Letter VIII.

As for me, all that is the matter is my health, not yet full and good. If that were all right, I would have nothing. What do I care for all the row? It will soon be over; some will be dead; the sooner the better, and then we shall have other fun. I look at it all as so much fun and variety, sure; I am not joking. It is variety, and without that what would life be? As all these asses bray we learn new notes of the scale not known before. A heap of letters I got; but I am O.K., fragile, perhaps, but not brittle. I would like to be with you both and have some sweet fun without tears or spite, but we have to be apart, to meet now and then. Poor ——! Don't be hard on him. He had to be silent, you know. A small matter, but more important than he knew for him. Let up on him, and don't jeer. He has a hard time enough with himself, to have any added by massage from others.

34

C——'s illusion to "suffering" opens up a vein of thought which I have had. I have examined myself for the "uses" of this rumpus, to see if I am properly "suffering." Well, I can't find it. Down in the deeps I may be; but I find myself cheerful, happy, and anything but morose or sad. Ergo: can I be suffering? Do you know? Positively, I do not know. Ought I? Am I a wretch because I do not suffer, or because, being in actual suffering, I am insensate and do not perceive it? But, on the other hand, I feel no anger and no resentment. Really, it puzzleth me. Many nights I do not sleep, and have used the hours (as I now do), when all is still, in looking over all, and yet I feel all right—everywhere. Of course, I have committed my human faults and sins, but I mean, on the Grand Round-Up, I find nothing to "suffer me"; nothing that I shall rush out to amend by taking the ridiculous and nasty world to my bosom in confidence upon.

As for myself. Well. What? Nothing. I know not and care not. I am joyful and glorious that the work thus goes. My desires are not here, and all the racket sounds to me far off, as if miles from my ear. I am acting as a pump-engine, and trying to force a lot on. This is not for myself. I must find myself alone, as we all are, and then the Law will say: "Next!" But what next I do not care and don't want to know, for when "Next" is said I will see what it is to do. Just now the best and biggest work by us poor children is on this plane with the great aid of Master, Whose simple single will keeps the whole organisation, and acts as its support and shield. We are not big enough yet to handle the Akasa, but we may help Them to, and that is all I want to do. I have used the present affairs to be as a lesson to me, for it may be used as a test to me as to pride and ambition; and I find that, no matter how I turn it, the same result comes. I am35 seeking other things while working in this. Try as I may to raise an ambition for power, and to raise a desire to change a supposed case (non-existent in fact), I can't do it. So you see, my dear Comrade, I am all right.

These questions you ask me:

When the Self is first seen it is like looking into a glove; and for how many incarnations may it not be so? The material envelope throws up before the eye of the Soul waving fumes and clouds of illusion.

The brain is only the focus through which the forces and thoughts are centralised that are continually coming in through the solar plexus of the heart. Many such thoughts, therefore, are lost, just as millions of seeds in nature are lost. It behoves to study them and to guard them when there; but can we call them our own? Or weep over them? Let us be as wide as great Nature concerning them, and let each go on to its own place without colouring them with our own colour and acceptance or adhesion.

The spiral movement is the double movement of the astral light, one spiral inside the other. The diastole and systole of the heart are caused by that double movement of the Akasa. But do not presumptuously grasp the movement too soon, for often even the heart moving too rapidly destroys the life.

The brutes unconsciously are aware of the general human opposition, which in each human being they see focalised.

It is easier to sink back into the Eternal than to dive. The diver must needs have the power to retain breath against the rush caused by diving, while to sink gives time to get and keep the breath.

Nothing else greatly new. Am waiting to hear of your completer health. Sustained on the wave you will come in with the tide in time. Best love to —— and to ---- and to thee. May you all be well sustained. I36 think I have now given you all there is. Salute most noble, brave, and diamond-hearted! May we meet after the dust settles, and we will meet forever in the long, long manvantaras before us all. Peace! Peace! the path of peace and not of war: such are the words.

As forevermore.