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.”