So when God returned

From driving the twain from his garden,

The gates safely shut

And the two girded angels on guard,

He hunted the Serpent and found him there,

Lazily pendant from the nethermost

Fruit-laden limb of the Tree of Life;

Found him rising, dipping,

Swirling in rhythmical cycles

A laugh in his eyes

And with keen brilliant glance at the god

Who stood lowering, half-hidden

In murky cloud of his wrath,

And splendidly thundered:

"Mouthpiece of evil!

Disdainer

Of plans, revealer of secrets,

You! Slimily circling,

Promising, whispering,

Have brought on this woman and man

An eon of suffering and trouble!

Your name will be cursed

And from henceforth your form

Symbol of treacherous dealing!"

The Serpent swirled slowly, the laugh in his eye

Brimming over,

"Ah, brother," he answered,

"You care not a whit for the twain,

And their eon of trouble and care;

You care but for you!

Fearing the man and the woman

And end of their eon

Because in the human your rivals you see

—Who will mount the last jagged peak

In their eon of trouble and woe

Will spy out your garden, return in their strength

And will enter—

And then? As I promised,

They too will become as the gods.

And I, whom you flung coiled and writhing

To Earth, when the Dark

Spewed us forth as her children,

I, at the end of the eon,

I, the eternal, a symbol of movement in cycles,

Of action outgoing and ever ruthless returning,

I will be here, Brother God,

Here in the Tree-of-all-life,

Dipping, outflinging, recoiling,

Rising, forever and ever!"

Is like a lamp of clay whose flame is truth.

It is the flame yields to the lamp of clay

A meaning and a purpose. Truth is flame

Which burns the trembling moths of darkness up,

Which cleaves the cowering shadows like a blade

And makes them bleed into a sudden splendour.

An eyelike flame which searches in black corners

And with its lone immaculate lustre burns

The dusty intertangled cob webs spun

By the dim-hearted spider, Ignorance,

Around itself in solitudes of death.

Truth is the great white peacock of the soul

Which opens placid plumes across the world

To dance its flaming and eternal dance

While the stark-staring thunder-throated clouds

Shoot lightning-pointed shafts

Of arrowy showers,

Truth is the voice which sang the Universe

Into a rounded visibility

Of monster-mountains and tremendous spheres,

Wide-wandering and immeasurable waters,

And miracles of delicatest life!

Each time a truth is uttered on the earth

In some sky-corner a new star is born;

And in some barren home a shining babe;

And in the corner of a murderer’s eye

A cleansing teardrop; in the tigers heart

Clean pity for the lamb . . Utter a truth

And lo! the Lord receives His daily bread.

Friends of my kingdom! let us pray to Him

To fill us with the courage of true thought,

To tinge our lips with colour of true speech,

That we might truth-emparadise the dark,

The cowardly and hollow dark of lies.

And let us also pray that every tree

And every stone and every blade of grass

Within our kingdom live and utter truth

Though we might never know nor understand.

And in the sky which over canopies

Our kingdom may the clouds beat time to truth

And may the stars and may the sun and moon

And every wind between the dawn and eve

Be truth’s angelic and immortal breath.

—From the drama, "Harischandra’s

Proclamation" by Harindranath

Chattopadhyaya.

Some years ago in Boston, while being interviewed by a newspaper reporter, I gave my views on the subject of education for boys, based on my experience as founder and principal of the Ranchi Residential School for Boys in India.

The next morning, the interview appeared in the newspaper with the headlines reading, "The Swami’s Opinions on Flappers." Much mystified, I consulted four dictionaries without discovering any other meaning for "flapper" except "One who, or that which, flaps." This left me as much in the dark as ever, and I consulted some of my Boston friends. Imagine my surprise to learn that "flappers" meant "scantily dressed young girls." The small boys I had been talking about to the reporter had undergone a newspaper metamorphosis, emerging as full-fledged girl flappers!

Certainly the methods of exaggeration and distortion, and the free play of imagination and fictional skill that are employed by some newspapermen in lieu of sober consideration of facts and actual events, can make a harmless rope look like a vicious snake.

Some of the clever street magicians of India can, apparently, produce articles out of thin air. This magical ability to materialize something out of nothing has been developed to a high art by the press-necromancy of certain American newspapers. A constant stream of unwholesome wonders emerge from such newspapers’ trick hat of imagination. The deluded public gazes in astonishment at what appears to be a whole forest of venomous cobra snakes but which is in reality nothing more than a coil of inoffensive rope.

It lies with the public to destroy the menacing influence of untruthful journalism in America by refusing to buy its tainted pages. One knows not where its poisoned shafts will strike next. The history of yellow journalism is a continuous record of broken hearts, broken homes, ruined reputations and blighted lives, unjustly brought about. The fruits of a lifetime of disinterested service to mankind can be reduced to ashes thru the soulless efforts of yellow journalism. Gold is its only god, and to that god, there is nothing too sacred for it to sacrifice. Truth is its plaything, useful to it only insofar as it allows opportunity for distortion, misinterpretation and exaggeration.

Catering as it does, to a depraved public taste that lacks sufficient moral and intellectual background to enable it to detect truth from falsehood, the only aim of yellow journalism is sensationalism and "thrills," without regard for any fundamental right, truth or principle. Thru lust for gold, it will crucify any man or any movement at a moment’s notice, employing conscienceless writers, skilled in the crafty art of misrepresenting truth while clearly avoiding the technical charges of libel.

These words are called forth thru the recent wholesale and seemingly organized propaganda in certain unprincipled newspapers, and in several books and magazines, aimed against India, Eastern teachings, and Oriental teachers.

The regenerating, life-giving, soul-revealing philosophy of the glorious ancient Indian sages has been more and more coming into the limelight in America, due to the reverent interest and earnest study of thousands of truth-seeking, thoughtful, unprejudiced Americans, who are lending their moral and financial support for the spread and defense of India’s eternal light of truth.

The shallow reasoning, race-prejudice and love of sensationalism at the expense of truth that characterizes yellow journalism and writers with the Nordic-superiority-complex, have recently been widely employed in an effort to block the waters of truth that have been flowing from India into America. As well try to stop the stars in their courses! So long as spiritual hunger persists in American, so long will the deathless message of India’s saints continue to nourish the Western brothers.

In the cosmic plan and purpose, certain duties and responsibilities have been allotted the different races of mankind. At the present time, the Western world leads in material development and scientific progress, and the Orient is humbly grateful to receive instruction

from the West along those lines, sending its promising young sons by the thousands to Western universities and Western lands to study the superior knowledge of material conquest of nature in the West.

Because of India’s great antiquity as compared with the extreme youth of European and American countries, and because of the centuries of concentration on spiritual problems by the greatest minds of India, it is seen that the individual contribution of Indian national genius to the well-being of the world is a spiritual one. India has sent very few of her great teachers to America, but those who did come, like Swami Vivekananda, Baba Bharati, Swamirama and a few others, were received with open arms and accomplished the spiritual awakening of thousands of American souls.

For thousands of years past, the Orient has produced the towering spiritual figures of history. The whole Western world professes to follow the Oriental teacher, Jesus Christ, altho if He returned to earth today, He would meet with the same race prejudice, immigration restriction and journalistic misrepresentation that other Oriental teachers of today have to deal with.

Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, Laotze, Zoroaster and Krishna were all Orientals. Some of the greatest spiritual figures of modern times came from India—Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Lahiri Mahashaya are well known to the Western world. India has produced in every generation scores of saints of such God-realization and spiritual grandeur that their lives have left an imperishable mark on Indian history and their names are enshrined in every Indian heart.

These differing manifestations of racial genius do not mean that Western nations cannot produce great saints, nor that Orientals are incapable of great material activity. In fact, there have been many glorious saints of the Christian church who have known God and have manifested His power. Similarly, even today the Orient numbers among her sons some of the greatest scientists, inventors and mathematicians of the world. But the emphasis on values differs in East and West. In India, spiritual advancement is considered the highest goal of life. Any man who devotes himself to that calling is held in the highest respect and reverence by the people. Many of the great Indian characters naturally gravitate to that path of life. There has never been wholesale religious persecution or religious intolerance in India.

