PRIVATELY PUBLISHED
BY C. JINARAJADASA
1947
INTRODUCTION
IN the course of a lecture tour in the United States during the years 1922-23, Mr. Ernest Wood was in Washington, D.C. from February 2-5. There existed at that time in the Capital a group of Theosophical students (not organized into a Lodge) who called themselves "The Lightbearers". They invited Mr. Wood to a meeting where they asked him various questions. Among them were some about Mr. Leadbeater (as he then was) and his powers of clairvoyance and the writing of the "Lives of Alcyone" that had appeared in The Theosophist from April 1910 to February 1911. Mr. Wood's remarks were taken down by a stenographer, and the "Lightbearers" published them in a large four-page leaflet in small type for free distribution to all interested. I was not aware of the existence of this interesting paper till a few weeks ago it came into my hands for the first time.
What Mr. Wood said is of very great historical value, and so I republish it at once. I have taken the opportunity to add many notes, to amplify what Mr. Wood said, and especially I have drawn upon the diaries of Bishop Leadbeater, and the voluminous correspondence which passed between him and Dr. Besant during the long years of their collaboration. These letters are in my custody, and I have quoted from them about the coming of Krishnamurti, the investigation into his past lives, and the incident with the Deva of Adyar which led to the vision of the future embodied in the series of articles, "The Beginnings of the Sixth Root Race".
C, Jinarajadasa
ADYAR
February 12, 1947.
OF INTEREST TO T.S. MEMBERS
FELLOW MEMBERS:
Because Mr. C. W. Leadbeater is, and has been for many years, one of our best known and much beloved T. S. leaders, a few members have had published the following questions and answers concerning him to distribute among T. S. members, who had not the good fortune to hear Mr. Ernest Wood of Adyar personally.
The questions and answers were given at a T. S. members meeting,
while Mr. Wood was in Washington, D.C., and constitute first-hand
knowledge on the part of Mr. Wood, who has had the splendid
opportunity of having been Mr. Leadbeater's private secretary and
closest associate for five years. The refinement and beauty of Mr.
Wood's own nature were forces felt by all who contacted him and left
no doubt as to his sterling honesty and truthfulness.
Yours
fraternally,
"LIGHTBEARERS."
Question - Can you tell us something about Mr. C. W. Leadbeater when you knew him? Could you tell us how "Lives" was written? Can you give us some of your experiences while with Mr. Leadbeater? In view of the fact that you have been Mr. Leadbeater's secretary for some time, can you tell us something of his method in writing the "Lives" and something of Mr. Leadbeater himself?
Answer. -I shall have to make a personal statement first of all with regard to this. You see I was in England working there for our T. S. and I went to Adyar in 1908. Mr. Leadbeater came there about the end of January, 1909, 1 and a very short time later I became his private secretary, and worked for him until he went away to Australia in 1914. 2 During that time he went away once or twice on tours to Italy3 and to the Dutch East Indies4 for a short time, but while at Adyar I was with him nearly all the time and saw his investigations. In fact, nearly all those books written during that period were dictated to me. I took them down in shorthand and had them typed out by various people, some of whom had learned to read my shorthand writing;5 but some of them also were the results of questions and answers, so you will see I had very intimate touch with Mr. Leadbeater, when you take into account that he is a man who works very hard, and it was his custom to start his work about 6.30 every morning and continue it till very late at night.
He would be up at half past six ready for work. Then we would take a little coffee or a couple of bananas just to begin the day, and then begin his work with correspondence or letters or a book that he was writing, or something of the kind, and generally he would sit there at his table or desk until about five o'clock in the afternoon6. We used to clear the papers away in order to bring him his lunch in the middle of the day and he would stay there and eat his simple food and then go on it his work. 7
At five o'clock it was his custom to take his physical exercise, a bath in the sea generally, and then have a little soup, which was his evening meal, and then we had our meeting from 7.15 to 8.158 and then a quarter of an hour more for meditation.9 I used to be with Mr. Leadbeater all this time and he would do a great deal of answering of letters and looking up things for people who wanted to know about the dead or about obsession, a great variety of things. And then at night he would begin again after the meditation was over at half-past eight and go on with some work until 11, 12, 1 or 2, or whatever time it was finished. Every moment was filled up with work. I have not met a more energetic man.
