THE BUILDING 01' THE KOSMOS 
 
 AND OTHER LECTURES: 
 
 DeLIVHKEO at IHK ElUliTEKNTh .\NNL'.\I. CoWHMION OV 
 THE THEOSOI'HICAI. SOCIETY AI AlnAIJ, .Ma1>RAS. 
 
 Dec. 27, 28, 29, 30, 1893. 
 
 A P N 1 E F E S A N T 
 
 ®nlB autboriseO E^•;tion. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924095633248 
 
THE BUILDING OF THE KOSMOS 
 
 AND OTHER LECTURES 
 
 Delivered at the Eighteenth Awi ai. Cow kmion of 
 
 THE Theosophicai. SocnrrN at AnvAR. Mabras. 
 
 Dec. 2-. 28, 2(|, 30, jSq-; 
 
 B^• 
 
 ANNIE B E S A N T. 
 
 ©nl\j autborfsc? EMtioii. 
 
 MADRAS : 
 PUBLISHED BY THE PROPRIETORS OF THE '■ THEOSOPHIST" 
 AND PRINTED AT THE '' MINERWv" PRESS, BROADWAV. 
 
 1894. 
 

 ..i::, I 
 
 SCI 
 
 13 ' 1 :> 
 
 A.>'3 !rx^7 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMPSON AND CO., AT THK ''MINERVA PRKSS, MADKA.s 
 
 A- 
 
CONTENTS- 
 
 Page. 
 Preface. ... ... .. ; ;j 
 
 I. The Building of the Kosmos : 
 
 (a) Sorxh ; ... .._ _ , 
 
 (b) Fire. ... ... _. 25 
 
 "• ^'°^^- ••■ 45 
 
 III. SYMBOLISM. ... ... ,.. ... ^j 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The four lectures printed in this volume were delivered 
 to the delegates and members of the Theosophical Society, 
 assembled for the Annual Convention at Adyar, Madras, on 
 December 27, 28, 29, 30, 1893. They were intended to shew 
 the value of the teachings of H. P. Blavatsky as a guide to 
 the obscurer meanings of the sacred Hindu books, and so to 
 vindicate at once the usefulness of the Theosophical and the 
 Hindu doctrines. They were intended also to shew the iden- 
 tity of these doctrines, and to prove that any one who believes 
 the Theosophical teachings must accept those of the Vedas 
 and the Puranas on fundamental matters. That Theosophy 
 is a fragment of the Brahma Vidya of pre-Vaidic days, that 
 the Sruti are the best exoteric presentment of Brahma Vidya, 
 that the Puranas were intended to give to the class excluded 
 from the study of the Vedas the spiritual truths contained in 
 the latter in a concrete form easy of assimilation — such were 
 the ideas which sought expression in these lectures. 
 
 My acceptance of Theosophical teachings has to me from 
 the beginning implied the acceptance of the Hindu Scriptures 
 as the mine out of which the gold of spiritual knowledge was 
 to be dug As a philosophy Theosophy might be held intel- 
 lectually apart from Hinduism as from all relif^ions, though 
 reproducing on most points the Advaita Vedanta ; but if any 
 attempt be made to draw from it spiritual sustenance, if it be 
 taught as religion as well as philosophy, then in the Hindu- 
 ism, which is its earliest and fullest exoteric presentment, will 
 the need for worship find its completest satisfaction. I do 
 not mean that devotion may not clothe itself in various reli- 
 gious garbs, and if a man have a religion when he becomes 
 a Theosophist, he will not naturally seek in that religion the 
 
spiritual food he requires and will not therein find it. If he 
 comes into Theosophy, as I did, from Materialism, then he 
 will most probably in his devotion adopt the ancient Sanskrit 
 forms preserved in Hinduism, with which he has become 
 intellectually familiar in his philosophical studies. Theosophy 
 has been to me not only intellectually but also devotionally 
 satisfying-, and devotional Theosophy finds in Hinduism its 
 most ancient and most natural expression. The student of 
 Brahma Vidya as a Bhakta ma)- thus become Hindil, 
 recognising- that Gyanam and Bhakti are both necessary for 
 the evolution of the spiritual life. 
 
 I say these few words in explanation of my own position 
 as Theosophist and Hindu that will be found running through 
 these lectures, and in repudiation of the absurd story that I 
 have been converted to Hinduism since I came to India. I 
 became a Hindu with my full and complete acceptance of 
 Theosophy as taught by Occultists, and there has been no 
 change save an ever-increasing clearness of vision, an ever- 
 expanding knowledge, and an ever-growing depth of satis- 
 faction in the teachings embraced in 1S89. 
 
 Annie Besant. 
 
THE BUILDING OF THE KOSMOS. 
 
SOUND. 
 
 Brothers, — When first the great scriptures of the Hindii 
 nation made an impression on European thought, that im- 
 pression was one of a somewhat strange and remarkable 
 character. There was a conflict amongst European thinkers 
 as to the origin and as to the value of this ancient literature. 
 On the one side, it was acknowledged that a profound philo- 
 sophy might there be seen ; on the other, the idea of finding 
 such aphilosoph}' amongst a people regarded as less civilized 
 than those who became their critics — that idea led to much 
 of controversy as to the way in which these books had origi- 
 nated, and as to the influence which had been at work in their 
 construction. And even today, when the depth of philosophy 
 is admitted, and the grandeur and width of the range of 
 thought is no longer challenged, you find men like Professor 
 Max Miiller, who have given their lives to the study of these 
 books.you find them speaking of the Vedas as the babblings 
 of an . infant people. You find them denying that there is 
 any kind of secret or hidden doctrine — hidden under the 
 veil of symbolism, concealed under the mask of allegory. It 
 seems to me as though in the West it was impossible for 
 thinkers to understand that you may have an infant race, 
 and yet that race have divine instructors, that you may have 
 a growing civilization, but have that civilization under the 
 guidance of those who are specially illumined by the 
 spirit that is divine ; and so they have failed to understand 
 the value of the scriptures, seeing only the masses of the 
 ancient people, understanding nothing of the dignity of 
 those who stood above them as teachers and as guides. 
 Trying to find what is called a purely human origin for 
 the scriptures, they have lamentably failed in their anal- 
 ysis, for where the divine is put aside, the growth of no 
 nation can be understood, and where the hidden deity in man 
 is ignored, no real grasp can be made of philosophy, or of 
 religion, or of civilization. 
 
Now my attempt — and it must be a very imperfect 
 attempt — in these lectures, is to vindicate the position 
 that within the Hindu scriptures you may find philosophy, 
 science and relig-ion of the deepest, of the widest and 
 of the most inspiring- kind ; that the science of the West is 
 slowly beginning to tread the paths which in these scrip- 
 tures are clearly traced ; that the knowledge which the West 
 is beginning to gather from observations of the external 
 universe, is knowledge which may be more rapidly acquired 
 by the study of the scriptures, which were written by those 
 who studied the universe from within rather than from with- 
 out. Thus we may read that in the lotus-chamber of the 
 heart with its ether-filled space we may see everything which 
 in the external world may be found ; " Both the heaven and 
 earth exist within it. Both Agni and Vayu, both the Sun and 
 
 the Moon and whatever else exists in this Universe"* are 
 
 there, so that in finding his spirit, man also finds everything 
 which exists in the Kosmos. This is a statement not only 
 beautiful in its poetry, but accurate in its science, and by 
 really finding the eyes of the spirit, those eyes can pierce 
 through every veil of external nature and gain knowledge at 
 once more accurate and more profound than can be discover- 
 ed when the study is purely through the eyes of the flesh. 
 Now in pursuing this line of investigation, very great help 
 has been given to us by that Russian lady and great 
 teacher known to us as Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Her 
 value to the world does not lie in the question as to whe- 
 ther she were or were not able to perform certain acts which 
 others might be unable to rival. Her value to the world 
 does not lie in whether she be a wonder-worker or whether 
 she be a conjuror. These points are not the points by which 
 ultimately she will be judged by posterity. From my own 
 standpoint these so-called marvels are matters of comparative 
 indifference ; the whole of these I look upon, while interest- 
 ing from one standpoint, as of comparatively small signifi- 
 cance. Her real value was that she unveiled to us the secret 
 of the ancient knowledge, that she put into our hands the 
 keys by which we might ourselves unlock the gates of the 
 
 * Chclndogyopanishad, viii, I, 3. 
 
inner sanctuary, that she came to us knowing the things of 
 the spirit and able to explain to us how we for ourselves 
 might follow the clues which she gave ; so that those who are 
 instructed in this Esoteric Philosophy — spoken of in modern 
 times as the theosophical teachings — those who are instruct- 
 ed in it can turn to the Vedas, can turn to the Puranas, 
 and there find knowledge whicli from the ordinary reader 
 is hidden. Thus she acts as a great teacher, filling the 
 function which in ancient times was carried on between 
 the teacher and the disciple ; taking' the scriptures and 
 unfolding their inner meaning and so opening the wa}' 
 for spiritual progress, making it possible for us to attain to 
 the ancient wisdom of the temples. I am going- to try to 
 justify that view by showing — having taken certain teachings 
 from the ancient Hindu scriptures — how these teachings 
 become clearer and more eas)^ to grasp when they are read in 
 the lig'ht which she has thrown upon them in the volumes 
 spoken of by the name of the " Secret Doctrine." 1 am 
 going to support that teaching also by reference to the most 
 advanced science of our own day, showing you how the 
 " Secret Doctrine," which is really the most ancient Indian 
 teaching, is supported on the one side in the West by what 
 is called science, and on the other side in the East bj' the 
 scriptures, which may be made more intelligible, more cohe- 
 rent, and of which the apparent contradictions vanish, when 
 they are viewed in the light of these secret teaching's of which 
 a fragment only is given to the world. 
 
 Now speaking of the building of the Kosmos, I cannot at 
 the very outset deal with the question from science as it is 
 understood in Europe, because science does not, in Europe, 
 deal as it were with the beginning of things. It only deals 
 with manifestation after it has reached a certain point. It 
 tells us nothing as it were of the first burgeoning out into 
 existence of the Kosmos. It deals with nothing until we 
 have matter in a form which the ph)'sical senses can appreci- 
 ate, or at least which the imagination, following on the lines 
 of the ph} sical senses, is able to construct. Tyndall has spo- 
 ken of the scientific use of the imagination, and in that way 
 we can go on scientific lines beyond that which actually may 
 be sensated. It is no longer argued that that only is true 
 
which can be perceived by means of the senses ; that was the 
 position held some thirty years ago. It is one which the 
 progress of Science has made it impossible to hold today. 
 But you do find that science still maintains that nothing can 
 come within its purview save such concepts as may be formed 
 b}- the intellect on the facts which have been collected by the 
 senses, so that when you are dealing with the existence of 
 the manifested Kosmos, you must not in your thought go 
 beyond those material conceptions of which you already have 
 foundation in the material phenomena that you have observed. 
 That is, you may go beyond the aggregation of matter that 
 you can see, and you may posit the existence of the atom 
 which is invisible, and which can only be seen by an effort of 
 the scientific imagination. You must not go beyond that 
 which this imagination can construct out of the material sup- 
 plied by the senses. Crookes, it is true, deals with the build- 
 ing of the atom, but even then he only carries it as far as 
 what is called protyle or original matter ; beyond that science 
 will not go. It refuses to go further into the origin of things. 
 It refuses to ask ' Is it possible that behind this protyle we 
 may still trace growth and evolution ?' So that in the first 
 tracing we have "the secret doctrine" on the one side and 
 the scriptures on the other. We cannot bring in the scienti- 
 fic criticism and assistance until a little later in the argument. 
 Now in order that this argument may be complete from our 
 own standpoint, I want to make a brief comparison between 
 the beginning of things as we find it in the S'astras, and the 
 beginning of things as it is traced for us in the book called 
 " The Secret Doctrine," so that we may see, as I think we 
 shall see, that the coherent statement that is made in the 
 latter is exceedingly helpful when we are puzzling ourselves 
 somewhat over the many statements of the different aspects 
 of the evolution that we find in the S'astras. For you must 
 remember that, deliberately, blinds have been used in these 
 scriptures that have been placed in our hands. We cannot 
 by reading them consecutively always gain a coherent notion 
 of the whole which in this fragment is represented, and we 
 gain very much in time if we get a glimpse of the whole, so 
 that when we meet the fragment, we can put it into its proper 
 place in the edifice which we are trying to construct, instead 
 
of searching everywhere and keeping our knowledge frag- 
 mentary for need of that architectural plan which really 
 Madame Blavatsky supplies. 
 
 Let us turn first to the S'astras and see how they 
 trace for us the origin of things. Here there is a 
 very noticeable difference between the Puranas and the 
 Upanishads. You will find more detail — detail given in succes- 
 sive descriptions, as it were — in the Puranas; you will find in 
 the Upanishads a philosophic rather than cosmological view, 
 especially a view which starts from the spirit in man and 
 shews the connection of that spirit with the source whence it 
 came. This will make a difference in the view of the universe 
 presented in these two great divisions of the S'dstras, and 
 you will find one point especially of difference that I will 
 put to you, which may sometimes have puzzled the reader 
 as to the possibility of reconcilation between the two. First 
 of all then, if I may use what seems a paradox, but is really 
 a truth, before the " origin of things" thought is thrown 
 backwards, for the origin of things means manifestation, it 
 means differentiation. The very word ' things^ implies ma- 
 nifest existence. Before the manifest, there must be the One ; 
 even in European science this is recognised, and they rightly 
 allege the One to be inscrutable and the phenomenal to be 
 the object of observation. But you will very rarely find that 
 the existence of that which is behind phenomena is denied — • 
 save perhaps in some comparatively small schools of thought, 
 that see in the universe nothing but a mass of changing pheno- 
 mena, with no underlying unity in which these phenomena 
 inhere. Generally, if science becomes philosophy, the One is 
 posited as incognizable and unknowable to human thought. 
 But there is yet a deeper conception in the Hindil view of 
 the universe ; for that by which human thought is unreach- 
 able, is still, as one may say, on the outer limit of manifesta- 
 tion, and even behind that outer limit, behind and beyond 
 Brahman — who is described as invisible, intangible, unseeable, 
 and unseizable even by thought, that which cannot be proved, 
 and whose only proof is in the belief in the soul — behind that, 
 there still is posited that which has no name but only a des- 
 criptive epithet, that can only be spoken of as the " beyond 
 Brahman" — Para Brahman — of the philosopher, the " Unmo- 
 
8 
 
 dified Vishnu" of the Vishnu Purana. Now on " That,'.' 
 the Unmodified Vishnu, there is nothing to be said and noth- 
 ing to be thought. Neither thought nor speech has anything 
 to do in that region, and we can only begin either to think 
 or to speak when manifestation occurs, and when out of that 
 darkness which may not be pierced, the first quiver comes 
 forth, which is Light, the possibiUty of manifested existence. 
 And then we come in the scriptures to the first of all mani- 
 festations, to that which is spoken of sometimes, and notice the 
 fact, as manifested and sometimes as unmanifested ; unmani- 
 fested in itself but manifest by the act of generation. For our 
 thought soars, as it were, to Brahman, albeit Brahman itself 
 is unseizable by human thought. And we find Brahman 
 or its equivalent spoken of, in both those great sources of 
 study, Upanishads and Puranas, as triple in itself, although 
 not triple in direct manifestation. The One, but with an 
 inner and latent three-foldedness, which will appear gradual- 
 ly in manifested sequence and make the universe of things 
 a possibility. Brahman itself is essentially threefold ; whe- 
 ther you take it as you may find in the Taittiriyopani- 
 shad, where Brahman is spoken of as truth, as know- 
 ledge, as infinity, or in that phrase which is more familiar to 
 us, as Existence, as Bliss, as Thought. Really in these words 
 you have the same conception — Sat-chit-ananda — so familiar 
 always in speaking of the supreme, and this is but another 
 phrase for that which you find in the Upanishad quoted. For 
 what are satyain, gnanam, anantam ? These are only different 
 human words which fail in the attempt to represent realities, 
 and whether you take the one or the other threefold phrase 
 it matters not ; what you do need to grasp is that these are 
 latent in the first Emanation, and that the beginning of the 
 Kosmos is the unfolding of this threefold latency into mani- 
 festation, is the becoming active of the latent potentialities. 
 Now you have in the Vishnu Purana that which really repre- 
 sents this thought of the triple latency ; you have the first 
 manifestation of Vishnu which is KMa, time, which is neither 
 matter nor spirit, but which exists when both of these have 
 disappeared into it. You may remember in the second chap- 
 ter of Vishnu Purana we are told that there is Pradhana, 
 which is the essence of matter, Purusha, which is the essence 
 
of spirit ; when these disappear the form of Vishnu, that is, 
 Time, remains ; thus there is this conception of Time without 
 beginning and without ending, which as it were stands behind 
 the next manifestations, joins them, and makes them possi- 
 ble. Then you come to the second stage, which in this Purana 
 is given under the name of Pradhdna-Punisha, essential mat- 
 ter, essential spirit — out of the one, the two, which means 
 manifestation ; and that is why Brahman is spoken of as both 
 unmanifest and manifest. It is unmanifest in itself ; it is 
 manifest when the two appear from the one, and this duality 
 makes the Kosmos possible. Then you may find many words 
 in many books, all of which convey the same thought — the 
 duality on which so much stress has been laid by Subba Rao, 
 whose death every philosopher must regret for the work that 
 he might have done in this unification of the secret and pub- 
 lished thought. You have Midaprakriti and Daiviprakriti 
 (which are only other expressions for that which in Greek 
 thought is called the Logos), in manifestation. Again, you 
 have the one characteristic given you of that Pradhana, 
 that it is Vyaya, extensible ; you cannot begin to describe, 
 because attributes are not yet evolved, but you have the one 
 characteristic of extensibility, which always means the possi- 
 bility of form ; so that in this second, which is manifested 
 from the one, there is the essence of form — that which is to 
 take on manifold appearances, — and you have also that which 
 is to come out in form, the Purusha which moulds, working 
 on the Pradhana, and therefore makes the manifoldness of 
 the manifested universe possible. Then there is — still following 
 the Vishnu Purana — the third stage of Mahat, that which is 
 to be the controlling and directing force, that which is to 
 be the over-ruler, as we may say, which in every case will 
 guide the evolution of the universe, and make it consistent, 
 reasonable, right through ; and here I cannot but remind you 
 for a moment that in the last expression I have used a 
 thought which we lately heard from Professor Huxley. He 
 .speaks of an intelligence that "pervades the universe,"* 
 recognising, as it were, such an intelligence after professing 
 agnosticism for so many years. There is an intelligence of 
 which he is obliged to admit the pervading quality, which is 
 * Evolution and Ethics p. 35. 
 
10 
 
 essentially the same as that fundamental conception of Mahat, 
 which is intelligence without limitation, save such limitation 
 as the very fact of manifestation must imply. Now these 
 three stages in this clear definite presentment from the 
 Vishnu Parana are somewhat difficult to trace in the 
 Upanishads, but let me say before leaving their presentation 
 in the Purana that the three are but the unfoldment of the 
 One, of the Satchitananda which you have latent in the first. 
 You have differentiated them when you regard them as three, 
 the first is then Sat, pure existence. What is the second, which 
 is dual, save A'nanda, for the very fact of bliss implies duality? 
 What is Mahat but Chit in manifestation ? So that it is really a 
 process of unfolding, as I said ; all that which is latent in the 
 One becoming manifest in the three. In the Upanishads this 
 unfolding is somewhat veiled. There is a tendency in the 
 Upanishads to pass directl}' from the Brahman in which all is 
 latent, to the spirit in man which is Brahman in the heart. 
 None the less in the Upanishads here and there you will find 
 traces given which show you that the same thought is pre- 
 sent which is more definitely unfolded in Puranic writings. 
 You will find if you will turn to the IVTundakopanishad, it is 
 said there that from Brahman is produced life — which is A'nan- 
 da — and mind, which is Chit ; then it goes on to the five 
 elements, ether, air, light and the rest.* So that you do 
 have the same succession, although but little stress is laid 
 upon it, the object of the writer being different from the 
 unfolding of the Kosmos. So again you may find in the 
 Brihadaranyakopanishad the trinity of Life, Name, and Form. 
 Life, frpm which the two proceed ; and Life is concealed 
 by Name and Form, that is, the first is concealed by 
 its dual manifestation. So also you will find in Katho- 
 panishad in the succession which is traced in the gra- 
 dual search after spirit, when you have gone through Manas 
 to Buddhi, from Buddhi to A'tm4, beyond A'tmii there is the 
 Unmanifested, and beyond the Unmanifested there is the 
 great Soul, therein spoken of as Purusha. Thus you get this 
 most suggestive fact, that between the spirit in man, and that 
 beyond which there is nought save one stage, "the Unmanifest- 
 
 * Mundaka, II. i. 3. 
 
II 
 
 ed" is given. What is Ihe underlying thought of that single 
 instead of triple presentation ? It is to tell those whose eyes 
 ace opened that to the spirit in man there is but one between it 
 and That whichis unknowable, for the Logos of the soul is 
 one, and one is the ray of which the spirit is the reflection in 
 the heart ; so that in the Upanishad, which is meant to lead 
 you to the finding of the unity of the spirit with its Lord, 
 everything is ignored save that one Logos to which the spirit 
 belongs, and the very Kosmos in its multiplicity disappears 
 when the spirit itself is seeking the source whence it 
 came. 
 
 Now turning from this sketch taken from the scriptures 
 themselves, let us take the Secret Doctrine — I am using that 
 name simply for the book called by it — we shall find that the 
 whole of these most complicated teachings is presented in a 
 form so simple, so clear, that we may take it as a clue to 
 guide us in studying- the far more difficult form in which it is 
 presented to us in the Hindu writings. It being built entire- 
 ly on the same foundation as that of the S astras, you find 
 first postulated Para Brahman on which nothing may be said : 
 and then the presentment of the three Logoi, the word Logos 
 being used, as being more familiar in Western thought and as 
 having, as we shall see in a moment when I come to deal 
 with sound, special signification with regard to the building 
 of the Kosmos. The very word Logos implies the Builder, 
 inasmuch as the uttered sound is the Great Builder of all 
 manifested forms. And then we have traced for us the 
 succession of these three Logoi only, the ancient Trimiirti 
 under another name, that we have been studying in the scrip- 
 tures themselves ; we have the first Logos unmanifest, that 
 is one title which is given to it. The first, the Unmanifest, 
 appears but to disappear, because so far as Kosmos is con- 
 cerned, the first Logos is unmanifested ; it can only become 
 manifest to the spirit in man which is one with itself. Then 
 the One differentiated into two, and, using the language of 
 the West, this duality is described as " spirit-matter" — not 
 spirit and matter, for you have but two aspects of the One, 
 and if you divide them in thought you begin with a mistaken 
 conception. The universe does not grow out of spirit and 
 matter — two separate conceptions — it is an evolution from 
 
12 
 
 spirit-matter, or the One with a dual aspect. And so in this 
 second you have, as I said, the A'nanda aspect, and you 
 find H. P. Blavatsliy laying great stress on this fundamen- 
 tal unity, which yet becomes dual in manifestation, spirit- 
 matter, Purusha-Pradhdna. These are but the two prim- 
 eval aspects of the One and the secondless. And then when 
 she went to throw to the careful student a hint as to 
 the symbolism of the subject, by which he may unveil this 
 fundamental mystery of the Kosmos, you find her deal- 
 ing with the symbolism of the moon and suddenly throwing 
 into the paragraph on the moon this phrase : " Soma embodies 
 the triple power of the Trimurti, though it passes unrecognis- 
 ed by the profane"* that " Lunar magnetism generates life, 
 preserves and kills it." Then later on in the same page she 
 speaks of " the one divine essence, unmanifested, perpetually 
 begetting a second self, manifested, which second self, an- 
 drogynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to 
 every thing macro- and micro-cosmical in this Universe." In 
 this sentence in which the writer throws in the notion of the 
 moon in an apparently somewhat curious way, you have the 
 key to much of the allegory which will explain to you these 
 obscure beginnings of the building of the Kosmos. From 
 one side you have the sun and from the other side the moon. 
 On the one side you have the light, and on the other side the 
 water ; fire and water everywhere, as that by which the build- 
 ing of the universe may take place, and fire and water are 
 but the names for spirit and matter, and but express this 
 duality of the second Logos. In this second manifestation 
 fire is the Daiviprakriti or the Light of the Logos ; water is a 
 manifestation of the Mulaprakriti or the root of all matter. 
 As they proceed it is along this dual line, and the moon (as 
 is known by every student) is constantly represented as an- 
 drogynous, sometimes as male, sometimes as female, today 
 as God, King Soma, tomorrow as Goddess, so that this is 
 always pressed on your attention. When you think of the 
 moon you have the double side, positive and negative, that 
 which in our own world we recognise as sex. Thus perpetual- 
 ly this antithetical duality, without which no building can be, 
 for you must have the passive which nourishes the Universe, 
 * Secret Doctrine, i, 398. 
 
13 
 
 you must have the active which fecundates ; otherwise there is 
 no possibihty of reproduction, there is no existence for the 
 Universe manifest at all. And then the third is Mahat, the 
 same name for the ideating power, thought, intellect, which 
 is to be at the very root of existence. So that here again 
 life and thought are to be primary ; wherever you find an 
 atom of manifested existence, you will find in it this duality, 
 which it takes from its source ; for out of the dual the dual 
 must proceed, and you will neither have unliving matter nor 
 senseless energy. Such existences are impossible in an Uni- 
 verse that has been generated by Life and by Thought. And 
 this trinity is, in the deepest sense, of sevenfold constitution, 
 for in the three lie enfolded the seven, as also in the Tri- 
 miirti, when you begin to think, you find the seven involved ; 
 for in the Trimiirti you are obliged to recognise in each 
 the S'akti side, or duality in each, so that your three 
 must become six ; whsrever j'ou realise the one you are 
 obliged in manifestation to realise the two, you can- 
 not have your Vishnu without Lakshmi, you cannot have 
 Shiva without Durga, the two are always recognisable, so that 
 when you think of the Trimiirti you are really thinking of six, 
 and the seventh is that which synthesises all, and without 
 which this differentiation could never appear, so that in the 
 very foundation of the Kosmos the septenary appears, and it 
 is only the lack of insight in us which has blinded us to that 
 so long. When we reach this stage, the stage of Mahat, or 
 intelligence, at once we come to the possibility of the mani- 
 festation in which Western science also may play its part : 
 from the word Mahat, you have the threefold Ahankara, 
 which essentially has the qualities so familiar to every student 
 of the Gitti, so familiar to every student I may say of philoso- 
 phy as a whole — the true or pure, the active or brilliant, the 
 dark or the elemental — that matter of threefold quality which 
 is necessary for further manifestation, and in which we shall 
 find manifoldness will appear. So we learn, if we take the 
 Vishnu Purana, that from the Tamasic quality proceed the 
 elements— not the elements of which Western science speaks, 
 but the five ancient elements ; we have no good English 
 equivalent for Bhutadt. It is from Ahankara the material 
 Universe proceeds ; first it generates A'kasa, from A'kasa 
 
H 
 
 air, from air fire, from fire water, and from water earth. 
 Now why this succession ? First A'kas a : of that we are told 
 the characteristic is Sound ; the rudiment of sound is evolved, 
 and that is the only attribute of A'kas'a. Then air, and what 
 is air in this sense ? Certainly not the air of the atmosphere, 
 certainly not that which is one of later manifestation, of a 
 mingling of gases where the atom has already appeared. The 
 great "air" of the Upanishads and of the Puranas is the 
 breath of the Supreme, essentially motion, for only when this 
 conception of motion comes in, is any manifestation possible. 
 So that first you have the A'kas'a, whose only attribute is 
 Sound, then you have the Motion which is given to that 
 A'kas'a by the Great Breath ; and in these you have sound, 
 and then touch, which is the second sense, and from 
 sound and touch — your very A kas'a and air — you have 
 fire generated, for which this friction between breath 
 and A kas'a is necessary, and that is the electricity, without 
 which no further g-rowth can be, and not until you have 
 this succession of A'kas'a, which can take form from 
 breath, which can give form to electricity, which can build 
 into aggreg"ation, until this there does not become possible 
 atomic constitution, from which you may have your water 
 and earth, or the liquid and solid manifestations of that which 
 hitherto has been so called immaterial. And notice how that 
 succession is, as it were, guaranteed to us intellectually by the 
 senses of man ; see how the first is correlated with the sense 
 of hearing how the second with both sound and touch, the 
 second sense ; how with the fire there comes light which is 
 correlated with vision, so that then you have sound and 
 touch and vision ; how then there comes water which is cor- 
 related with taste, because without moisture taste cannot be, 
 and the four are present ; and lastly, earth, whose essential 
 characteristic is smell, the last of the senses to be evolved in 
 the physical, and therefore the first of the senses to be found 
 on the astral plane when the soul is passing backwards to seek 
 itself. H. P. Blavatsky, of course following this, has already 
 pointed out that the A'kas'a is that which is generated from 
 the third Logos, and that its only characteristic is sound. 
 But here at once comes in our modern science, and in 
 this conception of the A'kas'a in which is working the great 
 
15 
 
 breath, so that by the A'kas'a and Vayu, Agni may appear, 
 we find ourselves face to face with the very latest theories 
 and discoveries of science, and with that genesis of the 
 elements (which is only another term for the building of the 
 Kosmos) which you may study in Western language in the 
 writings of Mr. Crookes. Madame Blavatsky in the first 
 volume of " The Secret Doctrine" wrote to a considerable 
 extent on these discoveries of Crookes so far as they had been 
 published when that book was written ; but she pointed out 
 there were some points which still were lacking. And it is 
 noticeable that only just at the end of her life — it was in 1891, 
 only a couple of months before her death — Mr. Crookes, 
 speaking before an audience of the picked scientists of Eng- 
 land, stated that that which had been an hypothesis, had become 
 a certainty, and that he was now able to put forward as definitely 
 ascertained theories, things which before he had only been able 
 to suggest as hypotheses which might be useful as a guide to 
 discovery. And what is this great discovery of his which it 
 was said by one of those who listened to him would put his 
 name on a level with the greatest thinkers and the greatest 
 scientists of our time ? It was the discovery that the atom 
 was not eternal, that the atom was produced and not pri- 
 mary, that it was destructible and therefore had come into 
 existence, for only that which is indestructible is eternal as 
 every philosophy will admit ; and he showed that the atom 
 must be looked upon as dual, that it must be regarded as a 
 neutral body formed by the joining of the positive and nega- 
 tive elements in nature, and that the atom was permanent just 
 because of its duality, because as it were the two were knit 
 together and that gave it its stability and its power to act as 
 the brick, so to speak, in the building of the world, and then 
 behind the atom he placed what he called " the protyle," bor- 
 rowing the name from an occultist of medieval Europe, 
 Roger Bacon, who has used the same word to denote the 
 primeval substance. When he wanted to trace how these 
 atoms were builded, then he found himself compelled to posit 
 protyle, as primeval substance. Note how the professor close- 
 ly followed on the line of ancient thought, when he found 
 himself obliged to posit motion — that is, the Great Breath, 
 which is the second element after A'kasa, without which the 
 
i6 
 
 A'kds'a would remain motionless and therefore without 
 generating anything. Having protyle and motion, he then 
 posits the third, that is the force allied to electricity, which 
 he says traces for itself a spiral course through the space 
 filled with matter. As this spiral course is traced, atom after 
 atom is generated by the aggregation of the protyle ; and 
 so all these atoms are formed, falling into definite chemical 
 classes according to the position that they hold in the spiral 
 which he traced by the electrical force. And the spiral is 
 a necessary form ; why ? First, you have motion ; imagine 
 the motion is in one direction. As that motion in one direc- 
 tion proceeds through homogeneous matter, it compresses the 
 matter together ; and in compressing matter together, it must 
 cause disappearance of heat, a disappearance which is brought 
 about by the change of state in the matter ; or to put it techni- 
 cally, heat becomes latent. It is a familiar fact that such a fall of 
 temperature must occur ; it is one of the most familiar experi- 
 ments in elementary chemistry, that where matter passes 
 from one state to another, from gas to liquid, from liquid to 
 solid, or from solid to liquid, liquid to gas, that according to 
 the process of the change heat is either given out or else be- 
 comes latent. As here we have aggregations forming out of 
 the homogeneous matter, heat becomes latent, for it disappears 
 as the matter assumes different forms. To take the common 
 illustration, if water becomes ice, heat becomes latent to an 
 extent of what is called 80 units before there is any change in 
 the outer appearance or temperature of the liquid. So when 
 the heat becomes latent in the genesis of the elements, what 
 must be the result ? The result must be that the line repre- 
 senting the motion must change its direction ; and with the 
 fall of temperature there will be a "change in motion ; if you 
 want to represent it, you must no longer have the straight- 
 forward line, but one which is the resultant of two combined 
 forces moving in different directions, therefore the necessary 
 tracing of a spiral ; so that the ancient symbol of the serpent, 
 so familiar in our literature, — the serpent of which I shall 
 have something to say tomorrow — is the most significant 
 symbol of the spiral coiling itself continually, and it thus 
 gives us the very picture of the Kosmic motion. It is that 
 which our great scientists were obliged to make when gene- 
 
17 
 
 ralising force in the Kosmos, and the genesis of the elements 
 comes about by this spiral or serpentine motion. This motion 
 H. P. B. Blavatsky calls the spiral motion of Fohat in space, 
 for Fohat underlies all forces, and by it the force of electri- 
 city is generated. 
 