But in the West, we find a different standard. Here the religious life is held in no such respect as it obtains in India, and in fact it calls forth some contempt as the "calling of a weakling" from large sections of the American public. Hence, the great American minds naturally gravitate toward material, scientific expression and development. Recognition and public acclaim are mostly reserved in America for those who can show the greatest amount of material accomplishment. In India, a man like Mahatma Gandhi is held in adoration by the masses, not for the results of his labor, but for the grandeur of his moral nature and the strength of his character.

In both cases, it is concentration of mind that produces great spiritual or scientific geniuses. Western souls can certainly achieve union with God as readily as the Oriental, should they make the same effort. Similarly, any great spiritual character of India could become a world figure in science, should he devote himself to that line, instead of to spiritual duty. It is mostly the hereditary, environmental and racial influences that determine in what direction the innate force of character shall manifest. The sum total of man’s nature remains the same, regardless of what activities he may engage in. The great cosmic forces that are bringing the same soul to earth again and again, in order to enable it to overcome its human nature and to uncover its divine nature, send that soul sometimes in a Western body, sometimes in an Eastern body, in order that the various environments may bring out the infinite possibilities within him.

India has been able to withstand the political upheavals and social vicissitudes of centuries, without losing her national individuality as ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt did. Why? Because of her great spiritual vitality, because of the thousands of great saints that have trod her soil and sanctified it.

The ancient rishis (sages) of India went deeper into the laws of life, nature and God than any other people in history. Many of the great modern scientific discoveries merely confirm what the Aryan seekers discovered centuries ago in a general way, about the atomic constitution of matter, the basic laws of the physical world, and the principles of man’s mind and nature. For this reason, whenever a great scientific or spiritual figure arises, whether in East or West, his message does not differ in any essential respect from the ancient philosophy of India. "Truth is One, men call it by various names." There can be no two truths. Destroy all books, all traditional learning, and still the basic truths of life would be discovered all over again, exactly the same, by the inquiring spiritual mind with its penetrating insight.

Hence it follows that every modern spiritual message of any power or vitality, is a repetition in a new form of the truths pronounced ages ago by the Aryan sages, who for centuries devoted themselves exclusively to investigating the spiritual laws, the potentialities of their own nature, and in outlining the various paths of discipline for various natures to follow in order to come into contact with their own divine nature and hence with the cosmic forces of the universe.

All the world’s great religions are based on the same universal truths, and do not conflict with but reinforce one another. Practically all the various forms of religion, and the basic systems of philosophy everywhere, have drawn their inspiration from the Hindu Scriptures, as the oldest and most comprehensive in the world.

The Hindu Scriptures consist of the four Vedas (each as large as an unabridged edition of Webster’s dictionary), the two epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, the one hundred and eight Upanishads, and the six systems of Hindu philosophy, Sankhya, Patanjali, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika and the Purva Mimamsa; and lastly, Bhagavad Gita. The Upanishads were compiled to summarise the teachings of the Vedas; the six systems of Hindu philosophy are abridged forms of the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad Gita is the substance of all.

There have occasionally arisen various forms of misunderstanding in the West regarding Indian philosophy and teachings. One of the most prolific sources of misunderstanding has sprung thru the ignorance of Western translators of the true meaning of the Sanskrit terms. The Sanskrit language is the study of a lifetime, the most scientifically constructed and most comprehensive language mankind has ever produced, and the root language of all Aryan tongues. "Who knows my grammar, knows God," said Panini, the great ancient Sanskrit grammarian, and indeed anyone who has fully mastered Sanskrit possesses also the knowledge of all arts, sciences and philosophy, so intertwined are they with the construction of Sanskrit.

This barrier of language, then, confronts those enthusiastic Western brothers who would draw inspiration from the deep bottomless wells of Hindu Scriptures to give them to their Western peoples. So they have to depend on the often-mistaken English translations of Hindu scriptures. Without a thorough knowledge of the Sanskrit language and root meanings of the words, it is sheer madness on the part of anyone, Oriental or Occidental, to attempt to translate from the Sanskrit depositories of knowledge.

It is appalling to contemplate the translations that some western brothers have made of Patanjali’s famous "Yoga Aphorisms" and of the "Bhagavad Gita." They have made blunders, minor and major, to such an extent as to often give the exact contrary meaning to passages in the scriptures. To what confusion and chaos such mistaken translations have led, can be traced by the idea, prevalent among large classes of Westerners, that Eastern teachings are "dangerous" and "intended only for Eastern followers."

Thus I find, that although our Theosophical brothers have done a great deal of good in the world thru awakening an interest in the West in the literature and philosophy of India, yet some of them, thru their utter ignorance or very partial knowledge of Sanskrit, have created much panic and wrong ideas in the minds of Westerners by giving the impression, thru their entirely wrong translations of certain Sanskrit passages, that danger results from such practices as rousing of the Kundalini, meditation and other forms of inner development.

Such erroneous ideas have spread like wildfire, especially among Theosophical groups. It is a spiritual crime to frighten people away from spiritual practices and spiritual teachers, for therein lies the path out of the maze of life into eternal salvation, which no amount of mere intellectual understanding nor reading of the scriptures will do. Without meditation and spiritual discipline and definite following of certain technique laid down by the great ancient teachers of India, it is impossible to achieve union with the divine. To frighten people away, therefore, from such practices as given them by a qualified spiritual guide, is to mislead them and hamper their evolutionary progress.

Of course, casual travelers to India, and the general run of newspaper writers, cannot be expected to understand anything about these things, any more than they understand such things as Einstein’s theory of Relativity or the theory of music. However, while they do not presume to foist their ideas on the public about Einstein and the theory of music, yet many of them do not let their lack of knowledge about spiritual subjects deter them from exhibiting their abysmal ignorance in that direction to the public.

The result of Hindu teachings should be judged by its influence on faithful disciples who have incorporated those teachings into their daily lives and who therefore stand as a witness to the power of such teaching to transform the whole of life. The results of Hindu teachings cannot be judged haphazardly form any stray individual who has happened to read a book on the subject or to take a class for a week from some Hindu teacher. Every organization, every spiritual group, lodge, church or temple has had experience with some abnormal neurotic, unbalanced individual, suffering from hallucinations, who joins it movement and then attempts to represent that teaching to the outside world, creating misunderstanding and commotion. Though such an individual professes himself a staunch follower of the particular teaching he has elected to join, yet as a matter of fact he knows nothing about it and pursues his own hallucinations, sometimes to the point of craziness.

The fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (because after this, therefore on account of this) can be illustrated in the following way:

The clock was about to strike twelve. Someone said, "When I clap my hands, the clock will strike twelve." A man suffering with cancer of the stomach, went on a whole wheat bread diet. He died soon after, and a great hue and cry was raised against the eating of whole wheat bread. In these two instances, there was no causal relation between the clap of the hand, and the clock striking twelve, or in the eating of the whole wheat bread and the death of the man. However, to a superficial and thoughtless observer, it might appear that there was causal relation between them. Similarly, there is no causal relation between Eastern teachings and the crazy outbursts of fanatics and neurotics who profess to follow those teachings. The craziness exists in the mind of the individual and is caused by his own wrong actions in the past. No uplifting spiritual study can possibly produce craziness, but on the contrary, can and does restore unbalanced persons to sanity. The practice of Yogoda has cured many people of unbalanced and neurotic conditions. The worse form of craziness is to maintain that spiritual study and practice are injurious. Since all forms of consciousness are unbalanced, i.e., not the ideal state of perfect equilibrium, it follows then that it is far more beneficial to himself and to mankind for a person to be crazy bout God than about money, fame and pleasure as most people are.

Without intelligence, it is impossible to understand anything properly in this life. People should judge everything on its own merits and not on baseless assertions nor second-hand opinions. If one does not make an effort to know truth, to discover her beneath the veils that cover her, then one will never know his own real nature and will be the sport of outside forces and the slave of circumstance always. Contempt for anything, without investigation, is the sign of a deluded man who will come to grief.

