Begin by trying to conquer the habit, almost universal, of pushing
yourself forward. This arises from personality. Do not monopolise the
conversation. Keep in the background. If someone begins to tell you
about himself and his doings, do not take first chance to tell him
about yourself, but listen to him and talk solely to bring him out.
And when he has finished suppress in yourself the desire to tell about
yourself, your opinions and experiences. Do not ask a question unless
you intend to listen to the answer and inquire into its value. Try
to recollect that you are a very small affair in the world, and that
the people around do not value you at all and grieve not when you are
absent. Your only true greatness lies in your inner true self and it is
not desirous of obtaining the applause of others. If you will follow
these directions for one week you will find they will take considerable
effort, and you will begin to discover a part of the meaning of the
saying, "Man, know thyself."
It is not necessary to be conscious of the progress one has made.
Nor is the date in any sense an extinguisher, as some have styled
it. In these days we are too prone to wish to know everything all at
once, especially in relation to ourselves. It may be desirable and
encouraging to be thus conscious, but it is not necessary. We make a
good deal of progress in our inner, hidden life of which we are not at
all conscious. We do not know of it until some later life. So in this
case many may be quite beyond the obstacles and not be conscious of
it. It is best to go on with duty, and to refrain from this trying to
take stock and measuring of progress. All of our progress is in the
inner nature, and not in the physical where lives the brain, and from
which the present question comes. The apparent physical progress is
evanescent. It is ended when the body dies, at which time, if the inner
man has not been allowed to guide us, the natural record against us
will be a cipher, or "failure." Now, as the great Adepts live in the
plane of our inner nature, it must follow that they might be actively
helping every one of us after the date referred to, and we, as physical
brain men, not be conscious of it on this plane.
... I strongly advise you to give up all yoga practices, which in
almost all cases have disastrous results unless guided by a competent
teacher. The concussions and explosions in your head are evidences that
you are in no fit condition to try yoga practices, for they result
from lesions of the brain, _i.e._, from the bursting of the very
minute brain cells. I am glad you have written to me upon this matter,
that I may have an opportunity of warning you. Also I advise you to
discontinue concentration on the vital centres, which again may prove
dangerous unless under the guidance of a teacher. You have learnt, to a
certain degree, the power of concentration, and the greatest help will
now come to you from concentration upon the Higher Self, and aspiration
toward the Higher Self. Also if you will take some subject or sentence
from the _Bhagavat Gîtâ_, and concentrate your mind upon that and
meditate upon it, you will find much good result from it, and there is
no danger in such concentration.
* * * * *
As to the question about the disintegration of the astral body and
the length of time beforehand when it could be seen. My answer was
not meant to be definite as to years, except that I gave a period
of two years as a long one before the death of the physical body.
There are cases--perhaps rare--in which five years before the death
of the physical, a clairvoyant has seen the disintegration of the
astral beginning. The idea intended to be conveyed is, that regardless
of periods of time, if the man is going to die naturally (and that
includes by disease), the corruption, disintegrating or breaking up of
the astral body may be perceived by those who can see that way. Hence
the question of years is not involved. Violent deaths are not included
in this, because the astral in such cases does not disintegrate
beforehand. And the way of seeing such a death in advance is by another
method altogether. Death from old age--which is the natural close of a
cycle--is included in the answer as to death by disease, which might be
called the disease of inability to fight off the ordinary breaking up
of the cohesive forces.
* * * * *
You cannot develop the third eye. It is too difficult, and until you
have cleared up a good deal more on philosophy it would be useless, and
a useless sacrifice is a crime of folly. But here is advice given by
many Adepts: every day and as often as you can, and on going to sleep
and as you wake, think, think, think, on the truth that you are not
body, brain, or astral man, but that you are THAT, and "THAT" is the
Supreme Soul. For by this practice you will gradually kill the false
notion which lurks inside that the false is the true, and the true is
the false. By persistence in this, by submitting your daily thoughts
each night to the judgment of your Higher Self, you will at last gain
light.
* * * * *
Now as to _The Voice of the Silence_ and the cycles of woe (undergone
by the Arhan who remains to help mankind) it is easy to understand. You
must always remember when reading such things, that terms must be used
that the reader will understand. Hence speaking thus, it must be said
that there are such cycles of woe--from our standpoint--just as the
fact that I have no amusements but nothing but work in the T.S. seems
a great penance to those who like their pleasures. I, on the contrary,
take pleasure and peace in the "self-denial" as they call it. Therefore
it must follow that he who enters the secret Path finds his peace and
pleasure in endless work for ages for Humanity. But, of course, with
his added sight and knowledge, he must always be seeing the miseries
of men self-inflicted. The mistake you make is to give the person thus
"sacrificed" the same small qualities and longings as we now have,
whereas the wider sweep and power of soul make what we call sacrifice
and woe seem something different. Is not this clear, then? If it were
stated otherwise than as the _Voice_ has it, you would find many making
the vow and then breaking it; but he who makes the vow with the full
idea of its misery will keep it.