The way in which he worked differed according to the work he was doing. There were some things apparently that he could do quite easily. Some were more difficult. One of great interest was the investigation into what is called in the U.S. "Lives," or "Rents in the Veil of Time." It came about as the result of a question which I put to him about past lives or intervals between lives, especially of Hindoo people - because there are some things you don't find in other races.
He said he would look into the lives of some people.10 There were some boys living near who used to play about11 and quite a little party of them who used to come down to the sea after school hours and watch us bathe. Two of them were sons of an old T.S. member, and Mr. Leadbeater asked his permission to look into the past lives of these boys, and that is how it came about that the Lives of Alcyone were published, because one of these boys was Krishnamurti.12 One evening when meditation was over and I went down with Mr. Leadbeater to see if anything was to be done, he said, "Well, those lives must be done. When shall we begin?" And I said, of course, "Now." There was no other thing to say, and he started that night after meditation and dictated one of these "Lives." He had a clever way of recuperating himself when tired by what he called five minute sleeps. He would get up quite refreshed. Those "Lives" were done in his own room, his little octagon room down near the river at Adyar. He did 28 of them and Mrs. Besant did two.13 I sat at the desk and he used to walk round the room, partly to keep himself awake while he was centering on other planes when the physical body was tired; and he went on speaking about what he could see, what he was watching and seeing, and simply wrote that down. He did one of these "Lives" every night.
On one occasion there was an interruption. He suddenly stopped and said, "I must go away for ten minutes. The boys have come for me. It is something urgent." He said, "Call me if I am not back in ten minutes." So he lay down on the couch and went to sleep, and that was an occasion on which a certain rather striking experience among the invisible helpers occurred. The boys, who had been floating about [on the astral plane] had found a man who was about to commit suicide in a cabin of a ship and they could not prevent him and came for Mr. Leadbeater. This was a little time after we had got to know Krishnamurti more and he was in the habit of coming around every morning and writing down what he could remember of his night's experience. He wrote down quite a long account of this experience in the Bay of Bengal.14 Mr. Leadbeater would finish the writing of a "Life" and then would say, "Have you any questions to ask, anything that you want to know about it?" I remember that in the first "Life" Mr. Leadbeater dictated - the one in which the Lord Buddha appears,15 the 28th in the series,16 and I said, "Well, since you have the Lord Buddha in view, won't you give us one of his sermons?" And he gave the one about the fire.17 He worked at the rate of about one every night and got the work through very quickly. He was a prodigious worker, and he seemed very rarely to have any time for preparation of his work. He was always occupied in it from very early until very late at night.
Another piece of work was the beginnings of the sixth root race. That was more difficult, that piece of looking into the future. It began one Sunday morning.18 Mrs. Besant was away from Adyar at the time and Mr. Leadbeater had been describing certain forms of worship.19 After the meeting I found him lying on his couch, and Mr. Leadbeater said, "That description of worship which I was giving you this morning was from a picture of the future shown me by a Deva.20 I find that I can go out into the street and see the life of the people, and other things."
I noted it all down, and when he got up and said, "Well, that is enough of that". Mr. van Manen, who was there, said, "Well, look here, this seems to be a very important thing that you have struck." And we asked him whether this was not a matter that he might take up in full. He said that he would look into it and see, and an hour or two later he said, "Yes; that is a matter that has to be dealt with and I shall investigate further. You must put it all to me in the form of questions." It was, I should imagine, more difficult for him to keep a good supply of consciousness in the physical brain in this case than with perhaps any other of his work, so it was all done by question and answer, and that was done in the afternoon, four or five hours every day for about a week. In the end I had a big collection of questions and answers, and these were typed out on some slips of paper and Mr. van Manen and I sorted them under their headings: Education, Economical Question, etc. And then we gave him the pile of questions in their order, and he dictated the whole thing through in literary form, and that is what you have as the second half of the book, "Man, Whence, How and whither."*
* Also published separately as "The Beginnings of the Sixth Root Race."-C.J.
