must disappear, and he has to become a mere beneficent force in Nature.  There are two poles for him after that, two paths, and no midward place of rest.  He has either to ascend laboriously, step by step, often through numerous incarnations and no Devachanic break, the golden ladder leading to Mahatmaship (the Arhat or Bodhisattva condition), or—­he will let himself slide down the ladder at the first false step, and roll down into Dugpa-ship....

All this is either unknown or left out of sight altogether.  Indeed, one who is able to follow the silent evolution of the preliminary aspirations of the candidates, often finds strange ideas quietly taking possession of their minds.  There are those whose reasoning powers have been so distorted by foreign influences that they imagine that animal passions can be so sublimated and elevated that their fury, force, and fire can, so to speak, be turned inwards; that they can be stored and shut up in one’s breast, until their energy is, not expanded, but turned toward higher and more holy purposes; namely, until their collective and unexpanded strength enables their possessor to enter the true Sanctuary of the Soul and stand therein in the presence of the Master—­the Higher Self!  For this purpose they will not struggle with their passions nor slay them.  They will simply, by a strong effort of will put down the fierce flames and keep them at bay within their natures, allowing the fire to smolder under a thin layer of ashes.  They submit joyfully to the torture of the Spartan boy who allowed the fox to devour his entrails rather than part with it.  Oh, poor, blind visionaries!

As well hope that a band of drunken chimney-sweeps, hot and greasy from their work, may be shut up in a Sanctuary hung with pure white linen, and that instead of soiling and turning it by their presence into a heap of dirty shreds, they will become masters in and of the sacred recess, and finally emerge from it as immaculate as that recess.  Why not imagine that a dozen of skunks imprisoned in the pure atmosphere of a Dgon-pa (a monastery) can issue out of it impregnated with all the perfumes of the incenses used?...  Strange aberration of the human mind.  Can it be so?  Let us argue.

The “Master” in the Sanctuary of our souls is “the Higher Self”—­the divine spirit whose consciousness is based upon and derived solely (at any rate during the mortal life of the man in whom it is captive) from the Mind, which we have agreed to call the Human Soul (the “Spiritual Soul” being the vehicle of the Spirit).  In its turn the former (the personal or human soul) is a compound in its highest form, of spiritual aspirations, volitions and divine love; and in its lower aspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its associations with its vehicle, the seat of all these.  It thus stands as a link and a medium between the animal nature of man which