Theosophy Nirvana

THEOSOPHY

NIRVANA

Nirvana

A Study in

Synthetic Consciousness

George Sidney Arundale

First published 1926

Dr George S Arundale

1878 - 1945

Dr Arundale was International President of

the Theosophical Society (Adyar) from 1933 to 1945

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CHAPTER IV

A Meditation

In The Himalayas

Northwards soared

The stainless ramps of huge Himala’s wall,

Ranged in white ranks against the blue - untrod,

Infinite, wonderful - whose uplands vast,

And lifted universe of crest and crag,

Shoulder and shelf, green slope and icy horn,

Riven ravine, and splintered precipice

Led climbing thought higher and higher, until

It seemed to stand in heaven and speak with gods.

Beneath the snows dark forests spread, sharp-laced

With leaping cataracts and veiled with clouds

Lower grew rose-oaks and the great fir groves

Where echoed pheasant’s call and panther’s cry,

Clatter of wild sheep on the stones, and scream

Of circling eagles: under these the plain

Gleamed like a praying-carpet at the foot

Of those divinest altars.

The Light of Asia.

THE clarification of issues to which I have referred above finds valuable expression in the bringing into relief of those shadows in my nature which have yet to yield to the Light. I know myself, I think, as never have I known myself before; and while I am appalled at my ignorance, my thirst for knowledge, or rather for Truth, is immensely increased. Were this not so, I might well despair, for what I know is of the size of the minutest speck of dust as compared with the mighty earth. How little I really know.

It is no exaggeration, indeed, to say that I know nothing. At best I have a few scraggy hypotheses, some, I trust, founded on that Reality which is the essence of my being. But how much there is to know, and how glorious the search. One feels like an enthusiastic collector of gems, glorying in the searching and triumphing in the finding. Never satisfied, but eternally hoping, and though never satisfied, still utterly content, for there is so much to do with what one has. And there is this advantage over the collector. There is nothing in the world, or out of

it, that is not worth collecting. There is nothing which is not valuable experience. There is nothing which does not contain a useful lesson. So the circumstances of life are of little importance.

What matters is our power to extract from them the nectar whereby we grow, the aqua vitae.I here perceive once more the sharp difference between the quality of Buddhic consciousness and that of Nirvanic consciousness. The former discloses the Unity while the latter expresses it. Buddhi declares Unity, points to it everywhere, discloses the thread of Unity running through all things, and so unveils Truth. In Nirvana we begin an at-one-ment with the constituent elements of this Unity, this Truth. Buddhi discloses the Plan; in Nirvana we begin to be the Plan.

This is a very partial statement of the facts, but perhaps it will do as a broad, rough suggestion as to the general line of difference. Through Buddhi the consciousness of Truth-Unity begins to become established. In Nirvana this consciousness becomes intensified, and the process begins of tracing its constituent elements to a more transcendent cause. From the planes below, Buddhi may well appear to be an ultimate cause. Yet, standing on the Mount of Buddhi we begin to perceive yet higher peaks, and we realize with still greater awe and wonder the increasing vastness of that mountain-range of manifested life of which even the glorious Mount of Buddhi is but a lesser peak. Dwelling on this Mount of Buddhi we cannot fully perceive its nature, its relation to the range as a whole, though from its height we may look down upon the view below and perceive great unities of landscape where we had thought there were, as we lived among them, but barriers and diversities.

I have learned much in this direction by contemplating the great Himalayan range, the physical plane range that separates the inner from the outer world, the substance from the shadow. I have sat in meditation in the midst of this mighty earthly shadow of the spiritual landscape of the manifested Logos. I have

contemplated grandeur in the microcosms of the vegetation, of the plants and trees and rocks, and in the ascending macrocosms of hills, of peaks, of mountains, of ranges, unto the consummation of Gaurishankar* (*This was for some time supposed to be the local name for Mount Everest, but more careful research shows that this is not so. Mount Everest is Peak XV of the Official Survey, and Mount Gaurishankar is Peak XX. Some have said that Gaurishankar (which means Parvati and Shiva) is a name sometimes given to the whole group of mountains.

The Tibetans call Mount Everest “The White Lady of the Glaciers”.) Himself.

