The Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet.

(1) Imagine, for illustration's sake, the one homogeneous, absolute and omnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the “stair of the seven planes of worlds,” ready to start on its evolutionary journey. As its correlating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates and transforms into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call it at its north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole, which to us would be the fourth or middle step, or plane, counting either way, we know it Esoterically as the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference. Above, Light; below, Life. The former is ever immutable, the latter manifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to the Occult law, all potentialities included in the higher become differentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law, nothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous.

Again, nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation. Thus Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame, the former the vehicle, the upâdhi or vâhana, of the one eternal Essence, the latter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mahâ-Buddhi in the Purânas), the Universal Intelligent Soul—neither of them, as such, can become extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But the physical personality with its Linga Sharîra, and the animal soul, with its Kâma,844 can and do become so. They are born in the realm of illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal sky.

He who has read these volumes with any degree of attention, must know the origin of the human Egos, called Monads, generically, and what they were before they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine beings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are entities from higher and earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not been exhausted when their world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching; but whether it is so or not, the Higher Egos are—as compared to such forms of transitory, terrestrial mud as ourselves—Divine Beings, Gods, immortal throughout the Mahâmanvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during which the Age of Brahmâ lasts. And as the Divine Egos, in [pg 518] order to re-become the One Essence, or be indrawn again into the Aum, have to purify themselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience, so also have the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise, if they would partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can achieve by crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal nature of their “selves” and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking Kâmic Principle into that of the Higher Ego. We (i.e., our personalities) become immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being grafted on our Divine Triune Monad, Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas, the three in one and one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the incarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can only be approached by eating the fruit of knowledge, the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or of Gnosis, Divine Wisdom.

In the Esoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth Principle in man. But the student who has read and understood the first two Papers, knows something more. He is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal Principle in which man participates; but so does equally every physical and subjective atom, and also every blade of grass and everything that lives or is in Space, whether it be sensible of it or not. He knows, moreover, that if man is more closely connected with it, and assimilates it with a hundredfold more power, it is simply because he is endowed with the highest consciousness on this earth; that man, in short, may become a Spirit, a Deva, or a God, in his next transformation, whereas neither a stone nor a vegetable, nor an animal, can do so before they become men in their proper turn.

(2) Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none, unless it is united with Manas, the conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the divine Root Essence in the same relation as Mûlaprakriti to Parabrahman, in the Vedânta School; or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal Spirit, or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one remove from that Absolute, which can have no relation whatever to the finite and the conditioned.

(3) What, again, is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical aspect, Manas, though one remove on the downward plane from Buddhi, is still so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter into direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection, the lower mind. Manas is Spiritual Self-Consciousness in itself, and Divine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, [pg 519] which is the true “producer” of that “production” (vikâra), or Self-Consciousness, through Mahat. Buddhi-Manas, therefore, is entirety unfit to manifest during its periodical incarnations, except through the human mind or lower Manas. Both are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do with the lower Tanmâtras,845 or rudimentary atoms, as the homogeneous with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the Divine Ego, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanmâtras, or properties of the material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of Man. It is Kâma-Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the sovereign of the five Tanmâtras, becomes Ego-ism, the selfish Self, in which case it has to be considered as Mahâbhûtic and finite, in the sense of its being connected with Ahankâra, the personal “I-creating” faculty. Hence

Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non-eternal; eternal in its atomic nature (paramanu rûpa), as eternal substance (dravya), finite (kârya rûpa) when linked as a duad with Kâma (animal desire or human egoistic volition), a lower production, in short.846

While, therefore, the Individual Ego, owing to its essence and nature, is immortal throughout eternity, with a form (rûpa), which prevails during the whole life cycles of the Fourth Round, its Sosie, or resemblance, the personal Ego, has to win its immortality.

(4) Antahkarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the path which lies between the Divine and the human Egos, for they are Egos, during human life, to re-become one Ego in Devachan or Nirvâna. This may seem difficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar, though fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to ourselves a bright lamp in the middle of a room, casting its light upon the wall. Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego, and the light thrown on the wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. That portion of the atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the wall, will then represent the Antahkarana. We must further suppose that the light thus cast is endowed with reason and intelligence, and [pg 520] possesses, moreover, the faculty of dissipating all the evil shadows which pass across the wall, and of attracting all brightnesses to itself, receiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the human Ego to chase away the shadows, or sins, and multiply the brightnesses, or good deeds, which make these impressions, and thus through Antahkarana, ensure its own permanent connection, and its final re-union, with the Divine Ego. Remember that the latter cannot take place while there remains a single taint of the terrestrial, or of matter, in the purity of that light. On the other hand, the connection cannot be entirely ruptured, and final re-union prevented, so long as there remains one spiritual deed, or potentiality to serve as a thread of union; but the moment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality exhausted, then comes the severance. In an Eastern parable, the Divine Ego is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground and to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long as it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes absolutely sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the lower Manas) perishes.