It was exceedingly interesting to me to note the way in which those questions, asked quite at random, dovetailed and fitted in together. There were other trifling, interesting things in connection with that, for instance, it was probably the only work in which I have known Mr. Leadbeater slip out of his body apparently unintentionally. But it seems in answering these questions, just once or twice, in the middle of the answer, suddenly his voice would drop away. He was fast asleep with his eyes closed. A minute or two later he would open his eyes and say: "What did I say last?" And I would tell him, and he would say, "But I said lots more." And I would say, "No, that was all," and he said, " But I thought I was speaking." And he would then go over the missing portion again.
There was a lot of other work. Many people used to write about their friends or relations who had died, whether the Invisible Helpers could take care of them in some way. Mr. Leadbeater would always go to work patiently and just investigate the matter and either dictate a reply or tell me to write such and such a thing. There was a case in which he gave instructions for the use of that mantra which you will find in my book on Concentration. There was a bad case of fire elementals that was occurring in the north of India. Wherever a certain person went, things used to catch fire. Mr. Leadbeater got me to write down the mantra, sent it up there and explained how it should be used, and our friend in the north of India used the mantra and the fire elementals were cleaned out entirely. People would sometimes send lockets to be magnetized and afterwards would say that they had been relieved of the voices that were annoying them or the fears that were oppressing them.
I did not at first go to Mr. Leadbeater with a great admiration or liking for him before I met him myself because I did not feel that I was on his line, but circumstances drifted me into his service and I learned to admire him immensely for his splendid work and also for his character. I worked for him from 1909 to 1913, inclusive.21 He was a man of immense physical strength. He is almost a giant22 and has a tremendously strong arm. And to his character, I would sum it up along two lines - extremely loving and affectionate and extremely scientific. In all his investigations he is always very cautious and careful. He is without any speculative tendencies whatever.
In his scientific work he would say, "Now, let's have facts. Let me be careful that I see as clearly as I can and then put it on record." And when people used to say, "How would you reconcile so and so?" he would say, "It is not my business to reconcile anything at all; it is my business simply to see, understand, and describe; that is the post for which I have been trained." People would say, "You cannot expect people to believe these things." He said, "I do not expect anybody to believe them. I see these things and it is my duty to publish them, and I do not expect people to believe what I say. I am convinced of the accuracy of my own work, and I am as careful as I can be." He seemed to be of a perfectly scientific temperament,22 but his affectionate disposition was even stronger. His scientific investigations would be interrupted by people coming for some help, because Mr. Leadbeater was a man who could scarcely say No to anybody if they wanted some help. People would come in and say: "But we must have an article for this or that magazine or the circulation will go down." And he would put aside, perhaps, his important investigation and allow himself to do what would please or satisfy other people. I think that this is the explanation of what some people saw in America or New Zealand, that sometimes he would put people off and keep them off; that was nothing but the self-defense of a very sensitive nature.
There is a question attached to one of these: "Is it true that his powers are failing?" That is, of course, a thing of which I cannot have any direct knowledge. I have not seen Mr. Leadbeater on the physical plane since he went to Australia.24 I have been occupied with other work ever since, but I have met several people who have been to Australia. They say that he is recovering very well from that difficulty that arose in the heart;25 that his powers do not seem to be failing in the least.