* * * * *
... If we can all accumulate a fund of good for all the others we will
thus dissipate many clouds. The follies and the so-called sins of
people are really things that are sure to come to nothing if we treat
them right. We must not be so prone as the people of the day are, of
whom we are some, to criticise others and forget the beam in our own
eye. The _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ and Jesus are right in that they both shew
us how to do our own duty and not go into that of others. Every time
we think that someone else has done wrong we should ask ourselves two
questions:
(1) Am I the judge in this matter who is entitled to try this person?
(2) Am I any better in my way, do I or do I not offend in some other
way just as much as they do in this?
This will settle the matter I think. And in ... there ought to be no
judgments and no criticism. If some offend then let us ask what is
to be done, but only when the offence is against the whole. When an
offence is against _us_, then let it go. This is thought by some to be
"goody-goody," but I tell you the heart, the soul, and the bowels of
compassion are of more consequence than intellectuality. The latter
will take us all sure to hell if we let it govern only. Be sure of this
and try as much as you can to spread the true spirit in all directions,
or else not only will there be individual failure, but also the circle
H. P. B. made as a nucleus for possible growth will die, rot, fail, and
come to nothing.
It is not possible to evade the law of evolution, but that law need
not always be carried out in _one_ way. If the same result is produced
it is enough. Hence in any one hour or minute the being attaining
adeptship could pass through countless experiences _in effect_. But,
as a fact, no one becomes an adept until he has in some previous time
gone through the exact steps needed. If you and I, for instance, miss
adeptship in this _Manvantara_, we will emerge again to take up the
work at a corresponding point in the much higher development of the
next, although then we may seem low down in the scale, viewing us from
the standard then to prevail.
* * * * *
The law is this. No man can rush on and fail to escape the counter
current, and in proportion as he rushes so will be the force of the
current. All members who work hard come at last to the notice of the
Lodge, and the moment they do so, the Black Lodge also takes notice,
and hence questions arise, and we are tried in subtle ways that surpass
sight, but are strong for the undoing of him who is not prepared by
right thought and sacrifice to the higher nature for the fight. I tell
you this. It may sound mysterious, but it is the truth, and at this
time we are all bound to feel the forces at work, for as we grow, so
the other side gets ready to oppose.
* * * * *
... Be sure that you understand me right about the Black side. I
mean this: that when men work along a good while, and really raise
themselves up by that, they get the attention of the Black if they are
of sufficient importance for it. I have their attention, and it makes
a trouble now and then. What we all want to have, then, is the best
armour for such a fight, and that is patience. Patience is a great
thing, and will work in more ways than one, not only in personal life,
but in wider concerns.
The difficulty of remembering the things you read, and the like, may
be due to one or many causes. First, it indicates the need of mental
discipline in the way of compelling yourself to serious reading and
thinking, even though for a short time each day. If persisted in,
this will gradually change the mental action, just as one can alter
the taste for different sorts of food taken into the body. Again, if
you have been dealing in what is known as Mind Cure or Metaphysical
Healing, you should avoid it, because it will increase the difficulty
you mention. It is different from good, ordinary, mental discipline.
And also if you have been in any way following Spiritualism or
indulging in psychic thoughts or visions or experiences, these would be
a cause for the trouble, and should be abandoned.
* * * * *
There is no need for you to be a despairer. Reflect on that old verse,
"What room is there for sorrow and what room for doubt in him who knows
that the Self is one, and that all things are the Self, only differing
in degree." This is a free rendering but is what it means. Now, it is
true that a man cannot force himself at once into a new will and into
a new belief but by thinking much on the same thing--such as this--he
soon gets a new will and a new belief, and from it will come strength
and also light. Try this plan. It is purely occult, simple, and
powerful. I hope all will be well, and that as we are shaken up from
time to time we shall grow strong.
* * * * *
----'s article strove to show that H. P. B. did not teach the doctrine
of reincarnation in '77 as she did later, which is quite true so far as
the public was then concerned, but she did to me and others teach it
then as now, and further it seems clear what she meant, to wit, that
there is no reincarnation for the astral monad, which is the astral
man; and it being a theosophical doctrine that the astral man does not
reincarnate save in exceptional cases, she taught then the same thing
as she did later. Personally H. P. B. told me many times of the real
doctrine of reincarnation, enforced by the case of the death of my own
child, so I know what she thought and believed.