 With this there comes Sound. You cannot have motion 
 in matter without generating vibration ; and all vibration is 
 fundamentally sound ; all vibration is changeable into sound, 
 transmutable into sound ; and the old phrase that the serpent 
 glides hissing through space carries with it a very real signi- 
 cation. Therefore is it that the first property generated 
 in A'kas'a is sound — the Word, the Logos ; and you may re- 
 member there again how Subba Row has put this very plainly 
 and very beautifully when he is speaking of the uttered sound, 
 of the uttered Word, where he speaks of Fohat, as instru- 
 ment of the Word, and where he points put to us that that 
 which we utter is the Vaikari Vak — that that is " the whole 
 Kosmos in its objective form ;"* for the whole Universe is 
 but the uttering of the Word which is latent in the unmanifested 
 Logos, and which is spoken in the second Logos ; it is this 
 spoken Word which is the objective Kosmos. So alike in 
 Kosmos and in man is this power of sound — sound without 
 which form cannot be, sound which is the builder of form, 
 which generates form, every sound having its own form, and 
 every sound being of this triple character, that it generates 
 form, that it upholds form, that it destroys form. Thus, 
 once again, the Trimiirti appears, the Creator, the Preser- 
 ver, the Destroyer ; they are all one in different aspects, 
 for the Divine is one, whatever the form of its manifesta- 
 tion. And here indeed may we bring together ancient and 
 modern thought ; Sabda Brahman is the force that builds the 
 Kosmos, but it is also the force by which a Yogi brings about 
 all the powers within himself ; and so, as I say, taking our 
 Western science, we can now bring, in support of this form- 
 building power of sound, a number of what are called facts, 
 which to some persons are more convincing than those deeper 
 realities of which the fact is only the phenomenal expression. 
 These facts which modern science has gathered with respect to 
 sound, are valuable to us, not as teaching us — they ought not 
 
 * See " Secret Doctrine," i. 138. 
 
i8 
 
 to have anything to teach us — but as enabling us to convince 
 others who have not understood the value of the scriptures, 
 though the scriptures give the essence of which science only 
 gives the outer manifestation. What then are some of those 
 facts which substantiate the position of the ancient writers 
 that sound lies at the very origin of forms, and that the 
 multiplicity of forms simply depends upon the variety of 
 the sounds. First, we shall find one of the earliest ex- 
 periments with regard to sound — one of the clumsiest — 
 although at the time it seemed beautiful enough. Take, 
 for instance, an ordinary drum, so that In the parchment 
 head of this drum you have a vibrating surface. If you take 
 the bow with which you throw the strings of a violin Into 
 vibration, and draw this bow across the edge of the parchment, 
 then a note is given out — a note which depends of course 
 on the tension in the parchment and various other matters 
 which are not important to us. That is simple enough ; but it 
 was thought desirable to try to discover what happened 
 when the note was given out; and in order that that which is 
 Invisible might be made visible, sand was lightly scattered 
 over the surface of the drum ; then the bow was drawn across 
 the edge of the circle of the drum, and this experiment was 
 done over and over again at every point In this circle which 
 was the circumference of the drum Let me say In passing 
 that European science is admirable in Its patience, in the way 
 in which it repeats over and over again until it gets the fact; 
 in that it is worthy of our admiration, for in that fashion 
 only can these phenomenal facts be discovered. In every 
 portion of the circumference that was experimented upon, 
 it was found that as the bow was drawn across, the sand 
 was thrown up In the air, but It was also found that when 
 It came back it did not fall evenly over the surface, but 
 formed a geometrical figure. So that the sand spread 
 over the parchment was by sound compelled to assume 
 definite geometrical shapes, different as the notes were 
 changed In character by bowing different points in the circum- 
 ference. As different Intervals In the circumference gave 
 out different harmonies of the fundamental note, it was 
 found different shapes were produced ; that at first, touch- 
 ing It at a particular point, you will only get the drum 
 
19 
 
 divided into four, because that is the fundamental note given 
 out by the parchment vibrating as a whole. When you make 
 it vibrate in harmonies you have geometrical shapes of a far 
 more elaborate character. And following out these investiga- 
 tions of harmonies — as they were called — we discover that 
 in every note that is sounded, you have not got a single 
 sound but a very complex sound that can be divided and sub- 
 divided. What seems to us simple is complex ; when you 
 strike a note you are sounding a large number of notes at 
 the same time, and the highly trained ear can discover such 
 harmonies ; it is the difference of harmonies that gives dif- 
 ference of quality to the sound. Now it is found that the 
 difference of quality, or this splitting up of one sound 
 into many, was shown to the eyes by the shapes that were 
 traced by this falling of the sand ; they then began to 
 get outthis difference in a more delicate way, for the sand 
 was a heavy substance, and this parchment was rather a 
 clumsy vibrating material, so that they got more delicate 
 substances, and lighter and lighter finely-divided stuff, 
 such as delicate seeds or the spores of the Lycopodium. 
 This is one of the best things to experiment with, because it 
 is so very light that a very fine vibration throws it into forms. 
 Then they tried tuning-forks — steel forks which, vibrating, 
 give different notes. They obtained the vibrations by means of 
 mirrors arranged to throw a traced picture of the vibrations 
 through a magnifying lens on to a sheet by the magic lantern; 
 and in this way the invisible vibrations of the tuning-fork were 
 traced and magnified and were there seen to form beautiful 
 geometrical designs. On the sheet on which the image from 
 the magic lantern was thrown, it was found that every note 
 gave rise to exquisite forms, which were changed as the 
 note was changed, so that really whenever you are play- 
 ing any piece of music you are forming the most exquisite 
 shapes in the ether and the air around. That is the 
 way in which pulses of sound are in these ingenious fashions 
 made visible to the eye by throwing them from the magic 
 lantern on the screen ; so that the invisible was made visible, 
 and the power of sound was made manifest to the eye as 
 well as to the ear. 
 
2o 
 
 Still further investigations were made, and Mrs. Watts-- 
 Hughes proved that when notes were sung into a horn-shaped 
 instrument and a succession of notes thus sounded, more ela- 
 borate forms could be builded, forms such as ferns, trees, and 
 flowers — all these were generated by the notes of the human 
 voice. In order still further to analyse and see how this was 
 done, a clever instrument was invented, in which two pendul- 
 ums were set swinging, each of the pendulums having its own 
 motions. These pendulums were made to interact with each 
 other so that friction was caused, and the motion of one 
 pendulum modified the motion of the other ; and from these 
 pendulums with their interacting motions, with a pencil 
 attached by means of a lever which could be moved in the 
 resultant direction obtained from the two pendulums, most 
 elaborate forms were traced on a card put under the point 
 of the pencil. In this way so that successive motions might 
 be observed ; and most marvellous!}' complicated forms were 
 thus obtained, forms like shells of the most elaborate des- 
 cription, geometrical shapes perfect in their angles and per- 
 fect in their curves. Now as the vibrations of a note are 
 always in one direction, and as the pendulum motions were 
 simply swinging backwards and forwards, the interferences 
 of the pendulums, which were made to modify each other, 
 were really the reproduction of the true vibrations inter- 
 fering with each other or modifying each other. Thus was 
 obtained a graphic picture of the modifications which might 
 be caused by vibrations which were interfering, although each 
 separate one was in one direction ; and you find that the 
 result of the interference was this marvellous elaboration of 
 form, and just similarly to that, you find that the result of the 
 interference of the light-waves is color. Wherever you 
 break up light-waves and thus make one interfere with ano- 
 ther, you get color coming forth and manifesting itself ; so 
 that what we call color in mother-o'-pearl is only the result of 
 a very delicate roughness in the surface which makes inter- 
 ference of the light-vibrations with each other ; by these 
 pendulums were shown the interference of the vibrations of 
 sound. So science has shown us how forms are builded by 
 sound, and looking at the outside of nature, we are struck by 
 the strange fact that everywhere we find geometrical shapes. 
 
21 
 
 Take the crystal which is found in the mineral world. Every 
 crystal is builded along certain axes of direction. Every crystal 
 takes its shape from these axes of direction. The simplest 
 crystals are built on the simplest lines, and the mpre elabo- 
 rate the crystal the more numerous will be the axes which 
 have their centre in the middle of the crystal. Each crystal is 
 built along these axes, and the difference of the crystals 
 depends upon this fundamental arrangement of the axes ; so 
 that in the building of the crystals in the mineral world geo- 
 metrical shapes appear once more. But you cannot separate 
 the crystal from the crystalloid. The crystalloid is like the 
 form of the crystal in the mineral world, but it is found in the 
 vegetable world. No longer is the mineral in nature divided 
 from the vegetable world, but in the vegetables these bodies 
 are formed of a different kind of material and they are not 
 called crystals but crystalloids. Here again these axes 
 appear and the same suggestion of geometrical form on which 
 the vegetable world is to be built. When we study the vege- 
 table world we go still further. Take for instance a twio- 
 of a tree ; note and study the arrangement of the leaves on 
 it. You will find that the leaves are arranged in a spiral. 
 The spiral, coming forth once more as the generating force, 
 directs the arrangement of the leaves ; sometimes very sim- 
 ple, sometimes ver)- complicated. Take a very simple case ' 
 like that of the apple tree — which is very familiar to us in 
 England — where the spiral is what we call -§- ; in this the 
 spiral has a double turn, and there are five leaves, which are 
 placed on the points, so to speak, of the spiral, until you have 
 to begin again when five are complete. You will find, if you 
 take a bit of string and twist it twice round the stem or twig 
 of the tree, that on this spiral you have touched five leaves 
 which are arranged at equal intervals on the string. If you 
 take another kind of plant you will find a different arrange- 
 ment, but still the spiral ; another plant will have another and 
 different arrangement, but still spiral ; so that when the plant 
 is sending out its leaves, it is always working under this law 
 of spiral arrangement, and there is this geometrical rule 
 which governs the apparently irregular sending forth of 
 leaves and flowers. There is no irregularity, the most appa- 
 rently irregular arrangement is only a complicated spiral ; 
 
22 
 
 for sometimes instead of one spiral you have two ; in a 
 few cases you have three spirals, and these three by going 
 round the stem, interlacing', make extremely complicated 
 arrangements which look like confusion ; but " that which 
 is chaos to the senses is kosmos to the reason." You will 
 always find this geometrical arrangement underneath the 
 apparently chaotic heaps which you may observe by the eye 
 or the senses. Is it not true, as Plato said, that " God geo- 
 metrises " ? Is not this the fundamental conception of the 
 scriptures, that sound-vibration is the builder of form? Is 
 that not justified by these discoveries of modern science ? 
 
 Not only can sound build ; sound can also destroy. 
 Strange that the same force should produce opposite results. 
 People have laughed at it when it is said in religion. They 
 are obliged to admit it when science repeats what religion so 
 long has said. That which in religion is incredible contra- 
 diction, in science has to be reconciled by the discovery of 
 the unifying truth. Why cannot we apply the same theory 
 in religion when we find what seems to be contradiction ; 
 why cannot we study and seek for that underlying truth, 
 which will make the apparent contradictions but aspects, 
 as the two sides of one shield. Thus the builder of form de- 
 stroys it ; and whereas gentle vibrations build, vehement vibra- 
 tions tear apart that which the gentle ones have brought 
 together. Inasmuch as no form is solid, but every form 
 consists of molecules with spaces between them, the vibration 
 of the sound going between the molecules makes them vibrate 
 more and more strongly, throws them further and further 
 apart, until the time comes when the attracting force which 
 keeps them together is overcome, they shoot out and the 
 form becomes disintegrated. 
 
 If you take a glass, and you discover its fundamental 
 note — as you may very easily do by half filling it up with 
 water, and drawing a bow across it, and seeing how the 
 water is divided — when you discover the fundamental note, 
 produce that note on some instrument from which you are 
 able to obtain great intensity and loudness of sound ; then 
 your glass first will give out the note and you can hear it 
 coming from the glass ; you will see the water in the glass 
 thrown into vibration though no one has touched it. The 
 
23 
 
 sound grows louder, and the wavelets of the water that show 
 you how it is acting get bigger and bigger, become more 
 and more turbulent, until dashing against each other they 
 make wave tumults instead of harmony, and then the vibra- 
 tions of the glass which causes all these movements in the 
 water become too great for the glass to stand them ; it shivers 
 in every direction. So again Tyndall has taken a glass rod, 
 and rubbing it gently has produced a sound ; but making that 
 sound intense, the rod has shivered and disappeared : there 
 were only circular fragments of the glass rod, showing the 
 power of the note which the glass itself had generated. So 
 that everywhere we have the proof that sound can disinte- 
 grate form and does create, as you see ; sound may act 
 either as builder or preserver or destroyer ; for preserver, I 
 say it is, since without sound nothing exists. Everything is 
 in constant motion ; one sort of motion builds the form, 
 another preserves the form, a third destroys the form ; 
 and the destruction of one form is only the building of 
 another. That which is destroyer in one shape is creator in 
 another. There is no annihilation ; for every death in one sphere 
 is a birth into another. So let us finish this rough sketch of this 
 part of the building of the Kosmos and of the power of sound 
 by showing how it justifies what has been called superstition 
 and folly, and the mere babblings of an ignorant people with 
 regard to the uses of sound ! As long as there has been a 
 Hindu faith, the power of sound has been recognized in the 
 sacred Word ; in that word lie all potencies ; for the sacred 
 Word expresses the one and latent being, every power of 
 generation, of preservation and of destruction. Therefore 
 has been forbidden the careless use of that Word, therefore 
 forbidden its use amongst mixed audiences ; therefore should 
 it never be sounded where many people are gathered together, 
 and where mingling and hostile magnetisms are making a 
 confused atmosphere, so that any great sound thrown into 
 it must cause tumult and not harmony ; therefore was it 
 never to be sounded save when the mind was pure ; never to 
 be sounded save when the mind was tranquil ; never to be 
 used save where the life was noble ; because the sound 
 that, working in the harmonious builds, working in the inhar- 
 monious destroys ; and everything that is evil is tumultuous. 
 
24 
 
 while everything which is pure is harmonious. For the Great 
 Breath, which is purity, goes forth in rhythmical vibration, 
 and all that is one with that rhythm is essentially pure and 
 therefore harmonious. But when the Great Breath, working 
 on matter, finds friction, then it is that impurity is set up, and 
 if man in his own atmosphere — using that breath which 
 comes out from him, which is the reflection of the Supreme 
 Breath- -is impure, that is, inharmonious, then to sound the 
 name of the Supreme under these circumstances is to invite 
 his own destruction, his own disintegration, for he throws 
 the very force of the Divine into disharmony. What then 
 can he do but destroy that which has nothing in common 
 with the divine harmony. And this is true not only of the 
 sacred Word, but of the mantra that is used to build. Why 
 is it — have you ever thought of it — that when a new life 
 is to be builded within the womb of the mother, mantras are 
 repeated ? Why ? In order that their building forces may 
 work on the growing life and that it may be thrown 
 into harmonious vibrations, so that that which shall be 
 born may be worthy to be the habitation of a noble 
 soul. Why is it that from the moment of conception, 
 religion begins for the Hindu ? It is because the spirit must 
 never be without religion, because when the spirit is coming 
 towards its human birth, it is necessary that these forces of 
 religion should surround it, and help in the building of its 
 earthly home. And so also with sacred sound the new-born 
 life is welcomed in its very incoming into this world of 
 manifestation ; that the sacred harmony may surround it and 
 give it the impulse in the birth hour, which shall send it on 
 towards harmonious development. Step by step this har- 
 mony is to mould the growing life, and when the time comes 
 that the spirit can work more directly on the physical body, 
 you mark it by the ceremony of initiation which gives to the 
 child the mantra which is to be the key-note of the future life. 
 Therefore the mantra should come from one who knows the 
 key-note of that life, and is able to give it the sounds which arc. 
 wanted to keep it harmonious right through life. Here comes 
 in this great preserving power of sound ; so that whenever 
 that life is in danger this sound may protect ; whenever 
 that life is threatened by visible or invisible menace, that 
 
25 
 
 murmur of the muttered mantra may come between it 
 and the danger, make round it waves of harmony, from 
 which every evil thing shall be thrown back by the force of 
 the vibrations. Let any foe come against it, that foe is flung 
 backwards when it touches these vibrations. And so onwards 
 again right through life to the death hour. Every morning 
 through life that chanted mantram shall give the key-note to 
 the day, and the whole day shall be made harmonious and 
 be brought into rhythm with the sound with which the day 
 has begun ; and when the day closes and the sun is sinking 
 once more, the chant should be resounded, so that the dis- 
 harmony of the day may be rendered harmonious, and the 
 spirit may be made fit in the night time to go onwards 
 towards its Lord. And when the death hour has come and the 
 spirit must pass onwards into other regions of the universe, 
 the chanted mantram accompanies it. In the ceremonies of 
 Shrdddha there are used special sounds which shall break the 
 bondage-house of the soul and which shall destroy the body 
 generated on the other side of death which keeps the soul 
 in prison. So to the very threshold of Devaloka, sound 
 accompanies it, until it passes into that Loka where the 
 chants of the Devas shall ever surround it in its sojourning, 
 with an ocean of harmony which is not mingled with the dis- 
 cord of the earth ; shall there keep it in perfect rest and perfect 
 bliss till the word comes to go backward to the earth, in 
 order that it may serve as harmonizer of nature once again. 
 
FIRE. 
 
 My Brothers :t— We saw yesterday, in dealing with the 
 building of the kosmos, that the Great Breath was the mov- 
 ing agent, and that that Breath gave to the A'kas'a its pro- 
 perty of Sound, its primary characteristic. Now looking at 
 things either from the standpoint of Eastern knowledge or 
 from that of modern Western investigation, we find that the 
 diflferences between what are called the reports of the senses, 
 are differences in the translation by the consciousness of out- 
 side impulses, those impulses being fundamentally the same. 
 The result of the Great Breath, throwing the A'kas'a into 
 action, may be translated when it reaches our consciousness, 
 in different ways, according to the fashion in which we sensate 
 it. So that it is true to say either from the Eastern or from 
 the Western standpoint that sensations differ according to 
 the organ that receives them, the differences are caused by' 
 the body through which the sensations are received, the con- 
 sciousness translating into different tones that which funda- 
 mentally is the same. So, in studying Western science you 
 will learn that all senses belonging to the body are developed 
 from a primary sense, and that the primary sense is that 
 which is called the sense of touch. 
 
 There has lately been much investigation into the nature 
 and action of ether, which is the lowest form of what we 
 know as A'kas'a. For A'kas'a is the primary substance of 
 which ether is one of the lower manifestations in connection 
 with our own solar system. That substance has this motion, 
 as we saw yesterday ; but the air is the Great Breath in the 
 A'kas'a, and it is that which gives rise to this feeling of touch. 
 We saw sound was evolved, with which hearing is correlated, 
 and then we have touch, correlated with Vayu, as the Great 
 Breath. All these vibrations in the ether, from the stand- 
 point of modern science, are but modes, as they are called, of 
 motion ; and the reception of the mode of motion by the in- 
 dividual decides the name which shall be given to it. Sound 
 is one mode of motion in which air takes part. Light is 
 
27 
 
 another mode of motion, purely ethereal, it is said. Lately 
 electricity has been recognized as another mode of motion. 
 Heat is another mode of motion, and so on. Thus there has 
 gradually appeared in Western science that sense of unity 
 which has always characterised knowledge in the East ; So 
 that everything which in the phenomenal has a different 
 appearance assumes to the consciousness this fundamental 
 unity. Therefore in dealing with light we are only dealing 
 with another aspect in consciousness of primary motion, and 
 that which from one aspect to us is sound, in another aspect 
 to us is light. Therefore it will be reasonable to expect, 
 as we shall indeed find, that the same fundamental con- 
 ceptions are expressed at one time as sound and at 
 another time as light, and that everywhere in the kosmos, 
 sound and color are interchangeable, as I shall show you that 
 they have been proved to be phenomenally interchangeable 
 by some of the latest experiments which have been carried 
 on in the West. Taking then the vibration known as Light 
 as that which is to govern our thought this morning, that 
 light would be the synonym in all the ancient books for that 
 which is beyond conception. That which we spoke of yester- 
 day as only to be expressed — if I may use again an inaccu- 
 rate phrase — by the descriptive phrase Parambrahman, or 
 beyond Brahman. " Darkness" is the word which in the 
 scriptures is always used to convey to us this primary thought 
 — darkness infinite and complete ; which expresses nothing, 
 for it is beyond the possibility of expression ; which conveys 
 no idea, because idea is limitation and implies separation of 
 that which is thought from that which is not thought, and in 
 this there can be no separation ; there is no thought, because 
 thought means that difference has appeared ; and therefore 
 darkness, in which there is neither the visible nor the invisi- 
 ble is the best symbol, — darkness, absolute, eternal, incom- 
 prehensible ; it is that which is behind every manifestation 
 of light as of everything else which we can put into human 
 language. And from the darkness first is light — but light 
 formless ; visible indeed, as coming into manifestation, but 
 without form, for form would imply still something beyond 
 it ; space which has no form. So that Brahman is described 
 as " luminous without form," the pure idea of light, an idea 
 
28 
 
 which needs of course that use of the imagination that we spoke 
 of, because to us it is always the light-giving body of which 
 we conceive ; whereas here you must not conceive of a body, 
 you must not conceive of a form, you must think of light 
 divorced from everything which would limit it, and therefore 
 " luminous without form" — as you will find Brahman spoken 
 of in the Mundakopanishad.* That, then, will be the first idea, 
 darkness ; and from that, light. And strangely enough in this 
 conception of things modern science has also a word to say ; for 
 taking the conception of motion with which we have connect- 
 ed the Great Breath, darkness is consistent with motion from 
 the standpoint of human consciousness. Light is indeed a form 
 of motion, but vibration, which is too rapid or too slow to give 
 light, gives us darkness— a most significant fact, if for a 
 moment you let it rest in the mind that where you think of vibra- 
 tions so rapid that they cannot be sensed by the eye, there dark- 
 ness is the answer of consciousness to this exceedingly rapid 
 vibration. In truth, beyond human consciousness as now 
 existing, there is possibility— and we cannot say that there 
 may not be endless possibilities— of existence beyond that 
 which our senses can sensate. Thus science tells us that 
 vibrations so intensely rapid that the eye cannot answer to 
 them, will be translated to the consciousness as darkness, 
 and only with the slackening of the vibration will there be 
 light. Now translate that scientific thought into metaphy- 
 sical language, and you have the very coming into mani- 
 festation of the universe ; for as that which is beyond thought 
 slackens itself for manifestation, then it becomes manifested 
 as light. And so even in the visible universe you will find 
 that we have scientific instruments in which that which is truly 
 in its essence light, gives no light, — because the waves are 
 too rapid ; and we have to slacken those rapid vibrations by 
 throwing them through a particular preparation, if we desire 
 that luminosity should appear. So that when the universe is 
 to become manifested and substance is to evolve, as it were, 
 there is slackening of the motion in the infinite darkness, and 
 with the slackening of its vibrations light without form 
 appears. It seems as though we have had from the West 
 a suggestion of the depth of this ancient Eastern thought, 
 
 *Mundaka, II. i. 2. 
 
29 
 
 and as though Western thought in its experimental fashion 
 were groping towards the very idea which we find at the 
 beginning of things in the Eastern books. 
 
 From this radiance, which is without form, from this 
 luminosity, which is light in its essence manifesting itself, — 
 it is sometimes called " cold flame" so as to exclude even the 
 notion of heat from this pure light — we have that second 
 manifestation, the second Logos which we spoke of yester- 
 da}', and then the light becomes Fire. No longer absolutely 
 formless, no longer without heat ; but with the further 
 slackening of the light, as manifestation proceeds, there will 
 be generated heat, and you will then have fire, of which the 
 essence is heat, and the cold, formless flame will become the 
 fire which is the active agent in the building of the kosmos. 
 But fire cannot appear alone, a very nature implying as it 
 does something more than the light whence it springs, imply- 
 ing that by friction heat must come into existence ; also 
 it involves the further conception of that duality which we 
 spoke of yesterday when we were dealing with the dual mani- 
 festation under sound ; and so when we have fire, we cannot 
 think of it without its action, and always the first action of 
 fire is the development of moisture. So that in this second 
 Logos or manifestation in the dual form, fire and water are 
 the two things that come to us in thought ; fire which is 
 spirit in its essence, water which is always the symbol for the 
 essence of matter ; and just as we found spirit-matter the 
 second Logos, and found there the very origin of the possibility 
 of sound, so looking at it from the standpoint of light, we 
 have this conception of fire and water, of the Light of the 
 Logos and that in which it works. Of this the lotus has ever 
 been the symbol, growing out of the navel of Vishnu, hidden 
 beneath the waters from which life is to spring ; for that 
 Vishnu, who is not floating on the waters but is concealed 
 beneath them, is in this aspect the first Logos, and the lotus 
 that grows upward from his navel is the. second Logos, and 
 is the symbol of fire and water ; for in the lotus leaves, 
 rising to a point, you have the upward-springing flames, and 
 they float on the water. And the lotus has been ever held as 
 the symbol of creative fire, in the womb of which is to be 
 generated heat, the active creative force. Therefore within 
 
30 
 
 the lotus blossom, or the lotus bud as it is at first, there 
 is the third Logos, Brahma, or the active creative agency, 
 and which is synonymous with Mahat, or the creative intelli- 
 gence in the womb of the fire ; and as the fire opens out then 
 there comes the second form of flame which is creative, not 
 the cold flame of the first Logos, but the burning flame of 
 the third, which from the sea of fire is to build up the kosmos, 
 and make the universe possible. 
 
