WILLS AR nS it } il} i iii} it HH j K wh Hit trl tek ' if SSS SS see SSS creep a \ cH tty COUEEUEAEELEETED OU Ca ay i i On 7 i mt iN fbetere tg ae haslel dant dns ALBDAD ANT: wh eS iii eigenen i: TH ee H NTU tha Bitty < z a9 SSS SSS SSE SSS ESS a at og any Sletten esise * = 3 = ee me eee ' : == - 2 ores : ave e hire ape ' Bey Bh am Ab > oa : a, — _——_— 6 felt Pia oP oe ths 7 itp =P en ens ee eS ey inate ai Rte ge Nee i = eee a hae ated THE WESAK VALLEY PRINTED IN U.S.A bs ay BAA ah AUER pri UP Ps rt Ap | yi 7 7 i A iM 11 bat AW Wi { { | iL ae Pe ‘ ry a) Acs BY : ‘ y His , 495 % pile ae ahs , LY. , es Foe Dt be ares a sh ; j Aj Ry Lap a ; f x ‘ : et.) Aa Gly ! g ni SR NAY OF PRG CL 7; . JUL b&b 1925 a» Ci; NX v3; PEED erga * The Wises and the Path By The Rihee Gow eadbester THEOSOPHICAL PRESS 826 Oakdale Avenue Chicago CopyYRIGHT Tue AMERICAN THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 1925 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Tue EXIstTencre oF THE MAsTeERs Il. Tur Puysicau Bopies or THE Masters Ill. Tue Way to THE MASTER IV. PROBATION V. ACCEPTANCE VI. OvrueEr PRESENTATIONS VIL. Tur First INITIATION VIII. Tur Eco IX. THE Sreconp anp THIRD INITIATIONS X. THe HicgHer INITIATIONS XI. THe Work or THE MASTERS XII. THr CHOHANS AND THE Rays XIII. Tue Trinity anp THE TRIANGLES XIV. THE WIspoM IN THE TRIANGLES XV. THe POWER IN THE TRIANGLES 112 120 152 169 192 210 233 265 276 321 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/masterspathOOlead Cuapter [| THE EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS The existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolu- tion by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages of their evolution—many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or another are distinctly in advance of us. Since that is so, there may well be others who are very much further advanced; indeed, if men are steadily growing better and better through a long series of successive lives, tending towards a definite goal, there should certainly be some who have already reached that goal. Some of us in the process of that development have already succeeded in unfolding some of those higher senses which are latent in every man, and will be the heritage of all in the future; and by means of those senses we are enabled to see the ladder of evolution extending far above us as well as far below us; and we can also see that there are men standing upon every rung of that ladder. There is a considerable amount of direct testimony as to the existence of these Perfected Men whom we 9 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH call Masters, but I think that the first step which each one of us should take is to make certain that there must be such men; only as a later step will it follow that those with whom we have come into con- tact belong to that class. The historical records of every nation are full of the doings of men of genius in all the different depart- ments of human activity, men who in their special lines of work and ability have stood far above the rest—indeed, so far that at times (and probably more often than we know) their ideals were utterly beyond the comprehension of the people, so that not only the work that they may have done has been lost to man- kind, but their very names even have not been pre- served. It has been said that the history of every nation could be written in the biography of a few indi- viduals, and that it is always the few, towering above the rest, who initiate the great forward steps in art, music, literature, science, philosophy, philanthropy, statecraft and religion. They stand high sometimes in love of God and their fellow-men, as great saints and philanthropists; sometimes in understanding of man and nature, as great philosophers, sages and scientists; sometimes in work for humanity as great liberators and reformers. Looking at these men, and realizing how high they stand among humanity, how far they have gone in human evolution, is it not logical to say that we cannot see the bounds of human attainment, and that there may well have been, and even now may be, men far further devel- Tue EXIsTeNCE OF THE MASTERS © 3 oped even than they, men great in spirituality as well as in knowledge or artistic power, men complete as regards human perfections—men precisely such as the Adepts or Supermen whom some of us have had the inestimable privilege to encounter? This galaxy of human genius that enriches and beautifies the pages of history is at the same time the glory and the hope of all mankind, for we know that these Greater Ones are the forerunners of the rest, and that They flash out as beacons, as veritable light- bearers to show us the path which we must tread if we wish to reach the glory which shall presently be revealed. We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and devel- oping by means of experience gained in and through them; and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place. Behind the unfolding form burgeons out ever the Life Eternal, the Life Divine. That Life of God per- meates the whole of nature, which is but the many- colored cloak which He has donned; it is He Who lives in the beauty of the flower, in the strength of the tree, 4 THe MASTERS AND THE PatH in the swiftness and grace of the animal as well as in the heart and soul of man. It is because His Will is evolution that all life everywhere is pressing on- ward and upward; and it is therefore that the exist- ence of Perfected Men at the end of this long line of ever-unfolding power and wisdom and love is the most natural thing in the world. Even beyond Them —beyond our sight and our comprehension—stretches a vista of still greater glory; some hint of that we may endeavor to give later, but it is useless to speak of it now. The logical consequence of all this is that there must be Perfected Men, and there are not wanting signs of the existence of such men in all ages who, instead of leaving the world entirely, to pursue a life of their own in the divine or superhuman kingdoms, have remained in touch with humanity, through love of it, to assist its evolution in beauty and love and truth, to help, as it were, to cultivate the Perfect Man—just as here and there we find a botanist who has special love for plants, and glories in the produc- tion of a perfect orange or a perfect rose. The records of every great religion show the pres- ence of such Supermen so full of the Divine Life that again and again They have been taken as the very representatives of God Himself. In every religion, especially at its founding, has such an One appeared, and in many cases more than one. The Hindus have their great Avataras or divine incarnations, such as Shri Krishna, Shri Shankaracharya, and the Lord Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 5 Gautama Buddha, Whose religion has spread over the Far East, and a great galaxy of rishis, of saints and teachers; and these Great Ones took interest not only in awakening men’s spiritual natures, but also in all affairs that made for their well-being on earth. All who belong to the Christian world know, or ought to know, much about the great succession of prophets and teachers and saints in their own dispensation, and that in some way (perhaps not clearly understood) their Supreme Teacher, the Christ Himself, was and is Man as well as God. And all the earlier religions (decadent as some of them may be amid the decay of nations), down even to those of primitive tribes of men, show as outstanding features the existence of Supermen, helpers in every way of the child-like people among whom They dwelt. An enumeration of these, interesting and valuable as it is, would take us too far aside from our present purpose, so I will refer the reader for it to Mr. W. Williamson’s excel- lent book, The Great Law. There is much direct and recent evidence for the existence of these Great Ones. In my earlier days I never needed any such evidence, because I was fully persuaded as a result of my studies that there must be such people. To believe that there were such glorified men seemed perfectly natural, and my only desire was to meet Them face to face. Yet there are many among the newer members of the Society who, reasonably enough, want to know what evidence there is. There is a considerable amount of personal 6 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH testimony. Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the co-founders of the Theosophical Society, Dr. Annie Besant, our present President, and I myself— all of us have seen some of these Great Ones, and many other members of the Society have also been privileged to see one or two of Them, and there is ample testimony in what all these people have written. It is sometimes objected that those who saw Them, or fancied that they did so, may have been dreaming or perhaps deluded. The chief reason, I think, for the possibility of such a suggestion is that we have very rarely seen the Adepts at a time when both They and we were in our physical bodies. In the early days of the Society, when only Madame Blavatsky had developed higher faculties, the Mas- ters not infrequently materialized Themselves so that all could see Them, and showed Themselves thus physically on various occasions. You will find many records of such happenings in the earlier history of our Society, but of course the Great One so showing Himself was not in His physical body, but in a materialized form. Many of us habitually and constantly see Them during our sleep. We go out in our astral bodies (or in the mental body, according to our development) and we visit Them and see Them in Their physical bodies; but we are not at that time in ours, and that is why on the physical plane people tend to be skep- tical about such experiences. Men object: “But in Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 7 these cases either you who saw Them were out of the physical body, and may have been dreaming or de- luded, or Those who appeared to you came phenome- nally and then disappeared again; so how do you know that They were what you suppose Them to be?” There are a few cases in which both the Adept and the one who saw Him were in the physical body. It happened with Madame Blavatsky; I have heard her testify that she lived for some time in a monastery in Nepal, where she saw three of our Masters constantly in Their physical vehicles. Some of Them have come down more than once from Their mountain retreats into India in Their physical bodies. Colonel :Olcott spoke of having seen two of Them on those occasions; he had met the Master Morya and also the Master Kuthumi. Damodar K. Mavalankar, whom I knew in 1884, had encountered the Master Kuthumi in His physical body. ‘There was the case of 8. Rama- swamier, a gentleman whom I knew well in those days, who had the experience of meeting the Master Morya physically, as you may read in the book Five Years of Theosophy, in the article “How a Chela Found His Guru”; and there was the case of Mr. W. T. Brown of the London Lodge, who also was privileged to meet one of the Great Ones under similar condi- tions. There is also a vast amount of Indian testi- mony which has never been collected and sifted, mainly because those to whom these experiences came were so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Supermen and of the possibility of meeting Them 8 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH that they did not regard any individual case as worthy of record. I myself can tell you of two occasions on which I have met a Master, both of us being in the physical vehicle. One of Them was the Adept to Whom the name of Jupiter was assigned in the book of the Lives of Alcyone, Who greatly assisted in the writing of portions of Madame Blavatsky’s famous work, Isis Unveiled, when that was being done in Philadelphia and New York. When I was living at Adyar He was so kind as to request my revered teacher, Swami T. Subba Rao, to bring me to call upon Him. Obeying His summons we journeyed to His house, and were most graciously received by Him. After a long con- versation of the deepest interest we had the honor of dining with Him, Brahman though He be, and spent the night and part of the next day under His roof. In that case it will be admitted that there could be no question of illusion. The other Adept Whom I had the privilege of encountering physically was the Master the Comte de St. Germain, called sometimes the Prince Ragoczy. I met Him under quite ordinary circumstances (without any previous appointment, and as though by chance) walking down the Corso in Rome, dressed just as any Italian gentleman might be. He took me up into the gardens on the Pincian Hill, and we sat for more than an hour talking about the Society and its work; or perhaps I should rather say that He spoke and I listened, although when He asked questions I answered. Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 9 Other members of the Brotherhood I have seen under varying circumstances. My first encounter with one of them was in a hotel in Cairo; I was on my way out to India with Madame Blavatsky and some others, and we stayed in that city for a time. We all used to gather in Madame Blavatsky’s room for work, and I was sitting on the floor, cutting out and arranging for her a quantity of newspaper articles . which she wanted. She sat at a table close by; indeed my left arm was actually touching her dress. The door of the room was in full sight, and it certainly did not open; but quite suddenly, without any prep- aration, there was a man standing almost between me and Madame Blavatsky, within touch of both of us. It gave me a great start, and I jumped up in some confusion; Madame Blavatsky was much amused and said: “If you do not know enough not to be startled at such a trifle as that, you will not get far in this occult work.”’ I was introduced to the visitor, who was not then an Adept, but an Arhat, which is one grade below that state; He has since become the Master Djwal Kul. Some months after that the Master Morya came to us one day, looking exactly as though in a physical body; He walked through the room where I was in order to communicate with Madame Blavatsky, who was in her bedroom inside. That was the first time I had seen Him plainly and clearly, for I had not then developed my latent senses sufficiently to remember what I saw in the subtle body. I saw the Master 10 Tue Masters AND THE PATH Kuthumi under similar conditions on the roof of our Headquarters at Adyar; He was stepping over a bal- ustrade as though He had just materialized from the empty air on the other side of it. I have also many times seen the Master Djwal Kul on that roof in the same way. This would, I suppose, be considered less certain evidence, since the Adepts came as apparitions do; but, as I have since learned to use my higher vehicles freely, and to visit These Great Ones in that way, I can testify that Those Who in the early years of the Society came and materialized for us are the same Men Whom I have often since seen living in Their own homes. People have suggested that I and others who have the same experience may be but dreaming, since these visits take place during the sleep of the body; I can only reply that it is a remarkably con- sistent dream, extending in my own case over forty years, and that it has been dreamt simultaneously by a large number of people. Those who wish to collect evidence about these matters (and it is quite reasonable that they should wish to do so) should turn to the earlier literature of the Society. If they meet our President, they can hear from her how many of the Great Ones she has seen on different occasions; and there are many of our members who will bear witness without hesitation that they have seen a Master. It may be that in meditation they have seen His face, and later have had definite proof that He is a real being. Much Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 11 evidence may be found in Colonel Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, and there is an interesting treatise called Do The Brothers Exist? written by Mr. A. O. Hume, a man who stood high in the Civil Service in India, and worked much with our late Vice President, Mr. A. P. Sinnett. It was published in a book entitled Hints on Esoteric Theosophy. Mr. Hume, who was a skeptical Anglo-Indian with a legal mind, went into the question of the existence of the Brothers (as the Masters are also called, because They belong to a great Brotherhood, and also because They are the Elder Brothers of humanity) and even at that early date decided that he had overwhelming testimony that They did exist; and very much more evidence has accumulated since that book was published. The possession of extended vision and other facul- ties resulting from the development of our latent powers has also brought within our constant experi- ence the fact that there are other orders of beings than the human, some of whom rank alongside the Adepts in a grade of being higher than our own. We meet with some whom we call Devas or Angels, and with Others Whom we see to be far beyond ourselves in every respect. Since in the course of our development we have become able to communicate with the Adepts, we have naturally asked Them with all reverence how They have attained to that level. They tell us with one accord that no long time ago They stood where 12 THe MASTERS AND THE PatTH we stand now. They have risen out of the ranks of ordinary humanity, and They have told us that we in time to come shall be as They are now, and that the whole system is a graded evolution of life ex- tending up and up, further than we can follow it, even unto the Godhead Itself. We find that as there are definite stages in the earlier evolution—the vegetable above the mineral, the animal above the vegetable and the human above the animal—so in the same way the human kingdom has a definite end, a boundary at which it passes into a kingdom distinctly higher than itself, that beyond men there are the Supermen. In the study of this system of evolution, we have learned that there are in every man three great divi- sions—body, soul and Spirit; and each of these is ca- pable of further subdivision. That is the definition which was given by Saint Paul two thousand years ago. The Spirit or Monad is the breath of God (for the word spirit means breath, from the Latin spiro), the divine spark which is truly the Man, though it may more accurately be described as hovering over man as we know him. The scheme of its evolution is that it should descend into matter, and through its descent obtain definiteness and accuracy in material detail. So far as we are able to see, this Monad, which is a spark of the Divine Fire, cannot descend as far as our present level, cannot directly reach this physical plane in which we are now thinking and working— probably because the rates of its vibration and those Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 13 of physical matter differ too widely, so that there must be intermediate states and conditions. On what plane of nature that divine spark originally exists we do not know, for it is far above, out of our reach. The lowest manifestation of it, which might be called a reflection of it, descends into the lowest of the Cos- mic Planes, as described in A Textbook of Theosophy. We speak commonly of seven planes of existence, _ which are subdivisions or subplanes of the lowest Cosmic Plane, called in our books the Prakritic, meaning the physical plane of the Cosmos. The Monad can descend to the second of these subplanes (which we consequently call the Monadic plane) but it does not seem able to penetrate lower than this. In order to obtain the necessary contact with still denser matter, it puts down part of itself through two whole planes, and that fragment is what we call the ego or soul. The Divine Spirit far above us merely hovers over us; the soul, which is a small and partial representa- tion of it (it is as though the Monad puts down a finger of fire, and the end of that finger is the soul) cannot descend below the higher part of the mental plane (which is the fifth plane counting downwards, the physical being the seventh and lowest); and, in order that it may reach a still lower level, it must in turn put down a small portion of itself, which be- comes the personality that we know. So this per- sonality, which each person commonly thinks to be himself, is in truth but the fragment of a fragment. 14 Tue MAsTers AND THE PatH All the evolution through the lower kingdoms is preparatory to the development of this human con- stitution. An animal during its life on the physical plane (and for some time after that in the astral world) has a soul just as individual and separate as a man’s; but when the animal comes to the end of its astral life, that soul does not reincarnate again in a single body, but returns to a kind of reservoir of soul-matter, called in our books a group soul. It is as though the group soul were a bucket of water, supplying the need of several animals of the same kind—say, for example, twenty horses. When a horse is to be born from that group soul, it is as though one dipped a vessel into that bucket and brought it out full of water. During the life of that horse all kinds of experiences come to it which modify its soul, from which it learns lessons and these may be com- pared to various kinds of coloring matter cast into the vessel of water. When the horse dies, the water in the vessel is emptied back into the bucket, and the coloring matter which it has acquired spreads all through the whole bucket. When another horse is born from the same group soul, another vessel of water is filled from the bucket; but it will be obvious that it is impossible to take out in it exactly the same drops of water which constituted the soul of the pre- vious horse. (For further details of this process see A Textbook of Theosophy.) When an animal has developed far enough to be- come human, that means that at the end of his life his Tuer EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 15 soul is not poured back into the group soul but re- mains as a separate entity. And now a very curious but very beautiful fate befalls him. The soul-matter, the water in the vessel, becomes itself a vehicle for something much higher, and instead of acting as a - soul, it is itself ensouled. We have no exact analogy on the physical plane, unless we think of pumping air into water under high pressure, and thereby mak- _ ing it aerated water. If we accept that symbolism, the water which was previously the animal soul has now become the causal body of a man; and the air pumped into it is the ego of which I have spoken— that soul of man which is but a partial manifestation of the Divine Spirit. This descent of the ego is sym- bolized in ancient mythology by the Greek idea of the crater or Cup and by the medieval story of the Holy Grail; for the Grail or the Cup is the perfected. result of all that lower evolution, into which is poured the Wine of the Divine Life, so that the soul of man may be born. So, as we have said, this which has previously been the animal soul becomes in the case of man what is called the causal body, which exists in the higher part of the mental plane as the perma- nent vehicle occupied by the ego or human soul; and all that has been learned in its evolution is trans- ferred to this new center of life. The evolution of this soul consists in its gradual return to the higher level on the plane next below the Monadic, carrying with it the result of its descent in the shape of experiences gained and qualities acquired. 16 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH The physical body in all of us is fully developed, and because that is so we are supposed to have conquered it; but it should be fully under the control of the soul. Among the higher races of mankind at the present day it usually is so, though it may break away and run wild for a little at times. The astral body is also fully developed, but it is not yet by any means under perfect control; even among the races to which we belong, there are many people who are the victims of their own emotions. Instead of being able to gov- ern them perfectly, they too often allow themselves to be governed by them. They let their emotions run away with them, just as a wild horse may run away with its rider, and take him into many places where he does not wish to go. We may take it, then, that in all the best men of the more advanced races at the present day the phys- ical body is fully developed, and fairly under control; the astral body is also fully developed, but not by any means under perfect control; the mental body is in process of unfoldment, but its growth is yet very far from complete. They have a long way to go yet before these three bodies, the physical, the astral and the mental, are entirely subordinate to the soul. When that happens the lower self will have been ab- sorbed into the higher self, and the ego, the soul, will have dominated the man. Though the man is not yet perfect, the different vehicles are so far harmonized that they have but one aim. Up to this time the soul has been slowly controlling Tue EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 17 the personal vehicles until they become one with it, but now the Monad in his turn begins to dominate the soul; and there will presently come a time when, just as the personality and the soul have become one, the Spirit and the soul will become one in their turn. This is the unification of the ego with the Monad; and when that is achieved the man has attained the object of his descent into matter—he has become the Superman, or Adept. Now only, for the first time, does he enter upon his real life, for the whole of this stupendous process of evolution (through all the lower kingdoms and then through the human kingdom up to the attainment of Adeptship) is but a preparation for that true life of the Spirit which begins only when man becomes more than man. Humanity is the final class of the world- school; and when a man has been trained therein he passes out into the real life, the life of the glorified Spirit, the life of the Christ. What that is we know but little as yet, though we see some of Those who are sharing it. It has a glory and a splendor which is beyond all comparison, beyond our comprehension; and yet it is a vivid and living fact, and the attain- ment of it by every one of us is an absolute certainty from which we cannot escape even if we would. If we act selfishly, if we set ourselves against the cur- rent of evolution, we can delay our progress; but we cannot finally prevent it. Having finished with human life, the Perfected Man usually drops His various material bodies, but He 18 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH retains the power to take up any of them if ever He should need them in course of His work. In the- majority of cases, one who gains that level no longer needs a physical body. He no longer retains an astral, a mental or even a causal body, but lives permanently at His highest level. Whenever for any purpose He needs to deal with a lower plane, He must take a temporary vehicle belonging to that plane, because only through the medium of its matter can He come in contact with those who live therein. If He wishes to talk to men physically, He must take a physical body; He must have at least a partial materializa- tion, or He cannot speak. In the same way if He wishes to impress our minds, He must draw round Himself a mental body. Whenever He needs in His work to take a lower vehicle, He has the power to do so; but He holds it only temporarily. There are seven lines of still further progress along which the Perfected Man can go, a list of which we shall give in a later chapter. The world is guided and directed to a large extent by a Brotherhood of Adepts to which our Masters belong. Theosophical students make all sorts of mistakes about Them. They often regard Them as a great monastic com- munity, all living together in some secret place. They suppose Them sometimes to be Angels, and many of our students have thought that They were all Indian, or that They all resided in the Himalayas. None of these hypotheses is true. There is a great Brother- hood, and its Members are in constant communica- THE EXISTENCE OF THE MASTERS 19 tion with one another; but Their communication is on higher planes and They do not necessarily live together. As part of Their work, some of these great Brothers Whom we call Masters of the Wisdom are willing to take pupil-apprentices and teach them; but They form only a small section of the mighty Body of Perfected Men. The powers of the Adept are indeed many and won- . derful, but they all follow in natural sequence from faculties which we ourselves possess. It is only that They have these faculties in a very much greater degree. I think that the outstanding characteristic of the Adept, as compared with ourselves, is that He looks upon everything from an absolutely different point of view; for there is in Him nothing whatever of the thought of self which is so prominent with the majority of men. The Adept has eliminated the lower self, and is living not for self but for all, and yet, in a way that only He can really understand, that all is truly Himself also. He has reached that stage in which there is no flaw in His character, nothing of a thought or feeling for a personal, separated self, and His only motive is that of helping forward evolution, of working in harmony with the Logos Who directs it. Perhaps the next most prominent characteristic is His all-round development. We are all of us im- perfect; none has attained the highest level in any line, and even the great scientist or the great saint has usually reached high excellence in one thing only, and there remain other sides of his nature not yet 20 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH unfolded. All of us possess some germ of all the different characteristics, but always they are but: partially awakened, and one much more than another. An Adept, however, is an all-round Man, a Man whose devotion and love and sympathy and compas- sion are perfect, while at the same time His intellect is something far grander than we can as yet realize, and His spirituality is wonderful and divine. He stands out above and beyond all men whom we know, because of the fact that He is fully developed. CHAPTER II THE PHYSICAL BODIES OF THE MASTERS There has been among Theosophical students a great deal of vagueness and uncertainty about the Masters, so perhaps it may help us to realize how natural Their lives are, and how there is an ordinary physical side to them, if I say a few words about the daily life and appearance of some of Them. There is no one physical characteristic by which an Adept can be infallibly distinguished from other men, but He always appears impressive, noble, dignified, holy and serene, and anyone meeting Him could hardly fail to recognize that he was in the presence of a remarkable man. He is the strong but silent man, speaking only when He has a definite object in view, to encourage, to help or to warn; yet He is wonder- fully benevolent and full of a keen sense of humor— humor always of a kindly order, used never to wound, but always to lighten the troubles of life. The Mas- ter Morya once said that it is impossible to make progress on the occult Path without a sense of humor, and certainly all the Adepts Whom I have seen have possessed that qualification. “Most of Them are distinctly fine-looking men; Their physical bodies are practically perfect, for 22 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH They live in complete obedience to the laws of health, and above all They never worry about anything. All Their evil karma has long been exhausted, and thus the physical body is as perfect an expression of the Augoeides or glorified body of the Ego as the limita- tions of the physical plane will allow, so that not only is the present body of an Adept usually splen- didly handsome, but also any new body that He may take in a subsequent incarnation is likely to be an almost exact reproduction of the old one, allowing for racial and family differences, because there is noth- ing to modify it. This freedom from karma gives Them, when for any reason They choose to take a new body, entire liberty to select a birth in any country or race that may be convenient for the work that They have to do, and thus the nationality of the particular bodies which They happen to be wear- ing at any given time is not of primary importance. To know that a certain man is an Adept it would be necessary to see His causal body, for in that His development would show by its greatly increased size, and by a special arrangement of its colors into con- centric spheres, such as is indicated to some extent in the illustration of the causal body of an Arhat (Plate xxvi) in Man Visible and Invisible. Let me here briefly describe a certain valley in Tibet where three of these Great Ones, the Master Morya, the Master Kuthumi, and the Master Djwal Kul are living at the present time. The Masters Morya and Kuthumi occupy houses on opposite sides Tue Puysicat Bopigs of THE MASTERS Haas of a narrow ravine, the slopes of which are covered with pine trees, and at the bottom flows a small stream. Paths run down the ravine past Their houses, and meet at the bottom, where there is a little bridge. Close to the bridge a narrow opening leads to a system of vast subterranean halls contain- ing an occult museum of which the Master Kuthumi is the Guardian on behalf of the Great White Brother- hood. The contents of this museum are of the most varied character. They appear to be intended as a kind of illustration of the whole process of evolution. For example, there are here the most lifelike images of every type of man which has existed on this planet from the commencement—from gigantic loose-jointed Lemurians to pigmy remains of even earlier and less human races. Models in alto relievo show all the variations of the surface of the earth—the conditions before and after the great cataclysms which have changed it so much. Huge diagrams illustrate the migrations of the different races of the world, and show exactly how far they spread from their respec- tive sources. Other similar diagrams are devoted to the influence of the various religions of the world, showing where each was practiced in its original purity, and where it became mingled with and dis- torted by the remains of other religions. ' Amazingly lifelike statues perpetuate the physical appearance of certain of the great leaders and teachers of long-forgotten races; and various objects of interest 24 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH connected with important and even unnoticed ad- vancements in civilization are preserved for the exam-_ ination of posterity. Original manuscripts of incred- ible antiquity and of priceless value are here to be seen —a manuscript, for example, written by the hand of the Lord Buddha Himself in His final life as Prince Siddartha, and another written by the Lord Christ during His birth in Palestine. Here is kept that mar- velous original of the Book of Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky describes in the opening of The Secret Doctrine. Here too are strange scripts from other worlds than ours. Animal and vegetable forms are also depicted, some few of which are known to us as fossils, though most of them are unimagined by our modern science. Actual models of some of the great cities of remote and forgotten antiquity are here for the study of the pupils. All statues and models are vividly colored exactly as were the originals; and we may note that the collection here was intentionally put together at the time, in order to represent to posterity the exact stages through which the evolution or civilization of the time was passing, so that instead of mere incom- plete fragments, such as our museums so often pre- sent to us, we have in all cases an intentionally edu- cational series of presentations. There we find models of all the kinds of machinery which the different civ- ilizations have evolved, and also there are elaborate and abundant illustrations of the types of magic in use at the various periods of history. Tue PuysicaLt Bopigs oF THE MASTERS Zp In the vestibule leading to these vast halls are kept the living images of those pupils of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi who happen at the'time to be on probation, which I will describe in the next chap- ter. These images are ranged round the walls like statues, and are perfect representations of the pupils concerned. It is not probable, however, that they are visible to physical eyes, for the lowest matter _ entering into their composition is etheric. Near the bridge there is also a small temple with turrets of somewhat Burmese form, to which a few villagers go to make offerings of fruit and flowers, and to burn camphor and recite the Pancha Sila. A rough and uneven track leads down the valley by the side of the stream. From either of the two houses of the Masters the other house can be seen; they are both above the bridge, but it is doubtful whether both could be seen from it, since the ravine bends round. If we follow the path up the valley past the house of the Master Kuthumi it will lead us to a large pillar of rock, beyond which, the ravine bending round, it passes out of sight. Some distance further on the ravine opens out into a plateau on which there is a lake, in which, tradition tells us, Madame Blavatsky used to bathe; and it is said that she found it very cold. The valley is sheltered and faces south, and though the surrounding country is under snow during the winter, I do not remember having seen any near the Masters’ houses. These houses are of stone, very heavily and strongly built. 26 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH The house of the Master Kuthumi is divided into two parts by a passageway running straight through it. On entering the passage, the first door on the right leads into the principal room of the house, in which our Master usually sits. It is large and lofty (about fifty feet by thirty feet), in many ways more like a hall than a room, and it occupies the whole of the front of the house on that side of the passage. Behind that large room are two other nearly square rooms, one of which He uses as a library, and the other as a bedroom. That completes that side or division of the house, which is apparently reserved for the Master’s personal use, and is surrounded by a broad veranda. The other side of the house, on the left of the passage as one enters, seems to be divided into smaller rooms and offices of various kinds, but we have had no opportunity of closely examining them. The large room is well supplied with windows, both along the front and the end—so well that on enter- ing one gets the impression of an almost continuous outlook; and under the windows runs a long seat. There is also a somewhat unusual feature for that country, a large open fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the front windows. This is so arranged as to heat all three rooms, and it has a curious ham- mered iron cover, which I am told is unique in Tibet. Over the opening of that fireplace is a mantelpiece, and near by stands the Master’s armchair of very old carved wood, hollowed to fit the sitter, so that for it GROUND PLAN OF THE WESTERN HALF OF THE HOUSE OF THE Master KuTHUMI THE PHYSICAL Bopies oF THE MASTERS Nee no cushions are required. Dotted about the room are tables and settees or sofas, mostly without backs, and in one corner is the keyboard of the Master’s organ. The ceiling is perhaps twenty feet high, and is very handsome, with its fine carved beams, which descend into ornamental points where they meet one another and divide the ceiling into oblong sections. An arched opening with a pillar in the center, somewhat in the Gothic style, but without glass, opens into the study, and a similar window opens into the bedroom. This latter room is very simply furnished. There is an ordinary bed, swung hammock-like between two carved wooden supports fixed in the wall (one of these carved to imitate a lion’s head, and the other an ele- phant’s), and the bed when not in use folds up against the wall. The library is a fine room, containing thousands of volumes. Running out from the wall there are tall book-shelves, filled with books in many languages, a number of them being modern European works; and at the top there are open shelves for manuscripts. The Master is a great linguist, and besides being a fine English scholar has a thorough knowledge of French and German. The study also contains a type- writer, which was presented to the Master by one of His pupils. Of the Master’s family I know but little. There is a lady, evidently a pupil, whom He calls “sister.” Whether she is actually His sister or not I do not know; she might possibly be a cousin or a niece. 28 THe MASTERS AND THE PatTH She looks much older than He, but that would not make the relationship improbable, as He has appeared of about the same age for a long time. She resembles Him to a certain extent, and once or twice when there have been gatherings she has come and joined the party; though her principal work seems to be to look after the housekeeping and manage the servants. Among the latter are an old man and his wife, who have been for a long time in the Master’s service. They do not know anything of the real dignity of their employer, but regard Him as a very indulgent and gracious patron, and naturally they benefit greatly by being in His service. The Master has a large garden of His own. He possesses, too, a quantity of land, and employs laborers to cultivate it. Near the house there are flowering shrubs and masses of flowers growing freely, with ferns among them. Through the garden there flows a streamlet, which forms a little waterfall, and over it a tiny bridge is built. Here He often sits when He is sending out streams of thought and bene- diction upon His people; it would no doubt appear to the casual observer as though He were sitting idly watching Nature, and listening heedlessly to the song of the birds, and to the splash and tumble of the water. Sometimes, too, He sits in His great armchair, and when His people see Him thus, they know that He must not be disturbed; they do not know exactly what He is doing, but suppose Him to be in samadhi. The fact that people in the East understand this kind Tue PuysicaL Bopigs ofr THE MASTERS 29 of meditation and respect it may be one of the reasons why the Adepts prefer to live there rather than in the West. In this way we get the effect of the Master sitting - quietly for a considerable part of the day and, as we should say, meditating; but He has much other work besides. He has composed some music, and has written notes and papers for various purposes. He is also much interested in the growth of physical science, although this is especially the province of one of the other great Masters of the Wisdom. From time to time the Master Kuthumi rides on a big bay horse, and occasionally, when Their work lies together, He is accompanied by the Master Morya, who always rides a magnificent white horse. Our Master regularly visits some of the monasteries, and sometimes goes up a great pass to a lonely monastery in the hills. Riding in the course of His duties seems to be His principal exercise, but He sometimes walks with the Master Djwal Kul, who lives quite near to the great crag which gives a view of the lake. Sometimes our Master plays on the organ which is in the large room in His house. He had it made in Tibet under His direction, and it is in fact a com- bined piano and organ, with a keyboard like those which we have in the West, on which He can play all our Western music. It is unlike any other instru- ment with which I am acquainted, for it is in a sense double-fronted, as it can be played either from the sitting room or the study. The principal keyboard 30 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH (or rather the three keyboards, great organ, swell and choir) is in the sitting room, whereas the piano key- board is in the study; and these keyboards can be used either together or separately. The full organ with its pedals can be played in the ordinary way from the sitting room; but by turning a handle some- what equivalent to a stop, the piano mechanism can be linked with the organ, so that it all plays simulta- neously. From that point of view, in fact, the piano is treated as an additional stop on the organ. From the keyboard in the study, however, the piano can be played alone as a separate instrument, quite dissociated from the organ; but by some complicated mechanism the choir organ is also linked to that key- board, so that by it one can play the piano alone precisely as though it were an ordinary piano, or one can play the piano accompanied by the choir organ, or at any rate by certain stops of that organ. It is also possible, as I said, to separate the two completely, and so, with a performer at each keyboard, to play a piano-organ duet. The mechanism and the pipes of this strange instrument occupy almost the whole of what might be called the upper story of this part of the Master’s house. By magnetization He has placed it in communication with the Gandharvas, or Devas of music, so that whenever it is played they cooperate, and thus He obtains combinations of sound never to be heard on the physical plane; and there is, too, an effect produced by the organ itself as of an accompaniment of string and wind instruments. THE PuysicaAL Bopigs oF THE MASTERS 31 The song of the Devas is ever being sung in the world; it is ever sounding in men’s ears, but they will not listen to its beauty. There is the deep bourdon of the sea, the sighing of the wind in the trees, the roar of the mountain torrent, the music of stream, river and waterfall, which together with many others form the mighty song of Nature as she lives. This is but the echo in the physical world of a far grander sound, that of the Being of the Devas. As is said in Light on the Path: “Only fragments of the.great song come to your ears while you are but man. But, if you listen to it, remember it faithfully, so that none which has reached you is lost, and endeavor to learn from it the meaning of the mystery which surrounds you. In time you will need no teacher. For as the individual has voice, so has that in which the indi- vidual exists. Life itself has speech, and is never silent. And its utterance is not, as you that are deaf may suppose, a cry; it is a song. Learn from it that you are a part of the harmony; learn from it to obey the laws of the harmony.” Every morning a number of people—not exactly pupils, but followers—come to the Master’s house, and sit on the veranda and outside it. Sometimes He gives them a little talk—a sort of lecturette; but more often He goes on with His work and takes no notice of them beyond a friendly smile, with which they seem equally contented. They evidently come to sit in His aura and venerate Him. Sometimes He takes His food in their presence, sitting on the veranda, 32 THe MASTERS AND THE PatTH with this crowd of Tibetans cross-legged on the . ground around Him; but generally He eats by Him- self at a table in His room. It is possible that He keeps the rule of the Buddhist monks, and takes no food after noon; for I do not remember ever to have seen Him eat in the evening: it is even possible that He does not need food every day. Most probably when He feels inclined He orders the food that He would like, and does not take His meals at stated times: I have seen Him eating little round cakes, brown and sweet; they are made of wheat and sugar and butter, and are of the ordinary kind used in the household, cooked by His sister. He also eats curry and rice, the curry being somewhat in the form of soup, like dhal. He uses a curious and beautiful golden spoon, with an elephant at the end of the handle, the bowl of which is set at an unusual angle to the stem. It is a family heirloom, very old and probably of great value. He generally wears white clothes, but I do not remember ever having seen Him wearing a head-dress of any kind, except on the rare occasions when He assumes the yellow robe of the Gelugpa sect or clan, which includes a hood somewhat. of the shape of the Roman helmet. The Master Morya, however, generally wears a turban. The house of the Master Morya is on the opposite side of the valley but much lower down—quite close, in fact, to the little temple and the entrance to the caves. It is of an entirely different style of archi- tecture, having at least two stories, and the front. ee Tue PuysicaL Bopies or THE MASTERS So facing the road has verandas at each level which are almost entirely glassed in. The general method and arrangement of His life is much the same as that already described in the case of the Master Kuthumi. If we walk up the road on the left bank of the stream, rising gradually along the side of the valley, we pass on the right the house and grounds of the Master Kuthumi, and further up the hill we find on the same side of the road a small hut or cabin which He who is now the Master Djwal Kul constructed for Himself with His own hands in the days of His pupilage, in order that He might have an abiding place quite near to His Master. In that cabin hangs a sort of plaque upon which at His request one of the English pupils of the Master Kuthumi precipi- tated many years ago an interior view of the large room in the house of the Master Kuthumi, showing the figures of various Masters and pupils. This was done in commemoration of a certain especially happy and fruitful evening at the Master’s house.’ Turning now to a consideration of the personal appearance of these Great Ones, that is modified to some extent by the Ray or type to which each of Them belongs. The First Ray has power for its most prominent characteristic, and those who are born upon it are the kings, the rulers, the governors of the world—of the inner and spiritual world in the first place, but also of the physical plane. Any man who possesses in a very unusual degree the qualities which enable him to dominate men and to guide them 34 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH smoothly along the course which he desires is likely | to be either a First-Ray man or one who is tending towards the First Ray. Such a kingly figure is the Lord Vaivasvata Manu, the Ruler of the Fifth Root-Race, Who is the tallest of all the Adepts, being six feet eight inches in height, and perfectly proportioned. He is the Representative Man of our Race, its prototype, and every member of that Race is directly descended from Him. The Manu has a very striking face of great power, with an aquiline nose, a full and flowing brown beard, and brown eyes, and a magnificent head of leonine poise. “Tall is He,” says our President, “and of King-like majesty, with eyes piercing as an eagle’s, tawny and brilliant with golden lights.” He is living at present in the Himalaya mountains, not far from the house of His great Brother, the Lord Maitreya. Such a figure also is the Master Morya, the lieu- tenant and successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu, and the future Manu of the Sixth Root-Race. He is a Rajput King by birth, and has a dark beard divided into two parts, dark, almost black, hair falling to His shoulders, and dark and piercing eyes, full of power. He is six feet six inches in height, and bears Himself like a soldier, speaking in short terse sentences as if He were accustomed to being instantly obeyed. In His presence there is a sense of overwhelming power and strength, and He has an imperious dignity that compels the deepest reverence. Madame Blavatsky has often told us how she met. Tue Puysicat Bopres or THE MASTERS 30 the Master Morya in Hyde Park, London, in the vear 1851, when He came over with a number of other Indian Princes to attend the first great International Exhibition. Strangely enough, I myself, then a little child of four, saw Him also, all unknowing. I can remember being taken to see a gorgeous procession, in which among many other wonders came a party of richly dressed Indian horsemen. Magnificent ‘ horsemen they were, riding steeds as fine, I suppose, as any in the world, and it was only natural that my childish eyes were fixed upon them in great delight, and that they were perhaps to me the finest exhibit of that marvelous and fairy-like show. And even as I watched them pass, as I stood holding my father’s hand, one of the tallest of those heroes fixed me with gleaming black eyes, which half-frightened me, and yet at the same time filled me somehow with inde- scribable happiness and exaltation. He passed with the others, and I saw Him no more, yet often the vision of that flashing eye returned to my childish memory. Of course, I knew nothing then of who He was, and I should never have identified Him had it not been for a gracious remark which He made to me many years afterwards. Speaking one day in His presence of the earlier days of the Society I happened to say that the first time I had had the privilege of seeing Him in materialized form was on a certain occasion when He came into Madame Blavatsky’s room at Adyar, for the purpose of giving her strength and 36 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH issuing certain directions. He Himself, who was en- . gaged in conversation with some other Adepts, turned sharply upon me and said: ‘No, that was not the first time. Do you not remember, as a tiny child, watching the Indian horsemen ride past in Hyde Park, and did you not see how even then I singled you out?” I remembered instantly, of course, and said: “O Mas- ter, was that you? But I ought to have known it.” I do not mention this incident among the occasions when I have met and spoken with a Master, both parties to the interview being in the physical body, because I did not at the time know that great horse- man to be the Master, and because the evidence of so small a child might well be doubted or discounted. Another such regal figure is the Lord Chakshusha Manu, the Manu of the Fourth Root-Race, Who is Chinese by birth, and of very high caste. He has the high Mongolian cheek bones, and His face looks as though it were delicately carven from old ivory. He generally wears magnificent robes of flowing cloth of gold. As a rule we do not come into contact with Him in our regular work, except when it happens that we have to deal with a pupil belonging to His Root- Race. In the persons of our Lord the Bodhisattva, the World-Teacher and of the Master Kuthumi, His principal lieutenant, the influence that is especially noticeable is the radiance of Their all-embracing Love. The Lord Maitreya is wearing a body of the Keltic race at the present time, though when He comes forth Tue PuysicaL Bopies oF THE MASTERS AY | to the world to teach His people, as He intends to do very shortly, He will make use of a body prepared for Him by one of His disciples. His is a face of wondrous beauty, strong and yet most tender, with rich hair flowing like red gold about His shoulders. His beard is pointed, as in some of the old pictures, and His eyes, of a wonderful violet, are like twin flowers, like stars, like deep and holy pools filled with ~ the waters of everlasting peace. His smile is dazzling beyond words, and a blinding glory of Light surrounds Him, intermingled with that marvelous rose-colored glow which ever shines from the Lord of Love. We may think of Him as seated in the great front room of His house in the Himalayas, the room with many windows, that overlooks the gardens and the terraces and, far below, the rolling Indian plains; or in flowing robes of white, edged with a deep border of gold, as walking in His garden in the cool of the evening, among the glorious flowers, whose perfume fills the surrounding air with a rich, sweet fragrance. Wondrous beyond measure is our Holy Lord the Christ, wondrous beyond any power of description, for through Him flows the Love which comforts millions, and His is the Voice that speaks, as never man spake, the words of teaching that bring peace to angels and to men. Within a very few years that Voice will be heard and that Love be felt by those who dwell in the dark ways of earth; may we prepare ourselves to receive Him when He comes, and give Him fitting welcome and faithful service! 