These mighty Himalayas are a living witness to, a living reflection of, the great Path of Holiness, with its glorious Buddhic and Nirvanic peaks - and doubtless of still higher summits, for aught I know. Supremely in the Himalayas, and in lesser degree in other ranges, may the Voice of the Silence be heard in something of its majesty and power, sounding to ears that can hear the Word ineffable that opens the doors between the Unreal and the Real. I perceive, thus meditating, how true is it that all planes are interpenetrating.

Nowhere is Buddhi or Nirvana nearer to man than in this physical Buddhi and physical Nirvana of the Himalayas. It is a marvellous experience, for one in whom these higher consciousnesses are awakening, physically to visit their counterparts carved in earthly form. My experience has been out of the physical body, yet they seem to transform me, for the time being, into a veritable Cross, an insignificant, feeble, distorted, but possibly recognizable representation of Love in Manifestation. I perceive that Buddhi reflects to us down here the Eternal, all-pervading Silence, while Nirvana opens to our ears its Voice. We catch in Nirvana a syllable of its utterance. In the far-off future we may hear a Word of Power. And then, perchance, a sentence. Some day, the mighty Language of the Gods!

This picture of the Himalayas and of their relation to these higher realms of consciousness enters strongly into my mind - not, I think, merely because they seem to be in some wonderful way the noble physical counterparts of these, mighty inner regions, but for another reason which is very elusive, though I feel I have the key to it in the dim memory of the supreme wonder of the summit of Kailasa. I can see myself - I do not for the moment notice in what vehicle - on that summit, sensing the mysterious, awesome and relentless silence, the penetrating cold, the utter aloofness, the wondrous potentiality of manifestation, from the many shades of unutterable calm and peace, the calm and peace of winter, of spring, of summer, of autumn - each different in splendour and in message, through gentle unrest to the most furious, raging and cataclysmic storm. The air is alive with latent power, and I stand awestruck, humbled, reverent, but with my own inherent Majesty revealed to me. Here at the summit there seems to be pure potentiality, relieved from time to time by manifestations of peace and storm. It is not what I see and feel that awes me, but that which is beyond all sight and feeling, that which is held in leash by the Logos Himself, that sense of irresistible potentiality which is even more marvellous than its expression.

I find myself merging in this mighty mountain-consciousness, and I find an almost terrible sense of omnipotence. It is almost overwhelming; it would be quite overwhelming did I not suddenly understand why the experience is accorded to me.

I realize the intention to be to disclose to me the splendid inevitability of the triumph of evolution. Swept up into these vortices of glorious majesty, I know at once that the supreme freedom is to attain the unattainable, to be free to accomplish even miracles. But how can the unattainable be reached? Surely there is a contradiction? No; for the unattainable is only unattainable in time; there remains eternity, and to eternity all things are possible.

It is indeed necessary for mankind to be impressed by a sense of limitation, or time would not achieve its lesson-purpose. Madness lies on the road of those who would discard limitations of which they have not learned the truths; their growth is within such limitations. Yet there is a fuller growth which transcends these, a growth which all may achieve who are learning to unite their smaller wills with the Will of God, wanderers returned to the true home after experiencing the lessons of innumerable illusory homes. Thus is a freedom achieved which, by its essential omnipotence, enables all limitation to be transcended, for who shall say to God: “Thou shalt not”? And are we not all Gods in the becoming? But only as we have learned to will as God wills can this supreme apotheosis of freedom be placed in our hands. Even in the outer world that which is unattainable to some is attainable to others. It is the same at all stages. But upon Mount Everest, upon its blinding summit, I know that even the most glorious picture I can conceive in the highest aspects of my being, utterly unattainable as I know it to be for an almost infinite period, is yet but a shadow of a still more glorious shadow, splendour upon splendour beyond count.

I have paid this visit to these mighty ones that I may have something by way of a physical illustration of the otherwise indescribable marvels of the Nirvanic consciousness. It is desired that I should bring as accurate a memory as possible down into the waking consciousness, so that I may grow a little wiser in Their Service. I must have, for the work which is and will be mine, an ever-present sense of Nirvana, to inspire, to strengthen, to guide.

This infiltration of Nirvanic consciousness is necessary in order that, living in the world, I may keep free from its shackles - most of which I should begin for ever to cast aside. It is a necessary stage in preparation for the last great journey in the human kingdom, the journey to Adeptship, a long, lonely, yet glorious road. The power of Nirvana is placed in my hands that I may have the strength, the courage, the wisdom to tread my way to this final human goal. I shall need all these, as I clearly perceive, for I am almost appalled as I learn what remains to be done. But after this experience, I know I can achieve, however unattainable the goal may seem, for the very Himalayas themselves are a living witness to the certainty of the glories that await all life.