 And when we turn to the light thrown on this ancient and 
 not difficult conception for those who have carefully studied — 
 when we turn to the writings of Madame Blavatsky, we shall 
 find that this is very clearly put ; so that taking these as a 
 clue, we are able to unravel the symbolism to which we have 
 just now referred. For fire she uses ether in its purest form^ 
 the substance of ether before we can speak of it as A'kas'a. 
 And there are two fires, and a distinction is made between 
 them in the occult teaching ; the first, purely formless and 
 invisible, is concealed in the central spiritual sun, and is 
 spoken of as triple, metaphysically. There again we have the 
 triple nature of the Logos in which these fires body them- 
 selves forth, and then the fire manifesting as kosmos which is 
 to be septenary, both throughout the Universe and our Solar 
 system ; exactly the same as we found yesterday where we had 
 the triple unfolding itself into seven. And here we have the 
 formless flame — the cold flame or light — the fire, and then 
 the heat or the creative flame, the same symbolism under 
 another aspect, the same essential idea given in another 
 form. Therefore always have we learnt that the Light 
 of the Logos, Daiviprakriti, or the brilliant side of the 
 substance, has been the g"enerative and creative agent ; and 
 you must remember that dealing with the symbol Lotus 
 that I alluded to, you have heard of it as hermaphrodite, 
 bringing back the same idea of duality into our thought, 
 that yesterday we found as the characteristic of the second 
 Logos fir the second manifested energy which is to build the 
 universe. From this you get that force which in its lower 
 forms, is electricity, magnetism, and heat, but another kind of 
 motion still, but another action of the Great Breath, and it is 
 that which in Theosophical literature is so often spoken of as 
 Fohat — rightly translated by Subba Row as the Light of the 
 
31 
 
 Logos ; for it is the energising agent, it is that which, 
 springing forth, has to build the Kosmos, that fiery serpent 
 which is the creative agency. You must remember how I 
 yesterday spolse of this, and how I alluded to it in the latest 
 discoveries of Mr. Crookes as symbolising electricity, and 
 the way in which the spiral form was produced owing to the 
 fall in temperature ; here we see it as the fiery serpent and as 
 the fiery dragon in the milky ocean breathing forth fire, and 
 so building all forms of manifestation. Wherever you see the 
 serpent of fire, wherever you see it becoming a circle with 
 the tail in its mouth, tlien it is that you have passed from the 
 spiral which generates to the globe, which is the result of the 
 generation ; and the serpent turning on itself, taking the 
 tail into the mouth, that symbol is the kosmos evolved. It 
 has formed into the globe which everywhere is the kosmos 
 in its manifested shape. So the serpent becomes the egg; 
 then from that the later forms in the kosmos, and within 
 that egg sometimes instead of within the lotus you will 
 have Brahma, the creative agency, who is in the golden 
 egg, which is but another symbol for the lotus ; living in 
 that egg, for a while ; then, coming forth from it, he creates 
 the worlds. Hence again the symbolism of the serpent twin- 
 ing round the mountain, that which in the Puranas you 
 read of as that by which life and immortality and other things 
 were generated ; so that, as I have sometimes said, if the 
 learned amongst you would take the Puranas and, studying 
 them, would compare with them some of the statements of 
 our modern science, you would be able to predict the line of 
 scientific discovery, and in this fashion you would justify to 
 the West, as nothing else could do, that deeper nature of the 
 Oriental thought, showing the West the lines along which it 
 should study and the way in which further investigations 
 most wisely might be made. 
 
 Let me turn from that to the next point of deep interest 
 that cornes to us with regard to the Fire — ^an aspect of the fire 
 towards man — and the connection of the generating fire in the 
 kosmos with that which is the root of life in the heart of the 
 ■individual. Turn to the Mundakopanishad — I think it is the 
 beginning of the second division — -you will find the statement 
 that "as from a blazing fire in a thousand ways similar 
 
32 
 
 sparks proceed, so, O beloved, are produced living souls of 
 various kinds from the indestructible One."* What is the 
 real meaning of that sloka ? It is from fire, which we have 
 already seen as the central force in kosmos, that are thrown 
 out sparks in every direction when the blazing- fire has reach- 
 ed the stage of flame. The word " blazing" implies the stage 
 of flame, for it is only where the fire has begun to blaze that 
 you have flame, and that is the note of the third of the 
 Logoi. But the third of the Logoi is Mahat, that is, it is 
 intelligence in its very essence ; and so we may learn that it 
 is from Brahman as intelligefice that these sparks are thrown 
 out which are found within every atom of the kosmos, so 
 that there might be nothing in the kosmos which is to be 
 builded which would not have in it the essence of the Divine 
 Life. The spark which is thrown out is the A'tma of the atom, 
 — which you must remember is not confined to man — , 
 the Self not of men alone, but of all beings, the innermost 
 essence of the atom as much as the innermost essence of the 
 highest manifested god : for the universe once more is one, 
 and the spark which is thrown outward from the blazing fire, is 
 at the root of everything that appears in manifestation, so that 
 the grain of sand — nay the atoms which compose the grain 
 of sand — has A tma as its essence, and the A'kas'a as the 
 form ; which, binding as it were the outgoing ray from A'tma, 
 makes manifestation by limitation and introduces the prin- 
 ciple of division into the one. As these sparks fly outwards 
 you have what is called in the " Secret Doctrine" a " fiery 
 whirlwind" — a most expressive phrase — and this whirlwind 
 passing outwards into space carries ever with it the essence 
 of the one Fire or the one Life. And as this whirlwind is 
 breaking forth, there are diff'erences in the nature of the 
 sparks which are evolved, not in their essential nature, but 
 in that which they bring with them into manifestation. 
 
 And here is hidden one of the greatest of the mysteries, 
 the deepest of the mysteries, of the Occult teaching, to which 
 I must lead you up step by step ; otherwise it will be dif- 
 ficult for some of you at least to follow the thought, if you 
 have not looked beneath the letter of the Sacred Books and 
 
 *Mundaka, II, i. 2, 
 
33 
 
 tried by a comparison of different passages to find out the 
 hidden meaning that vmites them all into one. Follow me 
 step by step as I lead you to the heart of the mystery, which 
 I do not want to state at the outset, lest by suddenly stating 
 it, before leading you up to it, I should cause confusion of 
 thought which might be difficult to unravel. Conceive the 
 spark coming forth as the spark of the fiery whirlwind ; con- 
 ceive then that it is A'tma, and that the ray from this A'tma 
 is cut off, as I said, by the A'kas'a, is separated, so that 
 although fundamentally one — A'tma is one, and in its one- 
 ness lies the hope of our liberation — still in manifestation it 
 becomes separated, as it were, not from its own standpoint, 
 which is the point from which all the radiating rays are seen 
 as one, but from the other side of manifestation, looked at 
 not immediately as the light, but as the A'kas'a that veils 
 light, and by limiting each ray makes separation, where, essen- 
 tially, separation there is none. That is, looked at from within, 
 the universe is but one ; looked at from the universe the uni- 
 verse is manifold, because it is not seen from the standpoint 
 of A'tma. It is as though you stood in the central Sun, and 
 saw along each ray, so that every part of the illuminated land- 
 scape would come to the eye through all these different rays 
 which, standing in the centre, are seen as one light ; but if you 
 were out in the landscape, looking back along the ray, then 
 there would be many rays around you, and you could not see 
 through any ray save your own. Still you would see the 
 same Sun, for all rays spread outward from the one, and in 
 that fashion there is unity in the centre while there is impossi- 
 bility of recognizing that unity so long as you are at the cir- 
 cumference of this mighty circle, and see as it were but along 
 one of the rays that lead back to the centre of the whole. 
 Now keeping that thought in mind for a moment, let us take 
 the next step. Every atom has A'tma, now called Jiva, and 
 in this sense of the term it is separate from the standpoint 
 of the manifested individual, and no longer from the stand- 
 point of the manifested All. This is illusion, this is Maya, 
 which we cannot transcend, and which makes the universe 
 in a very real sense illusory ; for seeing with a vision that 
 deceives us, seeing these separate rays in manifestation, we 
 fail to see the unity from which they spring, and so we often 
 
 S 
 
34 
 
 find used an expression which you should no longer misunder- 
 stand, where it is said that each atom has its A'tma, not as 
 implying fundamental separation, but only separation in mani- 
 festation. Having reached that standpoint, let us realize that 
 there is now in this manifesting whirlwind of sparks a difference 
 in nature which seems at first incomprehensible. Some of them 
 are, as it were, living flames — conscious and intelligent ; out 
 into this Manifesting Universe which is building they come 
 as Devas. They are intelligences which have reached a high 
 point of spiritual development, and are far less bounded than 
 the men who are to come into existence later. So that we 
 find that at this early stage of manifestation there is, as it were, 
 a whirlwind of these sparks that manifest high intelligence, 
 so that they will be able to act as living agents of creative 
 energy, and build the kosmos under this co-ordinating and 
 controlling force. Thus amongst the first manifestations are 
 these manifestations of the Devas, those that are spoken of 
 under so many names as Indra, Vayu, and so on ; those that 
 our Orientalists say in their ignorance are "personified powers 
 of Nature," personified in an infant civilization, personified by 
 the child-thought of man, which, taking the external pheno- 
 mena in Nature, such as air and sky and light, called them 
 Vayu, Indra and Agni and worshipped them as gods ! Looked 
 at from the true standpoint it is not that the infant mind of 
 man personified phenomena in Nature. It is that from the 
 Supreme come out these sparks of fire which are living intel- 
 ligences, which come out from Him long before an infant 
 humanity has been born into the world at all, to build for that 
 future humanity the kosmos that shall be. And though it is 
 said in the West that the folly of the untrained thinker, of 
 infant humanity, personifies natural forces, what is really 
 true is this : that these Devas are behind every phenomenal 
 appearance, and are the intelligences that guide everything 
 that we recognize as natural laws. They are entities. They are 
 real existences separated off from the one A'tma in the sense I 
 have ascribed to the word separation, in order that they may 
 build a Universe and make that universe intelligent from centre 
 to circumference. Phenomena in Nature — what are they? 
 They are the outer appearances of the Devas, and the Deva 
 is at the heart of the phendmenon ; as manifestation pro- 
 
35 
 
 ceeds more and more, all those in lower and lower grades 
 are gradually evolved, until you get a hierarchy. The 
 lowest appearance that you have on earth is only an illusory 
 covering of the A'tma, so that the soul well trained and dev- 
 eloped, in that it is one with the creative force, can manipu- 
 late what we call matter as it chooses, because it can control 
 these intelligences of which matter is only an outer garment, 
 and can stand as the manifested God when once it has over- 
 come the illusions of matter that surround it. 
 
 And tracing onwards this great hierarchy the question 
 arises — and here comes our difficulty — Why this difference 
 in the manifesting sparks ? — Why, as they spring forth from 
 the blazing fire, does one appear as Deva ? Why another as a 
 lower grade of Deva ? Why another as the centre round which 
 a man is builded ? Why another as the centre of a grain of 
 sand ? Why others as the centres of the atoms of which the 
 grain of sand is builded? How in that unity that you have 
 spoken of is there this possibility of difference in manifestation ? 
 That there is the fact of difference is the first thing to realize. 
 Devas, men, animals, vegetables, minerals, elemental forces 
 — these surround us and the difference is clear. The Sons of 
 Light that we read of are the higher Devas, — as I said are the 
 builders of the kosmos ; but we read in the sacred books of 
 some who are called the Sons of Fire. Who are the Sons of 
 Fire? They are the instructors of infant humanity — those 
 that I spoke of yesterday as teaching the infant race — as 
 giving them their Vedas — as giving them all their sacred 
 scriptures, as guiding them in their first efforts towards 
 civilization, as being in a very real sense the teachers of men. 
 What then are they ? They are flames which have clearly 
 brought out with them into this stage of manifestation that 
 highly developed intelligence which enables them to become 
 instructors of others, who are the sparks thrown out that have 
 become incarnated in average men. It is men in incarnation, 
 it is between Kumaras and men that some strange difference 
 is suggested. Is it possible that we can discover what it 
 means ? Cycles of manifestations, comings and goings of 
 the Great Breath, Light that rebecomes Darkness, Darkness 
 that re-emerges as Light, souls that have become differen- 
 tiated in matter and men that climb upwards to their 
 
36 
 
 source, and are liberated. They go " never to return," it is 
 said. If they never return, why these differences in Manvar- 
 taras such as our own ? Herein comes a point of secret 
 teaching which has been much lost siuht of, secret because 
 in their letter only of the published works, the truth is con- 
 cealed, not expressed. For what says the Upanishad of 
 Brahman ? " He is concealed in the Upanishads, that are 
 concealed in the Vedas."* If you want to find Brahman, 
 you must go beneath the words of the Upanishads that are 
 written and find the secret meaning that underlies them. 
 There the necessity for the Guru comes in. Therefore it 
 was said that if a man was to find Brahman, he must seek 
 and get the great (teachers) and attend,! for the mere word 
 of the Upanishad itself would not reveal God, that was 
 hidden ; and it needed the Flame that had developed in order 
 that the spark might burn upwards and itself become a 
 Flame. And so let us seek the secret meaning which under- 
 lies the words " never returns." The spark in man develops 
 (I use the word " man," meaning average humanity), that 
 spark develops by tapas — by burning. By what burning ? By 
 the fire of knowledge. That is the rea Imeaning of tapas, 
 and in this " austerity," as it is translated constantly into 
 English, there is action of knowledge that burns and that 
 purifies ; and as it burns, it burns the outer sheaths of the man 
 in which denser ignorance has its seats ; and as one after 
 another is burnt by the fire of knowledge, the flame becomes 
 more manifest and begins to recognize its own nature. And 
 this spark that was smothered in matter becomes the flame 
 that has liberated itself from matter, and when liberation is 
 complete the flame becomes one with its source. If you 
 take many flames and bring them together there is only 
 one flame as they touch ; for the substance is one and 
 the division between each is lost. But let me go further 
 with this illustration, and following out that thought, 
 you may conceive the truth Very dimly — you cannot con- 
 ceive it clearly until you have been it, for you know 
 nothing until you become it, you understand nothing until 
 you are one with it. Human knowledge is separation, but 
 
 * Svetashvataropanishad, V, 6. 
 t Kat hopanishad I, iii, 14. 
 
37 
 
 divine wisdom is unity, and it is only as the outside form of 
 the flame disappears that it becomes merged in the One. It 
 has not been lost. It has gained infinitely by the many flames 
 that have rebecome one flame — -and that is liberation. The 
 loss of limitation which separates you, and the widening out 
 into all knowledge — infinite knowledge which has no limita- 
 tion — is the essence of knowledge itself. But is that "for- 
 ever" in the full sense of the term ? It " never returns" from 
 Nirvana ? Those of you who have studied deeply in the light 
 which is thrown on this by those who know, you will have 
 learnt that cycle after cycle is taken as limit, and that each 
 period of non-manifestation is correlated with the manifesta- 
 tion that precedes it and follows it. As you have day and 
 night taken as symbols of manifestation and non-manifesta- 
 tion, so you have planetary manifestation and absorption, 
 and planetary re-emergence and absorption again, and again 
 planetary re-emergence, until the time comes for the solar 
 system to pass into non-manifestation. But that is correlated 
 with the length of the solar system, and it again re-emerges, 
 having been suspended in manifestation, and brings over to 
 the next manifestation everything which was gathered in the 
 preceding. And just as you learn a lesson in a day and, 
 unconscious of that lesson in the night but the knowledge 
 remaining, when you wake up in the morning you carry with 
 you the knowledge which has been acquired ; just as the 
 planet passing through its period of Pralaya brings back to 
 its next manifestation all that in the previous one it had 
 gained ; just as the solar system with its long life passing into 
 its long period of non-manifestation re-emerges once more on 
 a higher plane and becomes the solar system of a higher 
 type, so when you deal with a kosmos as a whole, with 
 the Manvantara in the fullest sense of the term and the Pra- 
 laya that succeeds it, so that all flames have become one and 
 no longer there is differentiation, there is still a thread of fire 
 connecting each flame, and when differentiation is to begin 
 the action is on these threads of fire that, slowly passing on- 
 wards, bring with them the flame from out the One, and they 
 come out with this thread of individuality which even Pra- 
 layas or Nirvanas of varying lengths cannot destroy. The 
 pne and the all have come back into manifestation, and the 
 
38 
 
 differences in those emerging sparks are differences which in 
 the previous Manvantaras have been gradually developed and 
 have been preserved even in the apparent destruction. The 
 " never" means the length of the cycle. The " never" does 
 not mean going absolutely out, though I have no words by 
 which I can do anything more than make you understand 
 the sense inaccurately that I am trying to convey. If it 
 were only possible to find a word which would imply a state 
 which is no state at all, and which I can only symbolize by tak- 
 ing' this image of the union of the many flames into the one, 
 and yet the possibility of withdrawal and of each plane bring- 
 ing out individually its karma ; merged in the central fire, but 
 what has been called the golden thread persisting, and so pre- 
 serving to the Nirvani the possibility of future growth ! For 
 the life of Brahman is not as the life of man. His life is 
 made up of infinite lives that it generates, and each of which 
 is but as the wink of an eye to that life which is eternal ; and 
 though as he out-breathes he breathes out the flames, and 
 though as he in-breathes he breathes the flames in once more, 
 still to Him it is but as the wink of an eyelid ; and what to 
 us is millions of years, is to him but the shortest space that 
 we can imagine. What from that standpoint can be Nirvana 
 or separation of consciousness ? What from that standpoint 
 can mean our words of Manvantara and Pralaya ? It is the 
 infinite fire sending out its flames into space and gathering 
 them back into its bosom again, and again sending them out 
 in ceaseless undulations, hence the possibility in each suc- 
 cessive cycle of diverging manifestations ; for each brings back 
 into the next Manvantara whatever it has gathered in the 
 endless Manvantaras behind. And so we begin to understand 
 that as consciousness can pass into the Turiya state and 
 then return into limitation, so this infinite consciousness 
 of the kosmos may pass inward and then embody itself once 
 more ; and that as we do not lose experience but bring it 
 back into manifestation as we return, so what is true in 
 miniature may be true in some transcendent sense of the inde- 
 structible One, and his eternal life may in some sense grow 
 richer by the innumerable experiences of innumerable Man- 
 vantaras. This ever growing evolution to us means growth ; 
 — what it means to Him, none but himself can know ! 
 
39 
 
 Now see how in your own scriptures, there are hints 
 thrown out of that myster)-, how you are told of one who is 
 to be the Indra of the next Manvantara, how you are told of 
 one overshadowed by Vishnu, who after the overshadowing 
 passed away entered another stage of consciousness, and 
 will reappear in another Manvantara as the guiding force of 
 that. So you begin to catch the meaning when you read in 
 the scripture how some great devotees disappeared beneath 
 the waters, and remained on the bed of the ocean in meditation 
 for ten thousand years and then came back to populate the 
 earth.* What are all these but efforts of teachers to make 
 you understand, if you will develope the intuition to listen, 
 the inner meaning of these symbols, of these nights and days, 
 these recurrent periods of activity and meditation ; for Pra- 
 Idya is the meditation of the whole, and then, out of the 
 waters it comes back to populate the kosmos. So are the 
 worlds peopled by the command of Brahmd to some of 
 his sons to go forth and give its population to the earth ; 
 for ever in Brahma, the third Logos, there is the compelling 
 Word which seads out evolved children of his. These sons 
 of Brahma, these Rishis by whom the work of creation is to 
 be done, must come from somewhere, and you cannot have 
 creation save where there has been slow building upwards 
 beforehand. Those whom to-day we speak of as the instruc- 
 tors of the Present, in the next Manvantara will have gone 
 onward to systems far higher than the planetary systems 
 which we know ; while the victors of the present Humanity, 
 those who are now evolving the spark into flame, those 
 who by tapas, by the fire of knowledge, are burning up igno- 
 rance and are becoming living flames, they in the next Man- 
 vantara will come forth as the Sons of Fire — no longer as mere 
 sparks thrown outwards, but developed flames, who are able 
 to build up and to instruct future races. 
 
 And now coming back from this I would venture to sug- 
 gest to each of you who comes here with the desire to learn — 
 not merely to find amusement, — I would venture to suggest to 
 any such amongst you — for there will be at least two or three 
 such who come — that you will do well to take that thought 
 
 * See also Brahma Sutras, Adhyaya III, Pada iii, Sutra 32, with 
 S'ri Sankarachdrya's commentary thereon. 
 
40 
 
 and meditate on it for days and weeks and months, until to 
 you it becomes a reality, for there is no other way of getting 
 at the heart of things. You can only get the outer word 
 from me, though I have striven in what I have been saying, 
 to speak from mind to mind as well as from tongue to ear ; 
 you will only catch the full force of instruction and thought 
 if you will take it into your own heart and there meditate 
 upon it, evolving what is still concealed within. 
 
 Let us pass from that to the simpler question, which I 
 want to give now to the outer world and not to the inner — that 
 which is argument rather than food for meditation, still which 
 will be useful to you in the outer world into which we shall 
 have to go, and to which we should try to carry some light 
 from the inner thought. I said at the very outset that science 
 recognizing the identity of light and sound, you might find 
 it useful in the outside vindication of your scriptures to point 
 to many experiments which have been made in the scienti- 
 fic world, by which sound has been produced from light and 
 light has been produced from sound. For instance, it has 
 been discovered by some of our careful experimenters that if 
 you will take a mass of coloured substance, and throw upon it 
 different rays of light, some one ray will call sound from this 
 coloured mass, that you can literally in the physical universe 
 generate sound from colour, which is light ; putting the phy- 
 sical colour into a ball of glass and then throwing upon it 
 physical light, you will find that a low sound will be heard, 
 and so you will transmute a light-ray into a ray of sound. 
 This is an instructive experiment in the lower world which is 
 worth while to keep in mind. If you go to one who talks to 
 you jeeringly of the scriptures in his ignorance, you may 
 show him that in Western science they are coming back to 
 this notion of identity. Again, when you see in one of your 
 own books that when you want to communicate with the 
 lower Devas you must speak in colour and not in verbal lan- 
 guage, what does it mean ? It means, if you have learnt the 
 correlations of Sound and Colour, that what you say to the 
 human brain by means of spoken words which throw the 
 coarser air into motion, you speak to the more ethereal Deva 
 in colour, which throws the astral matter of which his body is 
 composed into vibration. So that what would be word on the 
 
41 
 
 physical plane is colour and light on the astral plane. If you want 
 to communicate with a Deva who has no sthula sarira, no visi- 
 ble body which answers to the heavier vibrations of the air, you 
 must understand how each sound has its colour, and when 
 you want to communicate, you must generate colour instead 
 of sound, for the language of the lower gods is the language 
 of colours, and colours to them convey what we call an articu- 
 late idea— idea on the mental plane. What speech is in the 
 physical world, colour is in the astral world. When you read 
 that Devas have been spoken to in the language of colours, 
 they will tell you " that is childish nonsense, '^ " foolish 
 superstition, there are no Devas, no language of colours ; you 
 are all very foolish and 30U are talking as in the childhood 
 of the race ; it is fetishism, and you use all these words 
 to cover your ignorance of reality." If they knew a little 
 more — they are beginning to learn — they would find that this 
 lang'uage of colours is a reality, and the first step has been 
 taken in this experiment in Paris, when throwing light on 
 coloured objects, they obtained sound. 
 
 In clairvoyance, or clear vision, when a note is sounded, 
 a colour is seen ; that is in the experience of everj' one who 
 has developed the astral sense of sight. Many people are deve- 
 loping it in the West today. There is a strange thing I have 
 not heard of in India, that is found in Egypt. It is possible 
 that it may not be familiar to you that some of the ancient books 
 in Egypt were written in colours, not in the forms of letters 
 as we have in the Sanskrit, which is the very language of the 
 Gods. Many Egyptian books, which were meant for study by 
 occult disciples, were not written in characters as we should 
 say, but were written in colours ; the understanding of them 
 among the ancient Egyptians came to them from their great 
 priest-initiates, who really were great adepts like the adepts 
 of India. It is a significant thing that whenever a sacred book 
 was ordered to be transcribed, if the colours were in any way 
 altered, the transcriber was punished with death. In later 
 times they only knew that this use of colour was a custom 
 which had come down to them from the great Priest. They 
 kept up the custom when the meaning that underlay the cus- 
 tom had passed away^ The real meaning was, that whereas 
 the outsider read the written forms, the adept read the colours; 
 that which conveyed one meaning by the letters, conveyed to 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 the occult disciple another meaning by the colour which each 
 letter had ; so that they might publish a book which would to 
 those who were uninitiated convey knowledge which was sim- 
 ply written or spoken, but the adept taking it and reading it, 
 had given to him that which was knowledge confined to the 
 occultists, for he read colours and not shapes, and each succes- 
 sive letter in its own colour had to him an occult meaning. 
 Thus the secrets of antiquity were preserved for each initiate, 
 who was able, when he passed his initiation^ to take over this 
 ancient knowledge and have it as his own ; and that still 
 exists, although of course still hidden. And the language of 
 colours is one of the stages of the training : when the student, 
 the disciple, reads in colours and gains his teaching by different 
 colour sensations, he learns to utilize them for the control of 
 those forces that are known as Devas in our literature. So 
 again you will find it written of the seven-tongued fire — the 
 seven tongues of flame — which man has to understand. Turn 
 to the Prasnopanishad, in which you will find the description of 
 the life dividing itself into the vital airs. There it is said of one 
 of these that it has seven flames.* If, then, you turn to the 
 Mundakopanishad, you will have "seven flickering tongues 
 of the fire," each of which has its own name, and if you read 
 those names you will find several of their names are colours.! 
 That gives you the key to the understanding if you will take 
 the passage and meditate on it, instead of trying to reach it 
 by intellectual argumentation ; for the key to that passage is 
 in the colour of the flames, and the fact that the life distributes 
 them over the body is a symbol to convey to your thought 
 this hidden meaning, that life, Prana, is the active force of 
 that A'tma which has seven powers and becomes a sevenfold 
 force in man. Each tongue of fire becomes one of the "prin- 
 ciples" in man, and when these are reunited in the heart, then 
 the one flame of A'tma has been reached. 
 
 And so I might take you through much of symbolism, 
 through the symbolism of the household and other fires that 
 ought to be familiar to every thoughtful man amongst you ; 
 for why are the twice-born to study the Vedas ? Certainly 
 not only that they may be able to repeat sloka after sloka ; 
 the daily stud)- of the Veda — which is the duty of every 
 
 * Frasna, iii, 3—5. i Mundaka^ i, II, 4. 
 
43 
 
 twice-born, surely ought to mean that in the study, lcnow» 
 ledge shall come ; when he reads of the five fires that the 
 household fires symbolize in his house, that he should know 
 something of what they mean and be reminded of some of 
 the hidden facts — for why is the one fire kept lighted always, 
 and from that one others are to be lighted ? Why may it 
 only to be lighted by the bride and the bridegroom, and never 
 be extinguished so long as they both remain in this earthly 
 life? It is the ancient ideal of Hindu marriage. It is recog- 
 nition of the fact in the spiritual world that when the two re- 
 become one, when the dual aspects of nature typified in man 
 and woman are to be re-united, they are to form one spirit, 
 and it is only as they unite that they become fire ; so the outer 
 fire lighted by the two is the symbol of the union of the spirit 
 that makes them one, not in order that they may find sensual 
 gratification, but in order that they may become that Praja- 
 pati, the creator of the future world. That is the Hindii ideal 
 of marriage — the noblest ideal of marriage that the world 
 has ever known. No matter how much it may have become 
 degraded, how much it may have fallen, that it is which un- 
 derlies the idea of marriage in youth before the passions are 
 awake, that the body may not have a share in this union of 
 the souls and spirits. That was the great truth on which the 
 custom was builded, and the custom has survived where the 
 knowledge has disappeared. For all men's spirits coming into 
 re-incarnation come for spiritual growth, and not for mere 
 sensual gratification ; and the spirits that were to be joined 
 together were not to come together by the impulses of pas- 
 sion in youth, that speak through the senses and not through 
 the spirit, and draw bodies together, no matter how little 
 affinity there may be between the souls that are within them. 
 Therefore the horoscope was studied, which threw light on 
 the nature of the life that lay before the incarnating spirit. 
 Therefore that was made the foundation of marriage union, 
 and therefore there is a symbolic act in your marriage to-day, 
 that when the bride and bridegroom are to see each other, 
 there is a screen dropped between them so that only the eyes of 
 one may meet the eyes of the other, for in the eye is the dwelling 
 place of the spirit, and it is that which should speak from the one 
 to the other, and no other magnetism should then pass be- 
 tween them. That is the ideal that underlay your ancient insti- 
 tution of marriag'e, and therefore they lighted together the fire 
 
44 
 
 which was the symbol of spiritual union, and therefore it is 
 again that that fire must never be extinguished while the spirits 
 remained joined outwardly and within. And therefore if the 
 wife died first, the husband gave to her the fire that she 
 might carry it onwards into the world on the other side of 
 death, that she might come back to him with the fire in her 
 hands, that is, as spirit, and he might recognize it on the 
 other side of death and know it was his own, and that there 
 also the two souls were one. Now that is the symbolism that 
 underlay the holiest of all ideals of marriage, the marriage at 
 which the West of to-day is scoffing, and which some of the 
 younger amongst you, blinded by your ignorance, would de- 
 grade to the lower ideal of the West, instead of purifying it 
 again into the ancient ideal, thus giving back to India what 
 India once had — men and women whom you cannot parallel 
 to-day, women like those who stand in our ancient literature, 
 noblest and purest and most glorious types of womanhood, — 
 types that you cannot find in the records of any other people, 
 even in those pictures of imagination that are drawn by the 
 inspiration of the poet and by the dream of the enthusiast. 
 
