As he is fighting alone his own fight let him carefully note his motive in seeking to know more, and in seeking to escape from his present "loneliness." Must it not be true that loneliness cannot be escaped from by abhorrence of it or even by its acceptance, but by its recognition? What next? Well, this; and perhaps it is too simple. He ought to assure himself that his motive in knowing and being is that he may help all creatures. I do not say that this is not now his motive, but for fear it should not be I refer to it. For as he appears to be on the borderland of fearful sights and sounds he ought to know the magic amulet which alone can protect him while he is ignorant. It is that boundless charity of love which led Buddha to say: "Let the sins of this dark age fall on me that the world may be saved," and not a desire for escape or for knowledge. It is expressed in the words: "The first step in true magic is devotion to the interests of others." It was expressed by Krishna when he said: "Near to Renunciation is salvation" (or the state of a Jivanmukta).
But he naturally will ask if he should cultivate his powers. Well, of course he should at some time or other; but he ought to begin at motives and purification of thought. He may, if he chooses, abandon the ideas of this large-hearted charity and yet make great progress in "powers," but surely then death and ashes will be the result. That does not concern me.
Why did he have a "horror" when he merely succeeded in going away from his body; in being for a moment free? That is an important question. Its solution may be found in many ways. I will mention one. If the place, or person he wished to go to was one to which he then ought not to have gone—or if his motive in desiring to go there was not pure—then a horror might result that drove him back. But if even with a bad motive he had attempted to go to a place where a similar motive existed, then no horror would have come. If he will tell himself, or me, just where he was wanting to go, I may say why he had a horror. But I do not want to know.
For it is not necessarily a horror-producing thing to leave the body. Only lately I know of a friend of mine who went out of his body a distance of 10,000 miles and had no horror. In that case he desired to see a friend on a common purpose which had in view the amelioration of this dark age; and again, who left his body in the country and saw the surrounding sweeps of wood and vale and had no horror whatever in either case.
If one is sure of motive, and that is pure, then going out of the body is not detrimental.
An illustration will show the dangers. Take the case of one who is able to leave the body and who determines to go to one who is sympathetic. The second one, however, is protected by high motive and great purity: the first is mixed in motive in waking life, which, as soon as the other disengaged state comes on, changes into a mere curiosity to see the second, and perhaps with more or less sensuality, e.g., a desire to see a woman much admired and to pour into her unwilling ear pretended or real human love. The elementals (and so on) of the second protect that soul and hurl vague horrors at the first who, if he is not a skilled black magician is:
1. Either merely pushed back into the body: Or
2. Is assailed with fears that prevent him finding his body, and that may be occupied by an elementary, good, bad or indifferent—and his friends may say that he waked up insane!
Well; enough!
VI.