38 Tue MaAstTers AND THE PaTH The Master Kuthumi wears the body of a Kashmiri . Brahman, and is as fair in complexion as the average Englishman. He, too, has flowing hair, and His eyes are blue, and full of joy and love. His hair and beard are brown, which, as the sunlight catches it, becomes ruddy with glints of gold. His face is some- what hard to describe, for His expression is ever changing as He smiles; the nose is finely chiseled, and the eyes are large and of a wonderful liquid blue. Like the great Lord, He, too, is a Teacher and Priest, and many centuries hence He will succeed Him in His high Office, and will assume the scepter of the World- Teacher, and become the Bodhisattva of the Sixth Root-Race. The Maha-Chohan is the type of the Statesman, the great Organizer, though He too has many military qualities. He wears an Indian body, and is tall and thin, with a sharp profile, very fine and clear cut, and no hair on the face. His face is rather stern, with a strong, square chin; His eyes are deep and penetrat- ing, and He speaks somewhat abruptly, as a soldier speaks. He generally wears Indian robes and a white turban. The Master the Comte de St. Germain resembles Him in many ways. ‘Though He is not especially tall, He is very upright and military in His bearing, and He has the exquisite courtesy and dignity of a grand seigneur of the eighteenth century; we feel at once that He belongs to a very old and noble family. His eyes are large and brown, and are filled with THE PHYSICAL Bopies oF THE MASTERS 39 tenderness and humor, though there is in them a glint of power; and the splendor of His presence impels men to make obeisance. His face is olive-tanned; His close-cut brown hair is parted in the center and brushed back from the forehead, and he has a short and pointed beard. Often He wears a dark uniform with facings of gold lace—often also a magnificent red military cloak—and these accentuate His soldier- like appearance. He usually resides in an ancient castle in Eastern Europe that has belonged to His family for many centuries. The Master Serapis is tall, and fair in complexion. He is a Greek by birth, though all His work has been done in Egypt and in connection with the Egyptian Lodge. He is very distinguished and ascetic in face, somewhat resembling the late Cardinal Newman. Perhaps the Venetian Chohan is the handsomest of all the members of the Brotherhood. He is very tall —about six feet five inches, and has a flowing beard and golden hair somewhat like those of the Manu; and His eyes are blue. Although He was born in Venice, His family undoubtedly has Gothic blood in its veins, for He is a man distinctly of that type. The Master Hilarion is a Greek and, except that He has a slightly aquiline nose, is of the ancient Greek type. His forehead is low and broad, and re- sembles that of the Hermes of Praxiteles. He, too, is wonderfully handsome, and looks rather younger than most of the Adepts. He who was once the disciple Jesus is now wearing 40 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH a Syrian body. He has the dark skin, dark eyes and - black beard of the Arab, and generally wears white robes and a turban. He is the Master of devotees, and the keynote of His Presence is an intense purity, and a fiery type of devotion that brooks no obstacles. He lives amongst the Druses of Mount Lebanon. Two of the Great Ones with Whom we have come in contact diverge slightly from what perhaps we may call, with all reverence, the usual type of the physical body of the Adept. One of these is He of Whom Colonel Olcott several times writes, upon Whom the name Jupiter was conferred in the book, Man: Whence, How and Whither. He is shorter than most members of the Brotherhood, and is the only One of Them, so far as I am aware, Whose hair shows streaks of gray. He holds Himself very upright, and moves with alertness and military precision. He is a landed proprietor, and during the visit which I paid to Him with Swami T. Subba Rao, I saw Him several times transacting business with men who appeared to be foremen, bringing reports to Him and receiving in- structions. The other is the Master Djwal Kul, who is still wearing the same body in which He attained Adeptship only a few years ago. Perhaps for that reason it has not been possible to make that body a perfect reproduction of the Augoeides. His face is distinctly Tibetan in character, with high cheek bones, and is somewhat rugged in appearance, showing signs of age. Sometimes an Adept for some special purpose wants Tue PuysicaL Bopres or THE MASTERS 41 a body to use temporarily amid the bustle of the world. That will be the case when the World-Teacher comes, and we have been told that several other Adepts also may then appear, to act as His lieuten- ants and assist Him in His great work for humanity. Most of these Great Ones will follow the example of Their Chief, and borrow temporarily the bodies of _ Their pupils, so it is necessary that a certain number of such vehicles should be ready for Their use. Students sometimes ask why, since the Adepts have physical bodies already, They will need others on this occasion. Those Who, attaining the level of Adeptship, choose as Their future career to remain upon this world and help directly in the evolution of Their own humanity, find it convenient for Their work to retain physical bodies. In order to be suitable for Their purposes, these bodies must be of no ordinary kind. Not only must they be absolutely sound in health, but they must also be perfect expressions of as much of the ego as can be manifested on the physical plane. The building up of such a body as this is no light task. When the ego of an ordinary man comes down to his new baby body, he finds it in charge of an artificial elemental, which has been created accord- ing to his karma, as I have described in The Inner Infe. This elemental is industriously occupied in modeling the form which is soon to be born in the outer world, and it remains after birth and continues that molding process usually until the body is six or 42 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH seven years old. During this period the ego is grad-— ually acquiring closer contact with his new vehicles, emotional and mental as well as physical, and is be- coming accustomed to them; but the actual work done by himself upon these new vehicles up to the point at which the elemental withdraws is, in most cases, in- considerable. He is certainly in connection with the body, but generally pays but little attention to it, preferring to wait until it has reached a stage where it is more responsive to his efforts. The case of an Adept is very different from this. As there is no evil karma to be worked out, no artificial elemental is at work, and the ego himself is in sole charge of the development of the body from the beginning, finding himself limited only by its heredity. ‘This enables a far more refined and deli- cate instrument to be produced, but it also involves more trouble for the ego, and engages for some years a considerable amount of his time and energy. In consequence of this, and no doubt for other reasons as well, an Adept does not wish to repeat the process more often than is strictly necessary, and He there- fore makes His physical body last as long as pos- sible. Our bodies grow old and die for various rea- sons, from inherited weakness, disease, accident and self-indulgence, worry and overwork. But in the case of an Adept none of these causes is present, though we must of course remember that His body is fit for work and capable of endurance immeasurably beyond those of ordinary men. Tur PuysicaL Bopins oF THE MASTERS 43 The bodies of the Adepts being such as we have described They are usually able to hold’ possession of them much longer than an ordinary man can, and the consequence is that we find on inquiry that the age of any such body is usually much greater than from appearances we had supposed it to be. The Master Morya, for example, appears to be a man absolutely in the prime of life—possibly thirty-five ‘or forty years of age; yet many of the stories which His pupils tell of Him assign to Him an age four or five times greater than that, and Madame Blavatsky herself told us that when she first saw Him in her childhood He appeared to her exactly the same as at the present time. Again, the Master Kuthumi has the appearance of being about the same age as His con- stant friend and companion, the Master Morya; yet it has been said that He took a university degree in Europe just before the middle of the last century, which would certainly make Him something very like a centenarian. We have at present no means of knowing what is the limit of prolongation, though there is evidence to show that it may easily extend to more than double the threescore years and ten of the Psalmist. ; A body thus made suitable for higher work is in- evitably a sensitive one, and for that very reason it requires careful treatment if it is to be always at its best. It would wear out as ours do if it were sub- jected to the innumerable petty frictions of the outer world, and its constant torrent of unsympathetic vi- 44 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH brations. Therefore the Great Ones usually live in comparative seclusion, and appear but rarely in that cyclonic chaos which we call daily life. If They were to bring Their bodies into the whirl of curiosity and vehement emotion which is likely to surround the World-Teacher when He comes, there can be no doubt that the life of these bodies would be greatly short- ened, and also, because of their extreme sensitiveness, there would be much unnecessary suffering. By temporarily occupying the body of a pupil, the Adept avoids these inconveniences, and at the same time gives an incalculable impetus to the pupil’s evo- lution. He inhabits the vehicle only when He needs it—to deliver a lecture, perhaps, or to pour a special flood of blessing; and as soon as He has done what He wishes, He steps out of the body, and the pupil, who has all the while been in attendance, resumes it, as the Adept goes back to His own proper vehicle to continue His usual work for the helping of the world. In this way His regular business is but little affected, yet He has always at His disposal a body through which He can cooperate, when required, on the phys- ical plane, in the beatific mission of the World- Teacher. We can readily imagine in what ways this will affect the pupil who is so favored as to have the op- portunity of thus lending his body to a Great One, though the extent of its action may well be beyond our calculation. A vehicle tuned by such an influ- ence will be to him verily an assistance, not a limi- fa THE Puysicat Bopigs of THE MASTERS 45 tation; and while his body is in use he will always have the privilege of bathing in the Adept’s marvel- ous magnetism, for he must be at hand to resume charge as soon as the Master has finished with it. This plan of borrowing a suitable body is always adopted by the Great Ones when They think it well to descend among men, under conditions such as those -which now obtain in the world, The Lord Gautama employed it when He came to attain the Buddha- hood, and the Lord Maitreya took the same course when He visited Palestine two thousand years ago. The only exception known to me is that when a new Bodhisattva assumes the office of World-Teacher after His predecessor has become the Buddha, on His first appearance in the world in that capacity He takes birth as a little child in the ordinary way. Thus did our Lord, the present Bodhisattva, when He took birth as Shri Krishna on the glowing plains of India, to be reverenced and loved with a passion of devotion that has scarcely ever been equaled. This temporary occupation of a pupil’s body should not be confused with the permanent use by an ad- vanced person of a vehicle prepared for him by some- one else. It is generally known among her followers that our great Founder, Madame Blavatsky, when she left the body in which we knew her, entered another which had just been abandoned by its original tenant. As to whether that body had been specially prepared for her use, I have no information; but other instances are known in which that was done. There is always 46 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH in such cases a certain difficulty in adapting the vehicle to the needs and idiosyncrasies of the new occupant; and it is probable that it never becomes a perfectly fitting garment. There is for the incoming ego a choice between devoting a considerable amount of time and trouble to superintending the growth of a new vehicle, which would be a perfect expression of him, as far as that is possible on the physical plane; or of avoiding all that difficulty by entering the body of another—a process which will provide a reasonably good instrument for all ordinary purposes, but which will never fulfill in every respect all that its owner desires. In all cases, a pupil would natu- rally be eager to have the honor of giving up his body to his Master; but few indeed are the vehicles pure enough to be so used. The question is often raised as to why an Adept, Whose work seems to lie almost entirely on higher planes, needs a physical body at all. It is really no concern of ours, but if speculation on such a matter be not irreverent, various reasons suggest themselves. The Adept spends much of His time in projecting streams of influence, and while, so far as has been observed, these are most often on the higher mental level, or on the plane above that, it is probable that they may sometimes at least be etheric currents, and for the manipulation of these the possession of a physical body is undoubtedly an advantage. Again, most of the Masters Whom I have seen have a few pupils or assistants who live with or near Them on Tue PuysicaLt Bopizs oF THE MASTERS 47 the physical plane, and a physical body may be neces- sary for their sake. Of this we may be certain, that if an Adept chooses to take the trouble to maintain such a body, He has a good reason for it; for we know enough of Their methods of working to be fully aware that They always do everything in the best way, and by the means which involve the least ex- penditure of energy. Cuapter III THE WAY TO THE MASTER There has always been a Brotherhood of Adepts, the Great White Brotherhood; there have always been Those Who knew, Those Who possessed this inner wisdom, and our Masters are among the present rep- resentatives of that mighty line of Seers and Sages. Part of the knowledge which They have garnered during countless #ons is available to everyone on the physical plane under the name of Theosophy. But there is far more behind. The Master Kuthumi Himself once said smilingly, when someone spoke of the enormous change that the Theosophical knowledge had made in our lives, and of the wonderful compre- hensiveness of the doctrine of reincarnation: “Yes, but we have only lifted a very small corner of the veil as yet.” When we have thoroughly assimilated the knowledge given us, and are all living up to its teaching, the Brotherhood will be ready to lift the veil further; but only when we have complied with those conditions. For those who wish to know more and to draw nearer, the Path is open. But the man who aspires to approach the Masters can reach Them only by making himself unselfish as They are unselfish, by Tuer Way To THE MASTER 49 learning to forget the personal self, and by devoting himself wholly to the service of humanity as They do. Their point of view is so radically ‘different from ours that it is difficult at first for us to grasp it. They have their private affections just as we have, and assuredly They love some men more than others; but They will never allow such feelings as those to influ- ence Their attitude in the very slightest degree when the work is in question. They will take much trouble over a man if They see in him the seeds of future greatness, if They think that he will prove a good in- vestment for the amount of time and force spent upon him. There is no such possibility as the faintest thought of favoritism in the minds of these Great Ones. They consider simply and solely the work which has to be done, the work of evolution, and the value of the man in relation to it; and if we will fit ourselves to take part in that, our progress will be rapid. Few people realize the magnitude of this under- taking and therefore the seriousness of what they are asking when they want to be taken as pupils. The Adepts are dealing with the entire world in enormous comprehensive sweeps of power; They are influencing millions in their causal bodies or on the buddhic plane, and all the time steadily, though by almost imperceptible degrees, raising the higher bodies of the people on a wholesale scale. And yet the same Mas- ter Who spends His life in doing that work will some- times turn aside and pay personal attention to little details connected with one pupil. All who dare to 50 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH ask to become pupils should try to realize the stu- pendous character of the forces and the work, and the magnitude of the Beings with Whom they propose to come into contact. The least understanding of the greatness of all these things will make it clear why the Adepts will not spend some of Their energy on a pupil unless They have evidence that in a reasonable time he will add to the support of the world a strong current of strength and power in the right direction. They live to do the work of the Logos of the system, and those of us who wish to draw near to Them must learn to do likewise, and live only for the work. Those who do that will certainly attract the attention of the Holy Ones, and be trained by Them to help and bless the world. Human progress is slow, but it is constant; there- fore the number of the Perfected Men is increasing, and the possibility of attaining to Their level is within the reach of all who are willing to make the stupen- dous effort required. In normal times we should need many births before we could gain Adeptship, but just now it is possible for us to hasten our progress on that Path, to compress into a few lives the evolution which otherwise would take many thousands of years. That is the effort which is being made by many members of the Theosophical Society; for there is in that Society an Inner School which teaches men how to prepare themselves more rapidly for this higher work. That preparation needs great self-control, determined effort carried on year after year, and often with but THE Way To THE MAsTER 51 little to show outwardly in the way of definite prog- ress; for it involves the training of the higher bodies far more than the physical body, and the training of the higher does not always manifest itself very ob- viously on the physical plane. Any one who hears about the Masters and Their teaching, if he has any grasp at all of what it means and involves, must instantly be seized with a most _intense desire to understand Them and enter Their service; the more he learns the more does he become: filled with the wonder and beauty and glory of God’s plan, and the more anxious does he become to take part in the work. Once he has realized that God has a plan of evolution, he wants to be a fellow-laborer with God, and nothing else can possibly bring sat-. isfaction. Then he begins to ask himself the question, “What must I do next?” and the answer is: “Work. Do what you can to help the progress of humanity in the Master’s way. Begin with what you have the: opportunity to do and what you can do, which may be any little external thing at first, and presently as you acquire the necessary qualities of character you will be drawn into the higher side of it all, until, through striving to be and do your best you will find yourself possessed of the qualifications which admit to Initiation and membership in the Great White Brotherhood itself.” I remember, when first I had the privilege of coming into somewhat closer touch with the Master, I asked Him in a letter what I should. 52 Tue MAstTEerRs AND THE PatH do. He answered to the following effect: “You must find work for yourself; you know what we are doing. Throw yourself into our work in any way you can. If I gave you a definite piece of work to do you would do it, but in that case the karma of what was done would be mine, because I told you to do it. You would have only the karma of willing obedience, which, of course, is very good, but it is not the karma of initiating a fruitful line of action. I want you to initiate work for yourself, because then the karma of the good deed will come to you.” I think we might all take that unto ourselves. We might realize that it is our business not to wait until we are asked to do something, but to set to work. There is a good deal of quite humble work to be done in connection with Theosophy. Often perhaps some of us would prefer the more spectacular part; we would like to stand up and deliver lectures in public to big audiences. You can generally find people who are willing to offer themselves for that; but there is a great deal of humdrum office work to be done in connection with our Society, and we do not always find so many volunteers for that. Reverence and love for our Masters would lead us to be willing to do anything whatever in Their service, however hum- ble; and we may be sure that we are working in Their service when we are helping the Society which two of Them founded. The qualifications for admission to the Great White Brotherhood, which have to be acquired in the course Tue Way To THE MASTER 53 of the work in the earlier part of the Path, are of a very definite character, and are always essentially the same, although they have been described in many different terms during the last twenty-five centuries. But the latest and simplest account of them is to be found in Mr. J. Krishnamurti’s wonderful little book, At the Feet of the Master. Although Mr. Krishnamurti puts this book before _ the world, the words which it contains are almost en- tirely those of the Master Kuthumi. ‘These are not my words,” the author says in the Foreword; ‘They are the words of the Master who taught me.” When the book was written, Mr. Krishnamurti’s body was thirteen years old, and it was necessary for the Mas- ter’s plans that the knowledge requisite for Initiation should be conveyed to him as quickly as possible. The words contained in the book are those in which the Master tried to convey the whole essence of the necessary teaching in the simplest and briefest form. But for the requirements of this particular case, we might never have had a statement so concise and yet so complete, so simple and yet so all-inclusive. Many books have been written expounding the details of the stages of this preparatory path, and there has been much argument over the exact shades of meaning of Sanskrit and Pali words; but in this little manual the Master boldly brushes all that aside and gives nothing but the essence of the teaching, expressed as far as may be in modern terms and illustrated from modern life. For example, He translates the four 54 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH qualifications Viveka, Vairagya, Shatsampatti and Mumukshatva as Discrimination, Desirelessness, Good Conduct and Love. By no possible license can the English word love be taken as a literal translation of the Sanskrit word Mumukshatva, for that unques- tionably means simply the desire for liberation. The Master apparently argues thus: that the intense de- sire for freedom is desire for escape from all worldly limitations, so that even when among them one may be absolutely free from the slightest feeling of bond- age to them. Such freedom can be attained only by union with the Supreme, with the One Who is behind all, that is to say, by union with God—and God is Love. Therefore only by our becoming thor- oughly permeated with the Divine Love can freedom become possible for us. There is no more beautiful or satisfactory descrip- tion of the qualifications than that given in this book, and one may say with confidence that any one who will thoroughly carry out its teaching will certainly pass immediately through the portal of Initiation. It was a very exceptional case for the Master to spend so much of His time in the direct teaching of one individual, but through Mr. Krishnamurti it has reached tens of thousands of others, and helped them to an immeasurable extent. The story of how this little book came to be written is comparatively simple. Every night I had to take this boy in his astral body to the house of the Master, that instruction might be given him. The Master de- Tue Way To THE MASTER 55 voted perhaps fifteen minutes each night to talking to him, but at the end of each talk he always gathered up the main points of what He had said into a single sentence, or a few sentences, thus making an easy little summary which was repeated to the boy, so that he learnt it by heart. He remembered that summary in the morning and wrote it down. The book consists of these sentences, of the epitome of the Master’s teaching, made by Himself, and in His words. The boy wrote them down somewhat laboriously, because his English was not then very good. He knew all these things by heart and did not trouble particularly about the notes that he had made. A little later he went up to Benares with our President. While there he wrote to me, I being down at Adyar, and asked me to collect and send to him all the notes that he had made of what the Master had said. I arranged his notes as well as I could, and typed them all out. Then it seemed to me that as these were mainly the Master’s words I had better make sure that there was no mistake in recording them. Therefore I took the typewritten copy which I had made to the Master Kuthumi and asked Him to be so kind as to read it over. He read it, altered a word or two here and there, added some connecting and explanatory notes and a few other sentences which I remembered hav- ing heard Him speak. Then He said: “Yes, that -seems correct; that will do;” but He added, “Let us show it to the Lord Maitreya.” And so we went together, He taking the book, and it was shown to 56 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH the World-Teacher Himself, Who read it and ap- proved. It was He Who said: “You should make a nice little book of this to introduce Alcyone to the world.” We had not meant to introduce him to the world; we had not considered it desirable that a mass of thought should be concentrated on a boy of thir- teen, who still had his education before him. But in the occult world we do what we are told, and so this book was put into the printer’s hands the following morning. é All the inconveniences which we expected from premature publicity came about; but still the Lord Maitreya was right and we were wrong; for the good that has been done by that book far outweighs the trouble it brought to us. Numbers of people, literally thousands, have written to say how their whole lives have been changed by it, how everything has become different to them because they have read it. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages. There have been some forty editions of it, or more, and over a hundred thousand copies have been printed. A wonderful work has been done by it. Above all, it bears that special imprimatur of the Coming World- Teacher, and that is the thing that makes it most valuable—the fact that it shows us, to a certain ex- tent, what His teaching is to be. Other books also there are which the pupil will find of the utmost use to him in his endeavor to enter upon this Path; The Voice of the Silence and Light on the Path were given to us for this purpose, and our President’s wonderful Tue Way To THE MASTER 57 books In the Outer Court and The Path of Disciple- ship will be found of inestimable value. Having these books before him the pupil is left in no doubt as to what he should do. He should ob- viously make efforts along two particular lines—the development of his own character, and the under- taking of definite work for others. Clearly what is set before him in this teaching implies an altogether different attitude towards life in general; that has been expressed by one of the Masters in the phrase, “He that wishes to work with us and for us must leave his own world and come into ours.”’ That does not mean, as might usually be supposed by students of Oriental literature, that the pupil must abandon the ordinary world of physical life and business, and retire to the jungle, the cave or the mountain, but it does mean that he must abandon altogether the worldly attitude of mind and adopt instead of it the attitude of the Master. The man of the world thinks of the events of life chiefly as they affect himself and his personal interests; the Master thinks of them only as they affect the evolution of the world. Whatsoever on the whole tends to progress and helps humanity along its path—that is good and to be supported; whatsoever in any way hinders these things—that is undesirable and should be opposed or set aside. That is good which helps evolution, that is evil which re- tards it. Here we have a criterion very different from that of the outer world; a touchstone by means of which we can quickly decide what we must support 58 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH and what we must resist; and we can apply it to qualities in our own character as well as to outer events. We shall be of use to the Master just in so far as we can work along with Him, in however humble a fashion; we can best work along with Him by making ourselves like to Him so that we shall regard the world as He regards it. If we work along the same lines as He works we shall come more and more into sympathy with Him, and our thoughts will become more and more like His. This will bring us nearer and nearer to Him both in thought and activity, and, in so doing, presently we shall attract His attention, for He is all the time watching the world in order to find those who will be of use in His work. Noticing us, He will pres- ently draw us nearer to Him for still closer and more detailed observation. That is usually done by bring- ing us into contact with one who is already His pupil. It is thus quite unnecessary for anyone to make any direct effort to attract His attention. Madame Blavatsky told us that whenever a person joined the outer Theosophical Society the Master looked at him, and furthermore she said that in many cases the Great Ones guided people to join the Society because of their previous lives. So it would seem that They usually know a great deal about us before we know anything about Them. The Adept never forgets anything. He appears to be always in full possession of all that has happened to Him, and so if He does cast even a most casual glance at a person He will Tue Way To THE MASTER 59 never thereafter overlook that person. When a per- son joins the Inner School a definite link is formed, not yet directly with an Adept, but first of all with the Outer Head of the School, and through her with her Master, Who is the Inner Head. That link so made with the Outer Head is definitely increased and strengthened at each step further into the School. In the introductory stages there is but a slight connection; something much more definite comes with the taking of the pledge of the School, and those who take the pledges of the higher degrees draw a little nearer still. This mainly shows itself in a thickening of the line of communication, for there is a line of thought connecting each member of the School with the Outer Head, because he constantly thinks of her in his meditation. That keeps the link bright and strong. She on her part has become one with her Master. Therefore a connection with her is in that sense a connection with Him. All those in the Inner School are thus in touch with her Master, the Master Morya, though they are often working on other lines than His, and will become pupils of other Masters when they are taken on probation. Under such circum- stances, however, they will receive the influenre of their own future Master through these channels, be- cause the Adepts, although living far apart physically, are in such very close contact that to be in touch with one of Them is really to be linked with all. It seems to us a roundabout connection; but it is much 60 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH less so than we think down here, because of the amazingly close unity between the Great Ones on- higher levels. Even at the early stage of this indirect link through the Outer Head, the Master can work to a certain ex- tent through any of those people if He wishes to do so. It is a little out of His way to send His force through a channel not specially prepared, so He does not usually do it. But He has some sort of conscious- ness of those who are in His School, which sometimes manifests itself in the way of sending to them a help- ful thought when they are doing some work for Him. I have known Him to utilize a member of the School who was giving a lecture, in order to put some fresh point before the people. Of course, He does that far more frequently with His pupils, but it has certainly been done with others as well. When a student understands all this he will no longer ask: ‘What can I do that will attract the Master’s attention?” He will know that it is quite unnecessary that we should try to do so and that there is not the slightest fear that any one will be over- looked. I remember very well an incident of the early days of my own connection with the Great Ones, which bears on this point. I knew on the physical plane a man of vast erudition and of the most saintly char- acter, who believed thoroughly in the existence of the Masters, and devoted his life to the one object of qualifying himself for Their service. He seemed to Tue Way To THE MASTER 61 me a man in every way so entirely suitable for dis- cipleship, so obviously better than myself in many ways, that I could not understand how it was that he was not already recognized; and so, being young in the work and ignorant, one day, when a good oppor- tunity offered itself, I very humbly and as it were apologetically mentioned his name to the Master, with the suggestion that he might perhaps prove a good instrument. A smile of kindly amusement broke out upon the Master’s face as He said: “Ah, you need not fear that your friend is being overlooked; no one can ever be overlooked; but in this case there still remains a certain karma to be worked out, which makes it impossible at the moment to accept your suggestion. Soon your friend will pass away from the physical plane, and soon he will re- turn to it again, and then the expiation will be com- plete and what you desire for him will have become possible.” And then, with the gentle kindness which is always so prominent a characteristic in Him, He blended my consciousness with His in an even more intimate man- ner, and raised it to a plane far higher than I could then reach, and from that elevation He showed me how the Great Ones look out upon the world. The whole earth lay before us with all its millions of souls, undeveloped, most of them, and therefore inconspic- uous; but wherever amidst all that mighty multitude there was one who was approaching even at a great distance the point at which definite use could be made 62 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH of him, he stood out among the rest just as the flame of a lighthouse stands out in the darkness of the night. “Now you see,” said the Master, “how utterly im- possible it would be that any one should be overlooked who is even within measurable distance of the possi- bility of acceptance as a probationer.” We can do nothing on our side but steadily work at the improvement of our character, and endeavor in every possible way, by the study of. Theosophical works, by self-development, and by the unselfishness of our devotion to the interests of others, to fit our- selves for the honor which we desire, having within our minds the utter certainty that as soon as we are ready the recognition will assuredly come. But until we can be utilized economically—until, that is to say, the force spent upon us will bring forth, through our actions, at least as much result as it would if spent in any other way, it would be a violation of duty on the part of the Master to draw us into close relations with Him. We may be quite sure that there are in reality no exceptions to this rule, even though we may sometimes think that we have seen some. A man may be put upon probation by an Adept while he has still some obvious faults, but we may be sure that in such a case there are good qualities under the surface which far more than counterbalance the superficial defects. Like the rest of us, the Great Masters of Wisdom have a long line of lives behind Them, and in those lives, ) Tue Way To THE MASTER 63 like others, They have made certain karmic ties, and so sometimes it happens that a particular individual has a claim on Them for some service rendered long ago. In the lines of past lives which we have ex- amined we have sometimes come across instances of such a karmic link. Remember also that everyone who meditates upon the Master makes a definite connection with Him, which shows itself to clairvoyant vision as a kind of line of light. The Master always subconsciously feels the impinging of such a line, and sends out in re- sponse a steady stream of magnetism which continues to play long after the meditation is over. The regular practice of such meditation and concentration is thus of the utmost help to the aspirant, and regularity is one of the most important factors in producing the result. It should be undertaken daily at the same hour, and we should steadily persevere with it, even though no obvious effect may be produced. When no result appears we must be especially careful to avoid depression, because that makes it more difficult for a Master’s influence to act upon us, and it also shows that we are thinking of ourselves more than of Him. People very often come or write to our President or to myself and say, “Why does not the Master use me? Iam so earnest and devoted to Him. I do so want to be used. I want Him to take me and teach me. Why does He not do so?” There may be many reasons why He does not. 64 THe MASTERS AND THE PaTH Sometimes a person, asking that, will have some prominent fault which is in itself quite a sufficient reason. Not infrequently, I regret to say, it is pride. A person may have so good a conceit of himself that he is not amenable to teaching, although he thinks that he is. Very often in this civilization of ours the fault is irritability. A good and worthy person will have his nerves all ajangle, so that it would be im- possible for him to be drawn into very close and con- stant touch with the Master. Sometimes the impedi- ment is curiosity. Some are surprised to hear that that is a serious failing, but certainly it is—curiosity about the affairs of other people, and especially about their occult standing or development. It would be quite impossible that a Master should draw near to Himself one who had that failing. Another common hindrance is readiness to be of- fended. Many a good and earnest aspirant is so easily offended as to be of practically no use in the work, because he cannot get on with other people. He will have to wait until he has learnt to adapt himself and to cooperate with any person whatever. Many people who make the inquiry have failings of this kind, and they do not like it if their fault is pointed out to them. They do not generally believe that they have it, and imagine that we are in error; but in rare cases they are willing to profit by the sug- gestion. I remember very well a lady coming to me in an American city, and asking the question: “What is the matter with me? Why may I not draw near to Tue Way To THE MASTER 65 the Master?” “Do you really want to know?” I asked. ' Yes, certainly, she really wished to know. She adjured me to look at her occultly, or clairvoyantly, or in any way I wished, at all her vehicles and her past lives, and to decide thereby. I took her at her word and said, ‘Well, if you really want to know, there is too much ego in your cosmos. You are think- ing all about yourself and not enough about the work.” Of course she was terribly offended; she flounced out of the room, and said she did not think much of my clairvoyance; but that lady had the courage to come back two years later and say: “What you told me was quite true, and I am going to put it right and to work hard at it.” That story has repeated itself many times, except that this is the only case in which the person came back and acknowledged the fault. Self-centeredness is only another form of pride, but it is very prominent at the present day. The person- ality which we have been building up for many thou- sands of years has grown strong, and often self- assertive, and it is one of the hardest tasks to reverse its attitude and compel it to acquire the habit of looking at things from the standpoint of others. One must certainly step out of the center of his own circle, as I explained in The Inner Life, if he wishes to come to the Master. It sometimes happens, however, that those who ask the question have not any particular outstanding de- 66 THE MASTERS AND THE PatTH fect, and when one looks them over, one can only | say, “I do not see any definite reason, any one fault which is holding you back, but you will have to grow a little all round.” That is an unpalatable thing to have to tell a person, but it is the fact; they are not yet big enough, and must grow before they will be worthy. It requires some strength and bigness to put oneself in the same attitude towards the work which the Master Himself adopts, because, in addition to any defect of our own, we have the whole pressure of the thought of the world against us. Those who drift along with the current of evolu- tion and will reach this stage in the very far distant future, will find it much easier, for popular opinion at that period will be in harmony with these ideals. We have now, however, to resist what the Christian would call temptation, the steady pressure of opinion from without, for millions of people all round us are thinking personal thoughts. To make a stand against these needs a real effort, true courage and persever- ance. We must doggedly keep to the task, and though we may fail again and again we must not lose heart, but get up and go on. The astral and mental bodies of an aspirant ought to be continually exhibiting four or five big and splen- did emotions—love, devotion, sympathy, and intellec- tual aspiration among them. But instead of a few great emotions vibrating splendidly and clearly with fine color, one generally sees the astral body spotted over with red and brown and gray and black vortices, Tue Way To THE MASTER 67 often a hundred or more. They are somewhat like a mass of warts would be on a physical body, prevent- ing the skin from being sensitive as it should be. The candidate must see to it that these are removed, and that the usual tangle of petty emotions is entirely combed away. There can be no half measures on this Path. Many people are in the position of those much-maligned individuals Ananias and Sapphira. It will be re- membered how they (not at all unnaturally nor in a blameworthy manner) wanted to keep something to fall back upon, as they were not quite sure that the new Christian movement was going to be a success. They were very enthusiastic, and wanted to give all that they could; but they did feel that it was the path of wisdom to keep a little back in case the move- ment failed. For that they were not in the least to be blamed; but what they did do which was most damaging and improper was that, though keeping something back they did not admit the fact, but pretended that they had given all. There are many to-day who follow their example; I hope the story is not true, because the Apostle was certainly some- what severe upon them. We do not give everything, but keep back a little bit of ourselves—I do not mean of our money, but of personal feeling deep down, which holds us back from the Master’s feet. In occultism that will not do. We must follow the Master without reserve, not saying within, “I will follow the Master so long as 68 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH He does not want me to work with such-and-such a | person; I will follow the Master so long as all that I do is recognized and mentioned in the papers!” We must not make conditions. I do not mean that we should give up our ordinary physical-plane duties, but simply that our whole self should be at the Master’s disposal. We must be prepared to yield anything, to go anywhere—not as a test, but because the love of the work is the biggest thing in our lives. Cuapter IV PROBATION Out of the ranks of earnest students and workers of the kind I have already described, the Master has on many occasions selected His pupils. But before He definitely accepts them He takes special pre- cautions to assure Himself that they are really the kind of people whom He can draw into intimate con- tact with Himself, and that is the object of the stage called Probation. When He thinks of a man as a possible pupil, He usually asks one who is already closely linked with Him to bring the candidate to Him astrally. There is not generally much ceremony con- nected with this step; the Master gives a few words of advice, tells the new pupil what will be expected of him, and often, in His gracious way, He may find some reason to congratulate him on the work that he has already accomplished. He then makes a living image of the pupil—that is to say, He molds out of mental, astral and etheric matter an exact counterpart of the causal, mental, astral and etheric bodies of the neophyte, and keeps that image at hand, so that He may look at it period- ically. Each image is magnetically attached to the person whom it represents, so that every variation of 70 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTtTH thought and feeling in him is accurately reproduced | in it by sympathetic vibration, and thus by a single glance at the image the Master can see at once whether during the period since He last looked at it there has been any sort of disturbance in the bodies which it represents—whether the man has been losing his temper, or allowing himself to be a prey to impure feelings, worry, depression or anything of the kind. It is only after He has seen that for a considerable time no serious excitement has taken’ place in the vehicles represented by the image that He will admit the pupil into near relation with Himself. When the pupil is accepted he must be drawn into a unity with his Master closer than anything we can imagine or understand; the Master wants to blend his aura with His own, so that through it His forces may be constantly acting without special attention on His part. But a relation so intimate as this can- not act in one direction only; if among the vibrations of the pupil there are some which would cause dis- turbance in the astral and mental bodies of the Adept as they react upon Him, such union would be impos- sible. The prospective pupil would have to wait un- til he had rid himself of those vibrations. A proba- tionary pupil is not necessarily better than other peo- ple who are not on probation; he is only more suitable in certain ways for the Master’s work, and it is ad- visable to subject him to the test of time, for many people, swept upwards by enthusiasm, appear at first to be most promising and eager to serve, but unfor- PROBATION Foul tunately become tired after a while and slip back. The candidate must conquer any emotional failings that he may have, and go on steadily working until he becomes sufficiently calm and pure. When for quite a long time there has been no serious upheaval in the living image, the Master may feel that the time has come when He can usefully draw the pupil nearer to Him. We must not think of the living image as recording only defects or disturbances. It mirrors the whole condition of the pupil’s astral and mental conscious- ness, so it should record much of benevolence and joy- ousness and should radiate forth peace on earth and good will to men. Never forget that not only a passive but also an active goodness is always a pre- requisite for advancement. To do no harm is already much; but remember that it is written of our Great Exemplar that He went about doing good. If a pupil on probation does something unusually good, for the moment the Master flashes a little more attention on him, and if He sees fit He may send a wave of encouragement of some sort, or He may put some work in the pupil’s way and see how he does it. Generally, however, He delegates that task to some of His senior pupils. We are supposed to offer oppor- tunities to the candidate, but to do so is a serious re- sponsibility. If the person takes the opportunity, all is well; but if he does not it counts as a bad mark against him. We should often like to give opportu- nities to people, but we hesitate, because although if 4 THe MASTERS AND THE PATH they take them it will do them much good, if they do. not take them it will be a little harder to do so next time. It will be seen, then, that the link of the pupil on probation with his Master is chiefly one of obser- vation and perhaps occasional use of the pupil. It is not the custom of the Adepts to employ special or sensational tests, and in general, when an adult is put on probation, he is left to follow the ordinary course of his life, and the way in which the living image reproduces his response to the trials and prob- lems of the day gives quite sufficient indication of his character and progress. When from this the Mas- ter concludes that the person will make a satisfactory disciple, He will draw him nearer and accept him. Sometimes a few weeks is sufficient to determine this; sometimes the period stretches into years. Because the time is exceptional many young people have been put on probation in recent years, and their parents and the older members of the Society have sometimes wondered how it is that, notwithstanding their own sincere sacrifices and labors, often extend- ing over twenty, thirty or even forty years, they are passed over and the young people are chosen. The explanation is simple: It has been your karma to work all this time pre- paring yourself and preparing the way for the com- ing of the World-Teacher; and just because you are good old members you have attracted some of these souls who have been working up to a high level of development in previous incarnations, so that they PROBATION To have been born to you as children; and you must not be surprised if you sometimes find that those who in the physical body are your children are in other and higher worlds far older in development than you are. If a boy or a girl suddenly enters into close relations with a Master—such relations as you have hardly ventured to think of for yourself, even after many years of meditation and hard work—do not be aston- ished. Your child may be capable of soaring far beyond you; but it is just because he has that ca- pacity that his birth and education have been en- trusted to you, who have been studying and working so long on Theosophical lines. In the course of that study you should have learned to be the ideal parent —the kind of parent required for the body of an advanced ego. Instead of being perplexed or sur- prised, you should rejoice with exceeding great joy that you have been found worthy to train the physical footsteps of one who shall be among the saviors of the world. You may wonder, perhaps, how mere children can appreciate the honor which comes to them, can grasp the splendor and glory of it all. Do not forget that it is the Ego which is initiated, the Ego who is taken as a pupil. True, he must obtain such control over his lower vehicles that they will be to a certain con- siderable extent an expression of him, so that at least they will not get in the way of the work which has to be done; but it is he, the Ego, who has to do that work and to make that development, and you do not 74 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH know how much of it he may have already achieved in a previous birth. Many of those who are coming into incarnation just now are highly evolved souls; it is precisely of such highly evolved souls that the great group of disciples who will stand around the Lord when He shall come must be constituted. Those who become pupils early in this life may well have been pupils for many years in a previous life, and the greatest. privilege that we elder people can have is that we find ourselves associated with these young ones, for through them we can further the Lord’s work on earth by training them to do it more perfectly. In the chapter on “Our Relation to Children” in The Hidden Side of Things I have dealt at consider- able length with what is necessary for the training of children, that they may preserve all that is best in what they bring from the past and may develop into full flower the many beautiful characteristics of their nature, which are so generally, alas, ruthlessly de- stroyed by uncomprehending elders. There I have spoken among other things of the devastating effects of fear induced in children by roughness and cruelty: but on that subject I should like to add here some mention of an experience which illustrates the un- speakably terrible results which sometimes follow in its wake. Parents who have children of an age to be sent to school cannot be too careful and searching in their inquiries before they intrust those children to an instructor, lest ineradicable harm be done to the little ones for whom they are responsible. PROBATION 75 Some time ago a very striking instance of the calamity which may in certain cases be brought about by such brutality came prominently before my notice. I had the very great honor of being present at the Initiation of one of our younger members, the Initiator on that occasion being the Lord Maitreya Himself. In the course of the ceremonial the candidate, as usual, had to reply to many questions dealing largely with the manner in which help can best be given in certain difficult or unusual cases, and a special interrogation was added as to whether he forgave and could help a certain man who had treated him with terrible harshness and cruelty in early childhood. The Initia- tor made an image of an aura with the most wonder- fully delicate little puffs or touches or shoots of lovely color of light playing over its surface, as if it were peep- ing out of it, and then drawing in again, and said, “Those are the seeds of the highest and noblest qual- ities of mankind—fragile, delicate as gossamer, to be developed only in an atmosphere of deepest, purest love, without one touch of fear or shrinking. He who, being otherwise ready, can unfold and strengthen them fully may reach Adeptship in that same life. That was the fate We had hoped for you, that as a great Adept you should have stood beside Me when I come to your physical plane; but those to whom I intrusted you (because they offered you to My service even before birth) allowed you to fall into the hands of this person, who was so utterly unworthy of such a trust. This was your aura before the blight of his 76 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH wickedness fell upon you. Now see what his cruelty made of you.” Then the aura changed and twisted about horribly, and when it was still again all the beautiful little shoots had disappeared, and in their place were in- numerable little scars, and the Lord explained that the harm done could not be canceled in the present life, and said, “You will still help Me when I come, and I hope that in this life you will attain Arhatship; but for the final consummation we must wait awhile. In our eyes there is no greater crime than thus to check the progress of a soul.” As the candidate saw this aura writhe and harden, saw all its fair promise ruthlessly destroyed by the brutality of this man, he felt again for a moment what he had to a great extent forgotten—the agony of the small boy sent away from home, the ever- hovering fear and shrinking, the incredulous horror, the feeling of flaming outrage from which there is no escape or redress, the sickening sense of utter helpless- ness in the grasp of a cruel tyrant, the passionate re- sentment at his wicked injustice, with no hope, no foothold anywhere in the abyss, no God to Whom to appeal; and seeing this in his mind, I who watched understood something of the terrible tragedy of child- hood, and why its effects are so far-reaching. It is not only when approaching Adeptship that this most loathsome sin of cruelty to children checks progress. All the new and higher qualities which the Aryan race should now be unfolding show themselves PROBATION (if in light and delicate buds of a similar nature, though ata lower level than those described above. In thou- sands of cases these are ruthlessly crushed out by the insensate ferocity of parent or teacher; and thus many good people remain at the same level through sev- eral incarnations, while their tormentors fall back into lower races. There are certainly many egos coming into incarnation who, although they fall far short of the great heights of Initiation, are nevertheless un- folding rapidly, and need now to add to their char- acters some of these further and more delicate devel- opments; and for the advancement intended for them also brutality would be fatal. I had not heard until the occasion mentioned above that the last life in which Adeptship is attained must have absolutely perfect surroundings in childhood; but the appropriateness of the idea is obvious when once it is put before us. That is probably one reason why so few students gain Adeptship in European bodies, for we are much behind the rest of the world in that particular. It is at any rate abundantly clear that nothing but evil can ever follow from this ghastly custom of cruelty. Our members should certainly work wherever possible for its suppression, and should be, as I said in the beginning, most especially careful to make certain that no children for whom they are in any way responsible shall be in any danger from this particular form of crime. The Lord Maitreya has frequently been called the Teacher of Gods and Men, and that fact is sometimes 78 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH expressed in a different way by saying that in the great kingdom of the spiritual work He is the minis- ter for Religion and Education. It is not only that at certain intervals, when He sees it to be desirable, He either incarnates Himself, or sends a pupil, to state the eternal truth in some new way—as we may put it, to found a new religion. Quite apart from that He is constantly in charge of all religions, and whatever new and beautiful teaching is sent out through any of them, new or old, it is always inspired by Him. We know little of the methods of world-wide instruc- tion which He adopts; there are many ways of teach- ing apart from the spoken word; and it is certain that it is His constant and daily endeavor to raise the intellectual conceptions of millions of angels and of men. His right-hand man in all this marvelous work is His assistant and destined successor, the Master Kuthumi, just as the assistant and destined successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu is the Master Morya. Just because, then, the Master Kuthumi is the ideal teacher, it is to Him that we have to bring those who are to be put on probation or accepted at an early age. It may be that later on in life they will be used by other Masters for other portions of the work; but at any rate they all (or almost all) begin under the tutelage of the Master Kuthumi. It has been part of my task for many years to endeavor to train along the right lines any young person whom the Master regards as hopeful; He brings them in contact with PROBATION 79 me on the physical plane, and usually gives brief directions as to what qualities He wants developed in them, and what instruction should be given to them. Naturally He, in His infinite wisdom, does not deal with these younger brains and bodies exactly as with those of older people. Let me quote from an account of the putting on probation some ten years ago of three of our young people: ENTERING Upon PROBATION We found the Master Kuthumi seated on the ver- anda of His house, and as I led the young ones for- ward to Him, He held out His hands to them. The first boy dropped gracefully on one knee and kissed His hand, and thenceforward remained kneeling, pressing against the Master’s knee. All of them kept their eves upon His, and their whole souls seemed to be pouring out through their eyes. He smiled on them most beautifully and said: “T welcome you with peculiar pleasure; you have all worked with me in the past, and I hope you will do so again this time. I want you to be of Us before the Lord comes, so I am beginning with you very early. Remember, this that you wish to undertake is the most glorious of all tasks, but it is not an easy one, because you must gain perfect control over these little bodies; you must forget yourselves entirely and live only to be a blessing to others, and to do the work which is given us to do.” Putting His hand under the chin of the first boy as he knelt, He said with a bright smile: “Can you do that?” And they all replied that they would try. Then the Master gave some valuable personal advice to each in turn, and asked each one separately: ‘Will 80 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH you try to work in the world under My guidance?” And each said: “I will.” Then He drew the first boy in front of Him, and placed both His hands upon his head, the boy once more sinking to his knees. The Master said: “Then I take you as My pupil on probation, and I hope that you will soon come into closer relationship with Me, and therefore I give you My blessing, in order that you may pass it on to others.” As He spoke, the boy’s aura increased wonderfully in size, and its colors of love and devotion glowed with living fire; and he said: “O Master, make me really good; make me fit to serve you.” But the Master smilingly replied: “Only you your- self can do that, my dear boy; but My help and bless- ing will be ever with you.” Then He took the others and went through the same little ceremony with each of them, and their auras also increased and grew firmer and steadier as they glowed responsively in the most marvelous manner. Then the Master rose and drew the boys with Him saying: ‘Now come with Me, and see what I do.” We all trooped together down the sloping path to the bridge across the river. He took us into the cave, and showed to the boys the living images of all the probationary pupils. Then He said: “Now I am going to make images of you.” And He materialized them before their eyes, and they were naturally tre- mendously interested. One of them said in an awed voice: “Am I like that?” In one of the images there was a patch of reddish matter, and the Master said to its original with a humorous glance: ‘What is that?” “T don’t know,” replied the boy; but I think he guessed, for it was the result of an emotional strain the night before. The Master pointed out various colors and arrangements in the auras, and told them PROBATION 81 what they meant and which He wanted altered. He told them that He should look at these images each day to see how they were getting on, and He hoped that they would so arrange them that they would be pleasant to look upon. Then He gave them His final blessing. In the case of elder people put upon probation, they are left to a large extent to find the most suitable work for themselves; but with the younger people He sometimes quite definitely puts a piece of work in the way of one of them and watches to see how he does it. He condescends sometimes to give special messages of encouragement and instruction to indi- viduals among these young people, and even to give special advice as to their training. For the guidance of other young people who desire to follow along the same path extracts from some of those messages are given here: ApvicE From THE MASTER “T know that your one object in life is to serve the Brotherhood; yet do not forget that there are higher steps before you, and that progress on the Path means sleepless vigilance. You must not only be always ready to serve; you must be ever watching for oppor- tunities—nay, making opportunities to be helpful in small things, in order that when the greater work comes you may not fail to see it. “Never for a moment forget your occult relation- ship; it should be an ever-present inspiration to you— not only a shield from the fatuous thoughts which float around us, but a constant stimulus to spiritual ac- 82 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH tivity. The vacuity and pettiness of ordinary life should be impossible for us, though not beyond our comprehension and compassion. The ineffable bliss of Adeptship is not yet yours, but remember that you are already one with Those who live that higher life; you are dispensers of Their sunlight in this lower world, so you, too, at your level, must be radiant suns of love and joy. The worid may be unappreciative, uncomprehending; but your duty is to shine. “Do not rest on your oars; there are still higher peaks to conquer. The need of intellectual develop- ment must not be forgotten; and we must unfold within ourselves sympathy, affection, tolerance. Each must realize that there are other points of view than his own, and that they may be just as worthy of at- tention. All coarseness or roughness of speech, all tendency to argumentativeness, must absolutely dis- appear; one who is prone to it should check himself when the impulse towards it arises; he should say little, and that always with delicacy and courtesy. Never speak without first thinking whether what you are going to say is both kind and sensible. He who tries to develop love within himself will be saved from many mistakes. Love is the supreme virtue of all, without which all other qualifications water but the sand. “Thoughts and feelings of an undesirable kind must be rigorously excluded; you must work at them until they are impossible to you. Touches of irritability ruffle the calm sea of the consciousness of the Brother- hood. Pride must be eliminated, for it is a serious bar to progress. Exquisite delicacy of thought and speech is needed—the rare aroma of perfect tact which can never jar or offend. That is hard to win, yet you may reach it if you will. “Definite service, and not mere amusement, should be your aim; think, not what you want to do, but PROBATION 83 what you can do that will help someone else; forget about yourself, and consider others. A pupil must be consistently kind, obliging, helpful—not now and then, but all the time. Remember, all time which is not spent in service (or fitting yourself for service) is for us lost time. “When you see certain evils in yourself, take them in hand manfully and effectively. Persevere, and you will succeed. It is a question of will-power. Watch for opportunities and hints; be efficient. I am always ready to help you, but I cannot do the work for you; the effort must come from your side. Try to deepen yourselves all round and to live a life of utter devo- tion to service. “You have done well, but I want you to do better yet. I have tested you by giving you opportunities to help, and so far you have taken them nobly. I shall therefore give you more and greater opportuni- ties, and your progress will depend upon your recog- nizing them and availing yourself of them. Remem- ber that the reward of successful work is always the opening out before you of more work, and that faith- fulness in what seem to you small things leads to employment in matters of greater importance. I hope that you will soon draw closer to me, and in so doing will help your brothers along the Path which leads to the feet of the King. Be thankful that you have a great power of love, that you know how to flood your world with sunlight, to pour yourself out with royal prodigality, to scatter largess like a king; that indeed is well, but take care lest in the heart of this great flower of love there should be a tiny touch of pride, which might spread as does an almost invisible spot of decay, until it has tainted and corrupted the whole blossom. Remember what our great Brother has written: ‘Be humble if thou wouldst attain to wisdom; be humbler still when wisdom thou hast mas- &4 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH tered.’ Cultivate that modest fragrant plant, hu- mility, until its sweet aroma permeates every fiber of your being. “When you try for unity, it is not enough to draw the others into yourself, to enfold them with your aura, to make them one with you. To do that is already a long step, but you must go yet further, and make yourself one with each of them; you must enter into the very hearts of your brothers, and understand them; never from curiosity, for a brother’s heart is both a secret and sacred place; one must not seek to pry into it or discuss it, but rather endeavor reverently to comprehend, to sympathize, to help. It is easy to criticize others from one’s own point of view; it is more difficult to get to know them and love them, but that is the only way to bring them along with you. I want you to grow quickly that I may use you in the great Work; to help you in that I give you my blessing. “Daughter, you have done well in exercising your influence to civilize as far as may be the rougher elements around you, and to help another pure soul upon her way to me. That will be ever a bright star in your crown of glory; continue your help to her, and see whether there be not other stars which you can presently add to that crown. This good work of yours has enabled me to draw you closer to me far earlier than would otherwise have been the case. There is no more certain method of rapid progress than to devote oneself to helping others upon the upward Path. You have been fortunate, too, in meet- ing a comrade from of old, for two who can really work together are more efficient than if they were putting forth the same amount of strength separately. You have begun well; continue to move along the same line with swiftness and certainty. “T welcome you, the latest recruit to our glorious PROBATION 85 band. It is not easy for you to forget yourself en- tirely, to yield yourself without reservation to the service of the world; yet that is what is required of us—that we should live only to be a blessing to others, and to do the work which is given us to do. You have made a good beginning in the process of self-develop- ment, but much yet remains to be done. Repress even the slightest shade of irritability, and be ready always to receive advice and instruction; cultivate humility and self-sacrifice, and fill yourself with a fervid enthusiasm for service. So shall you be a fit- ting instrument in the hand of the Great Master, a soldier in the army of Those Who save the world. To help you in that I now take you as a probationary pupil.” Many who read these instructions may be surprised by their extreme simplicity. They may even despise them as being little suited to guide and help people in the immense complexity of our modern civilization. But he who thinks thus forgets that it is of the es- sence of the life of the pupil that he shall lay aside all this complexity, that he shall, as the Master put it, “come out of your world into ours,” come into a world of thought in which life is simple and one- pointed, in which right and wrong are once more clearly defined, in which the issues before us are ~ straight and intelligible. It is the simple life that the disciple should be living. It is the very simplicity which he attains which makes the higher progress possible to him. We have made our life an entangle- ment and an uncertainty, a mass of confusion, a storm 86 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH of cross-currents, in which the weak fail and sink; but the pupil of the Master must be strong and sane, he must take his life in his own hands, and make it simple with a divine simplicity. His mind must brush aside all these man-made confusions and delusions and go straight as an arrow to its mark. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” And the kingdom of heaven, remember, is the Great White Brotherhood of the Adepts. (See The Hidden Side of Christian Festivals, pp. 12, 446.) We see from these extracts how high is the ideal which the Master sets before His pupils, and perhaps it may seem to some of them to be what in theology we call a counsel of perfection—that is to say, a goal or condition impossible to reach perfectly as yet, but still one at which we must constantly aim. But all aspirants are aiming high, and no one yet can fully reach that at which he aims; otherwise he would not need to be in physical incarnation at all. We are very far from being perfect, but the young people who can be brought close to the Great Ones have a most wonderful opportunity, just because of their youth and plasticity. It is so much easier for them to elimi- nate those things which are not quite what they should be than it is for older people. If they can cultivate the habit of taking the right point of view, of acting for the right reasons, and of being in the right atti- tude the whole of their lives, they will steadily draw nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Masters. If the ae _ PROBATION 87 pupil who has been put on probation could see while awake in his physical body the living images that the Master makes he would understand much more fully the importance of what may seem to be but minor details. Irritability is a common difficulty; as I have al- ready explained, to be irritable is a thing which is hkely enough to happen to anyone living in this pres- ent civilization, where people are always very highly strung. We live to a large extent in a civilization of torturing noises; and above all things noise jars the nerves and causes irritation. The experience of going down into the city and returning home feeling quite shattered and tired is a common one to sensitive peo- ple. Many other things are contributory, but prin- cipally the weariness is due to the constant noise, and the pressure of so many astral bodies vibrating at dif- ferent rates, and all excited and disturbed by trifles. It makes it very difficult to avoid irritability—espe- cially for the pupil, whose bodies are more highly strung and sensitive than those of the ordinary man. Of course, this irritation is somewhat superficial; it does not penetrate deeply; but it is better to avoid even a superficial irritation as far as possible, because its effects last so much longer than we usually realize. If there is a heavy storm, it is the wind that first stirs the waves; but the waves will continue to swell long after the wind has died down. That is the effect produced on water, which is comparatively heavy; but the matter of the astral body is far finer than 88 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH water, and the vibrations set going penetrate much more deeply, and therefore produce a more lasting effect. Some slight, unpleasant, temporary feeling, which passes out of mind in ten minutes, perhaps, may yet produce an effect on the astral body lasting for forty-eight hours. The vibrations do not settle down again for a considerable period of time. When such a fault as this is known it can most effectually be removed not by focusing attention upon it, but by endeavoring to develop the opposite virtue. One way of dealing with it is to set one’s thought steadfastly against it, but there is no doubt that this course of action arouses opposition in the mental or astral elemental, so that often a better method is to try to develop consideration for others, based of course fundamentally on one’s love towards them. A man who is full of love and consideration will not allow himself to speak or even to think irritably towards them. If the man can be filled with that idea the same result will be attained without exciting opposition from the elementals. There are many other forms of selfishness that can delay the pupil’s progress very seriously. Laziness is one form of these. I have seen a person enjoying himself very much with a book, who did not like to leave it in order to be punctual; another will write very badly, careless of the inconvenience and the damage to eyes and temper of those who have to read his caligraphy. All such things tend to make one less sensitive to high influences, to make life untidy and PROBATION 89 ugly for other persons, and to destroy self-control and efficiency. Efficiency and punctuality are essential, if satisfactory work is to be done. Many people are in- efficient: when a piece of work is given to them, they do not finish it thoroughly, but make all kinds of ex- cuses; or when they are asked for some information, they do not know how to find it. People differ much in this respect. We may ask a question of one, and he will answer: “I don’t know;” but another will say: ‘Well, I don’t know, but I will go and find out,” and he returns with the required information. In the same way one person goes to do a thing, and comes back and says he could not do it; but another holds on until it is done. Yet in all good work the pupil must always think of the benefit that will result to others and of the opportunity to serve the Master in these matters, which even when they are small materially are great in spiritual value—not of the good karma resulting to himself, which would be only another and very subtle form of self-centeredness. Remember how the Christ put it, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Other subtle effects of the same kind are to be seen in depression and jealousy, and aggressive assertion of one’s rights. An Adept has said: “Think less about your rights and more about your duties.” There are some occasions in dealing with the outside world when the pupil might find it necessary gently 90 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH to state what he needs, but amongst his fellow-pupils there are no such things as rights, but only opportuni- ties. If a man feels annoyed, he begins to shoot out from himself aggressive feelings; he may not go so far as actual hatred, but he is setting up a dull glow in his astral body and affecting the mental body as well. Similar disturbances are frequently set up in the mental body, and are equally disastrous in their effects. If a man allows himself to be greatly wor- ried over some problem, and turns it over and over again in his mind without reaching any conclusion, he has thereby set up something like a storm in his mental body. Owing to the exceeding fineness of the vibrations at this level, the word storm only par- tially expresses the reality; we should in some ways come nearer to the effect produced if we thought of it as a sore place in the mental body, as an irritation produced by friction. We sometimes encounter argu- mentative people, people who must argue about every- thing, and apparently love the exercise so much that they scarcely care on which side of the problem they are engaged. A person of that sort has his mental body in a condition of perpetual inflammation, and the inflammation is liable on very slight provocation to break out at any moment into an actual open sore. For such an one there is no hope of any kind of occult progress until he has brought balance and common sense to bear on this diseased condition. Fortunately for us, the good emotions persist even PROBATION 91 longer than the evil, because they work in the finer part of the astral body; the effect of a feeling of strong love or devotion remains in the astral body long after the occasion that caused it has been for- gotten. It is possible, though unusual, to have two sets of vibrations going on strongly in the astral body at the same time—for example, love and anger. At the moment of feeling intense anger a man would not be likely to have any strong affectionate feeling, un- less the anger were noble indignation; in that case the after results would go on side by side, but one at a much higher level than the other, and therefore per- sisting longer. It is very natural for boys and girls to wish to enjoy themselves, to be merry, to read and to hear amusing things, and to laugh at them; that is quite right, and it does no harm. If people could see the vibrations set up by jovial, kindly laughter, they would realize at once that, while the astral body is shaken up to some extent, it is the same thing as shaking up the liver in riding; it actually does good, not harm. But if the results of some of the less pleasant stories that foul-minded people are in the habit of telling were visible to them they would realize a ghastly differ- ence; such things are altogether evil, and the forms produced by them remain clinging for a long time to the astral body, and attract all kinds of loathsome entities. Those approaching the Masters must be utterly free from all that, as well as from all that is boisterous and rough; and the younger must con- 92 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH stantly be on their guard against any relapse into childishness or silliness. There is sometimes a tendency towards inane gig- gling, which must be avoided at all costs, as it has a very bad effect on the astral body. It weaves round it a web of gray-brown threads, very unpleasant to look upon, which forms a layer which hinders the en- trance of good influences. It is a danger against which young people should sedulously guard them- selves. Be as happy and as joyous as you can; the Master likes to see it, and it will help you on your path. But never for a moment let your joyousness be tinged by any sort of roughness or rudeness, never let your laughter become a boisterous guffaw; never let it, on the other hand, degenerate into silly giggling. There is a definite line of demarcation in this, as in other matters, between what is harmless and what may easily become harmful. The most certain method of determining it is to consider whether the amusement passes beyond the point of delicacy and good taste. The moment that the laughter oversteps these—the moment that there is in it the least touch of boister- ousness, the moment that it ceases to be perfect in its refinement, we are passing on to dangerous ground. The inner side of that distinction is that so long as the ego is fully in control of his astral body, all is well; as soon as he loses control, the laughter becomes vacuous and meaningless—the horse is, as it were, running away with its rider. An astral body thus left unchecked is at the mercy of any passing influence, PROBATION 93 and may easily be affected by most undesirable thoughts and feelings. See to it also that your mirth is ever pure and clean—never tinged for a moment with a malicious delight in the suffering or discom- fiture of another. If a mortifying accident should happen to someone, do not stand there laughing idly at the ridiculous side of the incident, but rush forward at once to help and console. Lovingkindness and help- fulness must be always your most prominent char- acteristics. A clairvoyant who can see the effect upon the higher bodies of the various undesirable emotions finds no difficulty in understanding how important it is that they should be controlled. But because most of us do not see the result we are liable to forget it, and allow ourselves to become careless. The same thing is true of the effect produced by casual or thoughtless remarks. The Christ in His last incarnation on earth is reported to have said that for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment. That sounds a cruel thing to say, and if the orthodox view of judgment were correct, it would indeed be unjust and abominable. He did not mean in the least that every idle word spoken would condemn a man to eternal torture—there is no such thing as that; but we know that every word and every thought has its karma, its result, and when foolish things are repeated again and again, it makes an at- mosphere round the person which does keep out good influences. To avoid this, constant attention is re- 94 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH quired. It would be a superhuman ideal to expect a person never to forget himself for a moment; but disciples are after all trying to become superhuman, because the Master is beyond man. If the pupil could live the perfect life he would himself already be an Adept; he cannot be that yet, but if he con- stantly remembered his ideal he would approach much nearer to it. Every idle word that he speaks is cer- tainly affecting for the time his relations with the Master; so let him watch his words with the utmost care. Especially is it necessary for the aspirant to avoid all fidgetiness or fussiness. Many an energetic and earnest worker spoils most of his efforts and makes them of no effect by yielding to these failings, for he sets up around him such an aura of tremulous vibra- tions that no thought or feeling can pass in or out without distortion, and the very good that he sends out takes with it a shiver that practically neutralizes it. Be absolutely accurate; but attain your accuracy by perfect calmness, never by hurry or fuss. Another point that it is necessary to impress upon our students is that in occultism we always mean exactly what we say, neither more nor less. When a rule is laid down that nothing unkind or critical must be said about another, just that is exactly what is meant—not that when we happen to think of it we should slightly diminish the number of unkind or critical things that we say every day, but that they must definitely altogether cease. We are so much in PROBATION 95 the habit of hearing various ethical instructions which no one seems to endeavor to put seriously into prac- tice, that we have a habit of thinking that a perfunc- tory assent to an idea, or an occasional feeble effort to approximate to it are all that religion requires of us. We must put aside that frame of mind altogether and understand that exact and literal obedience is required when occult instruction is given, whether by a Master or by His pupil. Very much help in all these matters is often given to the aspirant, both probationary and accepted, by the presence of an older pupil of the Masters. In the early days in India, when a guru selected his chelas, he formed them into a group and took them about with him wherever he went. Now and then he taught them, but often they received no instruction; yet they made rapid progress because all the time they were within the aura of the teacher and were being brought into harmony with it, instead of being surrounded by ordinary influences. The teacher also assisted them in the building of character, and always watched the pupils carefully. Our Masters cannot adopt that plan physically, but They have sometimes arranged matters so that some of Their elder pupils can draw round themselves a group of the younger ones, and attend to them individually, much as a gardener would deal with his plants, raying upon them day and night the influences needed to awaken certain qualities or strengthen weak points. The older pupil rarely receives direct instructions with regard to this 96 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH work; though now and then the Master may make some remark or comment. The fact that the pupils are together in a group also assists their progress; they are influenced in com- mon by high ideals, and this hastens the growth of desirable characteristics. It is probably inevitable in the course of karmic law that one who is aspiring shall be brought into contact with someone more ad- vanced than himself, and receive much benefit through his ability to respond to him; and it is generally the fact that the Master does not advance or raise any person unless he has been with an older pupil who can guide and help him. There are, however, excep- tions, and each Master has His own way of dealing with His pupils. In one case, it has been said by our President, the Master makes a practice of send- ing His pupils ‘‘to the other end of the field,” so that they may gain great strength by the development of their powers with the minimum of external assistance. Each individual is treated as is best for him. CHAPTER V ACCEPTANCE Though the acceptance of the pupil by the Master produces so great a difference in his life, there is but little more of external ceremony attached to it than there was in the case of probation. The following account of the acceptance of some of our young people is given for comparison with the corresponding ac- count of probation in the last chapter. ACCOUNT OF AN ACCEPTANCE Going as usual to the house of our Master Kuthumi, we found the Master Morya sitting in earnest con- versation with Him. We naturally stood aside for a moment, but the Master called us forward with His dazzling smile of welcome, and we made the custom- ary salutation. The first of our candidates, whom his Master had once called ‘‘an Ever-glowing Love Star,” is so full of love for his Master that he looks upon Him as an Elder Brother, and is absolutely free and at home with Him, though he never speaks to Him without deep reverence. It is indeed beautiful to see them together. On this occasion our Master smiled kindly upon 98 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH him and said: ‘Have you finally decided that you will work under Me and devote yourself to the serv- ice of humanity?” The boy replied very earnestly that he meant to do so, and our Master continued: “T have been much pleased with the efforts that you have made, and I hope that you will not relax them. Do not forget under the new conditions what I told you a few months ago. Your work and your deter- mination have enabled Me to shorten the period of your Probation and I am pleased that you have chosen the shortest of all roads to progress, that of bringing others with you along the Path. Absolutely unselfish love is the strongest power in the world, but few are they who can keep it pure from exaction or jealousy, even if it be for one object alone. Your advancement is due to your success in keeping that flame burning ardently for several objects simultane- ously. You have done much to develop strength, but you need still more of it. You must acquire discrim- ination and alertness, so that you see what is wanted at the right moment, instead of ten minutes after- wards. Before you speak or act, think carefully what the consequences will be. But you have done re- markably well, and I am much pleased with you.” Then the Master laid His hand upon the head of each of the candidates separately, saying: “I accept you as My chela according to the ancient rite.” He drew each in turn into His aura, so that for a few moments the pupil disappeared in Him, and then emerged looking inexpressibly happy and noble, show- ACCEPTANCE 99 ing forth the special characteristics of the’ Master as he had never done before. When all this was over our Master said to each one, “I give you My bless- ing.” And then speaking to all together: ‘Come with Me; I must present you in your new character for official recognition and registration.” So He took them to the Maha-Chohan, Who looked them over keenly, and said: ‘You are very young. I congratu- late you on reaching such a position so early. See that you live up to the level which you have at- tained.” And He entered their names in the imper- ishable record, showing them the columns opposite their names which had still to be filled, and express- ing a hope that He might soon have other entries to make for them. | On the way back from the visit to the Maha- Chohan the Master took His new pupils once more into the cave near His house, and they watched Him dissolve into thin air the living images of themselves which He had made a short time before. ‘Now that you are actually part of Me all the time,” He said, “we shall not need those any longer.” If one observes this ceremony with the sight of the causal body, one sees the Master as a glorious globe of living fire, containing a number of concentric shells of color, His physical body and its counterparts on other planes being in the center of the glowing mass, which extends to a radius of many hundreds of yards. 100 THe MASTERS AND THE PatH In approaching the physical body of the Master, the pupil advances into that glowing globe of finer material, and when he finally reaches the physical feet of his Master he is already in the heart of that splendid sphere; and when the Master embraces the neophyte as described above, and expands Himself to include the aura of the pupil, it is really the central heart of fire which so expands and includes him, for all through the ceremony of acceptance he is already far within the outer ring of that mighty aura. Thus for a few moments they two are one and, not only does the Master’s aura affect that of the pupil as described above, but any special characteristics at- tained by the latter act upon the corresponding cen- ters of the Master’s aura and that flashes out in response. The inexpressible union of the pupil with the Mas- ter that begins during the ceremony of ‘acceptance is a permanent thing, and after that, though the pupil may be far distant from the Master on the physical plane, his higher vehicles are vibrating in common with those of his teacher. He is all the time being tuned up, and thus growing gradually more and more like his Master, however remote the resemblance may have been in the beginning; and thus he becomes of great service in the world as an open channel by means of which the Master’s force may be distributed on the lower planes. By con- stant meditation upon his guru, and ardent aspira- tion towards Him, the pupil has so affected his own ACCEPTANCE 101 vehicles that they are constantly open towards his Master and expectant of His influence. At all times they are largely preoccupied with that idea, waiting the word of the Master and watching for something from Him, so that while they are keenly and sensi- tively open to Him they are to a considerable extent closed to lower influences.’ Therefore all his higher vehicles, from the astral upwards, are like a cup or funnel, open above but closed at the sides, and al- most impervious to influences touching him at the lower levels. This tuning-up of the pupil continues throughout the period of discipleship. At first his vibrations are many octaves below those of the Master, but they are in tune with them, and are gradually being raised. This is a process that can take place only slowly. It could not be done at once, like the stamping out of a piece of metal with a die, or even comparatively quickly, as one would tune a violin or piano string. Those are inanimate things; but in this case a living being is to be molded, and in order that the life may be preserved, the slow growth from within must adapt the form to the outside influence, as a gardener might gradually direct the limbs of a tree, or a surgeon with proper appliances might gradually straighten a crooked leg. We know that throughout this process the Master is not giving His full attention to each individual pupil, but is working upon thousands of people simultaneously, and all the time doing much higher 102 Tue Masters AND THE PaTtTH work as well, playing a great game of chess, as it were, with the nations of the world and with all the different kinds of powers, of angels and men, as pieces on the board. Yet the effect is as though He were watching the pupil and thinking of no one else, for the attention that He can give to one among hundreds is greater than ours when we concentrate it entirely upon one. The Master often leaves to some of His older pupils the work of tuning the lower bodies, though He Himself is allowing a constant flow be- tween His vehicles and those of His pupil. It is in this way that He does most for His pupils, without their necessarily knowing anything about it. The accepted pupil thus becomes an outpost of the Master’s consciousness—an extension of Him, as it were. The Adept sees, hears and feels through him, so that whatever is done in his presence is done in the Master’s presence. This does not mean that the Great One is necessarily always conscious of such events at the time when they are going on though He may be so. He may be absorbed in some other work at the time; nevertheless the events are in His mem- ory afterwards. What the pupil has experienced with reference to a particular subject will come up in the Master’s mind among His own knowledge when He turns His attention to that subject. When a pupil sends a thought of devotion to his Master, the slight flash which he sends produces an effect like the opening of a great valve, and there is a tremendous downflow of love and power from the ACCEPTANCE 103 Master. If one sends out a thought of devotion to one who is not an Adept, it becomes visible as a fiery stream going to him; but when such a thought is directed by a pupil to his Master, the pupil is immediately deluged by a stream of fiery love from the Master. The Adept’s power is flowing outwards always and in all directions like the sunlight; but the touch of the pupil’s thought draws down a prodigious stream of it upon him for the moment. So perfect is the union between them that if there is any serious disturbance in the lower bodies of the pupil it will affect also those of the Master; and, as such vibra- tion would interfere with the Adept’s work on higher planes, when this unfortunately happens He has to drop a veil that shuts the pupil off from Himself until such time as the storm settles down. It is of course sad for the pupil when he has to be cut off in this manner; but it is absolutely his own doing, and he can end the separation at once as soon as he can control his thoughts and feelings. Usually such an unfortunate incident does not last longer than forty-eight hours; but I have known cases much worse than that, in which the rift endured for years, and even for the remainder of that incarnation. But these are extreme cases, and very rare, for it is little likely that a person capable of such defection would be re- ceived as a pupil at all. No one could become an accepted pupil unless he had acquired the habit of turning his forces outwards . and concentrating his attention and strength upon 104 THe MASTERS AND THE PATH others, to pour out helpful thoughts and good wishes upon his fellow-men. Practically all the ordinary people in the world turn their forces inwards upon themselves, and because they are self-centered their forces are jangling together inside. But the pupil has to turn himself inside out, and maintain a constant attitude of giving in affection and service. We have in the pupil, therefore, a man whose higher vehicles are a funnel open to the highest influences from his Master, while his lower vehicles at the bottom of the funnel have been trained into the constant habit of radiating those influences out upon others. This makes him a perfect instrument for his Master’s use, for the translation of His force to the outer planes. If an Adept in Tibet wanted to distribute some force at the etheric level in New York, it would not be economical to direct the current etherically for that distance; He would have to transmit His force on much higher levels to the point required, and then excavate a funnel downwards at that point. Another simile which might be suggested is that of the trans- mission of electricity at enormous voltages across country, and the stepping of it down through trans- formers which give great current and low voltage at the place where the power is to be used. But to ex- cavate such a funnel, or to step the force down at New York, would involve a loss to the Adept of nearly half of the energy that He had available for the piece of work to be done. Therefore the pupil on the spot is an invaluable labor-saving apparatus, and he must ACCEPTANCE 105 remember that above all things he must make himself a good channel, because that is most of all what the Master needs from him. Thus the pupil may be re- garded in another way as an additional body for the Master’s use in the place where he happens to be. Every human body is in reality a transmitter for the powers of the self within. Through many ages it has been adapted to carry out the commands of the will in the most economical manner; for example, if we wish for any reason to move or to overturn a tum- bler standing upon the table it is easy enough to stretch out one’s hand and do so. It is also possible to overturn that tumbler by mere force of will with- out physical contact; indeed one of the earliest mem- bers of the Theosophical Society tried this experi- ment and actually succeeded, but only at the expense of devoting an hour’s strenuous effort to it every day for two years. It is obvious that to use the ordinary physical means is in such a case far more economical. In the earlier stages of the pupil’s relation with his Master, he will often feel that a vast amount of force is poured through him, without his knowing where it is going; he only feels that a great volume of living fire is rushing through him and flooding his neigh- borhood. With a little careful attention he can soon learn to tell in which direction it is going, and a lit- tle later, he becomes able to follow with his con- sciousness that rush of the Master’s power, and can actually trace it down to the very people who are being affected and helped by it. He himself, however, 106 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH cannot direct it; he is being used simply as a channel, yet is at the same time being taught to cooperate in the distribution of the force. Later, there comes a time when the Master, instead of pouring force into His pupil and aiming it at a person in a distant place, tells him to seek out the person and then give him some of the force, for this saves the Master some energy. Whenever and wherever a pupil can do a bit of the Master’s work, He will always give it to him, and as the pupil increases in usefulness, more and more of the work is put into his hands, so as to relieve by however slight an amount the strain upon the Master. We think much, and rightly so, about the work that we can do down here, but all that we can imagine and carry out is as nothing to what He is doing through us. There is always a gentle radia- tion through the pupil, even though he may not be conscious of it, yet the same pupil will feel it dis- tinctly whenever an unusual amount of force is being sent. : Sometimes the Master sends a definite message through His pupil to a third party. I remember once being told to deliver such a message to a very highly intellectual member whom I did not know very well. I felt a little embarrassment in approaching him on such a subject, but of course I had to do it; so I said to the recipient: “I have been told by my Mas- ter to give you this. message, and I am simply doing as I am told. I am perfectly aware that I cannot give you any evidence that this is a message from the ACCEPTANCE 107 Master, and I must leave you to attach to it just as much importance as you feel disposed. I have no alternative but to carry out my instructions.” Now, I was of course conscious of the contents of the mes- sage, because I had had to take it down; and I aver that on the face of it it was a perfectly simple and friendly message, such as might have been sent by any kindly person to another, without appearing to bear any special significance whatever. But evidently appearances were deceptive; the old gentleman to whom I delivered it looked much startled, and said: “You need not take any trouble to try to persuade me that that is a message from your Master; I know it instantly from the wording; it would have been absolutely impossible for you to know the meaning of several of the references that He makes.” But to this day:I have no idea what he meant. Another most valuable privilege which the accepted pupil enjoys is that of laying his thought on any sub- ject beside that of his Master, and comparing them. It will be readily understood how the frequent use of this power will keep the pupil’s thought running along noble and liberal lines—how he will constantly be able to correct any mistakes, any tendencies towards prejudice or lack of understanding. There may be various ways in which he can exercise this power; my own method was always to lie down in meditation and endeavor to reach up into the consciousness of the Master just as far as I possibly could. When I had reached the highest point that was for the time pos- 108 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH sible to me, I suddenly turned and looked back as it were upon the subject in question, and instantly received an impression of how it appeared to the Master. It was probably very far from being a per- fect impression, but at least it showed me what He thought on the matter as far as I was able to enter into His thought. Care, however, must be taken that this wonderful privilege is not misused. It is given to us as a power of ultimate reference in questions of great difficulty, or in cases where we have no sufficient ground for judgment, and yet have to come to some decision; but it is by no means intended to save us the trouble of thinking, or to be applied to the decision of ordi- nary everyday questions which we are perfectly competent to settle for ourselves. The candidate for Acceptance must necessarily watch himself closely. If he has not received any direct hint from his Master or from some older pupil as to the special failings which he must try to avoid, he will do his best to observe these for himself, and having once decided upon them or been told of them he will exercise unceasing vigilance against them. At the same time he should be warned on no account to overdo his introspection and allow himself to become morbid. The safest of all lines for him to take is to concentrate his attention on the helping of others; if his mind is full of that thought he will instinctively move in the right direction. The desire to fit himself thoroughly for that work will impel him to brush all ACCEPTANCE 109 obstacles out of the way, so that without consciously thinking of his own development at all, he will yet find that it is taking place. It is not expected that a pupil shall be actively thinking of nothing else but the Master; but it 7s ex- pected that the form of the Master shall be ‘always in the background of his mind, always within immediate reach, always there when needed in the vicissitudes of life. Our minds, like bowstrings, cannot be kept always taut; reasonable relaxation and change of thought is one of the necessities of mental health. But the pupil should be exceedingly careful that there is no slightest tinge of impurity or unkindness about his relaxation; no thought should ever be permitted, even for a moment, which the pupil would be ashamed that his Master should see. There is no harm whatever in reading a good novel for the sake of diversion; the thought-forms engen- dered by it would not in any way interfere with the current of the Master’s thought; but there are many novels full of evil insinuation, novels which bring impure thought-forms before the mind, novels which glorify crime, and others which concentrate the thought of their readers on the most unsavory prob- lems of life, or vividly depict scenes of hatred and cruelty; all such should be rigorously avoided. In the same way, there is no harm in taking part in or watching all ordinary games which are fairly played; but any which are rough and boisterous, any in which any sort of cruelty is involved, any in which there is 110 Tue Masters AND THE PatTH likelihood of injury to man or beast—all these are absolutely barred. The pupil must make up his mind that with regard to his efforts towards self-improvement he will never allow himself to be discouraged by failure, even though it be often repeated. However many times he may have failed in his effort, however many falls he may have on the path he sets before himself, there is exactly the same reason for getting up and going on after the thousandth fall that there was after the first. In the physical plane there are many things which are frankly impossible; but that is not the case in the higher worlds. We cannot lift a ton weight without machinery, but in the higher worlds it is possible with perseverance to lift the weight of our many imperfections. The reason for this is obvious if we think. Human muscles are not so constructed as to be able to lift a ton, and no conceivable training of them could enable them to do it, because the force behind them is limited. In spiritual matters, the man has behind him the whole divine power on which he can draw, and so little by little and by repeated efforts he may, and furthermore certainly will, be- come strong enough to overcome any obstacle. People often say: “I can deal with things on the physical plane, but on the astral and mental I can do very little; it is so difficult.’ That is the reverse of the truth. They are not accustomed to thinking and working in that finer matter, and so they believe that they cannot. But as soon as their will is set, they ACCEPTANCE 111 will find that things will follow the direction of that will in a way impossible in the physical world. Some pupils have found themselves much helped in this work by the use of a talisman or amulet. That may be a very real aid since the physical nature has to be dealt with and brought into subjection, as well as the mind and the emotions, and it is without doubt the hardest to deal with; a talisman strongly charged with magnetism for a particular purpose by someone who knows how to do it may be an invaluable help, as I have explained at considerable length in The Hidden Side of Things. Many people hold themselves superior to such things, and say that they need no help; but for myself I have found the task so arduous that I am glad to avail myself of any assistance that may be offered to me. Cuapter VI OTHER PRESENTATIONS All this while the Adept, besides using His pupil as an apprentice, has been preparing him for presen- tation to the Great White Brotherhood for Initiation. The whole object of the existence of that Brotherhood is to promote the work of evolution, and the Master knows that when the pupil is ready for the stupen- dous honor of being received as a member of it he will be of very much more use in the world than before. Therefore it is His wish to raise His pupil to that level as soon as possible. In the Oriental books on the subject, written thousands of years ago, are to be found many accounts of this preparatory period of instruction; and when reference has been made to it in the earlier Theosophical literature it has been called the Probationary Path—the term re- ferring not to probation to any individual Adept, but a course of general training preparatory to Initiation. I myself used the term in /nvisible Helpers, but have lately avoided it on account of the confusion caused by the employment of the same word in two distinct senses. The method really adopted is readily comprehen- sible, and is in fact much like that of some of our a a ——— ~~ td OE AS er Dames OTHER PRESENTATIONS 113 older universities. If a student wishes to take a degree at one of those he must first pass the entrance examination of the university and then be admitted to one of the colleges. The Head of that college is technically responsible for his progress, and may be regarded as his tutor-in-chief. The man will have to work to a large extent by himself, but the Head of his college is expected to see that he is properly prepared before he is presented to take his degree. The Head does not give the degree; it is conferred by that abstraction called the university—usually at the hands of its Vice-Chancellor. It is the university, not the Head of the college, that arranges the exam- ination and confers the various degrees; the work of the Head of the college is to see that the candidate is duly prepared, and generally to be to some extent responsible for him. In the process of such prepara- tion he may, as a private gentleman, enter into what- ever social or other relations with his pupil he may think proper; but all that is not the business of the university. Just in the same way the Great White Brotherhood has nothing to do with the relations between a Mas- ter and His pupil; that is a matter solely for the private consideration of the Master Himself. The Initiation is given by an appointed member of the Brotherhood in the Name of the One Initiator; that is the only way in which an Initiation can be ob- tained. Whenever an Adept considers that one of His pupils is fit for the first Initiation, He gives no- 114 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH tice of that fact and presents him for it; the Brother- hood asks only whether the man is ready for Initia- tion, and not what is the relationship between him and any Adept. It is not Their affair whether he is at the stage of probation, acceptance or sonship. At the same time it is true that a candidate for Initia- tion must be proposed and seconded by two of the higher members of the Brotherhood—that is to say, by two Who have reached the level of Adeptship; and it is certain that no Master would propose a man for the tests of Initiation unless He had with regard to him the certainty of his fitness, which could only come from very close identification with his con- sclousness. ; The Probationary Path is thus a stage leading up to the Path proper, which begins at the first Initia- tion. In the Oriental books both these Paths are described quite impersonally, as though no private Masters existed. The questions are first raised: “How is a man living in the ordinary world brought to this Probationary Path, and how does he come to know that such a thing exists?” In the books we are told that there are four reasons, any one of which may bring a man to the commencement of the Path of development. First, by being in the presence of, and getting to know, those who are already interested along that line. Some of us, for example, may have been monks or nuns in the Middle Ages. We may have come into contact in that life with an abbot or abbess who had deep experience of the inner world— OTHER PRESENTATIONS 115 a person like St. Theresa. We may, looking up to that leader, have earnestly wished that such expe- rience should come to us; and our wish for that might have been quite unselfish. It may be that we did not think of the importance that would come to us or of the satisfaction of achievement, but simply of the joy of helping others, as we saw the abbot able to help others through his deeper discernment. Such a feeling in that life would certainly bring us in the next in- carnation into touch with teaching on the subject. It happens that, in lands which have the European culture, almost the only way in which we can get the inner teaching put clearly before us is by coming. into the Theosophical Society, or by reading Theo- sophical works. There have been mystical or spiritu- alistic works which have given some information, which have gone a long way, but there are none, so: far as I know, which state the case so clearly, so scientifically, as the Theosophical literature has done. I know of no other book which contains such a wealth of information as The Secret Doctrine. There are, of course, the sacred books of the Hindus. and of other nations, and there is a great deal on this subject in those, but it is not put in a way which makes it easy for us, with our training, to assimilate it or to appreciate it. When, having read Theosoph- ical books, we take up some of those beautiful trans- lations of Oriental works, we can see our Theosophy in them. In the Christian Bible (though that is in many places not well translated from our point of 116 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH view) we shall find a great deal of Theosophy; but before we can find it we must know the system. When we have studied Theosophy we see at once how many texts support it, and cannot rationally be ex- plained without it; we see how Church ceremonies, before apparently meaningless, leap into life under the illumination of the teaching, and become vivid and full of interest. Yet I never heard of anyone who was able to deduce the Theosophical system from either the texts or the ceremonies. So one way of approaching the Path is by being with those who are already treading it. Another way is by reading or hearing about it. All this teaching came to me in 1882 through Mr. Sinnett’s book, The Occult World; and immediately after that I read his second book, Esoteric Buddhism. I knew at once instinctively that what was written was true, and I accepted it; and to hear and to read about it at once fired me with the desire and the determined inten- tion to know more, to learn all I could on the subject, to pursue it all over the world if necessary until I found it. Shortly after that I gave up my position in the Church of England and went out to India, because it seemed that more could be done there. Those are two ways in which people are led to the Path—by reading and hearing of it, and by being in close association with those who are already treading it. The third way which is mentioned in Oriental books is by intellectual development; by sheer force of hard thinking a man may come to grasp some of OTHER PRESENTATIONS ji By these principles, though I think that method is rare. Again, they tell us of a fourth way—that by the long practice of virtue men may come to the beginning of the Path—that a man may so develop the soul by steadily practicing the right so far as he knows it that eventually more and more of the light will open before him. Forty years ago, when the Qualifications for the Path were first put before me from the Esoteric Buddhist point of view, they were given as follows: The first of them, Discrimination, called by the Hindus, Viveka, was described as Manodvaravajjana, which means the opening of the doors of the mind, or perhaps escaping by the door of the mind. That is a very interesting way of putting it, since Discrimina- tion arises from the fact that our minds have been opened in such a way that we can understand what is real and what unreal, what is desirable and what undesirable, and can distinguish between the pairs of opposites. | The second qualification, Desirelessness, known as Vairagya among the Hindus, was taught to me as Parikamma, meaning preparation for action, the idea. being that we must prepare ourselves for action in the occult world by learning to do right purely for right’s sake. This involves the attainment of a con- dition of higher indifference in which one certainly no longer cares for the results of action; and so it comes to mean the same thing as Desirelessness, though it is put from a different point of view. 118 Tur MASTERS AND THE PatTu The Six Points of Good Conduct, called Shatsam- patti in the Hindu scheme, were given as Upacharo, which means attention to conduct. For the conveni- ence of the student who would like to compare the Six Points with those given in At the Feet of the ‘Master I will reprint here what I said about them in Invisible Helpers. These are called in Pali: (a) Samo (quietude)—that purity and calmness of thought which comes from perfect control of the mind—a qualification exceedingly difficult of attainment, and yet most necessary, for unless the mind moves only in obedience to the guidance of the will, it cannot be a perfect instrument for the Master’s work in the future. This qualification is a very comprehen- sive one, and includes within itself both the self-control and the calmness necessary for astral work. ~ (b) Damo (subjugation)—a similar mastery over, and therefore purity in, one’s actions and words—a quality which again follows necessarily from its predecessor. (c) Uparati (cessation)—explained as cessation from big- otry or from belief in the necessity of any act or ceremony prescribed by a particular religion—so leading the aspirant to independence of thought and to a wide and generous tolerance. (d) Titikkha (endurance or forbearance)—by which is meant the readiness to bear with cheerfulness whatever one’s karma may bring upon one, and to part with anything and everything worldly whenever it may be necessary. It also includes the idea of complete absence of resentment for wrong, the man knowing that those who do him wrong are but in- struments of his own karma. (e) Samadhana_ (intentness)—one-pointedness, involving the incapability of being turned aside from one’s path by temptation. (f) Saddha (faith)—confidence in one’s Master and oneself: confidence, that is, that, the Master is a competent teacher, and that, however diffident the pupil may feel as to his own powers, he has yet within him that divine spark which, when fanned into a flame, will one day enable him to achieve even as his Master has done. OTHER PRESENTATIONS | 119 The fourth qualification in the Hindu classification is called Mumukshatva, usually translated as an ar- dent longing for liberation from the wheel of births and deaths, while among the Buddhists the name given to it is Anuloma, which means direct order or succession, signifying that its attainment follows as a natural consequence from the other three. From this comparison of the different systems it will be seen that the qualifications which the aspirant must develop preparatory to the first great Initiation are fundamentally the same, however much they may appear to differ at first glance. Certainly for twenty- five centuries, and probably for a long time before that, this quite systematic procedure has been fol- lowed with regard to the evolution of those special persons who persist in struggling ahead, and although at certain times, (and the present is one of them) circumstances are more favorable for Initiation than at others, the requirements remain the same, and we must be careful not to fall into the erroneous thought that the qualifications have been in any way reduced. We thus find that these different lines all bring us to the same point of Initiation. Cuapter VII THE FIRST INITIATION Most people when they think of Initiation have in mind a step to be gained for themselves. They think of the Initiate as a man who has developed himself very highly, and has become a great and glorious figure, as compared with the man of the outer world. That is true; but the whole question will be better understood if we try to look down on it from a higher point of view. The importance of Initiation does not lie in the exaltation of an individual, but in the fact that he has now become definitely one with a great ‘Order, the Communion of Saints, as it is very beau- tifully put in the Christian Church, though few ever pay attention to the real meaning of those words. The stupendous reality that lies behind Initiation into the Brotherhood will be better understood after we have considered the organization of the Occult Hierarchy and the work of the Masters, to be dealt with in later chapters. The Candidate has now be- come more than an individual man, because he is a unit in a tremendous force. On every planet the Solar Logos has His Representative acting as His Viceroy. On our globe the title given to this great Official is the Lord of the World. He is the Head of the Broth- . ; Tue First INITIATION 121 erhood; and the Brotherhood is not only a body of Men each of Whom has His own duties to perform; it is also a stupendous unity—a fully flexible instru- ment in the Lord’s hand, a mighty weapon that He can wield. There is a marvelous and incomprehen- sible plan by which the One, having become many, is now becoming One again; not that any unit in the whole scheme will lose the least fraction of his indi- viduality or power as a unit, but that he has added to it something a thousand times greater; he is part of the Lord, part of the body that He wears, of the weapon that He uses, the organ upon which He plays, the implement with which He does His work. In all the world there is but One Initiator, but in the case of the first and second Initiations it is open to Him to depute some other Adept to perform the ceremony for Him, though even then that Officiant turns and calls upon the Lord at the critical moment of the conferring of the degree. This is a very won- derful moment in the candidate’s spiritual life, as was explained by the Master Kuthumi when accepting a pupil not long ago. He said to him: “Now that you have attained the immediate goal of your aspiration, I would exhort you at once to turn your attention to the far greater requirements of the next step. That for which you have now to pre- pare, the ‘entering upon the stream’ which the Chris- tians call Salvation, will be the salient point in the long line of your earthly existences, the culmination of seven hundred lives. Ages ago, by individualiza- 122 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH tion, you entered the human kingdom; in a future which I trust is not remote, you will quit it by the door of Adeptship, and become a Superman; between these two extremes is no point of greater importance than that Initiation towards which you should now turn your thoughts. Not only will it make you safe forever, but it will admit you to that Brotherhood which exists from eternity unto eternity—the Broth- erhood which helps the world. “Think then with how great care so wondrous an event should be approached. I would have you keep the glory and the beauty of it constantly before your mind, that you may live in the light of its ideals. Your body is young for so mighty an effort, but you have a rare and splendid opportunity; I want su to take it to the full.” When an ego is initiated he becomes part of the closest organization in the world, one with the great sea of consciousness of the Great White Brotherhood. For a long time the new Initiate will not be able to understand all that this union implies, and he must penetrate far into the sanctuaries before he can real- ize how close is the link, and how great is that con- sciousness of the King Himself, which all Brothers to a certain extent share with Him. It is incomprehen- sible and inexpressible down here; metaphysical and subtle it is beyond words, but nevertheless a glorious reality, real to such an extent that when we begin to grasp it everything else seems unreal. We have seen how the accepted pupil may lay his Tue First INITIATION 123 thought beside that of the Master; so now may the Initiate put his thought beside that of the Brother- hood and draw into himself just as much of that tre- mendous consciousness as he at his level is able to respond to; and ever as he draws it into himself he will be able to receive more of it, and his own con- sciousness will widen out so that narrowness. of thought will become impossible for him. And just as the accepted pupil must take care not to cause dis- turbance in the lower vehicles of the Master, lest he should interfere with the perfection of His work, so must a member of the Brotherhood never introduce anything discordant into that mighty consciousness, which is acting as a whole. He must remember that not by any means the whole of the Brotherhood is doing the same work as our Masters. Many of Them are engaged in other work which requires the utmost concentration and the most perfect calm, and if some of the younger mem- bers should sometimes forget their high calling, and cause ripples of annoyance to disturb the Brother- hood, it would affect the work of those Greater Ones. Our own Masters might perhaps overlook that, and be willing to endure a little occasional worry of that kind for the sake of the future when the new member will be making really great use of the powers of the Brotherhood; but we can quite understand that Those Who have nothing to do with the training of indi- viduals might say: ‘Our work is being disturbed, and it is better that those who have such immature per- 124 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH sonalities should stay outside.”’ They would say that nothing was lost, that progress can be made just as well outside, and that pupils could go on making themselves better and stronger and wiser before gain- ing Initiation. : So wonderful is the expansion of the Initiate’s con- sciousness that it is most apt to speak of the change as a new birth. He begins to lead a new life “as a little child,” the life of the Christ; and the Christ, the intuitional or buddhic consciousness, is born within his heart. He has also now the power to give the blessing of the Brotherhood—a tremendous and over- whelming force, which he is able to give or send to any one, as he judges to be most appropriate and useful. The power of the Brotherhood will flow through him just as much as he will let it flow; it is for him to use the power and to remember that he has the entire responsibility of directing it for whatever purpose he may choose. The blessing given by the Officiant at Initiation means, ‘I bless you; I pour my force and blessing into you; see that you in your turn constantly pour out this blessing to others.” The more confidence the new Initiate has the greater will be the flow of force through him. If he feels the least hesitation, or is weighed down by the responsibility of letting such a tremendous power flow through him, he will not be able to use this wonderful gift to the full; but if he has that qualification of Sraddha—perfect trust in his Master and in the Brotherhood, and the utter certainty that because he Tue First INITIATION 125 is one with Them all things are possible to him, he may go through the world as a veritable Angel of light, shedding joy and benediction. around his path. The consciousness of the Great White Brotherhood is an indescribably wonderful thing. It is like a great calm shining ocean, so strangely one that the least thrill of consciousness flashes from end to end of it instantaneously, and yet to each member it seems to be absolutely his own individual consciousness, though with a weight and a power and a wisdom behind it that no single human consciousness could ever have. As the band of pupils is all one in the Master, so is the Brotherhood all one in its Lord. The members may freely discuss a point among themselves, yet it is as though different aspects of a case presented themselves in the same mind and were by that mind weighed one against the other; but one is all the time in the presence of a tremendous, an almost awful serenity, a certainty which nothing can ever disturb. And yet somehow in all that every suggestion is wel- comed; indeed, there is the sensation that the whole Brotherhood is alertly and eagerly waiting for each individual’s contribution to the subject before it. There is nothing down here to which this conscious- ness can be adequately compared; to touch it is to come into contact with something new and strange, yet inexpressibly wonderful and beautiful, something which needs no evidence and no comparison, but asserts itself to be of a higher and unknown world. Though individualities are so strangely merged in 126 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH this, yet are they at the same time sharply separated, for the assent of each Brother is required to every decision of importance. The rule of the King is © absolute, yet He carries His vast council with Him, and is at every moment willing to consider any point that occurs to any member of it. But this great governing body differs utterly from any parliament of earth. Those who stand above the rest in positions of authority have not been elected, nor have they been appointed by some party organization; they hold their positions because they have won them—won them by superior development and greater wisdom. None doubts the decision of his superior, because he knows that he really 7s a superior—that he has greater in- sight and a fuller power to decide. There is, there can be, no shadow of compulsion that these Super- men shall think or act alike; yet is their confidence in their mighty organization so perfect that it is un- thinkable that in the long run they should differ; it is only in the case of such a Brotherhood under such a King that we can fully realize the beautiful wording of one of the Collects of the Church of England, “In His service is perfect freedom.” In such an organization there should surely be no possibility of failure or trouble of any sort; and yet, because humanity is frail, and because not all mem- bers of this great Brotherhood are yet Supermen, failures do sometimes occur, although they are very rare. “Great ones fall back even from the threshold, unable to sustain the weight of their responsibility, THE First INITIATION 127 unable to pass on,” as is said in Light on the Path, and only the attainment of Adeptship insures perfect safety. The Initiator tells the candidate that now he has entered upon the stream he is safe forever; but although that is so, it is still possible for him to delay his progress to a most serious extent, if he yields to any of the temptations that still beset his path. To be safe forever is usually taken to betoken the cer- tainty of passing onward with the present life-wave— of not being left behind at the “day of judgment’ which comes in the middle of the fifth Round, when the Christ Who has descended into matter decides what souls can and what souls cannot be carried on to final attainment in this chain of worlds. There is no eternal condemnation; it is, as the Christ said, simply szonian; there are some who cannot go on in this age or dispensation, but they will follow along in the next, precisely as a child who is too dull to succeed in this year’s class will drift comfortably along in next year’s, and will probably even be at the head of it. When the sad and terrible thing does occur—when there is a failure of any sort among Initiates, a thrill of pain runs through the whole of that vast conscious- ness, for the separation of one from the rest is of the nature of a veritable surgical operation, tearing the heart strings of all. Yet the erring Brother cannot finally fall away; there is a link that cannot be broken, although we know little of the weary road of trial and suffering that he must tread before he 128 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH can again weld it together with the rest. ‘‘The Voice of the Silence remains within him, and though he leave the path utterly, yet one day it will resound, and rend him asunder, and separate his passions from his divine possibilities. Then with pain and desperate cries from the deserted lower self, he will return.” As in previous chapters, I give here an account of the ceremonial adopted. Its formula has been un- changed throughout the ages, yet there is a certain elasticity about it. The Initiator’s Charge to the candidate is always the same so far as the first part of it goes, but almost invariably there is a second and personal part which consists practically of advice to the particular candidate who is going through. This is usually called the private part of the Charge. I have also seen instances in which an image is made of the candidate’s worst enemy and he is asked how he would deal with him, whether he is fully prepared to forgive him absolutely, and whether he would help even one so low as this if it came in his way. In some cases also questions are asked as to the work already done by the candidate, and those who have been helped by him are sometimes invited to come forward and bear witness. AN ACCOUNT OF THE First INITIATION As the Wesak Festival was this year (1915) on the morning of May 29th, the night of May 27th was chosen for the Initiation of the candidate, and we were all instructed to hold ourselves in readiness. In this Tue First INITIATION 129 case the Lord Maitreya was the Initiator, and conse- quently the ceremony took place in His garden. When the Master Morya or the Master Kuthumi performs the rite it is usually held in the ancient cave-temple, the entrance to which is near the bridge across the river between Their houses. There was a large gath- ering of the Adepts, all Those Whose names are fa- miliar to us being present. The glorious garden was at its best; the rhododendron bushes were one blaze of crimson blossom, and the air was fragrant with the scent of the early roses. The Lord Maitreya sat in His usual place on the marble seat which runs round the great tree in front of His house; and the Masters grouped Themselves in a semicircle on His right and left, on seats which were placed for Them on the grass terrace from which the marble seat rises by a couple of steps. But the Lord Vaivasvata Manu and the Maha-Chohan sat also on the marble seat, One on each side of the arms of the specially raised carved _ throne which faces exactly south, which is called the Throne of Dakshinamurti. The candidate, with the Master who introduced him, stood on the next stage of the terrace, at the feet of the Lord, and behind and below them were other pupils, initiated and uninitiated, and a few privileged spectators who were allowed to see a good deal of the ceremony, though at certain times a veil of golden light hid from them the proceedings of the central figures. The candidate was, as always, dressed in flowing robes of white linen, while the Masters were 130 Tue Masters AND THE PatH mostly clad in white silk, deeply edged with magnifi- cent gold embroidery. A great host of Angels floated above the group, filling the air with a soft ripple of melody, which, in some strange and subtle way, seemed to draw out of the chord of the candidate an intricate interwoven web of sound, expressing his qualities and possibilities; throughout the ceremony this went singing on, delicately supporting all words that were spoken, and no more interrupting them than the soft laughter of a stream interrupts the thrilling music of the birds, but swelling to a triumphant climax at certain points of the ritual. The music made the air vocal—enriching, not drowning, the tones of the speakers. In every case this music is founded upon the special chord of each candidate, and weaves variations and fugues upon it, expressing, in a way that we down here cannot comprehend, all that he is and all that he will be. In the center of the scene stood the candidate, be- tween his Proposer and Seconder. He was led for- ward by his own Master Kuthumi, and the Master Jesus stood as his Seconder. The Lord Maitreya smiled as He asked the opening question of the ritual: “Who is this that you thus bring before Me?” Our Master gave the usual reply: “This is a candidate who seeks admission to the great Brotherhood.” Then came the next question: “Do you vouch for him as dibs of admission?” And the usual answer: Tue First INITIATION pra sl wilt do.” “Will you undertake to guide his steps along the Path which he desires to enter?” And the Proposer said: “TI will.” “Our rule requires that two of the higher Brethren shall vouch for every candidate; is any other Brother prepared to support this application?” Then for the first time the Seconder spoke, saying: “T am prepared to do so.” The Initiator asked: “You have evidence that if additional powers are conferred upon him, they will be used for the further- ance of the Great Work?” And the Master Kuthumi replied: “This candidate’s life this time has been short, but even already he has many good deeds to his credit, and he is beginning to do our work in the world. Also in his life in Greece he did much to spread my phil- osophy, and to improve the country in which he lived.” And the Master Jesus added: “Through two lives of vast influence he patiently did my work, righting wrong and introducing a noble ideal in his life as a ruler, and spreading abroad the teaching of love and purity and unworldliness in his incarnation as a monk. For these reasons I stand by his side now.” Then the Lord, smiling upon the boy, said: “The body of this candidate is the youngest that has ever been presented to us for the honor of recep- tion into the Brotherhood; is any member of our 132 Tue Masters AND THE PATH Brotherhood who still lives in the outer world ready to give him on our behalf such help and counsel as his young physical body may need?” Sirius came forward from a group of pupils who stood behind, and said: “Lord, in so far as I am able, and while I remain within reach of his body, I will most gladly do for him all that I possibly can.’’ Then said the Lord: “Ts your heart full of true brotherly love for this young candidate, so that you can give such guidance as should be given?” Sirius answered: “It is.’ The Lord spoke for the first pig directly to the candidate: “Do you in turn love this brother, so that you will willingly be helped by him when necessary?” And the young man replied: “Indeed I do, with all my heart, for without him I could not have stood here.” The Lord bowed His head gravely, and the Mas- ters put the candidate forward so that he stood before the Initiator. Fixing His eyes upon him, the Lord said: “Do you desire to join the Brotherhood which exists from eternity unto eternity?” The youth replied: “T do, Lord, if you think that I am fit to do so while my body is still so young.” The Initiator asked: Tun First Inrriation 133 “Do you know the object of this Brotherhood?” The candidate answered that its object is to do God’s Will by carrying out His plan, which is evolu- tion. Then said the Lord: “Will you pledge yourself to devote ait your life and all your strength henceforth to this work, for- getting yourself absolutely for the good of the world, making your life all love, even as He is all love?” And he answered: “T will endeavor to do so to the utmost of my ability, with the help of my Master.” “Do you promise to keep secret those things which you are told to keep secret?” And he said: “I promise.” The usual questions as to astral knowledge and astral work were then put to the candidate. Many astral objects were shown to him and-he had to tell the Initiator what they were. He had to distinguish between the astral bodies of a living man and a dead man, between a real person and a thought-image of a person, and between an imitation Master and a real one. Then the Initiator showed him many astral cases and asked how he would help in each, and he replied as well as he could. At the end He smiled and said that the answers were very satisfactory. The Initiator then delivered the Charge—a very solemn and beautiful address—part of which is always to the same effect, though something personal to each candidate is generally added. This Charge explains 134 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH the work of the Brotherhood in the world, and the responsibility which rests on each member individ- ually, for each has to share in the bearing of the great burden of the sorrows of the world. Each must be ready to help both by service and by counsel, for it is one Brotherhood, acting under one Law and one Head, and each Brother has the privilege of putting any local knowledge or special faculty that he may possess at the disposition of the Brotherhood for the further- ance of any department of Their great work of aiding the progress of humanity. Although the rule of the King is absolute, no decision of importance is taken without the consent of even the youngest member of the Brotherhood. Each is a representative of the Brotherhood in whatever part of the world he may be, and each is pledged to be at the disposal of the Brotherhood, to go wherever he is sent, to work in any way that is required. While younger members will naturally implicitly obey the Heads, they may yet help by local knowledge, and may always suggest anything that seems to them of possible use. Each Brother living in the world must remember that he is a center through which the force of the King may be sent for the helping of those who are in need, and that any older Brother may at any time use him as a channel for His blessing. Therefore each younger Brother should always be ready to be so used at any moment, for he never can tell when his services may be required. The life of the Brother should be one of entire devotion to others; he should watch Tue First INITIATION 135 eagerly and incessantly for every opportunity of ren- dering service, and let such service be his keenest joy. He must remember that the honor of the Brotherhood is in his hands, and he must see to it that no word or act of his shall ever sully it in the eyes of men, or cause them to think of it one whit less highly. He must not think that, because he has entered the Stream, trial and struggle will cease for him; on the contrary, he will have to make still greater efforts, but he will have greater strength to make them. His power will be far greater than before; but, in exactly the same proportion, his responsibility is greater also. He must remember that it is not he, a separated self, who has gained a step which has lifted him above his fellows; rather he should rejoice that humanity through him has risen a little, has freed itself to this small! extent from its chains, has come into this much more of its own. The blessing of the Brotherhood is ever with him; but it will descend upon him precisely in the measure in which he passes it on to others; for this is the eternal law. That is part of the Charge which is always given. As a private admonition to this candidate the Initiator added: “Your body is very young to bear so heavy a re- sponsibility as this great gift of Initiation; yet that very youth offers you an opportunity as wonderful as any that has ever fallen to the lot of man. It has been earned by the karma of your previous lives of self-sacrifice; see to it that in this body you prove 136 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH yourself worthy of it. We trust you to show that, in deciding to open the doors to you so soon, we have chosen wisely; remember always the absolute unity that exists between us all who are members of the One Brotherhood, so that its dignity shall never suffer at your hands. Beginning thus early, you may go very far in this incarnation; the climb will be steep, but your strength and love will be sufficient for it. Cultivate wisdom; learn perfect control of all your vehicles; develop in yourself alertness, decision, far- sightedness; remember that I expect you to be ready to act as a trusty lieutenant for Me when I come forth to teach the world. You have won the way so far by the wealth of your love; let that love ever increase and strengthen, and it shall carry you through to the end.” Then the Lord turned to the other Masters and sald: “T find this candidate satisfactory; do all present agree to his reception into our company?” And all answered: “We agree.” Then the Initiator rose from His seat and turned towards Shamballa, and called aloud: “Do I this, O Lord of Life and Light and Glory, in Thy Name and for Thee?” Over His head in response blazed forth the flashing Star which conveys the assent of the King, and all bowed low before it, while the Angel music rang out in a triumphant burst like some great royal march. And to these strains the candidate advanced, led by Tue Iirst INITIATION 137 the two Masters, and knelt before Him Who repre- sented the One Who alone can grant admission to the Brotherhood. A line of dazzling light, like a flash of lightning standing still, extended from the Star to the heart of the Initiator, and from Him to the heart of the candidate. Under the influence of that tre- mendous magnetism, the tiny Silver Star of Conscious- ness which represents the Monad in the candidate swelled out in glowing brilliancy until it filled his causal body, and for a wonderful moment the Monad and the Ego were one, even as they will be perma- nently when Adeptship is attained. The Lord placed His hands upon the head of the candidate, and, call- ing him by his true name, said: “In the Name of the One Initiator, Whose Star shines above us, I receive you into the Brotherhood of Eternal Life. See to it that you are a worthy and useful member of it. You are now safe forever; you have entered upon the Stream: may you soon reach the further shore!” The Angel music pealed forth in a great ocean of sweet, glad sound, and seemed to fill the very air with strength and joy. And the Initiator and the kneeling candidate and his sponsors were almost veiled in the loveliest of colors, which brought the blessings of the Bodhisattva and the Maha-Chohan on their waves, and the exquisite golden light of the Flower of earth’s Humanity, of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, hovered over them in benediction, for an- other child of Man had entered on the Path. And the 138 Tue MASstTerRs AND THE PatH Silver Star seemed for a moment to expand and enfold the Initiator and the new Brother in its blinding glory. And when they came forth from that glory the robe of the neophyte was no longer linen, but white silk, like those of the other Initiates. | The picture when the Initiator made His own causal body glow, and that of the new Initiate glowed out in response, was enthrallingly beautiful. Green and golden light shone out, and the Monad—normally but appearing as a speck. of light within the permanent atom of the causal body—shone forth resplendently, so that the brilliant nucleus swelled out and occupied the whole oval. The Monad on this occasion iden- tifies himself for the time with the fraction of himself that is the ego, and it is he who takes the vows. The effect on the astral body is also most interesting; a great rhythmical swing is given to it, without disturb- ing the stability of its equilibrium, so that it is able thenceforth to feel with far greater keenness than before, without being shaken from its own base, or escaping from its owner’s control. The Initiator sets the swing, reproducing His own vibration in the astral body of the neophyte, and at the same time steady- ing it, so that there is no shaking, no disturbance, but an immensely increased power of vibration. When all this had been done, the Initiator gave the Key of Knowledge to the new Brother, and instructed him how he might infallibly recognize astrally any member of the Brotherhood who was not personally known to him. He directed some of the older pupils Tue First INITIATION 139 of the Masters to attend as soon as might be to the necessary buddhic exercises, and the great ceremony ended with the blessing of the new Initiate by the assembled Brothers. The new Brother in turn then gave the blessing of the Brotherhood to the world, wielding thus for the first time the new and mighty power which had been conferred upon him. As the blessing plays round and through the world, adding new life to everything, giving to each a little more force, a little more beauty, a multitudinous murmur fills the air, myriad whispers that form themselves into a song of deep delight and gratitude. Another force for good has been made manifest, and Nature, that groans and travails with her children, rejoices when one of them enters the Brotherhood that shall at last deliver her from pain. For the life of the world is One Life, and when real progress is made by any unit, all Nature shares in the gain, even that part of it which we so wrongly call inanimate. So the wonderful ceremony ended, and the Masters gathered round the new Brother and gave him hearty congratulations as the blazing Star disappeared. On the following night I had orders to present the neophyte to the Lord of the World. This is of course a very unusual honor, and not in any way part of the ceremony of the First Initiation. It generally accom- panies the Third. We repaired to Shamballa at the appointed time, and were received in the great hall as usual. We found the King in conversation with the Lord Gautama Buddha and the Lord Maitreya. 140 Tue MAsTers AND THE PatTH The latter presented the neophyte to the King as “our newest Brother, the Ever-glowing Love-Star,” and Sanat Kumara smiled graciously upon the youth as he knelt before Him. The neophyte raised his hands in the Eastern salutation, and the King put forth His right hand and grasped them as He said to him: “You have done well, my son, and I am pleased with you; I have called you thus before Me to tell you so. Go on and do better still, for I expect you to play a great part in the future of My new subrace. My Star shone over you visibly a few hours ago; re- member that it hovers over you just as really always when you cannot see it; and where it shines there shall ever be power, purity and peace.” Then the Lord Buddha, laying His hand upon the neophyte’s head, spoke: “T also wish to give you My blessing and My con- gratulations; for I think that your rapid progress now is an earnest of that which is to come, and that in the future I shall greet you as a Brother of the Glorious Mystery, a member of the Spiritual Dynasty through whom light comes to the worlds.”’ The Three Kumaras Who stood behind smiled also upon the youth as he knelt speechless, but glowing with love and adoration. The King raised His hand in blessing while we prostrated ourselves, and we came away. The time occupied by the ceremony of Initiation varies according to several considerations, one of Tue First INITIATION 141 which is the amount of knowledge that the candidate brings with him. Some traditions put the period as three days and nights, but it is often finished in much less time. One at which I was present took two nights and a day of seclusion, but others have been con- densed into one night by leaving much that used to be included to be finished later by the higher pupils of the Masters. Some of the old Initiations lasted so long because the candidates had to be instructed in astral work. There are also buddhic experiences which must be realized, for a certain amount of devel- opment of the buddhic vehicle is required for Initia- tion, as some of the teachings which must be given at that level could not otherwise be understood. Most Theosophists have already done astral work, and thus have learnt the detail of the astral world, much of which must be taught at this time if it is not already known. But when the Initiator knows that the candidate has already some buddhic development it has several times been left to older pupils to carry the candidates through the buddhic experiences on the following night, or whenever it could be arranged. The actual ceremony of Initiation takes less than six hours, but a certain amount of time is given to the candidates both before and afterwards. The Masters always congratulate the candidates after the Initiation, and each says a few kindly words. They take the opportunity of such a gathering to transmit certain orders to Their pupils; and gener- 142 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH ally it is an occasion of great rejoicing, at any rate among all the younger members. It is a victory for all when another neophyte is admitted, when one more is safe forever. We have already spoken of the close relation be- tween an accepted pupil and his Master; all the time this intimacy has been steadily growing, and it usually happens that when the pupil is approaching the por- tal of Initiation the Master considers that the time is ripe for Him to draw the chela into a still deeper union. He is then called the Son of the Master, and the link is such that not only the lower mind but also the ego in the causal body of the pupil is enfolded within that of the Adept, and the latter can no longer draw a veil to cut off the pupil. There is a beautiful reference to this state of closest union in Light on the Path, where it is written: ‘“ ‘My peace I give unto you’ can only be said by the Master to the beloved disciples who are as Himself.” And so these are they who have the inestimable privilege of being able to pass on that peace to others in all its fullness. Any accepted pupil of the Master has the right and the duty to bless in His Name, and a splendid outpouring of the Master’s power will assuredly follow his effort to do so. Especially should he give that blessing men- tally whenever he enters a house: “May the blessing of the Master rest on this house and on all who live therein.” But the Son of the Master can give the very touch of His intimate presence, a fuller and a greater peace. But he who is a Son of the Master Tue First INITIATION 143 either is or soon will be a member of the Great White Brotherhood also; and that, as we have said, gives the power to wield an even greater blessing, though both are appropriate, each in its several place. I well remember giving each of these on different occasions to a great Angel of the neighborhood with whom I have the honor to be well acquainted. Pass- ing close to his territories in a vessel I gave him once as a greeting the full blessing of my Master, and it was indeed beautiful to see the way in which he re- ceived it, bowing profoundly and showing his appre- ciation by a lovely soft glow of holiness and utter- most devotion. Another day under similar circum- stances I gave him the blessing of the Brotherhood, and instantly every power of that great Angel flashed out in glad response, and the whole of his territory lit up. It was as though a soldier had leapt to at- tention, as though everything, not only within himself but in all the thousands of minor creatures working under him had suddenly been vivified and raised to its highest power. All Nature instantly responded. You see, my Master, however deeply reverenced by him, is not his Master, but my King is his King, for there is but One. The question as to whether a man is approaching fitness for Initiation involves three separate sets of considerations, all depending upon one another. The first is as to whether he is in possession of a sufficient amount of the necessary Qualifications, as laid down in At the Feet of the Master, and that means that he 144 Tue MAsTersS AND THE PatTH must have a minimum of all, and very much more than a minimum of some of them. To illustrate this think for a moment of the method adopted in mark- ing papers at certain examinations. It is determined beforehand by the examiners that no candidate shall be allowed to pass who falls below a certain minimum in each of the subjects; but the percentage required in each subject is very low—say twenty-five per cent. Anyone who fails to secure twenty-five per cent of the marks in any subject will fail; but nevertheless one who secures exactly that amount in each of the subjects will not succeed, for not only are separate minima set for the different subjects but there is also a total minimum—let us say forty per cent. One therefore who falls as low as twenty-five or thirty per cent in one or two of his subjects must make very much more than that in several other subjects in order to attain the average required. This is pre- cisely the method adopted in occultism; there must be a certain amount of each of these qualifications present in the successful candidate, but he must have very thoroughly developed some of them. A candi- date cannot succeed if he be entirely lacking in dis- crimination; yet if he shows much less of that than he should, an overflowing flood of love may perhaps be accepted as atoning for it. Secondly, the ego must have so trained his lower vehicles that he can func- tion perfectly through them when he wishes to do so; he must have effected what in our earlier Theo- sophical literature was called the junction of the lower TuHeE First INITIATION 145 and higher self; and thirdly, he must be strong enough to stand the great strain involved, which ex- tends even to the physical body. As to the level of progress at which he will be initiated, there is room for very great variety. It would be a mistake to suppose that all Initiates are equal in development, just as it would be unsafe to assume that all men who have taken the degree of Master of Arts are equal in knowledge. It is quite possible that a man might have done exceedingly well in many of the qualities required, and be far beyond the total minimum, and yet be seriously deficient and below the minimum standard in one subject; it would then, of course, be necessary for him to wait till he had the minimum in that neglected subject, and no doubt while he was acquiring that he would be de- veloping the others still further. It is therefore ob- vious that while there is a certain attainment required for Initiation, some of those who are presented for it may have achieved far more than that in some di- rections. We see, too, that there is likely to be con- siderable variation in the interval between Initiations. One man who has just now been able to take the first may nevertheless possess a considerable share of the qualifications for the second; therefore for him the interval between the two might be unusually short. On the other hand, a candidate who had only just sufficient strength in all directions to enable him to pass through the first, would have slowly to develop within himself all the additional faculties and knowl- 146 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH edge necessary for the second, so his interval would probably be long. We have now entered upon a period in the world’s history in which progress at all levels of evolution can be very rapid because the near coming of the World- Teacher has set up so strong a tide of thought and feeling about spiritual things, all in the direction of progress, that any one who now makes an effort along that line finds himself swimming with the current and advancing swiftly. This refers not merely to the current of human thought and feeling; in fact, human thought is but a very small part of that tide, for the human beings who know anything definite as to the nearness of the Coming are but a minority. What counts most is the tremendously powerful thought and feeling of the vast hosts of the great Angels who know of the plan, and are trying in every way to help it. Such rapid progress is, however, a very decided strain—a thing which few aspirants sufficiently realize. The student of occultism who sets before himself the idea of hastening his development will do well to remember that one of the necessities is good physical health. He wishes to make in one life the progress which under ordinary circumstances would be dis- tributed over twenty or more, and as the amount that has to be done is the same in either case, for no reduction whatever has been made in the standard of the requirements for Initiation, it is obvious that he must work all his vehicles very much harder if he is to succeed. Tue First INITIATION 147 It is possible on the physical plane to shorten the period of study usually assigned to any given exami- nation; but a man can do it only by putting a far greater tax upon his brain, his attention, his eyesight, his power of endurance; and we all know how fatally easy it is for him to strain himself in any one of these directions, and thereby seriously to injure his physical health. Similar conditions attend upon the efforts to hasten spiritual evolution; it can be done, and it has been done, and it is a very fine thing for any man to: do, always with this provision, that he must watch very carefully against overstrain lest in the ultimate he should delay his development instead of advancing. it. It is not sufficient to have good physical health at the beginning of one’s endeavor; it is also necessary to preserve it until the end, for the progress itself is but a means to an end, and we try to develop our- selves not that we may become great and wise, but that we may have the power and the knowledge to work for humanity to the best effect. We must never forget that occultism is above all the apotheosis of common sense. Hitherto, except very rarely, persons have been initiated only after their physical bodies have come to mature age, and after they have proved by their activities in life that their hearts are pledged to the work of the Logos. During the last few years, how- ever, certain egos whose bodies are still young have been given the privilege of Initiation, and we under- stand that this has been done in order that when the 148 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH Lord comes He may find a band of young workers ready to serve Him. On His arrival the World- Teacher will wield the wondrous consciousness of the Brotherhood, and the more helpers dwelling in phys- ical bodies that He can draw round Him at any given place, the more will His work be facilitated. He can use the services of any ordinary man of the world to the extent of that man’s capacity; but one who is already an accepted pupil of the Master would be of far more use to Him in many directions than the man of the world could ever be; and of almost infinitely ereater use still would be one who had passed the portal of Initiation and had awakened all the multiple links which bind together the members of the Broth- erhood. It is always the ego who is initiated; the age of the physical body which it happens to be holding at a given time has little to do with the case. In all cases when young people have been initiated, elder members of the Brotherhood living near to them or in touch with them in the physical body have un- dertaken to assist and guide them. This is necessary because of the great responsibility that Initiation brings along with its expansion of consciousness and additional faculty and power. A wrong action or a false step on the part of an Initiate involves bigger karmic consequences than a similar action on the part of one who is not a member of the Brotherhood. Therefore perhaps it will be well to include here a few directions for these younger people. Each one should ever remember that he was initiated because in Tue First INITIATION 149 past lives, and perhaps in the present one, he has helped the world to a certain requisite degree, ‘and it is hoped that he will continue in that path and be- come an ever larger channel for the life of the Logos. It is because of the probability of his increased use- fulness that he is admitted to Initiation, and at the ceremony he takes the pledge, not only as the ego but as the Monad, that he will make it his life work. to pour himself out in blessing, even as the Logos is continually streaming forth His love. He must there- fore each day and hour keep this pledge in mind and. subserve all things to it. His karma from the past gives him various personal characteristics and im- pulses; he must take heed lest these drive him to think of himself and his own well-being, rather than of the greater self and the welfare of the world. Before he can undertake the larger work awaiting. him, the youthful Initiate has often to prepare him- self by an ordinary training in college and univer- sity. In that case he will be plunged into circum- stances of vigorous activity and many self-centered interests. Life surrounds him with many temptations,. and with occasions tending to make him forget his pledge to the Brotherhood. Through them all he must have a clearly defined attitude, that he has thrown in his lot with the aims of the Brotherhood. In that life in the world on every occasion, whether of study, recreation or amusement, he must definitely hold the thought, “Is this that I am going to do likely to make: me better equipped for the Master’s work, or a better 150 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH channel to spread love and happiness?” He must always remember that the Brotherhood has the first claim on his services, and must never put himself in any position which makes it impossible for him to fulfill that duty. It is not intended that he should live the life of a hermit; but while he lives that life in society which will give him the growth he requires, he must all the time watch to see whether it is making him more of a channel for the Logos. Henceforth for him any experience, however pleasant and harmless, which cannot make him a fuller channel of the Logos, or give an opportunity for service, is valueless to him, and is so much waste of time. He should try to take advantage of every opportunity to help that he sees, and to learn such things as will make him useful. When the pupil takes the great step of Initiation and becomes a member of the Brotherhood, he also becomes in a far greater and more special sense than before the brother of every one of his fellow-men. This does not mean that he must direct their lives, and try to guide them with criticism. It is not his business in life to criticize but to encourage; but if he sees reason to make any suggestion he must do it with the very greatest care and courtesy. The world does not see the higher members of the Brotherhood; therefore it is apt to Judge that organization by the junior members who come within its purview. That — is what is meant by the remark in the Charge at Initiation, that the neophyte holds the honor of the Brotherhood in his hands. Tue First INITIATION 151 It is his duty to stream forth love and benediction so that every place in which he happens to be is happier because of his presence. He must therefore steadily turn outwards. Henceforth it does not mat- ter to him what judgment the world gives on his ac- tions, but only what judgment the Brotherhood gives. Whether he is popular or unpopular with the world matters not at all, if through all his conduct he has been loyal to the ideals placed before him. Some senior members of the Brotherhood may desire to use him at any moment, wherever he happens to be, and sometimes without his knowing it in the brain-con- sciousness, but he cannot be used if, at the moment when he is needed, he is found brooding over his own affairs and turned inwards, not outwards to the world. The supreme need for him is the building of character, so that, when his Master looks at him, He will find him thinking of the world’s welfare and not whether that world is giving him happiness or misery. Cuapter VIII THE EGO In order that the further steps on the Path may be clearly understood, it is necessary at this point to consider the ego, and the way in which it has awak- ened and put forth its powers to bring the personality into harmony with itself, and to reach up to the buddhic plane and realize its unity with all that lives. In Man Visible and Invisible and The Christian Creed I published a diagram illustrating the Three Outpourings of the Divine Life in our evolutionary scheme. At the top of the diagram appear three circles symbolizing the Three Aspects of the Logos, the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity; and from each of them a line runs down, crossing at right angles the horizontal lines which signify the seven planes of nature. That from the lowest circle (the Third Aspect) is drawn straight down the middle of the diagram, growing heavier and darker as it descends, showing how the Holy Spirit vivifies the matter of the various planes, first building their re- spective atoms, and then aggregating those atoms into elements. Into that matter so vivified the Second Outpouring comes down from the circle typifying God the Son, THE Eco 153 and the Divine Life of which that Outpouring con- sists draws that matter together into forms which it can inhabit, and thus incarnates and makes bodies or vehicles for itself. At its lowest level of materi- ality that Life ensouls the mineral kingdom, and as it evolves it gradually becomes definite enough to ensoul the vegetable kingdom, and still later the animal. When it has risen to the highest level of the animal kingdom a very remarkable change takes place, and an entirely new factor is introduced—that of the Third Outpouring, which comes from the highest circle, the First Aspect of the Logos, com- monly called God the Father. That force which has hitherto been the ensouler now becomes in its turn the ensouled, and the new force from the First Person seizes upon what has heretofore been the soul of the animal, and actually makes it into a body for itself, though a body of matter so exceedingly fine as to be utterly inappreci- able to our physical senses. Thus is born the ego in his causal body, and he at once draws into himself the result of all the experience that has been gained by that animal soul in all the eons of its previous devel- opment, so that nothing of the qualities which have been acquired in the course of its evolution is lost. What then is this wonderful force that rushes from the Highest Aspect of the Solar Logos which is known to us? It is in very truth the actual life of God Himself. So, you may say, are the First and Second Outpourings. That is quite true, but they have come 154 Tue MAsTerRs AND THE PatTH down slowly and gradually through all the subplanes, drawing round themselves the matter of each of these, and enmeshing themselves in it so thoroughly that it is scarcely possible to discern them for what they are, to recognize them as Divine Life at all. But this Third Outpouring flashes straight down from its source without involving itself in any way in the in- termediate matter. It is the pure white light, uncon- taminated by anything through which it has passed. Although for clearness’ sake our diagram shows this Third Stream of the Divine Life as coming forth directly from the Logos, it has in fact issued forth from Him long ago, and is hovering at. an intermediate point in the second of our planes. When hovering at that level it is called the Monad, and perhaps the least misleading manner in which we can image it to ourselves is to think of it as a part of God—a part, but of That Which cannot be divided—a paradox, truly, to our mortal intellect; yet enshrining an eter- nal truth which is far beyond our comprehension. The general method of this descent of spirit into matter seems to be always the same, though the diverse conditions of the different planes naturally produce many variations in detail. The Logos Him- self puts down the Monad—a tiny fragment of Him- self—into a level far below His own; of course such a descent must mean a most serious limitation, though it is all too far above the utmost reach of our con- sciousness to be described or understood. In exactly the same way the Monad puts down a tiny fragment THE Eco 155 of Himself which becomes the ego; and in that case also the limitation is enormously increased. The very same thing happens once more when the ego repeats the operation and projects a minute portion of himself into the mental, the astral and the physical bodies of the man—a fragment which we call the personality. This last tiny fragment is the point of conscious- ness which those of us who are clairvoyant can see moving about within the man. According to one sys- tem of symbology this is seen as “‘the golden man the size of a thumb” who dwells in the heart; but many of us see it rather in the form of a star. I think I have always seen it myself as a brilliant star of light. A man may keep this star of consciousness where he will—that is to say, in any one of the seven principal centers of the body. Which of these is most natural to a man depends largely upon his type or Ray, and I think also upon his race and subrace. We of the fifth subrace of the fifth root-race nearly always keep that consciousness in the brain, in the center depend- ent upon the pituitary body. There are, however, men of other races to whom it comes more natural to keep it habitually in the heart, the throat or the solar plexus. This star of consciousness is the representative of the ego down here in these lower planes, and as it manifests through those vehicles we call it the per- sonality; and that is the man as he is known to his friends down here. But though that personality is absolutely part of the 156 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH ego—though the only life and power in it are those of the ego—it nevertheless often forgets those facts, and comes to regard itself as an entirely separate entity, and works down here for its own ends. It has always a line of communication with the ego (often called in our books the antaskarana), but it generally makes no effort to use it. In the case of ordinary people who have never studied these matters the personality is to all intents and purposes the man, and the ego manifests himself only very rarely and partially. Man’s evolution in its earlier stages consists in the opening up of this line of communication, so that the ego may be increasingly able to assert himself through it, and finally entirely to dominate the personality, so that it may have no separate thought or will, but may be merely (as it should be) an expression of the ego on these lower planes. It must, of course, be understood that the ego, belonging as he does to an altogether higher plane, can never fully express him- self down here; the most for which we can hope is that the personality will contain nothing which is not intended by the ego—that it will express as much of him as can be expressed in this lower world. The absolutely untrained man has practically no communication with the ego; the Initiate has full communication; consequently we find (as we should expect) that there are men among us at all stages between these two extremes. It must be remembered that the ego himself is only in process of development, and that we have therefore to deal with egos in very THE Eco 157 different stages of advancement. In any case an ego is in a great many ways something enormously bigger than a personality can ever be. Though, as has been said, he is but a fragment of the Monad, he is yet complete as an ego in his causal body, even: when his powers are undeveloped; whereas there is but a touch of his life in the personality. It is also true that life at his level is an infinitely larger and more vivid thing than what we know as life down here. Just as it is evolution for the personality to learn to express the ego more fully, so is it evolution for the ego to learn to express the Monad more fully. An undeveloped personality forgets all about his connection with the ego and feels himself quite independent. It can hardly be possible for an ego at his much higher level to be unaware of his link with the Monad; certainly some egos are far more awake to the necessities of their evolution than others—which is only another way of saying that there are older and younger egos and that the older are striving more earnestly than the younger to unfold their latent possibilities. We are apt to think that the only development possible for an ego is through the personality; but that is not so—or rather it is so only in connection with one small set of qualities. As I have explained at length in Man Visible and Invisible, the causal body of a savage is almost colorless. As in the proc- ess of his evolution he develops good qualities which can find corresponding vibrations in the matter of the causal body, the colors expressive of these qualities 158 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH begin to show themselves; and presently the causal body, instead of being empty, is full of active, pul- sating life. So much more of the ego can now man- ifest through it that it has to increase enormously in size; it extends further and further from its physical center until the man is able to enfold hundreds and even thousands of persons within himself, and so exercise a vast influence for good. But all this, wonderful though it be, is only one side of his development. He has quite other lines of progress of which we down here know nothing; he is living a life of his own among his peers, among the great Arupadevas, among all kinds of splendid Angels, in a world far beyond our ken. The young ego prob- ably is but little awake as yet to all that glorious life, just as a baby in arms knows little of the interests of the world surrounding him; but as his consciousness gradually unfolds, he awakens to all this magnifi- cence, he becomes fascinated by its vividness and beauty. At the same time he himself becomes a glorious object, and gives us for the first time some idea of what God means man to be. Among such beings thoughts no longer take form and float about as they do at lower levels, but pass like lightning flashes from one to another. Here we have no newly acquired vehicles, gradually coming under control and learning by degrees more or less feebly to express the soul within; but we are face to face with one body older than the hills, an actual expression of the Divine THE Eco 159 Glory which ever rests behind it, and shines through it more and more in the gradual unfolding of its powers. Here we deal no longer with outward forms, but we see the things in themselves, the reality which hes behind the imperfect expression. Here cause and effect are one, clearly visible in their unity, like two sides of the same coin. Here we have left the con- erete for the abstract; we have no longer the multi- plicity of forms, but the idea which lies behind all those forms. Here the essence of everything is available; we no longer study details; we no longer talk round a sub- ject or endeavor to explain; we take up the essence or the idea of the subject and move it as a whole, as one moves a piece when playing chess. What down here would be a system of philosophy, needing many vol- umes to explain it, is there a single definite object— a thought which can be thrown down as one throws a card upon the table. An opera or an oratorio, which here would occupy a full orchestra for many hours in the rendering, is there a single mighty chord; the methods of a whole school of painting are condensed into one magnificent idea; and ideas such as these are the intellectual counters which are used by egos in their converse one with another. It is not easy to explain in physical words the differences which exist between egos, since all of them are in many ways much greater than anything to which we are accustomed down here. Analogies are notoriously misleading if pressed too far or taken too 160 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH literally; but I may perhaps convey some faint re- flection of the impression produced upon me by in- tercourse with them, if I say that an advanced ego reminds me of a dignified, stately and most courteous. ambassador, full of wisdom and kindliness, while the less developed man has more of the type of the bluff, hearty, country squire. An ego who is already on the Path, and is nearing Adeptship, has much in common with the great Angels, and radiates spiritual influences of prodigious power. Can we wonder, then, that the ego throws himself energetically into the whirl of intense activity of his own plane, and that it seems to him immensely more interesting and important than the faint far-distant. struggles of a cramped and half-formed personality veiled in the dense obscurity of a lower world? In the physical life of the ordinary man of the world there is little of interest to the ego, and it is only now and then that something of real importance occurs, that may for a moment attract his attention, so that from it he draws whatever is worth taking. The ordinary man lives in patches; more than half the time he is not awake to the real and higher life at all. Some of us are apt to complain that our egos take very little notice of us; let us ask ourselves how much notice we have taken of them. How often, for example, in any given day, have we even thought of the ego? If we wish to attract his attention we must make the personality useful to him. As soon as we begin to devote the greater part of our thought to Tue Eco 161 higher things (and that is equivalent to saying as soon as we really begin to live) the ego will be likely to take somewhat more notice of us. The ego knows that certain necessary parts of his evolution can be achieved only through that person- ality, and in its mental, astral and physical bodies; he knows, therefore, that he must sometime attend to it, must take it in hand and bring it under his con- trol. But we can well understand that the task may often seem uninviting, that a given personality may appear anything but attractive or hopeful. If we look at many of the personalities around us—their physical bodies poisoned with meat, alcohol and to- bacco, their astral bodies reeking with greed and sen- suality and their mental bodies having no interests beyond business, or perhaps horse-racing and prize- fighting—it is not difficult to see why an ego, sur- veying them from his lofty height, might decide to postpone his serious effort to another incarnation, in the hope that the next set of vehicles might be more amenable to influence than those upon which his hor- rified gaze then rested. We can imagine that he might say to himself: “I can do nothing with that; I will take my chance of getting something better next time; it can hardly be worse, and meantime I have much more important business to do up here.” A similar thing not infrequently happens in the early stages of a new incarnation. From the birth of the child the ego is hovering over it, and in some cases he begins to try to influence its development 162 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH while it is still very young. As a general rule he pays little attention to it until about the age of seven, by which time the work of the karmic elemental should be practically over. Children differ so widely that it is not surprising to find that the relation between the egos and the personalities involved differs widely also. Some child-personalities are quick and responsive,. some are dull or wayward; when the latter character- istics are prominent, the ego often withdraws his: active interest for the time, hoping that as the child- ish body grows it may become cleverer or more re- sponsive. Such a decision may seem to us unwise, because if the ego neglects his present personality it is unlikely that the next will be an improvement upon it; and if he allows the child-body to develop without his in- fluence, the undesirable qualities which have been manifested may quite possibly grow stronger instead of dying out. But we are hardly in a position to judge, since our knowledge of the problem is so im- perfect and we can see nothing of the higher business to which he is devoting himself. From this it will be seen how impossible it is to judge with any precision the position in evolution of anyone whom we see only on the physical plane. In one case karmic causes may have produced a very fair personality, having an ego of only moderate advance- ment behind it; while in another case those causes may have given rise to an inferior or defective per- sonality, belonging to a comparatively advanced ego. THE Eco 163 A good illustration of this appears among the stories of the life of the Lord Buddha. A man came to Him one day, as people in trouble were wont to do, and told Him that he had great difficulty with his medi- tation, which he could scarcely succeed in doing at all. Then the Buddha told him that there was a very simple reason for it—that in a previous life he had foolishly been in the habit of annoying certain holy men and disturbing their meditations. Yet that man may have been more advanced as an ego than some of his companions whose meditations were well done. When the ego does decide to turn the full force of his energy upon the personality, the change which he can produce is marvelous. No one who has not per- sonally investigated the matter can imagine how won- derful, how rapid, how radical such a change may be when conditions are favorable—that is, when the ego is reasonably strong, and the personality not incur- ably vicious—more especially when a determined effort is made by the personality on its side to be- come a perfect expression of the ego, and make itself attractive to him. The difficulty of this subject is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is necessary for us to regard it simultaneously from two points of view. Most of us down here are very emphatically personalities, and think and act almost exclusively as such; yet we know all the time that in reality we are egos, and those of us who by many years of meditation have rendered ourselves more sensitive to finer influences 164 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH are often conscious of the intervention of this Higher Self. The more we can make a habit of identifying ourselves with the ego, the more clearly and sanely shall we view the problems of life; but in so far as we feel ourselves to be still personalities looking up to our Higher Selves, it is obviously our duty and our interest to open ourselves to them, to reach up towards them, and persistently to set up within our- selves such vibrations as will be of use to them. At least let us be sure that we do not stand in the way of the ego, that we always do our best for him ac- cording to our lights. Since selfishness is the intensification of the per- sonality, our first step should be to get rid of that. Then we must keep our minds filled with high thoughts; for if they are continually occupied with lower matters (even though those lower matters may be quite estimable in their way) the ego cannot readily use them as channels of expression. When he makes a tentative effort, when he puts down an exploratory finger, let us receive him with enthusiasm and hasten to obey his behests, that he may take pos- session of our minds more and more, and so come into his inheritance as far as these lower planes are con- cerned. ‘Thus shall we bring ourselves ever nearer to the goal that we wish to reach; thus shall we set our feet upon the Path which leads directly to that First Initiation in which the lower and the Higher become one, or rather the greater has absorbed the lesser, so that there should now be nothing in the personality THE Eco 165 which is not a representation of the ego; the lower is now merely an expression of the higher. The per- sonality may have had a: great many unpleasant qualities of his own, such as jealousy, anger and de- pression, but they have all been cast off, and now he merely reproduces that which comes from above. The ego having brought the lower self into harmony with himself is now reaching upwards into the buddhic plane, the plane of unity. It is only in this way that the man can begin to cast off the delusion of self which stands in the way of his further progress, and that is why the buddhic experience is necessary at the First Initiation if it has not been had before. In many cases it has come earlier because the higher emotions showing themselves in the astral body, have reflected themselves in the buddhic vehicle and aroused it, and consequently there is some awaken- ing before Initiation. All that lives is really one, and it is the duty of those who enter the Brotherhood to know that as a fact. We are taught that the Self is one, and we try to understand what that means; but it is quite a different thing when we see it for ourselves, as the candidate does when he enters the buddhic plane. It is as if in physical life we were each living at the bottom of a well, from which we may look up at the sunlight in the world above; and, just as the light shines down into the depth of many wells, and yet ever remains the one light, so does the Light of the One illumine the darkness of our hearts. The Initiate: 166 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH has climbed out of the well of the personality, and sees that the light which he thought to be himself is in very truth the Infinite Light of all. While living in the causal body, the ego already recognized the Divine Consciousness in all; when he looked upon another ego his consciousness leaped up as it were to recognize the divine in him. But on the buddhic plane it no longer leaps to greet him from without, for it is already enshrined within his heart. He is that consciousness and it is his. There is no longer the “you” and the “I,” for both are one—facets of something that transcends and yet includes them both. Yet in all this strange advance there is no loss of the sense of individuality even though there is an utter loss of the sense of separateness. That seems a paradox, while yet it is obviously true. The man remembers all that lies behind him. He is himself, the same man who did this action or that in the far-off past. He is in no way changed, except that now he is much more than he was then, and feels that he includes within himself many other manifes- tations as well. If here and now a hundred of us could simultaneously raise our consciousnesses into the intuitional world, we should all be one conscious- ness, but to each man that would seem to be his own, absolutely unchanged except that now it included all the others as well. To each it would seem that it was he who had absorbed or included all those others, so we are here Tue Eco 167 manifestly in the presence of a kind of illusion, and a little further realization makes it clear to us that we are all facets of a greater consciousness, and that what we have hitherto thought to be our qualities, our intellect, our energies, have all the time been His qualities, His intellect, His energy. We have arrived at the realization in actual fact of the time-honored formula: “Thou art That.” It is one thing to talk about this down here and to grasp it, or to think that we grasp it, intellectually; but it is quite another to enter into that marvelous world and know it with a certainty that can never again be shaken. When this buddhic consciousness fully impresses the physical brain, it gives a new value to all the actions and relations of life. We no longer look upon a person or object, no matter with what degree of kindliness or sympathy; we simply are that person or object, and we know him or it as we know the thought of our own brain or the movement of our own hand. We appreciate his motives as our own motives, even though we may perfectly understand that another part of ourselves, possessing more know]l- edge or a different view point, might act quite dif- ferently. Yet it must not be supposed that when a man en- ters upon the lowest subdivision of the Intuitional world he at once becomes fully conscious of his unity with all that lives. That perfection of sense comes only as the result of much toil and trouble, when he has reached the highest subdivision of this realm of 168 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH unity. To enter that plane at all is to experience an enormous extension of consciousness, to realize him- self as one with many others; but before him there opens a time of effort, of self-development, analogous at that level to what we do down here when by medi- tation we try to open our consciousness to the plane next above us. Step by step, subplane by subplane, the aspirant must win his way; for even at that level exertion is still necessary if progress is to be made. Having passed the First Initiation and consciously entered the buddhic plane, this work of developing himself on subplane after subplane now lies before the candidate, in order that he may get rid of the three great fetters, as they are technically called, which embarrass his further progress. He is now definitely on the Path of Holiness, and is described in the Buddhist system as the Sotapatt: or Sohan, “he who has entered the stream”; while among the Hindus he is called the Parivrajaka, which means “the wanderer,’ one who no longer feels that any place in the three lower worlds is his abiding place or refuge. CuaptTer IX THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS The candidate who has passed the First Initiation has entered definitely upon the Path Proper—the Path that leads to Adeptship, to the portal leading out of the human kingdom into that of the Superman. Look- ing at this Path from below, one might wonder that the aspirant is not exhausted after his labors leading to the First Initiation, that he does not shrink back discouraged by the dizzy heights that he sees rising before him on the relentless ever-ascending Path. But he has drunk at the fount of life, and his strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure, and the glory of the ideal humanity, which he sees with ever-increasing clearness, has for him an attraction and inspiration with which no material stimulus or interest can ever compare. The first stage of his journey ends in the Second Initiation, to achieve which he must cast off three samyojana or fetters, which are: 1. Sakkayaditthi—the delusion of self. 2. Vichikichcha—doubt or uncertainty. 3. Silabbataparamasa—superstition. The first of these is the “I am I” consciousness which, as connected with the personality, is nothing 170 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH but an illusion, and must be got rid of at the very first step of the real upward path. But to cast off this fetter completely means even more than this, for it involves the realization of the fact that the indi- viduality also is in very truth one with the All, that it can therefore never have any interests opposed to those of its brethren, and that it is most truly pro- gressing when it most assists the progress of others. As to the second fetter, a word of caution is neces- sary. People who have been trained in European habits of thought are, unhappily, so familiar with the idea that a blind, unreasoning adhesion to certain dogmas may be claimed from a disciple of any re- ligion, school or sect, that on hearing that in occult- ism doubt is considered to be an obstacle to progress, they are likely to suppose that this path also requires from its followers the same unquestioning faith as many modern superstitions do. No idea could be more entirely false. It is true that doubt (or rather uncertainty) on some questions is a bar to spiritual progress, but the antidote to that doubt is not blind faith (which is itself considered as a fetter, as will presently be seen) but the certainty of conviction founded on individual experiment or mathematical reasoning. While a child doubted the accuracy of the multiplication table, he could hardly acquire proficiency in the higher math- ematics; but his doubts could be satisfactorily cleared up only by his attaining a comprehension, founded on reasoning or experiment, that the statements con- THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 171 tained in the table are true. He believes that twice two are four, not merely because he has been told so, but because it has become to him a self-evident fact. And this is exactly the method, and the only method, of resolving doubt known to occultism. Vichikichcha has been defined as doubt of the doc- trines of karma and reincarnation, and of the efficacy of the method of attaining the highest good by this Path of Holiness; but the knowledge of these things also brings with it a vivid realization that the world is God’s school for man, and that His plan is the evolution of the immortal life through the perishing forms, and is wonderful and beneficent in every part. As he casts off this second fetter, the Initiate arrives at absolute certainty, based either upon personal first- hand knowledge or upon reason, that the occult teach- ing upon these points is true. The third fetter, superstition, has been described as including all kinds of unreasoning and mistaken be- lief, and all dependence upon outward rites and cere- monies to purify the heart. He sees that all the meth- ods of help offered to us by the great religions— prayer, sacraments, pilgrimages, fastings and the ob- servation of manifold rites and ceremonies—are helps and no more; that the wise man will adopt such of them as he finds useful to him but will never trust to any of them alone as sufficient to attain salvation. He realizes clearly that within himself deliverance must be sought and that however valuable these aids may be in developing his will, his wisdom and his Ly Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH love, they can never take the place of that personal effort by which alone he can achieve. The man who has cast off this fetter realizes that there is no one form of religion which is a necessity for all men, but that through any and all alike, and even outside of them, the path to the highest may be found. These three fetters are in a coherent series. The difference between individuality and personality being fully realized, it is then possible to some extent to appreciate the actual course of reincarnation, and so to dispel all doubt on that head. This done, the knowledge of the spiritual permanence of the true ego brings reliance on one’s own spiritual strength, and so dispels superstition. Each stage of the Path Proper is divided into four steps. The first is its Maggo or Way, during which the student is striving to cast off the fetters. The second is its Phala, literally fruit or result, when the man finds the result of his efforts showing themselves more and more. Thirdly comes its Bhavagga or con- summation, the period when, the result having cul- minated, he is able to fulfill satisfactorily the work belonging to the step on which he now firmly stands. The fourth is its Gotrabhu, which means the time when he has arrived at a fit state to receive the next Initiation. That the candidate may become Gotrabhu, nothing short of complete and entire freedom from the fetters of his stage on the Path is absolutely essential. Be- fore the man can proceed to the Second Initiation, the THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 173 Initiator of that occasion demands evidence as to how the candidate has used the powers acquired by him at the First Initiation, and one of the most beautiful features of the ceremony is the part when those who have been helped by the candidate come forward to give their testimony. It is also requisite for this Initiation that the candidate shall have developed the power to function freely in his mental body, for al- though the ceremony of the First Initiation is held on the astral plane, that of the Second takes place in the lower mental world. It may seem difficult to reconcile that statement with the fact that the Initiations are described as taking place in a certain hall or garden; but really there is no discrepancy. If the Lord Maitreya acts as Initiator, the ceremony usually takes place either in His garden or in His great room. He Himself is present in His physical body, and so in many cases is the Lord Vaivasvata Manu Who lives close by. All others present are usually in the astral vehicle in the case of the First Initiation but in the mental body in the case of the Second. The Great Ones present focus Their consciousnesses with perfect ease at what- ever level is required, but there is of course on the astral and the mental planes a perfect counterpart of everything on the physical, and so the accounts given are perfectly correct, and the positions taken up in relation to physical objects are just as there described. Following the plan of earlier chapters, I once more give an account of the ceremony: 174 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH ACCOUNT OF A SECOND INITIATION Notice was received that a great gathering of Adepts was to take place at the house of the Lord Maitreya on the night of the full moon of the month of Chaitra, and that advantage would be taken of the occurrence of this august assemblage to admit certain candidates to the Sakridagamin Initiation, as soon after as should be found convenient. That night the Master Morya desired the guardians to attend Him not later than ten o’clock on the night of the full moon, as they were in charge of one of the can- didates. : On the evening of the full moon many friends from India were hovering round, and when the candidates and their guardians went to the house of the Master Kuthumi, these followed discreetly and waited about respectfully in the near distance. Soon after they had reached the house, the Master Morya entered. The two Masters left almost immediately for the house of the Lord Maitreya, the disciples following and remaining in the garden while the Masters entered the house. This garden is on a southern slope of the Hima- layas, overlooking a vast expanse of the plains of India, which stretch away to the far horizon. It is sheltered, lying in a hollow, and protected by a pine wood at the back which curves round on the right. Beyond this wood, and a little eastwards, is the very ancient stone house, with pillared and wide veranda, THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS Lid wherein dwells the Manu of our Race, the great Lord Vaivasvata. . The garden of the Lord Maitreya was flooded with the silver light of the full moon, which fell on the great clumps of rhododendrons and on the spring flowers in bloom, and shone dazzlingly on the white marble seat round the huge tree, the favorite resting-place of the Lord Maitreya, which He now assumed on issuing from the house. The Masters grouped Themselves in a semicircle on the grass ter- race just below His seat, taking Their places on His right and left. On the terrace a step lower stood the two candi- dates, between the two Masters who presented them —the Master Kuthumi and the Master Djwal Kul. Behind them stood the appointed guardians of the younger candidate in the lower world. The Manu sat a little behind on the right hand of the Bodhisattva, and there shone out above Them the glorious figure of the Lord Gautama Buddha, Who in His last earthly life had accepted from these two candidates “the Vow which can never be broken,” and now gave His all-powerful benediction to them in the step which they were about to take. Near Him was the Maha- Chohan, the Head of the five Rays, and between Them and a little above Them flashed out later in answer to the solemn invocation of the Bodhisattva the blazing Star of the One Initiator, the mighty King of the Occult Hierarchy, the Lord of the World. Such was the exquisite setting of the ceremony of Initiation. 