 Thus you might get the meaning out of the fires so familiar 
 to you all ; thus you might learn of the fires that teach you 
 the method of reincarnation ; thus you might learn how every 
 symbol means something to the soul that can see. And so, 
 Brothers, I leave with you for your own thought that which 
 in this discourse has been so imperfectly expressed ; and I 
 leave it with the prayer for you and for myself that those 
 Supreme Ones who are the fires of the Kosmos, from whom 
 we have sprung and to whom we return, that we — that are but 
 sparks that would become flames — may by aspiration go 
 upwards towards them, and that as the flame in our own heart 
 kindles it may kindle again the fire in other souls. Then in 
 our land of India, the great Gods looking downward shall 
 once more see the fires ascending towards heaven, not the 
 household fires which remain as symbol, but that fire of the 
 spirit which, aspiring upwards towards Their Feet, shall draw 
 us upwards towards them, and make India again what she 
 should be— the very hght of the world, and the child of the 
 Gods. Aye ! her ancient people shall be the children of the Gods 
 once more, and when love shall be burning in each heart as fire, 
 the whole will flame upward to their throne. 
 
YOGA. 
 
YOGA. 
 
 Brothers, — In all ages, under every civilization, found 
 within the limits of each religion, there has been an upward 
 yearning of the spirit of man — an attempt to find union with 
 the Divine. It matters not what the special form of religion 
 to which the devotee may belong ; it matters not under what 
 particular name he may worship Deity ; it matters not, so far 
 as the inner struggle is concerned, in what way he may try to 
 express or to carry out these longings. The significant fact 
 is that the yearning is there, a constant witness to the world 
 of the reality of the spirit, a constant witness of the truth of 
 the spiritual life ; the only witness, if you speak with accu- 
 racy, of the existence of the Divine, either in the universe or 
 in man. For just as water will find its way through every 
 obstruction, in order to rise to the level of its source, so does 
 the spirit in man strive upwards ever towards the source 
 whence it came. Had it not come from the Divine, it would 
 not seek to rise to the Divine. Were it not that it is the off- 
 spring of Deity, it would not strive to re-unite itself with 
 Deity ; and the very fact that the yearning exists, the very 
 fact that eff'orts, however ignorant, are made to realize it, is 
 the constant and the perpetual witness of the Divine origin 
 of man, is the perpetual proof of that which we were studying 
 yesterday, that the spark may re-become the flame ; being the 
 flame in its origin, it may expand again into flame, no matter 
 how cramped it has been within the limits of manifestation. 
 
 Now the word Yoga, as every one knows, means "union." 
 It expresses in a single term everything which the spirit can 
 desire ; for in this word " union" is implied everything ; as 
 everythingcomes from the Divine, so union with the Divine 
 means possession of everything — all knowledge, all strength, 
 all purity, all love ; and the one word which implies that 
 union marks the highest aspiration which is possible for man. 
 I have said this aspiration is found in every religion. Take 
 one of the most modern of religions, that which is pre- 
 valent in the West under the name of Christianity, and 
 you will find there exactly the same attempt towards union 
 
48 
 
 that you will find carried out so methodically in the most 
 ancient of all religions, the Hindii. The great difference 
 between the two is in the method. You have the aspi- 
 ration in Christianity, you have not, as a rule, the training ; 
 although it is true that within the limits of a single body in the 
 Roman Catholic Church there is some distinct knowledge as 
 to the methods whereby union may be sought. But taking 
 Christianity as a whole, you have aspiration, rather than sus- 
 tained and deliberate effort. Yet still in reading the lives of 
 the saints, as they are called, you will find from time to time 
 descriptions of a state being reached, which any one amongst 
 you, who has studied the matter, would recognize as identical 
 with the state known to us as that of Samadhi, where consci- 
 ousness passes upward or rather inward, out of the normal and 
 into the divine. And although that be obtained as it were by 
 the sheer force of devotion, it is still a testimony that under 
 each religion there is the possibility of union ; as indeed we 
 might expect to find, when we remember that all spirits are 
 essentially one, no matter how much they may be divided by 
 differences of birth-place or by difference of religion. And 
 this, it seems to me, is important ; important because it testifies 
 continually to the unity that underlies different faiths, and 
 because it tends to break down the wall of separation, which is 
 such a barrier as far as spirituality is concerned, while it is, 
 to some extent, inevitable as long as we remain purely in the 
 intellectual sphere. 
 
 But what I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter 
 of argument and of experience, is that the enormous advan- 
 tage of the Hindii religion isthat Yoga is understood in method 
 as well as in object. It is not only that what the Christian 
 calls the " beatific vision" is desired, but it is that the method 
 whereby that vision may be reached is taught, so that the 
 man of the world may, to a great extent, learn the steps which, 
 taken in this life, may in a future incarnation make possible 
 for him an advance in Yoga ; while those that are prepared for 
 further advance may, by gaining special instruction, learn step 
 by step that which will take them onwards to the Divine. 
 
 Now it is clear that in a lecture like this, which to all 
 intents and purposes is a public lecture, it is clear that the 
 inner side of Yoga must be left practically untouched. Yoga, 
 in the strictest sense of the term, is never taught, save from 
 
49 
 
 mind to mind, from Guru to shishya ; it is not a matter for 
 tiie platform, it is not a matter for discussion. Discussion 
 has no place in true Yoga. Discussion belongs to the intel- 
 lect not to the spirit ; and Yoga is a matter of the spirit and 
 not of intellect. So far as the preliminary stages go, we can 
 deal with them from the platform ; but the inner heart of Yoga 
 is only for those who having realised that spiritual truth 
 is attainable, have set their whole heart on the discovery 
 and who go to learn it, not as controversialists into the 
 intellectual arena, not as disputants who think themselves as 
 good as the one to whom they nominally go as teacher, 
 but who are willing to go to the more highly advanced in 
 spiritual matters to learn in silence and in submission, grateful 
 for every ray of light that comes to them, and challenge 
 not the light, because the spirit in them has caught a glimpse 
 of the source whence it comes. What I am going to try to 
 do this morning, is to show you the preliminary stages which 
 will gradually train a man to become capable of seeking 
 instruction in Yoga — to point out to you what you might 
 yourselves find out from your own S'astras as to the published 
 steps — if I may call them so — which lead up to the gate of the 
 temple ; but into the temple you must go alone to meet there 
 your teacher ; only the pathway which leads to that gate may 
 be shown to you, and you may begin to tread it whenever you 
 resolve to do so. Now in order that you may understand the 
 intellectual side of thisprocess of unioji,you need to understand 
 your own constitution. That is the first step. It is true 
 that the constitution of man to a very great extent only con- 
 sists of the instruments whereby he may find himself. None 
 the less must he be able to use these instruments ; otherwise 
 the preliminary steps cannot be taken, for, before you can 
 enter on the path at all, there are certain obstacles that have 
 to be overcome. And those obstacles lie in your own nature ; 
 they lie in the constitution of your own being. And these 
 external obstacles must be destroyed before any real progress 
 towards Yoga can be made. An understanding then — which 
 will be intellectual — of your own constitution is the first 
 step you have to take. In studying the constitution of man 
 you need to know it, first from the standpoint of theory and 
 then from that of practice. Because man's constitution may 
 
 7 
 
5° 
 
 be looked at according as he exists in relation to the differ- 
 ent regions of the universe, or according as he can practically 
 divide himself when he desires to investigate these regions. 
 These divisions may be different ; but you can learn how 
 they are correlated one to the other. The divisions are, as I 
 say, first theoretical and then practical. Now the fullest 
 theoretical division is that which you may know as the 
 sevenfold division in man that you may read in any ordinary 
 Theosophical book : you may trace it in your own S'astras, 
 but you will trace it with some difficulty. Because there 
 stress was laid rather on the fivefold division, that being the 
 division of man as he is at present developed, the two higher 
 stages being left out of account, inasmuch as man in his 
 average present condition cannot possibly reach them ; and 
 it was thought not desirable at that period to confuse the 
 mind by giving a division which could not be realisable in 
 thought. Hints, are however thrown out, so that those who 
 passed beyond the average state of man might be able to 
 seize the knowledge for which they had become ready ; and 
 so you will find suggestions, such as that I spoke of yester- 
 day, the " seven-tongued flame." So you will find sugges- 
 tions of seven vowel sounds ; so you will find that Agni is 
 drawn in a chariot with seven horses. So you will find that 
 the great serpent (more often spoken of as five-headed) is 
 occasionally spoken of as seven-headed. In this way you will 
 catch a hint from time to time of something beyond the five — 
 of that fivefold constitution typified by the pentacle, by the 
 letter M, by the Zodiacal of Makara, the crocodile — these will 
 hint to you that while you have these as practical reality 
 ever to learn, there is something beyond if you have the intui- 
 tion to follow the hints thus thrown out. 
 
 Now the sevenfold constitution takes A'tma as the Self, 
 which, gradually unfolding, runs outward through the suc- 
 cessive envelopes that are only differentiations of the A trnji. 
 Thus you get Buddhi, spoken of as the spiritual soul ; Manas, 
 spoken of as the rational or human soul ; Kama, spoken of as 
 the animal soul, which includes all passions and desires ; and 
 Prana, life-principle, circulating through the ethereal body, 
 which is unfortunately called Linga S arira — I say unfortu- 
 nately, because the same term has a different meaning in the 
 
51 
 
 Hindu scriptures. Lastly, the body itself, ths Sihula Sarha, 
 the physical and material outside portion of man. That gives 
 you the sevenfold division of man, or the six v^^ith A'tma as the 
 seventh; A'tma being really the whole, but differentiating itself 
 in its manifestation. " It willed, I will multiply." But come to 
 the division which will be more familiar to many of you, in 
 which man is regarded as A'tma, taking on itself five differ- 
 ent sheaths — an exceedingly luminous classification, because 
 in each case you have this conception of the sheath that veils 
 the true self; so that the real process of Yoga will be to get 
 rid of sheath after sheath until the Self stands alone once 
 more as it did at the beginning. According to this, you have 
 for the body the food-sheath, Annamaya Kosha ; you have 
 then, represented in the Theosophical category by the ethereal 
 body and Prana — because the ethereal body is only the vehicle 
 of Prana — you have the Prana Maya Kosha. Then you have the 
 double division which recognises the duality of Manas, as you 
 will find it taught in Theosophical books, and includes with 
 the lower Manas Kama, joining together that which after 
 death perishes, and that which passes onward to Devaloka. 
 So that you have the Manomaya Kosha, which includes Kamic 
 elements, includes passions and desires, and which takes part 
 in the formation of the body which lasts through the Kamalokic 
 existence. Next as sheath for the discriminative powers of 
 mind, copies the Vignanamaya Kosha, thus named from 
 Gnyanam, knowledge, with the prefix Vi, implying discrimi- 
 nation and analysis, a process of cutting and breaking up all 
 the separable portions of knowledge, so that it is essentially 
 discriminative knowledge ; thus it is occasionally used to cover 
 over the sixty-four sciences, which are classed together under 
 that name. This Kosha then includes what the Theosophist 
 calls Manas, this discriminative faculty in man, without the 
 argumentative side which belongs to Lower Manas. Then you 
 get the last of the sheaths, the Bliss-sheath — A'nandamaya 
 Kosha — which is Buddhi — for Buddhi is essentially bliss. 
 
 Suppose instead of this classification, which deals with 
 man as a sixfold entity, you want to know how man is going 
 to deal with himself when he wants to investigate the differ- 
 ent regions of the universe, you find you cannot divide him 
 in this sevenfold or sixfold fashion. The sheaths are not all 
 
52 
 
 divisible the one from another. You have to take the divi- 
 sion which is only triple. Man can only be divided into three 
 for all practical purposes of Yoga. There are but three Upa- 
 dhis in which these different principles or sheaths can work ; 
 there is the lowest which is spoken of as Sthulopadhi, that 
 includes the physical body, but is itself essentially ethereal, 
 because the physical body can be left out of account in this 
 matter ; it has neither part nor lot save that of an obstruction 
 that has to be gotten rid of. The real sense-organs lie in the 
 ethereal body, and the outer casings only appear in the physi- 
 cal body, which to us seems so real. Then you have the 
 Sukshmopadhi or the subtle Upadhi that is sometimes de- 
 scribed as Linga S'arira, or Linga Deha. It was for this reason 
 that I said it was unfortunate that in the Theosophical nomen- 
 clature this name is applied to a lower Upadhi, the astral or 
 ethereal body. This Sukshmopadhi is the vehicle for the Karmic 
 and the Manasic principles, and it is in this Upadhi that the 
 consciousness can make itself practically acquainted with the 
 whole of the psychic plane. Then there is the Karanopa- 
 dhi, which is the sheath really of A'tma in Buddhi-manas, 
 and answers to the A'nandamayakosha, the permanent body 
 in which what we call the immortal Triad lives throughout 
 the Manvantara. These are the three practical divisions for 
 Yoga, and they are correlated to the three planes of the 
 manifested universe ; the Astral plane, of which the physi- 
 cal is only, so to speak, the outer manifestation, so that for 
 practical purposes the physical and astral may be regarded 
 as one. To that the Sthulopadhi belongs. Then there is the 
 psychic plane of the universe ; that includes the range of 
 passions and desires and also of intellect. To that Suksh- 
 mopadhi belongs. Then there is the region above it — the 
 spiritual plane ; to that Karanopadhi belongs. So that these 
 three Upadhis are correlated to the three regions of the uni- 
 verse — Astral plus physical — the two as one ; Psychic — higher 
 and lower ; Spiritual — the highest. And the practical division 
 is chosen for Yoga, because the consciousness may dwell in 
 any one of these three planes, and in any one it must have a 
 
 body, so to speak — a vehicle perhaps is a better word 
 
 in which it may dwell. Yoga is not possible save by 
 the existence of these Upadhis in which the consciousness 
 
S3 
 
 may work in the three great planes of the manifested kos- 
 mos. Yoga brings about the development of these Upadhis 
 and their reduction under the control of the Self, so that it 
 may dwell in one or in the other, may experience the differ- 
 ent planes, may unify the whole. For the process of manifes- 
 tation of the Universe is but for the development of this, unify- 
 ing consciousness ; the universe exists, it is said in the 
 scriptures, for the sake of the soul. All is good karma that 
 pleases Is' vara, all is bad karma that is displeasing to him. 
 For I's'vara is bv;t the term for the Supreme Spirit, which is 
 one with the spirit in man. Therefore these Upadhis are 
 developed, in order that in their development perfect union 
 may be secured, and the spirit may traverse at will every 
 plane of the universe, and have in every plane of conscious- 
 ness the knowledge which belongs separately to each. That 
 understanding then is necessary for our work. 
 
 Now comes the question, how are these planes and these 
 Upadhis correlated with what are called states of conscious- 
 ness or conditions of A'tmii ? You will find in your S'astras 
 different terms applied according as the subject is taken up 
 from the standpoint of the A'tma and the conditions that it 
 assumes, or according as it is studied from without as a state 
 of consciousness. Studying states .of consciousness you 
 have the three stages, waking, dreaming, deep sleeping ; or, 
 to use the technical terms, Jagraia, which is the normal con- 
 sciousness of normal waking life ; Svapna, which is the state 
 of consciousness in what we call dream ; and Sushupti, the 
 sleep beyond dream — the dreamless sleep we call it. There 
 is indeed a fourth, the Turiya state, but that is not a state 
 of consciousness in manifestation. That is the widening out 
 of the limited consciousness into the all. And therefore it 
 lies beyond this question of vehicles, for in that A'tma exists 
 as A'tma. It has thrown off every sheath until it has found 
 itself. As long as we are dealing with the Upadhis, with 
 sheaths, we have the three without the Turiya state ; no 
 condition remains in the Turiya state. Man may reach it, but 
 he carries thither no vehicle. It is the state of liberation. It 
 is the state which is entered by the Jivanmukta ; but the Jiva 
 either passes finally onwards out of all vehicles, or passing into 
 it as Jiva, pure and simple, returns to the vehicle on leaving it j 
 
54 
 
 the vehicle cannot be carried into it ; for it is beyond limitation ; 
 it is the One and the All. Now turn to the Mandukyopanishad, 
 that one which is so short but is so priceless ; if you will take 
 it and meditate upon it and so find its inner meaning. There 
 you read not of states of consciousness but of conditions of 
 A'tma. First comes Vaisvanara, correlated to the waking 
 state, for in that A'tma cognizes the external world. You 
 are told it is in contact with external bodies, that is the 
 nature of this condition. It is then of course in the Sthulo- 
 padhi, the lowest of the three vehicles. It passes out of that 
 into the state of splendour, that is the Taijasa condition. In 
 that it studies the internal objects, you are told. The Upa- 
 dhi for this is the Sukshmopadhi ; it dwells in the inner world. 
 It passes once more out of that into the state of knowledge, 
 Pragna ; then it is said that knowledge is uniform ; then it 
 is said that its nature is Bliss, its mouth is Knowledge. 
 
 A most significant and luminous statement, worthy of 
 your careful consideration. Its nature Bliss ; that implies 
 the presence of the A'nandamaya Kos a. Its mouth 
 Knowledge ; that implies, if )'ou will tljink of it, the sug- 
 gestion of the presence of that which may become, but is 
 not, the spoken word ; the potentiality of the speech with- 
 out the speaking, for speech belongs to the lower plane. Its 
 mouth is knowledge : the mouth is there, but the nature is 
 bliss ; when the A'tma comes outwards from that state, then 
 it passes downward into the realm of speech, and the mouth 
 may utter the spoken word, but there is no word on that 
 plane. There is the potentiality of sound, but not the sound 
 itself. And then there is the fourth. Of that fourth there is 
 nothing said save negatives, for it is indescribable. It is 
 A'tma in itself, Brahman in itself. It is the sacred Word as 
 one ; no longer as the separated letters. You are given the 
 three letters. A, U, M ; each of these being correlated to a 
 condition of the A tma ; finally the one sounded word is 
 spoken ; because the A'tma has re-become the one and no 
 separation of letters can then exist. So, see even by that 
 outward explanation how much there is of teaching in the 
 printed book. And that is only the outer explanation. You 
 have to find out for yourselves what underlies suggestion 
 after suggestion ; but taking it in that form it puts you on 
 
55 
 
 the way towards Yoga, for it gives you the three stages, the 
 three steps, the three conditions of the A'tma. 
 
 And the practical way of realizing those ? Of that also 
 we may learn something ; although not much when we are 
 dealing with it in a fashion so imperfect as the present. Now 
 let us seek the preparatory stages to make all this theoreti- 
 cal knowledge practical to some extent, at least so far as to 
 make it possible, as I said in the beginning, for the man liv- 
 ing in the world with household duties, social duties, and 
 national duties, to prepare himself for the real life. This 
 at least we may take into consideration, with a few hints of 
 what lies beyond. Clearly it will be impossible for a man 
 to spring from the average life of men into the practice 
 of real Yoga. To do that would only mean inevitable 
 failure ; for although intense desire might carry a man into the 
 beginning of it, there would never be the tenacity which would 
 hold through the shocks which follow the first enthusiastic 
 springing forward into the inner life. You cannot make a 
 sudden step without an equally sudden re-action. You cannot 
 spring high without the shock of re-descending to the earth. 
 Therefore the wisdom of the ancient sages did not permit a 
 man to enter straightway into the ascetic life. It was for- 
 bidden save in the exceptional case where an advanced soul 
 came into re-incarnation, and from birth or earliest childhood 
 special capacities were seen. The ordinary life was a carefully 
 graduated life, in which a man might take up just as much of 
 religion as he felt the inner impulse to take up. The life was 
 a religious life, and religious ceremonies accompanied it 
 throughout, but a man might throw as much spiritual energy 
 as he chose into the ceremonies. Might repeat them as a 
 matter of form, and even then they would remind him of 
 the life beyond the physical ; or he might throw into them a 
 little devotion, and then they would lead him a step further ; 
 or he might throw his whole heart into them, and then they 
 would be a real preparation for the later life. If that were 
 done, if the life of the Grihasta were over, and every duty had 
 been accomplished, then he might pass onwards, if he would, 
 into the life of the hermit, to the life of the ascetic ; because 
 by these graduated practices he had prepared himself for the 
 finding of the Guru and for the leading of a truly spiritual life. 
 
56 
 
 The first step that is always laid down as a prepara- 
 tion for Yoga is the ceasing from wicked ways. A very 
 commonplace step ; a mere truism in every religion ; but the 
 fact that it is a truism does not make it less true. And since 
 no Yoga is possible without it, save the Yoga that leads to 
 destruction, the first step is purification of the life and the 
 ceasing from wicked ways. Whosoever has not ceased from 
 wicked ways, thus beginning the Yoga which goes on to the 
 subduing of the senses and of the mind, whosoever has not 
 ceased from wicked ways cannot find A'tma. That then is the 
 first and most commonplace step, and every one — if you tell 
 them it is a necessary preliminary — almost every one shrugs 
 his shoulders and says " of course" ; but he does not practice 
 it. Until he does, no practice in Yoga is possible. Nothing 
 but talk is possible until a man has begun to purify his life, 
 until he is truthful in thought as well as in speech ; until he 
 cannot be persuaded to swerve from the path of rectitude by 
 any outside temptations ; until the whole of his thought and 
 desire at least is towards the right ; until, however often he 
 falls he recognizes a fall as a fall, and tries to rise again ; 
 until he has made at least the attempt to form a righteous 
 ideal and to carry out that ideal practically in life I say this 
 is the most commonplace of all religious teachings, and the 
 one which is the hardest at first to carry into practice. Now 
 for the enormous majority of men who do not take up this as 
 a rule of life, for the enormous majority Yoga is and can be 
 nothing more than a word ; any attempt to practise it is like 
 an attempt to run before learning to walk ; and the only possi- 
 ble result is the result which the child has when it is in too 
 much hurry to walk — it fallg down and falls down until it 
 learns caution and gains equilibrium. 
 
 I say this because there are very many practices which 
 may be learned without purity of life, but these will lead to 
 mischief and not to good. It is far easier to take up a book on 
 Yoga and put into practice for a few minutes, or for an hour 
 or two, or for a day, some particular thing that you may read 
 there, than it is to keep a constant watch over the daily life 
 and purify it at every moment of the day. Far easier, but 
 also far less useful ; and the discipline of the body and the 
 mind is the first stage in practical Yoga. In daily life all 
 
57 
 
 sorts of methods of discipline may be found, and when a 
 man has really determined to discipline mind and body, he 
 will, through his daily life, as opportunities occur, make for 
 himself some definite rules — it does not matter what the 
 rules are, provided they are harmless — and he will rigidly keep 
 these rules after he has made them. That is to say, he will 
 systematize his life ; he will determine certain points of time, 
 and at those points he will force himself to do the things 
 that he has previously decided shall be the occupation of that 
 particular moment or hour. Let me take a very common 
 illustration. He fixes an hour for rising, but when the hour 
 comes however he fails to rise. He is lazy, or sleepy, or what 
 not. Now it does not matter in itself whether he rises a 
 quarter of an hour earlier or later than the hour fixed, but it 
 does matter that he shall do what he has determined to do. 
 For the carrying out of a resolution in the face of disinclination 
 strengthens the will — and no progress in Yoga is possible 
 unless the will is strong and the body and mind obedient ; 
 this power may be best accumulated in the practice of daily 
 life. And when the mind and body are controlled, brought 
 to obedience, no matter what may be the temptations of sloth 
 or anything else, he has taken the first step on this path of 
 Yoga ; for they have been made obedient to something that 
 is higher than themselves. By strengthening the will, the 
 man -is making one of the instruments that he is going to 
 use in his further progress. Then take the question of food, 
 not a vital question, but one of considerable importance ; you 
 will find certain kinds of food forbidden to those who lead a 
 spiritual life. Food should be correlated to the purpose for 
 which you are living. There is no one rule for every one 
 which you can lay down for all. There are rules which are 
 diff"erent according to the purposes that you are using your 
 life to accomplish. According to that which it is the desire 
 of your life to accomplish, so should be the food that you 
 take to nourish, to keep the life of the body Therefore it 
 was that when to be a Brahman meant to be a man who had 
 made progress in the spiritual life, and who desired to ad- 
 vance rapidly and further along the road, that the rules as to 
 what he might and might not do were exceedingly stringent ; 
 and then it was that he was told to eat those things that 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 have the Sattvic quality, because he did not want to bringf 
 into the body which he was cndoa\ ouiino- to purify any having 
 the Riijasic or the 'lYimasic qualities, whieli would draw 
 him downward instead o( lifting him upwards. It is true 
 that the body is the lowest part of us, but it is not for that 
 fact to be neglected. It is important to lighten your weifj;ht if 
 you have to climb. Though the weight does not help you 
 upwards, the lessening of the wei,i:;ht will make the upward 
 climbling less dillicult than otherwise it would be. And that 
 is all that you have to do in dealing with the body. It does 
 not help you to spiritual life ; but it holds you hack. And 
 you want to lessen the hold oi' the body as much as possible. 
 That is real!)- the use of an external observance. If there is 
 nothing but the external, if there is no upward rising, it is 
 almost a matter of indifference whether the weight is heavy 
 or light, for it is always going to remain on the ground, and 
 it is the ground that bears it, and it does not hold anything 
 down. Tie a rock to a po.st. It does not matter whether 
 the rock be heavy or light, for the post has nothing in il that 
 will rise. But tie a rock to a balloon which is striving to rise 
 upwards, and as you lessen the weight of the rock, the possi- 
 bility of rising will come to the balloon, until ultimately the 
 power that draws it upward is greater than the de.id weight 
 of the rock that holds if down, and it will go upwards carrying 
 the rock with it, because it has overcome its resistance. That 
 is the way in which the body and .all outwanl observances 
 should be regarded. That is why when the spirit is free all 
 outward forms become matters of indilTereiice. The very rites 
 and ceremonies of religion that are binding on the soul that is 
 still unliberated, become useless when the soul h.as gained 
 liberation, for then the soul no longer can he held by any- 
 thing. And as the rites ol' religion are meant to be the wings 
 which will lift the soul upwards against weight, when the 
 weight has vanished and the soul is free, it no longer iieetls 
 these wings. It is in its own atmosphere, where equilibrium 
 has been gained, and neither upw.ird nor downw.inl has any 
 meaning for it ; for it is at the centre which is the All. 
 
 I say this because it is a thing that ought to guiile your 
 judgment, if you will judge your neighbours. It would be 
 far better if you never judged them at all. What right of 
 
59 
 
 judgment has any one of you as concerns one of your 
 brothers ? What know you of his past ? What know you 
 of his karma ? What know you of the conditions that sur- 
 round his life ? What know you of his inner struggles, his 
 aspirations and his faults ? What right have you to Judge 
 him ? Judge yourself, but do not judge another ; for when 
 you] condemn any, judging him only from without and by 
 one or another external observance that he may or may not 
 use, you injure yourselves far more than you injure him ; 
 you are judging in the lowest sphere, and you are injuring all 
 your own inner sphere, and clouding it over by the tendency 
 of unkindness and of lack of compassion. 
 
 Now it is in connection with this dealing with the body 
 that a large number of external observances had been advo- 
 cated and practised, — many of them exceedingly useful and 
 some of them exceedingly dangerous. Take a practice which is 
 a very useful one, and which is not dangerous but helpful when 
 practised in moderation in a country like this, with a very long 
 physical heredity behind it and the practice of thousands of 
 generations ; that which is known as Prdnayama — the checking 
 of the breath — a practice known to almost every Brahman at 
 least. This is done with a very definite purpose, with the 
 object of shutting out all external objects and withdrawing 
 the soul from the senses to the mind — the first stage in practi- 
 cal Yoga. The shutting of the various senses physically, the 
 checking of the breath physically, these are really lightening, 
 so to speak, of the weight, and making it easier for the mind 
 to retire from the external world. But where these directions, 
 which have been published to some extent, are suddenly 
 taken up by people not fitted to practise them by physical 
 heredity, and when they are carried out with much persistence 
 and with Western energy, without some one who knows how 
 to guide the student, the practice may become exceedingly 
 dangerous. If it is carried beyond a certain point it may 
 seriously affect the organs of the body and may cause disease 
 and death. Therefore, even for you Asiatics it is never wise to 
 pursue this practice very far unless you are under the training 
 of some one who understands it thoroughly, and who is able 
 to check you the moment you touch danger. Whereas 
 for the European it is unwise to practise it at all, because 
 
6o 
 
 he has not any suitable physical heredity, nor are the phy- 
 sical and psychical surroundings amongst which he lives 
 fitted for a practice which may be said to work on the phy- 
 sico-psychical life ; thus the work may be exceedingly dan- 
 gerous ; so that for a European who is going to begin, the 
 physical training will begin in a different fashion. There 
 again is a point where judgment would be exceedingly 
 unjust ; because unless you take these circumstances into con- 
 sideration, you may be blaming the man for what? Because 
 he does not do a thing which in him would produce danger- 
 ous bleeding of the lungs ; and so would entirely take away 
 from him the physical garment in which, if more carefully 
 trained, possibly progress might be obtained. Of course 
 this may be carried very much further in what is called 
 Hatha Yoga. 
 
