INTRODUCTION
I wish that I could help my American readers to realise the conditions under which thisbook has been produced. The Theosophical Society as a whole does not by any meanssufficiently understand or appreciate the work done at its Headquarters, and although foryou in America it is away on the other side of the earth, I should like to help you to see itas it is. Readers of the
“Messenger”
must at least, have some general idea of theappearance of the place, and must know something of the life which is lived here-- a longlife, a strenuous life, and a life lived under very peculiar conditions. Nowhere else in theworld at this present moment is there such a centre of influence-- a centre constantlyvisited by the Great Ones, and therefore bathed in their wonderful magnetism. Thevibrations here are marvellously stimulating, and all of us who live here are thereforeconstant strain of a very peculiar kind, a strain which brings out whatever is in us. Strongvibrations from other planes are playing all the while upon our various vehicles, andthose parts of us which can in any sense respond to them are thereby raised, strengthenedand purified. But it must be remembered that there is another side to this. There may wellbe in each of us some vibrations the character of which is too far removed from the levelof these great influences to fall into harmony with them, and where that is the caseintensification will still take place, but the result may well be evil rather than good. Tolive at Adyar is the most glorious of all opportunities for those who are able to takeadvantage of it, but its effect on those who are constitutionally unable to harmonize withits vibrations may be dangerous rather than helpful. If a student can bear it he mayadvance rapidly; if he cannot bear it he is better away.The workers here live mostly in the great central building, within the immediate aura of the shrine room and the President. The students live chiefly half-a-mile away at variousother houses, though all within the large estate which now belongs to the Society. Eachduring the day does his own work in his own way, but in the evening we all gathertogether upon the roof of the central building, in front of the President' s rooms, formerlyoccupied by Madame Blavatsky herself, and there, under the marvellous night sky of India, so infinitely more brilliant than anything that we know in what are miscalledtemperate climes, we sit and listen to her teaching. All through the summer of last year,so much of which she spent in a tour through the United States, it fell to my lot to takecharge of the meetings of the students here. In the course of that time I delivered manyinformal little addresses and answered hundreds of questions. All that I said was takendown in shorthand, and this book is the result of those notes. In a number of cases ithappened that what was said on the roof at the meetings was afterwards expanded into alittle article for
The Theosophist
or
The Adyar Bulletin;
in all such cases I reprint thearticle instead of the stenographic report, as it has had the advantage of certaincorrections and additions. Necessarily a book of this sort is fragmentary in its nature;necessarily also it contains a certain amount of repetition; though this latter has beenexcised wherever possible. Many of the subjects treated have also been dealt with in myearlier books, but what is written here represents in all cases the result of the latestdiscoveries in connection with those subjects. The subjects have been classified as far aspossible, and this volume represents the first series, containing five sections. The second
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