and the instrument lay shattered for ever. But its last sound lived, and could not have completely died out, in the waves of ether. Science says, the vibration of one single note of music will linger on in motion through the corridors of all eternity; and theosophy, the last thought of the dying man changes into the man himself; it becomes his eidolon. Mr. Constantine would not have surprised us, nor would he have indeed deserved being accused by the skeptical of either superstition or of having labored under a hallucination had he even seen the image, or the so-called "ghost" of his deceased friend before him. For that "ghost" would have been neither the conscious spirit nor the soul of the dead man; but simply his short, for one instant-materialized thought projected unconsciously and by the sole power of his own intensity in the direction of him who occupied that THOUGHT.

OUR "SAVIOUR"

Truly we need a saviour, if only to save us from astigmatic views of life.

He is an optimist who sees only what the Law guards. He is a pessimist who sees only what the Law guards against. Fortunately we have two eyes, and he is wise who uses them both as a stereoscope.

Every great Teacher taught the Law of Karma. Jesus in his teaching speaks as the embodiment of the everlasting connection between Cause and Effect.

That connecting link has been called by many names, and many attempts have been made to define it, but it is in every one our very self, our better self, our real self. Jesus knew it and realized it when he said,-"Before Abraham was I am"-"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"—"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"-"No man cometh unto the Father but by me”—“Of myself I can do nothing"-etc. This (for me at least) is a key to the meaning of all his teaching;-the secret of Evolution.

This Law of Karma is an assurance of certainty against anxiety. Nothing happens by chance, and the connection between Cause and Effect is constant and indestructible. By it we may reasonably trace any effect back to its cause, and from any cause forecast its future effects. It is a universal Law and applies to all phenomena in Nature and in Man himself. It is one of many Aspects of Wisdom embodied in the Firmament which all work together for our good,-if we let them.

O

PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS

NE of the notes in Light on the Path tells us that the pure artist who works for the love of his work is sometimes more firmly planted on the right road than the occultist, who fancies he has removed his interest from self, but who has in reality only enlarged the limits of experience and desire, and transferred his interest to the things which concern his larger span of life.

Of course the interest here spoken of is self-interest. We can at any time gauge the depth of our self interest by considering whether there is any thought of ourself in what we are feeling, thinking and doing. No matter what our feelings are, no matter what the subject of our thoughts-Theosophy, Masters, the workno matter what we are doing, whether works of charity or "self sacrifice," as we are so often pleased to call them; if there is present any thought of ourselves at all, there self-interest is present and active, and selfishness is the real key-note of our actions.

Does this seem far-fetched and exaggerated? Doubtless it does, for apparently leaving ourselves out of the reckoning, the earnest student may say, "But if this is true, then all those men whom the race loves and reverences for their philanthropy and noble deeds were selfish. The saints and martyrs of all religions, the great poets, statesmen and patriots were selfish. More, patriotism itself is selfish, religion itself is but a refined form of selfishness. You would have us believe that selfishness is the pervading influence in human life."

But Light on the Path answers and tells us to linger over the principles enunciated and not to let ourselves be easily deceived by our own hearts, for the vices of the ordinary man pass through a subtle transformation and reappear with changed aspect in the heart of the disciple. So, even if we call ourselves ordinary men, and all of us are that, we are to consider what it is we are trying to do. Are we not earnestly striving to cease to be ordinary men and become disciples? Very well; then the warning is for us.

Even so early in our consideration of what is implied in the attempt to study and apply the principles of Theosophy, we are brought face to face with the fact that the teachers whom we aspire to emulate use words in an altogether different sense from our accustomed use of the same words, so that, if we are to gain any real insight into their minds we must seek, not our meaning, but theirs, in the words they use. We must look within the words. It is reading, not between the lines, which is as far as most of us go, even in what interests us profoundly, but within the words. In fact, it is deciphering a profound cipher.

The cipher which we use to unravel the meaning of most words and of most events with which we come in contact, is the key of desire. If the words or the events spell what we like, or condemn what we do not like, then we attend with interest and absorb what

ever is conformable to our desires. Beyond that we seldom attempt to go. We will listen to what pleases us, and we will make strenuous efforts to learn whatever may seem to offer us a shorter or truer road to the fulfillment of our wishes. If we are sick, and occultism or any of its practices seems to offer us a cure or an alleviation for our sufferings, physical or mental, we will pursue it avidly, and if we are apparently successful in our pursuit, we become enamored of the results achieved and think that we are occultists. This is to be easily, so easily, deceived by our own heart. The poor we have always with us, the poor in body or mind or circumstance, and we do not wish to be poor. Poverty is our enemy, we think, and not our friend.

There is much poverty of mind and spirit in the world today; more, some think, than at any former time in our human history. Needing bread, we have been fed on this stone and on that till we are starved and faint. Being hungry, we look in every direction for sustenance and not at all to learn why we are so impoverished. Our voice being lifted up, it is heard on that plane on which our mind acts. If the plane of our mind action is that of some form of desire, then it is from that plane that our answer comes. For there is conformity throughout the whole nature. "Ask and ye shall receive" sounds too simple and easy to be true, we think. Yet if we observe, we shall find that it is everywhere and all the time true.