 You may see it carried to the furthest extreme in those 
 cases of the ascetics where some particular practice is adopt- 
 ed — whether that of raising the arm and holding it up till it 
 withers ; or clenching the hand till the nails grow into the 
 flesh ; or gazing at the sun ; or doubling the body, and so on 
 — an enormous number of different practices that some of you 
 must have yourselves seen from time to time. Is there or is 
 there not any valuein these practices ? How is it that we see 
 them adopted ? What is their object and what their real worth ? 
 Now it would not be true to say that they are without value. 
 First of all they have this value, that in an age like our own 
 they are constant and standing witnesses to the strength of 
 the inner aspiration which overcomes all bodily passion and 
 all physical temptation in order to seek after something which 
 is recognized as greater than the physical life. It is not fair 
 to omit from sight in judging these cases that service which 
 they do to humanity. For in the world, where almost every 
 one is seeking after things of the world, where ambition is for 
 money, for place, for power, for fame, for the praise of men, 
 it is not without value that a few should even act in this 
 fashion, and throwing every thing that men love aside, pro- 
 claim by the very fact of their tortured existence the reality of 
 the soul in man, and the worth of something which is above 
 the anguish of the body. So that I do not think that any one 
 should speak lightly of the folly of these men even though they 
 
6i 
 
 disagree with them, even though they disapprove of them, even 
 if they say that their method is not right. Still you should re- 
 cognize the strength of the devotion which can trample on the 
 body in seeking after the soul. Even if the method be mis- 
 taken, as I myself believe it to be mistaken, still it is a nobler 
 life even in its blunders than the commonplace seeking 
 after transient objects ; for it is nobler to seek the higher 
 and climb after it and fall, than it is only to seek things of the 
 earth to waste everything in gaining those transient objects. 
 
 And there is the side, another side, which will bring to 
 them their reward in a future incarnation. It is true they will 
 by these methods never reach the spiritual plane. It is true that 
 by these methods they will never reach the higher spheres of 
 existence. Yet it is also true that they are by these methods 
 developing the strength of will that in their next birth will 
 carry them far along the road. Has it ever struck you what 
 their strength of will must be ; not in the stages when the 
 posture has become automatic, but in the early stages, when 
 every moment is a moment of torture ? That is the time 
 when the soul is developed and when if you pay the price of 
 pain you may purchase that which you pay for. They pay it 
 for strength of will, and that strength of will will come back 
 to them in their future life. And it may be that the strength 
 of will will then be enlightened by the devotion which made them 
 follow such a life, and that the two together may open up 
 the path towards real knowledge. Although for this incar- 
 nation they may fail in reaching t]\& spirit, yet in another devo- 
 tion and the will combined may carry them far, far beyond 
 those who think themselves wiser, because they are not fana- 
 tical, — as I frankly think these men are. You may say to us 
 " Are we to follow the practice?" No; fori have already 
 said I regard it as a mistake. I only mentioned it because I 
 hear so much of idle scoff, so much of idle jeer, .from men 
 who are not fit to come within a mile of those who have at 
 least recognized and tried to follow the possibility of spirit- 
 ual life. 
 
 And then there is one word to be said of another life, a 
 life which is not of absolute self torture, but which is that of 
 complete withdrawal from the world to the forest. That has 
 been said to be a selfish life ; in very many cases it is con- 
 
62 
 
 nected with selfishness, but not always. Those lives that are 
 spiritual keep up the spiritual atmosphere which prevents the 
 country as a whole from falling as low as it otherwise would. 
 They keep up the recognition of the reality of a spiritual life 
 which may be stimulated into activity, and the fact that 
 India has a possibility of revival in herself is largely due to 
 those recluses of the forests and of the jungles who have kept 
 possible a spiritual atmosphere into which vibrations may be 
 thrown which then may strike on the outer lives of men. 
 
 For what is the underlying truth of Hatha Yoga ? It is 
 this ; that when growth is complete, body will be the obedient 
 servant of the spirit, and will be developed along the par- 
 ticular lines which will give to spirit the organs in the body 
 whereby it may work on the outside universe of matter. 
 That is the real truth of all Hatha Yoga practices. They 
 train the body. They throw into activity certain centres, — 
 certain chakrams as they are called — they throw them into 
 activity, and these centres are to act as the organs for 
 the interior life. They are the organs whereby the inner 
 life may work on the material universe, and whereby what 
 are called phenomena may be brought about. Phenomena 
 cannot be brought about by the spirit at its highest working 
 directly on what we call matter at its lowest, that is by A'tma 
 working directly on the material universe ; the gulf is too 
 great, it has to be spanned. And if you are to control the 
 physical universe and physical laws, it is necessary to develop 
 certain material organs and astral organs in connection with 
 the body which, brought into immediate contact below with 
 the physical universe, and in contact above with the mind 
 and spirit, will enable the spirit working downward, so to 
 say, to bring about the physical results that it desires. 
 Now Hatha Yoga is the recognition of this truth and the 
 bringing it into practice on the lower plane. It works first 
 on the body and developes a great many of those organs into 
 control over these inner forces. It makes the body easy to be 
 thrown into a condition which does respond to subtler vibra- 
 tions, and it subjugates the body. 
 
 So one who practises Hatha Yoga can, with comparative 
 ease, obtain control over certain forces of the material uni- 
 verse. It wakes up the astral body, it throws the astral 
 
63 
 
 centres into vibration ; so that there again, powers are gain- 
 ed of a most extraordinary character, so far as the outer 
 world is concerned. But the powers are bad in this sense — 
 that by beginning from below and stimulating these organs, 
 the physical and astral bodies, without the corresponding 
 action in the mind and the spirit, the limit of action is soon 
 reached. It is artificial stimulation instead of a natural and 
 evolutionary one. Those organs should be stimulated from 
 above and not from below, if they are to persist life after 
 life ; and by the Hatha Yoga practices they are stimulated 
 into action, just as in hypnotism you begin by paralysing 
 the outer senses ; thus you gradually lead to atrophy and to 
 permanent paralysis. Hatha Yoga practices, long continued, 
 make Raja Yoga impossible for that incarnation. That is why 
 objection is raised to them in many of the wisest of your books. 
 That is why it is said that Raja Yoga is the thing to be sought 
 after and why Hatha Yoga is discountenanced. It is not that 
 no physical practices are ever needed. It is not that these psy- 
 chic powers are not ultimately to be evolved ; but it is that they 
 are to be evolved as the natural result of the developing spirit, 
 and not as the artificially stimulated results of the body first 
 and then of the astral form. To begin at that end means 
 limitation to the psychic plane. To begin on the spiritual 
 means the unifying of all planes into one. That is the essen- 
 tial difference between the two forms of Yoga. Raja Yoga is 
 more difficult and it is the slower, but it is certain. Its powers 
 are carried over from birth to birth, whereas beyond the psy- 
 chic plane it is not possible to progress by using purely the 
 Hatha Yoga methods. 
 
 And now I want to put to you one or two general state- 
 ments as regards these practices, as I will now call them, that 
 may wisely be used in daily life. You may remember in the 
 Aitareyopanished that after man is formed he is vitalized — 
 if I may use a somewhat commonplace expression — by the 
 Devas, and that there the Supreme Soul asks the question : 
 " How shall I enter in ?" and he enters in at the place 
 where the hairs of the head divide, that is, the Brahma- 
 randra, the centre of the skull. He takes up three places ; in 
 the right eye, in the " inner organ," and in the heart : three 
 places in which he abides. These places are significant. 
 
64 
 
 The right eye stands for the senses ; the inner organ for 
 the brain and its mind ; the heart for the inner self. And 
 he enters into these one by one, first into the eye, that is to 
 the senses ; then into the inner organ, that is to the mind ; then 
 into the heart, that is to the final dwelling place in which he re- 
 sides. That is the keynoteto allthese triple divisions that I gave 
 you at the beginning. Each of these belongs to one or other of 
 these stages and conditions of which I spoke ; and when we 
 begin to practise, it is these that we take up as the stages 
 that may be practised in the world before the Guru is found ; 
 which any one of you may begin to practise, and so make 
 possible for yourselves the later stages when you have suc- 
 ceeded in mastering these. First then in seeking the soul you 
 will deal with the senses. You may choose some image in the 
 mind, and concentrate upon that, until no stimulus can reach 
 you from without. This is the concentration of the mind 
 within itself and withdrawal from the senses. Why should 
 not a man practise that daily ? Why should he not get into 
 the habit of being able to withdraw the mind from working 
 in the senses ; so that it may be thrown back into itself and 
 work only within the limits of the mind ? All great men of 
 thought do it as a matter of natural instinct. All great think- 
 ers do it. Take the thinkers who have given to the world 
 great literary worlds and read their lives, and you will find 
 that it was a constant fact that when they were occupied 
 with great mental problems they became oblivious of the 
 body ; that they would sit thinking, missing their meals, 
 sitting through the whole day, sometimes the whole of the 
 night ; oblivious of every want of the body, even the want of 
 sleep, because they had withdrawn the mind from the senses 
 and had concentrated it within itself. 
 
 This is the condition of all fruitful thought, it is the con- 
 dition of all fruitful meditation. Meditation is more than this 
 indeed. But this is its first beginning, for you want to draw 
 the soul away from the senses ; otherwise it keeps g-oino- out- 
 ward and you want it to come inwards towards its own seat 
 Therefore stop the senses. Without that no further proo-ress 
 is possible. And then from the worldly standpoint it will be 
 useful even ; for this concentration of mind that you find 
 advocated in old books as a preliminary stage of Yoga, is a con 
 
65 
 
 dition of the most effective mental work. The man who can con- 
 centrate is the man who can conquer the intellectual world ; he 
 who can bring all his faculties to a single point becomes one- 
 pointed, as Patanjali has it. That is the one who is really 
 capable of making progress intellectually. You cannot push 
 a wide object through obstacles ; you must bring it to a point 
 and it will easily pierce through all. So it is with the mind. If 
 the mind is scattered through the senses it is diffused. There ~ 
 is no propelling force that can send it through obstacles. Bring 
 it to a point, and tlien the force behind it will push it through. 
 Thus even in common intellectual matters concentration is 
 the condition of success. But this carried out thoroughly 
 brings you to the second stage, the Swapna stage ; then, if 
 j'ou remember, the condition is that of being fixed in the 
 internal objects ; that is, you will fix it on concepts and ideas 
 and not on the objects which gave rise to them. No longer 
 on the outer body but on that which you have drawn from it 
 into the mind ; and you study the internal bodies which are 
 the concepts, the ideas, the deductions and abstract thoughts 
 which from the outer world you have collected. The more 
 perfectly you can do it, the nearer you are coming to the com- 
 pleted Swapna stage, and when you can do it well you have 
 really made one stage onward in the Yogic method, for you 
 have gained the power of bringing the soul into the internal 
 organ, and once there further progress may be gained. The 
 next stage, still within the limit of Swapna, is not only to 
 withdraw the mind into itself, but to hold it there against 
 the intrusion of thoughts which you do not desire. Suppose 
 3'ou have already secured it against the intrusion of outside 
 stimuli, and the senses can no longer bring you out of this 
 state of concentration ; but perhaps thought can do it. 
 The mind itself may not be thoroughly guarded against such 
 intrusion. It is withdrawn from all possibility of stimula- 
 tion from without. It may be so strong that a man coming 
 up and touching you would not bring you out of the state 
 of perfect abstraction ; but still within itself it may not be 
 equally steady, and an idea may reach it while a sensation 
 cannot. On its own plane a thought may intrude. That is 
 the next stage of concentration. You must be able to kill 
 thoughts. The moment a thought comes, if it is not wanted, 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 it must fall away. First you kill it by deliberate action ; that 
 is, you reject it when it comes. But the realizing of its pre- 
 sence is lack of concentration. The very fact that you see it 
 there shows that it is able to make an impression upon you. 
 Therefore you must deliberately kill it. Therefore when the 
 thought comes to you you must throw it back. This will be a 
 long process ; but if you keep doing it month after month, nay, 
 year after year, at last it will become automatic, and you will 
 have made in the mind such a repellent power that you may 
 set that power going by drawing yourself into the centre, 
 and the thought coming from the outside striking against it 
 will get self-thrown back. It is like a wheel revolving very 
 rapidly. If it is slowly moving, any moving body that may 
 come against it may check its revolution. If it is moving 
 very rapidly, any moving bodj' that comes against it will get 
 itself flung off. And in proportion to the rapidity of the revo- 
 lution will be the force of repulsion with which that body is 
 thrown back. That becomes automatic, and just as you 
 get beyond the stimulus of the senses, you get beyond the 
 reach of the mind, that is the mind becomes self centred 
 and the circumference throws off automatically everything 
 which desires to enter. That is the position which you 
 have now secured. There again there is the worldly advan- 
 tage, for the highly concentrated mind does not wear itself 
 out; it does not allow to enter all the thoughts which it 
 does not require. It does not consider them. It does not 
 allow energy to be wasted on them, and so fritter away its 
 powers. It is kept empty as to thought when work is not 
 required, instead of being a sort of ever busy machine, always 
 going, and so wearing itself out. Instead of this, it is a 
 machine under absolute control, which works or does not 
 work exactly as the self desires that it shall or shall not. 
 
 Beyond this stage no conscious progress is possible 
 without the help of a teacher. Conscious progress I say, 
 but unconscious there may be, for the teacher may be there 
 though you know him not. But there is one way still in 
 which progress may be made, although unrealized in a sense, 
 without your knowing that any one is helping you, but 
 that is not by knowledge. If you still desire to tread the 
 path of knowledge you must find your teacher. But there is 
 
67 
 
 something in the world which is stronger than knowledge, 
 and that is devotion. F"or that is the spirit itself ; and while I 
 have been dealing with all that which consciously you can 
 do, there is one other thing that you can also do which will 
 help you. And that is to open wide all the gates of the soul, 
 so that you no longer shut out the sun, so that the sun of 
 spirit may stream in and purify and enlighten, without any 
 action of your lower self. Now devotion is the opening of 
 the windows of the soul. It does nothing. It is an attitude. 
 Devotion means that you realize something which is greater 
 than yourselves, something which is higher than yourselves, 
 something which is sublimer than yourselves, towards which 
 your attitude is no longer an attitude of criticism, no longer 
 an attitude of what you call learning, no longer any attitude 
 save that of prostration, throwing yourself down before it 
 in worship, and remaining silent to hear if any word 
 may come. By that, progress is possible into the inner- 
 most recesses of the spirit, for devotion opens the way for 
 the light to come in ; the light is always there, we do not 
 make it. These processes that I have been speaking about 
 are the tearing off of sheath after sheath, so that we may 
 consciously recognize the light. It may seem to get brighter 
 as sheath after sheath is torn off. It does not really get 
 brighter ; it is there ; but we fail in the outer recognition of 
 the light within. Devotion breaks through all sheaths from 
 within ; and then the light streams forth ; and it has nothing 
 to do but shine. It is the quality of light to shine. It is we 
 who obstruct it, and make its shining out impossible. And 
 therefore it is that in the ignorant man )'0u will sometimes 
 find a spiritual knowledge that transcends the intellectual 
 knowledge that some great genius may have obtained. He sees 
 the heart of things. Why ? Because the inner light is stream- 
 ing forward and the devotion has opened the eye into which 
 light comes, and it sees along the beam right into the recesses 
 of the sanctuary. Not by knowledge only may be opened 
 sheath after sheath ; love too is needed, that the man may 
 find himself, and breaking through them all, one by one, may 
 at last open out the way to the feet of the God. And that is 
 possible everywhere, not only in forest and jungle, if man 
 can separate himself from the things of earth. For this no 
 
68 
 
 outer renunciation is necessary ; it is the deeper renunciation 
 by the soul of all the objects of sense and of the world. It is 
 that which S'ri Krishna means when he speaks of devotion. 
 Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine 
 and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the 
 personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means 
 throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for 
 the light to come in. It means non-attachment to the fruit 
 of action. Everything you do you do because you are in the 
 world, and your duty is to perform actions. S'ri Krishna said, 
 " I am ever acting !" Why ? Because if we did not the revol- 
 ving wheel would stop. So with the devotee ; he should do his 
 outer actions, because they are examples to other men ; because 
 his karma has placed him in the world where these duties claim 
 discharge. But it is not he who does them. Once devotion 
 is attained, the senses move towards their appropriate objects ; 
 mind also moves towards its appropriate objects ; but the 
 devotee — he is neither the senses nor the mind. He is the self 
 that is recognized as Lord. And so he is always worshipping, 
 while the senses and the mind are busy with the external 
 and the internal objects. That is the meaning of non-attach- 
 ment. He is not attached to any of the works which his 
 senses bring about ; let them go and do their work, and do it 
 with the utmost perfection. Let his mind also go into the 
 outer world and do its share in the world's work. It is not 
 himself. He is ever worshipping at the feet of his Lord, 
 and there external things may do their work ; what power of 
 attachment have they to bind him to any of their actions ? 
 But to reach that state non-attachment must be deliberately 
 practised ; you must learn to be indifferent to results, provid- 
 ed you do your duty, leaving the outcome in the hands of 
 the mighty forces that work in the universe, and that only ask 
 of you to give them the outer material in which they may 
 clothe themselves while you remain one with them. To do this 
 you must be pure ; to do this you must always have the heart 
 fixed on the one reality. The devotee is with the heart. He 
 is always within the shrine, and the mind and body are 
 busy in the outer world. That is true Yoga ; that is the real 
 secret of Yoga. 
 
 For all that it is perfectly true that there is a stage in 
 
69 
 
 which knowledge once more comes in, and the devotee might 
 learn from his Guru how to become a conscious co-worker 
 with the spiritual forces. He may be a worker before he is 
 conscious of it, onl)' by means of devotion. Conscious co- 
 working implies knowledge. It means that the Guru takes 
 the Shishya in hand and teaches him how he may more per- 
 fect!}' purify himself and ever remain utterly unsoiled by the 
 touch of actions in which he works. While conscious co-work- 
 ing is perfection, co-working at all makes life worth living. 
 
 I should not deem it worth while to keep you this morn- 
 ing studying a subject such as this, were it not that it seems 
 to me that one of you here or there may possibly catch 
 some thought of devotion which shall make the way into 
 the inner sanctuary easier and clearer for you than it was 
 before. I have been dealing intellectually with these sheaths 
 of the soul, intellectually with these regions of the universe, 
 intellectually with these states of consciousness, intellectually 
 with the methods by which progress may be made. I should 
 do the least of my duty here to you if I left you on the intel- 
 lectual plane. Therefore I venture these words as to the 
 essence of Yoga, no matter what the outer form may be ; I 
 venture to say to you — to some of you it will seem folly and 
 fanaticism, but what matters that tome? I venture to say 
 to you that devotion is the one thing that gives security ; 
 devotion is the one thing that gives strength ; devotion is the 
 one way that opens up the road to the innermost where the 
 Divine is manifest. Better worship ignorantly in devotion 
 than refuse to worship at all. Better bring a flower or leaf to 
 some village god as the poorest of those that come ignorant- 
 ly and desire to give out of their poverty, than be some great 
 intellectual genius that the world honors, too proud to bow 
 before that which is higher than itself, too intellectually strong 
 to bend its knee before the spiritual life ; for spirit is higher 
 than intellect as intellect is higher than the senses. Spiritual life 
 is the highest life, and it is open to every one, for the spirit is the 
 innermost core in each, and none may deny its presence in any 
 man. Cultivate then reverence, reverence for everything which 
 is noble ; cultivate worship, worship of that which is divine ; 
 and then when the body and the senses fail you, then when 
 the mind breaks down and has nothing more to give you, then 
 
70 
 
 that eternal spirit which is the life of your life, the soul of 
 your soul, that shall rise stronger because the body and the 
 mind have perished, and going upward it shall find itself — 
 nay, it need not go ; it is there already, always — it shall find 
 itself lying at the lotus feet of its God ; there where there is 
 no illusion, no separateness, no pain ; there where all is bliss. 
 For the very essence of the Divine is love and is joy, and that 
 is the heritage of the spirit, greater than anything that the 
 passing world may give. 
 
SYMBOLISM, 
 
SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Symbolism in religions may be called a common language. 
 By that it is meant that certain external forms are taken, 
 which presented to the view of any one versed in the forms 
 convey to the mind of that person a definite idea ; just as, for 
 instance, you may have an ideographic language which is 
 read by each person into his own tongue ; just as you may 
 have numbers in arithmetic, each number carrying some idea, 
 but if the number be put into spoken word, the word will 
 differ according to the language which is employed. So, in 
 all ages have men who have studied religions had a common 
 language by which they could communicate with each other ; 
 so that no matter what might be the country of the, person, 
 no matter what might be the particular religion that exoteri- 
 cally surrounded him, when he came across the symbol, he 
 recognized its meaning, and so had knowledge conveyed to 
 him by his fellow initiates, which to him was as definite and 
 as certain as though it had been conveyed in his own parti- 
 cular language of words. Now of the underlying unity of 
 religions there can be no greater proof than the identity of 
 religious symbols. When you find within a Hindu temple the 
 same symbols'as you find infar off ruins in Western lands; when 
 you find the same symbol that is in the temple and in the 
 Western ruins reproduced in the modern Christian cathedral 
 or church ; when you find in Asia, in America, in Europe and 
 in many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, just the same 
 symbol reappearing ; then you may know that the people who 
 made the symbol held the same notion, used the same means 
 to convey it, knew the same truth, and worshipped the same 
 idea. And in this fashion, the study of symbolism may con- 
 stantly enable us to gain from the past knowledge that has 
 slipped away in the present. So there is some great truth 
 which conveys sustenance to our own thinking, and taking 
 up some ancient scripture, we recognize under the garb of 
 symbol, the truth which in some other fashion we have 
 received. So taking the ancient books, which were written 
 
 10 
 
74 
 
 by great sages, by divine instructors, we may find that 
 they have hidden in these books secrets of spiritual know- 
 ledge, and that they have done it in order that the secrets 
 might be preserved amongst all the changes and chances of 
 life ; and that when a man has reached a certain stage of 
 spiritual evolution, there might be here ready to his hand 
 knowledge that he might acquire. Thus what has been 
 carried through ages of darkness may once again appear 
 for the enlightening of the world. Inasmuch as today we 
 are in a cycle of darkness, as we are living in that Kali- 
 yuga, during which spirituality is at its lowest ebb, and inas- 
 much as this period is characterised by the triumphs of the 
 powers of darkness and the blinding of the insight of man 
 which in happier ages is clear and distinct, symbolism is to 
 us of deepest moment. For when this cycle was approach- 
 ing, it became necessary that the sages should hide under 
 symbol and under garb of outer fables those truths which 
 were to be preserved for generations to come — not only in 
 what we call ordinary symbolism or outer form, but also in 
 allegory, in fable, in that which is regarded as myth, and in 
 that which is used as ceremony. In all these things there is 
 the heart of spiritual truth, and from time to time, some one 
 arises who is able to see the truth underneath the outer sym- 
 bol of fable or ceremony, and so bringing out the truth from 
 the S3'mbol, is able to .strengthen man's belief in spiritual 
 realities, and reassert in the midst of darkness the light of a 
 'happier time. For not only does symbol carry on truth from 
 age to age, but it also acts as a constant vi'itness for the exist- 
 ence of the truth. Sometimes it may be meant to hide it, 
 but at other times it is meant that the hidden truth shall be 
 brought out, so that the bringing out may. re-establish man's 
 belief in truth. The special work that is being done today by 
 the Theosophical Society is at the will of those divine instruc- 
 tors who devised the symbols and gave them in charge of the 
 various religions of the world. So that from time to time what 
 is to be done, and is being done today, is that when truth has 
 been lost to the majority and when belief in it has laro-ely dis- 
 appeared, some one taking hold of the symbol shall explain 
 it ; then the reasonableness of the explanation recommends 
 itself to the minds of men, and they feel the evidence of the 
 
75 
 
 existence of truth, because it is brought out as it were from 
 its hidden recesses ; then faith grows up again, and the belief 
 is once more able to lift up its head, because the unveiling jus- 
 tifies the reality of the symbol and they recognise the inner 
 truth, and so become convinced of the light which was hidden, 
 and which by the opening as it were of the lantern is once 
 more revealed to the world. So that symbol has this value of 
 not only carrying on the truth, and of giving it to those who 
 are wise, but also of impressing on the outer world the persist- 
 ent reality of the spiritual truth ; and it is the knowledge of 
 this which makes some of us lay stress on the preservation 
 of ceremonies, even when they are not understood. I know 
 that in the minds of some, that seems folly and superstition; 
 I know that in the minds of some, that seems to be raising 
 an obstacle in the way of progress. They only see the cere- 
 mony from the standpoint of the obstacle ; they do not 
 realise the value that within that seeming obstacle may be 
 enshrined. Sometimes there may be an ancient monument 
 which tells of the past history of the people. You want to carry 
 a railway through it, and you will say that it is very important 
 that the railway should be a straight line between two points, 
 and that it is far better to sweep away the ancient monument 
 which has become an obstruction, and to allow the people to 
 have the practical advantage of saving ten minutes of time, 
 v/hich will be lost if the railway goes round the monument. 
 Instead of pulling it down and destroying it, it may some- 
 times be wiser to waste ten minutes' time — when so much 
 time is wasted — than to destroy the records of an event that 
 otherwise might pass without record out of the minds of 
 men. So if the ceremonies, whose meaning even has been 
 lost, — lost for the present from the eyes of ordinary men, but 
 not lost from the knowledge of spiritual sages, and not lost 
 in its future power, when once more the truth that it hides is 
 revealed — if the ceremonies had been entirely swept out of 
 India, where should we find the arguments for the reaffirma- 
 tion of spiritual truth to the Indian people ? But inasmuch 
 as the ceremonies have remained and inasmuch as the sym- 
 bols still exist, then, coming with knowledge, we can justify 
 the ancient teaching even by these preserved symbols, and 
 so can reach the hearts and minds of the people in a way 
 
76 
 
 that would be utterly impossible if the symbols had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 Now as an illustration, let me begin with one symbol 
 which is universal and found in ever)' religion, although in 
 different religions differing very slightly in the shape in which 
 it appears — I mean the famous symbol of the Cross, largely 
 identified to-day in the modern world with a very modern re- 
 ligion, largely identified probably in the minds of many of you 
 with that religion. It is none the less the most ancient of all the 
 symbols, and has come down to us from a time lost to Western 
 thought in obscurity. No matter how deeply you dig into the 
 crust of the earth, no matter how ancient the ruins of the 
 city that, by such digging, you may unbury ; no matter 
 whether you djg into that crust in America, in Europe, in 
 Asia, and in Africa ; everywhere you will find the cross. There 
 are places in Europe that have been unburied by modern 
 investigation, places that are covered over with the ruins of 
 civilisation which had absolutely disappeared from the surface 
 of the earth longbefore the civilisation of the Roman Empire 
 was dreamed of, — a civilisation that endured for centuries and 
 then fell into ruin. 
 