176 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH The Master Kuthumi and the Master Djwal Kul led the two candidates a step forward, and the Bod- hisattva asked: ‘Who are these that you now bring before me?”’. The Master Kuthumi answered: “These are two Brothers who, having cast off the fetters of separateness, doubt and superstition, and having reaped the harvest and shown the result of their labor, now desire to enter on the Path of the Sakridagamin. I present them as Gotrabhu.”’ The Lord Maitreya asked: “Will you continue to guide these Brothers along the Path they seek to enter?” The Master replied: “T will do so.” The Lord said: “Our rule requires that two of the higher Brethren shall vouch for every candidate who presents himself for the second Path. Does any other Brother support their prayer?” The Master Djwal Kul answered: opt do0,”? The Lord said, addressing the guardians: “You, as two Brothers living in the outer world, have taken charge of the younger of these candidates. You have had experience in your accepted duty of guardianship; are you willing, as the body is still of tender age, to persevere in that guardianship and to help him as he treads the second Path?” They answered: Tuer SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 77. “We are willing and glad so to do.” The Lord asked: “Ts your love for him still so strong that the work will be pleasant and easy?” They answered: “Our love for him is even deeper nat it was when we began our happy task; he is easy to guide and eager to learn.” The Lord said to the younger candidate: “And is your heart also full of love for these two Brothers, and will you continue gladly to submit yourself to their guidance, not permitting aught to come between your heart and theirs?” He answered: “T will gladly do so, for I love them both dearly, and am grateful to them for their care.” The Lord said to the two candidates: “You desire then to enter on the Path of the Sakridagamin?” They answered: “We do thus desire, if we are fit to enter on it.” The Bodhisattva said: “Forasmuch as it is the immemorial custom of this Brotherhood, when candidates are presented for each successive Initiation, to ask how they have used the powers previously conferred upon them; and foras- much as a power is only a power when it is used for the helping of others; I ask therefore who will testify to services done by these candidates since last they stood before us, and were admitted into the Brother- 178 Tue MAsTerRS AND THE PatTH hood? What definite work have they done of teach- ing? Whom have they helped?” As the solemn words clove the surrounding air, seeming as if they rang around the world as a sum- mons, a great crowd of witnesses surged up from the four quarters, and hung silent, gazing with loving grateful eyes on the candidates standing in the center. The Master Kuthumi spoke: “These are they from many nations and from many lands who from these, my two pupils, have received light, strength and comfort. From the lips of my elder son my message has gone forth to many thou- sands, and he has labored unceasingly to bring the light to those who are in darkness; they are here to bear witness. He has also written a book and many articles which remain as evidence of his loving labor for others. My younger son’—the Master smiled tenderly—“‘is yet young in body for public work, but he has written a little book which gives to others the teaching I gave to him, and tens of thousands love him as their guide to us; they also are here, ready to bear witness.” And many voices cried: ‘We bear witness,” and the very air seemed vocal, so multitudinous were the testimonies. And the smile of the Bodhisattva grew sweet beyond expression as He, the Savior of the world, listened to the answer He had evoked. The first guardian then spoke: “I bear witness to the elder of these candidates, that in time of sore trouble and bitter strife he stood in perfect loyalty THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 179 to both my Brother and myself, apparently opposed, in unshaken strength and sweetness, serene and true. I bear witness also to his unwearied and unselfish work for others, using all his powers in service. To the younger, my beloved ward, I bear witness that he is ever seeking to help those whom he meets, and shows rare skill in helping, while he sheds around him. a radiant love and purity that make his mere pres- ence a benediction. All know the value of his price- less little book.” The second guardian also spoke in the candidates’ favor as follows: “T also add my testimony in the case of both these dear candidates. I bear witness that the elder has. rendered to me personally much loyal, affectionate and self-sacrificing help and support, and that I have: heard from many others of the inspiration and light that he has brought into their lives. On behalf of the younger candidate I bear witness that I have myself seen the evidence of the wonderful love and devotion which he has inspired in the members of his Order both at Adyar and Benares, and of the change which has been produced in them. I have also received many letters in which the writers state that they owe a new conception of life to the book which he wrote.” The Master Kuthumi called from the multitudes some who had learned the truth from each candidate, who looked to him and followed him as guide. Many came forward to acknowledge the help given, each speaking what he felt in his heart; and many said 180 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH that At the Feet of the Master had given them a new view of life. Some who had been much helped, but could not be brought on this occasion because they were awake and engaged in their ordinary avocations, were represented by living images made by the Mas- ter; and though these could say and do nothing, it is probable that some touch of the wonderful influences of the hour may have been conveyed through them to their originals. The crowd then withdrew, while the ceremony proceeded. The Bodhisattva then addressed the candidates, approving of the work they had done, and expressing the hope that the new powers now to be conferred upon them would be used as well as those had been which they already possessed. He continued: “You have cast off forever the three fetters which bind your brethren on earth, and your own freedom must be used to lessen the weight of these fetters on them. You have learned with utter certainty that the idea of the separated self is a delusion; you must now impress that certainty on your lower vehicles, so that in them there shall never be any action or thought for the separated self, but that all shall be done for the One Self, working through all. Will you endeavor to do this, and not cease your efforts until you have succeeded?” The candidates answered: “I will.” The Lord Maitreya said: “You have cast off the fetter of doubt, and you know surely that evolution is a fact, and that the es ee, ee eee THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 181 method of evolution is the constant dipping down into matter under the law of readjustment. You must use the powers now to be conferred upon you for the dispelling of doubt in others regarding these vital facts, so that they may share in the knowledge you have gained—gained surely not for yourselves alone. Will you then use your powers for the enlightening of others?” The candidates answered: “T will so use them.” The Lord Maitreya: “You have transcended all superstition; you know that a man may find the light in any religion; you know that rites and ceremonies have no intrinsic value, and that all which is done by them can be done without them by knowledge and by will. Above: all, you are free from the superstition of the wrath of the Power behind evolution, and you know that all that exists is within the Universal Love, and that it is the gospel of Universal Love which you must spread among men. Will you seek to lift the darkness by spreading this gospel?” The candidates answered: Seiwa}? Then the Lord Maitreya added: “Never forget that there is no darkness save that. which is made by ignorance and delusion. It was well said: ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, in Whom is no variableness, neither shadow 182 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH of turning.’ In Him is no darkness at all, but men turn their backs on His Light, and then walk in their own shadows, crying out that it is dark.” The candidates were then put through some tests as to work on the mental plane. They had to ex- amine people in the heaven-world, such as would be placed under their care in the future, and the Lord asked them what they would do to help each case, having in view the limitations under which their charges would be laboring. One case was that of a medieval monk, very full of devotion, but with ex- ceedingly limited ideas concerning God, the Saints and the Church, and the Lord questioned them as to what they would do to help his growth. All that passes during the Second Initiation is done on the mental plane, and all are working in their mental bodies, not in the ordinary mayavi-rupa which they would use on the astral plane. After this testing was over, and the candidates had successfully answered the questions addressed to them, they were led up to the Lord Maitreya and knelt before Him. He rose, and turning towards Shamballa, He cried aloud: “Do I this, O Lord of Light and Life and Glory, in Thy Name and for Thee?” Then over Him blazed out the flashing Star, giving the consent of the One Initiator, and the august figure of the Lord Gautama Buddha shone out with more blinding brilliance, while He raised His right hand in blessing. The Maha-Chohan also rose to add THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 183 His benediction, as the Bodhisattva laid His hands in turn on each bowed head, and all bent low in reverent homage before the Mighty Ones; and there was silence. In that stillness the Key of Knowledge was given, the Bodhisattva pouring out from His own mental and causal bodies rays of power which, falling on the mental and causal bodies of the newly initiated, stim- ulated into sudden and splendid growth the germs of similar powers therein existing. As though a bud, stimulated by the sun-rays, should suddenly burst into all the glory of the opened flower, so did their mental and causal bodies suddenly unfold the powers latent within them, expanding into radiant beauty. Through them, thus expanded, intuition could freely play, the great new power thus set free to work. And the Lord Maitreya said: “Take now this new power which I give you and trust yourself to it fearlessly. Bring your lower vehicles into such order and responsiveness that it may pass freely through them to your physical brain, and guide your conduct unerringly. So shall it shine upon the way which lies before you, and prepare you to enter upon the Third Path.” He ended with the great benediction, and the Star and the august Figures near it vanished, all again bending low in reverence, and the great ceremony was over. The assembled Masters then left Their places, and each spoke a few kind words to the newly initiated, 184 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH and blessed them. The Master Kuthumi also ad- dressed a kindly word to the crowd who had borne witness—who had withdrawn to some distance, as said above, but were now permitted again to ap- proach to bid farewell to their leaders, who, in the light of the new knowledge just attained, gave some advice to each of these followers, and dismissed them with a blessing. The Second Initiation rapidly continues the devel- opment of the mental body, and at or near this point the pupil learns to use the mayavi-rupa, which is sometimes translated as the body of illusion. This is a temporary astral body made by one who is able to function in his mental body. When a man travels in the astral plane, he usually does so in the astral body; and if it were necessary for him to show him- self on the physical plane while he was functioning in his astral body, he would have to materialize a physical body round it. This is sometimes done, though not frequently, because it involves a great expenditure of force. Similarly, if he were working in his mental body and desired to manifest himself on the astral plane, he would need to materialize a temporary astral body, which is the mayavi-rupa. When he had finished his work, he would withdraw to the mental plane once more, and the temporary body would vanish, its materials returning to the general circulation of astral matter whence they had been drawn by the pupil’s will. THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 185 Up to the time of the First Initiation the man works at night in his astral body; but as soon as it is perfectly under control and he is able to use it fully, work in the mental body is begun. When that body in turn is completely organized, it is a far more flexible vehicle than the astral body, and much that is impossible on the astral plane can be accom- plished therein. With the power to form the mayavi- rupa, the man is able to pass instantly from the men- tal plane to the astral and back, and to use at all times the greater power and keener sense of the men- tal plane, and it is only necessary to form the astral materialization when he wants to become visible to people in the astral world. It is necessary that the Master shall first show His pupil how to make the mayavi-rupa, after which, although it is not at first an easy matter, he can do it for himself. A very great expansion and development of the mental body takes place in connection with this Sec- ond Initiation, but it usually some years before the effects of this can show themselves in the physical brain. As they begin to do so they unquestionably put a great strain upon that brain, as it cannot be instantaneously tuned to the necessary pitch. The period after the taking of the Second Initiation is in many ways the most dangerous that the candi- date must pass through anywhere on the Path, although at any point until the Fifth Initiation is passed there is the possibility of falling back or of spending many incarnations wandering about. But 186 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH it is at this stage especially that if there is any weak- ness in a candidate’s character it will find him out. It should be impossible for a man who has raised himself to this height to fall back; but unfortunately experience has shown us that even this does some- times happen. In nearly all cases the danger comes through pride; if there is the least tinge of pride in the man’s nature, he is in serious risk of a fall. What we talk about down here as intellect is the merest reflection of the real thing; yet some of us are proud of that, proud of our intellect and insight. So when a man gets even a remote glimpse of what his intel- lect is going to be in the future there is serious danger, and if he once starts on that line he will have a ter- ribly hard time getting back again. Nothing but unceasing and increasing vigilance can enable him to pass through this stage successfully, and it must be his constant endeavor to kill out every trace of pride, selfishness and prejudice. When we know these things from behind, we find sudden and curious illumination thrown upon various texts of the Bible. This danger point in the life of the Initiate is indicated in the Gospel story by the temptation in the wilderness which followed the Bap- tism of Christ by John. The forty days in the Wil- derness symbolize the period during which the expan- sion of the mental body given in the Second Initiation is being worked down into the physical brain, though for the ordinary candidate some forty years or longer might well be required for its accomplishment. In Ee — THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 187 the life of Jesus it was the period when His brain was being adapted to the incoming Christ. Then the Devil, who in the symbolism represents the lower nature, comes to tempt the Initiate, first to use his powers for the satisfaction of his own needs: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Then he is tempted to cast himself down from a pinnacle of the temple, thus performing a miracle which would astound the populace. And lastly he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and the Devil says: ‘All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”—he is tempted to use his powers to gratify his own ambition. Each of these temptations represents a different form of pride. Just as the First Great Initiation corresponds to a new birth, so may the Second Initiation be justly compared to the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of Fire; for it is the power of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity that is outpoured at that moment, descending in what may but inadequately be described as a flood of Fire, a flaming tide of living Light. The man at this stage is spoken of among the Buddhists as a Sakadagamin, the man who returns but once, which means that he who has reached that level should need but one more incarnation before attaining Arhatship, the Fourth Initiation, after which there is no compulsory physical rebirth. The Hindu name for this second step is the Kutichaka, the man who builds a hut, he who has reached a place of peace. At this 188 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH stage no additional fetters are cast off, but it is usu- ally a period of considerable psychic and intellectual advancement. If what are commonly called psychic faculties have not been previously acquired, they must be developed at this stage, as without them it would be impossible to assimilate the knowledge which must now be given, or to do the higher work for humanity in which the Initiate is now privileged to assist. He must have the astral consciousness at his command during his physical waking life, and during sleep the heaven-world will be open before him—for the con- sciousness of a man when away from his physical body is always one stage higher than it is while he is still burdened with the house of flesh. When the candidate has’ passed through the four sub-stages of the Second Initiation, and has once more become Gotrabhu he is ready for the Third Initiation, to become the Anagamin, which means literally “he who does not return,” for it is expected of him that he will attain the next Initiation in the same incarna- tion. The Hindu name for this stage is the Hamsa, which means a swan, but the word is also considered to be a form of the sentence so-ham, “That am I.” There is a tradition, too, that the swan is able to separate milk from water, and the sage is similarly able to realize the true value for living beings of the phenomena of life. This Initiation is typified in the Christian symbol- ism by the Transfiguration of the Christ. He went up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 189 before His disciples: “His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light,” “exceeding white as snow so as no fuller on earth can white them.” This description suggests the Augoeides, the glorified man, and it is no inaccurate picture of what happens at this Initiation, for just as the Second Great Initiation is principally concerned with the quickening of the lower mental body, so at this stage. the causal body is especially developed. The ego is brought more closely into touch with the Monad, and is thus transfigured in very truth. Even the person- ality is affected by that wondrous outpouring. The higher and the lower self became one at the First Ini- tiation, and that unity is never lost, but the develop- ment of the higher self that now takes place can never be mirrored in the lower worlds of form, although the two are one to the greatest possible extent. The Gospel story tells also that at the Transfigura- tion there appeared Moses and Elijah, the two chief figures of the old dispensation; one the greatest of the Jewish prophets, the other representing the Jewish law. Thus the two dispensations or methods of ap- proach to truth, that of the following of the law and that of the inspiration of prophecy, are represented as with Him who was about to establish a new dis- pensation, that of the Gospel; and all these symbols have meanings referring to the actual facts of the Third Initiation. Another symbol relating to the same step appears in the Gospel story of the presentation of the Christ 190 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH to His Father in the temple. In the traditional ac- count this is somewhat out of place, for the Christ is then presented as a little child. At this stage of the man’s progress he has to be brought before the Spirit- ual King of the World, the mighty Head of the Oc- cult Hierarchy, Who at this third step either confers the Initiation Himself, or deputes one of His pupils, the three Lords of the Flame Who came with Him from Venus to do so; and in the latter event the man is presented to the King soon after the Initiation has taken place. Thus the Christ is brought into the presence of His Father; the buddhi-in the Initiate is raised until it becomes one with its origin on the nir- vanic plane and a very wonderful union between the first and the second principles in man is then effected: The Anagamin enjoys, while moving through the round of his daily work, all the splendid possibilities given by the full possession of the faculties of the higher mental plane, and when he leaves his physical vehicle at night he enters once more into the wonder- fully widened consciousness that belongs to the buddhic plane. While in this stage he has to throw off any lingering remains of what are called the fourth and fifth fetters, kamaraga and patigha, attachment to the enjoyment of sensation, typified by earthly love, and all possibility of anger or hatred. The as- pirant must free himself from the possibility of being enslaved in any way by external things. It is not by any means that he will not feel the attraction of what is pleasant or beautiful or clean, nor the repul- an ie sine a THE SECOND AND THIRD INITIATIONS 191 sion of the opposites of these things, and will not take them into account in the course of his work. But he will not let them be a deciding element in duty, and will override them entirely on those emergency occasions when it is necessary for his work. Here we must guard against a possible misconcep- tion—one with which we frequently meet. The purest and noblest human love never dies away—is never in any way diminished by occult training; on the con- trary, it is increased and widened until it embraces all with the same fervor which at first was lavished on one or two. But the student does in time rise above all considerations connected with the mere personality of those around him, and so is free from all the in- justice and partiality which ordinary love so often brings in its train. Nor should it for a moment be supposed that in gaining this wide affection for all, he loses the es- pecial love for his closer friends. The unusually per- fect link between Ananda and the Lord Buddha, as between St. John and the Christ, is on record to prove that, on the contrary, this is enormously intensified; and the tie between a Master and His pupils is_ stronger far than any earthly bond. For the affec- tion which flourishes upon the Path of Holiness is an affection between egos, not merely between personal- ities; therefore it is strong and permanent, without fear of diminution or fluctuation, for it is that “per- fect love which casteth out fear.” CHAPTER X THE HIGHER INITIATIONS It will simplify matters for the student if he thinks of the four stages on the path to Adeptship as in two divisions, and groups together the foregoing three stages in the first. They are the stages during which the buddhic consciousness is being evolved to its per- fection; but at the Fourth Initiation the candidate enters the nirvanic plane, and he is engaged from now onward in climbing steadily through that, or rather through that division of it, consisting of its five lower subplanes, on which the human ego has being. This Initiation may also be thought of as a midway point, as it is usually said that seven lives are occupied in the average case at normal times between the First and the Fourth Initiations, and seven lives also be- tween the Fourth and Fifth; but these figures are capable of very great reduction or increase, as I have said before, and the actual period of time employed is in most cases not very great, since usually the lives are taken in immediate succession, without interludes in the heaven-world. The candidate who has passed the Fourth Initiation is spoken of in Buddhist terminology as the Arhat, which means the worthy, the capable, the venerable : | Tue Hicuer INITIATIONS 193 or perfect, and in the Eastern books very many beau- tiful things are said about him, for they realize at what a high level of evolution he stands. The Hindus call him the Paramahamsa, the one above or beyond the Hamsa. In Christian symbology the Fourth Initiation is in- dicated by the suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of the Christ; though since there are certain preliminary stages it may be more completely symbolized by the various events that are said to have taken place during Holy Week. The first event in the series was that the Christ raised Lazarus from the dead; and this is al- Ways commemorated on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, though according to the Gospel narrative it took place a week or two earlier. On the Sunday, there was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; on Monday and Tuesday the delivery of a number of addresses in the temple; on Wednesday the betrayal by Judas Iscariot; on Thursday the Founding of the Holy Eucharist; on the night between Thursday and Friday the trials before Pilate and Herod, and on Good Friday the Crucifixion. Holy Saturday was spent in the grave, and at midnight on Saturday, or rather at the first moment on Sunday morning, Christ rose from the dead, triumphant for evermore. All these details of the Christ-drama have a rela- tion to what really happens in connection with the Fourth Initiation. The Christ did something unusual and wonderful in the raising of Lazarus on the Sat- 194 Tue Masters AND THE PatTH urday, and it was very largely as a result of that that he enjoyed His one earthly triumph soon after, for all the people came together when they heard of the raising of the dead man. They waited for Him, and when He came out from the house to go on the way to Jerusalem they received Him with an ovation and a great display of feeling, and treated Him as in the East they still treat anyone whom they think to be holy; so He was escorted by the people with great enthusiasm into Jerusalem, and having won that little earthly recognition, He naturally took the opportun- ity of teaching them, and gave the. addresses in the temple to which great crowds came to see and hear Him. This is symbolical of what really takes place. The Initiate attracts some attention, and gains a cer-. tain amount of popularity and recognition. Then there is always the traitor to turn upon him and dis- tort what he has said and done so that it appears to be evil; as Ruysbroek puts it: “Sometimes these unhappy ones are deprived of the good things of earth, of their friends and relations, and are deserted by all creatures; their holiness is mistrusted and despised, men put a bad construction on all the works of their life, and they are rejected and disdained by all those who surround them; and sometimes they are afflicted with divers diseases.” Then follows a rain of obloquy and abuse, and His rejection by the world. After that comes the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Christ feels Him- self utterly forsaken; and then He is held up to de- Tue Hicuer INITIATIONS 195 rision and crucified. Finally there is the ery from the cross: “My God, my God, why hast Thou for- saken me?” Madame Blavatsky held a theory which she ex- pounded in The Secret Doctrine, which I am not able personally to verify, that the real meaning of those words was, “My God, my God, how Thou dost glorify me!” I do not know which of the two render- ings is the more accurate, but there is great truth in both of them. It is one of the features of the Fourth Initiation that the man shall be left entirely alone. First he has to stand alone on the physical plane; all his friends turn against him through some misun- derstanding; it all comes right afterwards, but for the time the man is left with the feeling that all the world is against him. Perhaps that is not so great a trial, but there is another and inner side to it; for he has also to experience for a moment the condition called Avichi, which means “the waveless,”’ that which is without vibration. The state of Avichi is not, as has been popularly supposed, some kind of hell, but it is a condition in which the man stands absolutely alone in space, and feels cut off from all life, even from that of the Logos; and it is without doubt the most ghastly experience that it is possible for any human being to have. It is said to last only for a moment, but those who have felt it have the impression that it lasted very much longer, for time and space do not exist at that level. That terrible experience has, I think, two results—that the candidate may be able 196 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH to sympathize with those to whom Avichi comes as a result of their actions, and that he may learn to stand cut off from everything external, and test and realize his own utter certainty that he is one with the Logos, and that any such feeling of loneliness must be but an illusion. ‘There have been those who have fallen at that very terrible test, and have had to go back and begin their Initiation work over again; but for the man who can endure it without flinching, it is certainly a very wonderful experience, however ter- rible, so that while to the trial itself the interpreta- tion ‘‘Why hast Thou forsaken me” might be applied, “How Thou dost glorify me!” would certainly not be an untrue expression of the feeling of the man when he comes forth from it victorious. This Initiation differs from all the others in that it has this strange double aspect of suffering and victory. Each of the earlier Initiations was symbol- ized in the Christian system by one definite fact, the Birth, the Baptism, the Transfiguration; but in order to represent this Fourth Initiation a series of events have been found necessary. The Crucifixion and all the varied sufferings of which it was the culmination were employed to typify one side of this Initiation, while the Resurrection with its triumph over death represents the other side. Always at this stage there is suffering, physical, astral and mental; always there is the condemnation by the world, and the apparent failure; always there is the splendid triumph upon higher planes—which, however, remains unknown to ~— eo 2”)60 le ee eee ee —— ——-——— Tue HicHer INITIATIONS 197 the outer world. The peculiar type of suffering which invariably accompanies this Initiation clears off any arrears of karma which may still stand in the Initi- ate’s way; and the patience and joyousness with which he endures them have great value in the strengthening of his character, and help to determine the extent of his usefulness in the work which lies before him. The Crucifixion and Resurrection which symbolize the actual Initiation are thus described in an ancient Egyptian formula: Then shall the candidate be bound upon the wooden cross, he shall die, he shall be buried, and shall descend into the underworld; after the third day he shall be brought back from the dead. Only after three clear days and nights and part of a fourth had passed was the still entranced candidate of those ancient days raised from the sarcophagus in which he had lain, and borne into the outer air at the eastern side of the pyramid or temple, so that the first rays of the rising sun might fall upon his face and awaken him from his long sleep. There is an old proverb, “No cross, no crown,” which may be taken to mean that without man’s descent into matter, his binding on the cross of mat- ter, it would have been impossible for him to gain the resurrection and receive the crown of glory; but by the limitation and through the sorrow and trouble he has gained the victory. It is impossible for us to describe that resurrection; all words that we can em- 198 Tue Masters AND THE PatH ploy seem to sully its splendor, and any attempt at description seems almost blasphemy; but this much may be said, that a complete victory has been gained over all sorrows, troubles and difficulties, temptations and trials, and it is his forever because he has con- quered by knowledge and inner strength. We may recall how the Lord Buddha proclaimed His freedom: Many a House of life Hath held me—seeking ever him who wrought These prisons of the senses, sorrow-fraught ; Sore was my ceaseless strife! But now Thou Builder of this syainrseaiva Paacg iran I know Thee! Never shalt Thou build again These walls of pain, Nor raise the roof-tree of deceits, nor lay Fresh rafters on the clay; Broken Thy house is, and the ridge-pole split! Delusion fashioned it! Safe pass I thence—deliverance to obtain. For the Arhat henceforth the consciousness of the buddhic plane is his while still in the physical body, and when he leaves that body in sleep or trance, he passes at once into the unutterable glory of the nir- vanic plane. At his Initiation he must have at least one glimpse of that nirvanic consciousness, just as at the First Initiation there must be a momentary experience of the buddhic, and now his daily effort will be to reach further and further up into the nir- vanic plane. It is a task of prodigious difficulty, but gradually he will find himself able to work upwards into that ineffable splendor. The entry into it is utterly bewildering, and it Tue Hicguer INITIATIONS 199 brings as its first sensation an intense vividness of life, surprising even to him who is familiar with the buddhic plane. This surprise has been his before, though in a lesser measure, whenever he mounted for the first time from one plane to another. Even when we rise first in full and clear consciousness from the physical plane to the astral, we find the new life to be so much wider than any that we have hitherto known that we exclaim: “I thought I knew what life was, but I have never known before!’”’ When we pass into the mental plane, we find the same feeling re- doubled; the astral was wonderful, but it was noth- ing to the mental world. When we pass into the higher mental plane, again we have the same experi- ence. At every step the same surprise comes over again, and no thought beforehand can prepare one for it, because it is always far more stupendous than anything that we can imagine, and life on all those higher planes is an intensity of bliss for which no words exist. European Orientalists have translated nirvana as annihilation, because the word means “blown out,” as the light of a candle is extinguished by a breath. Nothing could be a more complete antithesis of the truth. Certainly it is the annihilation of all that down here we know as man, because there he is no longer man, but God in man, a God among other Gods, though less than they. Try to imagine the whole universe filled with and consisting of an immense torrent of living light, the 200 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH whole moving, moving onward, without relativity, a resistless onward sweep of a vast sea of light, light with a purpose, if that is comprehensible, tremen- dously concentrated, but absolutely without strain or effort—words fail. At first we feel nothing but the bliss of it, and see nothing but the intensity of the light; but gradually we begin to realize that even in this dazzling brightness there are brighter spots (nuclei, as it were) through which the light obtains a new quality that enables it to become perceptible on lower planes, whose inhabitants without this aid would be altogether beneath the possibility of sensing its effulgence. Then by degrees we begin to realize that these subsidiary suns are the Great Ones, the Plane- tary Spirits, Great Angels, Karmic Deities, Dhyan Chohans, Buddhas, Christs and Masters, and many others Who are to us not even names, and that through Them the light and the life are flowing down to the lower planes. Little by little, as we become more accustomed to this marvelous reality, we begin to see that we are one with Them, though far below the summit of Their splendor, part of the One that dwells somehow in Them all, and also in every point of space between; and that we ourselves are also a focus, and through us at our much lower level the light and life are flowing to those who are still further away (not from it, for all are part of it, and there is nothing else anywhere) but from the realization of it, the com- prehension and experience of it. Tue Hiauer INITIATIONS 201 Madame Blavatsky often spoke of that conscious- ness as having its center everywhere and its circum- ference nowhere, a profoundly suggestive sentence, attributed variously to Pascal, Cardinal de Cusa and the Zohar, but belonging by right to the Books of Hermes. Far indeed from annihilation is such con- sciousness; the Initiate reaching it has not in the least lost the sense that he is himself; his memory is per- fectly continuous; he is the same man, yet all this as well, and now indeed he can say “I am |” knowing what “I” really means. It may sound strange, but it is true. No words that we can use can give even the least idea of such an experience as that, for all with which our minds are acquainted has long ago disappeared before that level is attained. There is, of course, even at that level, a sheath of some sort for the spirit, impossible to describe, for in one sense it seems as though it were an atom and yet in another it seems to be the whole plane. The man feels as if he were everywhere, but could focus anywhere within himself, and wherever for a moment the outpouring of force diminishes, that is for him a body. The man who has once realized that marvelous unity can never forget it, can never be quite as he was before; for however deeply he may veil himself in lower vehicles in order to help and save others, however closely he may be bound to the cross of matter, cribbed, cabined and confined, he can never forget that his eyes have seen the King in His Beauty, that he has beheld the land which is very far off— 202 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH very far off, yet very near, within us all the time if we could only see it, because to reach Nirvana we need not go away to some far-distant heaven, but only open our consciousness to its glory. As the Lord Buddha said long ago: “Do not complain and cry and pray, but open your eyes and see; for the light is all about you, and it is so wonderful, so beau- tiful, so far beyond anything that men have ever dreamed of or prayed for, and it is for ever and for ever.” “The land that is very far off” is a quotation from the Prophet Isaiah, but strangely enough it is a mis- translation. Isaiah did not speak of the land which is very far off, but of the land of far distances, which is a very different idea and one of great beauty. It suggests that the Prophet had had some experiences of these higher planes, and was comparing in his thought the splendor of the star-strewn fields of heaven with the cramped catacombs through which we crawl on earth; for that is what this life is as compared with that higher one, a blind crawling through dark and devious ways as compared with a splendid purposeful life, an utter realization of the divine will ensouling and working through the wills of those who dwell therein. A mighty work the Arhat has before him to climb to the topmost heights of that utmost of human planes of existence, and while he is doing it he must cast off the remaining five of the ten great fetters, which are: 6. Ruparaga—desire for beauty of form or for 0 Sk eee Tue HicHer INITIATIONS 203 physical existence in a form, even including that in the heaven-world. 7. Aruparaga—desire for formless life. 8. Mano—pride. 9. Uddhachcha—agitation or irritability, the pos- sibility of being disturbed by anything. 10. Avtjja—ignorance. The sixth and seventh fetters include not only the idea of Raga, or attraction, but also that of dwesha or repulsion, and the casting off of these fetters im- plies a quality of character such that nothing in the lower planes of form or the higher and formless planes ean hold him by its attraction even for a moment, or can deter him by its disagreeableness if he has work therein. As the eighth fetter, Mano, is filed away, he forgets the greatness of his own achievements, and pride becomes impossible for him, since now he stands always in the light, and measures himself against no lower thing. Then comes the perfect serenity which naught can disturb, leaving him free to acquire all knowledge, to become practically omniscient as re- gards our planetary chain. Now does the Candidate approach the Fifth Initia- tion, that of the Adept; “he hath wrought the purpose through of that which made him man,” so now he takes the final step that makes him Superman— Asekha, as the Buddhists call Him, because He has no more to learn, and has exhausted the possibilities of the human kingdom of nature; Jivanmukta, as the Hindus speak of Him, a liberated life, a free being, 204 Tuer MASTERS AND THE PaTH free not because of any separate independence, but because His will is one with the universal Will, that of the One without a second. He stands ever in the light of Nirvana, even in His waking consciousness, should He choose to remain on earth in a physical body, and when out of that body He rises still higher into the Monadic plane, beyond not merely our words but our thought. Hear again the Lord Buddha: ‘“’ , . Measure not with words The Immeasurable; nor sink the string of thought Into the Fathomless. Who asks doth err, Who answers, errs. Say naught!” In Christian symbolism the Ascension and the De- scent of the Holy Ghost stand for the attainment of Adeptship, for the Adept does ascend clear above humanity, beyond this earth; although if He so chooses, as did the Christ, He may return to teach and help. As He ascends He becomes one with the Holy Ghost, and invariably the first thing He does with His new power is to pour it down upon His dis- ciples, even as the Christ poured down tongues of fire upon the heads of His followers at the Feast of Pen- tecost. A glance at any of the diagrams showing the principles in man, which have been published in earlier books, will show the relation between the manifestations of the Logos in the Prakritic Cosmic plane and in the soul of man; we shall see that the triple atma, the threefold spirit of man, lies in the lower part of the nirvanic or spiritual plane, and that Tue Higuer INITIATIONS 205 the lowest manifestation of the Third Person, God the Holy Ghost, is in the higher part of the same plane. The Adept becomes one with Him at that level, and that is the real explanation of the Christian feast of Whitsunday, the festival of the Holy Spirit. It is on account of unity with Him that the Asekha can take pupils; the Arhat, though he has very much to teach, still works under an Adept, acts for Him and carries out His orders on the physical plane, but does not take pupils for himself, because he has not yet that special link with the Holy Ghost. Above the Initiation of the Adept lies that of the Chohan, and further on still others, of which I will speak in the chapter on the Occult Hierarchy. The ladder of being extends up into clouds of light, into which few of us as yet can penetrate, and when we ask Those who stand higher than we and know in- finitely more than we do, all They can say is that it extends beyond Their sight also. They know very many more steps of it than we do, but it goes still further, onward and upward to unimaginable heights of glory, and no one knows its end. Although what I have just said is perfectly accu- rate, that none of us can see the end of that ladder, and that the work of Those in the higher ranks of the Hierarchy is almost incomprehensible, still I wish to make it perfectly clear that Their existence and work is as real and definite as anything in the world—nay, more so, and that there is not the slightest vagueness about our vision of Those Great Ones. Though I 206 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH know but little about the higher part of His work, for many years past I have seen the Bodhisattva constantly, almost daily, engaged in that work, and I have very many times seen the Lord of the World in His wonderful and incomprehensible existence; so that They are to me people just as real as any whom I know, and I am as certain as I can possibly be of Their existence and of something of the part that They play in the world. Of the tremendous truth of what I can say about Them I am utterly certain, and yet I cannot explain Them, nor understand more than a fragment of what They are doing. I have seen Dhyan Chohans and Planetary Spirits and Ambassadors from other solar systems, and I know absolutely of the existence and transcendent glory of those people, but what Their tremendous life work may be I do not know at all. I have myself seen the Manifestation of the Logos of the Solar System, seen Him as He is among His Peers, and yet millions of times more than the unspeakable grandeur that I have seen in Him must be that which They see when They look at Him. As Arjuna in The Bhagavad Gita is said to have seen the Divine Form, so have I seen, without the shadow of a doubt. And I want to put my testimony on record that these things are so. I dare say that I lay myself open to a certain amount of scorn for writing this; people will ask, “Who are you, to say these things?” But I have seen, and it would be cowardly to refuse to bear witness. Tue HIGHER INITIATIONS 207 I have repeatedly declared, both in speech and in writing, that I wish no one to base his belief in The- osophy upon any assertion of mine. I think that each man should study the system for himself and come to his own conclusions, the fundamental reason for his acceptance of any doctrine being either that he knows it from his own experience or that he finds it the most reasonable hypothesis at present before him. But that in no way alters the fact that I have evi- dence to give to those who care to listen to it—evi- dence which I have placed before them in this and other books. We who write upon Theosophy in this twentieth century can fully reaffirm St. John’s plain statement of nearly two thousand years ago: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled . that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” We who have seen bear witness; whether the world accepts our testimony makes little difference to us. Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest, Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny: Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I. Immediately beyond the Asekha Initiation this higher Path opens up in seven great ways, among which the Adept must take His choice, and on this subject I cannot do better than quote what was said in Man: Whence, How and Whither: 208 Tue MAsTeRS AND THE PATH When the human kingdom is traversed, and man stands on the threshold of His superhuman life, a liberated Spirit, seven paths open before Him for His choosing: He may enter into the blissful omniscience and omnipresence of Nirvana, with activities far beyond our knowledge, to become, perchance, in some future world an Avatara, or divine Incarnation: this is sometimes called “taking the Dharmakaya vesture.” He may enter on “the Spiritual Period”— a phrase covering unknown meanings, among them probably that of “taking the Sambho- gakaya vesture.’ He may become part of that treasure-house of spiritual forces on which the Agents of the Logos draw for Their work, “taking the Nirmanakaya vesture.” He may re- main a member of the Occult Hierarchy which rules and guards the world in which He has reached perfection. He may pass on to the next Chain, to aid in building up its forms. He may enter the splendid Angel or Deva Evolution. He may give Himself to the immediate service of the Logos, to be used by Him in any part of the Solar System, His Servant and Messenger, who lives but to carry out His will and do His work over the whole of the system which He rules. As a General has his staff, the members of which carry his mes- sages to any part of the field, so are These the Staff of Him Who commands all, “Ministers of His that do His pleasure.” This seems to be considered a very hard Path, perhaps the greatest sacrifice open to the Adept, and is therefore regarded as carrying with it great distinction. A member of the Gen- eral Staff has no physical body, but makes one for Himself by kriyashakti—the “power to make”—of the matter of the globe to which He is sent. The Staff contains Beings at very dif- ferent levels, from that: of Arhatship upwards. The man who takes the Dharmakaya robe retires into the Monad, and drops even his nirvanic atom; the Sambhogakaya retains His nirvanic atom and shows Himself as the Triple Spirit, and the Nirman- akaya retains His causal body and also the perma- nent atoms which He has carried all through His evolution, so that at any moment He can materialize round them mental, astral and physical bodies, if He so desires. He definitely keeps His link with the Tue Higuer INITIATIONS 209 world from which He has come, in order that He may supply the reservoir from which spiritual power is poured down upon that world. The Nirmanakaya are spoken of in The Voice of the Silence as forming a Guardian Wall which preserves the world from fur- ther and far greater misery and sorrow. For those who do not understand the inner meaning that seems to imply that the misery and sorrow come to the world from outside, and that these Great Ones ward it off, but that is not so at all, for all the trouble in the world comes from those who suffer it. Each man is his own law-giver, each decrees his own doom or reward; but the duty of the Nirmanakaya is to sup- ply a great store of spiritual force for the helping of men. All the time They generate this force, taking no part for Themselves, but putting it all at the serv- ice of the Brotherhood for Their use in lifting the heavy burden of the world. It will thus be seen that of those who attain Adept- ship comparatively few remain on our earth as mem- bers of the Occult Hierarchy, but These and Their work are of vital importance, so we will devote to that subject the remaining chapters of this book. CHAPTER XI THE WORK OF THE MASTERS I have already explained that of the human beings who attain Adeptship, but a few remain on our earth as members of the Occult Hierarchy, to promote the evolution of life upon it in accordance with God’s plan. At present there are some fifty or sixty of these Supermen so engaged, and of Their general work our President has written as follows in her pamphlet on The Masters: They aid, in countless ways, the progress of humanity. From the highest sphere They shed down light and life on all the world, that may be taken up and assimilated, as freely as the sunshine, by all who are receptive enough to take it in. As the physical world lives by the life of God, focused by the sun, so does the spiritual world live by that same life, focused by the Occult Hierarchy. Next, the Masters specially connected with religions use these religions as reservoirs into which They pour spiritual energy, to be distributed to the faithful in each religion through the duly appointed “means of grace.” Next comes the great intellec- tual work, wherein the Masters send out thought-forms of high intellectual power to be caught up by men of genius, assimilated by them and given out to the world; on this level also They send out Their wishes to Their disciples, notifying them of the tasks to which they should set their hands. Then comes the work in the lower mental world, the generation of the thought-forms which influence the con- crete mind and guide it along useful lines of activity in this world, and the teaching of those who are living in the heavenly world. Then the large activities of the intermediate Tue Work oF THE MASTERS 211 world, the helping of the so-called dead, the general direc- tion and supervision of the teaching of the younger pupils and the sending of aid in numberless cases of need. In the physical world the watching of the tendencies of events, the correction and neutralizing, as far as law permits, of evil currents, the constant balancing of the forces that work for and against evolution, the strengthening of the good, the weakening of the evil. In conjunction with the Angels of the Nations also They work, guiding the spiritual forces as the others guide the material. We may consider more fully some of the lines of work, here indicated in small compass with the sweep of vision for which our President is world-renowned. Though the number of Adepts is small, They have arranged that in all the world no life shall be dis- regarded or neglected, so They have divided the earth into special areas in somewhat the same way as in older countries the Church has divided the whole: land into parishes, so that wherever a man may live he is within one of these geographical divisions and has a definite Church organization to administer to his spiritual and sometimes to his bodily needs. The parishes of the Adepts, however, are not country districts or parts of towns, but huge countries and even continents. As the world is at present divided, one great Adept may be said to be in charge of Europe, and another looks after India; and thus the whole world is par- celed out. The parishes do not follow our political or geographical boundaries, but within His territory the Adept has all the different grades and forms of evolution to regard—not only our own, but also the: 212 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH great kingdom of the Angels, of the various classes of Nature Spirits, the animals, vegetables and min- erals beneath us, the kingdoms of the elemental es- sence, and many others of which so far nothing has been heard by mankind; so there is a vast amount of work to be accomplished. In addition to the guard- ianship of the Adepts, each race or country has also the assistance of a Spirit of the Race, a deva or guardian Angel who watches over it and helps to guide its growth, and corresponds in many ways to the ancient conception of a tribal Deity, though he stands at a considerably higher level. Such an one, for example, was Pallas Athene. There are many different sets of influences at work in the service of the Logos for the evolution of man, and naturally they all operate in the same direction, and in cooperation with one another. We must never make the mistake of attributing to these great agencies the disasters which sometimes overtake countries, as in the case of the French Revolution and the recent upheavals in Russia. Those are due en- tirely to the savage passions of the people which have run riot and caused destruction instead of construc- tion, and they illustrate the danger to which the work of the Adepts and the Spirit of the Race is exposed when They make experiments along democratic lines. There is terrible evil involved in tyranny, and some- times great suffering also, but at least there is some sort of control; and the great problem in getting rid of the tyranny is how to do it without losing social Tue Work oF THE MASTERS 213 stability and self-control. When that goes many persons fail to keep the human end uppermost in their own personalities, passion rises, crowds run riot, and the people become liable to obsession by great waves of undesirable influence. The national Angel tries to guide the feelings of the people; he is interested in them in great masses, and he would when necessary urge them to great patriotism and heroic deeds, just as a general might encourage his men to advance on the field of battle; but he is never reckless of their lives or careless of their suffering any more than a wise general would be. A large part of the Adepts’ work, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, lies at levels far. beyond the physical, as They are engaged in pouring out Their own power, and also the force from the great store filled by the Nirmanakaya. It is the karma of the world that it shall have a certain amount of this uplifting force at its service, and even ordinary men who turn their wills into line with the Divine Will, by directing their thought and feeling to the service of humanity, add to the reservoir a little, and are thus privileged to share in the great sacrifice. On account of this, humanity is evolving as a unit, and the miracle of brotherhood enables everyone to make: much more progress than would be even remotely possible were he standing entirely by himself. All this is part of the scheme of the Logos, Who appar- ently has calculated upon our taking part in His plan. When He devised it He thought: “When My peopie- 214 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH shall rise to a certain level, they will begin to cooper- ate intelligently with Me; therefore I will arrange. so that when they come to that point they will be able to draw upon My power.” Thus He is counting upon everyone. The Brotherhood is one with all humanity on higher leveis, and through its agency the distribution of the supply of force from the great reservoir takes place for men. They are raying upon all egos without ex- ception in the higher mental plane, and thus giving the greatest possible assistance to the unfoldment of the indwelling life. That life is like a seed which cannot die and must grow, because the principle of evolution, the Logos Himself, is at the heart of its very being; in man the plant has already risen through the soil and is seeking the upper air, and the rapidity — of its development is now very largely due to the sun- light of the spiritual force that comes through the channels of the Hierarchy. This is one of the many ways in which the more advanced help the less ad- vanced, as they share more and more the divine nature, in accordance with the divine plan. Each of the Adepts Who has undertaken this spe- cial work is raying out upon enormous numbers of people, running often into many millions simultane- ously, and yet such is the wonderful quality of this power that He pours forth that it adapts itself to each one of these millions as though he were the only . object of its influence, and it appears as though what for us would be full attention were being given to Tue Work OF THE MASTERS 215 that one. It is difficult to explain on the physical plane how this may be—but it arises from the fact that the Master’s nirvanic consciousness‘is a kind of point which yet includes the entire plane. He can bring that point down through several planes and spread it out like a kind of vast bubble. On the out- side of that huge sphere are all the causal bodies which He is trying to affect, and He, filling the sphere, appears all in all to each individual. In this way He fills with His life the ideals of millions of people, and is for them respectively the ideal Christ, the ideal Rama, the ideal Krishna, an Angel or per- haps a spirit guide. This is quite a different kind of work from the superintendence of one of the great parishes, and in it the Master pays attention chiefly to pupils of one type, those who are developing along His own line of evolution, though naturally most of them are quite unconscious of His action. He has also many special cases to deal with, and for this purpose sometimes delegates part of this work to Devas, leaving them considerable liberty within cer- tain well-defined limits. The Devas in their turn employ nature-spirits and make a variety of thought- forms, and there is thus a large field of activity con- nected with their work. In The Science of the Sacraments I have explained how the Great Ones take advantage of the ceremonies of all religions to pour out Their power over the world on the lower planes, and thus to stimulate in as many men as possible the spiritual growth of which each 216 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH is capable. But it is not only in connection with religious ceremonial that this is done, for the Broth- erhood makes use of every opportunity that offers. If there be a gathering of people who are all under the influence of devotion, all bent for the time being upon nobler and higher thought, such a gathering offers to the Adepts an unusual opportunity, of which They will straightway make use, since it forms a focus which They can employ as a channel for spiritual influence. When people are scattered and living in their homes, they are like a number of sep- arated lines down each of which but a little force can flow, but when they come together at a meeting, it is as though these were combined to make a kind of pipe through which a much greater flood of bless- ing may be poured than the sum of what could de- scend through the separate lines. I have seen a million pilgrims together in the holy city of Benares, many of them no doubt ignorant and superstitious, but for the time full of devotion and utterly one-pointed. The mass of devotional feeling generated by such a crowd is almost incalculable, and the Adepts never miss the opportunity of utilizing it for good. It is, of course, unquestionable that a sim- ilar number of equally enthusiastic but intelligent people would supply vastly more force—and also force capable of playing upon a higher plane alto- gether; but we must not for a moment make the mis- take of ignoring the value of the vast amount of energy produced by ignorant and even fanatical peo- Tue Work OF THE MASTERS 217 ple. The members of the Brotherhood have a won- derful faculty of separating the evil from the good, or rather of drawing out the last ounce of force which can be used for good, even from the midst of a great deal that is evil. It is common to find the most intense devotion allied with bitter sectarian feeling; in such a case the Adept will extract and make use of every particle of the devotional feeling, simply ignoring and leav- ing behind the savage hatred which to us seems to be a part of it. Therefore people with most undesir- able characteristics often produce a certain amount of good karma, though it is undeniable that it would be far greater if it were dissociated from the other unfortunate qualities. Such a city as Benares is always a tremendous center of force, even quite apart from the annual pilgrimages. It is a city of shrines and relics, and these also can be utilized as channels by the Adepts; and the same is true of such things the world over. In some place, for example, there may be a relic of a great saint belonging to any one of the religions of the world. If the relic is genuine, a certain amount of strong magnetism does radiate from it, on account of its connection with a worthy man, and it may therefore be used to bless those who reverence it by sending through it a stream of force. In many cases, however, the relic is not genuine; but that, which to us would seem a most important fact, in reality mat- ters less than one might suppose. | 218 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH If for a long time people have made a great center of devotional feeling around it, on that account alone the Brotherhood can use it as effectively as a genuine relic, and the fact that the people are deluded in their belief does not affect its usefulness, since their devo- tion is genuine, and that is the important thing. If this were more fully understood, it would probably check many thoughtless people who are inclined to ridicule the superstitions of the Catholic peasants in Italy or Sicily or Spain, or to look down upon Indian coolies because they pay homage at some shrine which is obviously not what it is supposed to be. There is no doubt that truth is better than error, yet we must remember that it is not well to tear away from the ignorant the objects of their devotion until they are able to rise to higher things; by such iconoclasm the world is the poorer, for by it not only is devotion destroyed, but useful channels of the Masters’ force may be closed. Besides, it is obviously impossible for an ignorant peasant to judge as to the genuineness of a relic, and it would be grossly unfair that the effect of his de- votion, poured out with good intention and in all innocence of heart, should be made to depend upon a fact as to which he can have no knowledge. In the great world of realities things are never so badly managed as that; the true devotion will find full and hearty response whether the object round which it is focused is or is not all that he thinks it to be. The devotion is the real thing—the only thing that mat- Tue Work OF THE MASTERS 219 ters, and it must and does receive the real return which it deserves. ‘The supposed relic is merely a point upon which it is focused, and an imaginary point will do for this as well as any other. I have already mentioned that the pupils of the Masters are also apprentices, but at their lower level they serve as transmitters of force, and also do a great variety of work in every branch of civilization and human culture, all of which is part of the Adepts’ work in the world. A vast amount of this is done by others who have received inspiration or sugges- tion from these pupils, or through the various socie- ties and agencies that they have set going or influ- enced. Without these influences humanity would be poor indeed, though for the most part it knows little of the source of its true wealth. The Adepts Themselves cannot turn aside from Their exalted work to do these lower and easier tasks, because if They did the whole machinery of evolution would suffer. Men sometimes ask why these Great Ones have not written books; for example. They forget that the Adepts are carrying on the evolution of the world; They can hardly drop that in order to give people information with regard to some part of it. It is true that if One of the Great Ones had the time to write a book, if His energy could not be better employed, that book would be far superior to any that we have. But if it were the plan of things that all work should be done by those who can already do it perfectly sp "4 They Save lf AC f Bee ait, ie TNty Nave. C£ MiGs Fe : ‘ vr" Ve f Ww h 0 S¢ maw é 7 1 are Lows 7 220 Tue MAstTerRS AND THE PaTH there would be no field for the exercise of our facul- ties, and it would be difficult to see any utility in our existence in this world. A department of activity which has recently been organized on a large scale by pupils of the Masters is that of practical service on the astral plane, about which I have written in the book, Invisible Helpers. The greatest part of that work is among the newly dead, who often find themselves there confused, bewil- dered, and even suffering, especially. when they have been frightened during life by the hideous stories of dreadful torture after death which form part of the stock-in-trade of some perverted religious sects. Though it is many years ago, it is still within the life of the Theosophical Society, that the organized band of invisible helpers was founded and set to work. It was originally composed of people still liv- ing who had decided to use their time during the sleep of the body in this definite way; but they soon drew to themselves a great many already dead, who had not thought of this work before. Until that time, newcomers to the astral world were mostly left to themselves, unless it occurred to their relations to meet them and introduce them to the new life. For example, a mother who died would still watch over her children, and if any of the chil- dren died shortly after the mother she would give them what help and information she could; and gen- erally the good-natured people among the dead would pass on to others what knowledge they possessed THE WorkK oF THE MASTERS 221 when they saw the need of help. In older civiliza- tions, when large families and joint families were the rule, perhaps comparatively few people found them- selves without a friend in need on the other side of death. Readers of Oriental literature will remember how much is said in Hindu religious books about the importance of family ties and duties as extending to the invisible regions beyond the veil of death. Still, the condition there was somewhat like that of a country without hospitals or schools or bureaus of public information, where many must suffer, and in times of special calamity and war that was often most serious. An excellent picture of the way in which the Adepts work for the betterment of civilization is given in our President’s London Lectures of 1907, in which she tells us something of the steps that were taken by the Brotherhood to lift Europe out of the terrible dark- ness of the Middle Ages. She explains that in the thirteenth century a mighty personage then living in ‘Tibet promulgated His order to the Brotherhood that in the third quarter of every century an effort should be made to enlighten Europe. If one goes through history carefully, one can find that from that time onward, towards the end of each century a new ray of light was sent forth from the Lodge.