One phase of Eastern teachings that should be stressed is that they can never be wholly comprehended unless one practices them regularly in his daily life after receiving them from a real teacher of actual God-realization. Otherwise, it is a case of the blind leading the blind. The great light that leads from the dark world of matter into the celestial powers of divinity, are not lightly bestowed nor lightly won, and no effort is too great to find the way and to follow it.

Those Western authors who write on the danger of awakening the Kundalini (coiled life-force at the base of the spine) and other Hindu teachings, are the last ones to know what they are talking about, having never practiced the proper exercises nor been instructed by a qualified Hindu teacher. They sound their erroneous warnings against Eastern teachings in order to offer, instead, their own Western-diluted Eastern teachings.

Many western brothers there are, who are enthusiastic to become teachers and interpreters of Eastern philosophies. To them I would say, that they will find more spiritual upliftment and insight into the truth of life, and more direct answers from the divine source within themselves, by one hour daily of meditation and Kundalini practice as taught them by a qualified Hindu guru, than they would get from twelve hours of daily reading of the scriptures.

Most would-be teachers of Eastern philosophy simply read the translations of Hindu scriptures, attempting to understand their meaning according to the measure of their own limited intelligence, and then, after entirely omitting the practical art of scriptural realization thru meditation (the only means of true comprehension of eternal principles) thru mental laziness, they try to teach others about Eastern truths.

Since meditation and concentration have been a highly developed art in India for some ages, ambitious Western brothers ought to sit at the feet of a qualified Hindu guru for a time before they consider themselves ready to offer their opinion to the world on the subject of Eastern teachings and the worth of Eastern spiritual practices.

Truth is neither Eastern nor Western—it is the inalienable property of every soul that draws the breath of life. That is the true meaning of the equality of man—not the social nor political nor economic equality that many people often wrongly imagine will someday arrive, but the equality of every soul before God, the equality to seek Him and know Him.

Truth, however, must have a form and an individualized expression on this plane. It must express itself thru something, some material medium. They are mistaken who are prejudiced against any spiritual truth because it has an Eastern label. Label it must have, just as the infinite ocean must take the shape of the bowl it is put into, but neither label nor bowl can change the inherent quality of truth. Put it into what form one may, it shines thru as the same One Eternal Truth. "Lofty its declaration, sublime its aspirations, pure and tender its piety," Sir Edwin Arnold says of the Bhagavad Gita. What matter whether its message is called Bhagavad Gita or the doctrines of the apostle Paul? Would not its aspirations still be sublime, its piety pure? In eagerness to criticize the form or source of truth, many seekers fail to grasp the meaning of the message which alone is of any worth.

The progress of Christian Science in the West is due to the fact that it is based on the great spiritual truth of the superiority of mind over matter. This glorious regenerative spiritual law, introduced in a new Christian form, is the same ancient principle known to the Hindu sages and all great teachers throughout the ages. Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy was acquainted with Hindu Vedanta philosophy and used quotations from the Bhagavad Gita in the earlier editions of her book "Science and Health." The Rosacrucian and Theosophist and many other spiritual movements in the West draw heavily from Hindu sources for inspiration. The greatest poet-philosophers of America, Emerson and Walt Whitman, were devout students of the Bhagavad Gita. Many of the most profound students of philosophy in Europe and America have not hesitated to humbly admit, like Schopenhauer, that "the Upanishads uphold me in life and death."

The East and the West must realize and be thankful for their mutual interdependence and need for each other. Thru the modern methods of quick transportation and communication, the nations of the world are now only a stone’s throw from one another. It largely depends on their attitude now, whether they are going to concentrate on one another’s differences and faults, and shatter one another with explosions of misunderstanding and hatred, or whether they will utilize their closeness as an opportunity for constructive exchange of their best national qualities.

Hate, unjust criticism, provincialism, religious bigotry, selfish commercial "patriotism," superiority-complex of being a ruling nation, race consciousness, color and class prejudices, unwise immigration laws and conscienceless journalism are the real ammunitions of war and self-destruction. God never has to employ miracles to kill the evil-doers—they fight and kill themselves by civil and racial wars and rejoice in doing so.

No nation is perfect. Even the most civilized land contains enough evil in its slums and criminal classes to appall the world. Any "literary" Westerner who feels the impulse to "expose" the faults or wrong conditions in some other land, such as India, should first reflect that he can find enough material in the slums of any large Western city to put Dante’s Inferno to shame. Throwing mud gets one nowhere, and can be prolonged indefinitely on both sides. All the dark spots of the earth can be cleared up by mutual cooperation and loving help among the peoples of the world, and nothing else will suffice.

False news travels with the wind, but truth has the power to travel against the wind.

I have my good-will always toward those error-stricken, misguided ones who seek to blacken India’s name and India’s philosophy in the eyes of the world. Jesus was crucified for doing good, and all spiritual teachers must be prepared to bear the trials that will come to them. Judas was the cause of bringing Jesus’ message to the attention of the whole world. The enemies of India’s immortal light of truth cannot dim its lustre nor withdraw its regenerative influence from the lives of those who seek it. The narrow-spirited critics of India and the concerted efforts of yellow journalists can never destroy the indestructible heritage of the sages of ancient India. Such critics will themselves see the true light someday and repent, like Paul, of their former persecution of a message that does ill to no man and good to all.

Mankind has only one real enemy—Ignorance. Let us all work together for its destruction, helping and cheering one another along the way.

Wallace, the great scientist who shares with Darwin the credit of the formulation of the modern theory of evolution, postulates "the existence in man of something which he has not derived from his animal progenitors, something which we may best refer to as being of spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under favorable conditions. On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature superadded to the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him, specially the enormous influence of ideas, principles and beliefs over his whole life and actions. Thus alone can we understand the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of the philanthropist, the enthusiasm of the artist. . . Thus we may perceive that the love of truth, the delight in beauty, the passion for virtue, and the thrill of exaltation with which we hear of any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings within us of a higher nature which has not been developed by means of the struggle for existence."

Ere I lose myself in the vastness

And drowse myself with the peace;

While I gaze on the light and the beauty afar

From the dim homes of men;

May I still feel the heart-pang and pity,

Love-ties that I would not release;

May the voices of sorrow appealing

Call me back to their succor again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power

The thrones and dominions of old,

Ere the ancient enchantment allure me

To roam through the star-misty skies,

I would go forth as one who has reaped well

What harvest the earth may enfold;

May my heart be o’er brimmed with compassion;

On my brow be the crown of the wise.

I would go as the dove from the ark sent forth

With wishes and prayers

To return with the paradise blossoms

That bloom in the Eden of light;

When the deep star-chant of the seraphs

I hear in the mystical airs,

May I capture one tone of their joy

For the sad ones discrowned in the night.

Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest

In the heart of the love;

Where I tranced in the innermost beauty,

The flame of its tenderest breath,

I would still hear the cry of the fallen

Recalling me back from above,

To go down to the side of the people

Who weep in the shadow of death.

—From the "Collected Poems" of "A. E." (Macmillan Co.)

In the ancient philosophies we find places in the body spoken of as North, South, East and West. We are especially interested in the East and West locations. The West refers to the posterior part or that part containing the spinal centers while the front or anterior portion is referred to as the East. It is here that we see the Light, the reflection of the medulla center, in which is the Door through which Christ consciousness is attained.

There are times when we seem close to the Spirit, and the Light shines brilliantly as we feel its power and presence. A reference to this manifestation of the Spirit is found in the Bible in connection with the guidance of the children of Israel with "a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night."

So-called "Rationalists" and Bible-critics have always displayed poor judgment in their attack on the scriptures, by showing first of all their ignorance as to the meaning of their subject. Bob Ingersoll, for instance, pointed out certain passages of the Psalms as examples of the most corrupt writings in all the world’s literature, and as evidence tending to show that the psalmists were as corrupt, revengeful and primitive as any savage of the jungle.

True enough, the psalmist prays to the Lord for help to torture to death his enemies and their children, but Ingersoll did not grasp the fact that he was dealing with an allegoric writing, and that the psalmist speaks about the enemies of self, namely, the physical desires, parental inheritances, habits and propensities of the flesh, which are the last and most enduring enemies which man has to fight. The symbolical expression in the Old Testament, "The chosen People of the lord," has been, and is still, misunderstood by Jews and Christians alike. It belongs to the Mosaic allegories and is probably of Egyptian origin, as is the case with much in the early Jewish scriptures.