I notice that one of the most vital lessons this experience teaches lies in the startling contrast it causes to emerge between the unreal and the Real. On Everest’s summit I have been bathed in the Real. It is almost shattering to the lower bodies to endeavour to hold this Real within them. I can barely do it fresh from the experience, though later on I may be able to bring the Himalayan spirit into my daily life. I clearly see how infinitely true it is that one cannot serve both God and Mammon, and by Mammon in this case I mean all of the lower worlds that I should have outworn.

If the physical and other bodies are to retain their hold on these higher things, if there is to be an unbroken channel between the highest and the lowest, care must be taken to ensure that there shall be no clogging of these channels by rubbish of any kind, or even by things which, though not rubbish, take up valuable room, room needed for the greater realities. I must cast away the clothes I no longer need to wear. I see that I have need to readjust the values of things, that I must do things which I have not yet done, that I must not now do certain things which I normally quite naturally, and hitherto quite rightly, have done.

But this great experience of the Himalayas is not solely for the purpose of enabling me, through physical example, to bring the memory of Nirvana more accurately into the waking consciousness. It is an integral part of the very development of Nirvanic consciousness itself. Mountains are associated with the

Mysteries, with Initiation and expansions of consciousness;* (*“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine

as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.” Matt., XVII, 1, 2.“And he … went, as he was wont, to the Mount of Olives … and prayed.” Luke, XXII, 39, 41.

“And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach …” Mark, III, 13, 14.) and certain parts of the Himalayas, sacred by tradition and associated with Mighty Beings, objects of deep veneration and of pilgrimage, have, by reason of their being the abode of high spiritual Intelligences, certain magnetic properties making them eminently suitable as places in which yoga of various kinds can be performed.

The Himalayas have played a mighty part both in the inner and in outer history of India, and indeed of the world. This part they still play-these age-old watchers of the growing world, these monuments of physical grandeur.

Their physical grandeur is a noble setting for the soul’s awakening, and it seems to me that within such regions forces are available upon which to draw for the development of the newly unfolded consciousness. The Himalayan regions afford the purest physical reflection of those inner grandeurs which in so many other regions can find but gross distortions. Everywhere is interaction, and experiments conducted in these surroundings, no matter on what plane, are the more fruitful for the play upon them of Himalayan magnificence. In almost every country in the world these massive archetypes have their humbler counterparts, where may occur some of the lesser gropings of the soul.

The lesser unities may well be sensed in the lesser ranges and in such sanctuaries of Peace, on plain and hill, as are still immune from the polluting encroachments of mankind. It is still possible, even near towns and cities, to experience initiations into wider consciousness; and wherever hills and mountains are, there some of the deeper mysteries of Life may be explored. But the Himalayas are perhaps reserved for the greater transfigurations, the greater crucifixions, the greater resurrections, and may be for the greater ascensions too.

But I must return from these glories to the point from which I had to diverge-the clarification of my individual nature. I see, as I have never seen before, the qualifications for the road which I have to travel as one marked out for the pathway of the Staff.* (*See Appendix D.) Less clearly, yet quite definitely too, I perceive the nature of the qualifications for other roads. It is as if there were set before me at this fourth great stage a

stupendous choice of pathways. I may not travel on a specific pathway until I have looked upon all pathways. A Great One leads me, as in a picture gallery, along them all by turn. I see their beauties and their splendours, their difficulties and their loneliness. I wonder whether I could describe their respective landscapes.

Now choose! There should be no hesitation, no doubt, no uncertainty, for has not the choice been made at the very beginning of my being? Yes; but at this supreme moment I must ring true to myself, or the conscious choice may have to wait awhile. And as I choose unerringly the only road for me, just for the moment the road itself fades out of sight, and there is disclosed to me the splendour to which it leads. I gaze at myself as I shall be, sooner or later. I gaze at myself, born, baptised, transfigured, crucified, resurrected, ascended. I know

the glory of the service of the Staff; and I am immeasurably content and at peace. Long ages may pass ere I reach this splendour. Yet it is to come, and beyond it doubtless lie yet other splendours. More than enough the splendour I dimly sense in remembrance.