The spiritualist has asked. The christian scientist has asked. The religionist has asked. The Theosophist has asked. And each has received-according to the key-note of his asking has he received. If desire was at the basis of his asking, from that plane his answer comes, and for a time he is content with what he receives. It makes no difference what he calls his asking, or what name he gives to his answer, it is all one. He dwells in the plane of Kama, and by his asking and receiving has become more immersed in it than ever. For Kama governs the actions of all beings, high or low. Whether we desire to save our money or our soul; whether we desire to gain health or spiritual knowledge; it still is desire for something for ourselves. Our voice has not risen beyond the plane of Kama, and whether it is for some heaven on earth or heaven or heavenly benefits hereafter, it is benefits we are after, ease we are after, comforts we are after, not spiritual knowledge.

But Kama is no more the whole of our nature than it is the whole of the nature of any other being. It pervades all nature, for it is a universal principle, and Kama is desire. We must constantly remember that there is spiritual selfishness, mental selfishness, psychic selfishness, as well as its many, many lower shades and degrees. They are all states and sub-states of Kama. We rise and fall in the many kamic states, and it is only when we forget ourselves, utterly and completely forget ourselves for a moment, that we are outside the Kamic state. We are outside the Kamic state the moment we consider principles, for all the seven principles are equally universal. We are none of the principles nor all of them combined. We under

stand them, we control them, or we use them not realizing what we do, and become immersed in them, so that by reaction they control the motions of our consciousness.

Because we are spiritual beings all the time, no matter what state or states we may be immersed in, we all can recognize the principles of Theosophy. It is when we begin seriously to try to apply them that the "trials of the neophyte❞ commence. No one tries us. We try ourselves. The trials of the neophyte are his trials to apply to the circumstances and conditions in which he finds himself immersed the principles which he has recognized as being true because universal.

He is immersed in those identical conditions because of nonunderstanding or mis-application of universal principles or their use. He is embodied in the results of his own past actions and associations, physical and metaphysical.

Now, if he tries to apply the Kamic key to what he reads and what he does he is but plunging deeper into Kama. But if he stands firmly upon the basis of his own spiritual being, he will ask himself why and how he has become as he is; why and how he is studying and applying. The moment we sincerely ask why we are free for the time being from Kama.

Why are we making so many mistakes? Why are we so slothful in action, so lazy in attention to what we are doing and how we are doing it? Why are we so full of self pity, self sympathy? Why are we so clear in perception of the faults, mistakes, sins of omission and commission in others, and so deficient in understanding of the tempests of feeling and play of thought in ourselves? Why are we so exceedingly sensitive in regard to anything affecting ourselves, and so moderate and temperate in regard to anything that affects another? Why can we not clearly express to another the teachings we have been studying so long? Why can we not give a better example in ourselves of the great philosophy we are so fond of recommending to the attention of others?

There must be an answer. Is it after all, that we are mistaken; that our philosophy is no better, no truer, no more inclusive, than the thousand and one erroneous or partial teachings that we speak of with lofty disdain? No, we are sure it is not that. Then, what is it? What else can it be than that in our studying, our application, our living of Theosophy we are still using the Kamic key? That selfishness is still with us the pervading influence; that though we deceive ourselves by saying and thinking we aspire to become disciples, the vices of ordinary man have but changed aspect and reappeared in our hearts, more subtle and powerful than ever?

Now, at the threshold, this mistake can be corrected. But if we carry it on with us it will grow and come to fruition, or else we must suffer bitterly in its destruction.

Many of us, perhaps most of us, are even now at that stage where we have too long carried with us the deception of our own hearts. If we are in earnest, even in the midst of our short

comings and difficult circumstances, it is worth everything to pause and consider awhile. For this source of evil, the mistaking our desires, lives fruitfully in the heart of the devoted disciple as well as in the heart of the man of desire. We are not less under the dominance of desire because it concerns the things which make up our larger span of life.

We must read and apply with the aspiration to do, not the desire to be. We must apply the principles of Theosophy to serve, not to gain. They must be studied and applied from the moral, that is, the spiritual basis, to the mortal, that is, the personal and selfish motives that elude and deceive us.

FROM THE SECRET DOCTRINE*

As regards that other question, of the priority of man to the animals in the order of evolution, the answer is as promptly given. If man is really Microcosm of the Macrocosm, then the teaching has nothing so very impossible in it, and is but logical. For, man becomes that Macrocosm for the three lower kingdoms under him. Arguing from a physical standpoint, all the lower kingdoms, save the mineral-which is light itself, crystallised and immetallisedfrom plants to the creatures which preceded the first mammalians, all have been consolidated in their physical structures by means of the "cast-off dust" of those minerals, and the refuse of the human matter, whether from living or dead bodies, on which they fed and which gave them their outer bodies. In his turn, man grew more physical, by re-absorbing into his system that which he had given out, and which became transformed in the living animal crucibles through which it had passed, owing to Nature's alchemical transmutations. There were animals in those days of which our modern naturalists have never dreamed; and the stronger became physical material man, the giants of those times, the more powerful were his emanations. Once that Androgyne "humanity" separates into sexes, transformed by Nature into child-bearing engines, it ceased to procreate its like through drops of vital energy oozing out of the body. But while man was still ignorant of his procreative powers on the human plane, (before his Fall, as a believer in Adam would say.) all this vital energy, scattered far and wide from him, was used by Nature for the production of the first mammal-animal forms. Evolution is an eternal cycle of becoming, we are taught; and nature never leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of the Round, all in Nature tends to become Man. All the impulses of the dual, centripetal and centrifugal Force are directed towards cne point-MAN.

From the Original Edition Vol. II, pp. 169-170; see Vol. II, p. 179 New Edition.