Part 1. At the threshold of the two paths. Only through her night star the woman can be truly happy. Part 2. Legend of the Night Flower. A woman’s love, loyalty, and gratitude will always belong to her night star. Part 3. To the Star of Love. Beautiful Star, where are you going in this great night?

Do not think too much of me, direct your thoughts to the Eternal Truth. For only he who is free from the heresy of separateness, brought forth by false self-identity and self-importance, can rise above the trappings of personal life and live for others. Never seek knowledge or power for any other purpose than to sacrifice it on the altar of the Great Heart, which is humanity at large. Do not fear nor fail because you feel dark and heavy. After a while, the very rage you feel will break the shrine that covers the mystery. No one can really help you till then. The “moment of choice” between good and evil, between white and black magic, is neither in space nor in time, it is the momentum of all those moments in the battle between unselfish and selfish impulses taking place in those who try to follow the higher purposes of Nature. I am my friends and my enemies, I feel them all. I am the poor, the wicked, the ignorant. Those moments of gloom are the moments when I am influenced by those ignorant ones, who are myself. Duty lies in the act itself. Our duty is to never consider our ability, but to do what needs to be done in whatever way we can, no matter how inadequate the work may appear to others. We are not the only ones to suffer upon the path. Like ourselves Masters have wept, though They do not weep any longer. Sadness comes from an appreciation of the difficulties in our way, and of the unspeakable wickedness of the human heart. The Divine Spirit, which overshadows the soul of every man, is the throne of the Invisible and Unknown God. If you reflect on That, little room will be left for sorrow or delusion. Please don’t be anxious. Insist on Carelessness. Anxiety obscures and deters. Fear and anxiety are a formidable barrier against progress, by perturbation and straining harshly. Anxiety densifies and perturbs our magnetic sphere (aura), thus rendering us less permeable to the efflux of inner life and love. Immediate rebirth is for those who are working with their heart on Master’s work and are free from self interest. Nothing foreign to Master can pollute the pure heart; our faults are not there. The heart reaches Him always, and He replies. He needs not to stoop to see our devotion for devotional love, being of a supernal quality, reaches anywhere. Even in the most menial sorts of labour, the moment a man begins working, his soul enters into a state of harmony and peace. On the plane of social intercourse words are things, but soulless and dead because that convention in which they have their birth has made abortions of them. Let us then choose with care those living messengers called words. When the soul turns its attention to the astral plane, its energy is transferred from the gross material plane to a more subtle plane composed of imponderable matter, and we then have an influx of many confused dreams and strange experiences, whether awake or asleep. Clairvoyants and untrained seers cannot distinguish between psychic and spiritual perceptions. The age is black as hell, hard as iron. Yet noble hearts keep fighting the ancient fight. They seek each other and help each other. We will not fail them. To fail would be nothing, but to stop working for Humanity and the Brotherhood of Man would be awful; we cannot and will not. The student of Occultism must either reach the goal or perish. Those who rush unprepared and before the ripe moment risk insanity. But then that insanity is their safety for the next life, or for their return to sanity. The road to heavens is dark and difficult because we do not live up to our highest ideals. And as we hamstrung by our own weaknesses, it’s no use blaming others for our own shortcomings. Egoism is a sign of shameful cowardice. The egocentric man is insignificant and helpless. All our obstructions are of our own making. All our power is drawn from the storehouse of the past. Let us love and worship humanity, instead of self, and all shall be well. Even selfishness is love, though tainted and misdirected. Let us live for each other, forgetting ourselves in the midst of so many selves who, as formerly and forever, are but our own phantasms of thinking throblets, and all shall be well. Drink the cup of life without a murmur to the last drop, whatever Karma may have in store for you. The lesson in your present life is sweet Patience that nothing can ruffle. Higher Patience is a fine line between pride and humility. Both are extremes and mistakes. How shall we be proud when we are so small? How dare we be humble when we are so great? In both we blaspheme. Regret is productive only of error. Regret is a thought, hence an energy. If we turn its tide upon the past, it plays upon the seeds of that past and vivifies them; it causes them to sprout and grow in the mind and, from thence, expression in action is but a step. Evil is the infernal end of the polarity of spirit-matter. Evil-devil is the dark side of good, yet a mighty motor on the eternal struggle of the two ever-Opposing Forces — Light versus Darkness, Buddhi versus Kama-Manas — dual aspects of the One Manifested Creative Power, which keeps building worlds and thinks through man. Like Ormuzd and Ahriman, good and evil are inseparable and interdependent. We cannot murder Life but we can destroy a vehicle of the divine Principle of Life and impede the course of a soul using that vehicle. We far more injured by this atrocious deed