I was in this condition, and travelling rapidly in the desired direction, when I became conscious of the presence of the most exquisitely lovely female astral body which the imagination of man could conceive; and here I may incidentally remark, that no conception can be formed of the beauty to which woman can attain by those who have only seen her in her rupa—or, in other words, in the flesh. Woman’s real charm consists in her linga sharira—that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which guides jiva, or the second principle, in its work on the physical particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the material. Sometimes
it makes rather a failure of it, so far as the rupa is concerned, but it always retains its own fascinating contour and deliciously diaphanous composition undisturbed. When my gaze fell upon this most enchanting object, or rather subject—for I was in a subjective condition at the time—I felt all the senses appertaining to my third principle thrill with emotion; but it seemed impossible—which will readily be understood by the initiated—to convey to her any clear idea of the admiration she excited, from the fact that we were neither of us in natural space. Still the sympathy between our linga shariras was so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for my rupa, and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in her rupa at once.
Every chela even knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily in nothing but your linga sharira. It is quite different after you are dead, and have gone in your fourth principle, or kama rupa, which is often translated “body of desire,” into devachan; for, as Mr Sinnett most correctly remarks, “The purely sensual feelings and tastes of the late personality will drop off from it in devachan;
but it does not follow that nothing is preservable in that state, except feelings and thoughts having a direct reference to religion or spiritual philosophy. On the contrary, all the superior phases, even of sensuous emotion, find their appropriate sphere of development in devachan.” Until you are obliged to go to devachan—which, in ordinary parlance, is the place good men go to when they die—my advice is, stick to your rupa; and indeed it is the instinct of everybody who is not a mahatma to do this. I admit—though in making this confession I am aware that I shall incur the contempt of all mahatmas—that on this occasion I found my rupa a distinct convenience, and was not sorry that it was still in existence. In it I crossed the neutral zone still inhabited by ordinary Thibetans, and after a few days’ travel, found myself on the frontiers of “the Sisters’” territory. The question which now presented itself was how to get in. To my surprise, I found the entrances guarded not by women, as I expected, but by men. These were for the most part young and handsome.
“So you imagined,” said one, who advanced to meet me with an engaging air,
“that you could slip into our territory in your astral body; but you found that all the entrances in vacuo”—I use this word for convenience—“are as well guarded as those in space. See, here is the Sister past whom you attempted to force your way: we look after the physical frontier, and leave the astral or spiritual to the ladies,”—saying which he politely drew back, and the apparition whose astral form I knew so well, now approached in her substantial rupa—in fact, she was a good deal stouter than I expected to find her; but I was agreeably surprised by her complexion, which was much fairer than is usual among Thibetans—indeed her whole type of countenance was Caucasian, which was not to be wondered at, considering, as I afterwards discovered, that she was by birth a Georgian. She greeted me, in the language common to all Thibetan occultists, as an old acquaintance, and one whose arrival was evidently expected—indeed she pointed laughingly to a bevy of damsels whom I now saw trooping towards us, some carrying garlands, some playing upon musical instruments, some dancing in lively measures, and singing their songs of welcome as they drew
near. Then Ushas—for that was the name (signifying “The Dawn”) of the illuminata whose acquaintance I had first made in vacuo—taking me by the hand, led me to them, and said—
“Rejoice, O my sisters, at the long-anticipated arrival of the Western arhat, who, in spite of the eminence which he has attained in the mysteries of Esoteric Buddhism, and his intimate connection during so many years with the Thibetan fraternity, has yet retained enough of his original organic conditions to render him, even in the isolation of (here she mentioned the region I had come from) susceptible to the higher influence of the occult sisterhood. Receive him in your midst as the chela of a new avatar which will be unfolded to him under your tender guidance. Take him in your arms, O my sisters, and comfort him with the doctrines of Ila, the Divine, the Beautiful.”
Taking me in their arms, I now found, was a mere formula or figure of speech, and consisted only in throwing garlands over me. Still I was much comforted, not merely by the grace and cordiality of their welcome, but by the mention of Ila, whose name will
doubtless be familiar to my readers as occurring in a Sanscrit poem of the age immediately following the Vedic period, called the Satapathabrahmana, when Manu was saved from the flood, and offered the sacrifice “to be the model of future generations.” By this sacrifice he obtained a daughter named Ila, who became supernaturally the mother of humanity, and who, I had always felt, has been treated with too little consideration by the mahatmas—indeed her name is not so much as even mentioned in Mr Sinnett’s book. Of course it was rather a shock to my spiritual pride, that I, a mahatma of eminence myself, should be told that I was to be adopted as a mere chela by these ladies; but I remembered those beautiful lines of Buddha’s—I quote from memory—and I hesitated no longer:—