* (See Dia- gram 1 on page 222.) The latest of these efforts was the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875. After careful consid- eration the Masters Morya and Kuthumi undertook 222 Tue MAaAsTEeRS AND THE PATH the responsibility of that step, and chose that noble worker, Madame Blavatsky, to help Them on the physical plane. Most students of Theosophical lit- erature know how she was prepared for what she had to do; how in due course the Brotherhood sent her to America to search for Colonel Olcott, the comrade who would supply what was lacking in herself—the power of organization and of speaking to men and gathering them round him and shaping them into a ” * These have been worked out by Mr Fritz Kunz as follows: re ne rE eR SETS SR A RS A SE A SRR RE ER EFFORT 1275 Roger Bacon and the restoration of mental culture 1375 Christian Rosenkreuz and the spread of culture The printed book: fixation of knowledge 1575 Francis Ba¢on and Science: English lan- guage the medium 1675 Union of classes attempted: secret societies 1775 Political freedom, unfortunately mainly by revolution 1875 | Theosophical Society: Society for Psychical Research: Liberal Catholic Church: Co-Masonry: Evolution 1975 Wide spread of what is now esotericism: _ Evolution (spiritual) - DIAGRAM 1 = Se Tue Work oF THE MASTERS 223 movement in the outer world—and how the Society was founded in New York, and later had: its Head- quarters removed to India. As I write, our Society is in its fiftieth year of service to humanity, and it is impossible to estimate the vast amount of good it has done in every depart- ment of human life. Its influence cannot in the least be measured by the number of its members or branches, although that is by no means insignificant, since it extends to every civilized part of the globe. But in each field of human endeavor it has sounded its characteristic note, the reverberations of which multiply around us in the words and work of states- men and scientists, literary men and artists, and many others of whom great numbers perhaps have never even heard the word Theosophy. It has drawn attention to the realities of the invisible world and the power of mind. It has voiced the claims in out- ward life of the fact of brotherhood, seeking no uni- formity in human life, but the organization for mutual support of widely different individuals, each of whom shall be strong in his special type, and all of whom shall be bound together by the indissoluble bond of respect for the man who is different from oneself. It has brought together East and West as never before, and has demanded fair play in the com- parison of religions, and revealed with unmistakable clearness their essential unity of teaching and their common source. And it has brought thousands to the feet of the Masters to serve Them with all their 224 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatHu power and with all their hearts for the good of man-- kind for all time to come. In its work for the world the Brotherhood deals: not only with the present, but looks far into the future and prepares for the development of new races and nations in which the qualities of humanity shall be developed in harmonious sequence. As we shall see in the chapter on the Occult Hierarchy, the progress of mankind takes place in no haphazard manner, but the formation of the’ races with their special characteristics, physical, emotional and men- tal (serving as classes in the great world school for the development of special qualities) is as precise and definite as the curriculum and time-table of any modern college. The great Aryan race which, though not yet at its prime, dominates the world to-day with its supreme gift of intellect, has followed after the Atlantean race, the people of which still form the majority of man- kind and occupy a great portion of the land surface of our globe. In this connection three great pieces of work are in hand at the present time, the first of which is the preparation for the physical embodiment and ac- tivity among men of the Bodhisattva or World- Teacher, Who is the same great Personage, the Christ, Who occupied the body of Jesus two thousand years ago. His coming must not be confused with the centennial events already mentioned; those be- long to the First Ray and are in the department of Tue Work or THE MASTERS 225 occult work that deals with the guidance of races and subdivisions of races; whereas this is an event which occurs only once in a long time, and is an ac- tivity of the Second Ray, the department of religion and education. The World-Teacher will come when He thinks well, but we are told that the Coming will be soon. The Order of the Star in the East was established thirteen years ago to prepare for that Coming by drawing together people of every sect and religion all over the world who for various reasons believe in the near approach of the World-Teacher, and are willing to combine in a grand effort to pro- claim it to the world, and prepare themselves as far as may be to be useful servants of the Lord when He comes. Since the Lord Maitreya has chosen to announce His coming to the world through our President, we are justified, I think, in assuming that His teaching will be somewhat along the line of the ideals that she has been promulgating with such wonderful eloquence during the last thirty-six years. Some sects claim that He will come to judge mankind and to destroy the earth, so that there is a great element of fear and uncertainty connected with their beliefs. But all fear of God comes from a misunderstanding. The Coming of Christ is indeed connected with an end—not the end of the world, but the end of an age or dispensa- tion. The Greek word is aion, which is the same as zon in English; and just as Christ said two thou- sand years ago that the dispensation of the Jewish 226 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH law had come to an end, because He had come to found a new one, that of the gospel, so will the era of the gospel come to an end when He returns and founds yet another. He will give the same great teaching; the teaching must be the same, for there is only one Truth, though perhaps it may be put a little more clearly for us now, because we know a little more. It will be promulgated in some fresh dress, perhaps, with some beauty of expression which will be exactly suited to us in this present day, and there will be some statement of it which will appeal to a large number of people. It will certainly be the same, because it has ap- peared in all the existing faiths. They have differed much in their method of presenting it, but they all agree absolutely in the life which they ask their followers to live. We find considerable difference between the external teachings of Christianity, Bud- dhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism; but if we examine the good men of any one of those religions and inquire into their daily practice, we shall find that they all are leading precisely the same life— that they all agree as to the virtues a good man must possess, and as to the evils he must avoid. They all tell us that a man must be charitable, truthful, kindly, honorable, helpful to the poor; they all tell us that a man who is hard and grasping and cruel, who is untruthful and dishonorable, is making no progress, and has no chance of success until he changes his ways. As practical people we must recognize that | Tue Work OF THE MASTERS 227 the things or real importance in any religion are not the vague metaphysical speculations on’ matters of which no one can really know anything for certain, for these can have no influence upon our conduct; the important things are the precepts which affect our daily lives, which make us this kind of man or that kind of man in our relations with our fellow-men. Those precepts are the same in all existing religions; they will be the same in the new teaching, whatever it may be. Perhaps we may go a little further than that in predicting what He will teach. Surely, the great central truth which He will emphasize is that the evils of the world come from lack of love and brotherliness—that if man will learn to love and to adopt the brotherly attitude, all evil will pass away and the golden age will dawn upon us. Not imme- diately—we cannot hope for that; but at least men will begin to see for themselves, and to understand how much more is to be gained along that line than the other. The second of these great events is the molding of the form of body, emotions and mind of the sixth subrace of our Aryan race, which has already begun to appear in America and Australia and perhaps other parts of the world. The great modeling power of the Manu’s mind and will is at work on the inner planes, modifying even the physical type of the chil- dren of the new age, wherever they may be suscep- tible to it, and some of the junior members of the 228 Tue MASsTers AND THE PatTH Brotherhood, working in the outer world, have their instructions to provide for these, when possible, the education and training that befits the new race. This work is small as yet, but it is destined to swell into voluminous proportions, until within a few short centuries the sixth subrace will stand out distinct and admirable in its young manhood in the new world, while the old world continues to develop the fifth subrace to its maturity and perfection. And perchance later still the sixth subrace, radiant and glorious in its manhood, will shed its blessing upon the fifth, so that for the first time a race shall have a serene and dignified decline into fruitful and vener- able age. That may be the reward of its present and coming service to the infant race, and of its fight, full of sacrifice but triumphant, against the powers of darkness, opening up possibilities for man such as the race has never known before. We must try to understand what is meant by be- longing to the new sixth subrace. Our ideas are too inelastic. When the sixth subrace is fully established, it will show certain definite characteristics—physical, astral and mental—which are not to be seen in the average man of the fifth subrace. Remember, it has to be built gradually out of the fifth subrace, and these new characteristics must be developed one by one in each of the egos concerned. The process of preparation is a long one, and may well extend over several lives. So when you look round and examine Tue Work or THE MASTERS 229 people (and especially young people) from this point of view, we must not expect to be able to say off- hand that one belongs to the new subrace, and an- other does not. A more accurate statement would be something like this: “A seems to possess about twenty-five per cent of the characteristics of the new subrace; B has per- haps as much as fifty per cent; C has a large pro- portion—perhaps seventy-five per cent; in D I cannot see anything lacking; as far as I can tell he is a fully developed example.” And you must understand that the average boy or girl whom you think hopeful is probably an A, for B’s are as yet very rare in the world, and C’s and D’s practically non-existent, ex- cept in our own tiny circle. Remember also that developments are very unequal; a boy may have made a considerable amount of astral or mental progress before it shows much in his physical body; and on the other hand, through good heredity, he may have a physical body capable of expressing greater advancement on higher planes than he has yet at- tained. Very few can expect to show all the signs yet; they may be well satisfied if they show one or two. Even at its culmination it will not be uniform; for example, it is in the main a dolichocephalous race, but it will always have brachycephalous subdivisions; it will contain fair-haired and dark-haired people, people with blue eyes and people with brown. Natu- 230 Tuer MASTERS AND THE PaTH rally the astral and mental traits are the more impor- tant, but in most cases it is only by the physical ap- pearance that one can make an estimate. The keynote is unselfishness, and the dominant is eager enthus- iasm for service; and these must be accompanied by active kindliness and large-hearted tolerance. He who forgets his own pleasure, and thinks only how he can help others, has already gone far on the path. Discrimination and common sense are also marked characteristics. If we wish to know for what physical tokens we may look, perhaps the most marked of all are deli- cate, well-shaped hands and feet, thin fingers and oval nails, especially thinness in fingers and thumb when seen edgewise. The texture of the skin is also important. Of faces there are three types—the markedly oval with high forehead, the slightly less oval with broad forehead, and the practically brachy- cephalous (this last being rare; the definition of a brachycephalous skull is that its breadth is four- fifths of its length). There is a distinguishing ex- pression about the person who is approaching the sixth subrace which one who looks for it will soon begin to recognize. The third great event is the foundation of the sixth root-race, which is to take place physically in Cali- fornia about seven hundred years from now. A com- munity will be established there with the Manu of that race, He who is now our Master Morya, at the Se ee ee oF Se -TuHer Work oF THE MASTERS 231 Head of it, and beside Him His co-worker through- out the ages, the Master Kuthumi, who is to be the Bodhisattva of the sixth root-race. We have written of that community in Man: Whence, How and Whither. Although it les some hundreds of years ahead, which after all is but a brief time in the life of a man, as all of us will realize when we look back upon it, preparations are swiftly afoot for that also, and the Theosophical Society is playing no incon- siderable part in those. Every branch of the Society is or ought to be encouraging each one of its mem- bers in his efforts to apply in the outer world the Theosophic knowledge that he has gained; he must, of course, do that according to his temperament and ability, and his opportunities as he mixes with men; but all that helps the present race. Within the The- osophical Lodge where so many different types of men foregather and must help one another if the Lodge be true to its ideals, a breadth of character should be developed in the members, for they receive in this respect an education in the spirit of broth- erhood which can scarcely be had elsewhere in the world. Most societies are organized for the attain- ment of one goal or one purpose, but in the Theosoph- ical Society we know that although one model of perfection appeals most strongly to one man and another to another, the brotherhood of man will not be achieved by the triumph of any one ideal, be it love, or truth, or beauty alone, but by the twisting 232 Tue Masters AND THE PatTH of all these strands into one mighty rope which will bind man forever to the Divine. As was said in the Hitopadesha long ago: Small things wax exceeding mighty, Being cunningly combined; Furious elephants are fastened With a rope of grass-blades twined. Such is the spirit of brotherhood gradually ac- quired by the ‘true Theosophist, holding to his fellow by inner impulse, not by outward compulsion, and membership in the Society is verily a training by the Masters that, if successful, will fit the man to be reborn in the community of the sixth root-race when it is established on the physical plane. CuapTer XII THE CHOHANS AND THE RAYS In the last chapter I have tried to describe some of the many avenues of work of the great Masters, but there are, of course, many others, and some about which we know practically nothing; yet what we do know indicates that the work is vast and varied, and that the Adepts deal with it in different ways, ac- cording to Their own temperaments and preferences. There is a sevenfold division running through all things, as I must explain more fully presently, and this appears also in the Great White Brotherhood. In the Hierarchy the seven Rays are clearly distin- guished. The First or ruling Ray is governed by the Lord of the World; at the head of the Second Ray stands the Lord Buddha, and under These come re- spectively the Manu and the Bodhisattva of the root race which is predominant in the world at any given time. Parallel in rank with These is the Maha- Chohan, Who supervises all the other five Rays, each of which nevertheless has also its own Head. In my next chapter I will explain what I can about the loftier ranks of the Hierarchy, attempting in this to 234 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH render some account of the work of the Heads of Rays Three to Seven, and of the Masters Morya and Kuthumi who stand at Their level on the First and Second Rays. The title Chohan is given to those Adepts Who have taken the Sixth Initiation, but the same word is employed also for the Head of Rays Three to Seven, which is a very definite and exalted office in the Hierarchy. We are given to understand that the meaning of the word Chohan is simply “Lord,” and that it is used both generally and specifically, in much the same way as the word Lord is employed in England. We speak of a man as a lord because he possesses that title, but that is quite different from what we mean when we speak, for example, of the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Lieutenant of the County. The term appears again in the name Dhyan Chohan, which occurs frequently in The Secret Doctrine and elsewhere, and then it refers to Beings of very high station, altogether outside the Occult Hierarchy of our planet. It is necessary at this point, if we are to under- stand at all this part of the work of the Masters, to digress a little and say something of what is meant by the seven Rays. This is a matter of con- siderable difficulty. Long ago we received some in- formation, very incomplete certainly, but still very valuable—about these Rays. I remember well the occasion on which it was given to us. Mr. Cooper- THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 235 Oakley and I and a Hindu brother were sitting talk- ing on the roof at Adyar in the very early days, when there was only the one headquarters house and twenty-nine acres of half-jungle behind it, and there came to us suddenly the Master Djwal Kul, who was at that time the chief pupil of the Master Kuthumi. He gave us a great deal of teaching in those days, and was always very kind and patient, and while He sat and talked to us that day this question of the Rays came up. Mr. Cooper-Oakley in his char- acteristic way said, “O, please, Master, will you tell us all about the Rays?” There was a twinkle in our Teacher’s eye as He said, ‘Well, I cannot tell you all about them until you have reached a very high Initiation. Will you have what I can tell you, which will be partial and inevitably misleading, or will you wait until you can be told the whole thing?” Not unnaturally we thought that half a loaf was better than no bread, so we said we would take what we could get. We noted down the very interesting information that He gave, but much of it was incomprehensible to us, as He had foretold. He said, “I cannot tell you any more than that, for I am bound by certain pledges; but if your intuition can make out more I will tell you whether you are right.”’ Even that little frag- mentary information was of very great value to us. The following is the table of Rays and their char- acteristics He then gave to us: 236 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH } Cuaracteristic Maaic Last RELIGION Ray CHARACTERISTIC OF Ray Wisdom Raja Yoga Buddhism (Human Mind) 3 Astrology Chaldean ae Aisa (Natural Magnetie Forces) bearer Birth of Horus Hatha Yoga Egyptian (Physical Development) 5 Fire Alchemy Z Zoroastrian (Material Substances) Incarnation of Deity Bhakti Christianity, ete (Devotion) (Kahala, etc.) inf io areal DIAGRAM 2 Elemental! Worship It was explained that the religion written opposite each Ray is not to be taken as necessarily a perfect exposition of it, but is simply that which now remains on earth as a relic of the last occasion on which that Ray exercised dominant influence on the world. The Magic of the First Ray and the characteristics of the Seventh were not given. ‘The meaning of the Birth of Horus could not be explained, but one of the characteristics of the Fourth Ray was stated to be the use of the forces of action and interaction— the male and female forces of nature, as it were. Whenever phallicism occurs in the various religions it is always due to a materialization and misconcep- 2 = = Tur CHOHANS AND THE Rays 237 tion of some of the secrets connected with this Ray. The true development of the Seventh Ray would be communication with and instruction from the higher Devas. After what I have said above it should be clear that the information that has as yet reached us about the Rays is fragmentary. It is not only not a full account of the subject, but is not even a perfect out- line, for we were plainly told that there were huge gaps in the description given to us which could not possibly be filled up till much later. So far as we know very little has hitherto been written on this subject, and that little so guardedly expressed as not to be at all readily intelligible, and occult teachers are markedly reticent when questioned about it.* The essential thing to understand is that there is a certain sevenfold division of everything that exists in the manifested world, whether of life or matter. All life which exists in our chain of worlds passes through and belongs to one or other of seven Rays, each hav- ing seven subdivisions. In the universe there are forty-nine such Rays, making, in sets of seven, the seven great cosmic Rays, flowing from or through the seven Great Logoi. In our chain of worlds, however, and perhaps in our solar system, only one of these *While this book is in the press an important work on the subject appears, The Seven Rays, by Professor Ernest Wood. The material which it gives is illuminative, and is presented from quite a new angle. 238 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH great cosmic Rays is operating, and its subdivisions are our seven Rays. It must not, of course, be sup- posed that our solar system is the only manifestation of that particular Logos, since each of the seven Great Logoi may have millions of systems dependent upon Him. As I have explained in The Inner Life: The whole of our solar system is a manifestation of its Logos, and every particle in it is definitely part of Huis vehicles. All the physical matter of the solar system taken as a totality constitutes His physical body; all the astral matter within it constitutes His astral body; all the mental matter, His mental body, and so on. Entirely above and beyond His system He has a far wider and greater existence of His own, but that does not in the least affect the truth of the statement which we have just made. This solar Logos contains within Himself seven planetary Logoi, Who are as it were centers of force within Him, chan- nels through which His force pours out. Yet at the same time there is a sense in which they may be said to constitute Him. The matter which we have just described as com- posing His vehicles also composes theirs, for there is no par- ticle of matter anywhere in the system which is not part of one or other of them. All this is true of every plane; but let us for a moment take the astral plane as an example, because its matter is fluid enough to answer the purposes of our inquiry, and at the same time it is near enough to the physical to be not entirely beyond the limits of our physical comprehension. Every particle of the astral matter of the system is part of the astral body of the solar Logos, but it is also part of the astral body of one or other of the seven Planetary Logoi. Remember that this includes the astral matter of which your astral body and mine are composed. We have no particle which is exclusively our own. In every astral body there are particles belonging to each one of the seven Planetary Logoi, but the proportions vary infinitely. The bodies of those Monads which originally came forth through a Planetary Logos will continue all through their evolution to have more of the particles of that Planetary Logos than of any other, and in this way people may be distinguished as primarily belonging to one or other of these seven great Powers. tig Sa ~~ Se THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 239 In Christian terms these seven great, Beings are found in the vision of St. John the Evangelist, who said: “And there are seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the Seven Spirits of God.” Those are the Mystical Seven, the great Planetary Logoi, Who are life-centers in the very Logos Himself. Those are the true Heads of our Rays—the Heads for the whole solar system, not for our world only. Out through one or other of that mighty Seven every one of us must have come— some through one, some through another. They are the Seven Sublime Lords of The Secret Doctrine, the Primordial Seven, the Creative Powers, the Incorporeal Intelligences, the Dhyan Chohans, the Angels of the Presence. But remember that this last title is used in two quite different senses, which must not be confused. At every Celebration of the Holy Eucharist of our Christian brethren there ap- pears an “Angel of the Presence,’ who is in truth a thought-form of the Lord Christ, a vehicle of His consciousness, and so is rightly called a manifesta- tion of His Presence; but these Seven Great Ones receive the title for a very different reason—because They stand ever in the very presence of the Logos Himself, representing there the Rays of which They are the Heads—representing wus therefore, since in every one of us is part of the Divine Life of every one of Them. For though each of us belongs fundamentally to one Ray—the channel through which he, as a Monad, 240 Tue MASsTers AND THE PATH flowed forth from the Eternal into Time—yet has he within himself something of all the Rays; there is in him no ounce of force, no grain of matter, which is not actually part of one or other of these wondrous Beings; he is literally compacted of Their very sub- stance—not of one, but of all, though always one predominates. Therefore, no slightest movement of any of these great Star Angels can occur without affecting to some extent every one of us, because we are bone of Their bone, flesh of Their flesh, spirit of Their Spirit; and this great fact is the real basis of the often misunderstood science of Astrology. We all stand always in the presence of the Solar Logos, for in His system there is no place where He is not, and all that is, is part of Him. But in a very special sense these Seven Spirits are part of Him, » manifestations of Him, almost qualities of His— centers in Him through which His power flows out. We may see a hint of this in the names assigned to them by the Jews. The first of them is always Michael, ‘‘your Prince,” as he is called; and this name means “The Strength of God,” or, as it is sometimes interpreted, “He who is like God in strength.” El, in Hebrew, means God; so we find it in Beth-El, which is “The House of God’; and Elohim is the word used for “God” in the very first verse of the Bible. This termination El occurs in the name of each of the Seven Spirits. Gabriel means “The Omniscience of God,’ and he is sometimes THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 241 called God’s Hero. He is connected with the planet Mercury, as Michael is with Mars. Raphael signi- fies “The Healing Power of God,” and he is associ- ated with the sun, which is the great health-giver for us on the physical plane. Uriel is “The Light or Fire of God”; Zadkiel is “The Benevolence of God,” and is connected with the planet Jupiter. The other Archangels are usually given as Chamuel and Jophiel, but I do not at present recollect their mean- ings or their planets. St. Denys speaks of these Seven Spirits as the Builders, and also calls them the Cooperators of God. St. Augustine says that they have possession of the Divine Thought, or the Prototype, and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that God is the primary and these Angels are the secondary cause of all visible effects. Everything is done by the Logos, but through the mediation of these Planetary Spirits. Science will tell you that the planets are fortuitous aggregations of matter, condensations from the mass of the nebula, and so no doubt they are; but why at those partic- ular points? Because behind each there is a Living Intelligence to choose the points so that they will bal- ance one another. Truly whatsoever exists is the out- come of natural forces working under cosmic laws; but do not forget that behind every force is always its administrator, an Intelligence directing and man- aging. In thus describing Them I have used the Christian terminology, but the same Beings can be 242 Tue Masters AND THE PATH found under different names in every great religion. When, then, that primordial matter or spirit which in the future was to become ourselves first emerged from undifferentiated infinity, it issued through seven channels, as water might flow from a cistern through seven pipes, each of which, containing its peculiar coloring matter would so tinge the water that passed through it that it would forever after be distinguish- able from the water of the other pipes. Through all the successive kingdoms, the elemental, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, the Rays are always dis- tinct one from another, as they are also distinct in man, though in the lower kingdoms the influence of the Ray naturally acts in a somewhat different man- ner. Since in them there is no individualization, it is obvious that the whole of one species of animals, for example, must be on the same Ray; so that the different kinds of animals in the world might be ar- ranged in seven parallel columns according to the Rays to which they belong, and since an animal can individualize only through association with man, at the head of each of these Rays stands some class of domestic animal through which alone individualiza- tion on that particular Ray takes place. The ele- phant, dog, cat and horse are examples of such classes, so it is clear that the impulse of the universal life which is now animating, let us say, a dog, can never animate a horse or a cat, but will continue to manifest through the same species until individual- ization takes place. eee ead THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 243 Researches have not yet been made as to the par- ticular animals and vegetables which stand on each Ray, but I had reason a few years ago to investigate the precious stones, and found that each Ray had its own representatives, through which the force of the Ray works more readily than through any other. I print here the table that appears in The Science of the Sacraments, in which is shown the jewel at the head of each Ray, and others which stand on the same Ray and therefore hold the same kind of force, though less strongly. Ray RRL AT TER SUBSTITUTES Heap or Ray 1 Diamond Rock crystal Lapis Lazuli, Turquoise, Sodalite Sapphire Emerald Aquamarine, Jade, Malachite Jasper Chalcedony, Agate, Serpentine Citrine, Steatite Topaz Ruby Tourmaline, Garnet, Cornelian, Carbuncle Amethyst Porphyry, Violane DIAGRAM 3 From all that I have said above it follows that these seven types are visible among men, and that every one of us must belong to one or other of the Rays. Fundamental differences of this sort in the: human race have always been recognized; a century 244 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH ago men were described as of the lymphatic or the sanguine temperament, the vital or the phlegmatic, and astrologers classify us under the names of the planets, as Jupiter men, Mars men, Venus or Saturn men, and so on. I take it that these are only differ- ent methods of stating the basic differences of dispo- sition due to the channel through which we happen to have come forth, or rather, through which it was ordained that we should come forth. It is, however, by no means an easy matter to discover to what Ray an ordinary man belongs, for he has become very much involved in matter and has generated a great variety of karma, some portion of which might be of a kind that would dominate and obscure his essential type even perhaps through the whole of an incarnation; but the man who is ap- proaching the Path ought to be showing in himself a definite driving impulse or leading power which will _ have the character of the Ray to which he belongs, and will tend to lead him into the kind of work or service which distinguishes that Ray, and it will also bring him to the feet of one of the Masters upon it, so that he becomes enrolled as it were in the college of which the Chohan of the Ray may be regarded as the Principal. It may help a little towards the comprehension of these differences of type if I give one or two examples of the methods likely to be used, judging from the table that I have printed above, by persons on the different Rays when they want to use magic to pro- Tur CHOHANS AND THE Rays 245 duce a given result. The First Ray man would attain his object by sheer force of resistless will, without condescending to employ anything in the nature of means at all; he of the Second Ray would also work by force of will, but with the full comprehension of the various possible methods, and the conscious di- rection of his will into the channel of the most suit- able one; to the Third Ray man it would come most naturally to use the forces of the mental plane, no- ticing very carefully the exact time when the influ- ences were most favorable to his success; the Fourth Ray man would employ for the same purpose the finer physical forces of the ether, while his Fifth Ray brother would be more likely to set in motion the cur- rents of what used to be called the astral light; the devotee of the Sixth Ray would achieve his result by the strength of his earnest faith in his particular Deity and in the efficacy of prayer to Him, while the Seventh Ray man would use elaborate ceremonial magic and probably invoke the assistance of non- human spirits if possible. Again, in attempting the cure of disease, the First. Ray would simply draw health and strength from the great fountain of Universal Life; the Second would thoroughly comprehend the nature of the malady and know precisely how to exercise his will-power upon it to the best advantage; the Third would invoke the great planetary spirits, and choose a moment when. astrological influences were beneficent for the appli- cation of his remedies; the Fourth would trust chiefly’ 246 Tue MASTERS AND THE Patu to physical means such as massage, the Fifth would employ drugs, the Sixth faith-healing and the Seventh mantras or magical invocations. In all the above cases the operator might possibly use many of the powers mentioned, but would probably find the most effective instrument in his hands the one that is typical of his own Ray. In the members of the Adept Brotherhood the dis- tinctions of Rays are much moré clearly marked than in others and are visible in the aura; the Ray to which an Adept belongs decidedly affects not only His appearance, but also the work that He has to do. We may perhaps best see what are the distinctive characters of the Rays by observing the work of the five Chohans of Rays Three to Seven, and of the two Chohans Who stand at Their level on the First and Second Rays and carry on work of the same grade in service of the Greater Ones Who are Their directing Heads. In the Seven Heads of the Rays in the Hierarchy we have a reflection of the Seven Spirits before the Throne. It must be understood that we can here mention but the merest outline of the qual- ities that are grouped under each of the Rays, and but a fragment of the work that the Adepts on those Rays are doing, and care must be taken also to realize that full possession of the qualities of one Ray in no case implies a lack of those of the other Rays. If we speak of one of the Adepts as preeminent in strength, for example, it is also true that He has achieved nothing less than human perfection in de- THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 247 votion and love and every other quality as well. Of the Master Morya, who is the representative of the First Ray at the level of the Chohan Initiation, I have already written to some extent. He stands with all the unshakable and serene strength of His Ray, playing a great part in that work of guiding men and forming nations, of which I must speak more fully in the next chapter. ‘On that Ray, too, there is the Master whom we have called Jupiter, acting as Guardian of India for the Hierarchy, guardian of that nation which throughout the long lifetime of the fifth race cherishes the seeds of all its possibilities and sends them out in due course to each subrace, that there they may grow and ripen and fructify. He also penetrates deeply into the abstruser sciences of which chemistry and astronomy are the outer shells, and His work in this respect is an example of the variety of activity that may exist within the limits of one Ray. The Master Kuthumi, who was formerly the great teacher, Pythagoras, is also a Chohan, and He rep- resents the Second Ray at the same level. This is the Ray of Wisdom, which gives great Teachers to the world, and the work that lies upon it can best be described in connection with that of the Bodhisattva and the Buddha in my next chapter. I have already spoken of the marvelous love and wisdom that radi- ate from the Master whom I have the inexpressible delight and honor to serve and follow, and all that I have said about the teaching and training of pupils 248 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH expresses especially His method. Other teachers on other Rays bring Their pupils to the same point and develop in them exactly the same noble qualities, and always by the most irreproachable means, yet there are distinct differences in Their methods; indeed there are differences in the way in which the same Master deals with different pupils. At the Head of the Third Ray stands the great Master called the Venetian Chohan. In the people of that Ray engaged in the service of man there ap- pears very strongly the characteristic of adaptability that belongs to the Ray, and its influence tends to make one fit oneself to people, so as to help them the better, and thus become, as St. Paul said, “all things to all men.” Those who are advanced on this Ray have a great deal of tact, and a rare faculty for doing the right thing at the right moment. Astrology is connected with this Ray, because, so far as an out- sider may understand, the science of it is to know exactly when is the best time to do anything, to set any given forces in motion, and to know also when the present time is not a fitting one to do a certain thing and in that way save oneself a great deal of trouble and make oneself more useful. The Fourth Ray is under the care of the Master Serapis. In the earlier days of the Theosophical Society we used to hear a good deal about Him, be- cause of the fact that He at one time took charge of the training of Colonel Olcott, when his own Mas- ter, the Master Morya, was otherwise engaged for a eee Ture CHOHANS AND THE Rays 249 time. Such interchange of pupils among the Masters, for special and temporary purposes, is not infrequent. The special line of this Chohan is harmony and beauty, and people who belong to His type are always unhappy until they can introduce harmony into their environment, for it is along that line that they do most of their work. Art counts for much on this Ray, and many artists belong to it. At the Head of the Fifth Ray stands the Master Hilarion—with His splendid quality of scientific ac- curacy. He was once Iamblichus, of the Neo-Platonic school, and He gave to us, through M. C., Light on the Path and The Idyll of the White Lotus, He being, as our President puts it, a “skilled craftsman in poetic English prose and in melodious utterance.” His influence is upon most of the great scientists of the world, and people well advanced along His Ray are notable for their ability to make accurate ob- servations, and be absolutely dependable where scientific investigation is concerned. The Master’s science extends, of course, far beyond what is com- monly called by that name, and He knows and works with many of the forces which nature introduces into the life of man. Nature is responsive to the moods of mankind and intensifies them in various ways. If a man is happy and joyous, other creatures enjoy his presence; the nature-spirits go forth to meet him, and his own hap- piness is thus increased. This sort of reaction takes place everywhere. In the north of Europe, for ex- 250 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH ample, the nature-spirits are somewhat wistful, and have moods of mournful introspection, and such as these find a ready home in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany and similar places; they respond less readily to joy, and the people there are also colder and more dificult to rouse. In those countries nature is less joyous; they are all lands of much rain and dull skies, gray and green, where life and poetry take a wistful turn. The contrast is tremendous between those and Greece or Sicily, where everything is radiant, golden and blue and red and all the people are joyous and happy on the surface. The creatures of nature actu- ally bathe in a person’s happiness, and most of all they are drawn to anyone who is full of joyous love, and they are happy in his aura and wait upon him most favorably. To-day much of this side of life is ignored. Now we know that H,O = water, but the ancient Greeks and ancient Hindus recognized the spirits of the water, and studied how they might work with them, and they did it as definitely as we to-day work with electricity and machinery. The Master Jesus, who became an Adept in His incarnation as Apollonius of Tyana, and was after- wards the great South Indian religious reformer, Shri Ramanajucharya, rules the Sixth Ray, that of Bhakti or devotion. This is the Ray of the devotional saints and mystics of every religion, and the Chohan Jesus has charge of such people under whatever form they may worship the Divine Being. Nineteen hundred TuE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 251 years ago Apollonius of Tyana was sent out by the Brotherhood upon a mission, one feature of which was that he was to found, in various countries, certain magnetic centers. Objects of the nature of talismans were given to him, which he was to bury at these chosen spots, in order that the forces which they radiated might prepare these places to be the centers of great events in the future. Some of these centers have already been utilized, but some have not, and all these latter are to be employed in the immediate future in connection with the work of the coming Christ; so that much of the detail of His work was already definitely planned nearly two thousand years ago, and arrangements even on the physical plane were being made to prepare for it. The Head of the Seventh Ray is the Master the Comte de St. Germain, known to history in the eighteenth century, whom we sometimes call the Master Rakoczy, as He is the last survivor of that royal house. He was Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, in the seventeenth century, Robertus the monk in the sixteenth, Hunyadi Janos in the fifteenth, Christian Rosencreuz in the fourteenth, and Roger Bacon in the thirteenth, and is the Hungarian Adept of The Occult World. Further back in time He was the great Neo-Platonic Proclus, and before that St. Alban. He works to a large extent through cere- monial magic, and employs the services of great Angels, who obey Him implicitly and love to do His 252 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH will. Though He speaks all European and many Oriental languages, much of His working is in Latin, the language which is the especial vehicle of His thought, and the splendor and rhythm of it is unsur- passed by anything that we know down here. In His various rituals He wears wonderful and many-col- ored robes and jewels. He has a suit of golden chain- mail, which once belonged to a Roman Emperor; over it is thrown a magnificent cloak of crimson, with, on its clasp, a seven-pointed star in diamond and ame- thyst, and sometimes He wears a glorious robe of violet. Though He is thus engaged with ceremonial, and still works some of the rituals of the Ancient Mysteries, even the names of which have long been forgotten in the outer world, He is also much con- cerned with the political situation in Europe and the growth of modern physical science. The following is a summary of the work of these Chohans and Their Rays as I have given them in The Science of the Sacraments, with the thought to be held in mind by those who wish to serve along these lines: 1. SrreNGcTH. “T will be strong, brave, persevering in His service.” 2. Wuspom. “T will attain that intuitional wisdom which can be developed only through perfect love.” 3. ADAPTABILITY oR Tact. “T will try to gain the power of saying and doing just the right thing at the right moment—of meeting each man on his own ground, in order to help him more efficiently.” THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 253 4, Beauty anp Harmony. “So far as I can I will bring beauty aud harmony into my life and surroundings that they may be more worthy of Him; I will learn to. see beauty in all Nature, that so I may serve Him better.” 5. Scrence (detailed knowledge). “T will gain knowledge and accuracy, that I may devote them to His work.” 6. DeEvorTIon. “T will unfold within myself the mighty power of devotion, that through it I may bring others to Him.” 7. ORDERED SERVICE. “T will so order and arrange my service of God along the lines which He has prescribed, that I may be able fully to take advantage of the loving help which His holy Angels are always waiting to render.” All these different qualities will have to be devel- oped in each one of us in due time, but we shall possess them all perfectly only when we ourselves have reached perfection and become Supermen. At the present time one of the ways in which our imper- fection shows itself in our lives is in the fact that we have some one characteristic developed in excess of the others. There are some, for example, who have scientific accuracy and discrimination well unfolded within them, but because as yet they have not cul- tivated affection and devotion, their nature is cold and hard; they often appear unsympathetic and are liable to misjudge their fellow-men, and in matters of judgment or in the consideration of an intellectual problem their attitude is often intensely critical. Their decision would always tend to be against rather 254 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH than in favor of any person who happened to cross their path, whereas the devotional or affectionate type of people would make far more allowance for the other man’s point of view, and would on the whole be more likely to judge favorably, and even if their judgment were wrong, as they might easily be swayed by their feelings, it would err on the side of mercy. Both these are deflections from strictly accurate judg- ment, and in ourselves it will be’ necessary in the course of time to balance these qualities perfectly, for the Superman is the perfectly balanced man. As it says in The Bhagavad Gita, “Equilibrium is called Yoga.” In the seven Planetary Logoi certain cyclic changes periodically occur, which correspond perhaps to in- breathing and out-breathing or to the beating of the heart down here on the physical plane. However that may be there seems to be an infinite number of possible permutations and combinations of them; and since our astral bodies are built of the very matter of their astral bodies it is obvious that no one of these Planetary Logoi can change astrally in any way without thereby affecting the astral body of every man in the world, though, of course, more especially those in whom there is a preponderance of matter expressing Him. If it be remembered that we take the astral plane merely as an example, and that ex- actly the same thing is true on all the other planes, we shall then begin to have an idea how important to us are the emotions of these Planetary Spirits. Tur CHOHANS AND THE Rays 255 Whatever these may be, they are visible in the long history of human races as regular cyclic changes in the temperament of the people and the consequent character of their civilization. Putting aside the thought of world-periods and considering only the period of a single root-race, we find that in it the seven Rays are preponderant in turn (perhaps more than once) but in the period of that dominance of each Ray there will be seven subcycles of influence, according to a rather curious rule which requires some explanation. Let us take, for example, that period in the history of a race when the Fifth Ray is dominant. During the whole of that epoch the cen- tral idea of that Ray (and probably a religion founded upon it) will be prominent in the minds of men; but that time of predominance will be subdi- vided into seven periods in the first of which this idea, though still the principal one, will be colored by the idea of the First Ray, and the methods of the First Ray will be to some extent combined with its own. In the second of its subdivisions its ideas and methods will be similarly colored by those of the Second Ray, and so on, so that in its fifth subdivision it will naturally be at its purest and strongest. It would seem as if these divisions and subdivisions ought to correspond with the subraces and branch races respectively, but it has not so far been possible for us to see that they do so. In discussing a subject so complex and so obscure as this with a knowledge of it so slight as is ours at 256 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH present, it is perhaps hardly safe to adduce instances; yet since we are told that the Sixth or devotional Ray is at present dominant, we may fancy that we can: trace the influence of its first subcycle in the stories of the wonderful powers exhibited by the earlier saints; of its second in the Gnostic sects whose central idea was the necessity of the true wisdom, the Gnosis; of the third in the astrologers; of the fourth in the strangely distorted efforts to develop will-power by the endurance of painful or loathsome conditions, as did St. Simeon Stylites or the Flagellants; of the fifth in the alchemists and Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages; while its sixth division of the purest devotion might be imaged in the ecstasies of the contemplative monastic orders, and the seventh cycle would produce the invocations and exact adherence to external forms of the Roman Church. The advent of modern spiritualism and the devo- tion to elemental worship which is so often a char- acteristic of its degraded forms, may be regarded as a premonition of the influence of the coming Seventh Ray, the more so as this movement was originated by a secret society which has existed in the world since the last period of the Seventh Ray predomi- nance in Atlantis. How real and decided a dominance is exerted by a Ray in the course of its cycle of influence is very evident to those who have read anything of Church history. They realize how much of utterly blind de- votion there was all through the Middle Ages, how THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 257 people who were very ignorant about religion never- theless spoke in its name, and tried to force the ideas bred of their ignorance on other people who in many eases knew much more. ‘Those who wielded the power—the dogmatic Christians—were precisely the people who knew least about the real meaning of the dogmas they taught. There were those who could have told them a great deal more, and could have explained the meaning of many points in Christian doctrine; but the majority would not hear, and they cast out these more learned ones as heretics. Throughout this dark period the people who really knew something, such as the alchemists (not that all alchemists knew very much, but certainly some of them knew more than the Christians) were to be found among such secret orders as the Templars and the Rosicrucians, and some of the truth was hidden in Freemasonry. All these people were persecuted by the ignorant Christians in those days, in the name of devotion to God. A great many of the medieval saints were very full of a devotion that was often beautiful, and even spiritual; but it was generally so narrow in form that it usually allowed them, in spite of their spirituality, to hold uncharitable views about others who differed from them, and even to persecute them openly. There were a few who held really spir- itual ideals, but they were regarded with suspicion. Such were the Quietists: Ruysbroeck, Margaret and Christina Ebner, Molinos and Jacob Boehme. In almost all cases the more ignorant people rode down 258 Tuer MASTERS AND THE PatTH those who knew; they always did it in the name of devotion, and we must not forget that their devotion was very real and very intense. It was not only in Christianity that the reign of devotion showed itself. It reflected itself powerfully into the religions left behind by the earlier Rays. Hinduism might be thought distinctly cold by devo- tional people. The religion of Shiva, God the Father, the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, spread almost entirely over India; and even to this day three- fourths of the Hindus are worshipers of that aspect. of the Divine. Before these people is set up the ideal of duty—dharma, which is unquestionably the strong point of that religion. They held that men were born in the different castes according to their deserts; that wheresoever a man was born, it was his duty to carry on the dharma of his caste, and he must be so ex- ceptional to rise out of it that for a long time such a thing was almost unknown. They worshiped law and order and did not approve of discontent as ap- plied to environment, but taught that the way to God was to use to the utmost the conditions in which a man found himself. If he did that those conditions would improve from birth to birth, but they taught that the door to God was open to a man from any caste if he lived rightly, not seeking to better his opportunities by strife, but by doing his dharma to the uttermost in the state of life to which God had called him. To the very devotional mind that would seem cold Al i THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 259 and scientific, and perhaps it was; but when the de- votional Ray began to influence the world there came a great change, and the worship of the Second Person of the Trinity, Vishnu, incarnating as Shri Krishna, came prominently forward. Then devotion surged forth without restraint; so extreme it was that. it became in many ways a mere orgy of emotion; and it is probable that there is greater devotion at this moment among the followers of Vishnu in India than can be found even among Christians whose religion is confessedly devotional. The emotion is so great that its demonstration is often uncomfortable for us of the colder races to watch. I have seen hard men of business throw themselves into an ecstasy of devo- tion, which led them to burst into tears and appar- ently to break up and change entirely, merely at the mention of the Child Shri Krishna. All that has ever been felt for the Child Jesus among Western nations, is felt for the Child Krishna amongst the Hindus. This was the effect of devotion on a religion which in itself was not devotional in character. Buddhism also can hardly be called a devotional faith. The Buddhist religion was a gift of Hinduism to the great Fourth Race, and the devotional cycle for that race does not necessarily coincide with ours. That religion does not hold the necessity for prayers; it tells its people, in so far as it recognizes the existence of God, that He knows His own business very much better than they can hope to do; that it is quite useless for them to pray to Him, or to try to influence Him, for 260 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH He is already doing better than any man can think. The Buddhists in Burma would say, “The boundless Light exists, but that is not for us. We shall reach that one day; meantime our business is to follow the teaching of our Lord, and see to it that we do those things which He would have us do.” It is not that they disbelieve in a God, but that they set God so far—so infinitely far—above us all; they are so sure about Him, that they take it all for granted. The missionaries say that they are athe- istical. I have lived among them and know them more intimately than the average missionary does, and my impression is that they are not in the least atheistical in spirit; but that their reverence would be too great for them to put themselves on such familiar terms with God, or, like many in the West, to talk with intimacy of Him, as if they knew pre- cisely what He is going to do and all about His work. That would strike the Oriental as a very irreverent attitude. Buddhism itself has been touched by this fire of devotion, and in Burma they worship the Lord Buddha almost as a God. I noticed this when I had to write a catechism for Buddhist children. Colonel Olcott wrote the first catechism of Buddhism, intend- ing it for the use of children, but he made his answers difficult even for grown-up people to understand. We found it necessary to write an introduction to it for children, and to reserve his catechism, which was a splendid work, for older students. He asked in that catechism: “Was Buddha a God?” and the answer | THE CHOHANS AND THE Rays 261 was “No, not a God, but a man like ourselves, only far more advanced than we.” ‘That was accepted fully in Ceylon and Siam, but when we came to Burma they objected to the negative answer, saying: “He is greater than any God of Whom we know anything.” The Sanskrit word for God is “deva” and the Hindus never use God in our sense of the word unless they are speaking of Ishvara, or else of the Trinity, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. When the missionaries talk about the Hindus as having thirty-three million (or three hundred and thirty million) gods, the word used is “deva,”’ and that includes a great many beings—angels, nature- spirits and so on, but they no more worship them than we would. They know that they exist and they catalog them, that is all. In Burma we found that devotion had thus appeared in Buddhism, but in Ceylon where the people are mostly descendants of Hindu immigrants they will tell you, if you ask them why they make offerings to the Lord Buddha, that it is out of gratitude for what He has done for them. When we asked if they thought that He knew of it and was pleased, they said: “O no, He has passed far away into Paranirvana; we do not expect Him to know anything about it, but to Him we owe this knowledge of the Law which He has taught us, and for that we perpetuate His name, and make our offer- ings out of gratitude.” So this wave of devotion has influenced the world powerfully since the coming of the Child Krishna two 262 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH thousand four hundred years ago, but now the special intensity of its sixth phase has gone, and its seventh substage is rapidly giving place to the influence of the incoming Ray, the Seventh. There is still igno- rant devotion among the peasantry in many Aryan countries, but the more educated people are not now readily moved to devotion unless they have at the same time some understanding of its object. There was a phase which had its own value, in the fourth subrace particularly when the people were prepared to be devoted to almost anything that would draw out their emotion, and from that, with the stronger development of the lower mind in the fifth subrace, there was a reaction into agnosticism. That now in its turn has proved unsatisfactory, so that that wave has practically passed over, and men are now ready at least to inquire and examine instead of frantically denying everything. There is a double change now taking place, for in addition to the modification of Ray influence there is also the beginning of the sixth subrace, which brings in intuition and wisdom, blending all that is best in the intelligence of the fifth subrace and the emotion of the fourth. The Ray that is now coming into force is very largely one of ceremonial, and, this being no longer but the seventh sub-activity of the Sixth Ray, but the first subdivision of the Seventh Ray, it will not be regarded principally from the point of view of dis- play but rather from that of its usefulness in connec- y : H | ; i Tur CHOHANS AND THE Rays 263 tion with the great Deva evolution. It will be most beneficial when the people make it their business to understand as much as may be of what is going on. In modern religion, ceremonial is year by year playing a more prominent part. In the middle of the last century in England the churches and cathedrals had but little life in them. ‘The average country church was then scarcely different from a dissenting chapel; there were no vestments, no painted windows nor decorations of any kind, and everything was as dull and unornamental as could be. No attention was paid to making things beautiful and reverent and worthy of God and His service; thought was given to preaching more than to anything else, and even that was done mainly from a practical point of view. If we were to go into the same churches in England to-day, we should find hardly a parish in that condi- tion. The old carelessness has been replaced by rev- erence; the churches have in many cases been beau- tifully decorated, and in many of them and of the cathedrals the ceremonies are performed with accu- racy and reverence. The whole conception of church work has changed. The influence of the change of Ray is beginning to manifest in other ways as well. There is now rising a special form of Freemasonry, called Co-Masonry, which differs from other forms of the same Craft in that the necessity of our time is met by accepting women as equal to men, for it is the tendency of our present age that women shall take their place beside 264 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH men and be equal to them in every respect. Those who initiated the movement were not thinking about the influence of the Ray; nevertheless, it has been formed and directed by the ceremonial tendency of the age. I remember that for a long time in the reign of Queen Victoria there was but little ceremonial to be seen in the streets of London, but it was revived towards the end of her rule, and Edward VII restored it to its original splendor. Many people will now begin to feel the influence of the new Ray, and will desire to see and perhaps take part in ceremonial as they have not done before. Ss ‘ y if THER EOGiO's First Aspect Second Aspect Lord of the Wort oes Initiation . The Buddha. \ va es , Bodhisatiha P - Buddha osur lnitiation. Mahachohan Initiation Chohan 6th Master | The Master Master Master Master Initiattow Morya + Venetian Serapis- Hilarion * Jesus « The cene tetrad Asekha 45th Initiation DIAGRAM 4 Cuapter XIII THE TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES We know that the Logos of our Solar System— and that is what most men mean when they speak of God—is a Trinity; He has, or rather is, Three Persons; He functions through Three Aspects. These are called by many different names in the different religions, but They are not always viewed in the same way; for this mighty scheme of a Trinity has so many Aspects that no one religion has ever succeeded in symbolizing the whole truth. In some faiths we have a Trinity of Father, Mother, Son, which is at least comprehensible to us when we think of methods of generation and interaction. Of this type we find Osiris, Isis and Horus in the Egyptian teaching, and in Scandinavian mythology, Odin, Freya and Thor. The Assyrians and Pheenicians believed in a Trinity, the Persons of which were Anu, Ea and Bel. The Druids called Them Taulac, Fan and Mollac. In Northern Buddhism we hear of Amitabha, Avaloki- teshvara and Manjushri. In the Kabala of the Jews the Three are Kether, Binah and Chokma, and in the Zoroastrian religion Ahuramazda, Asha and Vohumano, or sometimes Ahuramazda, Mithra and Ahriman. Everywhere the principal of the Trinity 266 THe MASTERS AND THE PaTH is recognized, though the manifestations are dif- ferent. In the great Hindu system there is the Trinity of Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. The Mother element is not shown in this Trinity, but it is indirectly recog- nized in that each of these Three is said to have a Shakti or power, which is sometimes in the symbolism named His consort. This is evidently. a manifestation of His power in matter, perhaps a somewhat lower manifestation than that of which we must think when we mention the Trinity Itself. In the Chris- tian system we have the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; and it is interesting in this connection to note that in some of the old books the Holy Ghost is definitely mentioned as being feminine. There is also a similar Trinity in the case of higher and greater Logoi; and far behind and beyond all that we can know or imagine there is the Absolute, of which the presentation is also a Trinity. At the other end of the scale we find a Trinity in man, his Spirit, his Intuition and his Intelligence; which rep- resent the threefold qualities of Will, Wisdom and Activity. This Trinity in man is an image of that other and greater Trinity; yet it is also much more than an image. It is not only symbolical of the Three Persons of the Logos, but in some way impos- sible to understand in physical consciousness, it is also an actual expression and manifestation of those Three Persons at this lower level. As the Logos is a Trinity, so the occult government < wy . ae ee > es Tuer TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES 267 of the world is in three great departments, ruled by three Mighty Officials, Who are not merely reflections of the Three Aspects of the Logos, but are in a very real way actual manifestations of Them. They are the Lord of the World, the Lord Buddha and the Maha-Chohan, Who have reached grades of Initia- tion which give Them waking consciousness on the planes of nature beyond the field of evolution of humanity, where dwells the manifested Logos.