 Passing back over the millenniums and digging down 
 through those ruins that tell of its decay, down through them 
 all into still older ruins of a civilisation that has left no trace, 
 save in these deep buried records ; even there you shall find 
 a cross marked on pottery that has long outlasted the very 
 bones of the people that made it, for the pottery found by little 
 heaps of dust that vanish when the tomb is opened has graven 
 on it the symbol of the cross, and buried by the side of the 
 dead conveys its own sacred signification. Go back as far as 
 you will into the antiquities of this — the most ancient of all 
 lands so far as the fifth race of man is concerned — there is 
 no place where you will not find the cross ; in the most 
 ancient of the scriptures you will find the cross, represent- 
 ing, in later times, the circle of the horizon, representing 
 farther back the form of Vishnu, which is time. The circle 
 symbolises time unending, and within it a cross on which lie 
 all Gods, all Rishis, all Suns and all Stars, everything which 
 is in the manifested universe. Go farther back, before the 
 fifth race is born— back into those times of which no record 
 
71 
 
 remains, save in the hands of the Initiates themselves — here 
 and there is a rock of which they onl}' can explain the mean- 
 ing, and on these rocks, deep graven, there still is found the 
 figure of the cross. Go back to the fourth race of men, 
 swallowed up by a mighty catastrophe, from which only the 
 seed came over from which the fifth race was to spring ; 
 even there you will find the same symbol, sacred to the 
 fourth race as it has been ever sacred to the fifth. So that 
 we may take it as a universal symbol, one that we can- 
 not permit one of the latest and most modern of religions to 
 usurp as though it belonged onl)-- to it. For it is a symbol 
 often stamped on the breast of the Initiates, sacred to reli- 
 gion in its deepest recesses, and not the private property of 
 one of the most modern and exoteric faiths. Take then the 
 cross, — what is it fundamentally ? It was in the circle always 
 in the oldest records ; in later times the circle has fallen 
 away from it, and the cross losing the circle, became de- 
 graded from its loftiest significance. Always the symbol has 
 its highest meaning in the spirit, and from the spiritual 
 sphere it comes downward into outer manifestation and finds 
 a second explanation in the stars which are the outer forms 
 of the great Intelligences, by which the kosmos moves ; and 
 then lower still it falls, until it comes down to man, and then 
 it becomes more degraded in its latest phallic signification, 
 polluted b}' the impure thoughts that flow to it from the mind 
 in man. Take then the circle, and in its earliest signifi- 
 cance it stands for that boundless existence which coming 
 into manifestation circumscribes itself First, we have been 
 taught of a circle of light, bounded by darkness which has no 
 limit ; and the circle of light is the beginning of the mani- 
 fested kosmos. Thus we found in studying light that first 
 we had light without form, and then later form came as the 
 visible side of the manifestation ; and the circle in its earliest 
 significance means manifestation, therefore limitation, the 
 beginning of things. The cross which as the next stage divides 
 it is that fire which, flashing from the centre outwards, makes 
 two diameters, gives active life within this circle of the uni- 
 verse and makes possible the evolution which from the centre 
 is gradually to proceed. At first, one line of the cross is the 
 line drawn in both directions by the light of the Logos from 
 
78 
 
 the centre outwards to the circumference — that light of the 
 Logos, that I spoke of in the second lecture, as shining out 
 from the dual Logos, from that which we saw as fire and 
 water, that which is spirit-matter, shining out from the centre 
 which is the unmanifested Logos ; this, parting outwards to 
 the circumference, divides the circle first into two and then 
 into four. It is this line of light starting from the point, 
 passing outwards in the four directions, that traces the first 
 cross in manifestation, the symbol of the division into spirit 
 and matter. Then coming down a little further and recog- 
 nizing this division of spirit and matter, there is the genera- 
 tion of the kosmos, which is symbolised by the revolution of 
 the cross, so that the cross is no longer two straight lines, 
 but to each arm of tlie cross there is attached a part of the 
 circle of manifestation, and you get the ancient Svastika, 
 which gives not only the idea of division, but also the idea of 
 revolution. In the Svastika, with the limbs turned, there is a 
 suggestion of the circle as well as of the cross, but no longer 
 of the circle, set and steady, but of the circle revolving, 
 having therefore become a generating force of life. Closely 
 united with this is the symbolism of the fire-sticks ; here 
 you have a socket which stands for the circle, and the upright 
 stick which is made to revolve by a cord (thus forming a cross) 
 which, turning it round and round in the socket, generates 
 fire which is sacred, so giving birth to Agni the fire-God, as 
 the sign of life by which only the universe can appear. Thus 
 you have not only the circle, not only the upright stick which 
 represents half the cross, but also the string which completes 
 the cross and causes revolution. There is the completed image 
 of the second Logos by whose division further manifestation 
 becomes possible. Then with the revolution, then with the 
 heat which is generated — to which you may remember I drew 
 your attention, as the result of this action of fire — when the 
 mere radiance of light passesinto fire, it is then you get the birth 
 of the fire-God, without whose generating influence no further 
 manifestation may come. Then you can trace it downwards 
 and downwards, through slight changes in the outer form, 
 until you find it as everywhere symbolical of the God, of the 
 God in manifestation, an essentially creative and productive 
 power in the universe in its highest sense, in its highest sense 
 
79 
 
 the God that generates the kosmos. In its lowest sense it is 
 the representative of the reproductive organ, that too often 
 gives rise to forms of exoteric worship which have become 
 a degradation. The blinded eye of the materialist reads 
 but the phallic meaning-, and reads into it his own impure 
 signification ; whereas that is the lowest point of materiality, 
 while the highest is that which begins in the Logos itself, mani- 
 festing itself in the world of form. Thus tracing the cross we 
 find it in ancient sculptures in the hands of the Gods, con- 
 stantly present, shaped slightly differently according to the 
 type adopted by the people in their religion. There again 
 there is another use of this symbolical language, for, accord- 
 ing to the particular shape the symbol has assumed, we are 
 able to judge of the stage to which the religion of that people 
 has evolved. Take, for instance, the Egyptian religion ; there 
 you will find the cross and the circle changed in appearance. 
 The cross is no longer the cross which is traced on the circle 
 of time, with its two arms of equal length. It has become the 
 letter "J" with one arm below the other, and instead of being 
 within the circle of time, the circle has gone outside it and rests 
 on the top of the Tau. The circle is no longer time, it stands 
 for the female principle. In the hands of the Gods you may 
 see it traced in the frescoes on the pyramids ; you will find 
 it there held as a symbol of human life ; and when the mummy 
 is lying prone and the time comes for the soul to revivify it, 
 then the God comes forward with this Tau and circle in his 
 hand, the cross of life, and he touches with it the lips of the 
 mummy and thus restores the soul and brings the body to 
 resurrection, to the possibility of renewed life. Instead of 
 taking it in the later Egyptian religion, where it has fallen 
 from its highest significance, let us take it in the hand of one 
 of the Hindu gods, and you will find that a subtler and a 
 more beautiful significance may be drawn from it. Take the 
 image of S'iva, Mahadeva, as you will find him sometimes 
 represented in the temples — represented as the Maha Yogi, the 
 great ascetic, who by Tapas burned up everything that was of 
 the lower nature and remained as fire only ; everything else 
 having disappeared. The Maha Yogi holds in his uplifted hand 
 a cord — a cord that assumes an oval shape and not a circle — 
 and he holds that in his uplifted hand, between the thumb and 
 
So 
 
 the fingers; and you will see that the oval rises above the hand, 
 and that the hand makes the figure of the cross on which this 
 oval is supported. What can be the meaning in the hand of the 
 great Yogi, the patron of all ascetics, what can be the meaning 
 of this symbol, which in more modern literature has been taken 
 as the productive symbol, the symbol of life ? Has 'not the 
 Yogi turned aside from this creative activity, for he is often 
 symbolised by the virgin Kumara, who has refused to create 
 and who has nought to do with physical manifestation. The 
 symbol has a loftier meaning. No longer does that oval in the 
 hand of the great ascetic convey to the mind of one versed 
 in symbolism the later signification which was attached to it ; 
 it stands for the third eye of the spirit, for that which is 
 opened by Tapas, that which is opened within the brain of 
 the ascetic when a certain stage has been reached, at which 
 the lower forces are conquered for evermore. For the hand 
 that forms the cross stands as a s}'mbol for that crucifixion 
 of the passions of the lowernature by which only the Yogi 
 may attain spiritual life ; and the God who is the great Yogi, 
 has his uplifted hand in this position to show that every pas- 
 sion has been crucified, and so by the crucifixion of the lower, 
 the opening of the higher has become possible. Thus the 
 cross becomes the means of opening the door by which the 
 light of the spirit may stream out, and then comes the opening 
 the third eye, which is the eye of S'iva, familiar to every Hindu 
 in name if not in understanding. And that third eye — how did 
 it show itself? Remember once more the ancient story that, 
 as he sat there enga.ged in Tapas, the Hindu god of Love strove 
 to shoot his shafts at him, but the forehead of S'iva open- 
 ed, and from the third eye shot forth a ray of light which 
 burned the tempting god to ashes. For when that eye is 
 opened, none of the lower passions may venture to approach 
 the ascetic who has achieved. And whenever, passing into the 
 temple of the great God, you see him represented as the 
 Maha Yogi, then look you for the cord and realise its inner 
 significance. 
 
 You may go a step further, and take to yourself the les- 
 son that there is conveyed, that in man there is a power which 
 may be used for the lower or for the higher life, either for 
 the creation of new forms or for the evolution of spiritual 
 
8i 
 
 life in man, but not for both ; and therefore celibacy has 
 been the note of the ascetic, a necessary preliminary before the 
 third eye can be opened. Therefore always the idea of the asce- 
 tic includes this ideaof absolute physical purity. Eitheryou may 
 drive the life current upwards towards spirit, or you may drive 
 it downwards towards matter. If it seeks its expression in the 
 material, it cannot at the same time rise up into the mightier 
 creative energies of the spiritual sphere. And when S'iva up- 
 raises this cross and cord which symbolises the opening of the 
 third eye, it means that the life has been centred in the head, 
 that the third eye of the ascetic has been opened, and by 
 that centering at the higher pole, the triumph of the spirit 
 is secured. You no longer have the downward tendency to 
 matter, you have achieved the triumph of the spirit. 
 
 Let us seek the meaning of another symbol, in which 
 matter and spirit are expressed, no longer divided but united. 
 Here you have not the cross and the oval but a double tri- 
 angle interlaced, showing that they are not to be separated, 
 and so conveving to our thought the manifested universe and 
 the union of the two in every possibility of phenomenal life. 
 For here we have the triangle upward pointing, which is fire 
 or spirit, and then the triangle downward pointing, which is 
 water or matter, and the union of the two inseparable. This 
 means the union of spirit and matter in the manifested uni- 
 verse ; and the fact is that that union remains so long as 
 manifestation endures. You will find this double triangle used 
 to symbolise two of the Hindu gods, used as a symbol of 
 S'iva, and used as a symbol of Vishnu ; this is when these are 
 regarded as two aspects of the One. The upward pointing 
 aspect is taken as that of Mahadeva, that is fire ; when he 
 moved upon the waters, Narayana takes this symbol of the 
 downward pointing triangle to show the deity evolving mat- 
 ter, and so making phenomenal manifestation possible. So 
 3'Ou again get the symbol of duality, in which you have the 
 two gods represented as one in their essence, and only two 
 in their manifestation — fire and water, positive and negative, 
 male and female, once again. That, lo some of you, may 
 throw light on an obscure suggestion that you may find in 
 the scriptures as to this inner relationship between the two 
 great gods of the Hindu faith. 
 
 II 
 
82 
 
 Once more, in studying this, the story may come back to 
 your mind that ought always to strike at the root of all bit- 
 terness between the modern sects — I use the word modern in 
 comparison — who make the names of the gods dividing walls, 
 instead of uniting forces. For you may remember how a 
 Saivite worshipping in his temple felt a bitter hatred towards 
 a neighbour that worshipped Vishnu, and worshipped, not 
 in true religious spirit, but in antagonism to the other, whose 
 chosen aspect of the God was different from his own. But 
 lo ! one daj' as he bowed before Mahadeva with the thought 
 of anger in his heart against him who worshipped Vishnu, 
 the image before him changed in aspect ; it no longer stood 
 there as Siva only, but it divided in twain, one side remained 
 in the form of Mahadeva, while the other side took the form 
 of Vishnu, and the two together, no longer twain but one, 
 smiled at the worshipper. If in modern times that story 
 were understood, we should not see strife between two sects 
 who worship one God under different aspects, and who should 
 feel themselves as brothers, with no possibility of contention 
 between them at all. And so studying these symbols, we 
 come to the realisation of the divine in them, and to a clearer 
 understanding of what underlies the outer form. 
 
 That leads me, following the same line of thought, to a 
 more concrete kind of symbol. I take a concrete one on pur- 
 pose, so that I may trace it in its evolution and show to you 
 hov/ the abstract idea which is most congenial to the highly 
 educated mind, gradually emerges from a symbol that is more 
 concrete, a symbol necessary if religion is to be made intel- 
 ligible to the unlearned and to the ignorant. Here you will 
 permit me to say one word a little aside perhaps from the 
 subject, but not aside from the controversies which are rend- 
 ing India to-day. There is no commoner attack made upon 
 India in the West than what is called an attack on its idola- 
 try, and you will constantly find bitter jeers and scoffs uttered 
 by people, who have been over here, who have seen idols and 
 idol-worship, and ceremonies performed to the idol, but who 
 have never understood them — nay, who have never taken the 
 trouble to try and understand them, nor even to ask the wor- 
 shipper what to him is conveyed by such doings. These visi- 
 tors, looking at the outside with the prejudice engendered by 
 
83 
 
 foreigfn feelings, go back to their own land, and then from 
 many a platform speak of the poor Indians as heathen, given 
 over to idolatry, who ought to be taught a more spiritual reli- 
 gion, and rescued from this degradation that presses on their 
 minds and hearts. Now this question of idolatry is a very 
 important one, because it turns on this most essential ques- 
 tion — shall there or shall there not be accommodation to Igno- 
 rance ? How may religion be made at once the teacher of the 
 most degraded and also the object of reverence to the most 
 highly instructed and the most aspiring miiids ? It is a hard 
 problem to deal with, for that which is fit for the education of 
 the ignorant is not fit for the philosopher, and for the highly 
 evolved thinker. The symbolism that teaches the one is re- 
 pellent to the other, and if you are going to sa)- that religion 
 shall be exactly the same for one and all, then there are only 
 two possibilities before vou. If religion is to be one and the 
 same for all, you must bring it to the limit of the very lowest 
 intellect and of the least developed understanding ; otherwise 
 they will be shut out. If it is to be the same for all, the 
 philosopher must come down to the level of the labourer or 
 the child, and his noblest aspirations must find no grander 
 vehicle than that which is capable of being- grasped by 
 the most thoughtless and the most uninstructed of the 
 people. On the other hand, if religion is to be useful to 
 all, then you must permit differences to come into it — differ- 
 ences of presentation, according to the mind that is to be met. 
 You must have a religion philosophic for the philosopher, and 
 childish for the child — not because thereby you would drag- 
 down religion, but in order that you may lift up the childish 
 mind, and train it for the possibility of future evolution, which 
 may raise it to the greatest height of religious thought. Now 
 in the West a different method has been adopted. In the West 
 it has been attempted to make religion "so simple that a 
 costermonger can understand it." In England that word im- 
 plies, as a rule, the very lowest intellectual ability and training, 
 a man in the street with a barrow, selling vegetables, who will 
 be the representative of the outcaste amongst yourselves. I 
 was once told that Theosophy can never be useful, because it is 
 beyond the grasp of the costermonger. What has been the 
 effect on religious thought in Europe of thus lowering the in- 
 
84 
 
 tellectual side of religion ? Its effect has been that the intellect 
 of the people has gone outside religion ; you have a complete 
 divorce between intellect and religion, and the greatest minds 
 refuse any longer to accept a religion that outrages their 
 highest aspirations, and in which they can find no food for 
 lofty spiritual emotions. That is the price which is paid for 
 the dragging down of the divine ideal, so that it may be 
 grasped by the most ignorant mind. In India you have the 
 other plan. You have the recognition that men's minds are 
 in different stages of evolution, that that which is true for the 
 \illager in his field is not true for the Brahman in his place of 
 meditation. Both have rig'hts in the religious world, and 
 both have the possibilitv of the spirit more or less evolved, 
 therefore each should be fed with the food suitable for its 
 evolution. You should no more feed the baby in intellect 
 with the food of the man than you should feed the baby in 
 body with the food which is intended to support a man in his 
 maturity. But that view means what is called idolatry ; that 
 means that you preserve the highest spirituality at the price 
 of being misjudged by those who will not go underneath the 
 outer sign of the idol. For the idol has different meanings 
 . according to the mind which the worshipper brings to it. The 
 idol of the villager may be nothing more than some elemen- 
 tal form, to which he bows down, and to which he brings a drop 
 of water or a flower, to which he strikes a bell. To the Brahman 
 worship of such a deity would be degrading, but it means to 
 that villager something that he is able to recognise and to 
 worship ; and the worshipping act on his part, the love 
 and the faith that stir in him, will open out the way for 
 spiritual life. If you gave him the abstract thought of the 
 Brahman, he would stand with open mouth, understand no- 
 thing of its meaning ; and you will not stir in his heart the 
 first faint throbbings of spiritual life. Let him have his idol 
 which will be able to appeal to him, although it would 
 be to you a degradation to worship it, and let the first quiver 
 of spiritual life move within him. It will justify itself, it will 
 begin his spiritual evolution, and, life after life, it will carry 
 him onward to a higher, higher and still higher view of Deity, 
 until the soul which began with the ringing of a bell before 
 an elemental shall find its home at the lotus feet of Mahadeva, 
 
85 
 
 lost in the radiance that e\er flows therefrom. That is what 
 becomes possible when vou realise that the soul is train- 
 ed through man}' lives. If you have only one life and 
 then forever after what is called Heaven, you must hurry 
 every thing' on, otherwise, it is clear that when the soul gets 
 to Heaven it will find itself in a perfectly incomprehensible 
 position. 
 
 In order to show you how this idolatry may be used, 
 let me take, as I have taken elsewhere, an image that will 
 be familiar to you, — the image of Mahadeva on Nandi, his 
 vehicle, the Bull. Now in a town when a day of festival 
 comes, the image of the god is placed on this his vehicle, and 
 is drawn through the streets of the town. It will be seen bj' 
 many men whose minds are in different stages of evolution ; 
 to them it will convey different kinds of ideas Let us first 
 take the Chandokyopanishad, a.nd the meanings which are given 
 in that.* Brahman is there spoken of as sitting on the Bull, 
 but I take the more familiar form of Mahadeva on Nandi. 
 What does it mean, taking it from the popular standpoint? 
 I am now merely quoting. The sky is symbolised by the 
 God, and the man who is called the theological worship- 
 per, will simply see the outer image of the overarching 
 sky, which to him is a most effective symbol of greatness and 
 grandeur ; for, than the sky which has in itself the sun, the 
 moon and the stars — what more impressive symbol can you 
 possibly have, what which would convey to the limited mind 
 the idea of infinity, of the boundless life which fills all space. 
 So to him, if he has been taught something at least of the 
 meaning of symbols, the God will stand for the over-arching 
 sky ; and the bull on which he rides will be the symbol of the 
 world ; and the four feet of the bull, each of them having a 
 special name, will tell him something of the way in which the 
 world or the universe moves. For one foot will be Agni or fire, 
 another foot will be Vayu or the God of wind — the great breath, 
 in higher parlance, of the Supreme; another foot will be the 
 Sun, as it shines giving light to the world, and the fourth foot 
 will be the quarters or the divisions of the sky. So to his mind 
 these would be conveyed by this symbol, if some one would 
 explain to him the idea of the over-arching care of the Divine 
 Chap. iii. Sec. xviii, i. 
 
85 
 
 resting- on the manifested world, and the sun, the fire, the wind 
 and the quarters in the sk}', all symbolised in these feet of the 
 bull that carr)' onward the Gods and so support and guide 
 the life of the manifested universe. Then some of you will seek 
 after a subtler explanation that will be given you ; and this is 
 called the intellectual worship. Then the God will be the mind in 
 man, and the God riding on his vehicle will be the mind riding 
 in the body. Then the feet of the bull will not have lost their 
 significance, for one foot will be speech, another foot will be 
 breathj another will be vision, and another will be the hear- 
 ing. And then S'ankaracharya teaches that as the four feet of 
 the bull carry the animal wherever it desires to go, so does 
 mind attain its objects through speech, breath, vision, and 
 hearing, which bring the body and the soul within it into con- 
 tact with the outer and material universe. Thus by means of 
 these feet of the bull, the senses of the man, there may be car- 
 ried inwards to the soul the knowledge which the soul has 
 come into manifestation to seek. So you have your philoso- 
 phic meaning of the idol as it passes through the streets, and it 
 reminds you of the embodied soul. And there is yet a deeper 
 meaning that you will not find thus plainly given, but which you 
 may work out for yourself or at least recognise when I give the 
 explanation. Now let the God stand for the Divine itself, for the 
 spirit that we seek, for the highest manifestation — call it Brah- 
 man, call it S'iva, call it Vishnu, give it what name you will ; 
 but recognise the one, the all, the indivisble, symbolised under 
 this name and under this idol form. AVhat then will mean the 
 feet of the bull ? They will mean states of consciousness 
 whereby the soul may climb upwards towards its Lord ; so 
 that foot after foot of the bull shall be state after state of the 
 soul by which it comes nearer and nearer the universal spirit, 
 until at last it shall find it one with itself. One foot will be the 
 waking- state in which the soul lives and moves hi its wakinar 
 hours ; the next foot will mean the SwapnastaXe that we spoke 
 of yesterday, which in the soul is taken as a second step towards 
 the divine ; the third foot will mean the Snshupti state, where 
 one step more is taken towards the divinity ; and the 
 last foot will mean the Turiya state, from which the soul 
 passes onward into unity with God. So that the loftiest 
 conception of the spiritual philosophy is brought to the 
 
87 
 
 developed mind when that symbol is seen. Thus I mj'self, fami- 
 liar with this loftier view, constantly having that in mind, had 
 it brought back to my outer consciousness, with intensity 
 and vividness, when walking through the temple of Madura. 
 I saw an image, a sculptured form of the Sacred Bull, which 
 became to my mind not a mere bull, carved in stone, but a 
 voice that recalled the teaching that I had received of the 
 states of consciousness, and reminded me of the upward path 
 which ended in the God. Thus you may take what is called 
 the idol and find in it what you bring to it ; and if you have 
 no spiritual life within you, which brings to it its real signifi- 
 cation, you have no right to simply scoff at idolatry which is 
 empty to you, because you are empty. 
 
 So again you may take the Purdnas, full of symbolism 
 of the most complicated and difficult kind. If you want to 
 understand how that symbolism may be explained, turn to a 
 single question that you find dealt with in Madame Blavat- 
 sky's " Secret Doctrine ;" and in the mathod of unravelling 
 of one myth, you may possibly gain the key which may 
 enable you to unlock for yourself many another mystery. I 
 am only taking one out of a very large number of instances 
 which she takes from the Puranic stories, explain their dif- 
 ferent meanings. The one that I select and to which I wish 
 to draw your attention, and which I will not work out in 
 detail, for you can read it for yourself, is that of the Maruts* 
 — the gods of the wind and the children of Rudra, the 
 roarer, signifying the tones and the force of the wind mani- 
 fested in phenomenal shape. First of all that represents 
 a fact in nature. It represents this fact that, behind every 
 force in nature there is an intelligence, that every natural 
 phenomenon has an entity connected with it, so that in the 
 plainest sense and the most obvious signification, these 
 maruts are entities that deal with certain forms of manifes- 
 tation in the phenomenal universe ; and if you understand 
 them, their language and their powers, then the phenomena 
 they control become subject to vour knowledge. To no evolved 
 spirit will the maruts be objects of worship ; they will be powers 
 that he controls by his own will ; no Rishi would worship the 
 
 * Secret Doctrine, ii, 613, etc, 
 
88 
 
 maruts, he would command them ; but that does not alter the 
 fact that they are real entities, that they have their real place 
 in the kosmos, that they are among' the Devas, who are the 
 spirit-side of every physical phenomenon that you see ; and if 
 you lose that fundamental truth of Occultism, and if in study- 
 ing the physical phenomena you see the phenomena only 
 and not the spirit that controls, then you are simply blinding 
 yourselves to the real lessons of nature, and matter has 
 achieved over spirit its last triumph, for not only does it 
 conceal spirit from physical vision, but also it conceals it 
 from the spirit that is in man. The maruts then in their 
 lowest signification are entities — entities connected with 
 the atmospheric world, immediately connected with the pro- 
 duction of winds and under subjection to the trained and 
 purified will in man. Then there is another signification, in 
 which you find them no longer as those entities in the kos- 
 mos, but in their character as the children of Rudra — that 
 Rudra who once more is Siva and once more the MaTia Yogi. 
 What then can be the signification of the children of the 
 Yogi, the children of the Virgin Ascetic ? They become then 
 the passions of his nature, they symbolise the forces which 
 he has mastered, and they become, from this standpoint, the 
 enemies of man, striving at first against him ; and then going 
 higher, still keeping this symbolism of the ascetic, those 
 which were his children of the lower nature, the passions that 
 he had to conquer; they become the children of the higher 
 nature, when the lower has been conquered by the purified 
 will of the ascetic in which all power resides, and by them he 
 may work in the external universe. Then you come to the 
 story in which Indra tries to destroy them, for the child is to 
 be born who is to destroy Indra himself, and Indra in this 
 sense is the lower manifestation of nature — the God of the sky, 
 the bearer of the thunderbolt, symbolising a manifested and 
 physical kosmos ; and as the child to be born shall destroy 
 him (once again), the marut, Indra casts forth his thunderbolt, 
 and in the womb he shivers the embryo into seven pieces, which 
 again are divided seven-fold. It is the lower that has checked 
 the development of the higher, and has turned into lower 
 forms the forces that ought to have grown into the developed 
 and purified will. And so, step by step bringing together all 
 
89 
 
 the different symbols that you may find scattered through 
 the Puranas, you will find that this conception of the maruts 
 may be translated into most instructive suggestions which 
 may guide you in your own transmutation of your lower 
 forces into higher, and the change of Kama, that physically 
 creates, into a desire which in the spirit is the source of all 
 progress and the spring of all true life. I mention this par- 
 ticular case, because many of you may be inclined to study the 
 matter — I ought not perhaps to say many — but if you desire 
 to carry on the study further, }ou will tind, if you will use this 
 great teacher H. P. Blavatsky who was sent to us, as you 
 ought to use her, that is in studying the knowledge that she was 
 given to convey to us, and using it as a clue to further know- 
 ledge, you may do for the world a service whose value it is 
 impossible to estimate. You may take your own scriptures 
 with an accuracy of knowledge which she did not possess ; 
 you may take them in their original form in Sanskrit, a lan- 
 guage that she had not mastered ; and you may get from them 
 in that language, the language of the Gods, using the light 
 that she has placed in your hands, many an inner meaning 
 and many a secret clue ; then you may give these to the world 
 and so carry on this work which she was sent here to begin 
 and not to finish. For it is hoped by those who sent her that 
 if a stimulus were given, there might be here and there a man 
 amongst the Indian people who would spring forward to the 
 light, and taking it from her hand would carry it onwards, 
 and bring out of these ancient scriptures a spiritual teach- 
 ing, which is needed for the helping of the world. If there 
 should be one man here who was inspired by this sugges- 
 tion to study for himself, I should count it that her life had 
 borne here its true fruit ; for her reward would be really 
 won if only an impulse were given to the spiritual life of the 
 world. 
 
 And so I might take you through many another symbol, 
 so that I might point out to you many another thing. Let 
 me take what appears so simple a case — a Brahman's thread. 
 What does it symbolise ? What ought it to represent ? It 
 symbolises the triple nature of man, the lower, the mid- 
 
go 
 
 die, and the higher ; it symbolises those three planes of 
 consciousness of which I spoke yesterday ; it symbolises 
 the three conditions of A'tma, of which also I spoke ; it 
 symbolises in addition to these the body, speech and mind. 
 Take those significations and then judge what it ought 
 to mean when a man wears it. The world knows who 
 wears it, and to eyes that are trained that outer symbol 
 is either desecrated or sanctified according as it repre- 
 sents a reality or a lie. For first of all as regards body, 
 speech and mind, it symbolises the control of each ; and 
 therefore when the knots are tied in it, it means that the 
 man who wears the thread has gained control over body, 
 speech and mind. It conveys to the eye that sees it the 
 idea of a man of perfect self-control, whose body can never 
 betray him and whose senses can never conquer him ; 
 whose speech can never soil nor hurt one ear on which 
 it falls, whose speech will be self-controlled, used only when 
 there is something to be said which is worth saying, never 
 used for an unkind word, for the Brahman is the friend of all 
 creatures and his speech must always help and must never 
 wound ; and not only does it symbolise the man thus control- 
 led in body and speech, but also it implies that control of the 
 mind has been achieved, and that the mind is held by the 
 grip of the triple cord with its knots upon it, so that it may 
 serve as a helper to the highest that is in him, and be used for 
 the service of men to whom the Brahman belongs. For, the 
 Brahman has no right of existence for himself ; he lives for the 
 people and not for himself If he lives for himself he is not a 
 true Brahman ; he may have the outer signs of caste, he may 
 have the triple cord, he may use the sacred name, and he may 
 even obey the rules of his order, but these are only the outer 
 shell. Only if he lives not for himself but for the world, is 
 he of the Brahman caste, standing as the spiritual servant, 
 which in the world he was to be ? He came from the mouth 
 of Brahma that he might be the spoken word of the divine 
 life among men. That is the meaning of the Brahman. 
 Whenever I see the thread, I think to myself whether it is a 
 reality or not — does it represent a truth, or is it only the 
 survival of an ancient custom which has become the worst of 
 
blasphemies ? For the degradation of the highest to the 
 lowest is the worst of degradations, it is the poisoning of the 
 world, for it poisons the spiritual life in *man. These words 
 may seem strong, but they are of that spirit on which the 
 ancient scriptures are based. They are no stronger than 
 Manu spoke ; they are no stronger than may be found in such 
 writings as the Mahabharata ; they are no stronger than may 
 be read in many a Puruna ; and if they seem a bitter irony 
 to-day, as I know they do, it is because I am speaking the 
 words of the old world in the modern world, and the con- 
 trast between theory and practice is too startling. Since, 
 however, the theory is true, I, while still an outcaste, re- 
 cognising the fact, make no claim amongst you. I have 
 none in my present condition, and I give outward recog- 
 nition to that caste which ought to manifest the holiness of 
 the Brjihman. That is why I say that if India is to be 
 regenerated, it must come from this caste that symbolises 
 her past, and therefore has in it the promise of her future, 
 no matter what it may be to-day ; that is why, when I am 
 asked to initiate reforms, I answer, " Let me serve you with 
 suggestion, with help, if you will, but let the leadership 
 in Reform belong to the Spiritual caste which has the right 
 of leadership, so that in coming it may come without destruc- 
 tion, without shivering the very foundation on which the 
 future life of the people is to be builded." I who say these 
 things may seem to press unfairly on you, for you are not 
 personally to blame that the whole land has fallen ; you as 
 individuals are a part of a great nation, and you with it have 
 gone downwards. But what shall I say to you, my Brahman 
 brothers, you whom I ought to be able to address as fathers? 
 If I cannot do so, it is because I know in many things more 
 than you do ; I, an outcaste, who ought to sit at your feet, 
 as your pupil cannot do so, because you have not the know- 
 ledge to give me, which the pupil has a right to claim from 
 the teacher if he bows down before him. I appeal to you, 
 you of the spiritual caste, to uphold it, and to recognise its 
 present degradation. And if I speak these words which 
 seem to make a bitter contrast, it is because in your hands 
 lies the spiritual future of these people, because though the 
 
92 
 
 whole nation has fallen and you have fallen with it, yet in 
 you there is still the power that ought to be able to begin the 
 upward path ; and though success will only be by the toil of 
 many generations, there is no reason why you should not 
 begin to-day. 1 know too well that in a moment you cannot 
 do it, and I know that for the time your cord must remain a 
 mockery, and the nobler you are the bitterer the irony you 
 will feel in wearing it, because you know what it represented 
 and how it has fallen. I say that not in reproach, for who 
 am I that I should reproach you ? I say it in order that here 
 and there amongst you a desire for higher life may be born, 
 for I would send, even as by a thunderbolt into your hearts, 
 the bitterness of the degradation, so that the possibility of 
 rising upwards may be realised once more amongst men. 
 For I would that each of you, feeling the degradation and 
 recognising it, should not cast off the sacred cord but begin 
 to purify the life and thus justify its wearing ; and if only in 
 small things a beginning were made, the first upward step 
 would be taken. For there are many lives before us, life 
 after life that stretches in front of you, a mighty caste not 
 able now to live up to its glorious traditions ; and therefore 
 I say let us take up the cup of our karma, let us bear it on- 
 ward bravely as brave men should bear, not quarrelling with 
 its weight inasmuch as we have made it ourselves in the 
 past ; recognising it as bitter, let us drink it, and in drinking 
 it, let its bitterness purify the soul, that we may gain strength 
 to change to all that we long for, and may be resolute to 
 alter ourselves, and so the spiritual purification of the people 
 also shall begin. Then when we come back to birth, as 
 we shall come swiftly if our desire is to help the people to 
 whom we belong, then we shall find things a little better, 
 and in that better life we shall be able to work hand in hand 
 when the triple cord will have lost the mockery between the 
 wearing and the meaning, and so life after life we shall lift 
 the whole of this people that has fallen in our fall, and will 
 rise in our rise. That is my last word to you in this hall, not 
 a word of reproach but a word of common sorrow, and of 
 common aspiration for this Hindu nation. We are responsi- 
 ble for it. Let us then begin the work of reformation, and 
 
93 
 
 from generation to generation we shall work until India 
 shall rise step after step, and we shall place her again where 
 she ought to be and where in truth she always is — at the feet 
 of the Great Gods. Though the people do not see her there 
 now, they shall see her there then, and then the light that 
 springs from the lotus-feet shall envelope her, so that the 
 world shall worship her and know that she is indeed the 
 spirit in the body of Humanity. 
 