than by any other. It is the man of clay that sins, not the innocent Higher Ego self-imprisoned within us and spectator of our life, who suffers and weeps silently at our cruelty. Condemn the sin not the Sinner. Higher, as within us all, the divine spirit looks down in the secure knowledge that, when the lower nature has subsided into its spiritual source, all this struggle and play of force and will, this waxing and waning of forms, this progression of consciousness that throws up clouds and fumes of illusion before the eye of the soul, will have come to an end. But the real test of a man is his motive, which we neither see, nor do his acts always represent it. If acts of valour are motivated by self-interest, they are still virtuous acts, but they will not elevate the actor and will throw his calculations off-kilter. Nature strives to contain spirit, and spirit strives to be free. Despondency, doubt, fear, vanity, pride, self-satisfaction, are traps used by Nature to detain us on earth. The kind of thoughts that appeal to our senses, and which fascinate and transfix us, is another snare set by Nature lest we discover her inmost secret and rule her. Spirituality is no virtue, it is divine impersonality. Spirituality is the rootless root of all things, unborn, exempt from dissolution, eternal, and beyond the condition of spirit. In essence and substance, It is the Whole of this Universe. Death disappoints the Self for it is neither productive of real knowledge nor of service to the living. Death is the sudden lowering of a stage curtain only to be raised again at the beginning of the next act. The living have a greater part in the dead than the dead have in the living. Rise, then, from this despondency. With the sword of Knowledge and with Love, you can “become one with the great tides of being, and reach the peaceful place of safe self-forgetfulness at last.” In dreams we see the truth and taste the joys of heaven. In waking life we gradually distil that dew into our consciousness. Let thy pulses beat to heaven’s own music. Despise the life that only seeks its own. Listen to the words of the Great Teachers. Good company removes the dullness of intellect, infuses truth into speech, bestows great honour, removes sin, purifies the heart, and spreads fame in all directions. Evil company should be shunned because it gives rise to lust, anger, delusion, memory loss, discrimination loss and, at long last, total loss of one’s “Infinite Potency born from the concealed Potentiality.” Spreading like ripples at first, evil company swells vices to large-scale waves in an ocean of misery. Is there any hope for the aspirant who has no heredity of psychical development to call upon, who is not introspective by nature, and with no access to chelas for guidance reach? There is, if he purifies his motive, and cultivates an ardent and unwavering faith and devotion to the Masters who are Truth personified, though They are not yet known to him. They are generous and honest debtors, and always repay. Beyond the Hall of Learning is the Great White Lodge, the magnificent hierarchy of Masters, Gurus, and Chelas all over the world. Every aspirant to chelaship has a Guru, although he many not be aware of it. Guru is chela’s benefactor. If we have reverenced our teacher, we will now revere our unknown Guru. We must place our hand in his hand with all love, and trust, and confidence, for it is to mighty Karma we have appealed, and the Guru is an agent of Karma. Madame Blavatsky sacrificed all that mankind holds dear to bring the glad tidings of Theosophy to the West through the Theosophical Society, which thereby stands to her as a chela to his Guru. She is our next higher link in the Guruparampara chain, of which no link can be missed or by-passed. Those who try to reach The Masters by other means while disregarding or underrating scornfully her high services, violate an occult rule that cannot be broken with impunity. The limitations of self impede progress. Unless the intention is entirely unalloyed, the spiritual will transform itself into the psychic and, by acting on the astral plane, dire results may be produced by it. The highest aspirations for the welfare of humanity will become sullied with selfishness if, in the mind of the philanthropist, there lurks the shadow of a desire for self-benefit, or a tendency to do injustice, even when these exist unconsciously to himself. The powers of evil revenge themselves upon the ignorant man and his friends, and not upon those who are beyond their reach. As long we hope and desire, we shall remain apart from the Self. We are rich in hope, knowing the prize at the end of time, and are not deterred by the clouds, the storms, the miasmas, and the dreadful beasts of prey that line the road. Let us then, at the very outset, wash out of our souls all desire for reward, all hope that we may attain what we sought. We may perhaps have found one spot we may call our own, and possess no other qualification for the task. That spot is enough, it is our wholly unshaken belief in Self and the Masters. That spot is our Higher Ego, symbolised by Homer as the wild fig tree, which Odysseus took hold of it and clung to it like a bat, in order to escape falling into the whirlpool of passions below. Beware of the dreadful lures, the great causes of misery, inflamed by the malignant fever of scepticism. They keep us ensnared in our earthy prison. Compassion is the Divine Law of Universal Sympathy and Sacrifice. Overseen by Spiritual Intelligences above, Compassion is enacted by the Intelligence of Nature and Her dual forces below. Deity is Unerring Karma or Abstract Nature — the Mind and Soul of the Universe.