On the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown on the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual spiritual exhaustion, the Antahkarana disappears, no more light is transmitted, and the lamp becomes non-existent to the ray. The light which has been absorbed gradually disappears and “Soul eclipse” occurs; the being lives on earth and then passes into Kâma Loka as a mere surviving congeries of material qualities; it can never pass onwards towards Devachan, but is reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge.

This simile, however fantastic, will help us to seize the correct idea. Save through the blending of the moral nature with the Divine Ego, there is no immortality for the personal Ego. It is only the most spiritual emanations of the personal Human Soul which survive. Having, during a lifetime, been imbued with the notion and feeling of the “I am I” of its personality, the Human Soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic deeds of the physical man, becomes, after the death of the latter, part and parcel of the Divine Flame, the Ego. It becomes immortal through the mere fact that it is now strongly grafted on the Monad, which is the “Tree of Life Eternal.”

And now we must speak of the tenet of the “second death.” What happens to the Kâmic Human Soul, which is always that of a debased [pg 521] and wicked man or of a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.

The personal Soul in this case, viz., in that of one who has never had a thought not concerned with the animal self, having nothing to transmit to the Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences gleaned from past incarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity—this personal Soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of self on that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like leaves from its branches, leaves which wither, die and fall at the end of their season. These personalities bud, blossom forth and expire, some without leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life with that of the parent stem. It is the Souls of the former class that are doomed to annihilation, or Avîtchi, a state so badly understood, and still worse described by some Theosophical writers, but which is not only located on our earth, but is in fact this very earth itself.

Thus we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has had an opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it; and therefore the Kâmic “Soul” becomes a separate entity, to live henceforth, for a short or long period according to its Karma, as a “soulless” creature.

But before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the meaning and functions of the Antahkarana. As already said, it may be represented as a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and the lower Manas. If you look at the Glossary of the Voice of the Silence, pp. 88 and 89, you will find that it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the link between the latter and the Higher Ego, or, between the Human and the Divine or Spiritual Soul.847

At death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication, and its remains survive as Kâma Rûpa,

the “shell.” It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in the séance rooms as materialized “forms,” which they foolishly mistake for the “Spirits of the Departed.”848 So far is this from being [pg 522] the case, that in dreams, though Antahkarana is there, the personality is only half awake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be drunk or insane during our normal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death, or sleep, of the living body, one may judge what the consciousness of Antahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the “eternal sleep” into Kâma Rûpa.

But to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student with the abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the lower Manas, or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as Antahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher Ego, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. It is for this reason that it is called the “Path.” Now, when a limb or organ belonging to the physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and finally atrophies. So also is it with mental faculties; and hence the atrophy of the lower mind-function, called Antahkarana, becomes comprehensible in both completely materialistic and depraved natures.

According to Esoteric Philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows: Seeing that the faculty and function of Antahkarana is as necessary as the medium of the ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing; then so long as the feeling of Ahankâra, that is, of the personal “I” or selfishness, is not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely merged into and become one with the Higher Buddhi-Manas, it stands to reason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an impassable chasm; the traveller can never reach the goal on the other shore. And here lies the difference between the exoteric and Esoteric teaching. The former makes the Vedânta state that so long as Mind (the lower) clings through Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi-Manas) it is impossible for it to acquire true Spiritual Wisdom, Gnyâna, and that this can only be attained by seeking to come en rapport with the Universal Soul (Âtmâ); that, in fact, it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether that one reaches Râja Yoga. We say it is not so. No single rung of the ladder leading to knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach or bring itself into communication with Âtmâ, except through Buddhi-Manas; to try and become a Jîvanmukta or a Mahâtmâ, before one has become an Adept or even a Narjol (a sinless man) is like trying to reach Ceylon from India without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that if we destroy Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control [pg 523] of the impersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed for ever from it, unless indeed we hasten to re-establish the communication by a supreme and final effort.

It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the Divine Mind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana.

Like as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a stronghold; to cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys the drawbridge, and then only commences to destroy the pursuer; so must the Srotâpatti act before he slays Antahkarana.

Or as an Occult axiom has it:

The Unit becomes Three, and Three generate Four. It is for the latter [the Quaternary] to rebecome Three, and for the Divine Three to expand into the Absolute One.

Monads, which become Duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into Triads during the cycle of incarnations, even when incarnated know neither space nor time, but are diffused through the lower Principles of the Quaternary, being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature. But this omniscience is innate, and can manifest its reflected light only through that which is at least semi-terrestrial or material; even as the physical brain which, in its turn, is the vehicle of the lower Manas enthroned in Kâma Rûpa. And it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of “second death.”