With the future thus unveiled for an unforgettable moment, sharply there comes to me the nature of the equipment for the journey; first, desirelessness; second, impersonality; third, truth. Above all others, those who aspire to service in the Staff must be supremely free from attachment, and this is one of the hardest of the qualifications. A member of the Staff belongs to no work, and

to all work; to no place, and to all places; to no person, and to all. He desires that which for the time is given him to do; but behind this desire is desirelessness. He dedicates himself to duty, yet to no specific duty. A piece of work is given to him. He does it eagerly. But once it is finished, or he is taken away from it, he concerns himself no longer with it. He can never be so wrapped up in a particular piece of work that it obsesses him. He is a free

lance, a jack of many trades. He is a King’s messenger, to be sent here and there in the world and out of it, as the Will of the King may determine. He can never say: “This is my work.” He can only say: “This is just now my work.” He is an adaptable person, though probably not an expert. He has a chamelion-like

capacity for adjusting himself to his surroundings, be these people or places, angels or men, this world or any other world.

The universe is his home. He knows no other. In his world of great desirelessness he nevertheless wills strongly to do the duty of the moment; thus he passes from desire to desire in a life of uttermost dispassion.

Then impersonality. The work he does is not his work. It is more than likely to be that of some one else, for whom, for the time being, he deputizes. The specific work of the Staff seems to be co-ordination. If I am asked what my life’s work is, my reply is that I do not know, nor do I care. I can only say what my work is now; that is enough for me. Other officers may be able to answer in terms of nation, race, or world. They may be consecrated to specific purposes, but members of the Staff seem to be more in the nature of liaison officers, on general co-ordination duty, with emergency activity as required. It becomes of the highest importance that members of the Staff should hold themselves definitely aloof from identification with any particular duty. They must be ready to drop a piece of work without an instant’s regret, for it is just as much their duty to drop work as to undertake it. This demands a high development of impersonality, all the more difficult to achieve,perhaps, since for so long a time we have been concerned with growth through personality.

At all costs, impersonality; not cold impersonality, but burning impersonality.Then, truth. Naturally, truth, as also the other two qualities I have already mentioned, is needed on all pathways. But members of the Staff must be specially trained to recognize and follow truth no matter what the forms. They have to do more with universal truth than with specific truth. They must hold fast to the essence of truth, so as to be able to express it and perceive it through any form. I know this sounds applicable to all departments, and so in a way it is. Yet the Staff have a distinctive relation to truth, which I am here striving to express.

I perceive these three qualifications, with their very important corollary, adaptability, to demand from me constant attention. I must develop them ruthlessly, the sooner to be able to present myself as qualified for office.

Immersion in these Himalayan range-gradations stimulates in me the sense of living in three distinct categories of consciousness in my ordinary every day life in the outer world. It is as if I had to live in three stages, or in three dimensions of consciousness simultaneously, with a fourth dimension beyond my present contact, yet subject to awareness if not to sensation. The first category is that of individuality-the consciousness prevalent in the outer world; the Himalayan plains. The second category is that of unity - the consciousness of those upon whose horizon the. Sun of brotherhood is dawning; the intermediate ranges. The third category is that of universality, or

relatively pure Being - the consciousness of those upon whose horizon the Sun of Oneness is dawning; the mighty summits.

In the first category the average individual lives and moves and has his being. He is limited by his causal body, and dwells for the most part in the lower mental and astral bodies. He is intent upon goodness for his own sake. In the second category we have the dawning of the Buddhic consciousness, a beginning to live on the Buddhic plane. The sense of Buddhi may come, often does come, before the first of the Great Initiations, but as far as I am aware only after this great Step is it possible normally to dwell therein. Before the first great Step the Buddhic spark remains intermittent; after it the spark tends to grow constant and to expand into a blinding light. At this stage the individual is intent upon the good of others. He begins to cease to think about his own goodness, for that is definitely established, or will take care of itself; he cannot be other than what we call good. At least that is as it should be - as in all decency it ought to be; and for the credit of mankind it generally is.

But alas! even at this stage humanity is weak; “Great Ones fall back even from the very threshold”; and we have had sad examples of downfall caused by conceit and ambition. In some such cases the defaulter recognizes his mistake, and begins humbly to work towards reinstatement; in others the effort is postponed until some future life. But always the fallen Initiate must eventually come back, however terrible may be the cost in suffering and delay.

