Those who would make this effort would soon find that the "strait gate" and the "thorny path" lead to the broad valleys of the limitless horizons, to that state where there is no more death, because one has regained one's divinity. But the truth is that the first conditions necessary to reach it are a disinterestedness, an absolute impersonality, a boundless devotion to the interests of others, and a complete indifference to the world and its opinions. The motive must be absolutely pure in order to make the first steps on that ideal path; not an unworthy thought must attract the eyes from the end in view, not one doubt must shackle the feet. There do exist men and women thoroughly qualified for this whose only aim is to dwell under the Aegis of their divine Nature. Let them, at least, take courage to live the life and not conceal it from the eyes of others! The opinion of no other person should be taken as superior to the voice of conscience. Let that conscience, developed to its highest degree, guide us in the control of all the ordinary acts of life. As to the conduct of our inner life, we must concentrate the entire attention on the ideal we have proposed to ourselves, and look straight ahead without paying the slightest attention to the mud upon our feet.
Those who make this supreme effort are the true Theosophists.
RECENT CONFIRMATION OF H. P. BLAVATSKY'S TEACHINGS ABOUT ANCIENT CONTINENTS AND RACES: by H. T. Edge, B. A. (Cantab.)
THE London Times' South American Supplement (May 30) contains the first half of an article on the ancient people of Peru, in which the writer speaks of the gigantic works in masonry wrought by a people who lived there ages before the Incas. Being on the wrong side of the Andes for fertility, these people built the enormous irrigation systems which still exist; and the writer asks why they did not cross the Andes to the well-watered slopes and plains on the east. The extent to which they had explored their own country and its mountain heights proves that the other country should have been within their grasp. Yet they took all this trouble to make the western slopes fertile.
The answer given is—that in those days perhaps there was no land to the east of the Andes.
The writer then goes on to speak of the ancient continental distribution of land, of Atlantis, of the connexion between South America and Australasia, etc., in a way that is now growing familiar. People whose opinions are of weight are coming to see that the true explanation of the ancient American civilizations, as well as those of such isolated spots as Easter Island, with its marvelous statues, is to be sought along these lines. At the same time the subject has afforded a fertile field for cranks and others who pin their various fads or new gospels thereto. The latter, however, cannot last, but the truth is eternal. The myths will be exploded, but the actual facts as to past history will be proved.
In The Secret Doctrine H. P. Blavatsky sums up all the available speculation and information on the subject of these ancient continents and weaves it into consistency by applying to it the keys of the Wisdom-Religion. There is little doubt that her writings have contributed largely, in more or less direct ways, to many of the other published utterances on the question.