But such annihilation—which is in reality the absence of the slightest trace of the doomed Soul from the eternal memory, and therefore signifies annihilation in eternity—does not mean simply discontinuation of human life on earth, for earth is Avîtchi, and the worst Avîtchi possible. Expelled for ever from the consciousness of the Individuality, the reincarnating Ego, the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now separate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only in a lower and still more abject creature, a human being only in form, doomed to Karmic torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if it persists in its criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long series of immediate reincarnations.

Here two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego in such cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born soulless?

Before answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the attention of all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact that the romance of the vicarious atonement and the mission of Jesus, [pg 524] as it now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal Initiates from the mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experience of the reincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and through, its own Karma in previous Manvantaras, which takes upon itself voluntarily the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or personalities. Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than Western fiction. The Christos, or Buddhi-Manas of each man is not quite an innocent and sinless God, though in one sense it is the “Father,” being of the same essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the “Son,” for Manas is the second remove from the “Father.” By incarnation the Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the personalities which it will inform. This it can do only through its proxy or reflection, the lower Manas. The only case in which the Divine Ego can escape individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle, is when it has to break off from the personality, because matter, with its psychic and astral vibrations, is then, by the very intensity of its combinations, placed beyond the control of the Ego. Apophis, the Dragon, having become the conqueror, the reincarnating Manas, separating itself gradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder from the psycho-animal Soul.

Thus, in answer to the first question, I say:

(1) The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (a) it recommences immediately under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of incarnations; or (b) it seeks and finds refuge in the bosom of the Mother, Alaya, the Universal Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the life-impressions of the personality, it merges into a kind of Nirvânic interlude, wherein there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which absorbs the Past and Future. Bereft of the “labourer,” both field and harvest now being lost, the Master, in the infinitude of his thought, naturally preserves no recollection of the finite and evanescent illusion which had been his last personality. And then, indeed, is the latter annihilated.

(2) The future of the lower Manas is more terrible, and still more terrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that after the separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal, fades out in Kâma Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the more material is the human mind, the longer it lasts, even in the intermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the present life of the soulless man is ended, he is again and again [pg 525] reincarnated into new personalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of animal life is too strong; it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only. In rarer cases, however, when the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself by starvation; when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a lower light will, owing to favourable conditions—say, even a short period of spiritual aspiration and repentance—attract back to itself its Parent Ego, and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations, then something far more dreadful may happen. The Kâma-Mânasic spook may become that which is called in Occultism the “Dweller on the Threshold.” This Dweller is not like that which is described so graphically in Zanoni, but an actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance, however beautiful the latter may be. Bulwer, however, must have got the idea from some Eastern Initiate. This Dweller, led by affinity and attraction, forces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope, of the new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the lower light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the case of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed. No one strong in virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread any such thing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had a glimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His story is a true allegory. Every Chelâ will recognise in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a Dweller, an obsessor of the personality, the tabernacle of the Parent Spirit.

“This is a nightmare tale!” I was often told by one, now no more in our ranks, who had a most pronounced “Dweller,” a “Mr. Hyde,” as an almost constant companion. “How can such a process take place without one's knowledge?” It can and does so happen, and I have almost described it once before in the Theosophist.

The Soul, the lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle almost paralyzed with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious of its subjective half, the Lord, one of the mighty Host; [and] in proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses sight of its divine mission on earth.

Truly,

Like the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength at the expense of its spiritual parent... and the personal half-unconscious Soul becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It is powerless to discern the voice of its [pg 526]God. It aims but at the development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and thus can discover but the mysteries of physical nature.... It begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the body; and ends by dying completely—that is, by being annihilated as a complete immortal Soul. Such a catastrophe may often happen long years before one's physical death: “We elbow soulless men and women at every step in life.” And when death arrives... there is no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate... for it has fled years before.

Result: Bereft of its guiding Principles, but strengthened by the material elements, Kâma-Manas, from being a “derived light” now becomes an independent Entity. After thus suffering itself to sink lower and lower on the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one of two things happens: either Kâma-Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba, the state of Avîtchi on earth,849 or, if it become too strong in evil—“immortal in Satan” is the Occult expression—it is sometimes allowed, for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Avîtchi in the terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes like the mythical “devil” in its endless wickedness; it continues in its elements, which are imbued through and through with the essence of Matter; for evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit. And when its Higher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or Kâma-Manas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein's monster, will ever feel attracted to its Father, who repudiates his son, and will become a regular “Dweller on the Threshold” of terrestrial life. I gave the outlines of the Occult doctrine in the Theosophist of October, 1881, and November, 1882, but could not go into details, and therefore got very much embarrassed when called upon to explain. Yet I have written there plainly enough about “useless drones,” those who refuse to become co-workers with Nature and who perish by millions during the Manvantaric life-cycle; those, as in the case in hand, who prefer to be ever suffering in Avîtchi under Karmic law rather than give up their lives “in evil,” and finally, those who are co-workers with Nature for destruction. These are thoroughly wicked and depraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely spiritual for evil, as those who are spiritual for good.