We read: "For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God had chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are on the face of the earth." (Deuteronomy 7:6). This and similar passages in Genesis have been applied by the Jews to themselves, exclusively, as tending to show that they are the chosen people of the Lord, and superior to any other race of man.

That the Creator of all mankind could show such favoritism is not possible. That the Jews misunderstood their own scriptures is a charge made by Jesus himself, running all through the gospels. Yet what interests us here is to see clearly what the prophets meant by the holy and chosen people of the Lord that are superior to any other people on the face of the earth.

In the esoteric schools of philosophy, man is regarded as a miniature universe, known as the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, containing within himself the essence and attributes of all there is and ever was, spirit as well as matter. Therefore, as there is a Supreme God in the Macrocosm, or in the cosmic universe, so likewise is there a God of the same potential nature in the Microcosm, man, although as yet undeveloped. Hence man is an evolving god; and it is written, as Jesus himself called to the attention of the Jews, that "Ye are gods." In other words: The people of the earth are gods potentially, awaiting manifestation of their hidden powers.

Furthermore, as there are forces and principalities, good and bad, always in conflict striving for supremacy in the great outside world, so in like manner, are two opposite forces of living elements struggling for supremacy in the world within man. The relation of these two opposite forces in human nature make up the ground plan of the Old Testamental scriptures.

In the Psalms of the Bible these two forces are spoken of as two different classes of people. The one class is made up of several different tribes, known as the enemies of David, the enemies of the Lord, and the enemies of the Children of Israel.

In this same symbology, King David himself is a symbolical figure and stands for man at that advanced stage of spiritual development where he has taken up the battle against the enemies of self. We also find that the Psalms are full of lamentations by David that his enemies continually try, in various ways, to destroy his soul.

The other class of forces, written about by the prophets and psalmists as always being in conflict with the former, are called the righteous people, God’s people, who appeal to the Lord for help to destroy their enemies. These forces, then, represent the spiritual powers and faculties in the soul and nature of man; and it is they, therefore, and not the Jews, who are the chosen people of the Lord. They are the ones whom the Lord or Godhead of man has chosen as a special people unto Himself above all other people on the face of the earth. In other words, the spiritual powers in man are developing toward divinity and immortality, and shall lie with their Lord forever, whereas the lower elements of the animal man shall perish.

The "Lord" in the Old Testament and the "Father" in the New Testament are identical and signify generally the individualized divinity in man. We may, therefore, lay particular stress on this beautiful fact that every human being has his own lord, or divine Father, such as is written about by the prophets, and spoken about by Jesus to his disciples, but which the latter failed to comprehend.

It is through spiritual awakening that the Christ-child is born or evolved in man. He is the Prince of Peace and Saviour of each human world. He is to ascend the "Throne of David," or, in the meaning of the symbology, is to permeate the intellectual powers of man and be his guiding principle in the spirit forever.

In diffused passages all through the prophetical writings we read about the return at some future date of the Children of Israel to their own land, led by a mighty and holy being called the "Son of David", who shall be their king in the land of promise forever. These passages are generally thought to be prophecies of the return of the Jews to Palestine, but such an interpretation is not the true one.

Inasmuch as the "Children of Israel" are the spiritual powers in the soul and nature of man, the "land of inheritance" of these children of the Spirit, given to them by God for an eternal kingdom, has reference to the kingdom of the Spirit and is not of this world. In other words that holy land is divinity itself, evolved out of man’s inborn powers and attributes, inherited from the Creator. There is no other divine inheritance, either for Jews or Gentiles.

The Children of Israel remain dispersed by God into all parts of the world. This reference is not to a particular race, the Jews, but simply means that the spiritual seedlings of the human soul are dispersed into all kinds of worldly interests and occupations, which serve them as agencies of evolution.

The psalmist understood all this when he said: "Wait on the Lord and keep his way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land; when the wicked is cut off, then thou shalt see it." In other words, to inherit the land is an exaltation of spirit by the Lord, in consequence of keeping his "way," the way of righteousness. It is on that way that the wicked shall be "cut off," or that the lower nature shall be conquered. It is along that way that the Children of Israel are returning from all parts of the world to their own land, and it is along that way that the chosen people of the Lord are walking through the world.

I come to this beautiful spot in the spirit of a pilgrim. I come to have your blessings. I come with reverence for all religions, all scriptures. They are sacred. Sacred too, is the scripture of the heart. Out of it I would fain speak to you at these morning meetings.

There is a voice I hear in the high winds of these ancient hills. It is the voice of the Rishis (sages).

Mistaken are you if you think the Rishis were ascetics. They were lovers of beauty. They rejoiced in life.

Religion is the worship of joy.

In an ancient story a pupil comes to his Guru and asks:—"Master, What is Brahman?" Of all the answers,—and I shall not pause to examine them,—one which the Guru and the pupil alike accept as in any measure adequate is the final one:—"Brahman is bliss"—"God is the spirit of Joy."

And Joy and Love go together.

The Rishis discovered that Love was the Law of Life.

To live is to give. I would have you take home with you this thought this morning.

Give what you can; but give out of the abundance of your life. Give in a spirit of Joy. Today there is joylessness; there is lovelessness in our public life. I ask you to spread sunshine and joy. Don’t confound spirituality with asceticism. Spirituality is not the denial but the deepest affinity with life. Spirituality is expansion of consciousness. Spirituality is communion with the spirit of beauty and joy. Dhruva, in the ancient story, was a star-like soul; beautiful, radiant, rejoicing in his love of the Lord. And Dhruva, we are told, became a star, the pole-star. Dhruva-like must we be; radiant, rejoicing in life, rich in idealism, aglow with aspiration.

The excessive love of self is in reality

The source to each man of all offenses. . .

But he who would be a great man

Ought to regard, not himself nor his interests,

But what is just, whether the just act be his own Or that of another . . . Wherefore let every man Avoid excess of self-love, and condescend

To follow a better man than himself.—Plato.

Since my Letter, "To the Children of My Clients," which I wrote while in the Canadian Rockies, many young people have asked why religion has not heretofore been taught to them in such a simple and logical way by the church, school or college. Frankly, I cannot answer this question.

It may be because when anyone has suggested such a thing in the past, he has been so severely persecuted. Hence scientists have concluded to use their energies working for people in lines where their efforts will be appreciated.

Then, too, the church itself has taught that religion must be accepted blindly—otherwise it was not religion. It forgets that faith is a basic requirement in every constructive line of endeavor. The farmer must have faith to plant his seed, the miner must have faith to dig into the mountain side, and faith is the great motive power underlying all scientific research. Of course, one must "believe" in order to be "saved"; but this no more applies to spiritual forces than to physical or intellectual forces.

But because the progress in religious teachings has not kept pace with teachings in other lines is no reason why a change for the better is not even now taking place. The World War and other recent events have taught people that Spiritual Power is a very real force and that it must increase proportionately with the development along material and intellectual lines in order to have real progress. Hence to keep the world in balance, educational leaders will soon be compelled to teach as much about God and spiritual forces as about gravitation, electricity and other physical forces.

Furthermore, as the Catholics, Protestants and Jews all use today the same multiplication table and study chemistry, physics and algebra from the same textbooks, so they all will unite in teaching about the greatest thing of all, Spiritual Power. As long as so much superstition was allowed to creep into the teachings of the churches, it was only natural that there should be a great divergence of views. When, however, the study of spiritual forces is put upon a scientific basis, as Pasteur put the study of medicine and Newton the study of physics, then the real truth will be discovered. There can be any number of different forms of superstition, but there can be only one truth.