Kama-Deva is the first conscious all-embracing desire for universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that arose in the consciousness of the Creative Force, that came into life and being by a single ray of Light and Truth. That pure desire, of whom Love is born, is the progenitor of affection. Pythagoras’ Primeval Monad which, having flashed out like lightning from the Central Point and thrilled through the Germ retires into Darkness is the Rootless Root of all things. The Pythagorean system is based entirely upon sacred numbers, harmony, and correspondences or affinities. Space is filled with atoms actuated by ceaseless rotationary motion. Aggregated atoms, through mutual collisions, produce lateral movements of affinity. Sounds and colours are spiritual numerals. The cause of the splendour and variety of colours lies deep in the affinities of nature, for there is a singular and mysterious alliance between colour and sound. The Creative Force produces colours, sounds, and numbers, in the shape of rates of vibration, which compound and dissociate atoms and molecules. There is mutual sympathy between terrestrial and celestial things. Terrestrial natures receive the plenitude of the celestial; and celestial, of supercelestial essences, while every order of things proceeds gradually in a majestic descent from the highest to the lowest. True magic is firmly based on the mysterious affinities between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. That which science calls gravitation, the ancients and the mediæval Hermetists called magnetism, attraction, affinity. Magnetism is attraction to the virtue of the substance, rather than blind attraction between two masses. Eastern Occultists bring down the properties of matter to attraction and repulsion; modern Scientists, to gravitation and phylogenetic relations. Affection is one of the most powerful attractions between two loving spirits — the embodied and the disembodied one — further enhanced by the harmony between the two and the magnetic purity of those left on earth. The attraction of the “shells” of the departed to places and persons is brought forth by the law of magneto-vital affinities. But the ascent of the higher Ego to the bliss of pure subjectivity will be impeded if its alter ego is weighted down with base feelings. The reincarnating Ego is drawn by magnetic attraction to the atmosphere of the parent or parents, whose vibrational frequency is most sympathetic to its own, and with whom its karmic affinities are strongest. The virtues of the Macrocosm are represented in the Microcosm or Man. The magnetic power of Man can thus draw those celestial virtues which correspond to his own. It is the science of Astrology that determines the nature of effects, by a knowledge of the law of magnetic affinities and attractions of the planetary bodies. But it is the Karma of the individual himself, which places him in that particular magnetic relation. The Occultist follows the ethnological affinities and their divergences in various nationalities, races, and sub-races, by observing the auric shades and gradations of colour of the inner man. He can thus unerringly pronounce to which of several distinct human families, and to what particular group or sub-group that man belongs. The secret of healing lies in the knowledge of the affinities between kindred atoms. Find that metal, wood, stone, or plant that has the most correspondential affinity with the body of the sufferer, and that particular agent will lead invariably to his cure. Strong will creates and sympathy attracts even adepts. In Europe, more than anywhere else, there is a Universal Brotherhood, an alliance of affinities, of strong magnetic yet dissimilar forces and polarities, centred around one dominant idea. The cause of spiritual failure lies in the egotism of the age, whether conscious or unconscious. And even western philanthropy, so often pervaded by selfish motives and worldly affinities, is unable to warm humanity with its beneficent rays. Blessed are the pure-hearted who have only intuition, for intuition is better than intellect.

