to use a mantra which is too high for him. None such will be given to us by our teachers; but I would say this, as a caution to neophytes, that if the reciting even of the Sacred Word in any particular way should produce headache or a feeling of nausea or faintness, it should be stopped at once. We should go on working at the development of our characters, and try it again in a few months. In using the Word, we are invoking great forces, and if we are not yet quite up to their level they may not be harmonious, and the result may be not invariably good.

529.          In addition to the effect of the vibration of the chanted sound, many of these mantras resemble our third type in having powers associated with them. For example, certain Angels are connected with the Gayatri and the Tisarana, though they belong to very different types.

530.          The Gayatri is perhaps the greatest and most beautiful of all the ancient mantras. It has been chanted all over India from time immemorial, and the Deva kingdom has learnt to understand it and respond to it in a very striking manner-- a manner which is in itself most significant, as showing that, in an antiquity so remote that the very memory of it has been forgotten, the altruistic use of such mantras was fully comprehended and practiced. It begins always with the sacred word Om, and with the enumeration of the planes upon which its action is desired-- the three worlds in which man lives, the physical, the astral and the mental; and as each plane is mentioned, the Devas belonging to that plane flock round the singer with joyous enthusiasm to do the work which by the recitation of the mantra he is about to give them. Students will remember that in India Shiva is sometimes called Nilakantha, the Blue-Throated, and that there is a legend connected with that title. It is interesting to note that some of the Angels who respond when the Gayatri is chanted bear that characteristic of the blue throat, and are clearly first-ray in type.

531.          This wonderful mantra is an invocation to the Sun-- of course really to the Solar Logos, who stands behind that grandest of all symbols; and the great shaft of light which immediately pours down upon and into the reciter comes as though from the physical Sun, in whatever direction that Sun may happen to be. This shaft of light is white tinged with gold, and shot with that electric blue which is so often seen in connection with any manifestation of the power of the first Ray; but when it has filled the very soul of the reciter it promptly shoots from him again in seven great rays or cones having the colours of the spectrum. It is as though the singer acts as a prism; yet the colour-rays which dart forth are of a shape the reverse of what we usually find in such cases. Commonly when we send out rays of spiritual force they spring forth from a point in the body-- the heart, the brain, or some other centre; and as they shoot out they steadily broaden fanwise, as do those shining from a lighthouse. But these rays start from a basis wider than the man himself-- a basis which is the circumference of his aura; and instead of widening out they decrease to a point, just as do the rays of a conventional star except that they are of course cones of light instead of mere triangles.

532.          Another remarkable feature is that these seven rays do not radiate in a circle in all directions, but only in a semi-circle in the direction which the reciter is facing. Furthermore these rays have a curious appearance of solidifying as they grow narrower, until they end in a point of blinding light. And a still more curious phenomenon is that these points act as though they were living; if a man happens to come in the way of one of them, that point curves with incredible rapidity and touches his heart and his brain, causing them to glow momentarily in response. Each ray appears to be able to produce this result on an indefinite number of people in succession; in testing it on a closely-packed crowd we found that the rays apparently divide the crowd between them, each acting on the section that happened to be in front of it, and not interfering with any other section.

533.          As to the question of the language of the mantra, it seems to be of minor importance. The repetition of the words in English¹, having a clear intention behind them, produced the full effects. The recitation of the same thing in Sanskrit with the same intention brought about an identical result, but in addition built round the radiating shafts a sound-form resembling a wonderfully intricate kind of carved wooden frame-work; it provided us with something which might be imaged as a seven-fold gun through which the rays were shooting out. This sound-form extended only for a short distance, and did not seem to make any difference at all to the power or size of the rays.

534.          ¹ The literal rendering of this celebrated versicle into English is: “Om: We adore the resplendent glory of Savitri our Lord; may He inspire our devotion and understanding.” But in the course of ages it has come to imply to the devout Hindu very much more than is conveyed by the mere words.

535.          A Sanskrit scholar tells me that, while the ordinary word for the sun is Surya, this especial title Savitri is used always to imply the Sun (that is to say the Solar Logos) as inspirer or encourager. It seems to have a signification closely allied to the word Paraclete, which is often, but very unsatisfactorily, translated as the Comforter. (See The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals, p. 2O2). My friend also emphasizes the fact that this is not a prayer to the Logos to give us wisdom or devotion, but the expression of an earnest aspiration and resolve that His influence shall so act upon us as to call out and to strengthen that which already exists within us.

536.          When the Buddhist Tisarana is chanted the Angels that come are those especially associated with the Yellow Robe, and they bring with them a wonderful peace and joyousness, for although they are so peaceful they are amongst the most joyous in the world.

537.          When we speak of Angels as “appearing” we must remember all the dimensions of space. They have not to “come” in the sense of starting from somewhere far away-- from a far-distant heaven, for example. I do not know whether I shall make the matter hopelessly puzzling if I put it that the great forces representing the Logos manifest in those particular forms in answer to the Invocation. They are always there, always ready, but they turn themselves outward in response to the call.

538.          That is the whole history of that sort of prayer and its answer. We have only to think strongly of an idea, and that which ensouls it or represents it will manifest itself to us. Any strong thought of devotion brings an instant response; the Universe would be dead if it did not. It is in the natural law that the response must come; the appeal and the reply are like the obverse and the reverse of a coin; the answer is only the other side of the request, just as we say of karma that the effect is the other side of the cause. There is a wonderful unity in Nature, but people enfold themselves so thickly in their personalities that they do not know anything about it. It is only a question of opening ourselves up. One can quite easily see that when we are able to yield ourselves to nature, we can practically command nature, because by the attitude we take we can call forth its forces, and everything works with us. This is clearly explained in Light on the Path. We must recognize the forces of nature, and open ourselves up to them; and because these powers are flowing with us, everything that before was difficult becomes so much easier.

539.          There is yet another section of the whole subject of mantras as to which I myself have very little information. There is the power not only of sound but of words as such, as numbers, and even of letters. We do not trouble about these things in modern days, but in the Sanskrit and also in the Hebrew alphabet every letter has its assigned value, not only of number, but also of power and colour. I have known clairvoyants who see ordinary Roman letters as printed in our books as each of a different colour, A being always red, let us say, B always blue, C yellow, D green, and so on. I have never had any such experience myself; I suppose my mind does not work in that way. Similarly there are psychics who always see the days of the week as of different colours. That is not my experience; I am not sensitive in that way either, nor do I understand what is meant. That may perhaps be connected with astrological influences; I do not know. This aspect of things is also connected with mantras, and there is a school of mantrists who give to each letter a numerical value, quite independent of its position in the alphabet; and they will tell you that if they add up the values which they assign to the letters of a given word or sentence, and so arrive at a certain total, and if the same total can be made by adding the letters of another word or group of words, the same mantric effect will be produced by the two sentences. But about that I know nothing.

540.          The mantra is usually a short, strong formula, and when for any purpose we want to produce a decided effect, that is the kind of form that our adjuration must take. If we wish to affect people profoundly and rapidly when speaking to them, we must use sentences which are short and strong, not long and rambling; they must follow the line of the military command or of the mantra; and there must be a definite climax. Suppose we wish to help a person who is frightene