* The Lord of the World is one with the First Aspect on the highest of our seven planes, and wields the Divine Will on earth; the Buddha is united with the Second Aspect which dwells on the Anupadaka plane, and sends the Divine Wisdom down to mankind; the Maha-Chohan is utterly one with the Third Aspect, which resides in the Nirvanic plane and exercises the Divine Activity—representing the Holy Ghost. He is verily the Arm of the Lord stretched out into the world to do His work. The following table will make this clear: OWERS Anupadaka or Monadic | The Lord Buddha aed Atmic or Spiritual The Maha-Chohan ust DIAGRAM 5 *See A Study in Consciousness, by Annie Besant, pp. 3-5. 268 Tue Masters AND THE PaTH The first and second members of this great Tri- angle are different from the third, being engaged in work of a character that does not descend to the physical plane, but only to the level of the buddhic body in the case of the Lord Buddha, and the Atmic plane in that of the great Agent of the First Aspect. Yet without Their higher work none of that at lower levels would be possible, so They provide for the transmission of Their influence even to the lowest plane through Their representatives, the Manu Vai- vasvata and the Lord Maitreya respectively. These two great Adepts stand parallel with the Maha-Chohan on Their respective Rays, both hav- ing taken the Initiation that bears that name; and thus another Triangle is formed, to administer the powers of the Logos down to the physical plane. We may express the two Triangles in one diagram thus: DIAGRAM 6 Tue TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES 269 For the entire period of a root-race the Manu works out the details of its evolution, and the Bodhi- sattva, as World-Teacher, Minister of Education and Religion, helps its members to develop whatever of spirituality is possible for them at that stage, while the Maha-Chohan directs the minds of men so that the different forms of culture and civilization shall be unfolded according to the cyclic plan. Head and Heart are These, and the Hand with five Fingers, all active in the world, molding the race into one organic being, a Heavenly Man. This last term is no mere simile, but describes a literal fact, for, at the close of each root-race effort, those who have attained Adeptship within it form a mighty organism which is in a very real sense one, a Heavenly Man, in Whom, as in an earthly man, are seven great centers, each of which is a mighty Adept. The Manu and the Bodhisattva will occupy in this great Being the place of the brain and heart centers, and in Them and as part of Them, gloriously one with Them, shall we Their servants be; and the splendid totality will go on in its further evolution to become a Minister of some future Solar Deity. Yet so transcending all comprehension is the wonder of it all that this union with others does not mar the freedom of any Adept in the Heavenly Man, nor preclude His acting quite outside its scope. Until recently it was not the rule that the office of Maha-Chohan should be occupied by a permanent Adept of that grade. It was usual that each of the 270 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTtTH five Chohans, in rotation, should be appointed to leadership over all five Rays, though before occupy- ing that position He was required to take the Maha- Chohan Initiation. At present, however, we find a Chohan in charge of each of the five Rays, and also a Maha-Chohan separate from all of Them—a de- parture from what we understand to be the ordinary method that may be due principally to the near com- ing of the World-Teacher. On these Five Rays, Three to Seven, the highest Initiation that can be taken on our globe is that of the Maha-Chohan, but it is possible to go further on the First and Second Rays, as is indicated in the following table of Initiations, in which it will be seen Silent Watcher Initiations possible on the First and Second Rays only Lord of the % World ‘ es ay ay Buddha fe Bodhi- sattva Mana-CHoHAN Initiations sai [aie [eis [ ai First | Second Fifth Sixth | Seventh Ray Ray Ray Ray DIAGRAM 7 Tue TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES 271 that the Buddha Initiation is possible on the Second and First Rays, and that the Adept may go still further on the First. Lest it should seem as though in this fact there lay something in the nature of an injustice, it must be made clear that Nirvana is attainable as soon on one Ray as on another: any man on reaching the Asekha level is at once free to enter this condition of bliss for a period that to us would seem eternity; but He enters its first stage only, which, exalted in- finitely beyond our comprehension as it is, is yet far below the higher stages available to the Chohan and Maha-Chohan respectively, while even these in turn pale before the glory of those divisions of the Nir- vanic state which those Adepts reach Who make the tremendous effort necessary to take during earth-life the still higher Initiations of the First and Second Ray. Further progress is also possible on the five Rays to those who take up other lines of work out- side our Hierarchy. The possibility of changing one’s Ray by the firm determination to do so leaves all paths alike open to the occult student. It is known that both the Mas- ters with whom the Theosophical Society has been most closely connected have chosen to make this effort, and those of us who wish to retain our affilia- tion to them as individuals are therefore, consciously or unconsciously, in course of making it also. The method by which the transfer is effected is simple enough in theory, though often very difficult to carry 2712 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH out in practice. If a student on the Sixth or devo- tional Ray wishes to transfer himself to the Second Ray, that of wisdom, he must first endeavor to bring himself under the influence of the second subdivision of his own Sixth Ray. Then he will try steadily to intensify the influence of that subray in his life, until it becomes the dominant one. Thus instead of being on the second subdivision of the Sixth Ray he will find himself on the sixth subdivision of the Second Ray; in a word, he has tempered his devotion by mcereasing knowledge till it has become devotion to the Divine Wisdom. From that he can if he wishes, by sufficiently strenuous and long-continued effort, further transfer himself to some other subdivision of the Second Ray. Evidently here we have a departure from the or- dinary rules of procedure, for a Monad who came forth through one Planetary Spirit will return through another. Such changes are comparatively rare, and tend to balance one another satisfactorily at the end. The transfers are usually to the First and Second Rays, and there are relatively few per- sons on those two at the lower levels of evolution. The marvelous unity with the Logos of the mem- bers of these Triangles may be well illustrated by the case of the Bodhisattva. We have seen that the union of pupil with Master is closer than any tie . imaginable on earth; closer still, because at a higher level, was that between the Master Kuthumi and His Teacher the Master Dhruva, Who was in His turn a Tue TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES 273 pupil of the Lord Maitreya, during the time when the latter took pupils. Thereby the Master Kuthumi became also one with the Lord Maitreya, and as at Their level unity is still more perfect, the Master Kuthumi is one with the Bodhisattva in a very won- derful way. The Adepts seem so far above us that we can hardly distinguish any difference in glory between the lower and the higher levels. They all look like stars above us, and yet They speak of Themselves as dust under the feet of the Lord Maitreya. There must be an enormous difference there, even though we cannot see it. We look up to these stupendous heights and all appears a blinding glory, in which we cannot presume to distinguish one as greater than another, except that we can see by the size of the aura that there are differences. But at least we can comprehend that the unity of the Master Kuthumi with the Lord Maitreya must be a far greater and more real union than anything imaginable at lower levels. Still more is the Bodhisattva one with that Second Person of the Logos Whom He represents. He has taken the office of representing Him here on earth, and that is the meaning of the hypostatic union between Christ as God and Christ as man. For He, the Bodhisattva, Whom in the West we call the Lord Christ, is the Intuitional Wisdom, the Representative and Expression of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Herein is the mystery which underlies the two natures of the Christ, “Who, although He be 274 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ— One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God.” The Second Person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity ex- isted ages before the Lord Maitreya came into evo- lution; and the first descent of that Second Person into incarnation was when as the Second Outpouring He took the vehicles of His manifestation out of the virgin matter of His new solar system, already im- pregnated and vivified by God the Holy Ghost. When that has been done we have for the first time Christ unmanifested as opposed to Christ manifested, and even at that time it must have been true that Christ as God was in one sense greater than Christ as man. As the Bodhisattvas Who are to represent this Second Person on different planets of His system one by one attain the Headship of Their Ray, They in turn become so thoroughly one with Him that They deserve the title of Christ as Man; and so at the moment of the consummation of such Initiation the hypostatic union takes place for each of Them. This Second Aspect of the Logos pours Himself down into matter, is incarnated, and becomes man; and is therefore “equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood,” as is said in the Athanasian Creed. Our Lord the Bodhisattva has been a man like ourselves, and is such a man still, though a perfected man; yet that manhood has so been taken into the Godhead that He is in truth a very Christ, a Representation Tue TRINITY AND THE TRIANGLES 275 of the Second Aspect of the Trinity; for in Him and through Him it is possible for us to reach to that Divine Power. That is why the Christ is spoken of as the Mediator between God and man; it is not that. He is making a bargain on our behalf, or buying us off from some horrible punishment, as many ortho- dox Christians believe, but that He is in truth a Mediator, One that stands between the Logos and man, Whom man can see, and through Whom the power of the Deity pours forth to humankind. Therefore is He the Head of all religions through which these blessings come. CHAPTER XIV THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES The Buddha of the present time is the Lord Gau- tama, Who took His last birth in India about two thousand five hundred years ago, and in that incar- nation finished His series of lives as Bodhisattva, and succeeded the previous Buddha Kasyapa as Head of the Second Ray in the Occult Hierarchy of our globe. His life as Siddartha Gautama has been wonder- fully told in Sir Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia, one of the most beautiful and inspiring poems in our lan- guage. Seven Buddhas appear in succession during a world period, one for each race, and each in turn takes charge of the special work of the Second Ray for the whole world, devoting Himself to that part of it which lies in the higher worlds, while He en- trusts to His assistant and representative, the Bod- hisattva, the office of World-Teacher for the lower planes. For One Who attains this position Oriental writers think no praise too high, no devotion too deep, and just as we regard those Masters to Whom we look up as all but divine in goodness and wisdom, so to an even greater degree do They regard the Buddha. Our present Buddha was the first of our humanity. to attain that stupendous height, the pre- THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 271% vious Buddhas having been the product of other evo- lutions, and a very special effort was needed on His part to prepare Himself for this lofty post, an effort so stupendous that He is spoken of constantly by the Buddhists as the Mahabhinishkramana, the Great Sacrifice. Many thousands of years ago there arose the need for one of the Adepts to become the World-Teacher of the fourth root-race; for the time had come when humanity should be able to supply its own Buddhas. Up to the middle of the fourth round of the fourth incarnation of our Chain, which was exactly the cen- tral point of the scheme of evolution to which we belong, the great Officers Who were required—the Manus and the World-Teachers and others—were supplied to our humanity by more advanced human- ities of other Chains, which had made more progress. or perhaps were older than we; and we ourselves, hav- ing been thus assisted, shall in our turn have later on the privilege to make provision for other and more backward schemes of evolution. In such ways the real brotherhood of all that lives is demonstrated; and we see that it is not merely a brotherhood of humanity, or even of the life in this Chain of worlds, but that all the Chains in the Solar System mutually interact and help one another. I have no direct evidence that Solar Systems give as- sistance to each other in such ways, but I should imagine it by analogy to be almost certain that even: that is done. At least I have myself seen Visitors. 278 Tue MAsTersS AND THE PatTH from other systems, as I have said before, and have noticed that They are not merely traveling for pleasure, but are certainly in our system for some good purpose. What Their purpose is I do not know; but of course it is not my business. Now at this time in the remote past to which we have referred, humanity should have begun to provide its own Teachers; but we are told that no one had quite reached the level required for the incurring of so tremendous a responsibility. The first fruits of humanity at this period were two Brothers Who stood equal in occult development; One being He Whom we now call the Lord Gautama Buddha, and the Other our present World-Teacher, the Lord Mai- treya. In what way They fell short of the required qualifications we do not know, but out of His great love for humanity the Lord Gautama instantly of- fered to make Himself ready to undertake whatever additional effort might be necessary to attain the re- quired development. We learn from traditions that life after life He practiced special virtues, each life showing out some great quality achieved. That great sacrifice of the Buddha is spoken of in all the sacred books of the Buddhists; but they have not understood the nature of the sacrifice, for many believe it to have been the descent of the Lord Buddha from nirvanic levels, after His Illumination, to teach His Law. It is true that He did so descend, but that would not be anything in the nature of a sacrifice; it would only be an ordinary, but not very Se ae ee eel ee oe a a * op! Seat = a EPONA eS A RP ss ae oe Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 279 pleasant piece of work. The great sacrifice that He made was this spending of thousands of years in order to qualify Himself to be the first of mankind Who should help His brother-men by teaching to them the Wisdom which is life eternal. That work was done, and nobly done. We know something of the various incarnations that He took after that, as Bodhisattva of His time, though there may be many more of which we know nothing. He appeared as Vyasa; He was the first of the twenty-nine Zoroasters, the Teachers of the Religion of the Fire; He came to ancient Egypt as Hermes, the Thrice-Greatest, Who was called the Father of All Wisdom; still later He walked amongst the Greeks as Orpheus, and taught them by means of music and of song; and finally He took His last birth in the north of India, and wandered up and down the Ganges valley for five and forty years, preaching His Law, and drawing round Himself all those who in previous lives had been His pupils. In some way which we cannot hope yet to under- stand, because of the great strain of those many ages of effort, there were certain points in the work of the Lord Buddha which it may be that He had not time to perfect utterly. It is impossible at such a level for there to be anything in the nature of a failure or _a fault, but perhaps the strain of the past was too great even for such power as His. We cannot know; but the fact remains that there were certain minor matters to which at the time He could not perfectly attend, and therefore the after-life of the Lord Gau- 280 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH tama was not quite the same as that of His Prede- cessors. It is usual, as I have said, for a Bodhisattva when He has lived His final life and become Buddha —when He has entered into glory, bearing His sheaves with Him, as it is put in the Christian Scrip- tures—to hand over His external work entirely to His Successor, and devote Himself to His labors for humanity at higher levels. Whatever may be these manifold activities of a Dhyani Buddha they do not bring Him again into birth on earth; but because of the peculiar circumstances surrounding the life of the Lord Gautama two differences were made, two sup- plementary acts were performed. The first was the sending by the Lord of the World, the Great King, the One Initiator, of one of His three Pupils, Who are all Lords of the Flame from Venus, to take earthly incarnation almost immedi- ately after the attainment of Buddhahood by the Lord Gautama, in order that by a very short life spent in traveling over India He might establish therein cer- tain centers of religion called mathas. His name in that incarnation was Shankaracharya—not he who wrote the commentaries, but the great Founder of his line, Who lived more than two thousand years before. Shri Shankaracharya founded a certain school of Hindu Philosophy; revived Hinduism to a large ex- tent, putting new life into its forms, and gathering together many of the teachings of the Buddha. Hin- duism to-day, though in many ways it may fall short of its high ideal, is a very much more living faith Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 281 than in the old days before the coming of the Buddha, when it had degenerated into a system of formalism. Shri Shankaracharya was also largely responsible for the disappearance of animal sacrifices; although such sacrifices are still offered in India, they are but few, and those are on a very small scale. Besides His teaching on the physical plane, Shri Shankaracharya accomplished certain occult work in connection with the higher planes of nature which was of considerable importance to the later life of India. The second supplementary act to which I have re- ferred above was undertaken by the Lord Gautama Himself. Instead of devoting Himself wholly to other and higher work, He has remained sufficiently in touch with His world to be reached by the invoca- tion of His Successor when necessary, so that His ad- vice and help can still be obtained in any great emergency. He also undertook to return to the world once in each year, on the anniversary of His death, and shed upon it a flood of blessing. The Lord Buddha has His own especial type of force, which He outpours when He gives His blessing to the world, and this benediction is a unique and very marvelous thing; for by His authority and posi- tion a Buddha has access to planes of nature which -are altogether beyond our reach, hence He can trans- mute and draw down to our level the forces peculiar to those planes. Without this mediation of the Buddha these forces would be of no use to us here in physical life; their vibrations are so tremendous, so 282 | Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH incredibly rapid, that they would pass through us unsensed at any level we can reach, and we should never even know of their existence. But as it is, the force of the blessing is scattered all over the world; and it instantly finds for itself channels through which it can pour, just as water instantly finds an open pipe, thereby strengthening all good work and bringing peace to the hearts of those who are able to receive it. The occasion selected for this wonderful outpouring is the full moon day of the Indian month of Vaisakh (called in Ceylon, Wesak, and usually corresponding to the English May), the anniversary of all the mo- mentous occurrences of His last earthly life—His birth, His attainment of Buddhahood, and His de- parture from the physical body. In connection with this visit of His, and quite apart from its tremendous esoteric significance, an exoteric ceremony is performed on the physical plane at which the Lord actually shows Himself in the presence of a crowd of ordinary pilgrims. Whether He shows Himself to the pilgrims I am not certain; they all prostrate themselves at the moment when He appears, but that may be only in imitation of the prostration of the Adepts and Their pupils, who do see the Lord Gautama. It seems probable that some at least of the pilgrims have seen Him for themselves, for the existence of the ceremony is widely known among the Buddhists of central Asia, and it is spoken of as the appearance of the Shadow or Reflection of the Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 283 Buddha, the description given of it in such traditional accounts being as a rule fairly accurate. So far as we can see there appears to be no reason why any person whatever who happens to be in the neighbor- hood at the time may not be present at the ceremony ; no apparent effort is made to restrict the number of spectators; though it is true that one hears stories of parties of pilgrims who have wandered for years without being able to find the spot. All members of the Great White Brotherhood, ex- cept the King Himself and His three disciples, usually attend this ceremony; and there is no reason why any of our earnest Theosophical members should not be present at it in their astral bodies. Those to whom the secret has been confided usually try so to arrange matters as to put their physical bodies to sleep an hour or so before the exact moment of full moon, and to be undisturbed until about an hour after it. The place selected is a small plateau surrounded by low hills, which lies on the northern side of the Himalayas, not far from the frontier of Nepal, and perhaps about four hundred miles west of the city of Lhassa. This little plain is roughly oblong in shape, its length being perhaps a mile and a half and its breadth rather less. The ground slopes slightly from south to north, and is mostly bare and stony, though in some places covered with coarse wiry grass and rough scrubby vegetation. A stream runs down part of the west side of the plateau, crosses its northwest corner, and escapes about the middle of the north side South West “My Mayen 15 yey V7; aN Spry gpI np appr lly, A Myon tng Target) my Maqui : @ 2 € i! ¥ SS = eH =z wf SN Pia b! S E4 » ND) @6 = FS = Juz < e 4, S = = = . i os = bd - 3 * E aS = é Sale 3: 3 ¢ 4 = - “e * oe by é eo ee as 2, Z ay Yullfg A 3 € 4. my cus YU costbayottnn iin HUT omg Udwaly M, \ \ Gldddsiy My try yd Mya vo tag silly Mj Bo" East Lake a DIAGRAM 8 THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 285 through a pine-clothed ravine, eventually reaching a lake which is visible at a distance of some miles. The surrounding country seems wild and uninhabited, and there are no buildings in sight except a single ruined stupa with two or three huts beside it, on the slope of one of the hills on the eastern side of the plain. About the center of the southern half of the plain lies a huge block of grayish-white stone, veined with some glittering substance—an altar-like block, perhaps twelve feet in length by six feet wide, and standing about three feet out of the ground. For some days before the appointed time an ever- increasing cluster of tents of strange and uncouth appearance (most of them black) may be seen along the banks of the stream, and down the sides of the neighboring hills; and this otherwise desolate spot is enlivened by the camp-fires of a considerable multi- tude. Large numbers of men come in from the wan- dering tribes of central Asia, and some even from the far north. On the day before the full moon all these pilgrims take a special ceremonial bath, and wash all their clothes in preparation for the ceremony. Some hours before the time of the full moon these people gather in the lower or northern part of the plain and seat themselves in a quiet and orderly man- ner on the ground, always taking care to leave a considerable space before the great altar stone. Gen- erally some of the lamas are present, and they usu- ally take this opportunity to deliver addresses to the people. About an hour before the moment when the 286 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTtH moon is full the astral visitors begin to arrive, among them the members of the Brotherhood. Some of These generally materialize Themselves so as to be seen by the pilgrims, and are received with genuflections and prostrations. Often our Masters and some even greater than They condescend on this occasion to converse in a friendly manner with Their pupils and with others who are present. While this is going on those who are appointed to do so prepare the great altar stone for the ceremony by covering it with the most beautiful flowers and placing at each corner of it great garlands of the sacred lotus. In the center is placed a magnificently chased golden bowl full of water, and immediately in front of that a space is left among the flowers. About half an hour before the moment of full moon, at a signal given by the Maha-Chohan, the members of the Brotherhood draw together in the open space in the center of the plain to the north of the great altar of stone, and arrange Themselves three deep in a large circle, all facing inwards, the outermost circle being composed of the younger mem- bers of the Brotherhood, and the greater Officials occupying certain points in the innermost circle. Some verses from the Buddhist scriptures are then chanted in the Pali language, and as the voices die into silence, the Lord Maitreya materializes in the center of the circle, holding in His hands the Rod of Power. This wonderful symbol is in some way a THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 287 physical center or fulcrum for the forces poured forth by the Planetary Logos, and was magnetized by Him millions of years ago, when first He set the human life-wave in motion round our chain of globes. We are told that it is the physical sign of the concentra- tion of the attention of the Logos, and that it is car- ried from planet to planet as that attention shifts— that where it is, that is for the moment the central theater of evolution, and that when it leaves this planet for the next, our earth will sink into compar- ative inertia. Whether it is. carried also to the non- physical planets we do not know, nor do we under- stand exactly the way in which it is used, nor the part which it plays in the economy of the world. It is kept usually in the custody of the Lord of the World at Shamballa, and so far as we know this Wesak F'es- tival is the only occasion on which it ever leaves his care. It is a round bar of the lost metal orichalcum, perhaps two feet in length and about two inches in diameter, having at each end a huge diamond shaped into a ball with a cone projecting from it. It has the strange appearance of being always surrounded by fire—of having an aura of brilliant yet transparent flame. It is noteworthy that no one but the Lord Maitreya touches it during any part of the ceremony. DIAGRAM 9 288 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH On His materialization in the center of the circle all the Adepts and Initiates bow gravely towards Him, and another verse is chanted. After this, still intoning verses, the inner rings divide into eight parts, so as to form a cross within the outer circle, the Lord Maitreya still remaining at the center. At the next movement of this stately ritual, the cross becomes a triangle, the Lord Maitreya moving forward so as to stand at its apex, and therefore close to the altar stone. Upon that altar, in the open space left in front of the golden bowl, the Lord Maitreya reverently lays the Rod of Power, while behind Him the circle changes into a rather involved curved figure, so that all are facing the altar. At the next change the curved figure becomes a reversed triangle, so that we have a representation of the well-known sign of the Theosophical Society, though without its encircling snake. This figure in turn resolves itself into the five-pointed star, the Lord Maitreya being still at the QO RO w Dr1acrRAM 10 THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 289 southern point nearest the altar stone, and the other great Officials or Chohans at the five points where the lines intersect. A diagram of the symbolic figures !s herewith appended, as some of them are not easy to describe. When this seventh and final stage is reached the chanting ceases, and after a few moments of solemn silence the Lord Maitreya, again taking the Rod of Power into His hands and raising it above His head, utters in a few sonorous words of Pali: “All is ready; Master, come!”’ Then as He again lays down the fiery rod, at the exact moment of the full moon, the Lord Buddha appears as a gigantic figure floating in the air just above the southern hills. The members of the Broth- erhood bow with joined hands, and the multitude behind them fall on their faces and remain prostrate, while the others sing the three verses which were taught by the Lord Buddha Himself during His earth- life to the school-boy Chatta: The Lord Buddha, the Sage of the Sakyas, is among man- kind the best of Teachers. He has done that which was to be done, and has crossed to the other shore (Nirvana). He is filled with strength and energy; Him, the Blessed One, I take for my guide. The truth is non-material; it brings freedom from passion, desire and sorrow; it is free from all stain; it is sweet, plain and logical; this truth I take as my guide. Whatever is given to the eight kinds of the Noble Ones, Who in pairs form the four grades, Who know the truth, verily brings great reward; this Brotherhood of the Noble Ones I take as my guide. 290 Tue Masters AND THE PatTH Then the people rise and stand gazing at the pres- ence of the Lord while the Brotherhood chants for the benefit of the people the noble words of the Maha- mangala Sutta, which has been translated thus (I think by Professor Rhys Davids) : “When yearning for good, many devas and men Have held divers things to be blessings; Do thou then inform us, O Master, What is the greatest blessing?” - “Not to serve the foolish, But to serve the wise; To honor those worthy of honor; This is the greatest blessing. To dwell in a pleasant land, To have done good deeds in a former birth, To have a soul filled with right desires; This is the greatest blessing. Much insight and much education, Self-control and a well-trained mind, Pleasant words that are well spoken; This is the greatest blessing. To support father and mother, To cherish wife and child, To follow a peaceful calling; This is the greatest blessing. To bestow alms and live righteously, To give help to one’s kindred, To do deeds which cannot be blamed; This is the greatest blessing. To abhor and cease from sin, To abstain from strong drink, Not to be weary in well-doing; This is the greatest blessing. To be long-suffering and meek, To associate with the tranquil, Religious talk at due seasons; This is the greatest blessing. Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 291 Self-restraint and purity, The knowledge of the Four Great Truths, The realization of Nirvana; This is the greatest blessing. Beneath the stroke of life’s changes The soul that stands unshaken, Passionless, unsorrowing, secure; This is the greatest blessing. Invincible on every side Is he who acteth thus; On every side he walks in safety; And his is the greatest blessing.” The figure which floats above the hills is of enor- mous size, but exactly reproduces the form and fea- tures of the body in which the Lord last lived on earth. He appears seated cross-legged, with the hands together, dressed in the yellow robe of the Buddhist monk, but wearing it so as to leave the right arm bare. No description can give an idea of the face—a face truly God-like, for it combines calm- ness and power, wisdom and love in an expression containing all that our minds can imagine of the Divine. We may say that the complexion is clear yellowish-white, and the features clearly cut; that the forehead is broad and noble; the eyes large, luminous and of a deep dark blue; the nose slightly aquiline; the lips red and firmly set; but all this puts before us merely the outer mask and gives but a little grasp of the living whole. The hair is black— almost blue-black—and wavy; curiously, it is neither worn long according to Indian custom, nor shaved off altogether in the manner of Oriental monks, but 292 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH is cut off just before it reaches the shoulders, parted in the center and swept back from the forehead. The story is told that when the Prince Siddartha left home to seek the truth, he seized his long hair and cut it off close above his head with a sweep of his sword, and that ever afterwards he kept it at the same length. When the Mahamangala Sutta is finished, the Lord Maitreya takes the golden bowl of water from the altar stone, and holds it above His head for a few moments, while the multitude behind, who have also provided themselves with vessels filled with water, follow His example. As He replaces it on the altar stone another verse is chanted: He is the Lord, the Saint Who is perfect in knowledge, Who possesses the eight kinds of knowledge and has accom- plished the fifteen holy practices, Who has come the good journey which led to the Buddhahood, Who knows the three worlds, the unrivaled, the Teacher of gods and men, the Blessed One, the Lord Buddha. As this ends, a smile of ineffable love beams forth from the face of the Lord as He raises His right hand in the attitude of benediction while a great shower of flowers falls among the people. Again the mem- bers of the Brotherhood bow, again the crowd pros- trates itself, and the figure slowly fades out of the sky, while the multitude relieves itself in shouts of joy and praise. The members of the Brotherhood come up to the Lord Maitreya in the order of Their admission, and each sips the water in the golden bowl, and the people also sip theirs, taking the re- Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 293 mainder home in their quaint leather bottles as holy water to drive away all evil influences from their houses or perhaps to cure the sick. Then the vast company breaks up with mutual congratulations, and the people bear away to their far-distant homes an ineffaceable memory of the wonderful ceremony in which they have taken part. An interesting glimpse of the Predecessors of the Buddha is to be found in the Vision of St. John the Divine: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats; and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.” He who is privileged to see this—and remember it will come to everyone some day—does so from the special point of view of his own beliefs. Therefore St. John saw what he expected to see, the twenty-four elders of the Jewish tradition. That number, twenty-four, marks the date at which this vision was first seen, or rather the date at which the Jewish idea of that glory was formulated. If we now could raise ourselves into the Spirit, and could see that ineffable glory, we should see twenty-five, not twenty-four Elders, for there has been one Lord Buddha Who has attained since this Vision was crystallized in the Jewish scheme of higher thought. For those Elders are the Great Teachers Who have taught the worlds in this our Round. There are seven Buddhas to each world; that makes twenty-one for the three worlds which we have 294 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH passed, and then the Lord Gautama was the fourth of the Buddhas of this world. Therefore, twenty-four were the Elders in those old days, but They would be twenty-five if we could see Them now. The Christian Church has translated that some- what differently, taking those Elders as its twelve apostles and the twelve Jewish prophets. If those twenty-four were the apostles and the prophets, the seer must have seen himself among the rest, which would surely have been mentioned. Those Elders had on their heads crowns of gold, it is said, and a little later on we read that They cast their crowns before Him, as we sing in the glorious Trinity hymn. I remember that as a child I marveled much how that could be. It seemed a strange thing that these men could constantly cast down those crowns, and still have crowns to cast. I could not understand it, and I wondered what scheme there was for the re- turning of the crowns to their heads, so that they could cast them down again. Such faintly ridiculous ideas are perhaps not unnatural in a child; but they disappear when one understands. If we have seen images of the Lord Buddha we must have noticed that out of the crown of His head there usually comes a little mound or cone. It is as a crown, golden in color, which represents the outpouring spiritual force from what is called the brahmarandra chakra, the center at the top of the man’s head—the thousand- petaled lotus, as it is poetically called in Oriental books. Tuer WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 295 In the highly developed man that center pours out splendor and glory, which makes for him a veritable crown; and the meaning of the passage is that all that he has developed, all the splendid karma that he makes, all the glorious spiritual force that he generates—all that he casts perpetually at the feet of the Logos to be used in His work. So, over and over again, can he continue to cast down his golden crown, because it perpetually re-forms as the force wells up from within him. The Lord Maitreya, Whose name means kindliness or compassion, took up the office of Bodhisattva when the Lord Gautama laid it down, and since then He has made many efforts for the promotion of Religion. One of His first steps on assuming office was to take advantage of the tremendous magnetism generated in the world by the presence of the Buddha, to ar- range that great Teachers should simultaneously ap- pear in many different parts of the earth; so that within a comparatively short space of time we find not only the Buddha Himself, Shri Shankaracharya and Mahavira in India, but also Mithra in Persia, Lao-tse and Confucius in China, and Pythagoras in ancient Greece. Twice He has Himself appeared—as Krishna in the Indian plains, and as Christ amid the hills of Palestine. In the incarnation as Krishna the great feature was always love; the Child Krishna drew round Him people who felt for Him the deepest, the most intense affection. Again in His birth in Pales- 296 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH tine, love was the central feature of His teaching. He said: “This new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” He asked that His disciples might all be one in Him even as He was one with the Father. His closest disciple, St. John, insisted most strongly upon the same idea: “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is Love.” ; What is now called Christianity, as He originally taught it was undoubtedly a magnificent conception, sadly as it has fallen away from that high level in the hands of ignorant exponents since. It must not be assumed, of course, that the teaching of brotherly and neighborly love was new in the world. As St. Augustine said in his book De Civitate Dei, “The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion which already existed began to be called Christian.” Readers of The Bhagavad Gita will also remember the teaching of love and devotion with which it is filled. The Bodhisattva also occu- pied occasionally the body of Tsong-ka-pa, the great Tibetan religious reformer, and throughout the cen- turies He has sent forth a stream of His pupils, in- cluding Nagarjuna, Aryasanga, Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya and many others, who founded new sects or threw new light upon the mysteries of re- Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 297 ligion, and among these was one of His pupils who was sent to found the Mohammedan faith. Now the time is ripe for Him to appear among us again on the physical plane, and He will surely come within a few years, and of this advent and of what He is likely to teach I have already written in a previous chapter. The sending out of the teachers I have mentioned above is only part of His work, which is not confined to humanity, but includes the education of all crea- tures on earth, and among them the Deva evolution. He is thus the head of all the faiths at present exist- ing, and of many others which have died out in the course of time, though He is of course only respon- sible for them in their original form and not for the corruption which man has naturally and inevitably introduced into all of them as the ages have rolled by. He varies the type of religion to suit the period of the world’s history at which it is put forth, and the people to whom it is given; but though the form may vary as evolution proceeds, the ethics are ever the same. He will come to earth many times more during the progress of the root-race, founding many such re- ligions, and each time drawing round Himself such men of that race as are prepared to follow Him, from among whose number He chooses some whom He can draw into closer relation with Himself, some who are pupils in the innermost sense. Then towards the end 298 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH of the race, when it is already far past its prime, and a new race is beginning to dominate the world, He will arrange that all His special pupils who have followed Him in those previous incarnations shall come to birth together about the time of His last life in the world. In it He will attain the great Initiation of the Buddha, and thus gain perfect enlightenment; at that time these pupils of His, without physically knowing or remembering Him, will all be strongly attracted towards Him, and under His influence great numbers of them will enter the Path, and many will advance to the higher stages, having already in previous in- carnations made considerable progress. We thought at first that the accounts given in the Buddhist books of the large numbers of men who instantly attained the Arhat level when the Lord Gautama became the Buddha were beyond the bounds of possibility; but we found on closer examination that there was truth underlying those accounts. It is possible that the numbers were exaggerated, but that very many pupils did suddenly attain these higher degrees of Initiation under the impetus given by the mighty magnetism and power of the Buddha is undoubtedly a fact. Besides the great Wesak Festival, there is one other occasion in each year when the members of the Broth- erhood all meet together officially. The meeting in this case is usually held in the private house of the Lord Maitreya situated also in the Himalayas, but on the southern instead of the northern slopes. On Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 299 this occasion no pilgrims on the physical plane are present, but all astral visitors who know of the cele- bration are welcome to attend it. It is held on the full moon day of the month of Asala, usually corre- sponding to the English July. This is the anniver- sary of the delivery by the Lord Buddha of His first announcement of the great discovery—the sermon which He preached to His five disciples, commonly known as the Dhammachakkappavattana Sutta, which has been translated by Rhys Davids as “The Setting in Motion of the Royal Chariot Wheels of the Kingdom of Righteousness.” It is often more briefly described in Buddhist books as “The Turning of the Wheel of the Law.” It explains for the first time the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, expounding the great middle way of the Buddha— the life of perfect righteousness in the world, which lies midway between the extravagances of asceticism on the one hand and the carelessness of mere worldly life on the other. In His love for His great Predecessor the Lord Maitreya has ordained that, whenever the anniver- sary of that first preaching comes round, the same sermon shall be recited once more in the presence of the assembled Brotherhood; and He usually adds to it a simple address of His own, expounding and applying it. The recitation of the sermon commences at the moment of full moon, and the reading and the address are usually over in about half an hour. The Lord Maitreya generally takes His place upon the 300 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH marble seat which is set at the edge of a raised ter- race in the lovely garden just in front of His house. The greatest of the Officials sit close about Him, while the rest of the Brotherhood is grouped in the garden a few feet below. On this occasion, as on the other, there is often an opportunity for pleasant con- verse, and kindly greetings and benedictions are dis- tributed by the Masters among Their pupils and those who aspire to be Their pupils. It may be useful to give some account of the cere- mony, and of what is usually said at these Festivals, though it is, of course, utterly impossible to repro- duce the wonder and the beauty and the eloquence of the words of the Lord Maitreya on such occasions. The account which follows does not attempt to report any single discourse; it is a combination of, I fear, very imperfectly remembered fragments, some of which have already appeared elsewhere; but it will give to those who have not previously heard of it some idea of the line generally taken. That great sermon is wonderfully simple, and its points are repeated over and over again. There was no shorthand in those days, so that it might be taken down and read by everyone afterwards; His disciples had to remember His words by the impression made on them at the time. So He made them simple, and He repeated them again and again like a refrain, so that the people might be sure of them. One may readily see in reading it that it is constructed for this special purpose—that it may be easily remembered. THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 301 Its points are arranged categorically, so that when it has once been heard each point reminds one of the next, as though it were a kind of mnemonic, and to the Buddhist each of these separate and easily re- membered words suggests a whole body of related ideas, so that the sermon, short and simple as it is, contains an explanation and a rule of life. One might well think that all that can be said about that sermon has been said already many times over; yet the Lord, with His wonderful eloquence and the way in which He puts it, makes it every year seem something new, and each person feels its mes- sage as though it were specially addressed to himself. On that occasion, as in the original preaching, the Pentecostal miracle repeats itself. The Lord speaks in the original sonorous Pali, but everyone present hears Him “in His own tongue wherein He was born,” as is said in the Acts of the Apostles. The sermon begins with a proclamation that the Middle Path is the safest, and indeed the only true Path. To plunge on the one hand into the sensual excesses and pleasures of the ordinary worldly life is mean and degrading, and leads a man nowhither. On the other hand, extravagant asceticism is also evil and useless. There may be a few to whom the high ascetic and solitary life appeals, and they may be capable of leading it rightly, though even then it must not be carried to excess; but for all ordinary people the Middle Way of a good life lived in the world is in every way best and safest. The first step 302 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH towards the leading of such a life is to understand its conditions; and the Lord Buddha lays these down for us in what He has called the Four Noble Truths. These are: Sorrow or Suffering. The Cause of Sorrow. The Ceasing of Sorrow (or the Escape from Sorrow). The Way which leads to the Escape from Sorrow. see 1. The first truth is an assertion that all mani- fested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it. In commenting upon this, the Bodhisattva said that there are two senses in which manifested life is sorrowful. One of these is to some éxtent inevitable, but the other is an entire mistake and is very easily to be avoided. To the Monad, which is the true spirit of man, all manifested life is in one sense a sorrow, because it is a limitation; a limitation which we in our physical brain cannot in the least conceive, because we have no idea of the glorious freedom of the higher life. In exactly the same sense it has always been said that the Christ offers Himself as a Sacrifice when He descends into matter. It is a sac- rifice undoubtedly, because it is an inexpressibly great limitation, for it shuts off from Him all the glorious powers which are His on His own level. The same is true of the Monad of man; he undoubtedly makes a great sacrifice when he brings himself into connection with lower matter, when he hovers over it through the long ages of its development up to the human level, when he puts down a tiny fragment of Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 303 himself (a finger-tip as it were) and thereby makes an ego or individual soul. Even though we may be only a tiny fragment— indeed, a fragment of a fragment—we are neverthe- less a part of a magnificent reality. There is noth- ing to be proud of in being only a fragment, but there is a certainty that because we are therefore part of the higher, we can eventually rise into the higher and become one therewith. That is the end and aim of our evolution. And even when we attain that, remember that it is not for the sake of our delight in the advancement, but that we may be able to help in the scheme. All these sacrifices and limitations may rightly be described as involving suffering; but they are undertaken gladly as soon as the ego fully understands. An ego has not the perfection of the Monad, and so he does not fully understand at first; he has to learn like everybody else. That quite tre- mendous limitation at each further descent into mat- ter is an unavoidable fact, and so there is that much of suffering inseparable from manifestation. We have to accept that limitation as a means to an end, as part of the Divine Scheme. There is another sense in which life is often sor- row, but a kind of sorrow that can be entirely avoided. The man who lives the ordinary life of the world often finds himself in trouble of various kinds. It would not be true to say that he is always in sor- row, but he is often in anxiety, and he is always liable at any moment to fall into great sorrow or 304 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH anxiety. The reason for this is that he is full of lower desires of various kinds, not at all necessarily wicked, but desires for lower things; and because of these desires he is tied down and confined. He is constantly striving to attain something which he has not, and he is full of anxiety as to whether he will attain it; and when he has attained it, he is anxious lest he should lose it. This is true not only of money but of position and power, of wealth and of social advancement. All these cravings cause incessant trouble in many different ways. It is not only the individual anxiety of the man who has or has not some object of desire; we have also to take into account all the envy and jealousy and ill-feeling caused in the hearts of others who are striving for the same object. There are other objects of desire which seem higher than these and yet are not the highest. How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of sadness, jealousy and much other ill- feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural; undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot be re- turned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to be caused by the unsatisfied desire. When we say that a thing is nat- ural, we mean that it is what we might expect from the average man. But the student of occultism must Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 305 try to rise somewhat above the level of the average man—otherwise how can he help that man? We must rise above that level in order that we may be able to reach down a helping hand. We must aim not at the natural (in the sense of the average), but at the supernatural. One who is clairvoyant will readily subscribe to the truth of this great teaching of the Buddha, that on the whole life is sorrow, for if he looks at the astral and mental bodies of those whom he meets he will see that they are filled with a vast number of small vortices all whirling vigorously, representing all sorts of odd little thoughts, little anxieties, little troubles about one thing or another. All these cause disturbance and suffering, and what is needed most of all for progress is serenity. The only way to gain peace is to get rid of them altogether, and that brings us to our second noble truth, the Cause of Sorrow. 2. We have already seen that the cause of sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires, if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene because he does not care. Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that he does not allow himself to be dis- turbed. We know, for example, how often people are prostrated with sorrow when they lose those whom they love by death. But if their affection _be at the higher level, if they love their friend and 306 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH not the body of their friend, there can be no sense of separation, and therefore no sorrow. If they are filled with desire for bodily contact with that friend on the physical plane, then at once that desire will cause sorrow. But if they will put aside that desire and live in the communion of the higher life, the sorrow passes away. Sometimes people sorrow when they find old age coming upon them, when they find their vehicles not so strong as they used to be. They desire the strength and the faculties that they once had. It is wise for them to repress that desire, to realize that their bodies have done good work, and if they cah no longer do the same amount as of yore, they should do gently and peacefully what they can, but not worry them- selves over the change. Presently they will have new bodies; and the way to insure a good one is to make such use as they can of the old one, but in any case to be serene and calm and unruffled. The only way to do that is to forget self, to let all selfish desires cease, and to turn the thought outward to the helping of others as far as one’s capabilities go. 3. The Ceasing of Sorrow. Already we see how sorrow ceases and how calm is to be attained; it is by always keeping the thought on the highest things. We have still to live in this world, which has been poetically described as the sorrowful star—as indeed it is for so many, perhaps for most people, though it need not be; yet we may live in it quite happily if we are not attached to it by desire. We are in it, Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 307 but we must not be of it—at least not to such an extent as to let it cause worry and trouble and sor- row. Undoubtedly our duty is to help others in their sorrows and troubles and worries; but in order to do that effectively we must have none of our own; we must let those ruffles which might cause them slip smoothly past us, leaving us calm and contented. If we take this lower life with philosophy we shall find that for us sorrow almost entirely ceases. There may be some who think such an attitude unattainable. It is not so, for if it were the Lord Buddha would never have prescribed it for us. We can all reach it, and we ought to do so, because only when we have attained it can we really and effec- tively help our brother man. 4. The Way which leads to the Escape from Sor- row. This is given to us in what is called the Noble Eightfold Path—another of the Lord Buddha’s won- derful tabulations or categories. It is a very beau- tiful statement, because it can be taken at all levels. The man in the world, even the uneducated man, can take it in its lowest aspects and find a way to peace and comfort through it. And yet the highest philos- opher may also take it and interpret it at his level and learn very much from it. The first step in this Path is Right Belief. ‘Some people object to that qualification, because they say it demands from them something in the nature of blind faith. It is not at all that sort of belief which is required; it is rather a demand for a certain. 308 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH amount of knowledge as to the ruling factors in life. It demands that we shall understand a little of the Divine Scheme as far as it applies to us, and if we cannot yet see that for ourselves, that we should ac- cept it as it is always put before us. Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scrip- tures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can live happily. One of these facts is the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. If, again, he does not understand that the object of his life is progress, that God’s Will for him is that he shall grow to be something better and nobler than he is now, then also he will bring unhappiness and suffering upon himself because he will be likely to live for the lower side of life only, and that lower side of life never finally satisfies the inner man. And so it comes about that he must at least know something of these great laws of Nature, and if he cannot yet know them for himself it will be well for him to believe them. Later on, and at a higher level, before Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 309 the Second Initiation can be attained, we are told that we must kill out all doubt. When the Lord Buddha was asked whether this meant that we must accept some form of belief blindly, He replied: ‘No, but you must know for yourself three great things—that only upon the Path of Holiness and Good Living can man finally attain perfection; that in order to attain it he moves through many lives, gradually rising higher and higher; and that there is a Law of Eternal Justice under which all these things work.” At that stage the man must. cast out all doubt, and must be thoroughly and in- wardly convinced of these things; but for the man of the world it is well that he should at least believe that much, because unless he has that as a guide in life he cannot get any further. The second step of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Thought. Now, Right Thought means two. separate things. The first demands that we should think about right things and not about wrong things. We can have at the back of our minds always high and beautiful thoughts, or on the other hand those minds may be filled with thoughts of common every- day matters. Let there be no mistake here; what- ever work we are doing should be done thoroughly and earnestly, and with whatever concentration of thought upon it is necessary for that perfection. But most people, even when their work is done, or when there comes a pause in it, still have their thoughts. 310 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTH running upon unimportant and comparatively ignoble things. Those who are devoted to the Master seek always to hold the thought of that Master in the back of their minds, so that when there is a moment’s res- pite from worldly action, at once that thought of Him comes forward and occupies the mind. At once the pupil thinks: “What can I do to make my life like the Master’s? How can I so improve myself that I can show forth the beauty of the Lord to those around me? What can I do to carry on His work of helping other people?” One of the things we can all do is to send out helpful and sympathetic thought. Remember, also, that right thought must be defi- nite and not scattered; thoughts resting for a mo- ment on one thing and then flying instantly to some- thing else are useless, and will not help us at all in learning to manage our thoughts. Right thought must never have the slightest touch of evil in it; there must be nothing doubtful about it. There are many people who would not deliberately think of anything impure or horrible, and yet they will cher- ish thoughts which are on the brink of that—not definitely evil, but certainly a little doubtful. In right thought there must be nothing like that; wher- ever there is anything which seems in the least sus- picious or unkind, it must be shut out. We must be quite sure that our thoughts are only kind and good. There is another meaning of right thought, and that is correct thought—that we should think the truth only. So often we think untruly and wrongly Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 311 of persons just because of prejudice or ignorance. We get an idea that a certain person is a bad person, and therefore that all that he does must be evil. We attribute motives to him which are often absolutely without foundation, and in doing so we are thinking untruly of him, and therefore our thought is not right thought. All men not yet Adepts have in them some- thing of evil as well as something of good; but most unfortunately it is our custom to fix all our attention on the evil, and to forget all about the good—never to look for it at all. Therefore our thought about these people is not right thought, not only because it is uncharitable, but because it is untrue. We are looking only at one side of the person and we ignore the other side. Furthermore, by fixing our attention on the evil in the man instead of the good, we strengthen and encourage that evil; whereas by right thought we might give just the same encouragement to the good side of that man’s nature. The next stage is Right Speech; and here again we find just the same two divisions. First, we should speak always of good things. It is not our business to speak of the evil deeds of others. In most cases the stories about other people which reach us are not true, and so if we repeat them our words also are untrue, and we are doing harm to ourselves as well as to the person of whom we speak. And even if the story is true it is still wrong to repeat it, for we can do no good to the man by saying over and over again that he has done wrong; the kindest thing that we 312 Tue Masters AND THE PatH could do would be to say nothing about it. We should do that instinctively if the wrong thing were done by a husband, a son, a brother; we should cer- tainly feel that it would be wrong to advertise the misdeed of one whom we loved to many people who would not otherwise hear of it. But if there is any truth at all in our profession of universal brotherhood we should realize that we have no right to circulate evil about any man, that we should speak with re- gard to others as we should wish them to speak with regard to us. Yet again we must remember that many people make their speech untrue because they allow themselves to fall into exaggeration and in- accuracy. They make little things into enormous stories; assuredly that is not right speech. Again, speech must be kindly; and it must be direct and forceful, not silly. A large section of the world exists under the delusion that it must make conver- sation; that it is odd or rude not to be perpetually babbling. The idea seems to be that when one meets a friend one must keep talking all the time, or the friend will be hurt. Remember that when the Christ was on earth He made a very strict statement that for every idle word that man should speak he would have to account hereafter. The idle word is so often a mischievous word; but quite apart from that, even innocent idle words involve waste of time; if we must talk, at least we might say something useful and helpful. Some people with the idea of seeming smart, keep up a stream of constant half-joking or sneering THE WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 313 talk. They must always be capping something that someone else has said. They must always be showing everything in a ridiculous or amusing aspect. Cer- tainly all that comes under the heading of idle words, and there is no doubt that it is seriously necessary that we should exercise exceeding care in this matter of right speech. The next step is Right Action. We see at once how these three steps necessarily follow one from another. If we think always of good things, we shall certainly not speak of evil things, because we speak what is in our mind; and if our thought and speech are good, then the action which follows will also be good. Action must be prompt and yet well consid- ered. We all know some people who, when any emergency arises, seem to become helpless; they pot- ter about and do not know what to do, and they get in the way of those who have their brains in better working order. Others plunge into some rash action without thinking at all. Learn to think quickly and act promptly, and yet always with consideration. Above all, always let action be unselfish; let it never be actuated in the least by personal considerations. That is very hard for most people, and yet it is a power which must be acquired. We who try to live for the Master have many opportunities in our work to put that idea into practice. We must all think only what is best for the work and what we can do to help others, and we must entirely put aside any personal considerations. We must not think what 314. Tuer MASTERS AND THE PatTH part in the work we should like to bear, but we must try to do the best that we possibly can with the part that is assigned to us. In these days few people live by themselves as monks or hermits used to do. We live among others, so that whatever we think or say or do will neces- sarily affect a great many people. We should always bear in mind that our thought, our speech and our action are not merely qualities, but powers—powers given to us to use, for the use of which we are directly responsible. All are meant to be used for service, and to use them otherwise is to fail in our duty. ; We come now to the fifth step—Right Means of Livelihood—and that is a matter which may touch quite a large number of us. The Right Means of Livelihood is that which causes no harm to any living thing. We see at once that that would rule out such trades as those of a butcher or a fisherman; but the command reaches much further than that. We should not obtain our livelihood by harming any creature and therefore we see at once that the selling of alcohol is not a right means of livelihood. The seller of alcohol does not necessarily kill people but he is unquestionably doing harm, and he is living on the harm he does to the people. The idea goes yet further. Take the case of a merchant who in the course of his trade is dishonest. That is not a right means of livelihood, because his trading is not fair and he is cheating the people. Tuer WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 315 If a merchant deals fairly, buying his articles whole- sale and selling them retail at a reasonable profit, that is a right means of livelihood; but the moment he begins to mislead people and sells a poor article for a good one, he is cheating them. A right means of livelihood may become a wrong means if it is treated in a wrong way. We must deal as honestly with people as we should wish them to deal with us. If a person is a trader in a certain class of goods, he has special knowledge of those goods. The cus- tomer trusts himself in the hands of the trader because he himself has not that special knowledge. When you trust a doctor or a lawyer, you expect to be treated fairly. But it is exactly in the same way that the customer comes to the trader, and therefore the latter should be as honest with his customer as the lawyer or the doctor is with his client or his patient. When a man trusts you in that way, he puts you on your honor to do your best for him. You have a right to make a reasonable profit in the course of your bargain, but you must also look to your duty. The sixth step is Right Exertion or Right En- deavor, and it is a very important one. We must not be content to be negatively good. What is de- sired of us is not merely absence of evil, but the positive doing of good. When the Lord Buddha made that wonderful short statement of His doctrine in a single verse, He began by saying, “Cease to do evil,” but the next line runs, ‘Learn to do good.” It is 316 THE MASTERS AND THE PaTH not enough to be passively good. There are so many well-meaning people who yet achieve nothing. Every person has a certain amount of strength, not only physical, but mental. When we have a day’s work before us, we know that we must reserve our strength for that, and therefore before we begin it we do not undertake something else which would so exhaust us as that the day’s work could not be prop- erly done. Similarly we have a certain amount of strength of mind and of will, and we can perform only a certain amount of work on that level; there- fore we must take care how we spend that power. There are other powers too. Every person has a certain amount of influence among his friends and relations. That influence means power, and we are responsible for making good use of that power. All about us are children, relations, employes, servants, and over all of these we have a certain amount of influence, at least by example; we must be careful what we do and what we say, because others will copy us. Right Exertion means putting our work into useful lines and not wasting it. There are many things that can be done, but some of them are immediate and more urgent than others. We must look about and see where our exertion would be most useful. It is not well that all should do the same thing; it is wiser that the work should be divided among us so that it may be perfectly rounded off and not left in a one- Tur WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 317 sided condition. In all these matters we must use our reason and common sense. Right Memory or Right Remembrance is the sev- enth step, and it means many things. The Right Memory of which the Lord Buddha spoke has often been taken by His followers to mean the memory of past incarnations, which He Himself possessed most fully. In one of the Jataka stories, a person spoke ill of Him. He turned to His disciples and said: ‘TI have insulted this man in a previous life, and there- fore he speaks ill of me now; I have no right to resent it.”’ No doubt if we remembered everything that had happened to us before, we could arrange our present life better than we do. Most of us, how- ever, have not the power of remembering our past lives; but we must not therefore think that the teaching as to Right Memory does not apply to us. First of all it means self-recollectedness. It means that we must remember all the time who we are, what our work is, what is our duty, and what we should be doing for the Master. Then again Right Memory means the exercise of a reasonable choice as to what we shall remember. To all of us in our lives there come pleasant things, and also things un- pleasant. A wise person will take care to remember the good things, but he will let the evil die. Suppose someone comes and speaks rudely to us; a foolish person will remember that for weeks, months and years, and will continue to say that such-and-such 318 Tue MASTERS AND THE PATH a person spoke unkindly to him. It will rankle in his mind. But what good will that do him? Ob- viously, none at all; it will only annoy him and keep alive in his mind an evil thought. That certainly is not Right Memory. We should forget and forgive then and there an evil thing done to us; but we should always bear in mind the kindnesses that people have done us, because they will fill our minds with love and with gratitude. Again, we have all made many mistakes; it is well that we should re- member them in so far as not to repeat them; but otherwise, to brood over them, to be always filling our minds with regret and with sorrow because of them, is not Right Memory. The last step is called Right Meditation or Right Concentration. This refers not only to the set medi- tation which we perform as part of our discipline, but it also means that all through our lives we should concentrate ourselves on the object of doing good and of being useful and helpful. In daily life we cannot be always meditating, because of the daily work that we must all do in the course of our ordinary lives; and yet I am not sure that a statement like that, made without reservation, is entirely true. We can- not always have our consciousness drawn away from the physical plane to higher levels; yet it is possible to live a life of meditation in this sense—that the higher things are always so strongly present in the background of our minds that, as I said when speaking about Right Thought, they may instantly Tue WISDOM IN THE TRIANGLES 319 come to the front when that mind is not otherwise occupied. Our life will then be really a life of per- petual meditation upon the highest and noblest ob- jects, interrupted now and then by the necessity of putting our thoughts into practice in daily life. Such a habit of thought will influence us in more ways than we see at the first glance. Like always attracts like; two people who adopt such a line of thought will presently be drawn together, will feel an attraction one for the other; and so it may well be that in time a nucleus of those who habitually hold the higher thought will be gathered together, and will gradually develop, perhaps into a Theo- sophical Lodge; at any rate, they will draw together, their thoughts will react upon one another and in that way each will greatly help the advancement of the rest. Again, wherever we go we are surrounded by invisible hosts, Angels, nature-spirits, and men who have laid aside their physical bodies. The con- dition of Right Concentration will attract to us all the best of those various orders of beings, so that wherever we go we shall be surrounded by good and holy influences. This is the teaching of the Lord Buddha as He gave it in that first Sermon; it is upon this teaching that the world-wide Kingdom of Righteousness is founded, the Royal Chariot-Wheels of which He set in motion for the first time on that Asala Festival so many centuries ago. _ When in the far future the time shall come for the 320 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatTH advent of another Buddha, and the present Bodhi- sattva takes that final incarnation in which the great step will be achieved, He will preach the Divine Law to the world in whatever form may seem to Him most suited to the requirements of that era, and then will follow Him in His high office the Master Kuthumi, Who has transferred Himself to the Second Ray to take the responsibility of becoming the Bodhisattva of the sixth root-race. CHAPTER XV THE POWER IN THE TRIANGLES Our world is governed by a Spiritual King—one of the Lords of the Flame Who came long ago from Venus. He is called by the Hindus, Sanat Kumara, the last word being a title meaning Prince or Ruler. He is often spoken of as the One Initiator, the One without a Second, the Eternal Youth of Sixteen Sum- mers; and sometimes He is called the Lord of the World. He is the Supreme Ruler; in His hand and within His actual aura lies the whole of His planet. He represents the Logos, as far as this world is con- cerned, and directs the whole of its evolution—not that of humanity alone, but also the evolution of the Devas, the nature-spirits, and all other creatures connected with the earth. He 1s, of course, entirely distinct from the great Entity called the Spirit of the Earth, who uses our world as a physical body. In His mind He holds the whole plan of evolution at some high level of which we know nothing; He is the force which drives the whole world-machine, the embodiment of the Divine Will on this planet, and strength, courage, decision, perseverance and all similar characteristics, when they show themselves down here in the lives of men, are reflections from 322 Tue MASTERS AND THE PatH Him. His consciousness is of so extended a nature that it comprehends at once all the life on our globe. In His hands are the powers of cyclic destruction, for He wields Fohat in its higher forms and can deal directly with cosmic forces outside our chain. His work is probably usually connected with humanity en masse rather than with individuals, but when He does influence any single person we are told that it is through the Atma and not through the Ego that His influence is brought to bear. At a certain point in the progress of an aspirant on the Path he is formally presented to the Lord of the World, and those who have thus met Him face to face speak of Him as in appearance a handsome youth, dignified, benignant beyond all description, yet with a mien of omniscient, inscrutable majesty conveying such a sense of resistless power that some have found themselves unable to bear His gaze, and have veiled their faces in awe. Thus, for example, did our great Founder, Madame Blavatsky. One who has had this experience can never forget it, nor ean he ever thereafter doubt that, however terrible the sin and sorrow on earth may be, all things are somehow working together for the eventual good of all, and humanity is being steadily guided towards its final goal. During each world-period, we are told, there are three successive Lords of the World, and the present holder of the office is already the third. He resides with His three pupils in an oasis in the Gobi desert THE PoWER IN THE TRIANGLES 323 called Shamballa, often spoken of as the sacred island, in remembrance of the time when it was an island in the Central Asian Sea. These four greatest of the Adepts are often called “The Children of the Fire Mist,” since They belong to an evolution dif- ferent from ours. Their bodies, though human in ap- pearance, differ widely from ours in constitution, being rather garments assumed for convenience than bodies in the ordinary sense, since they are artificial and their particles do not change as do those of the human frame. They require no nourishment and remain unchanged through thousands of years. The Three Pupils, Who stand at the level of the Buddha, and are called Pratyeka or Pachcheka Buddhas, assist the Lord in His work, and are Them- selves destined to be our three Lords of the World when humanity is occupying the planet Mercury. Once in every seven years the Lord of the World conducts at Shamballa a great ceremony somewhat similar to the Wesak event, but on a still grander scale and of a different type, when all the Adepts and even some Initiates below that grade are invited, and have thus an opportunity to come into touch with Their great Leader. At other times He deals only with the Heads of the Official Hierarchy, except when for special reasons He summons others to His presence. The exalted position of this, our Spiritual King, has been described in The Secret Doctrine. It is there stated that as the ages pass the great steps 324 THe MASTERS AND THE PatHu which we now recognize as leading to perfection will remain unchanged as to their relative positions, though the system of things as a whole is moving upwards, and thus the actual attainments which in the remote future will mark a particular step will be far fuller than they are at present. The Perfected Men of the Seventh Round of our Chain will be, it is said, “but one remove from the Root-Base of their Hierarchy, the highest on Earth and our Ter- restrial Chain.” That is to say, the King stands even now one stage beyond the point to which only ages of evolution will bring the Perfected Men of our humanity—ages that must run into millions of years, taking us through two and a half rounds of varied experience. This Wondrous Being came during the Third Race period to take charge of the Earth evo- lution. That coming of the World’s future King is thus described in Man: Whence, How and Whither: The great Lemurian Polar Star was still perfect, and the huge Crescent still stretched along the equator, including Madagascar. The sea which occupied what is now the Gobi Desert still broke against the rocky barriers of the northern Himalayan slopes, and all was being prepared for the most dramatic moment in the history of the Earth—the Coming of the Lords of the Flame. The Lords of the Moon and the Manu of the third Root- Race had done all that was possible to bring men up to the point at which the germ of mind could be quickened, and the descent of the ego could be made. All the laggards had been pushed on; there were no more in the animal ranks capable of rising into man. The door against: further immi- grants into the human kingdom from the animal was only shut when no more were in sight, nor would be capable of reaching it without a repetition of the tremendous impulse se Tue Power IN THE TRIANGLES 325 only given once in the evolution of a Scheme, at its midmost point. A great astrological event, when a very special collocation of planets occurred and the magnetic condition of the Earth was the most favorable possible, was chosen as the time. It was about six and a half million years ago. Nothing more remained to be done, save what only They could do. Then, with the mighty roar of swift descent: from incal- culable heights, surrounded by blazing masses of fire which filled the sky with shooting tongues of flame, flashed through the erial spaces the chariot of the Sons of the Fire, the Lords of the Flame from Venus; it halted, hovering over the “White Island,” which lay smiling in the bosom of the Gobi Sea; green was it, and radiant with masses of fragrant many-colored blossoms, Earth offering her best and fairest to welcome her coming King. There He stood, “the Youth of sixteen summers,” Sanat Kumara, the “Eternal Virgin- Youth,” the new Ruler of Earth, come to His kingdom, His Pupils, the three Kumaras, with Him, His Helpers around Him; thirty mighty Beings were there, great beyond Earth’s reckoning, though in graded order, clothed in the glorious bodies They had created by Kriyashakti, the first Occult Hierarchy, branches of the one spreading Banyan-Tree, the nursery of future Adepts, the center of all occult life. Their dwelling-place was and is the Imperishable Sacred Land, on which ever shines down the Blazing Star, the symbol of Earth’s Monarch, the changeless Pole round which the life of our Earth is ever spinning. Of the Lord of the World, The Secret Doctrine Says: The “Being” just referred to, who has to remain nameless, is the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane—the ever invisible, yet ever present) Personage, about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is He who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is He, again, who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the “Nameless One” who has 326 THe MASTERS AND THE PaTH so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is the “Initiator,” called the “Great Sac- rifice.” For, sitting at the Threshold of Light, He looks into it from within the Circle of Darkness, which He will not cross; nor will He quit His post: till the last Day of this Life- Cycle. Why does the Solitary Watcher remain at His self- chosen post? Why does He sit by the Fountain of Primeval Wisdom, of which He drinks no longer, for He has naught to learn which He does not know—aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its Heaven? Because the lonely sore-footed Pilgrims, on their journey back to their Home, are never sure, to the last moment, of not losing their way, in this limitless desert of Illusion and Matter called Earth-Life. Because He would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which He is a voluntary exile Himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, He has sacrificed Him- self for the sake of Mankind, though but a few elect may profit by the Great Sacrifice. It is under the direct, silent guidance of this Maha-Guru that all the other less divine Teachers and Instructors of Mankind became, from the first awakening of human con- sciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through these “Sons of God” that infant Humanity learned its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge; and it is They who laid the first foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that so sorely puzzle our modern gener- ation of students and scholars. It is on the First Ray that the greatest progress for man is possible within the Hierarchy of our Globe, for there are on it two Initiations beyond that of the Manu. The Pachcheka Buddhas, Who stand next above the Manu, have been strangely misunder- stood by some writers who have described Them as the selfish ones Who refused to teach what They have learned, and passed away into Nirvana. It is true that these Buddhas do not teach, for They have the other work of Their own Ray to do, and true also THE PoweER IN THE TRIANGLES 327 that a time comes when They will leave the world, but only to carry on Their glorious work elsewhere. The next step, the Initiation that none can give, but each must take for Himself, puts the Adept on the level of the Lord of the World, an Office which is held first for the shorter period of a First or Sec- ond Lord on one World, and when that has been achieved, for the longer responsibility of the Third upon some other. The task of the Third Lord of the World is far greater than that of the First and Second Lord, be- cause it is His duty to round off satisfactorily that period of evolution, and to deliver over the countless millions of evolving creatures into the hands of the Seed-Manu, Who will be responsible for them during the inter-planetary Nirvana, and will hand them over in turn to the Root-Manu of the next globe. The Third Lord of the World, having fulfilled this duty, takes another Initiation entirely outside of our world and its Hierarchy, and attains the level of the Silent Watcher. In that capacity He remains on guard for the whole period of a Round, and it is only when the life-wave has again occupied our planet and is again ready to leave it that He abandons His strange self- imposed task, and hands it over to His Successor. Far above us as is all the splendor of these great heights at present, it is worth our while to lift our thought towards them and try to realize them a little. They show the goal before every one of us, and the clearer our sight of it the swifter and steadier will 328 Tue MASTERS AND THE PaTtH be our progress towards it, though we may not all hope to fulfill the ancient ideal in this, and fly as an arrow to the mark. In the course of this great progress every man will some day reach full consciousness on the highest of our planes, the Divine plane, and be conscious simul- taneously at all levels of this Prakritic Cosmic plane, so that having in Himself the power of the highest, He shall yet be able to comprehend and function on the very lowest, and help where help is needed. That omnipotence and omnipresence surely await every one of us, and though this lower life may not be worth living for anything that we may gain from it for ourselves, yet it is magnificently worth enduring as a necessary stage for the true life that lies before us. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him,” for the love of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, and the glory of God pass all understanding, even as does His peace. PEACE TO ALL BEINGS a . Ab an AY aie | Na pee cay Aah eh) nT eh vt i 1) sa M4 ei 1S if ah Ne © eas 4 MUN haat i eee ee LL eS ee ee ee PAGE A DAGIULE AL Dee LTINIGY y OF) ieteiesyreisicte aeiarsielow o's stalMaMeagnarealy(s 266 PEPE OLATICOI Ss Vem clay Gosia wanes anole BW ciel or hhalejene abel mietinrs aterate 97-111 Bye (Masterr ores. pupils oor ees hehe resi a eerie ne 70 AGCOUTETOLAAIN TUT SOU ee ae. Minors & cea els nie a pavenn Ure Mele 97-99 PRE CRITA CYT A556 5 sip alan al o Coe obs e tn DIRE TAN SINE eel rate SU ROR abe a te 94 ARTs) Vo 260-4 1 aoe Ere eS AM Weg i Mibid Peed 313, 314 MAUL ESOPALD EL ITIVCI; sha: S «90d Ste oh, Sod ie Sata cba oy aber: NAC RRTR UPR Ria 252 depts (see also. Masters): js 6)c.isied ig noise eo ieleralpiete 3, 17, 19, 20 Physical characteristics of... ...2.. .40nltan eee oe eae 21, 22 As lieutenants of World-Teacher ................... 41 Health a necessity for ie A ae ee oe 41 Freedom) from) karma chsh Aue a a, pie 42 Piysival (bodies vol ie isa,| eee rah ee 42, 43, 46, 47 epg CTE CAND Jy) eet Cat a en FP 49, 50, 104, 2038, 204, 211 PVE ORY POL eR ORL CLT aT TAI IN nat nee A a 58 Requirements: of childhood of oo... als eis eel apalele 77 RPUTAIECTOS NO Letter tcteh tiiyey 5s 2bu oa 4 mtae tepae bR RRR eines RE 253 PAWLOTIRGIIIS iret sere Ome eh aie isl si o swe se are eee Oe 17, 127, 204, 205 PTE CULOTA iis uleiavc emer eae roy: os) £5; Ss acuie’ oR ape neaene Ca 82, 191 PRICY ONES ovis ch emer Seeds Oe Sal SRA cece Ga 56 Altar stone in Wesak Valley ........... He Sen Be 285, 286, 288 mn wien, MEelpiilness® Ole. os... . 5 R le ete ae Seek alee 111 PTL SPRNI IT ay Shatin ce W nce v's) 9) ogi ab bos Aah PRR eRe EF ies rE 188, 190 nana. Love for aoords Buddha \i.5: dee ie ene euiu sal 191 PR TIALIMCU Runt sep RG PASE beds toCR at nha Jal ac a. 0. toz esd RAS ARM eS aR RUC AOL Se CAA 67 ATR OUNOL STAG UE TESONCE Yd Pike ais in oid balance HOUR ea eR ee rie 239 ARDEA OT OAN: ainda o's 6 Scab SURE ee Oe 146, 212 PAVE OE et) til ks Weare Page ee Nb URI at a 24 PAB ol ase ote ei ik oe Shs OR gens, Been cee 14 TILA RICHI Gee Wet Sn Li. See aah CR en ae es nebo hc 156 PRTG aa SO OU ana es rere Se Ma nein Recaro Ne 119 PPD WOT CL VAN Bolsa’ wii take eae eel Poet eee 250, 251 Archangels, Names and work of ...................-. 240, 241 PAGE ATH at A ee UG e eno ai aan scoala yc eae iat oy een a 192, 205 CAUSAL HOD Wi COT at he lew ie esa ogni wiles eietelere er ie ana ater ena 22 CONSCIGUSIESS TOTTI aicais tan i@eannisl cis ates cate ree erie 198 NWOT OT! (30m Ge tres sien cS ate abated in ok watt etal suke sie) eee 202 Tritiabi om yarccrs cris ate eek let Seal eee ae cule ae ee ec 298 IATHAtS Ip We rae, aan et Baron re tenet tre teal a pent See 187, 298 Artists,stheir Rayvinite scp cect isn Matric trad aan ceed 249 Arura “Devaan Sons sairadraure eam stored tenet amet orale eee te 158 Aruparaga, Seventh itetter jaunts sre wails vianete 203 ‘Aryan (Race, Qualities Ofc. sneer ae ciara corre rea 76, 224 ATV ASAD Sa Ge ey Se rise Om ie ates a cies weaken nineteen ee 296 Asala:sGeremnOly.th o') aside vd ore ooo oie tay Ole MPMI ea on 299, 301, 319 ASCENSION, “SyYMPOLISM. 1OL wsi0.0:4 AS 3.9.» LLANSIIT LED vaya Wice clestetonsleveian eters 105 POSTINGS JACOB i\eiys. oe 2 ptk estes shel ears unpaid MADAM an ee ee 257 Boome Dzyan.. Original (ob .hsitsaciaslaa s nele sedans la eee 24 ERRAND RNY RSs i lds oxcovs..siapcoin cttsta Ata Dae a tee at at ae NeET SiR he Pa 261 Brahmarandravchakra \2ti co ot. hehe Nadi ese ead Rat ae 294 Bnttanvacyatiure-spirits: Of, 4 asic d desla oS aacawe Wacieiae oan 250 Brocherhoodial humanityi. 2. Quis) ee se, “oes wae 277 BrOUDernGOd « OL ATEMIPIONS: wlaieiy. siceasGcdo eal lente ite tae 226 RUMI IVA TOA VY cei haves gcde ln'n ssles es Gots Pale een eae Wea eer ae 7 PeUICAN EIT HARAAOT eens aii ats nieuwe So ikke eee 45, 271, 298 Pine Kasvapanew nd Pekar be JRA eh eee eee 276 Buddha, Lord Gautama ..... 5, 45, 139, 163, 202, 204, 276, 299 SSETECLICLION CO Rmeu ieee Bhs iad) ssw leje C ARR aR amas Caner 137 UNITES EP LTELE G's io... « oad aa ok abate ea te ee 140 Presence, at’ Second : Initiation. «0025. og shb ei aee 175 Lovecvfory Anaiaageins vc oo eee oe 191 Proclamationsots, Ereedom |... ...<)aeesMenadeneeh Soe 198 PTCA Of ECON A AY |... ... a's o:s\cahantneeeee 233, 247, oa Reflection of Second Aspect of Logos ............... 267 PApnG OL Rei Viens. 0s.) hee hs eae 268 BYECECESIO TE OTANI tii. a5. 4.0 cscs idinardy atte oie eaters 276, 293 PCAN ATION COL cis oak sho sb AR ee We ae eh 279 Bari dOle ns. < tive ce Loe VaR eta: 277, 278, 279, 281 Return to the world each year ................. 281, 282 Appearance at Wesak Festival ............. 289, 291, 292 Fourths Buddhas: of this world: »: ssasies «> Moueebee oa 294 PAPE ST OL aisich potatoes ie «iD 4ie trae Wa acne ehede Cams es ae 298 Srentneermon Of 5. kee ie Pol a, ood RS aba 300-319 334 INDEX PAGE Buddhas Appearance of during a world period .. 276, 277, 293, 294 Buddhas)! |Fachehekar os) ats ids scaein.c ute elite state orn erent 323, 326 Buddhas Pratyelce wie cir aio sk ss wlan aie pRe Esha a aealede cata nn 323 Budd his ides wwe eis ween veb ee etalon ettiele aig alec ea fend ot aiaterahe 190 Budd bie: CONSCIOUSMEHE iy sholsleseiscpiaten se overs mumbo nies a eae 124, 166, 167 Buddhie) Exercises s/s uae wa vols Mead eee ee bs ueeielan 139, 141 Buddhiec plane, Work of Adepts on the ................. 49 Pe Uara od shields GSR BeOS AES DROS, Me etal a Ve (al SE 4 Fate at Mert 259, 260, 261 Northern, Teaching of Trinity in .............. 265, 266 Buddhists M OVS iis iiss, sec the oA RRRMON ete oh of ofeach eaeonehe sie me 32 Burma, Budd hisny iin years aerate tare oleae eas een 260, 261 Causal body .......... 15, 22, 49, 69, 138, 157, 158, 166, 183, 208 Cause and Effect, Law NSIS NM rrr te i | 308 Ceremonial iyi sie eigeic nelle Mbt enna ita sh haba atey wee 263, 264 Ceremonies) of) religions iyi cakes aid oie oes arsscie cney ee tae 215 ere Girne alee ade ella teheioys to abies eee OIA ee bs ene Te 253 Ceremony conducted at Shamballa ..... eis o Sundelntic inet aA 323 Ceylon; Buddhism ina ictas adie Cie arate 2 ele ee arene 261 COMBI) 6 eae ist sa cial lalvcnllniavee, anellc starer diel arate eenG eee en eae 241 Chatta, Verses taught by Lord Buddha to .............. 289 Chelas Effecti‘onof-being :with iguru)/ ei. Ol eek es eee 95, 96 A CREPUAILCE A845) «4 ahs bccsma clei palais a ie ole east nee a ena 9 Presentation of to Maha-Chohan ................... 99 Children sof; the) Fire : Mist 4h eas a eae, oe 323 Children) On Propation see veer nai x ticles aa ean 72, 73, 74, mn CO a ye a sy SNR naar! ESR es le Ghohansand Their; Rays.) gates . Se ae ee ee Christ, The (see also Maitreya, Lord) .................. 5 Lafemobic cis, Wale vel seca earns, © UL eS aa 17 CJUOCALAONS MON Cui sale carp eetet ide -scecue eee ele 89, 93, 127 Consciousness, | birth iofie nei s)he Ae sie ee ee 124 Expression of Second Person of Logos .. 127, 273, 274, 275 Temptations Afi ic. c/s kee Mwlewins vice te: dele, ae eneere ean 186 symbology .ofibirth, ofi'ee vena; + scan fae eee 187, 196 Symbology of Transfiguration of ........... 188, 189, 190 Love tforySt. Johny ..5 ee Rae ieee ees 191 Symbology of Crucifixion and Resurrection of ...... 193 In (Palestine io iio ee oa Blt ee Ree ieee ae 295 Christ-Drama, The Relation of to Fourth Initiation ........... 193, 194, 196 PAGE CPP LRISAN OPEC TATE Vacate eae ata Taha ie) ahdas Whe so laitain brid hiebaca eines 152 CINTIGUIATI Vawsee CeO Uae ierneclcie ae Ug Rrele cis wal 256, 257, 258 PROUT CU TIDUIGY (AN s/c ee oh « Shastenes idle elanelaterntiny 265, 266 MATE UU SHARPE AUMCE Bch Msttelas tol Alas all Bees ie aeilel oie po beae'lati eh nib ae iol ag 126 Cities POR AANTMOUILY INOCEIS) OL) ia.4 oleie) ilassa ie nyeieoiece ts le algae 24 SO IVE SETAE VU Mihtairs (a sohs lh hile atin te Rt aD wd d Sota a N's een eta retm a etaT pe 263 Comminion, Of oainten Phe A 8) in Qecwide Meu bmeraienes 120 Wommiunity,s sixth Root-Rdces ss vale edanea 230, 231 Comte de St. Germain (see Ragoczy, Prince) Meeting with C: W. Leadbeater .......0..00000..08- 8 PHVSICAL AD DCATANCEN OL WA's hue sesulein's bbls braketmunenedans aby 38, 39 As Representative of Seventh Ray ................. 251 FS A INO UEE ee chteieee U kenanaene es ctatio dew u\ote Sloe sb Natit Sian eemenE 252 Conceit as a hindrance to spiritual growth ............ 64, 65 SOT CeN Patong AiG 7 wists sie ala ae eee ree rn CS ane ehwUS CHORD 318, 319 PON ete GROOi | byes Krome nin ache eam ete ater Cie (uaa 54, 118 MOOT SANCTUS dul chelate 'alaia y Sia ae bee ete Oak Beh MOTTO Rhakh cit Bmelaie) Maia 295 Consciousness DOE ATIGLOTIO LS | Y idiaia cid la Buel caanaatata wie ohctena betta ES Qtek 124 Star of, representative of monad ............... 187,.155 BURT tn atte bare arate Hot ee eee ea ta te die Mea RNs (2M 167, 168 PUITVATIIC I ies vite POR ee IR, Hee OREN bi 198, 215 CPSSTTON Heth te oie Ma bahe wala “ole AMA oak hee ee, Shes aE Sa INR 201 EEO PETA TION iy bth Ciisterahars iva wislaialaty Goa eie ea RUT tetteat Rad et 84 Paaperakiey aM es se oN este ote Chetan ae Re UG eae 235 Wauisel solr Peviegtiomitret We. do Pa a Oe ete ene Na 86 Counterparts rofuphysical: objects. sijciiie's okies bltiete pathol 173 Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ BSVUIOLOS Vihar eh sikls ic besa: vot valalaie Sine Rave ota 193, 197, 296 Cruelty sin -oftovenidren’. 2 .'o P20 er vine swaas 44, 75, 76, 77 Curiosity as a hindrance to spiritual growth ............ 64 DIAKMIUBARINULE ME NTONG Of. sc-.s0 se cd ee ee ae 129 TDA fale stare Satsivtcta tebe Sobita eh o'n'n io r'o a's ate Uke 6 SANE RMN EReL IS eR 118 POAVUAR ETOLERSOT) PVE. fay dss selec o's Sneed alte 290, 291, 299 MIAME OL WUGEMEDE, WE AGe os ica/e a sratcraleicda de eterna tele eee as 127 DesGrntate’ Dei, Quotation frome: 6285022) Sa ak 296 POPLMMONUOL SOLE sees she shee e eee eos Ma ta Lhe Gea, SNM 169 RIA VORRION A See A clatch sls iatete's) alae o Sle eR IA ORO Eee aha eee 89 TAORIPCLESSTIOHGN A te Sk chedcho sasha ty sichaie ei abehalea ate tate tube elated 54, 117 PAV GSOILION GPa ers Sit phan dichh oad cate See Ea 297 POMP R IE) t ibe ARUN SLO A is OSE era EN 11, 215, 237, 261 POM FON fy ae SR ea oo a ELSIE Pe ee 31, 130 336 INDEX PAGE Devil, Symbolism: of:in. Gospel) story ..00. . 4.0505. sae 187 Devotion Résponse ‘to: by, thewMaster. i... vir steel. ha stage 102, 103 Valivel Ofer terion Oh ie We Loi fatale Bree et Oe caer ana 216 Rayi OL RAW otis ices atetece's Ct SEP Reis electra fae, Mea ae 250 Gharacteristict Orv Sixth Ra yy keeles win n s eine 253 DhammachakkappavattanaSutta 2000 coq c. soe. ba ees 299 Dharma, deal). of “Hinduism 2) ieee ciate chet teu ain eels 258 Dharmaksya:| vestune Wh eset er ee be oe enc ke ene 208 Dhruvas:' Master isd soda Cee eens le parr tae ee 272 Dhar Ghahang ye. ciek sieitissias ae a een 200, 206, 234, 239 Dhyaniy. Buddha 3, Park Gee as ec lekee) tae eee 280 Diagrams Illustrating influence of religions ................... 23 Tilistrating?migrationa [ol races)... 5 saueee sent eee 23 No. 1—Centennial effort of Brotherhood ............ 222 No. 2—Rays and their characteristics ............... 236 Nono--Rays of Jewels. a. os op a. aiers slap ee 243 No. 4—Trinity of the Logos .......... PTA ee Ee Nh 265 No.) 5—-Three- Aspects, of the \L0g0s i ves crciy sie ee 267 No. 6—Triangle administering power of Logos ...... 268 No. 7—Initiations attainable upon each Ray ........ 270 No. 8— Lhe Wesak | Valley gis oe cis eas Wie ee redeem 284 Nov9-—The Rod: of) Powetwe cu) .isaclseesls soe ace Meliaeeene 287 No. 10—Symbolic figures of Great White Brotherhood during » Wesak tMestivali. a: ..c0ttauset dealer 288 TVISCID LG aus chats sche chic aoe Sick wesw RAR RMR eh sevice Cae ee aoa 85 Diserimina tion ie ale ee aa ela ae ene ae 54, 117 Djwal Kul, Master Meeting with C. W. Leadbeater ................... 9, 10 a CoS oats 03 EA AOeE Crem ghee ee = | Oo ERIS SY OO oh SRL STS yy is (Goempanion ‘of Master ouucpurmil’.. .. )-cueuua onsen 29 Physicaliappeéarance sof: sen oe... «cicciaeks | Maen 40 Presence: atimecond«Inivgation 22) ). \\siJ ests ooo alee 175 Instructions regarding: Rayaivn. «: cash. osueiiee alae 235 Dov ther Brothers: cial ey te eek ce es | as ls vole ee Ce 11 Poubt vor Ua Certainty neler es te a des intl caine Carte 169, 170 Druids, Teaching of Trinity among the ............. 265, 266 Duty .thewdeal ol; Hinduism CMe nc ee ee 258 wel ay pa'e Ceca te cnt ony a Mia et Meine ee Teh cds 203 Earth, Models of variations of surface of the ............ 23 Hbner, eae 189 Afrection between). cies Coles we dist nce Pacene ane Metre alee 191 Egyptian description of Initiation ..............eseecees 197 Mevotian teachingiof Trinity 2/30). ua epee 265, 266 PACTOCNUA LN ATEIUCIAL |e isch, come ss ss AeA aaa eia tae 41, 42, 162 THEN GH LALO NVOPSINIOs : so + oie s ss «th gees RON > ee re oe 256 PGAUYOL nthe ee hs ech 9 Sie oie 4 ae wield hae hala Meee ed Ha ate eee 189 ER ORMO DS User re bait War wo oes sip 2 5ce plain emo cane eran 66, 87-91, 93 WUDCEA VOTH eIS MN tale eo sp 5's sels ciat'sl acta ea alacant aaa 315, 316, 317 Enthusiasm for service ............0e+:- EA LY AGMA, eal wears 85 Pore ONT AS VOB as a oa 5/5 s « o's als ls ot ecole eat een nat 254 PAD LOTICY DUANE techy ois 03.5 « 0s A ae oan eee 116 Etheric body, image of probationer’s ...............0000- 69 Europe In} thercharce; otra Adept |. :2. .c on han meee 211 BMlishtenmentwotie >... +s -s scam een eee ae 221 5.222 IALUTOCSDITILAT ITI sss s sce oa RE eee 249, 250 PCO LIOT ae: bela: 1,3, 4, 12, 14, 15, 23, 49, 51, 57, 119, 133 BEOTETON A Pei GE oil os ahead atys «hie sacks epee ee en aeree 315, 316, 317 UCT ig” SESW I LN GO Rack ON Pa ese E MREMDIE BS 44, 75, 16, 77 Fetters MATL TNLOGE ere ss cie's asi Dace ag aden 169, 170, 171, 172, 180 UEC g LPR Ye BS 08 Ch a Rohe amen PR MRC, RTT Con SEAR Nac CS” 190 SIR OLL mci at chit cy cial d era's tins wrt a dies Mee ake a 202, 203 Seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth ................... 203 PMP eheare Ole TREOSOPRY tn. -. eke a eek bec ec reat aes rf EIOROMANGA Scene ant Ae Cen poe ae ee ee eee Ee 256 338 INDEX PAGE Flame, Comparison of aspirants to .................: 61, 62 Flowers, Shower of at Wesak Festival .................. 292 Bye) 0024 ey ead aie ee WUE ia URSA A MRA cm Ca Ete meebo Co 322 Force Distribution: Ol gin au aude lamer tents 104, 105, 106, 209 PournNoble AL raths Vea uiah vate aceite, Meee ce enka neen 299, 302 PROG ASODT YH ii. Sis leew ein ae wis laeea ey lets aan tayenein ERED PEMa 6 Sota 257, 263 FrenchviRevolttion) Pe. ccs vielen aus oa erae c milareneee Laie 212 Funnel, Comparison of vehicles of chela to ......... 101, 104 Crapriel: meaning /Ofy sie lu aies eiteacear. tare carat Maen 240, 241 Games) Aa’ Telaxations, 1540s: Liaie ode oa ae rates SPN Rtn amen 109 CRANIGHAE VAR a Lal ea lceate delice Riba Ua da OUR Deanigy thy Sean 30, 130 Gugeling: effect‘on\ astral \bodyy mons ioe. cen ee eal erat 92 CFODERIOESETE Wet hau Tse eiesmtera wea wate aritare aay a eee ime res Stay 322, 323, 324 CROC ITUIN BEULE a VIN id dio diate as a ole earata oral elite tec Ht I a ane an 3 CFO. Plans OF Niger tale nalecce ee es Rete terete) ott eee 51, 133 Gotrabouiy seen Ts et cee eae nae 172, 188 Geral OL Ghee noel dior d cortsriova asta las le oT art, a ue nen 15 GEAR WL RE US UO oie Uae Rt ORI kg ane aes PPS Ateneo ariae 5 Great White Brotherhood, The Guardians of} the! World yu Cs asa eras tel oatte aerate 18 Communication with each other ................... 19 MESUIIASLOT Hissar alr eee RN UEEN dict AS arc eee LH ately aad echelon ate een 23 PERISHOTIOE OE aa sia cl NE Park ieed cig ave tied a art ale) cle Aa ena ea 48, 132 Qualifications for membership in .............. 51, 52, 53 Effect of irritability upon consciousness of .......... 82 Kingdom) Of Deaveny yin igags gee e «oe MOR cele sarees 86 Preparation for presentation to ...........c.eceeeeee 112 Communion ot: Saints? (ope... chee eee Cee 120 An instrument of Lord of the World ........ 121, 125, 323 Gonsclousness) Of). 0, uhtemtentsid ss ahs 122, 123, 125, 148 Bless oy Ot el oie k oe 28 Gate Oe ly 54 ty Marne 124, 139, 143 Rivhts of ‘memberstot svar. 2. oo pene on 125, 126 Organization or ie Pow ieee, ees os b 5 Gee a gee ee ee 126 Effect of failure of an Initiate on ................00. i2r Responsibility of members ..............200000- 134, 135 Number of members and division of work ...... 210, 211 Fave yrs isla une se tetas le ek Rite © ce a) alo Ss ate 233, 234 CEPADAEY OT) CCCI ELIGTATCIVUT Pot sen. ita shri tent aetna 266, 267 Participation in Wesak Festival ............ 283, 286, 288 Greece: * Nature-spirite cot i Iii ae ce 2A as ee ee eee 250 CElroirp BOUL Aceh, ee roa eae ra rena. hr ate ff cer eae, Spee ne 14, 15 Garin cee RO) EL ONE AY 95, 96, 100, 101 INDEX 339 PAGE FURANSS Vals ccc en Aaae ioral tol Salter g Ue Rislacs SUM cts eu neinaeg 188, 193 Happiness of mankind, Effect of upon nature-spirits, 249, 250 Harmony, characteristic of Fourth Ray ............. 249, 253 Healing, methods characteristic of Rays ............ 245, 246 Health AU eCessILY TOTP AGepts? 2 is Pa taawinie wean ete es 41 A’ necessity for Initiates ....... 2.0 5.05.64 PITY 146, 147 Hier yore ls INCOM, FOES ot ae lin Wt hele dite bioawern eet ananh ge 86 PAPA VERY IVERTEN Rien eb cs 2s als ad acd eid sky grea ae ete tM RNY’ 269 Lake aeet=)c) Oye NAL VON ITUCS FONDUE LL RARE ORC 2 Masta ab wg AG Gia)! (LANG 279 PIEPER BOOK GIs boy GE ie eee ae ha es amarok See AN RUN 201 PerisesyOl Praxiteles Gis ligay baie eee ee enw iieeeibaroieta Uh ake ALB 39 Hidden Side of Christian Festivals, The .............4.. 86 PHiaden audeor Things T hewn. oe he yee ot 74, 111 Hierarchy, Occult (see Great White Brotherhood) PLVATION. BIVIBRLED RLS eee NE ah RN Melee) Senn NS RU ra 39, 249: PASTA EA YAR ARS shee al 6! esti Sate ol ANN MAY as TU Foe NN 18, 34, 37 PATO GI MRD ia ras CRB oe eR Weve 258, 259, 260, 261, 280 Hmaw:teaching- of the Trinity <3 2o.d¢a. tere dee seo 265, 266. PLIMCUA PACTECUNOOKS OL LNO/.c sche Las deweu elaine sie iatey 115 Heise on esoteric Theosophy *\o. eee. CP a ean 11 PIP GORING AAC EH ilic sate aistat ake Ucar hee eRe ote Me TGR AH 232 Holy Ghost, Descent of the, Symbolism of ........... ... 204 Holy Week, Symbology of events of .................00. 193 PLGTIATIILY AMTOOL? OL dine (ols sic ss ea Lb uals bess Pere ote ate eis Lin 328 Lo beVan dc 0% Big WP Rn @ Bb 20) CP te ORAS LA! VI Gl 4 eh TR 11 PS ETELA EG Vitae he Ee SNE aie ots Srosoe ag ak ARI iar ea 84, 85 MuDIOr SENSE tOm DECEssary o,f ee hee ae be ce ee ata 20 PRT. eI ALLOST Cie ie Oiere 6s.» so x iecels aie ante ee water a ee 251 TIVO CAPES ONCODM ESE oss oat calelele sale witrele ae etme my 35, 36. RSID MOO Sie ate erP eee CUS ed.o chs bisientclalew eemle ee Ene 249 UTEIRCTRLILC? VW UELLC) LOCUS, ENE (oss oleic e ok sia Re lees 249 Images of pupils on probation .............. 25, 69, 70, 71, 99 India, in the charge of an Adept .............-.000.. 211, 247 Indian testimony regarding the existence of Perfected Men 7 TERE TMZ ATION PAR as SOS See ahd es Cateren ote aie ae VOL Da Initiate Responsibilities of ............ 123, 184, 185, 149, 150, 151 Expansion of comsciousness Of ........eccceeececcces 124 ORMULATION Moree ea ale nas coe kate 126, 127, 185, 186, 196 SELIG UN EIUIANOL Ur Gort eer avs she Sak clea oe ah amen eae eared ee 137 340 INDEX PAGE Initiate (continued) Communication between ego and personality ....... 156 Pemnta tion) Ol, ae thei kies Bie ee ae tht oueluon dam cue 187 Prltiabronn OCHA as pM k eee ta eee bees be aaa (ERAS ae! Heniivenenta conn cavers. oy coe ets 51, 143, 144, 145 Systems| leading aspirant \£0, i. 5 We emeite eaielone wey 112-119 PresentitimestsVorablestors us paseins ee ties oe date ee 119 Appearance) of ‘Star faticnnconeeni sees Gee oei 136, 137 Litmie required TOrey cee eee omere rahe be eres 140, 141 Variationin Jinterval; betweene 20s 2csa.kues teenie eee 145 OH voun ge WEODIE Piss de ac ese acai ae ote ere tote en nee 147-151 Lavestoccupied: betweenin sis. 4) se Sean meen 192 Higher di’. de5 ben te eg em) CC ica 192-209 Egyptian ‘description of.) «sai kes et erence 197 Farsi han eye ea bee epee s Bice dllk algtereh. alana eet ae 120-151 Qunalincations fOr ia wc. bars ee ceca ott uicaeaie Ra e 119 Blessing : LIVEN) cts be eee tsk elas oth ore ee 124 AnnountrOiyh. 2 talus Gia ate adsl acts cea een 128-140 Charge: Civeln}iet wees ween ae Mi che 128, 133-136 Robes iwortnein oon ao ANG te he As Bade 129, 130 Pests (SIVEN Witt cc On uae eee ee, eae Ps Powerssconterredyati: ioe mikes 2c tetas hel apie ae 138 Symbolized ‘by; Gospel. story). ic. duhesuke oo 186, 187 Second Requirements fOr eitegiseks tc... + ee ee i2cnire Accountiof ceremony meme se oos40 pee eae 174-184 PL GStah SIVETL Ui < ncce catipe eae r es oo, cca ein ee 182 As Baptism, Ob, HOly AG HOSD \..usscs pees cele oie 187 Third pymbolovy, concerning een. 2... <.ausic un ee 189 POUPGG Fie ithe vis te te oN Rea 220, 221 Tnuisthle: elpers ead: Gia oll zu re eee, ain 112, 118, 220 Treland.-Nature-spimte, Of Wik tes cic okite lech Be ee ee 250 Irritability as a hindrance to spiritual growth, 64, 82, 85, 87, 88 Isiah, .Quotation drome. oe. oe ee ee 202 PAGE Jealous ya eee ORE eee LE neat che ait edie inlets! Monianiery 89 JGm RIV BStE I) aioe sc ails eee ac aan sel wisktca carey of irae 224, 250 PUVBICA LAD PORTACELOLIM ye sa vias. Marre ele sien Wy RlaMae 39, 40 TA URED cece CHT We eee tte ee vedi ee ahaa clei g sj) tallow des 0h oN) Ba tk 6 40 AS CCOMMELEOL VCAD CICA LE 5 2e'5ie s aixlct «Soe vo lngalointetn ols 130, 131 EERE EY AAs Ce (ee hte share ite) n'a b, 5 oats pesleues sec eate Te by ore 243 MPENOTITITUI NCU Reeh cra pial: ee, 0 Mies We Gud he ono Ue Oey Ae Mae dicot 203 TAP 2 iss ot fans Seintat 8 Ba, sak: oll sy. u'¢ Oo Ete AN erie 241 MT SIR UBT IC re Le Win ET. oh sca s yer a clcencvats ner otal eR Neg Ee 193 LNG EEA Sat LITMAN: Ati. sol 6 okt ain Slaieh s ua ae ol Sal Grae a tah apie ee 127 mate enla de Weati val is iia) 5 nthe ds Sonhe mies se clad ebad tint ad when 299 MAMIE VISSLCT ER mot ct See tn) oui ad eae tena Nace aie alle taba ene 247 (Wh dieaGbeater Buy 181 hi LO Ward ate hoes cera weuets aac 8 PHYSICALIADDEATANCE (Oli ess tpn auiain Sse rolsen Ve is)atelalne ncaa 40 Benals.ebeaening Of ErIniby: i) amas ee cteee aerated 265, 266 AINGCASAMIOUITIM MOLLER Ges sure tidcele ater es whtleliewiabls 190 TARP Yaa eis ee eee i, Se 1 Cale 1, 22, 41, 42, 52, 72, 93, 149, 197, 244 Mmearnuosies with the Masters: so. ses tacts aso Utes mere 63 Penve ye HiUlOia: «4:0. «> vine ote pebed dees e n Meraee ie eit 276 BAY OTR TCDOW COLE iene cieren ee ea cite tile a eke iaee als 138, 183 MADE OUAem OTIC Ad Dente “abides, sok ohea acne aie 83, 321, 322 PMP ISN TPAC TAIT] FONT ER LO h.e aha atte aun aes aigiad 4, 45, 259, 261, 295 POPS ATNUITEL g VIT. v5) ooo 2G os) Ade Wel dite eae oeede oe norenieeeey de 53, 54 TT RST AIC GME ore Fate At io a dnialt oty le\ ah nim nlite ies uae emetone 208, 325 MS AINTIAYSR REL OUTER AR i ots ihc s rs’, » 4.60.8 shard vce aataielmumahinette 140, 323 Kuthumi, Master Meeting with Damodar K. Masa ST Sty te panto 7 MALEIALIZATIONS AG AGYAL/.. csigelestoomiens anc eelanieaa as 10 BI GIOGNOL Wain Bun alate: 2 avin mater alan Geet 2251205" 26 Gilardian Of OeCITAMUSCUM | A.\s'ccscchiaiieada Mule ated ter as 23 PETS COL cic ePID Go, 46 0 old RTA Meabetapta atest arn alee te 25. Pbiatis INUyeeete ts ef. > 0.2) < ¢.a:e cele eet eae aaa a ane 27 PBPSATT) 11h, DOMDEMOLE es ie Nil ote’ + «4 sin sista tehaepatel etna 27, 29, 30 SESERUCT COL trate Tee k eb aes so) ai cik us elec ashe end pauh telaeiaree Ra eee 27 PEER Ech etn atlas Wino) anon ie Winn bata A acne here rane (ae 28, 43 A eth) COI PORETIG he's dhs) vic Heta ateteas aus taeaie Steteumaets ie ales 29, 30 CORSA CA TORY TIN Bi ota ake oo se HS aiceeraleie nies aM Ns Lk 31 Hise OO ANG, ClOCDING 5k.) 54s i wncele ae etal ie 3 32 SIE PSF AVG oR GUE ELMS Bie AAO aE eerie TACT RA AINE NAAR AA RNR 33 As assistant and successor of the Lord Maitreya.... 36, 78 EPIRA COME BUS! OV Cisco asier aan 290, 291 Mahaviragi eich co iawk Wom skates eee cia lain ae een 295 Maitreya, Lord LOM OL is ca wt aie bee bie wis Ce ale nile eden ata Saeed ete 34, 37 Description of physical appearance ............... 36, 37 Usesofibody: of pupilisciss ie ss nell ae tae 41, 44, 45, 46 Approval of At the Feet of the Master ........... 55, 56 Coming OU y. ty aie eet makes tiie ee ret yaa 72, 146, 225 Tita tions D¥rcn eck ee te eae aad Paleo an eee ee ee 75 Teacher of Gods and Men ........... Seirditate HUES.” fi Minister for Religion and Education ............. 78, 269 AS?TINGiQGObis eos ncak cisuc le sie oe 129, 7130, lalysla2e dee. ida Description: of ‘garden; ole) vaya. newts 129, 174, 175 His teachings: Uv, o Wicd wk aes aise ae kia eae ee 227 Representative of Lord Buddha) ..:% 12). ove sues ema 268 As ‘Heart. of “Heavenly Mant, a.203.a nck sae eee 269 Unity of Master Kuthumi with ................ 2i2, 240 Master (Dhruva. pupil | Ofige asec s + .ale eee ieee 273 Representative and expression of Second Person of THE LODO a tc yse 0 eee EREE te hrs, os /o) ieee em 273, 274, 275 Materialization of at Wesak Ceremony ......... 286, 288 As successor of Lord Gautama Buddha ............. 295 Meaning’ or naing. 0.5; ccceereis «+ «+ dane ea eee 295 Thichrnations (Of «: tc. apc a pn rceteeee ree 295, 296 AVOTI OFe cs ot ciatun kee Rite enema a kc! oe annie Geers 296, 297 Celebration of Asala Ceremony at home of...... 298, 299 Man O1VasIOnS: OFF) Coal na ee eieeet et oie Sal nadie ake ea 12 Man, Perfected, Lines of progress for ..............00. 17, 18 Meno eighth wietter oa... a clots tac onde a ieee ee 203 ManodVarava liana... cess daionmienn oes oe caiet a ae ae eae 117 Manu Work of and place in Heavenly Man ............... 269 Mani; ‘Gord, Chakeshtsha ya. t. i. us, tcues | ae aaa, One 36 INDEX 345 PAGE Manu, Lord Vaivasvata Description of physical appearance of .............. 34 TEGMIG Gi et ee ek Lee ed eo iek feels e ole 34, 174, 175 Presence cats Hirst (iNItiation | i400 cise. coy coal cele nara 129 PresencevaL Cecona ANitiablON: 0.5..e aes geceme bes eab 173 Vaya ab RUD anaes ge tir ae Em a MeN ape a CREA eM ND oT, As Representative of First Ray .......... aoe aia hea 233 Representative of Lord of the World ............... 268 PUR PRYTUP OTL OO Ps ici ts So heim ina sa ahs id rgb ape wlitlletila, wis la athe Meee oe cpanel mists Spall IASI COU ie ein ie aie 2 ce a W's davadelals, aie Maas inane ae Maat 327 NranUuschipis OL LANUQuILY: )...4 is spas tae Se eee a eree 24 prey V isiole: and Invisible 028s). oleate ea es ee Zeb LOL Man: Whence, How and Whither.. 40, 207, 208, 231, 324, 325 Masters, The Hvidence: of existence ol ols. i oiiiee. ihe hoa eae 1-20 NIALETIBIIZALION. Ol orta cs cate eee 6, 7, 9, 10, 17, 18, 286 Willingness to take pupils giant ol. ae 19, 49, 50 Fhysiés) bodies of 7. ee nus, 7 era ae earn 21-47 IV ALIOTIALIEV OL aie). s coe cirala Staten E ia eas ele een ag Reason for residing in the East .................. 28, 29 TVPOSOU COL BECIUISION sche cos ry ain Nene ie eine come areas 44 BPEL OTe ris oie ais so iy suds olalpe dhe hanced ae arene cae 48 WY RV INAY he Meru retah are kG eC Ue ra ee Tie eR RE .. 48-68 AcyvICe LO Ups Ont probation ta vaeaun «as eae eee 81-85 PPCRETINGION OL AUTA eure ise obiey Slew kin gee Be ee eee 99, 100 Pnione withwaccepteds pup f ee. cue Oa Beier eae 100 (ad csc HOT, 63 Liha eg 2 EN pO te RUM ah Ah Miah 142, 143 SC Es eras mya te meta ee oe fice MO MC Re anes 210, 211 WORK OT eta eens. cidlece Ciel, BQan RV AC nRee maoeiiniay 233, 234 ONAliLies Ole mn ne el /os. SSO Sie maint et er eb eee 253 BASES PL NE Ce ENE, a. ws a bdy calege eRe nee EER 210, 211 15 ESTs aie oi ER ty SMR EOE Oo. ol LR cag th 280 BEV AAT Ar, «| AITO A TREN Bien! nes oe GRIER aera raere SIM pres 7 May (Wesak) Festival, Description of ............... 282-293 Mayavi-rupa, Definition and use of ............ 182, 184, 185 PRIESTS LIC ete re tat oi waits a Metals yeaa C 63, 100, 163 PTC ROATAOT PERT tal hag sale ald ties Vantec eine wie Minis ea Ne 318, 319 VEE CTH) egigigal CA Toa 1 Ae PUM RUE REI Mina Ramee SALE 38 150 8 317, 318 MensPerfected, Existence: of . 0220002. i. 2e Se as 1-7, 50 PI PUIOUS Ten tet ra che ais Usk e we cae ie ia 16, 66, 178, 183 PEAT UAE ALT CAG AOL OU b ah tic banckbyscv ores tascavotaseies metal or ot atte a 90 Hea of Secondminitiation oni i sie edowene sete ess ote 185 PMMATOD OL) PPODAMONEK: sa 4 cs ces ca iain sum ete hess vie et 69 346 INDEX PAGE Mental Plane os eelaee ek alate Woe it ati shen Ca uare eave Rn ee 173, 182 Michael; ‘Meaning: of (Name wach carte yale Oe mrauen eae tke 240 Mit bas aa Ue ye as Ce Ob eouk pies bela sk 4 De ipa saan 295 Molinos) iis ahaa gia eis Oe) Wi Ue CP atn st erRNy col gtaie eta lglg gain samme re 257 Mona vias Riel Mega) Meat Ta RUE YgAe Nee Oe onan Wane 208 Definition’ Ob: \ks samen yy eae ella eee gi uata che ome. eee 12 Personalityas) 1ragmengr Or use denen pean en es wa ey ae 13 Donnnation’ of sour yee seats an se eae ae era ete 17 Represented by silver star of consciousness ......... 137 Blending) with! €g0 ih ere dalahielsa ca leutaeeuties 137, 138 ‘Takes: vows: of Initiation: (25 ¢i.. uaeeePa e ere ee 138 Pledges a6, Initiation iii ai evan tena me eaters 149 Descent of at individualization .............+0.. 154, 155 Effect, of Second) Initiation on ji... .eee sce cen 189 Lamitation vot iin oan) apes 2o cereale. tae aemty 302, 303 Morya, Master Meeting with S. Ramaswamier ..............02cee0. 7 Meeting with C. W. Leadbeater .................... 9 Sense of humor necessary ............ WO, KEANE ry 21 ET OTS) OF hia lala ad oio'a nue ie ete eer Uae he A rRT ERR MERC Stra 22, 32, 33 Pripils Ob WUA scale wa Win ere 020 /U) 0 oleae cl get me 25 Fis horse jo civic vr culd ane heed bic eels eikkes, baktare chert ot anne 29 His) CLOLHING ioe wie GA lente hcl enn Girne ee 32 Description of physical appearance ................. 34 Meeting with Madame Blavatsky ................ 34, 35 As successor of the Lord Vaivasvata Manu ....... 34, 78 PAC OL HG): oki ialalautedpwendictat abbtomivedereie leh fa retaseiicls akties Mat eaeee 43 As Inner Head of the Inner School ................ .59 Link with individual members ..................... 60 Utilization of ,members ‘of sehool.. .. 0s eae ee ee 60 ASC nitiator si as idcrte ca eereitets « 0 aaa 306, 307 Escape: frome ecicas See canes Mei Bie is ithe ancraicket se ee 307 Saba aby Wo cue sia RAN om he a1 ear clara ne Cie ee Ma TAN eat 168 TUL bis: Hea deatss a ay Ice et "Noe Bev RE ate to nem veircre et atirte ye ethene at isha ao 13 SPOOCH isk seaiviginiajeldonlele elaheraie se lebe suo anes ite os Wel eee a Ik eae ea 98 Refinements Of A wais p2 dicisiseone ho ete tesa hsbc che 82 Barina bei rhe bteiarailas Do tite ate sts ioe ete ene eoeeec at eee 93, 94 Tigi trian ew hantes ob oor ba ak ete ot rae as hee 311, 312, 313 Spinto thew Barth? aus ees ect be ches sats soe ete eee 321 Soirit)of the: Races 5 sees Weal sale seb tare a oes Smee ee 212 SPP tiualis, “VIGGeTO esi. es Wels cralnaryae lenis oi. net eer 256 SCLC arose ie tao a es ohecmle arta < eGo Pie at peel a aes a oe en 124 Star Old Consciousness (jl) desist, apenas esejedacd fees 137, 155 Statues of deaders: of. thes past 7 .i5 fice: ose eos eae eee 23 Stones Precious, table! o1sraya/). aes oom ees ee 243 Strength, characteristic of First Ray ....... ea Be hoe Oe a 252 Studysin;, Consciousness, Ay Ac gee nkaeeeee a a ae 267 Sabrace, PF ourty sci as 5 wsie = nels, vo pels teat eet eee oe 262 Sulbrace, oe icine, seein tiie e ghee weee td yearn 155, 228, 262 Subrace, Sixth, Characteristics of ............... 227-230, 262 Supermen (see Adepts and Masters) DUDETBRILION fie meee le pone s ele Benet le ae rs 169, 171, 172, 181,218 Sympathy; unfoldment ofiin?pupil ian: 2 hore eee ae 82 4 WV) sie AL gear rR A bee SUNT) I SAR eB oleh 82, 252 fe SEE AES ORR OS ROO a Di ei Rh) at Ste ely Pa 111, 251 REED PATS OE ee eA iM Tea, ei a ar 257 cemple.” Burmese,» ae eens Mamie ots 5 scnctaneiaia ee ae 25 SUEI CA CLAD Govan. Mitt oe nga ae eee 2.) ae 66, 186, 187 dextoook-of Lheosophy, A. s4 deuce ot +s. 5 one ek eee 13, 14 A AEIE KD tes schtliters eke fale ais cata een eMerer saci" a «i 9 ee eee er 118 Theosophical knowledge Statement regarding by Master Kuthumi ........... 48 Study of requisite to advancement ................. 62 Theosophical Society, The Inner. SGDGOL OF 04).1 sis a ie Pan ene Seer ene 50, 59 Chiter Societviint., saiccandsemaie. dah ys gee 52, 58, 115 Founding and work of ............ 221, 222, 223, 931, 232 Emblem of formed during Wesak Festival .......... 288 RCORO DAY Fe nike gai ana te Da eke rie tl ae aes ee 48, 52 bought Rent ee ie regi ae ps 309, 310, 311 PAGE Mea Si Ze INAS Gs Ol, TNE con ee 5 ore ae Oe oe = Mineola bles aS 155 Tibet, the home of three Masters ..........-seeeeeeeees 22 Tolerance, Uniolamentet ans pupils soy. tales «aires ¢ oles 82 Transfiguration of Christ, Symbology of.... 188, 189, 190, 196 Drvmitveandyine: priangies, Phe oso ee. Lael de ate, nin eins 265-275 RRPRTISD Se MEE TICIE A hah xls c\siain axe ionoin ete aielg wales atetyie eens 265-275 Teaching of in Assyrian, Buddhistic, Christian, Dru- idic, Egyptian, Hindu, Kabalistic, Phoenician, Scandinavian and Zoroastrian religions...... 265, 266 REPL VOe Ge PTE Saris cle Dettele ots core ec cllate bie seater 265, 266 CULM TR ee ieee hoe seve fe cid etal sinte hte ae Palehe ees 266 PISUOCUILALIICTARCUY (ae pe -visie siekices a's t's apes 266, 267 DOSE OS TE YOU, yg RSE Ae GS OT ORRO RY Ba RM a PAE SO ph 296 Tumbler, Overturning of by will-power ................. 105 ReCanae en aeaIinGh CELGE T) wit saihis + amide che le ise a cbeimetie’s 203 A MCPY ORIN UOOUECLOUD L Bitet pete cis nace ae drole vin oho cave ale ee 169, 170 Unselfishness as the way to the Masters ........... 48, 49, 62 eA IATL ee oa ees CA ae 8 aso deo ale eee ae een oe 118 PEGE TRU cera err ne Ms cle 2. did ben ids! 4! iS re ale ate 118 PeeeeVICAIINU EOLeNAMG Vs.) ces sacle wise se alee ede eh ee 241 aeRO AU TOR Mots aa rs ike Pie Ania ach oweled taba aS 54, 117 DEMISE CHUL ULM Mae scl sss xiete wala nie Wate tior erate ae 282-293 READ IEs LOTINIAN I CRt og uk sw CNY tee Ea eae ai ate On ae 24 MeTiO neta (DONATE ir. eke ec htiy sid Ga co ee via cea on 248 MOVSICR ERD Tearance. OL 40. +o. ede dea eee eee 39 rae LGN Me eeeP Ss ., oo Fa cho ce ssl chee Sides ees 251 MOCHIEICH CHAS RECONOTCULEY (asic oe Los hue Mls acres ee 169, 171 NS Reet MSE «ic SAG lcs Seat re 259, 261 ROC ICH caine eens. sy salar nd ametoui nce trder tect 54, 117 POGELO) LUC IUCN OP a Es.) we a eee oe os cena 56, 209 UTS CBS a) yh eR Ae GRR nL Oe A are Re LA 279 Bee MLMPE-EDITILE VOLE iz, hs suet tek Chote aati oe 250 Mere Lhenvaster lho. ucu ue, sony ie wr al omun mr 48-68 Wesak Festival PRELOPENCGL Ure Wt ee Aly tne ee gh I nd Vet 128 EO MTAULINU SOle oe eek kf es Loe eta 282-293 RBM UMN avinte oot he x eultidyag eM. in Cre Lu AI (oem ded 283, 284 Re nicarlelandantGobr, Seal ua wce ls ven. mh ea 325 PAO Dern Ut se SE cle eet srg tits ahaa tek ere eD 205 UCU Ce eT 2) 10 RAS ay lO di An ie a a 5 RECS EATS SAMAR esa i i el ae ego oR ee 83, 84, 252 354 INDEX PAGE Wisdom jin the -rnangles, The, 2: Nae. sa setae skeen 276-320 Witnesses, Astral, at Second Initiation .......... 177, 178, 179 World-Teacher, The (see also Maitreya, Lord) Wit ktoad iat ris PSR Lage Capen. Yad cate ee ie 269 Aadkiel, Meaning of name nei ipesscuaakivs occa oe Gane 241 LOTORSLER, sk se TH iat ol Rear A ta a hay Nel le 279 ans rey Ait oh bere Hel mM ; Vina ay ais DATE DUE | af 1 & 4 «4 3 =a 4 . ¢ 7" a € AU PRINTEDINU S.A. GAYLORD 0623 Speer Library P< o o “n 2 a o o ® = 012 01015 Princeton j 1 i ih isi i