It is because I know this great change is coming, which is sure to be such a tremendous blessing to the coming generations, that I write you so earnestly and freely. Remember that you belong to a generation which is in an intervening stage. Religious education is today in the same status as was geographical education 450 years ago when there was so much disagreement as to whether the world was flat or round. For forty years everyone was so upset that the subject was avoided and nothing was taught. This explains the apparent neglect of religious teaching today compared with the training which your parents and grandparents had one or more generations ago. But just as surely as the days of Galileo’s persecution were followed by a tremendous era of explorations and world development, so these days will be followed by a spiritual development undreamed of by the most optimistic religious leaders. It is to have you anticipate these great changes and to have you and your children get some of the benefit therefrom, that I am risking much in writing you these Letters. Yet perhaps some day you will thank me for it.

Charles P. Steinmetz, who was unanimously recognized by the General Electric Company and other great similar organizations as the world’s foremost electrical engineer, was once visiting my home. While talking over with him prospective future inventions in connection with radio, aeronautics, power transmission, etc., I asked him: "What line of research will see the greatest development during the next fifty years?" After careful thought, he replied: "Mr. Babson, I think the greatest discovery will be made along spiritual lines. Here is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest power in the development of men and history. Yet we have merely been playing with it and have never seriously studied it as we have the physical forces. Some day people will learn that material things do not bring happiness and are of little use in making men and women creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of God and Prayer and the spiritual forces which as yet have hardly been scratched. When this day comes, the world will see more advancement in one generation than it has seen in the past four."

Much now points to the results which Steinmetz foretold. For instance, it is being recognized that the four great teachings of Jesus are based upon definite fundamental laws and can now be discussed in any lecture hall or studied in any laboratory. These four are:

(1) Love of God, or that Divine Spirit of which we have been talking and to which I already have referred.

(2) Power of Human Love, which is based upon the same Law of Attraction which holds the planets in their places and performs such miracles in all phases of life.

(3) The Golden Rule, which is founded upon the same Law of Action and Reaction as underlies the study of physics, chemistry, mechanics and the other sciences.

(4) Eternal Life, which is merely the Law of Conservation of Energy applied to the spiritual side of our lives.

These were the four great messages which Jesus taught. Every one is as sound and as demonstrable as a problem in geometry. Your grandchildren will know this and tremendously benefit therefrom. I want you and your children of the present generation, who are sort of "betwixt and between," to benefit therefrom also.

You who read this Letter must not blame religious leaders of the present and past generations simply because religion has not been taught along modern lines. Hardly any subject was properly taught until recent years. . . . The science of history is only a development of mythology; chemistry is an outgrowth of alchemy. Even in my day the teaching and practice of medicine has entirely changed. The teaching of religion is only going through a similar change. Moreover, remember that it is to religious teachers that the world largely owes such scientific progress as it is now enjoying. If we study the early history of any of the arts or sciences, we find that the original work was done in some monastery on some hill in Europe.

The answer to your question may be that these consecrated church leaders were so anxious to help their fellowmen in the way they desired help that they over-emphasized the material things. "How could the church fulfill Christ’s command and give," a great theologian once asked of me, "until it had the wherewithal to give?" Hence, perhaps like the shoemaker’s children, the church has gone barefooted spiritually! But you must not make the same mistake; you must do better and capitalize both your souls and your soles!

Extracts from the above letter of Mr. Babson’s, were recently published in the "Vancouver Sun," with editorial comment by R. J. Cromie. Mr. Cromie, a true friend of "Yogoda," makes the following observations in his editorial:

"Churches have decided to go in for more advertising. That is a good thing. But what will they advertise? Just what commodity have the churches for sale? Do the public want it? And can they be educated to buy it?

"Assuming the public to be an open-minded purchaser, but entirely ignorant of the form and worth of the various creeds, rituals, dogmas and denominations of religion, which religion are they likely to buy?

"Is the purchaser seeking a particular odor of incense, or a special brand of superstition, or a peculiar ritual to please his fancy? Or is he seeking a technique which will give to his life an attunement with the spiritual forces of the universe? Which church or denomination then will give that man an attunement with the spiritual forces of this universe, so that he and his family can live in more complete harmony with nature and with their fellow men?. . . . .

"What the public is looking for and will buy is not the trimmings and the trappings of religion but rather the common sense understandable teachings of our great leaders, which teachings form a key or religious technique that really shows people how to tune in their lives with the untapped spiritual forces of this universe."

"Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything.

Parrots can do that. Perfection comes

Thru the disinterested performance of action."

—Swami Vivekananda.

Ever since the West has begun to study the early civilizations of India and China, there has been considerable interest in the science of Yoga. "Yoga" literally means "union" — and the various kinds of "Yoga" are systems of training and self-discipline to achieve "union" with the inner Divine self. A number of works on this subject have been published in the different European languages. Many of them show a wealth of erudition, but do not throw any great light on the subject and are not more advanced than the translations of the 17th and 18th centuries. The interpretation given to many of the terms employed in these works is quite erroneous, and in fact tends to give a false idea.

In the eyes of many, the Yoga appeared as a sort of secret doctrine with magical rites, into which it was necessary to be initiated. A translation always tends more or less to distort the original, and specially in this case, for the texts translated in these works were found in Bombay and Calcutta in the works drawn up in Urdu or Hindustani. Already they had been translated form Sanskrit into a modern Indian dialect and then again into English.

The Yoga is a series of rules which every individual should scrupulously observe if he wishes to escape being enslaved by his animal instincts. There are a whole category of Yogas, a sort of hierarchy as it were, each system leading the individual to a certain degree of moral and mental development.

In the first place, there is the Karma Yoga. The word Karma signifies act. Karma Yoga indicates, "concentration in the act." It is a question then, of giving the utmost attention to every act, even the most elementary and organic. This is the simplest of all the Yogas, and calls for nothing more than a constant attention in all we do. It is an excellent preparation to the higher Yogas.

Next we have the Raja Yoga. The word Raj is known in Europe for it is the root of such words as , swaraj (self-rule), Rajah (king) and Maharajah (great king). The best rendering for Raj is Authority or State. The Raj is not the government, nor the country, but the permanent authority. The Raja Yoga, then, is the condition of power or authority over oneself. It is the power man possesses of making his authority felt over all his physical and nervous faculties; and although it be one of the elementary Yogas, nevertheless it is capable of leading one very near perfection.

With the Surtshabd Yoga, we approach the Yoga of concentration in the world of sound. In the body there exist harmonious sounds susceptible of being perceived by all who have succeeded in reaching this degree of evolution. The cadence of this music, which the Yogi poets speak of as the Eternal Music, has the power of concentrating the thoughts of those who can hear it and this gives an extraordinary value to all the faculties. This "eternal music" is the sound of OM, or cosmic vibration, the cause of all creation. The OM may be heard thru the faithful practice of Lesson 5 of the "Yogoda Course." In the Surtshabd Yoga, the individual has withdrawn in to the higher region of the mind. Consciousness of his physical body has become absent or in any case quite a secondary matter.

Following on this, comes the Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of love, which is the guide for all who wish to draw aside the veil that prevents man from recognizing himself in each of his brothers. It is the mirror which shows to us the true aspect of humanity.

By the Bhakti Yoga, man realizes that the universe and himself are not separate. He understands for the first time, that "two" does not exist, and that oneness is the great truth behind all that we see. The Bhakti Yoga is an ethereal and spiritual Yoga, which presumes a complete freedom from physical servitude. It is impossible, however, to enter right away into the Bhakti Yoga, and those who attempt to practice it without any previous training, soon fall into a dangerous mysticism.

Then, there is the Jnana (knowledge) Yoga, and the Ananda Yoga, or the Yoga of supreme joy, which is the highest expression of lucid ecstasy which is possible on the human plane.

These higher Yogas are open to every one, but it is only by tenacious and never-tiring effort that they can be reached. The Yoga in its more simple form is a necessity in life, for we require it as a guide for the mind and body while crossing the social vortex and the sands of life.

Thus the modern movement is tending slowly back to its origin, passing through Rome and Athens to the culture of the ancient Sanskrit writings, which are the source and fountain head of all civilization. This tendency of modern science and philosophy to lead us back to Asia, makes us hope that before very long the principles of the Yoga science and philosophy will have their recognized place in European centers of culture; after which we can look forward to a happy change in the attitude of an immense population, hitherto accustomed to depend upon force and coercion.—"The Fount of Life."

