This book is merely a record of talks by Mr. Charles W. Leadbeater and myself on three famous books – books small in size but great in contents. We both hope that they will prove useful to aspirants, and even to those above that stage, since the talkers were older than the listeners, and had more experience in the life of discipleship.The talks were not given at one place only; we chatted to our friends at different times and places, chiefly at Adyar, London and Sydney. A vast quantity of notes were taken by the listeners. All that were available of these were collected and arranged. They were then condensed, and repetitions were eliminated.Unhappily there were found to be very few notes on The Voice of the Silence, Fragment I, so we have utilized notes made at a class held by our good colleague, Mr. Ernest Wood, in Sydney, and incorporated these into Bishop Leadbeater’s talks in that section. No notes of my own talks on this book were available; though I have spoken much upon it, those talks are not recoverable.None of these talks have been published before, except some of Bishop Leadbeater’s addresses to selected students on At the Feet of the Master. A book entitled Talks on At the Feet of the Master was published a few years ago, containing imperfect reports of some of these talks of his. That book will not be reprinted; the essential material in it finds its place here, carefully condensed and edited.May this book help some of our younger brothers to understand more of these priceless teachings. The more they are studied and lived, the more will be found in them.

This book is one of a trilogy, being commentaries on three classic books considered the mystical gems of theosophical literature.

THE following pages are derived from "The Book of the Golden Precepts," one of the works put into the hands of mystic students in the East. The knowledge of them is obligatory in that school, the teachings of which are accepted by many Theosophists. Therefore, as I know many of these Precepts by heart, the work of translating has been relatively an easy task for me. It is well known that, in India, the methods of psychic development differ with the Gurus (teachers or masters), not only because of their belonging to different schools of philosophy, of which there are six, but because every Guru has his own system, which he generally keeps very secret. But beyond the Himalayas the method in the Esoteric Schools does not differ, unless the Guru is simply a Lama, but little more learned than those he teaches. The work from which I here translate forms part of the same series as that from which the "Stanzas" of the Book of Dzyan were taken, on which the Secret Doctrine is based. Together with the great mystic work called Paramartha, which, the legend of Nagarjuna tells us, was delivered to the great Arhat by the Nagas or "Serpents" (in truth a name given to the ancient Initiates), the Book of the Golden Precepts claims the same origin. Yet its maxims and ideas, however noble and original, are often found under different forms in Sanskrit works, such as the Dnyaneshvari, that superb mystic treatise in which Krishna describes to Arjuna in glowing colors the condition of a fully illumined Yogi; and again in certain Upanishads. This is but natural, since most, if not all, of the greatest Arhats, the first followers of Gautama Buddha were Hindus and Aryans, not Mongolians, especially those who emigrated into Tibet. The works left by Aryasanga alone are very numerous.

A commentary of the classic Light on the Path .

At the Feet of the Master was the first book published by Jiddu Krishnamurti. Written when he was 14 under the name "Alcyone" and published in 1910, it has been translated into 40 languages. There has been some debate over whether the author was Krishnamurti or his mentor C.W. Leadbeater. Krishnamurti never said that he wrote the work, and in the foreword he says: "These are not my own words but of the Master who taught me." He was referring to Leadbeater's claim that the Master Kuthumi was releasing the instruction to the young boy during the night while he was asleep. The book is considered a theosophical classic.