The (lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction or annihilation for ages to come.

Thus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those who have lost their Higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who are born soulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding birth. The former are candidates for Avîtchi; the latter are “Mr. Hydes,” whether in or out of human bodies, whether incarnated or hanging about as invisible though potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops to an enormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the doctrine would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor Science has the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.

There is, however, still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul through his vices, while he is yet in the body. He may be still redeemed and made to turn on his material nature. For either an intense feeling of repentance, or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best of all, an active effort to amend one's ways, may bring the Higher Ego back again. The thread of connection is not altogether broken, though the Ego is now beyond forcible reach, for “Antahkarana is destroyed,” and the personal Entity has one foot already in Myalba;850 yet it is not entirely beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal. There is another statement made in Isis Unveiled851 on this subject. It is said that this terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of the mysterious Name, the “Word.”852 What this “Word,” which is not a “Word” but a Sound, is, you all know. Its potency lies in the rhythm or the accent. This means simply that even a bad person may, by the study of the Sacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on the path of destruction. But unless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego, he may repeat it, parrot-like, ten thousand times a day, and the “Word” will not help him. On the contrary, if not entirely at one with his Higher Triad, it may produce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect, the Brothers of the Shadow using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it awakens and stirs up naught but the evil, material elements of Nature. But if one's nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the Higher Self, which is that Aum, through one's Higher Ego, which is its third [pg 528] letter, and Buddhi the second, there is no attack of the Dragon Apophis which it will not repel. From those to whom much is given much is expected. He who knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness, and after obtaining admission, departs from the threshold, or turns round and says, “Oh, there's nothing in it!” and thus loses his chance of learning the whole truth—can but await his Karma.

Such are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so many who have found what they thought contradictions in various Theosophical writings, including “Fragments of Occult Truth,” in vols. iii. and iv. of The Theosophist, etc. Before finally dismissing the subject, I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be very natural for those of you who are Esotericists to hope that none of you belong so far to the soulless portion of mankind, and that you can feel quite easy about Avîtchi, even as the good citizen is about the penal laws. Though not, perhaps, exactly on the Path as yet, you are skirting its border, and many of you in the right direction. Between such venal faults as are inevitable under our social environment, and the blasting wickedness described in the Editor's note on Éliphas Lévi's “Satan,”853 there is an abyss. If not become “immortal in good by identification with (our) God,” or Aum, Âtmâ-Buddhi-Manas, we have surely not made ourselves “immortal in evil” by coalescing with Satan, the lower Self. You forget, however, that everything must have a beginning; that the first step on a slippery mountain slope is the necessary antecedent to one's falling precipitately to the bottom and into the arms of death. Be it far from me the suspicion that any of the Esoteric students have reached to any considerable point down the plane of spiritual descent. All the same I warn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach the bottom in this life or the next, but you may now generate causes which will insure your spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or even some subsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother whose whole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained to Krishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look back fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have begotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: “If thou could'st look back to thy fifty-first anterior birth, as I can, thou would'st see thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of [pg 529] ants as that of the sons thou hast now lost.” This, of course, is only a poetical exaggeration; yet it is a striking image to show how great results come from apparently trifling causes.

Good and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened according to the conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to that which we call the “useless portion of mankind,” that is to say, the lay majority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in Avidyâ, or ignorance, involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma. Take, for example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and people who know no better. But the case of each who is pledged to the Higher Self is quite another matter. You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with impunity, and once that you have put yourselves under its tutelage, you have asked the Radiant Light to shine and search through all the dark corners of your being; consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take note of your motive, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in your account. The step is irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth. Never again can you force yourselves back into the matrix of Avidyâ and irresponsibility. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and hide yourselves from the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of the social whirl, that Light will find you out and lighten your every thought, word and deed. All H. P. B. can do is to send to each earnest one among you a most sincerely fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome to your endeavours. Nevertheless, be not discouraged, but try, ever keep trying;854 twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many undaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed? And know further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist's account, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally true is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association with the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for good.

Finally, keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master by your bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence of the still night, yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into your hour of spiritual need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of the Masters, or of their humble mouthpiece and servant, if through perversity or moral feebleness some of you cut yourselves off from these higher potencies, and step upon the declivity that leads to Avîtchi.