the want of focus due to multitudinous and confused thought, has put his Swapna field or state into confusion, and in passing through it on his return from the dreamless state the useful and elevating experiences of Sushupti become mixed up and distorted, not resulting in the benefit to him as a waking person which is his right as well as duty to have. Here again is seen the lasting effect, either prejudicial or the opposite, of the conduct and thoughts when awake. The clearing up and purifying of Swapna can only be done in Jagrata by concentration upon high thoughts, upon noble purposes, upon all that is best and most spiritual in us while awake; for Jagrata and Swapna stand to each other alternately in the relation of Indrya to Karma-Indrya. The best result cannot be accomplished in a week or a year, perhaps not in a life, but, once begun, it will lead to the perfection of spiritual cultivation in some incarnation hereafter.

These thoughts are not intended to be exhaustive, but so far as they go it is believed they are correct. The subject is one of enormous extent as well as of the greatest importance, and theosophists are urged to purify, elevate, and concentrate the thoughts and acts of their waking hours so that they shall not continually and aimlessly, night after night and day succeeding day go into and return from these natural and wisely appointed states, no wiser, no better able to help their fellow men. For by this way, as by the spider's small thread, we may gain the free space of the spiritual life.

THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD-EGG*

MANAVA DHARMA SHASTRA I.

The universe was wrapped in darkness, unseen, unnamed, unthinkable, unknowable, in dreamless sleep.

Then the Self-being, the unmanifested Master, manifested this universe and its powers; the Light appeared, breaking through the darkness.

Thinking and longing to put forth varied beings from himself, he put forth first the Waters, and in them put forth his power.

This power became a Golden Egg, thousand-parted, equalformed; in this the evolver himself was born, the great father of all the worlds.

And the Master, dwelling in the egg for a season, through himself, through thought, divided the egg in two.

And from the two parts moulded Heaven and Earth, and in the midst, the expanse, the spaces, the perpetual place of the Waters.

Reprinted from the "Oriental Department" papers, July, 1894.

K

THOUGHTS ON KARMA

ARMA, we say, is action, but what do we mean when we say the word? Christians have repeated countless times Saint Paul's definition, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," but what have they learned from their "vain repetitions?" Scientists talk of immutable law and all their laborious observations and ever-changing hypotheses are based upon the fundamental assumption that every effect must have an efficient cause, yet are they any the wiser concerning the real nature and evolutionary process going on constantly in themselves and in the phenomena they study?

H. P. Blavatsky wrote that the fundamental ideas of Theosophy are contained, though but too often under a misleading guise, in every philosophy and system of thought worthy of the name. Modern speculative science and modern Christianity are two examples. Christians recognize the eternal and unvarying nature of "God," and the scientists the indestructibility of "Matter." One makes God omnipresent and the other Matter, yet both see no incongruity in assigning limits and definitions to them; neither is able to see that what they have set up are but mental idols, images of the mind, due to incomplete and therefore erroneous perception of the essential nature of this Universe. This is the "misleading guise" in which they clothe the "omnipresent, eternal, boundless and immutable Principle" of the Secret Doctrine, not recognizing that Ir must be by its very nature "unthinkable and unspeakable, beyond the range and reach of thought."

The Christian formula of "the will of God," and the scientific maxim of "the conservation of energy", are but limited perceptions and therefore limited applications of Karma, not recognizing that they have substituted their ideas for the fact. Although both Christian and scientist speak of this "will" or this "law" as being supreme, neither of them is willing to admit the universal application and implication of his fetish. So they are constantly meeting with difficulties in their experiences and endeavoring to solve them by recourse to prayer or to new hypotheses.

With us, Theosophists, "Karma" is often only an alias for theological or materialistic conceptions of the second fundamental idea of the Secret Doctrine. We do not get rid of false or erroneous ideas merely by changing their names. Would that we could! The race mind is ours and the race ideas of our generation are too deeply ingrained in us for us easily or quickly to disabuse our minds of the "misleading guise" in which Karma appears to us-or to speak more exactly, the misleading guise we give to the idea of Karma.

Thus, when anything disagreeable confronts us, we say, "this is my Karma." Or we speak of our "past Karma" and of our present Karma and of our "future Karma," trying to remember the

past and to imagine the future. And in the present moment we almost invariably consider Karma to be the circumstances in which we find ourselves. All these ideas are partial and erroneous. We have taken a phase or aspect of Karma for Karma itself, a part for the whole, a phenomenon for the real. This is only to repeat in our own form of thought and speech the erroneous perceptions indicated by such words as miracle, chance, accident, destiny, fate, freewill, and so on.

Each one of us, Christian, "heathen" or Theosophist, has acquired, by adoption and otherwise, his own particular bundle of ideas which we call our minds and which in fact constitute our own particular philosophy or system of thought. The "misleading guise" each one of us has to be on guard against is the large number of misconceptions, prejudices and preconceptions in our own mind. We are to remember that these are not removed by the general adoption of Theosophical terms or even the abstract acceptance of its principles. Dirt is not removed by soap and water, but by the use of them. So the fundamental ideas of Theosophy are of no value to the student unless they are applied in daily life, not only outwardly, but inwardly, to our mental and moral accumulations, habits and processes.

The sectarian and the man of the world fail not only because of the misleading guise in which they view nature and themselves, but most seriously because they do not apprehend that this is so. The Theosophist should not fall into this second pitfall. The first he cannot avoid, because the Karma of the race is his Karma also; it is general and not individual or personal.