Why did he have that illness? It happened that before he came into the Theosophical Society, he was decorating his church one day and had climbed up on a ladder to put up some holly or something, and he fell back from this ladder right down across the back of a pew and that injured something in his back. The result was that occasionally, but quite rarely, he would feel this pain in his back, and sometimes he used to lie down on his couch for a little time on account of this pain. Then in Australia he overstrained his heart, I think in some mountain climbing or a long walk, and the heart became enlarged and he was weak for a long time.
I mentioned that he is a man without any diplomatic characteristics, a very simple man who has not mixed much with the world at all, a very retired and quiet sort of man, and just the other day I came across a quite striking sort of example of the absence of diplomacy in his character and that was regarding Christian Festivals, and when he was writing about Christmas and the Christ he tells us that Christ was in a previous life Shri Krishna of India and also that Jesus was Shri Ramanuja of India in the twelfth century. If he was simply trying to build a Christian Church and he wanted to draw Christians to his standard, I should say that that was just about the best way to defeat his own ends. It just illustrates his position which he has always held that it is his duty just to put down what he sees. He is very devoted to Mrs. Besant, whom he regards with the profoundest respect.
Question. - Did Mr. Leadbeater train Krishnamurti and what were the methods?
Answer. -I was there when Krishnamurti appeared with his father at Adyar and I knew him before Mr. Leadbeater did. He was a school boy. When we first knew Krishnamurti he was a very frail little boy, extremely weak, all his bones sticking out, and his father said more than once that he thought probably he would die, and he was having a bad time at school because he did not pay any attention to what his teachers said. He was bullied and beaten to such an extent that it seemed the boy might fade away from this life and die, and the father came to Leadbeater and said: "What shall we do?" Mr. Leadbeater said, "Take him from school and I will inform Mrs. Besant."26 Mrs. Besant had done much for Hindu boys. She had the Central Indian College,27 in which many of the boys were entirely maintained by her - food, shelter, education, everything. So it was nothing unusual for her to look after boys. Mrs. Besant was in America at the time. She replied that she would be very pleased to see to their welfare, so the two boys were taken from the school; Krishnamurti's younger brother was all right, but they didn't want to be separated; and some of us agreed to teach them a little each day so that they might be prepared to go to England for their further education.28 Seven or eight of us taught them a little each day. The boys used to sit in Mr. Leadbeater's or one of the adjacent rooms, with their teacher. I do not know that it could be said that Leadbeater trained him in any sort of particular way.29 To be anywhere near Mr. Leadbeater was a training for anybody. He made him drink milk and eat fruits. Krishnamurti did not like this. He [C.W.L.] attended to his health. He did not much like this eating fruits and milk, but did it. He also arranged for swimming and exercises in the way of cycling and other things, and they played tennis in the evening, so that very soon Krishnamurti was quite a healthy and strong boy and began to take more interest in the world. I think that he must have been always more or less psychic and therefore did not pay attention to his teacher. I noticed very soon that Krishnamurti used to collect people's thoughts, and I have seen him do some quite remarkable feats of conversation with dead people while still a little boy, and that developed quite naturally. I do not know of any special and deliberate training in that way. In Mr. Leadbeater's room and in his company, of course, he really received the best of training in courtesy, etc.
That went on till Mrs. Besant came back and Mrs. Besant, took the
boys with her on a tour and then it was that Krishnamurti went up to
Benares and there wrote his little book, "At the Feet of the
Master." At Benares there was Mr. Arundale and a number of the
students. They got together and were so impressed with this boy
that they questioned him about meditation, and he used to advise
them and at last he wrote the little book and sent it to us in
Adyar. When I read the manuscript I said to Mr. Leadbeater, "Look
here, it is a curious thing some of the things Krishnamurti has in
the book are almost the same things that you have in `The Inner
Life'". I showed him some of the passages and he said, "Well, here
is the explanation: `The Inner Life' was made by you. It is a
collection of notes of what I have been saying." He said, "I have
been with Krishnamurti many times when he has been talking with his
Master on the other planes during sleep, and I heard the Master
teaching him and sometimes I have used those bits of teachings in my
own addresses to you and especially in my Sunday morning teaching,30
and you have put them into my book when they were not mine at
all."