1. The first is like the nightingale’s sweet voice chanting a song of parting to its mate. 2. The second comes as the sound of a silver cymbal of the Dhyanis, awakening the twinkling stars. Our body is an Aeolian harp chorded with two sets of strings: one made of pure silver, the other of catgut. 3. The next is as the plaint melodious of the ocean-sprite imprisoned in its shell. It is the Voice of Divine Wisdom and last word of the Secret Doctrine. 4. And this is followed by the chant of Vina, attuning fellow disciples to the harmonies of Wisdom. Even the memory of the sleeper is like the seven-stringed Aeolian harp, his mind sweeping over the chords. 5. The fifth like sound of bamboo-flute shrills in thine ear, bestowing knowledge of the awful mysteries and priceless secrets of initiation. 6. It changes next into a trumpet-blast, beckoning the Dragon of Esoteric Wisdom to come out of Darkness. 7. The last vibrates like the dull rumbling of a thunder-cloud. When the six are slain and at the Master’s feet are laid, then is the pupil merged into the One, becomes that One, and lives therein. The seventh swallows all the other sounds: they die, and then are heard no more. The two Opposing Forces are finally harmonised. The freed Spirit rises to its former glory. The Great Serpent uncoils. Only Sat remains. The Higher Self is swallowed up by the Great Serpent; the lower, disappears forever.

In order to reach the wider public, theosophical literature should be couched in simple, unpretentious language, that anyone can understand. If you thirst after spiritual truths, you should first learn how to read between the lines. More! Your should not believe what your read or heard, regardless of the authority of your teachers, but to believe only when the writing or saying is corroborated by your own reason and consciousness. Thenceforth, act accordingly and abundantly. The true disciple is humble and self-effacing, unnoticed by the man in the street. What may seem to others as mere ethics, to the true disciple such precepts of duty are instructions for boundless devotion to humanity at large and all creatures, whether great and small. Seek Darkness with the lamp of Faith. Faith is an aspiration and a desire. Hope and Charity are her sisters. True Faith can only blossom from the realisation that All is One. Let us then approach the Majesty of Truth for her own sake, and not to confirm our preconceptions and speculations of what Truth might be. Stand ready to abandon all you have learned with the head, so that you can tell apart the real from the false, the everlasting from the everfleeting. Head-learning is false learning, and as perishable as the body. Soul-Wisdom alone is true knowledge, immortal and eternal. As the disciple continues deciphering the arcane doctrine, at every new period of his inner life a new self rises within him. He is now increasingly permeated with Divine Intelligence, and immersed in Spiritual Light that radiates from his own Logos. When the last sheath of the heart bursts open there is a silence, the silence of the mystic death; and from that death springs up the first tender growth of Life triumphant in Spirit. The Brotherhood of Man has been forged in the fires of unspeakable anguish, and riveted by a dauntless purpose called forth by its mighty fiat.

Come unto me, all ye that labour, and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Heir to the Kingdom of Heaven, rightfully and in the long run thine own, thy purity of mind and thy strong will shall carry thee safely on. Cease thy wanderings after the unreal, free thy mind from those baits which fetter thy Divine Self to finite things, shut thine ears to those siren voices which drag thy mind in a thousand and one directions, and thou shalt be one with Him. Do not question the existence of Life until thou art in the folds of thy Spirit. As gold is refined by fire, so suffering purifies. The sun withholds not his rays from the Holy Ganga, nor from the foul cesspool. Empty thyself, and I will fill thee. Silence is heaven’s own virtue. When the ocean, attracted by the hot sun, becomes transformed into humid atmosphere, it leaves its saltiness behind and sails to the skies in buoyant clouds. Shorn of thy earthly impediments, Oh Pilgrim, thy flight will be both easy and speedy. To think is to is to be. Attune thy thoughts with Nature’s Harmony. Thought is the father of deeds. By evil thoughts came the troubles of life. Yet with a single thought of the Highest their end is near at hand. Nature’s Loving Essence cannot be extinguished but only perverted. No man while pursuing his own way of life should wrong another. A fervent thought sent round for the well-being of humanity is worth more than all kingdoms. In justice, love, and harmony there is a real Life that knows no death; in injustice, hatred, and discord there is that which induces death in life. There is no sin greater than that of ill-will toward others, and no virtue higher than good-will toward all. Eternal Pilgrim is the Protean differentiation in Space and Time of the One Absolute Unknown and Unknowable.