 The End. 
 
AN EXPLANATORY CATALOGUE 
 
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 A gentleman of Karachi says, ' ' Whatever books I have been 
 getti7ig from your hands have, in all respects, been 
 found most useful, of a very moderate cost and most 
 appreciable." 
 
 THEosopxy. 
 
 RB. A. 
 
 Isis Unveiled, by H. p. Blavatsky : 10th Edition (2 vols.) ...25 
 
 A monument of learning and world-famous. 
 The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky : 3rd Edition, 2 vols., 
 
 and Index (separately bound) ... ... ... ... ... 35 
 
 Her greatest -work. 
 
JjiEOSOPyiY— (Continued.) RS A. 
 
 Key to Theosopliy, with Glossary and Index, by H. P. B. (New 
 
 Edition) cloth 5 
 
 A complete compendium of the subject. 
 Voice of the Silence, by do. 8 
 
 Called in Spain " that mystic pearl without price." 
 Gems from the East, a Birth-Day Book, by do 2 8 
 
 A wisdom-jewel for each day of the year. 
 Theosophy, Religion, and Occult Science, by Col. Olcott, P. T. S. 3 
 
 Twelve of Col. Olcott's most famous lectures. 
 Asceticism, reprint from the T7!eosop?ii.sf do. ... 1 
 
 The Building of the Kosmos and other lectures, by Mrs. Annie 
 
 Besant... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 The excellent lectures of Mrs. Annie Besant, on Sound, Fire, 
 
 Yoga and Symbolism during the 18th T. S. Convention of 
 1893, at Adyar. 
 
 Seven Principles of Man, being Manual No. 1, by Mrs. Besant, 
 
 (paper cover) ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Do. do. do. do. 
 
 (cloth bound) ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 Re-incarnation, being Manual No. 2, do. do. 
 
 (paper cover) ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Do. do. do. do. 
 
 (cloth bound) ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 Death and After, being Theosophical Manual No. 3, do. 
 
 (paperoover) ... ... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Do. do. do. do. 
 
 (cloth bound) ... ... ... ... ... .. 12 
 
 Why I became a Theosophist, by Annie Besant ... ... 2 
 
 Useful to put into the hands of enquirers. 
 Theosophy and the Law of Population, by do ... ... 1 
 
 Upon becoming a Theosophist Mrs. Besant changed her views 
 about the benefit of Malthusiauism. 
 1875 to 1891. A Fragment of Autobiography, by do ... 2 
 
 An epitome of the larger work on her life. 
 In Defence of Theosophy, by do ... ... ... 2 
 
 A lecture delivered at St. James' Hall, London 
 
 The Sphinx of Theosophy, by do ... ... ,., 3 
 
 A lecture delivered in the Portmau Rooms, London. 
 
 The Evolution of Society, by do .,. ... . g 3 
 
 The Place of Peace, by do ... ... ... o 1 
 
 A rough Outline of Theosophy, by do ... ... ... 1 
 

 
 1 
 
 
 
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 THEOSO?Hy~{G(mtmued). rs. a. 
 
 Theosophy and the Society of Jesus, by Mrs. Besant ... 
 Why you should be a Theosophist, by do 
 
 What Theosophy is ? by do . . . 
 
 Annie Besant on Theosophy and How Annie Besant Works 
 Theosophy and Christianity, by ... do 
 
 Exposition of Theosophy, by ... do 
 
 Theosophy in Questions and Answers, by Annie Besant and 
 
 Patterson ... ... .. ... .,, .,, o 4 
 
 A short Glossary of Theosophical Terms, by A. Besant and — 
 
 Barrows ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 Intended for Western students and enquirers. 
 The Theosophical Society and H. P. B., by A. Besant and 
 
 Patterson ... ... ... ... ... ... o 3 
 
 Reprinted from Lucifer, 
 
 Theosophy and its Evidences, by A. Besant and Pattei-eou ... 3 
 A pamphlet to put into the hands of those interested. 
 
 The Occult World, by A, P. Sinnett (4thed.) 112 
 
 A book that is known throughout the world. 
 
 Esoteric Buddhism, by A. P. Sinnett (Reduced from Rs. 2-8 to 
 
 Re. 1 paper cover.) ... ... .. ... ... 1 
 
 One of the most important among Theosophical books. 
 
 Esoteric Buddhism, with Notes, latest Edition ... ... 1 12 
 
 Human Aura, by A. P. Sinnett ... ... ... ... ... ... 012 
 
 The purpose of Theosophy, by Mrs. A. P. Sinnett (Cheap Kdition) 4 
 
 Very clearly written : excellent for beginners. 
 Light on the Path, by M. C. (Madras Edition) ... ... 2 
 
 Aphoristic, like Bhagavad Gita. 
 Light on the Path, with Author's Notes and Comments from Lucifer. 1 
 
 Light on the Path with Commentary and Annotations, by Dewan 
 
 Bahadur P. Srinivasa Row, F. T. S. ... ... ... 1 
 
 The Idyll of the White Lotus, by M. C. (Ch. Ed.) ... ... 1 12 
 
 Through the Gates of Gold, a fragment of Thought, by M. C. ... 3 
 
 Of the same character as the foregoing. 
 Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine, 
 
 by Countess Wachtmeister ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. I. ... ... ...10 
 
 An able treatise by Mr. A. 0. Hume. 
 Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. IL ... ... ... 8 
 
 Another : specially important to Swedenborgians. 
 
yHEOSOPyi^—iGontinued). lis. A. 
 
 Five years of Theosophy ... ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 Compiled from the first five vols, of the Theosophist. 
 
 Man : Some Fragments of Forgotten History, hy Two Chelas... 2 12 
 Contains much mystical information. 
 
 Magic, White and Black, by Dr. F. Hartmann (enlarged 
 
 London Edition, Es. 6) American Edition ... ... ... 1 12 
 
 Very popular treatise upon Magic. 
 Magic, White and Black, (First Madras Edition) ... ... 1 
 
 A Guide to Theosophy ... ... ... ... ... 2 4 
 
 A Bombay compilation of valuable articles. 
 Fragments of Occult Truth, Odd Nos. Bach ... ... ... 1 
 
 Essay — Afterwards included in " Esoteric Buddhism." 
 Elixir of Life, American Edition ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 A highly original and instructive treatise. 
 Thoughts on the Metaphysics of Theosophy ... ... 10 
 
 By a Hindu Metaphysician. 
 Absolute Monism, or Mind is Matter and Matter is Mind ' ... 1 8 
 
 By the same. 
 
 The Mystery of the Ages, by Countess Caithness ... ... 8 
 
 Coutained in the Secret Doctrine of all Religions. 
 
 Soul, its Nature and Development ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 An essay by the late Peary Chand Mittra. 
 
 New Illumination, by Edward Maitland ... ... ... 6 
 
 An able essay on Christian Theosophy. 
 
 Re-incarnation, by B. D. Walker (Ch. Bdn.) ... ... ... 112 
 
 A very useful work, for all students. 
 
 Re-incarnation, by J. Anderson (bound copies Ks. 3-8) paper ... 1 12 
 
 Evolution according to Theosophy, by K. Hillard ... ... 5 
 
 Sadhanachathushttaya, a Lecture delivered by 11. Jagannathiah. 4 
 
 The four pre-requisites of Gnyanam. 
 
 Discourses on Bhagavad Gita. Four Lectures delivered by 
 
 T. Subba Row ... ... ... ... ... ... 14 
 
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 Problems of the Hidden Life ... ... ... ... 3 12 
 
 A thoughtful treatise. 
 Nature's Finer Forces, by Rama Prasad ... ... ... 2 8 
 
 For these essays the Author received the Theosophist Gold 
 
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 Three Sevens, by the Phelons ... ... ... ... 3 8 
 
 A stoiy of Initiation. 
 
JHEOSOPHY—iContimied). fts. a.. 
 
 Occult Sciences, by A. E. Waite ... ... ... ... 4 8 
 
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 Astral Light, by Nizida ... ... ... .■■ ••■ 2 
 
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 Was Swedenborg a Theosophist? ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 An interesting study and comparison. 
 
 Transaction of the Blavatsky Lodge, No. I. ... ... 1 
 
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 Contain answers by H. P. B. and clever discussions upon 
 most theosophical themes, 
 
 Lucifer, bound Vols. 3, 4. and 5 (Six Nos. each) each ... ... 8 
 
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 Suitable for distribution- 
 True Science — Keely's Latest Discoveries ... ... ... 7 
 
 Should be read by all Scientists. 
 Man in Search of His Soul, by Gerald Massey . . ... 12 
 
 By one of the most erudite writers in England. 
 Seven Souls of Man, and their Culmination ... 
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 Philosophy of Deaths by A. J. Davis ... 
 
 Do. of Man, by Davidson 
 
 WTiat is Death? by Edmonds 
 
 Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day ... 
 
 What is Theosophy ? by W. B. Old : embellished 
 
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 For beginners and distribution. 
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 Pronaos of the Temple of Wisdom, by F. Hartmann ... 6 
 
 Contains the History of the true and the false Rosioruoians. 
 
 ... 
 
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 12 
 
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 with Mme. 
 
 
 
 12 
 
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JHEOSOPHy— (Continued). 
 
 Complete Glossary of Theosophical Terms 
 
 H. P. B.'s posthumous work. 
 An Exposition of the Non-Starch Food System, by Dcnsmore. 
 A Course of Theosophical Reading ... 
 The Divine Love and Wisdom, by E. Swedenborg 
 Facing the Sphinx, by M. L. Fariington 
 The Finding of the Gnosis 
 
 From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan, by H. F. B. 
 In Memory of H. P, B. 
 
 Karma and Re-incarnation, by Snowdon Ward 
 Paradoxes of the Highest Science ... 
 
 The Peril of Indian Youth, by Col. H. S. 0. (very important) ... 
 Simon Magus, an Essay, by G. B. S. Mead — Subba Row Medallist 
 The Stanzas of Dzyan, by H. P. B. (Madras reprint) 
 Theosophy and Roman Catholicism, by H. Burrows 
 Transactions of the Scottish Lodge T. S., Parts 1 to 4 
 The Scientific Basis of Theosophy, by Dr. Salzer 
 The Epiphany and Theosophy 
 
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 Man-his origin and evolution 
 
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 The Ocean of Theosophy, by Mr, Q. Judge (cloth bound Es. 3) 
 
 paper cover contains much information ... ... 1 8 
 
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 Theosophy as a Guide in Life. An epitome of Theosophy ; 
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 9 
 
 
 
 
 
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 jyiEOSOPHY— (.Continued). ES. A. 
 
 The Destiny of Man viewed in the light of his Origin, by J, Fiske 3 
 The Wilkesbarre Letters on Theosophy, by Alex. Fullerton ... 5 
 
 Have had an euorraoas cii'onlatiou. 
 Letters that have held me, by J. Xiemand. ... 12 
 
 Keprinted from " The Path." 
 How best to Become a Theosophist, by G. Wyld ... 4 
 
 By a Christian Theosophisb. 
 Working Glossary, for Theosophical Students 
 Indianapolis Letters on Theosophy, by A. FuUerton . 
 
 Ml-. Fullerton's latest series of essays. 
 Death as viewed by Theosophy, by do 
 Theosophical Mahatmas by, ... do 
 
 THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY REPOETS. 
 
 Reports of each Anniversary, from 1SS3 to ISSS each... 
 
 Do Fifteenth do 1S90 
 
 Do Sixteenth do 1891 
 
 Do Seventeenth do 1S92 
 
 Do Eighteenth do 1S94 
 
 Report of the Proceedings and Lectures of Theosophical Society 
 
 held in connection with the World's Parliament of Religions in 
 
 Chicago, U. S.. America... .. . ... ... 1 6 
 
 RELIGIONS. 
 
 The World's Parliament of Religions. The Official Report of the 
 Proceedings of the Parliament of Religions. Edited by the 
 Kev. J. H. Barrows, D. D. In two octavo "Vols, of SOO pases 
 each, profusely illustrated with Portr.\its and with Pictures of 
 Cathedrals, Churches, Temples, Shrines, Eeligious Eites. Cere- 
 monies, i'C- ... ... ... ... ... . 21 
 
 BUDDHISM, 
 
 The Higher Life or Rules of the Eaja Yoga prescribed by 
 
 Bhagavan Buddha ... .. ... ... ... 2 
 
 Illuminated Buddhism, by Sidhartha Sakyamuni ...IS 
 
 The popular Life of Buddha, by Arthirr Lillie ... 6 
 
 A Buddhist Catechism, by Colonel H. S. Olcott, P. T. S, 6 
 Xow the school te^t-book in Ceylon, Japan and other Bnddhisi 
 countries. 
 
 The same, (translated into German) ... ... 1 
 
 Do. ( do. French) . . ... 14 
 
8 
 
 JiELldlOHS—iGontinued). ES. A. 
 
 The same, (translated into Swedish) ... ... 1 8 
 
 Do. ( do. Japanese) ... ... 1 
 
 The work has been translated in twenty languages. 
 The Golden Rules of Buddhism, by Colonel H. S. Olcott, P. T. S. 4 
 
 A handy compilation of Buddhist moral aphorism. 
 The Light of Asia, by Sir Edwin Arnold ... ... ... 3 8 
 
 An epoch-making book : the author's masterpiece. 
 
 Do do cheap edition ... ... 1 
 
 The Romantic History of Buddha, by I5eal . . ... ... 9 
 
 Buddhism, by T. W. Rhys-Davids ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 Most useful ; should be in every Library. 
 The Legend of Gaudama, by Bishop Bigandet, in 2 Vols. ... 15 
 
 A noble proof of the tolerance of the Roman Catholic Bishop 
 of Ava. 
 Buddhist Birth Stories ... ... ... ... ...13 
 
 The Buddhist Jatakas, by Profs T. W. Rhys-Davids and FansboU. 
 Kusajataka ... ... ... ... ... ■ ■ 3 8 
 
 Datavansa, by Sir M. Knmarasarai ... ... .. -1 
 
 History of the Tooth relics of Buddha. 
 Catena of Chinese Scriptures, by Real ... 12 
 
 A classic, 
 Dhammapada, by Beal ... ... . ■ . • ■ ... 5 
 
 The jewel of Ethics 
 Udanavarga, by Rookhill ... ... ■■ ■■ ... 6 
 
 Buddhism in Christendom ... ... • •• ■■■ 10 
 
 The Imitation ofBuddha : with Preface, by Sir Edwin Arnold ... 2 
 
 Gives a Buddhist verse for each day of the year. 
 
 [All indispensable to the student of Buddhism.] 
 
 HINDUISM. 
 
 Bhagavadgita, Sanatsujatiya, and Anugita, by K. T. Telang ... 9 
 
 Vol. VIII of the Sacred Books of the Bast, by Prof. Max - 
 Miiller. 
 
 Vedanta Sutras with Sankara's Commentary, Parti ... 10 8 
 
 Vol. XXXIV of the Sacred Book of the Bast. 
 
 Bamayana of Tulsi Das, (Eng.trans.) 3 Vols. ... ... 3 
 
 The Valmiki Bamayana, translated nicely into English, 
 
 by Maumatha Nath Dutt, M.A., 7 Vols. ... ... ... 16 
 
 Illuminated Brahmanism, by Ranga Hilyod ... ... 1 8 
 
 Bhagavad-Gita, compiled by W. Q. Judge ... ... 3 
 
 Transmigration of Souls, by Srinivasa Sastri ... ... ... 2 
 
E3. 
 
 A, 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 RELlClO}iS— (Continued). 
 
 The Uttaragita, being tlie Initiation of Arjuna, by Shri Krishna. 
 
 Vedantavartikam and Eajayoga, translated by Narasimiali 
 
 Yoga : The Science of the Soul, by G. R. S. Mead (London Edi- 
 tion) ... 
 
 Do. do. do, (Madras Edition) ... 
 
 A Dwaita Catechism, by Dewan Bahadur P. Srinivasa Row 
 
 A Visishtadwaita do., by Pandit Bhashyacharya, 2nd Edition ... 
 
 Epitome of Aryan Morals, by Dewan Bahadur P. Srinivasa Row. 
 Do. (for distribution) 15 copies As. 8 ; 100 copies Rs. 2-8 ; 1,000 
 copies 
 
 The Kinship between Hinduism and Buddhism 
 Col. Oloott's great Calcutta lecture. 
 
 The Bhagavad Gita, English translation, by J. Davies ... ... 6 
 
 One of the best books ever written or printed. 
 
 The Bhagavad Gita, English translation, by Charles Wilkins ... 1 2 
 
 Song Celestial, by Sir Edwin Arnold ... ... ... ... 4 4 
 
 Metrical translation of the Gita. 
 
 The Sankhya Karika of Iswara Krishna, by Colebrooke ... 2 4 
 
 Do. do. translated by .John Davies ... 4 4 
 
 The Birth of the War-God, by Kalidasa ., ... ... 3 8 
 
 A translation of Kumarasambhava. 
 
 Patanjali's YogaPhilosophy (revised edition)... . ... 1 8 
 
 Yoga is the philosophy of union with God. 
 
 Hatayoga Pradipika ... .. . ... ... 1 8 
 
 Probodha Chandrodaya ... .. ... ... ... 8 
 
 A philosophical drama. 
 
 Metrical Translations from SanskritJWriters, by Mnir... ... 10 
 
 With an introduction, many prose versions and parallel pas- 
 sages from classical Authors, 
 
 Hindu Pantheism, by Jacobs ... ,. ... ,., 4 4 
 
 A translation of Vedantasara. 
 
 History of Pantheism, by Plumptre ... 
 
 Philosophy of the TJpanishads, by Gough 
 
 The Religions of India, by Barth 
 
 Oriental Religions, by Johnson (2 Vols.) 
 
 Isavasyopanishad, translated by S. Ramaswami Iyer, F. T. S. 
 
 Raja Yoga, by Mauilal N. Dvivedi 
 
 The author treats his subjects with great ability. 
 Monism or Advaitism, by Manilal N. Dvivedi ... ... ... 2 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
10 
 
 RELICIOHS— (Continued). bs. a. 
 
 Yoga Philosophy, by Dr. Paul ... ... ... ...0 10 
 
 A popnlar work on Toga by an English educated Bengali medi- 
 cal man. 
 Compendiiim of Rajayoga ... .. ... ... ... 1 12 
 
 Comprises the principal treatises of Sri Sankaracharya and 
 other renowned authors. 
 Bhagavad Gita, by M. M. Chaterjee ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Siva Samhita, by S. 0. Basu ... ... ... ,, 2 12 
 
 Gives the rules of Yoga Practice and Self development. 
 Twelve Principal Upanishads with notes from the Commentaries 
 
 of Sankaracharya, and the Gloss of Anandgiri ... ... 4 8 
 
 The Sandhyavandanam, by S. E. G. ... ... ... 6 
 
 The Bhagavatgita — Spanish Translation ... ... ... 12 
 
 Thoughts on Bhagavadgita, by a Brahman ... ... ... 12 
 
 Vasudeva Mananam, translated into English, by Kumbaconum 
 
 T. S. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Mahimnastotra or a Hymn to Shiva, translated into English ... 2 
 Ashtadyayi of Paniui, issued in parts. Text and English Transla- 
 tion, each ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 Introduction to the Mantra Sastras ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 Introduction to the Yoga Aphorism .. . ... ... ... 4 
 
 ZOKOASTRIANISM. 
 
 Zoroastrian and Some other Ancient Systems ... ... 3 4 
 
 An outline of Zoroastrianism and the Philosophy of the Chaldeans, 
 
 Ancient Iranian and Zoroastrian Morals ... ... ... 6 
 
 The Desatir, or the Sacred Writings of the Ancient Persian 
 
 Prophets, bonnd in cloth ... ... ... -.. 2 2 
 
 A highly valuable fragment of the once complete Iranian 
 
 system of Theosophy. 
 Do. do. (P'lper) ... ... 1 10 
 
 Zoroastrianism in the Light of Occult Philosophy ... ... 08 
 
 A study by a Parsi, F. 'x'. S. 
 
 GRKCIAN- 
 
 [AU very useful to Students.] 
 
 Sayings of Grecian Sages, No. I. ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 Do. do. No. II . . ... ... ... 4 
 
 Parmenides of Plato, by Thomas Taylr.r ... ... ... 14 
 
 Phffido of Plato, by do. ... ... ...0 14 
 
 Bleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, b.v Thomas Taylor... ... 17 
 
11 
 
 RELlQlOHS—(.Gontinued). 
 
 KABBALA. ES. A. 
 
 Introduction to the Kabbala, by A. D. Ezekiel ... ... 1 2 
 
 The Kabbala or Esoteric Jadaisra was derived from the more 
 ancient Kabbala of Chaldea. 
 The Kabbala Unveiled, translated by S. L.M. Mathers ... 8 
 
 A translation of Rosenroth's celebrated " Kabbala Deiiudata." 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 The New Gospel of Interpretation .., ... ... ...10 
 
 Education, the Coming Man ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 The Kise of Christendom, by Edwin Johnson... ... ... 10 8 
 
 The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ, by Dr. Kingsford 
 
 and Edward Maitland ... ... ... ... ... 1 12 
 
 One of the greatest books of this Theosophical era. 
 Esoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics, by W. F. Evan. 5 8 
 Rational Christianity, by Hugh Juuor Browne ... ... 3 12 
 
 A critical Analysis of popular theology, in which its truths are 
 coafirmed and its fallacies explained. 
 Secret of the East — Origin of the Christian Religion, its Rise and 
 
 Decline 
 Bible in India, by Louis JaooUiot 
 
 Hindu origin of Hebrew and Christian Revelation. 
 The Logia of the Lord, a Lecture by Gerald Massey ... 
 Paul, the Gnostic Opponent of Peter, by do. 
 
 The Historical Jesus and Mythical Christ, by do. 
 The Devil of Darkness in the Light of Evolution, by do. 
 Primitive Christianity, by Lewis G. Janes 
 Speaker's Commentary^ by T. L. Strange 
 Commentary on the Apocalypse, by Dr. E. V. Kenneally 
 
 The late Kenneally, M. P., was one of the most erudite scho- 
 lars of onr times. 
 Introduction to the Apocalypse, by do. 
 
 Womanhood and the Bible, by Libra 
 The Esoteric basis of Christianity, by Kingsland 
 Useful reading for Christians. 
 
 MISCBLLiNEOUS. 
 
 Confucius, the great Teacher, by Major Genl. Alexander, c. b. ... 4 8 
 The Beacon Light, by T. L. Nichols, m. d ... ... ,,. o 6 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Clothed -with the Sun, by Kingsford and Maitland ... ... 1 
 
 12 
 
ES. 
 
 A. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 JiELlClOHS— {Continued). 
 
 Free Thoughts concerning Religion, by A. J. Davis 
 
 Social Life, by T. L. Nichols 
 
 Sacred Mysteries of the Quiches, by Augustus Le Plongeon 
 
 A striking work, in which thn Author maintains upon the 
 archselogical discoveries, that all the " Mysteries" of 
 Greece, Rome, India and Egypt came from Quiche. 
 
 Ancient Pagan and Modem Christian Symbolism ... ... 4 
 
 Shows the derivation of the latter from the former. 
 Ancient Faiths and Modern, by Inm.iu ... ... ... 5 
 
 A dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities in Cen- 
 tral and Western Asia, Europe and elsewhere before the 
 Christian Era. 
 
 The Virgin of the World, by Hermes Trismegistus ., ... 8 
 
 Based upon Egyptian Mysticism. 
 
 Primitive Symbolism as illustrated in^the Phallic Worship ... 5 
 
 The antiquity of Linga Puja. 
 PhaUicism, by Hargrave Jennings ... ... ... ... 13 8 
 
 Same as the above. 
 Jacob Boehme hia, Life and Doctrines by Hartmaun ... 8 
 
 Boehme was one of the world's greatest Theosophists. 
 
 MESIWERISM. 
 
 How to Hypnotise, by J. Barter ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 The Rationale of Mesmerism, by A. P. Sinnett ... ... 2 8 
 
 Practical Instructions on Animal Magnetism, by Deleuze ... 6 
 
 A classical work by a French scientist. 
 
 How to Magnetize, by J V. Wilson ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 One of the best elementary hand books. 
 
 Six Lectures on the Philosophy of Mesmerism, by J. B. Dods ... 1 8 
 
 Do do. do. (less matter) 6 
 
 Mesmerism and Electrical Psychology, by J. B. Dods ... ... 4 
 
 How to Mesmerise, by Prof . Cadwell ... ... ... 1 12 
 
 Useful hand book. 
 
 Library of Mesmerism ... ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 Contains a large fund of information. 
 
 Vital Magnetic Cure, by a Magnetic Physician ... ... 3 
 
 Mental Cure, by Evans ... ... ... ... ... 4 8 
 
 Artiiicial Somnambulism, by Dr. Fahnestook ... ... ... 5 
 
 The Modem Bethesda, by A. E. Newton ... ... ... 6 
 
 Dr. Newton was the most famous of American psychopaths. 
 
13 
 
 MESMERIS)yi— (OoraitwMed). ES. A. 
 
 Practical Mesmerist, by Wm. Davey ... ... ... 18 
 
 A capital little wrok. 
 Mesmerism with Hints for Beginners, by James ... ... 2 
 
 Also an excellent boot. 
 How to Mesmerise, by James Coates ... ... ... 12 
 
 Clairvoyance, by Adolphe Didier ... ... .. ... 2 
 
 Adolpho and Alexis Dedifr are celebrated names among clair- 
 voyants. 
 
 Mesmerism, Curative Magnetism and Message, by D, Younger. 2 
 The author is a living practitioner of curative mesmerism. 
 
 Hypnotism, by Albert Moll ... ... ... ... ... 2 12 
 
 A learned and instructive u'ork by a renowned German physi- 
 cian. 
 
 Human Magnetism ... ,., ... ... ... 2 4 
 
 Suggestive Therapeutics, by Prof. Bernheim ... ... ..10 
 
 One of the best books on the subject. 
 
 How to Thought-Read, by James Coates ,, ,. ... 12 
 
 SPIRITUALISJVI 
 
 The Harmonial Man, by A. J. Davis ... ... ... ... 1 6 
 
 Nineteenth Century Miracles, by B. H. Britten ... ... 5 
 
 Spiritual Therapeutics, or Divine Science ... ... ... 3 12 
 
 Spiritualism considered in the light of TheoBophy ... ... 1 
 
 Whence, What, Where ? by J. R. Nichols ... ... ... 3 12 
 
 A New Basis of Belief in Immortality, by J. S. Farmer ... 1 
 
 The basis is modern spiritualism. 
 Psychography, by M. A. (Oxon) ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 The Author was the Editor of Light, and a scholar and most 
 trustworthy writer. 
 
 Transcendental Physics, by Zollner ... .. ... ,., 3 
 
 One of the most important scientific works ever written upon 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 Pioneers of the Spiritual Reformation ... ... ... 7 
 
 Notices of Dr. Koeruer, Wm. Howitt, &c. 
 
 The Scientific Basis of Spiritualism, by Bpes Sargent ... ... 5 
 
 An important and scholarly work. 
 
 Notes of |an enquiry into the Phenomena called Spiritualism, 
 
 by Prof. Crookes ... ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 A most noted work. 
 A Scientific View of Modern Spiritualism, by Grant ... ... 2 
 
 Death and After Life, paper cover ... ... ... ... 1 8 
 
14 
 
 SPlB'iTUALlSJA— (Continued). RS. A. 
 
 Serious Letters to Serious Friends, by Grant ... ... 4 12 
 
 [All excellent works.] 
 
 Proof Palpable of Immortality, by Epes Sargent .. ... 2 12 
 
 An account of the materialization phenomena of modern 
 spiritualism. 
 Tke Debatable Land between the World and the Next, by 
 
 Owen ... ... ... ... .... ... ... 5 8 
 
 Touching communication of religious knowledge to men, with 
 illustrative narrations. 
 