_______________________________________________________
If you can use more of these circulars, please notify
THE LIGHTBEARERS
1657 31st St. N. W.
Apartment 204 WASHINGTON, D.C.
____________
NOTES
by C. Jinarajadasa
I have undertaken some investigations with regard to lines of incarnations and I think that I have come across some information which will be of very great interest if I can only get time to pursue the researches and tabulate them. I am coming across another type of first-class pitris who apparently do not habitually take their sub-races in order, but have rather a tendency to circle round and round in one sub-race - that is to say, to devote themselves principally to evolution through that sub-race, and only make occasional excursions into others in search of special qualities. I find also that this type has a much shorter average of interval between its lives not much more than half of the 1500 years to which we have before been accustomed; but that does not seem to mean at all that they generate a smaller amount of spiritual force but that they work it out with far greater intensity. The more rapid incarnations and the shorter periods would seem to make them a kind of intermediate between the first and second class pitris; but I find that they are not this at all, being in every way equal in general development to the first class pitris whose lives we have been previously inspecting. I find also that the pitris arriving here from the moon chain come in certain big groups - ship-loads, so to speak - with considerable intervals between them; and I think we shall find that the members of each ship-load have characteristics in common with regard to which they probably differ from all the other ship-loads. I thought at first that these might prove to be people of different races or planetary types, but that does not seem to be so, as we seem to have people of nearly all the rays in each of the ship-loads. All this is inchoate at present and in its preliminary stages, but we can see already that it opens up some very interesting vistas, and that when the investigations have been carried a great deal further it will probably add considerably to our knowledge of the various methods of evolution. Obviously also if there is one great group moving along a line of its own, whose existence we did not previously even suspect, there may quite likely be several others.
C. W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, September 2,1909.
Naraniah's children are very well behaved, and would cause us no trouble; van Manen and I have. taught some of them to swim, and have also helped the elder with English composition and reading, so we have come to know a little of them. Also (but this is not generally known) I have used one as a case to investigate for past lives, and have found him to have a past of very great importance, indicating far greater advancement than his father, or indeed than any of the people at present at Headquarters-a better set of lives even than-'s, though I think not so sensational.
I am sure that he is not in this compound by accident, but for the sake of its influences; I should not be at all surprised to find that the father had been brought here chiefly on account of that boy; and that was another reason why I was shocked to see the family so vilely housed, for it seems to me that if we are to have the karma of assisting even indirectly at the bringing-up of one whom the Master has used in the past and is waiting to use again, we may as well at least give him the chance to grow up decently!
[Note by C. J. - Usually Mr. Leadbeater had for his investigations a "point of departure", some dream by the "subject" of some past life of his, as in the case of Erato and Spica. But not having this with the boy Krishnamurti, he traced him back to his Devachan before birth, and back from that to his life on earth in 624 A.D. All the lives of Alcyone were done backwards.]
C. W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, October 6, 1909.
I am at present, when I can find time for it, at work upon a previous set of ten lives, which led up to and immediately preceded the ten which I send you. So far I have done four of that earlier ten, and find that in each of them the influence of the Master K. H. is a dominant factor. The close connection of Alcyone with that Master, and with the Master D. K., is one of the many remarkable features of this set of lives. The set is indeed unusual and it seems to me that it throws considerable responsibility and a duty upon us, which I am already beginning in a small way to try to discharge by teaching and helping.
Alcyone is at present a boy of 13.5, named Krishnamurti, the son of your E. S. Assistant Secretary Naraniah. His present father appears in the lives sometimes, and is called Antares; his younger brother Mizar is important, and his dead mother (Omega) and his elder brother Regulus also appear, but not prominently. With the assistance of Mr. Clarke I am trying to teach him to speak English, and hope to have made some progress by the time you come.