Indian and Roman marriage ceremonies, Mr. S. S. Mehta said in reading his paper recently before the Anthropological Society of Bombay, were strikingly similar. Some of the customs (still observed in India and once in vogue in Rome) are as follows:

Parental accord and consent of the marrying couple.

Joining of the right hands before witnesses.

Escorting the bride to her husband’s place in the procession.

The bridegroom dividing his bride’s hair into six tresses. Among the Hindus the hair is divided into three tresses.

The bride wearing a garland of flowers during the marriage ceremony.

The initial marriage ceremonies performed at the house of the bride’s father.

A professional diviner (astrologer) ascertaining the omens.

A matron friend of the bride clasping the couple’s right hands.

The performing of the ceremony at the rising of the evening star.

"Desecrate not thy body, mortal man.

There be fruits, apples, the bough downbearing

By their weight, the bursting grape upon the vine,

Soft herbs, plants that may by heat be mollified,

And milk and honey, redolent of thyme.

Kind earth amasses riches, pleasant fare,

And yields us banquets, void of harmfulness."

Who seek for pleasure in this mortal life

By diving deep into the body base

Shall lose true pleasure. But who gainly strive

Their sinking souls above this bulk to place,

Enlarg’d delights they certainly shall find,

Unbounded joys to fill their boundless minds.

When I myself from mine own self do quit

And all things else, then an all-spreading Love

To the vast universe my soul doth fit.

Makes me half-equal to All-seeing Jove.

My mighty wings high-stretch’d,

Then clapping light

I brush the stars,

And make them shine more bright.

Then all the works of God with close embrace

I dearly hug in my enlarg’d arms.

All the hid paths of heavenly Love I trace,

And boldly listen to His secret charms.

Then clearly view I where true Light doth rise

And where eternal Night low-pressed lies.

Thrice happy he whose name is writ above,

And doeth good, though gaining infamy;

Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,

And recks not what befalls him outwardly;

Whose worth is in himself, and only bliss

In his pure conscience that doth naught amiss;

Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul,

And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem;

Who can his passions master and control,

And that true lordly manliness doth deem;

Who from this world himself doth clearly quit,

Counts naught his own

But what dwells in his spirit.

So when his spirit from this vain world shall flit.

It bears all with it whatsoe’er was dear

Unto itself, passing in easy fit,

As kindly ripen’d corn comes out of the ear.

Thus mindless of what idle men will say,

He takes his own and stilly goes his way.

BIBLE INTERPRETATION

One of the teachers of the Yogoda non-sectarian Sunday School classes in Los Angeles, writes as follows regarding some of the Biblical interpretation given by Swami Dhirananda to the children:

During the past months, the Bible lessons have been taken from St. John’s gospel. One of the verses interpreted is John 6-44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." Swami Dhirananda gave this interpretation: The Father (Great Law of God) makes us evolve step by step, by a natural process, until we reach Him, the Christ-Within.

Another verse is from John 5-25, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God; and they that hear shall live." This was interpreted as meaning, those that are dead to the material body and world, shall live in the spiritual and hear the inner voice or the cosmic vibration.

Considerable attention was given to verse 14-I of St. John, "In my Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." Here teaching was given by means of a concrete image. God Consciousness is the house and it is beyond space and time. It is sublime. A man with God-consciousness has inter-penetration, tolerance, unity, expansion, serves others, has calmness, peace, self-control, control over matter, and is able to resurrect the body. These are a few of the different aspects, or mansions in the house of God-consciousness. The resurrection aspect is the most important one of all and it was this one that Jesus went to prepare his disciples for. He said that "where I am, there ye may be also"—John 14-3. This means that what I, Christ, know, ye may know also. These many aspects, chambers, or mansions of the Father’s house are all known to the Master. The seeker may know a part of certain chambers. Beginners get one aspect at a time. If one can realize all of even one chamber, he will then realize all. For instance if one can realize 100% tolerance, he will come into God-Consciousness and realize all other aspects fully at the same time.

Swami Dhirananda gave a lesson on the washing of the disciples’ feet by the Master Christ. He pointed out that the surface meaning is that the Master washed the feet of his disciples as a symbol of service. However, there is a deeper, more esoteric meaning. The water He used, symbolizes the living water touched by the spirit of Christ and this living water is the conscious flow of the life energy within, during meditation. Christ gave the disciples a living touch and He gave it from down up as is symbolized by His washing the feet. Christ goes down to the feet of His disciples to save them. In so doing, He is no less the Christ. The living Christ does this for us today, as then. He gives us the living water, the living touch, and goes down to our very feet to raise us in consciousness.

A recent lesson was on, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." This signifies the spiritual organism. The spiritual organism is within us and the husbandman is with us. We are already abiding in Christ, but we have to realize this, we have to know it. Thus the wise man retires within himself, smoothes the waves of the mind, to face the Christ within him in quietness.

St. John I:33: "And I know him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." In explaining this verse, the word "descending" was discussed. One might say that if Spirit is everywhere, why need it descend? The answer is that when one receives illumination or enlightenment, he feels that some power comes from the upper part of his body. The head and the head centers are the physical expression of the Spirit. Physically speaking the brain is in the head or upper part of the body. This is true of higher illumination as well. Power comes from above. The next word that Swami explained was the word "remaining." Glimpses of the truth do not stay. All truth seekers get their fleeting glimpses of divinity, but the Master, the Christ, receives and keeps his illumination. Ordinary seekers get flashes, but the Master lives eternally in the blessed state of understanding and light.

St. John 4:24: "god is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth." Swami explained why St. John says "a spirit," instead of just Spirit. Swami said it was necessary for people to have God or Spirit defined in terms of something that people can grasp and understand—that God in terms of eternal consciousness, or everlasting Spirit, or the Absolute is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man. But when St. John says "a Spirit," you don’t have to think of the Absolute or of eternity, you think of a form of consciousness. It brings eternity or God nearer to the hearts of men to think of Him thus. To worship God in truth, means to worship God with everything you have, with body, mind and soul.

Swami gave particular attention to the verse, "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." He explained that just as the verses of the Gita have several concurrent meanings, so do the verses of the Bible. We must look for a material meaning, a philosophical meaning and a spiritual meaning. This particular verse must be interpreted spiritually to mean that he who is attached, selfishly, to the desires of this world, shall lose the life of the knowledge of the Soul with its calmness, sympathy, and love. But he that is unattached to the desires of this world, shall realize the Self. This reminds one of verse 21 of Chapter V. of the Bhagavad Gita which reads, "With the heart unattached to external objects, he realizes the joy that is in the Self. With the heart devoted to the meditation of Brahman (Great Spirit) he attains undecaying happiness."

Particular attention was paid to the verse, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." In its deeper significance, "men," is to be interpreted as the life forces. When one has attained Christ-Consciousness in meditation, all the life forces are withdrawn from external objects and sense impressions and are turned inward upon the Self. Swami explained that Christ can never be crucified in reality. When He is put upon the cross, all sympathy rallies around Him and all human beings rally to the belief in resurrection. Even the saner feelings of erring humanity rally around the cross.

The verse, "He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my word, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day," was explained as follows: "the "word," is the principles He taught. If we do right we are happy, but if we disregard the teachings and principles, the principles themselves are our judges, and we suffer.

Each Sunday the hour opens with prayer-affirmations, followed by Yogoda exercises taken with full concentration of mind. The hour closes with meditation led by Swami Dhirananda.

I never understood

Why for doing good

Christ was crucified.

For giving love, he met great hate,

For giving life, ah death he met.

I ne’er dreamt for doing good

He could be crucified!

He had no foes—

But could not help

If some did think

They had to be his foes.

Some die for fame,

Some die for lust,

Some die for golden dust,

But all must die.

The why not die as Jesus did—

Die, O, never to die again!

To cure dark hate with golden love

He died to live again.

To hate those who hate us,

To love those who love us,

Is the common mortal way

But to love those who love us not

Is by immortals sought.

Those who hated and fought

Unworthily died.

Jesus died for love,

He lives in human-hearted shrines forever.