 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, by Alfred R. Wallace, F. E. S. 3 8 
 
 A Defence of Modem Spiritualism, by do ... 12 
 
 Materialized Apparitions, by Brackett ... ... ... 4 
 
 Startling Facts in Modern Spiritualism, by Dr. Wolfe ... 6 
 
 A record of most remarkatjle mediumistic phenomena. 
 
 Eleven Days at Moravia, by Hazard ... ... ... 5 
 
 Stray Thoughts on Spiritualism ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 By the late revered Babu PearyvChand Mittra. 
 
 Planchette Mystery ... ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 The Medium's Book, Experimental Spiritism ... ... 6 
 
 By Allan Kardeo, Founder of the School of French Spiritism. 
 
 'Twixt Two Worlds, by J. S. Farmer... ... ... ... 6 8 
 
 A costly volume about the phenomena of W. Eglinton. 
 
 From Over the Tomb, by A Lady (paper cover) ... ... 9 
 
 From Soul to Soul, by do cloth bound ... ... 2 
 
 Selection from the MSS. written under the spiritual control of 
 her late husband. 
 
 Other World, by Eev. Lee, in 2 Vols. ... ... ... 9 8 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Posthumous Humanity, by Jl. D. Assier and Colonel Olcott, 
 
 P. T. S., Engs. Edition only, cloth bound ... ... ... 5 8 
 
 A inost interesting work on astral phantoms, very suggestive 
 to Hindus especially. 
 Phantasms of the Living, by B, Ciurney Ac, vols. I and 2 ... 16 
 Watseka Wonder — a case of double consciousness ... ... 7 
 
 A very strange narrative. 
 Geometrical Psychology, by Mr. Betts and L. S. Cook ... ... 6 
 
 The Night Side of Nature, by C. Crowe ... ,., ... 1 8 
 
 A well-known and classical work on ghosts, &o. 
 
 The Law of Psychic Phenomena, by T. J . Hudson ... ... 6 
 
15 
 PSYCHOMETRY. Es. A. 
 
 Psychometry and Thought-Transference, by N. C. ... ... 4 
 
 A handy compilation containing tlie essence of all the expen- 
 sive works on these subjects. 
 
 The Soul of Things, by Professor William Denton, in 3 Vols. ...12 8 
 Every p.sycholoo;ist's library should contain a copy. 
 
 Psychometry, by Dr. J. K. Buchanan... ... ... .. 5 l2 
 
 A large work by the DisC'Verer of Psychometry. 
 
 CHARACTER-READING AND PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Heads and Faces, by Professor Xeilson Hizer (strongly recom- 
 mended) 
 
 Indications of Character in the Head and Face, by H. S. Drayton 
 
 Self-Instructor in Phrenology and Physiology 
 
 A Catechism of Phrenology 
 
 Phrenology, its History and Principles 
 
 Harmony of Phrenology and the Bible 
 
 New Physiognomy, by S. R. Wells 
 
 How to read Character in handwriting, by Henry frith 
 
 Vocophy (Vice-training) 
 
 The Face as Indicative of Character ... 
 
 Chiromancy, by Firth and Heron- Allen 
 
 A concise exposition of how to read riiid to foretell events. 
 
 Manual of Cheirosophy, by E, H. Allen (the best book on 
 Palmistry) 
 
 Grammar of Palmistry, by Kathariue St- Hill 
 
 A concise treatise. ' 
 
 Palmistry and its Practical Uses, by Louise Cotton ... ... 1 14 
 
 [All the above are useful books.] 
 
 ASTROLOGY. 
 
 Universal Enoyclopsedic Calendar ... ... . . ... 8 
 
 Brihat Samhita of Varaha Mihira. English trans., by N. C. Iyer 5 
 
 A cyclopaedia of information on Natural Astrology. 
 Brihat Jataka of do. .. ... ... ... 3 
 
 A complete system of Horoscopy providing for the solution of 
 all questions of nativity. 
 
 Shatpanchasika, Eng. trans, with Sanskrit Text and Notes, 
 
 by ^\^. Chidamba.ram. Iyer... ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 A worii of Frasna, or Horary Astrology. 
 
 Jinendra Mala, by do. ... ... ,.. ... ... 1 8 
 
 An exhaustivework on Horary Astrology, 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 12 
 
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 ASmOLOCy— (Continued) . 
 Astrological Primer, by Bangalore Suryanarayan Row, B. A. 
 Astrological Self-Instructor, by .. . do 
 
 Astrologer's Guide, by Guido Bonatus 
 Astrology Tkeologized, by Dr. Anna Kingsford 
 Astro-Tteological Lectures, by R. Taylor 
 Book of Dreams, by Raphael 
 Dreams and Dream Stories, by A. Kingsford ... 
 Do (Cheap Bditiou.) 
 
 A collection of charming tales. 
 
 Text-Book of Astrology, by A. J. Pearse, in 2 Vols. 
 Geomancy, by P. Hartmann ... 
 
 The art of divining by punctuation. 
 Astrology— a Series of four Lectures, by W. R. Old 
 Key to Astrology, by Raphael 
 Guide to do do 3 Vols. ... 
 
 Science of the Stars, by A. J. Pearce... 
 
 SCIENTIFIC 
 
 The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages, by F. Gouin ... 6 
 Teaches how any language can be learnt within sis months. 
 
 The Daemon of Darwin, by Cones 
 
 Esoteric Anthropology, by T. L. Nichols 
 
 Origin and Nature of Life, by Coues 
 
 Physiology of Home, by Annie Besant 
 
 The Scientific Evidence of the Existence of the Soul, by Dr. 
 J.A.Anderson... 
 
 Tokology, by A. B. Stockham, M. d. ... 
 
 Worlds within Worlds, by William B. Fahneetook, m. n. 
 
 Hand-book of Cartomancy, by Grand Orient ... 
 
 Theory of Evolution, by Prof, Huxley 
 
 Six Lectures on Astronomy, by Professor R. A. Proctor 
 
 The beginnings of Ttings, by Professor Tyndall 
 
 Natural Laws of Man, by Spnrzheim 
 
 What is Vital Force ? by R. P. Bateya 
 
 Moral Philosophy, by G. Combe 
 
 The Science of Mind applied to Teaching 
 
 Matter and Motion, by Clark Maxwell 
 
 The Hollow Globe, by Prof. Wm. F.Lyon ... 
 
 A treatise on the physical conformation of the earth. 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
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 8 
 
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 3 2 
 
 
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 12 
 
 17 
 
 SCIENTIFIC— (CoMhWei). BS. 
 
 What is the Fourth Dimension ? by C. H. Hinton (Excellent hand 
 
 books) 
 The Persian King, by do. 
 
 A Plane World, by do. 
 
 A Picture of our Universe, by do 
 
 Casting out the Self, by do. 
 
 Is Darwin Right 7 by Prof. Denton .. 
 
 The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science ... 
 
 Order of Creation ... 
 
 Graduated Atmospheres 
 
 Influence of the Stars, by Rosa Baughan 
 
 Riddle of the Universe, by E. T). Fawcett 
 
 Science of Alchymy 
 
 [The above are all worth reading.] 
 
 MAGIC AND ROSICRUCIANISjVI. 
 
 History of Magic, by J. Ennemoser (2 Vols. Highly recommended), 8 
 A repository of very important facta. 
 
 Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Translation of a famous work by Eliphas Levi. 
 
 Chaldean Magic, by Lenormaut 
 
 An important book of reference. 
 The Rosicrucians, by Hargrave Jennings (2 Vols.) 
 
 Curious and interesting. 
 
 The Real History of the Rosicrucians, by A. F. Waite... 
 The Author is an excellent writer and gifted scholar. 
 
 Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, by Dr. P. Ilartmann 
 Translation of an ol3 German book with large plates. 
 
 The Temple of the Rosy Cross, by Dowd ... ... ... 4 4 
 
 The soul ; its powers, migrations, and transmigrations. 
 
 The Isiac Tablet, by W. Wynn Weatcott ... .. ... 5 
 
 Its history and occult significance. 
 Among the Rosicrucians, by Dr. F. Hartraann ... ... 3 8 
 
 A story. 
 
 Do do. (Chexp Edition)... ... 1 8 
 
 Bacon, Shakespeare and the Rosicrucians, by Wingston ... 5 8 
 
 Bacon and Shakespeare could not write, and the sonnets, &c. ... 10 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
18 
 
 BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY m. a. 
 
 Autobiography of Mrs. Annie Besant — -svith three Photogravure 
 
 and illustrations and ten plates. Thick book ... ... 13 
 
 Biography of Dio Lewis^ W. D. . ... ... ... 4 8 
 
 Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, by A. P. Sinnett... 8 
 
 Mr. Sinnett's famous biograjiihy. 
 
 Paracelsus — an Adept of Secret Science, by Dr. F. Hartmann ... 8 
 An excellent compilation about one of the most remarkable 
 of men. 
 
 Do do Cheap Edn. ... ... 1 12 
 
 Martensen's Boehme ... ... ... ... 6 
 
 Epistles, by Jacob Behmeu ... ... ... ... ... 4 12 
 
 History of Indian Literature, by Professor Albreoht Weber ... 7 
 
 The Conflict between Religion and Science, by Prof. J. W. 
 
 Draper ... ... ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 Has had the largest circulation of all the International Scien- 
 tific Series. 
 
 Atlantis, the Ante-Diluvian World, by Donnelly ... ... 5 
 
 Has a bearing upon the " Secret Doctrine." 
 Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, by A. B. Waite ... ... 8 
 
 Yery scholarly and interesting. 
 
 OCCULT STORIES. 
 
 Azoth ; or the Star in the East, by Arthur Edward Waite 
 Brethren of Mount Atlas, by H. B. M. Btutfield, F. K. o. s. 
 Nightmare Tales, by H. P. B. 
 
 On the Heights of Himalaya, by A. Vander Naillen ... 
 Karma; aNovel, by ATP. Sinett (Cheap Edition) 
 
 Has a supposed basis of fact. 
 United ; a Novel, by do. in 2 Vols. ... 
 
 A psychological romance. 
 Zanoni, by Bnlwer Lytton ... 
 
 Do. by do. (Cheap Edition) 
 Alice, or the Mysteries, Sequel to Zanoni, by Bnlwn- Lytton 
 A Strange Story, by Bulwer Lytton 
 
 Po by do paper cover... 
 
 The Coming Race, by do do 
 
 Across the Zodiac ; a Story in 2 Vols., by Percy Greg 
 
 An excellent story. 
 Mr. Isaacs, a Tale of Modern India by F, Marion Crawford ... 3 
 
 Crawford's first and best book. 
 
 ... 16 
 
 
 
 ... 4 
 
 8 
 
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 OCCULT SyOJilES— {Continued). 
 
 Zoroaster, by F. Marion Crawford 
 
 Full of vivid interest. 
 Flatland, by a Squire 
 A Fallen Idol, by F. Anstey 
 
 A very amusing satire on Theosophy. 
 
 Round a Posada Fire, by Middlemore .. .. . . 1 12 
 
 Spanish mystical stories. 
 
 Wonderful Story of Ravallette, by P. B. Randolph ... 5 
 
 Shows how medinmistio phenomena are produced byelemen- 
 tals. 
 
 Beyond the Ken, by Caroline Corner ... ... ... 2 2 
 
 Spiritualistic. 
 Mona Singh, by D. M. S. ... ... .., ... ... 12 
 
 Bj a retired Indian Officer. 
 The Inner House, by Walter Besaut . . ... ... ... 14 
 
 Able, interesting and mystical. 
 Light through the Crannies ... ... ... ... 12 
 
 A collection of mystical parables. 
 Dream Warnings and Mysteries ... ... ... ... 4 8 
 
 Ghost Stories and Presentiments ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 Strange Stories of Coincidences ... ... ... ... 4 8 
 
 Looking Backward, by Ed. Bellamy. (Shilling Edition) ... 12 
 
 The famous socialistic romance. 
 Looking Backward, by Ed. Bellamy (Sixpenny Edition) ... 6 
 
 Brother of the Shadow, by Mrs. Campbell Praed ... ... 12 
 
 An exciting story showing the danger.s of black magic. 
 
 Affinities, do ... ... 1 8 
 
 Contains pen portraits of H. P. B. and other eminent Theoso- 
 phists. 
 
 Blossom and the Fruit, by Mabel Collins ... ... ... 3 8 
 
 Reprint from Lucifer. 
 Blossom and the Fruit, by do. (paper cover) 
 
 The Pilgrim and Shrine, by Ed. Maitland ... 
 
 One of Mr. Maitland's most celebrated books. 
 Neila Sen, by J. H. Connelly 
 Talking Image of Urur, by Dr. F. H. 
 The Golden Stairs, by A. E. Waste ... 
 
 The Mystic Quest — a tale of two incarnations, by W. Kingsland. 
 Mythical Monsters, by Charles Gould 
 
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 OCCULT SJOftlES—iGontinued). Ks. A. 
 
 Open door, by J. H. Pewey ... ... ... ... ... 1 2 
 
 [The above, which are all worth reading, are bat a few out of 
 the hundreds of occult stories now widely circulating, and 
 which prove the universal influence of the theosophical move- 
 ment.] 
 
 HYGIENIC 
 
 Chastity, bv Dr. S. Graham ... 
 
 The Clothes Question, by Mrs. Mary S. G. Nichols 
 
 The Diet Cure, by Dr. T. N, Nichols (cloth) ... 
 
 Do. do. (paper) 
 
 The Herald of Health, by T. L. Nichols, Vol. 1 
 Massage and Electricity, by T. S. Dawes, m. d. 
 Nurse's Guide to Massage, by S. Hyde 
 Physical Culture, by Carrica Le Fa vre 
 The Royal Road to Beauty, Health, and a Higher Development, 
 
 by Carrica Le Fa vre 
 Rheumatism, Acute and Chronic, by T. R. Allinson 
 Sexual Physiology and Hygiene, by R. T. Trail 
 Uterine Diseases and Displacements, by do 
 Vital Force ; How Wasted and How Preserved, by Miller 
 
 The Wallace System of Cure and its Uses in the Diseases of 
 Children, by Oskar Korslielt 
 
 Water Cure at Home, by T. L. Nichols, .m. d. ... 
 
 A Woman's work in Water Cure, by Mary S. G. Nichols 
 
 Health Hints 
 
 Good Health and how to secure it, by Wells ... 
 
 Phrenological and Physiological Register — a delineation of 
 
 Diseases of Memory, by Ribot 
 
 Divine Law of Cure, by Evans 
 
 Healing by Faith, by do 
 
 How to grow Handsome 
 
 Buddhist Diet Book, by L. C. Holloway 
 
 ContaiLS a number of excellent household veoipes for vegeta- 
 ble food preparation. 
 
 A Health Catechism 
 
 The Perfect Way in Diet, by Dr. A, Kingsford 
 
 This is Dr. Kingsford's famous Thesis for which she got her 
 
 degree of M. D. from the French Academy of Medicine. 
 
 The Diet Question , ... ... ... ... ... o 13 
 
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 HYGlEmd—iContiaiied). 
 The Alcoholic Controversy ... 
 The Bath, its Histoi-y and Uses 
 Water Cure in Chronic Diseases 
 "Water Cure for the Million... 
 Heredity and Responsibility in Parentage 
 New Gospel of Health 
 Fruit and Bread 
 
 Fruits and Farinacea, the Proper Food of Man, by Smith Hall. 
 Smoking and Drinking, by Parton ... 
 Tobacco : its effects on the Human System, by Dr. Alcott 
 Tea and Coifee 
 
 Youth ; its Care and Culture (Highly recommended by Col. O,} 
 New Gymnastics, by Lewis ... 
 
 A capital book. 
 Muscle-Beating, by Klemiii ... 
 Mental Medicine, by Evans ... 
 Chastity, by Lewis 
 
 Every College student ought to have a copy. 
 Christian Science Healing, by Frances Lord ... 
 Natural Cure of Consumption, by 0. E. Page... 
 The Science of a New Life, by John Cowan ... 
 How to Feed Baby, by do 
 
 The Family Physician, by Shew 
 Hydropathic Encyclopaedia, by Trail 
 Digestion and Dyspepsia, by do 
 Health in the Household, by S. W. Dodds 
 Mother's Hygienic Hand-book, by Trail 
 Hygiene of the Brain, by Holbrook 
 Physical Education, by F. L, Oswald 
 Constitution of Man, by G. Combe 
 Amativeness 
 
 Love and Parentage, by Fowler 
 Choice of Pursuits, by Sizer 
 Movement Cure, by Taylor 
 Massage, Principles and Practice of Remedial treatment, by 
 
 imparted motion, by Dr. Taylor ... 
 A Sober and Temperate Life 
 Diseases of the Throat and Lungs 
 
 K,S. 
 
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 yiyGlEHlC—iCoutmued). 
 The True Healing Art, l.v R. T. Trail, M. ij 
 Hydropathic Cook Book, by do. 
 
 The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism, by do. 
 Home Treatment for Sexual abuse do. .. 
 
 Hygeian Home Cook Book do. .. 
 
 Cholera, its Prevention and Home Cure 
 Fermentation — The Primary Cause of Disease 
 Occult Science in Medicine, by Dr. F. H. 
 
 Physianthropy or the Home Cure and Eradication of Diseases 
 Plain Home-Talk — Medical Commensense, by Forte, JF. D. 
 Vaccination brought home to the People 
 
 AIVIERICAN MANUALS. 
 
 How to Cook, by T. L. Nichols 
 
 How to live on Sixpence a day, by T. L. Nichols 
 
 HowtoTalk 
 
 How to Write 
 
 How to do Business 
 
 How to Conduct a Public Meeting ... 
 
 How to Strengthen Memory, by Holbroofc ... 
 
 How to Learn Shorthand, by A. M. Baker 
 
 How to Study Phrenology 
 
 How to Study Character 
 
 How to read Character 
 
 Oratory, by Pottinger 
 
 Nervousness, its Causes and Treatment 
 
 Fascination, or the Philosophy of Charming . 
 
 Philosophy of Generation ... 
 
 A Theory of Population 
 
 Accidents and Emergencies ... 
 
 Notes on Beauty, Vigour and Development . , , 
 
 "Ways of Life showing Right and Wrong 
 
 Memory and Intellectual Improvement 
 
 Self-Culture and Perfection of Character 
 
 Revelation of the Face 
 
 Common School Elocution and Oratory, by Brown 
 
 [The above useful band-books have a wide circulation in 
 America and have exercised an important influence,] 
 
 :s. 
 
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23 
 
 IVIISCELLANEOUS. rs, a. 
 
 The World's Desire, by H. R. Haggard and Andrew Lang ... 4 7 
 
 The Philosophy of Evil, by C. S. Weeks ... ... ... 5 
 
 Controlling Sex in Generation, by T. H. Terry ... ... 3 8 
 
 Modern India and the Indians, by Professor Monier Williams .. 9 8 
 
 The Secret of Death, by Sir Edwin Arnold ... ... ...5 
 
 A. charming poeti')al version of the Katha TJpanishad. 
 
 Indian Poetry, by do do ... ... ... 5 
 
 Contains some of the gems of Sanskrit literature. 
 
 Egypt ; Wonders of the Land of the Pharoahs . ,,,60 
 A masterly treatise. 
 
 Confessions of an English Haschish Eater ,,, ... ... 12 
 
 New Education, by Dr. J. E. Baohanan ,,, ... ... 4 12 
 
 Allegories of Life, by J. S. Adams ... ... ... ... 3 4 
 
 English Folk-Lore, by F. Thistleton Dyer ... ... ,,,3 
 
 Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Witchcraft and Miracles .. ... 1 
 
 Hindu Music, by the Poena Gayan Samaj ... ... ... 2 4 
 
 With Sadi in the Garden, by Sir Edwin Arnold .., ... 6 
 
 Idea of Ke-birth, by Miss Arundale ... ,.. ... ... 3 4 
 
 The Temperaments or Varieties of Physical Constitution in Man 4 8 
 
 Unity of Creation, by Kingston ... ... ... ... 3 4 
 
 Unnatural History of Myths ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 The Jewel of the Lotus, by Edwin Arnold .,. ,,6 
 
 Indin Idylls, by do ... ... ... 6 
 
 A Incid presentation of the subject. 
 
 Jehsahua, by P. Hartroann ... ... ... ,.,6 8 
 
 About the Prophet of Nazareth. 
 
 Guide to Panini, in English, with Sanskrit quotations in Kanarese 
 
 character , ... ^ ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Do. do do in Devanagari character . , 14 
 
 The Man Wonderful in th^ House Beautiful, by A lien ... 4 8 
 How to live a Century and grow old gracefully, by J. M. Peebles. 1 8 
 
 My Study Windows, by James R, Lowell •., ... ... 1 8 
 
 Swedenborg the Buddhist (Pldlangi : Dasa) ... ... ... 4 8 
 
 The Tarot by Matliers, with one paokpt of Tarot cards... ... 3 8 
 
 Opinions on Social Matters, by Raja Sir T. Madhaya Row, k.c.s.i . 1 10 
 
 Do Politics, do ... .,,0 6 
 
 Letters to an Indian Raja ... ... ... ... ••■ 1 
 
•24 
 
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 Count Rumford, How he banished Beggary from Bavaria .. 7 
 
 History of the Heresy Hunt, by Rev. S. J. Neill ... .. 10 
 
 HUMAN NATURE LIBRARY SERIES, PRICE 5 As. EACH. 
 
 Self-Reliance, by Kelson Sizer. 
 
 Phrenology, its Principles, Proofs, &o., by Prof. J, P. Tracey. 
 
 Physical Factors in Character. 
 
 The Choice of Occupation. 
 
 Inventive Genius. 
 
 Integrity or Consciousness. 
 
 A Debate among the Mental Faculties. 
 
 The will, its Nature and Education, by J. W. Slmll. 
 
 Ambition or Approbativeness. 
 
 A Complete Man. 
 
 Faculty and Brain Organism. 
 
 Resemblance to Parents and how to Judge it. 
 
 Self-study, essential to Mental Improvement and Development 
 
 and to Personal Success. 
 The Uses of Mental Science. 
 Character-Reading from Photographs. 
 The Perceptive Faculties. 
 
 SANSKRIT 
 
 Bhagavadgita, Pocket Hdn., Sanskrit Text in Devanagari (Paper 
 
 coTer) ... ... ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 Do do do (silk bound) ... 6 
 
 Bhandarkar's Sanskrit 1st Book, ... ... .. ... o 8 
 
 Do 2nd do ... ... ... ... 14 
 
 Sabdhakalpadruma, Sanskrit Lexicon — twice as big as Web- 
 ster's Dictionary : most useful for Sanskrit Students. Highly 
 recommended. ( Vide Review in the Theuso-phist .) Advance 
 subscription ... ... ... ... ... ... 75 
 
 {After puhlicatiun — price -icill he nearly double.) 
 Rig:Veda Samhita, with Bhashya, by Sayanacharya in San.^krit, 
 
 in Devanagari character (Pi)9tage extra) ... ... ... 50 
 
 Do (Text only) without binding, do ... ... 4 8 
 
 Rig Veda Brahmana, in Telugu character . . ... ... 1 
 
 Krishna Yajur Veda Taittiriya Samhita, in Devanagari character, 
 
 without binding ... ... ... ... , 3 Q 
 

 
 8 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 SA}iS]^Tin —{C'ontintied). Ks A. 
 
 Baghavadgita, Visliiiusalisranainain, Bliishmatwaiajani, Anus- 
 mrithi, ;ind Giijemliamoksham, called Pancharatnam, bound in 
 one book and printed in bold Devanagari character, jip. 250, 
 wonderfully cheaji. Ever)' one must have a copy .... 
 
 Primer No. 2, by Dewan Bahadur 1!. liaghoonath Kow... 
 
 Standard Sanskrit-English Dictionary, by Mr. L. R. Taidya, m.a., 
 (Devanagari chai-acter — very cheap — strongly rccmnmcnded) 
 bound in cloth .. 
 
 Light onthe Path.translated into Sanskrit, by Pandit Bhashyachary 
 
 The 108 Upanishads, in Telugu characters 
 
 Divyasuricharitram, or the History of Ramanujachary and (jtlicf 
 Visi.slitadwaita Saints, in Sanskrit (Telngu character) withrun 
 ning notes ... ... ... .. ... .. 1 
 
 Prasnottaroratnamalika, by Sri SanUaracharya,in Telugucharactc-r 10 
 
 Krishna Yajur Veda Taittrija Samhita with Swaram (in Telusu 
 
 cliaiacLerJ ... ... ... ,,. ... ..5 
 
 Sathathapa Dharma Sastram, in Telugu (character, with Teliigu 
 nieanintr, paper cover 
 
 Do. Samhita, ... do 
 
 Likhita Samrithi, ... do 
 
 Do. Smrithi, ... do 
 
 Senkha Dhurma Sastram, do (bound brown hoUand) 
 
 Do. Likhita Dhurma Sastram, do (paper cover) 
 
 Buddha Dhurma Sastram, do 
 
 Yagnya Valkya Smriti, do (bound brown hoUand) 
 
 Brahaapati Dhurma Sastram, do (paper cover) 
 
 Pulasthiya do do ... „, 
 
 Hareetha do do 
 
 Vruddha Parasera Smriti do .,, ... 
 Devala Smriti, Telugu character with Telugu meaning ... 
 
 Gautama Smriti do 
 
 Yoga Kalpadruma Sanskrit Slokas with Hindi commentary, in 
 
 Devanagiri character ... ,,, 
 
 Aitareya Brahmana of Rigveda, in Devanagari character 
 Sanskrit-Telugu Dictionary, compiled by V. V, Seshia... 
 Shiva Samhita in Devanagari Character 
 
 Veda Shadanga— Six Angas or Parts of Veda. 
 
 
 
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 26 
 PUBLICATIONS IN VERNACULARS- r^. a, 
 
 URDU. 
 Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, No. 1 ... 
 Self-contraditions of the BiWe 
 
 The Civilization that India needs, by ColDiiel H. S. Olcott 
 Tatwabodh 
 Buddhism, By itliys-Davids, triinslatecl by Lala Sfiram ... 
 
 HINDI. 
 
 Fast, Present, and Future of India, by Colonel H. S. Olcott, P.T.S. 
 
 Epitome of Aryan Morals ... 
 
 Buddhist Catechism, translated by Manoli:U'laI 
 
 Economy of the Human Life... 
 
 Complete Poetical Works of Dadupanti Sadhu Sundradas {in 
 
 Hindi, ]:)rintcd in Devanaijari Character) ... ... ... 2 o 
 
 GUJARATI. 
 Peril of Indian Youth (Col. Olcott) & Epitome of Aryan Morals 5 
 Atmabodh do' do ... ... ... ... ... .'> 
 
 MAIJBATHI. 
 Suvichara Mala 
 Marathi Poems or Sadhoo's Works, Parts I and II 
 
 BENGALI. 
 Catechism of Hinduism, by Nobin K. Banerjee 
 Tatwa-Sopana, Part I, by Syaraacliaian Bhatta, i'. T. ,S. 
 Prasnottaramala, ti-anslated by Bholanath Chatterjee ... 
 The Buddhist Catechism,. by Col. Olcott 
 Self-contradictions of theBible^ Part I 
 
 TAMIL. 
 Tamil Translation of Vicharasagaram, by Siva Row, size octavo, 
 
 pp.500 ■" ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 
 
 Of Theosophy, by do ... ... o 
 
 Light on the Path ■ ... ... ... ... ... I 
 
 Past, Present, and Future of India, by Colonel H.3. Olcott, P.T.S, I 
 
 Prabodachandrodaya, translated into Prose ... ... ... s 
 
 Buddhagumabalubodha ... ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 Sankalpasuryodaya, a Philosophical Drama,sby Vedanta Desi- 
 
 ker, .one of Religious-Reformers ... ... ... ... 1 (1 
 
 TELUGU. 
 Mumukshamargopadesini, a translation of "Elixir of Life" and 
 
 some important articles from the Theosophint, by J. Purnaya... S 
 KA.NARESE. 
 Dwaitii Catechism.., ... ... ... ... ... o 8 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 s 
 
 
 
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•27 
 PHOTOGRAPHY. li^. a 
 
 Group Photos (unniouulecl) of Delegafces of the Thcosopliical 
 
 S'icieLy at each Convention, from 1884 to 1891 inclusive, each... .1 S 
 
 Cabinet size Photos (monutod) of liailame B., Col. (»., and Annie 
 
 Besanfc, each ... ... ... ... ... ...10 
 
 Cabinet size Photo of Jlr. B. Keiglitley, .m. .v. ... ... 1 
 
 Photo (unmouiitecl) of the 8o ciety's Head Quarters and Adyar 
 
 Library ,.. ... ... ... ... ... 1 S 
 
 Bi'omide Photo of Col. Olcott, (mounted) size 10' x I i' (best ever 
 
 taken) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 European Convention group of 1892 ... ... ... . . . .'f 
 
 THE THEOSOPHIST. 
 
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 numbers are also available at the same price. The volitme commences iji 
 October, all post free, and all payable in advance. 
 
 OTHER JOURNALS 
 
 Lucifer, edited by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, per annum... 
 Path, edited by William Q. Judge, per annum ... ,,. 
 
 The V^han, a Vehicle for the interchange of Theosophical opinions 
 
 and news, subscription per annum ... ... ... 
 
 Der Sphinx, (German) edited by Dr. Uuebbe Sohleiden... 
 
 The Buddhist — The English organ of Southern Church of Buddhism 
 
 The subscription is Rs. 4 per annum in Ceylon or India, and 
 
 10s. per annum, or its equivalent, for other countries. 
 Spare Nos. of Vol. I, No. 1, of Journal of Man, are available, each tor 4- 
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