C. W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, November 4, 1909.
I send you herewith another ten of the lives of Alcyone, in the hope that you will make time to read them on the steamer, for I feel that it is important that you should see them before you arrive, so that you may know exactly how matters stand.
C. W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, November 11, 1909.
I sent you to Port Said another batch of the Alcyone incarnations, preceding the previous set, so that you have now twenty successive lives and I think you will agree that they are transcendently interesting*.
* A duplicate set of the typed "Lives" sent to Dr. Besant was sent to me, then a field-worker of the American
Section. Later I received the ten lives earlier than the twenty mentioned above, in all thirty lives. I used them for readings and addresses during the pre-Convention summer school in Chicago in 1910. Soon after I received them, I received also a small snapshot of the boy Krishnamurti, of whom Mr. Leadbeater had written to me. The instant I saw the snapshot, something within me leapt forward and said: Ecce Homo-"Thou art the man." I wrote then the following verses:
ALCYONE
Brother, great Brother,
I work for Thy corning, Long is the
night and dreary is the day; Deaf are the people
to my weak proclaiming, Only a few come to watch
and to pray.
Bravely I till the field for Thy reaping,
Toiling in the heat of the noon-day sun;
Eager to give my trust to Thy keeping,
Dreaming of the day my task shall be done.
I had wondered how I should manage about Alcyone and Mizar when you returned, and I had to be in your room all day, and consequently could not give the time to teaching them English which I give now; but that problem is solved, for Mrs. Van Hook has taken a great liking to them and is delighted to teach them along with Hubert. She had felt, it appears, that he would lack the companionship of boys of his own age, and had been a little troubled about it, so she considers their presence as a special dispensation of providence, and takes them straight into her heart - which is ideal for all parties, and will save us much trouble. It is very pleasant for us all to reconstitute the old Weisser Hirsch party of Mrs. Russak, the Van Hooks and Wedgwood and van Manen, with these two Indian boys and Clarke thrown in. It needs only you and Basil and Raja to make it quite complete; Basil we cannot have as yet, but you will be here in three weeks, at which we shall all rejoice hugely.
Come to us soon, thou Captain of Salvation,
Give to the world
the solace of Thy word:
Grant me release from my long
tribulation,
O sweet compassionate Face of the Lord!
San Diego, 1910
I have an impression that Dr. Besant investigated only one life with him, Life No. 28. By the time the investigations backwards had come to this period, Dr. Besant had returned to Adyar from the United States on November 27, 1909 and joined in the investigations. She herself wrote out this life and read it at a "Roof Meeting". It is different in style from the Lives written by Mr. Leadbeater. Dr. Besant is dramatic and starts as with a great chord like in a symphony. The lines at the end too are graphic in their intensity, lines which could not have been written by the matter-of-fact undramatic narrator who was Mr. Leadbeater. A very dramatic life of Alcyone, which both she and her colleague investigated, was written out by her and appears in Man: Whence, How and Whither as Chapter IX, "Black Magic in Atlantis". After the publication of Alcyone's Lives in The Theosophist, earlier lives of his were investigated and appear in the book The Lives of Alcyone.