At this stage he is preoccupied with the welfare of others, that he may fan in them to brighter flame the spark of their Divinity. In the first stage, the individual aspires to live according to the outer law. He is satisfied with revelation, whether general or specific and individual, and shapes his conduct in accordance therewith. This is goodness. Even where revelation has ceased

to satisfy, and the demand comes for knowledge, it is less for service than for the sake of knowledge. But in the second stage, revelation has definitely ceased to satisfy, and the demand comes for Truth, and for experience, less for its own sake than for the power it gives to serve. This, I conceive, is more than goodness. It is the dawning of identification with the Real, as distinguished from that recognition of the Real which marks the later periods of the first stage; as conformity to the conventional marks its yet earlier periods. In the third stage while experience continues it begins to be transcended. There is no question of experiencing - all is a matter of being; while service has become natural.

I wonder whether I shall be at all comprehensible if I say that there is a subtle distinction between experience and being. Experience demands subject and object. Being is the unified sublimation of both. Experience may all the time be taking place, but being may also be “taking place” - the phrase is, of course,

unfortunate - when the individual is free of the realms of being, a freeman of these Heavenly cities. In one sense, truly, all experience is being, and all being is experience, but there is a difference, a qualitative difference, a difference in fineness. Experience is being on a lower level of manifestation.

To return to our three categories, in the first stage, service is to the smaller self, and is very short-sighted and clumsy. As time passes, it becomes more intelligent and far-seeing, and the demands of this smaller self are seen to depend for their satisfaction upon harmonization with the demands of other

small selves. As the second stage is entered, the happiness of the smaller self is seen to depend upon the service of others; and sacrifice grows more and more complete.

In the third stage there is an apotheosis of sacrifice in a marvellous self-realization, which for the time seems complete, yet in course of time is realized to be short of completion. Will it ever be complete? It is enough that it satisfies and inspires. To reach a passing satiety-point is a pro tanto completion, and more satisfying even than completion, for it foreshadows the

immanence of a still deeper satisfaction, a still more wonderful, however fleeting, completion. It is a completion that leads on, that becomes as it were a point which shall expand again towards, fulfilling itself in, a mighty circumference. The brightest light is but the shadow of a still greater brilliance.

I have said that I feel I have to live in all three stages. I must not lose the stage before on entry into the stage beyond. The former must merge into the latter, for I must live to a twofold purpose - that there may be unity between me and those at that particular stage, and that God may fulfil in me His own Divinity. Nothing may be lost, nothing thrown away. There is nothing with which

we have done utterly and for ever. There is nothing which is not the Life of God. I must be remembering these three stages, and must live in them all for service. I must be able to understand completely. More than ever before must I be one with all that is. No longer may I feel repulsion, or feel shocked. I must understand. The more I know of the Plan the more must I realize how all fits into the Plan. So, beginning to live from the third stage, I must still be intensely alive in the other two, not fettered by them, but helping to lead others through them. To sense the marvels of Nirvanic consciousness is not to grow aloof from one’s fellow-men, but to gain power to serve them and all other kingdoms more wisely and effectively.

I want to dwell at greater length upon the third stage - the stage of the dawning of the Sun of Being. I have already described Nirvanic consciousness, which is included within this stage, as Light, with our Lord the Sun as the Universal Heart of Light as well as the physical Heart in a specific place. Yet if you dwelt mainly on the Light-idea, so that it dominated your conception, you would have only a very negative conception of Nirvanic consciousness, a very physical and limited conception. I use the word Light less to express the blinding glory (though this is marvellous enough) than to express an almost miraculous process of readjustment, an emergence of new values, of new Light upon the Path. Every expansion of consciousness involves a readjustment, at first overwhelmingly wonderful, stupendous, but later realized to need slow, steady, careful development - a renewal of every single life-constituent in terms of the readjustment, so that the latter may be fulfilled and the way become ready for a further advance, a wider expansion of consciousness welling up from the unfathomable depths of Reality.

The opening of the doors of Buddhi into the Nirvanic consciousness is like the shaking of a kaleidoscope.The existing life-picture, and even the tiniest element contributing to its making, disappear, and a new life-picture is formed, perceived to be a partial apotheosis of its predecessor, another stage towards a picture still more perfect.