Elder brothers who culture love

From Divine Mother above

Deal lovingly

With revengeful younger brothers

steeped in error

Who seek fault where no fault is.

Deal lovingly

But fight the righteous battle

With love in heart

To shatter their error apart.

But one must master love

Before he can battle righteously.

Battle for Truth,

Battle with love—

Not for victory,

Not for shaming others,

But to show

That Truth must reign

In spite of all.

Leopold Stokowski, the famous Conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, is visiting India.

Mr. Stokowski is a world figure in the realm of Western music, and his orchestra is recognized as an organization of talented musicians, so well-balanced, so well-trained and thoroughly skilled in musicianship, that it is accepted without debate as the finest symphonic orchestra America has ever known.

American press reviews describe Mr. Stokowski as "genius," "superman," "prophet," "electrifying personality," "the conductor who inspires"—attributes which are a most convincing testimonial to his greatness.

After many triumphant seasons of concerts, Mr. Stokowski is taking a much needed rest. He has left the United States on an extended tour, not as an orchestral conductor, but as a simple pilgrim, to rest, to meditate and to find new inspiration spiritually and musically.

He has chosen India for his pilgrimage because he has for years drawn inspiration from the various forms of Hindu religious philosophy, and hopes to derive a fuller knowledge of Truth under the guidance of a Guru.

He is also very much interested in Hindu classical music and rhythms. Several Ragas which the writer sang for him to the accompaniment of Tambura he thought melodically beautiful. He had also heard some exquisite vina music which impressed him deeply, he said.

His travels will take him through Ceylon, and form South India to North as far as Darjeeling. He will also visit the historical temples and the museums of art throughout India. During his travels he hopes to hear the finest musicians in each province, and to study the theory of Hindu music as well.

He is seeking to know the ancient and true culture of India. It is always the Voice of Eternal Truth speaking through the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts, which is heard in the Western world, and impels its people to come with hope to India. It is the spirit of Nada Brahma that somehow still lives in Hindu music despite the confusion of centuries, which stirs their hearts.

Mr. Stokowski hopes to take back to America and Europe a message of Truth as revealed in the religion, art and music of India, and thereby bring about a greater understanding and sympathy between the East and the West.

Not as the death of stars, quenching their gleam

With sudden pall of dawn; nor death of moon

Who lingers feebly along heavenway

Reluctant to unhouse that weary soul—

But O, my Death! come as the Sun’s to him—

The Sun, who never seems so rich in life.

As in his last hour when he shrouds himself

In rose and purple, and goes gloriously

To his horizon tomb!

Thru the efforts of Sir Arthur Ponsonby, Under Secretary of the Foreign Office in London in 1924, the following pledge was signed by 128,770 Britishers and presented recently to Prime Minister Baldwin:

"We, the undersigned, convinced that disputes between nations are capable of settlement either by diplomatic negotiations or some other form of international arbitrage, hereby solemnly declare that we will refuse to support or render war service to any government which resorts to arms."

A man willing to spend a million dollars to bring the doctrine of Reincarnation to the attention of Americans has been found in Mr. Edgar B. Davis, Texas oil millionaire. Mr. Davis opened his play "The Ladder," based on a Reincarnation theme, in New York in October, 1926. It was not a box-office success, and Mr. Davis spent three quarters of a million dollars the first year to keep the play running. On Thanksgiving day, 1927, Mr. Davis opened the doors of the theatre to the public, charging no admission. The play is still running on that free basis, and any New Yorker who cares to, may view the inspiring play, "The Ladder," without charge.

President Coolidge sounded the following notes of warning, and of confidence, in his recent speech before the Union League Club of Philadelphia:

"We have demonstrated that we were able to meet adversity and overcome it. The test which now confronts the nation is prosperity. There is nothing more likely to reveal the soul of a people. History is littered with stories of nations destroyed by their own wealth . . . .

"The great mass of our people, whatever their possessions, are conscientious and industrious, seeking to serve humanity. They know that the doctrine of ease is the doctrine of surrender and decay. To the effort which built this country, they are giving increased effort to maintain it. The heart of the nation is sound."

A creedless school of religion has recently been started at the University of Iowa. Absolute non-sectarianism is stressed, and its directors are a Jew, a Catholic and a Protestant. The undertaking is supported by funds of the denominations and an initial gift of $35,000 from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Regular university credit is given to students of the courses offered by this school, on Christian history and teaching, and comparative religion.

The American Opera Company, under the gifted Directorship of the famous tenor, Vladimir Rosing, one of the distinguished students of Yogoda, has scored a brilliant success in its first New York season at the Gallo Theatre.

Mr. Rosing’s presentation of opera in the vernacular, interpreted by American singers, and beautifully staged from a new point of view, has captivated the critical New York audiences.

Mme. Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch, a distinguished student of Yogoda, has recently been playing the title role in the dramatization of "Joan of Arc" by her father, Mark Twain, at Hartford, Connecticut.

Rabindranath Tagore, India’s famous poet, recently took leave of his University in Bolpur to visit Italy as the official guest of Premier Mussolini. The Tagore school in Bengal, Shantiniketan ("the abode of peace") is designed as a Center of exchange for the cultures of East and West.

Count Hermann Keyserling, who has instituted the teaching of the Yoga practices of India in his famous school in Germany, has come recently to America on a lecture tour. During the course of his address on "Monogamy," in New York, Keyserling said:

"Everything spiritual, everything essential within us can express itself only as a symbol. If you see nothing but the physical facts of life you forget the essential part. If you want to be healthy, happy and normal, and do not think of inward growth then you get to the level of animals. Modern life is on the wrong track. Spiritual facts do exist.

"The question of monogamy is infinitely more fundamental than any theory or anything which human imagination can change. Monogamy provides unique possibilities for growth. A state where marriage consists chiefly of divorce is not a state which can last very long, simply because it is against cosmic order. Man is biologically monogamous."

A memorial birthday celebration for Sri Sri Lahiri Mahashai was duly observed at his birthplace, Krishnagar, Bengal, on September 16th, 17th and 18th, 1927. (Sri Lahiri was the teacher of the Master of Swami Yogananda). Hundreds of followers of the teachings of the great saint assembled. Messages of reverence were received from America and many other places. Important religious and social problems of the day were discussed in the light of the truths delivered by the great Lahiri Mahashi. Teachers, students and ex-students of Swami Yogananda’s Ranchi School joined to make the festival a success. A proposal was made to commemorate the memory of the great Sri Lahiri by erecting a suitable memorial on the site of his birthplace and by establishing a central institution where people from various places could come and stay to learn and practice the life of true spiritual discipline as laid down by the great saint, Lahiri Mahashay.

"It has been solitude which has restored me to my real self and allowed me to explore new depths. I would tell every artist to find a cloister for herself; otherwise she can hear nothing but the disturbing turmoil of the world."—Geraldine Farrar, in a recent interview.

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted in "the Revolt of Asia" by Upton Close, as saying, "Government must be secondary to culture. We must have government which will permit that our culture and way of life be paramount, that we take up our ancient handicrafts again, spin and weave and make useful and beautiful things with our hands, and that we shall stop the stench and smoke of modern industrialism that is creeping over our country before it robs us of our souls. The false teaching that life consists of the multitude of possessions, or comforts, or thrills, or even achievements which a man can attain, must not have the prestige of backing by a ruling class." Gandhi told Upton Close, in speaking about America, "I pity those of you who are being led into bitterness and despair by your illusions as to what is worthwhile in life. You glory in speed, thinking not of the goal. You elevate process, rather than the ultimate product; you think your souls are saved because you can invent radio. Of what elevation to man is a method of broadcasting when you have only drivel to sent out? What mark of civilization is it to be able to produce a one hundred twenty page newspaper in one night when most of it is either banal or actually vicious and not two columns of it are worth preserving? What contribution to man has aeronautics made which can over-balance its use in his self-destruction?"

O swift I’m away on the wings of the morning.

Seeking the dreams and visions of youth.

Dreams only come to those who can read them.

Visions to those who will seek for the Truth.

The lure of the Voices now beckon me onward;

To seek, and to find,

And to make them come true;

To pluck from Life’s Garden the beautiful roses,

Leaving to those who will seek not—the rue.