I am so far off the one who pointed out to me the way that must bring us, if followed, to the light and peace and power of truth. It is not membership of the Theosophical Society, or any other mystical body for that matter, that will bring us near to the Masters, but loving kindness and tender affection for suffering humanity — expressed with pure heart and unselfish mind. Doubt and despair are the bitter fruits of separateness, ruses and wiles of the lower mind to keep us back, among the mediocre of the race. “Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.” Duty (dharma) is the Royal Talisman. Steadfast devotion to duty is the true yoga, and infinetly better than mantrams and postures. Masters are Atma and therefore the very law of Karma itself. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. When not enlightened by the Higher Self, who alone is truly cosmopolitan, impartial, unsectarian, and pre-eminently altruistic, the good intentions of co-operative schemes are doomed to perish in the struggle of existence. They give utopia a bad name, for the personal element has a tendency to delude us as it hides behind various walls and clothes in the faults, real or imaginary, of others. It is not the cowl that makes the monk. Celibacy is not enforced either in the Theosophical Society or its inner circle any more than vegetarianism. Be that as it may, celibacy, vegetarianism, and especially total abstinence from wine and alcoholic beverages, are essential for the acquisition of Occult Knowledge. Even if the ethical scruples for the health and welfare of animals are dismissed, still vegetarianism is suggested to rich and poor for their own health, as well as the health of our planet. Great intellectual powers are no proof of, but are impediments to spiritual insight; witness most of the great men of science. We must rather pity than blame them. Each mind runs along idiosyncratic grooves of prejudice and suspicion, and is therefore unwilling to run in the grooves of another mind — hence friction and wrangle. And so the lives of our fellow men, and companions along the same journey, remain unnoticed and unused because of our dogmatic narrow-mindedness, which can do honour to no one. What is our object and what of the future? Our object is the enlightenment of oneself for the good of others. Our future comes from each moment, here and now. Future is a word for present not yet come. As we live in the moment, so we shift the future up or down for good or ill. If the present is full of doubt or vacillation, so will be the future; if full of confidence, calmness, hope, courage, and intelligence, thus also will be the future. When we begin awakening our spiritual consciousness, the Divine Ray will unveil to our highest perceptions a world entirely different from the world represented to us by our external senses. But before we become a centre of beneficent force, we should make an effort: 1. To overpower the stirring principle within us by detaching our mind from the allurements of the material world. 2. To accumulate as much merit as we can by unselfish thoughts and deeds of kindness, as directed by the power of a soul attuned with that of humanity. What we do now, in this transitional age, it will be like what the Dhyani-Chohans did in the midway point of evolution, when matter was in a critical semi-spiritual fluidic state. They then gave an impulse for new types, which resulted later in the vast varieties of nature. Let each one of us be a centre of light; a picture gallery from which shall be projected on the astral light such scenes, such influences, such thoughts, as may influence many for good, shall thus arouse a new current, which will draw back the great and the good from other spheres from beyond this earth.

True prayer is unselfish love of humanity. It is an act of will and a command but, unless enacted, prayer is pathetic. Prayers should be for blessings on all that lives. We shall be able to pray to Him properly, only when we approach by ourselves alone to the Alone. Our prayers and supplications are vain, unless to potential words we add potent acts. And thus make the aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and divine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words, become as it were an extraneous potency. To produce beneficial effects, the prayer must be uttered by “one who knows how to make himself heard in silence,” when it is no longer a “prayer” but a command. A clear conscience and a firm desire of benefiting humanity afford the best protection from air elementals, which throng public places. Loud prayers are disastrous. Woe to the unholy man who invokes the Sacred Trinity for personal advancement or pronounces It after the commission of some far-reaching sin. The Devotional Prayers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Alexander Pope.