I perceive this Himalayan experience to be in the nature of a kind of magnetic bath, or readjustment process. Immersion in the Himalayan atmosphere - not merely the physical but also other atmospheres-is a baptism into Reality which can take place only in the Himalayas because of the physical conditions

obtaining there. This baptism is not only a descent of power but a harmonization of vehicles to the end that intercommunication may more readily take place. The physical body lying asleep at the Manor, Sydney, Australia, is linked magnetically with Himalayan conditions, and becomes itself the plains of a

microcosmic Himalayan range, of which one of the peaks of consciousness is the Nirvanic. It is as if I had ascended a great mountain in this range of my Being, one of the lesser peaks no doubt, yet of mighty stature, towering far above all other summits I have so far gained. I perceive Mount Everest before

me, but the summit on which I stand to-day was itself Mount Everest for me until I conquered it.

The very physical body now knows a new relationship with the subtler vehicles, has undergone a marked change, because communications have been made with consciousness-territory hitherto unexplored and out of reach. This densest body

may be likened to the plains at the base of the Himalayas. At one stage, the dense mists of ignorance almost entirely separate it from all but the lowest hills in closest proximity. It seems to be a world in itself, self-contained, with just the slightest rising beyond. Slowly the mists recede, farther off a mightier upward sweep stands disclosed, and the plains beneath are seen to be

but the lowest stages of a great landscape, drawing their life from heights above, some beginning to be known, others only surmised, some unknown. Still further recede the mists, clearing away, vanishing, and disclosing step by step loftier and loftier summits until the whole Himalayan range stands revealed. The

plains beneath are no longer a world in themselves, no longer a world with a range of hills beyond, no longer a part of a great landscape, but the base of a world towering into the sky, a base depending for its life upon that which comes from above.

These plains are but the feet of the Himalayas. They live from the Himalayas. Their heart is in the Himalayas. Yet upon the Himalayas shines our Lord the Sun, in Whom they live and move and have their being. Without Him, they, even they, would crumble into, dust. Without Him, plains and mountain grandeurs would die and cease to be.

So is it with my body. It is but the base of my being. Elsewhere is my heart. Elsewhere is the Sun of my being. As I have ascended the Himalayas of the world, so am I ascending the Himalayas of my world, mighty peaks of which are the Buddhic and the Nirvanic consciousness. Do I still live in the plains of my

physical body, or have I retired to my Himalayas? I cease to dwell in my lower bodies, in the lower ranges or on the plains. I have built myself a habitation on a mighty mountain-top. From there I live.

And yet, from another point of view, this very Himalayan experience or baptism enables me to live more truly even on the lower ranges, even on the plains. A correlation has taken place. The plains and the lesser ranges have been co-ordinated with the towering summits. The world of my being has been welded, united, into a mighty whole. I live everywhere in infinitely fuller

measure, though my heart is in the Himalayas, and in them do I renew my strength. On the lesser ranges, on the plains, I live in a world of reflections.

I know them to be such, for I have seen the Substances they reflect, or at least the truer reflections. To those who see naught beyond the reflections, these are the substance and they live in them as such. But those of us who have travelled upward, inward, know them for what they are.

I can never forget the lesson of the Himalayas, even though to greater enlightenment the whole experience is but a symbol rather than a journey. It matters not. If it be but a symbol, it is the symbol of a journey. If it be a journey, the Himalayas remain the symbol of its travelling. I am living in new terms, in new similes if you will. I am linked to the Himalayas.

For me they are a sacred range, portraying in rock, in earth, in grass, in shrubs, in flowers, in trees, in every part of both fauna and flora, as in a sculptured masterpiece, the reality (and, within limits, the totality) of my being. Have I knocked at the door of the great Himalayan Brotherhood, a Brotherhood linked far more definitely to the very Himalayas themselves than would, to ordinary vision, seem possible? Microcosmically, I have conquered the Himalayas.

Macrocosmically, I have but stepped on to their plains, their Outer Court; and now begins the great ascent to another spiritual Mount Everest. The Resurrection accomplished now begins the pathway to the, or I should rather say an, Ascension. Be all these things as they may, I am, I know, stamped with the seal of the Himalayas.

Their life runs through my life. My life is absorbed in theirs. Surely am I linked with their spiritual counterparts; and it seems to me that the physical Himalayas overshadow me, guard me, guide me, uplift me. My physical body has become their child. Their Spirit broods over it, and their Life flows through it, and indeed through all other bodies in which sleep has given way to wakefulness.

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