* * * * *
I am not able to give you the definition which you ask for, as it seems
to me spirit cannot be defined except in this way, that the whole
universe is made of spirit and matter, both constituting together the
Absolute. What is not in matter is spirit, and what is not in spirit
is matter; but there is no particle of matter without spirit, and no
particle of spirit without matter. If this attempted definition is
correct, you will see that it is impossible to define the things of the
spirit, and that has always been said by the great teachers of the past.
* * * * *
What a petty lot of matter we spend time on, when so much is
transitory. After a hundred years what will be the use of all this?
Better that a hundred years hence a principle of freedom and an impulse
of work should have been established. The small errors of a life are
nothing, but the general sum of thought is much.... I care everything
for the unsectarianism that H. P. B. died to start, and now threatened
in its own house. Is it not true that Masters have forbidden Their
chelâs to tell under what orders they act for fear of the black shadow
that follows innovations? Yes....
* * * * *
Am very sorry to hear that your health is not good. In reply to your
question: A sound body is not expected, because our race is unsound
everywhere. It is Karma. Of course a correct mental and moral position
will at last bring a sound body, but the process may, and often does,
involve sickness. Hence sickness may be a blessing on two planes: (1)
the mental and moral by opening the nature, and (2) on the physical as
being the discharge into this plane of an inner sickness of the inner
being.
* * * * *
The question of sex is not the most difficult. The personal one is
still harder. I mean the purely personal, that relating to "me." The
sexual relates really only to a low plane gratification. If Nature can
beat you there, then she need not try the other, and _vice versa_; if
she fails on the personal she may attempt the other, but then with
small chance of success.
* * * * *
We all differ and must agree to disagree, for it is only by balancing
contrary things that equilibrium (harmony) is obtained. Harmony does
not come through likeness. If people will only let each other alone and
go about their own business quietly all will be well.... It is one's
duty to try and find one's own duty and not to get into the duty of
another. And in this it is of the highest importance that we should
detach our _minds_ (as well as our tongues) from the duties and acts of
others whenever those are outside of our own. If you can find this fine
line of action and inaction you will have made great progress.
* * * * *
Do not stop to consider your progress at all, because that is the way
to stop it; but take your mind off the question of your progress and do
the best you can. I hope you will be able to acquire in no long time
that frame of mind which you so much desire. I think you will acquire
that if you will take your mind off yourself as much as possible, and
throw it into something for someone else, which would, in course of
time, destroy the self impression.
* * * * *
I regret exceedingly all your troubles and difficulties. They are all,
it goes without saying, matters of Karma, and must right themselves
in process of time. Meantime, your work and duty lie in continuing
patient and persevering throughout. The troubles of your friends and
relatives are not your Karma, though intimately associated with it by
reason of the very friendship and relation. In the lives of all who
aspire to higher things there is a more or less rapid precipitation
of old Karma, and it is this which is affecting you. It will go off
shortly, and you will have gained greatly in having gotten rid of a
troublesome piece of business.
* * * * *
As it will take many a life for one to overcome the personal nature,
there is no good in imagining what things and thoughts would then
be like. It is certain that, in that long journey, the whole nature
changing, it is adjusted to all conditions. Many of those matters which
we call the woes of others are really nothing at all, and only "skin
deep"; the real woe of the race is not that.
* * * * *
By setting apart a _particular_ time for meditation a habit is formed,
and as the time comes round the mind will, after a while, become
trained, so that meditation at the particular time will become natural.
Hence, as far as possible, it will be well for you to keep to the same
hour.
* * * * *
You ask if I was at ---- where you saw me. Let me tell you something
in confidence. I am around at all places, but, of course, most at such
as where you ... and others like that are, but it is not necessary for
me to remember it at all, as it is done without that since this brain
has enough to do here. To remember I should have to retire and devote
myself to that, and it would make things no better.
* * * * *
A college course is not necessary for occultism. One of the best
occultists I know was never in college. But if a man adds good learning
to intuition and high aspiration he is naturally better off than
another. I am constantly in the habit of consulting the dictionary
and of thinking out the meanings and the correlations of words. Do the
same. It is good.
* * * * *
The old mission of the Rosicrucians, though dead on the outside, is not
dead, for the Masters were in that as They are in this, and it may be
possible to usher in a new era of western occultism devoid of folly. We
should all be ready for that if it be possible.
* * * * *
In regard to the pictures which you see, observe them with
indifference, relying always on the Higher Self, and looking to it for
knowledge and light, pictures or no pictures.