But having considered and accepted the fundamental ideas of Theosophy it is his own particular Karma if he fails to use them to get his bearings and extricate himself from the mental and moral confusions and contradictions into which he is blown or hurled by "the winds of circumstance." Having adopted Theosophy in this life it is for him to gain and maintain here and now a "clear apprehension" of them, "upon which," says H. P. B., "depends all that follows." "All that follows" means not only all that may happen to us, but as well, all that we may do.

The three fundamental ideas are universal in their scope and application. The first is all-sustaining, the second is all-powerful, and the third is all-regenerating. All evolution high or low, good or bad, is because of the fact represented by these fundamental ideas. The SELF is One and sustains all because It is all. Karma is allpowerful because the whole includes all the parts; the Self of all is the self in each. The Self of each is all-regenerating because there is no Karma unless there is a being to make it or feel its effects.

Karma, therefore, is what we are doing; not what we have done or what we may do. It is merely a figure of speech, a synonym for Memory, for us to speak or think of "past" Karma. What once were our actions now exist only in our character, our nature, our habits, our disposition-all aspects and branches of

now active and Our "state of

memory. "Mind" is so much of our memory as is includes, therefore, our thought, will and feeling. mind" at this very instant is the only Karma there is. It is the “ultimate division of time" spoken of by the sages. Our state of mind changes at every instant because we do not understand the ultimate divisions of things. For the mind to be "steady" means no change save as we consciously choose to change it. Whenever we can control our mind we can control Karma. But we cannot control it until we understand what it is-our instrument, not ourselves; we cannot control it until we clearly apprehend the fundamental nature of ourselves as God, Law and Being.

Again, "future" Karma is equally a mere figure of speech, a synonym for the Imagination, or the Power to further create-not the Creations. The Man, or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, is Creator, Preserver, and Regenerator, and this threefold Power is beginningless, timeless and endless. No matter how much or what He has created, no matter what he is now creating, or what he may create in the future, He remains, the exhaustless and the inexhaustible.

"Time." as the Secret Doctrine states, "is only the illusion of the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through endless Duration." "Maya," or illusion, does not relate to the Creator but to his creations. No creation is permanent. The body and circumstances which now exist are our creation; these are mortal, finite, and changeable-are in fact changing at each moment. This is equally true of the "mind," i. e., the thoughts, desires and feelings we now have, whatever they are. They are creations, and we are constantly changing them, consciously or unconsciously to ourselves.

"To live in the eternal" can only mean to fix the attention on the Creator instead of on his creations, past, present or to come; on his continuing Power to create newer and better forms and instruments, whether of mind or body or circumstance; on the Source of all Beings and of all Power. To be a "Lord of Karma" is to be Master of one's own actions: what we are now doing and thinking.

SECRET DOCTRINE EXTRACTS*

It has been stated before now that Occultism does not accept anything inorganic in the Kosmos. The expression employed by Science, "inorganic substance," means simply that the latent life slumbering in the molecules of so-called "inert matter" is incognizable. ALL IS LIFE, and every atom of even mineral dust is a LIFE, though beyond our comprehension and perception, because it is outside the range of the laws known to those who reject Occultism.

From the Original Edition Vol. I, pp. 248, 249; see Vol. I, pp. 268, 269 Third

Edition.

THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH*

From the Buddhist Dharma Chakra Pravarttana Sutra; circa B. C. 300.

I.

There are two extremes, Brothers, that he who has renounced should shun.

On the one side, the constant following after things that appeal to lust and sensuality, a low, bestial way, unworthy, unprofitable, fit only for the profane;

And, on the other side, the constant following after penance that is painful, unworthy, unprofitable.

There is a middle path, Brothers, that shuns these two extremes; a path found out by him who has come as others came before; a path that opens the eyes and gives understanding; a path that brings restfulness of mind, supreme wisdom, full enlightenment, Nirvana.

What then is this middle path, Brothers, that shuns these two extremes; the path found out by him who has come as others came before; the path that opens the eyes and gives understanding; the path that brings restfulness of mind, supreme wisdom, full enlightenment, Nirvana ?

It is, verily, the Noble Eightfold Path; it is this:

Right seeing, right willing, right speaking, right behaving, right living, right striving, right concentrating, right meditating.

This is the middle path, Brothers, that shuns the two extremes; the path found out by him who has come as others came before; the path that opens the eyes and gives understanding; the path that brings restfulness of mind, supreme wisdom, full enlightenment, Nirvana.

This, Brothers, is the noble truth about sorrow:

Birth is full of sorrow, decay is full of sorrow, sickness is full of sorrow, death is full of sorrow.

Contact with the pleasant is full of sorrow, separation from the unpleasant is full of sorrow, unsatisfied longing is full of sorrow. In a word the five groups of grasping are full of sorrow. This, Brothers, is the noble truth about sorrow.

And this, Brothers, is the noble truth about the cause of

sorrow:

It is, verily, the thirst that causes outward existence, accompanied by sensual enjoyment, seeking gratification now here, now there; it is the thirst for the gratification of desire, the thirst for outward existence, the thirst for present existence.

This, Brothers, is the noble truth about the cause of sorrow.

This article was printed by Wm. Q. Judge in the Oriental Department papers, September-October, 1895.