In explaining the Voice of the Silence I came to the passage about hearing and understanding the language of the Devas, and while talking about it my thought (I suppose) attracted the attention of a certain Deva whom I have the privilege of knowing slightly, who has once or twice before explained things to me very graciously. He swooped down and listened for awhile, and then said to me "Explain these to them", showing me three lovely little pictures of the way in which Devas are to assist in the temple-worship of the future, in the community which the Master M., as Manu of the Sixth Root-Race, will found some centuries later in Lower California. The period which he showed me is about 850 years from now, but the community bears every appearance of having by that time been already established for at least a hundred years. The sixth sub-race of our Root-race is then already in full swing, and in possession of the American continent, but this community is a special effort for the next Root Race, and is no part of what is going on all round it, though favourably regarded as very good, but perhaps unnecessarily ascetic, by the rest of the country - much as the Quakers might be now. Forbidden, of course, to intermarry, and living in a big district which is all its own, but not actually shut off in a desert as was the Fifth Race. Quite in touch with modern civilisation, allowed quite freely to visit the outer world and receive visitors, but having consecrated themselves altogether, body, soul and spirit, to the promotion of the welfare and evolution of that new Race. Many of our people came into the pictures, naturally - in fact, it was in that way something like the scene shown to King Asoka; though that, I think, was the scene of their entering upon and taking possession of their new district, while this was, as I have said, at least 100 years later, perhaps more. A number of points of the greatest interest emerged about that community in general, and I shall get all those down by degrees; but the particular thing which my Deva friend was endeavouring to impress upon us is the varieties of temple-worship in that community, and the way in which Devas will then be co-operating in such matters. That piece alone will, I think, make a good Theosophist article; I shall put it together and get it into type, and then I will send you a proof in advance. There are also some points about the education of that period (in that community only) that are of interest, and perhaps they will come in later. I also acquired some fragmentary information as to conditions in Europe then, but that I shall be careful not to publish, as it might offend the amour propre of members. I have not even mentioned it to the group here, though I have read to them Wood's notes of most of the investigation. The whole material is still somewhat inchoate, but I think I can make out of it an article which will please you, though I cannot hope to reproduce the vividness of the impression which it made upon me. I asked at first whether it was intended to be kept in any way private, but was told : "No, publish it; it will do good." Outsiders will take it merely as a vision, but that will not matter. The additional life and activity which so noticeably permeates the Society seems to be showing itself also in these bits of new revelation which are just now being put in our way so freely; evidently conditions are improving all round. Several other things are already looming before me, and it looks as though we should not lack interesting matter for some time to come.
C. W. Leadbeater to Annie Besant, August 19, 1909.
I have now finished the dictation of my articles on "The Beginnings of the Sixth Root-Race", and Wood is engaged in typing them out. When he has done I will send you a carbon copy of them; I do not think he can possibly finish them for this mail, but perhaps I may as well send what he has ready. He says that he can prepare the first four articles in time for the mail, so I will forward them, because you may possibly find them of interest for your people at the Convention, for I calculate that this should reach you just when you are at Chicago. By the time you get this the first article will be in print. I think the matter is of importance, and I know that They arranged that it should be made public just now, though it seemed to arise through a mere accident. I will send the remaining chapters or articles by the following mail. I do not know when you can find time to read them on such a tour; perhaps you may have to leave them until you are on the steamer. If you do get through them while on American soil, shall you want them after having read them? If you do not, it would be a kindness to hand them to Raja*, for I know they would interest him. But it must be understood that they are not to be published anywhere until after their appearance in The Theosophist. Wood has been very useful to me in this business by taking everything down in shorthand, which has much expedited the work, and saved me a great deal of trouble. I hope you can conveniently leave him here until Wedgwood comes, for he will be helpful in the incarnation work, which I shall undertake next. * 1 received them when I was lecturing in California in 1910.
Everything was by schedule - meals, study, games - to teach both boys alertness to time and circumstance. One special part of the work was entrusted to the late Admiral Don Fabrizio Ruspoli of Italy; it was to teach the boys cycling. Bicycling was not for the sake of mere exercise; its aim was to teach self reliance and quick reactions (most needed on Indian roads where men, carts, animals are "all over the shop", and nobody knows if he will go on the right side of the road or the left or the middle). There was also developed a slowly increasing resistance to fatigue as the outings (in which Hubert Van Hook often joined) were slowly lengthened, once to Chingleput, 66 miles there and back. The younger boy, Nityananda, joined in the outings and in all studies but not in the physical exercises. I have published in The Theosophist, July and September 1932, the instructions received from the two Masters by Dr. Besant and Bishop Leadbeater concerning the training of the two brothers.
END
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