"Four words used constantly by Swami Yogananda in his lectures and classes, sum up the very essence of his teaching. These words are "Calmness," "Concentration," "Technique," and "Realization."—Louis E. Van Norman.

(Macmillan Co.)

"A.E." is the perfect artist. He has something of surprising moment to say and he says it beautifully. His prose is of such simple, lyrical loveliness that one reads with a breathless ecstasy, and the rhythm of his telling sings to the inner ear a mystic song. The candle of his vision has been kept so long burning by faith and right effort that the lambent light of its steady glowing permeates the mysteries of the spirit and enables him to speak in matchless words of his explorations in the Many-Coloured Land. His ultimate goal is the Ever Glorious One but many divine beings detain his vision on the way. He meets gods and fairies, nymphs and dryads—and the Earth Memory reveals the wonders of its ancient myths.

With ancestral Celtic lore to inspire him to musing, and delighting in an eager companionship with nature, "A.E." set his face toward the hills. The Mother of the World lifted for a space the veil from Her true face and he became Her devoted lover. By fierce concentration of will in Her service, he approached to the throne of God, "bare of all but desire for the Eternal." This desire was so intense that he finally reached to a place in his spirit that was self-shining, diffusing light that pointed the way whether he walked a mountain path or the streets of a city. Impelled to guide others to his El Dorado, he has made sign-posts of his visions and dissected with beautiful precision the stuff of dreams, imagination and intuition—making a lucid "analytic" for the skeptical. But beyond all these is concentration and meditation. No one, "A.E." discovered, can gain perception of the Greater Truth or glimpse the Ultimate Reality who will not subject himself to this discipline. With the authentic ring of truth, he writes:

"It is reasonable to assume that the highest ecstasy and vision are conditioned by law and attainable by all, and this might be argued as of more importance even than the message of the seers. I attribute to that unwavering meditation and fiery concentration of will a growing luminousness in my brain as if I had unsealed in the body a fountain of interior light. Normally we close our eyes on a cloudy gloom through which vague forms struggle sometimes into definiteness. But the luminous quality gradually became normal in me, and at times in meditation there broke in on me an almost intolerable lustre of light, pure and shining faces, dazzling processions of figures, most ancient, ancient places and peoples, and landscapes lovely as the lost Eden. These appeared at first to have no more relation to myself than images from a street without that one sees reflected in a glass; but at times meditation prolonged itself into spheres which were radiant with actuality."

In his preface to the book, "A.E." writes:

"When I am alone in my room looking upon the walls I have painted I see there reflections of the personal life, but when I look through the windows I see a living nature and landscapes not painted by hands. So, too, when I meditate I feel in the images and thoughts which throng about me the reflections of personality, but there are also windows in the soul through which can be seen images created not by human but by the divine imagination. I have tried according to my capacity to report about the divine order and to discriminate between that which was self-begotten fantasy and that which came from a higher sphere. These retrospects and meditations are the efforts of an artist and poet to relate his own vision to the vision of the seers and writers of the sacred books, and to discover what element of truth lay in those imaginations."

One would like to go on quoting indefinitely. Each sentence has a new illumination, a poignant beauty of the spirit. Throughout these revelations, however, there is one thing very noticeable and that is the humility and modesty of "A.E." He shares the secret wonders of his quest with all who can understand, and quickens a new desire in all those who cannot. He says: "There is no personal virtue in me other than this, that I followed a path all may travel but on which few do journey." And again: "The only justification for speech from me, rather than from others whose knowledge is more profound, is that the matching of words to thoughts is an art I have practiced more." Indeed, his feeling for words is profound and intuitional. He believes that "the roots of human speech are the sound correspondences of powers which in their combination and interaction make up the universe." Because of this belief, he has long meditated on the true roots of language in relation to idea, force, color and form and, as a result, offers an amazing contribution concerning primeval thought in the origins of speech. In this connection, he gives much potential material to ponder over, and scholars should not be too ready to criticize it, labeling it "ingenious", for certainly there are times when students of linguistics need a special perceptive quality which only intuition can supply.

His last chapter is entitled "Earth". He things of earth "as the floor of a cathedral where altar and Presence are everywhere." It was this reverence which first opened the secrets of Nature to him, the wonder revealed inspiring him to high endeavor. In service to others, he crystallizes his creed. He, as the earth lover, gradually realizes "the golden world is all about him in imperishable beauty, and he may pass from the vision to the profounder beauty of being, and know an eternal love is within and around him, pressing upon him and sustaining with infinite tenderness his body, his soul and his spirit."—Reviewed for EAST-WEST by H. A.

(E. P. Dutton & Co.)

Mr. Mukerji, well-known in America as a lecturer and author of "The Face of Silence," "My Brother’s Face" and other books beautifully interpreting the East to the West, has now written a reply to the widely-circulated and vicious falsehoods of Miss Mayo’s book on India.

Mr. Mukerji’s reply is sane and calm, but exposes the untruths and unfounded generalities of Miss Mayo’s book. "Mukerji’s reply is the kindest I have ever read," writes Harry Hansen in the New York "World." "He might, had he wished, revealed a few secrets about american life to the East Indians. Surely that is in order. The time may come when the Eastern world will take a good look at us and suggest that housecleaning should begin at home."

Those who have read Miss Mayo’s book should read Mr. Mukerji’s reply, and fair-minded persons will do so.

—By Ray Stannard Baker

(Doubleday, Page)

The recent issuance of these volumes is one of the outstanding events in twentieth century literary annals. Every Yogoda student, everyone whose heart thrills at the contact of a large spirit, a sterling character, a high intellect, will cherish these volumes of the greatest American of his generation.

Two quotations from the book are given here. Stockton Axson, Willson’s brother-in-law writes:

"I have sometimes wondered how a family composed of varying and very positive elements ever contrived to live in such absolute and undisturbed harmony as did the Wilson family, and I have come to the conclusion that such a result can be attained only in one way, not by any prescription, or plan or domestic ‘scheme’ of action, but only by enthroning love supreme—that where love is always master, every day and every hour, there must be harmony."

When Wilson was attacked during his career as university president as being hostile to science, he said:

"I have no indictment against what science has done. I have only a warning to utter against the atmosphere which has stolen from laboratories into lecture rooms and into the general air of the world at large . . .

"Science has not changed the nature of society, has not made history a whit easier to understand, human nature a whit easier to reform. It has won for us a great liberty in the physical world, a liberty from superstitious fear and from disease, a freedom to use nature as a familiar servant; but it has not freed us from ourselves."

—By L. Adams Beck

(Cosmopolitan Book Corp.)

In the form of a novel, L. Adams Beck has written a book that should inspire many who are stumbling along the Way seeking the Truth. She has looked upon the face of Asia and the gaze of those effulgent eyes has brightened her vision with its ancient wisdom. Some might criticize the book, saying that she has shared her own Godhead too generously and given pearls of great price to the unappreciative. Why should she weld fragments of such high truths into a story? Are they not potent enough to shine in single jewelled sentences set in the fire of their own brilliance? Yes, but in that form it would be difficult for the many to understand and Mrs. Beck has done a fine thing in interpreting them for the laity. One feels that she has indeed found her "yoga" even as her heroine of the crystal soul, Brynhild Ingmar, found hers in noble sculpture. Mrs. Beck has the charm and grace of the old time story tellers and makes her characters live and move in quickening adventure across the wild and secret places of Asia.

Cardonald’s karma takes him from a gossip-mongering bungalow in Simla to the still, green home of the Dunbars in Kashmir where life is ordered by beauty. Then on to a quest in the high mountains, a physical quest for an ancient and holy manuscript to be found in the Monastery of the Manis, and a spiritual quest for high enlightenment. This lamasery in Tibet, poised on the edge of a terrific precipice somewhere between earth and sky, vibrating to the chantings of four thousand lamas, is the almost unearthly setting for the richly wrought pageant of lives who move steadily onward to Salvation, ever inspired by the grand music of their Karma. The "Diamond Sceptre," an incarnation of wisdom in human form, guides this drama of souls according to the Eternal Law. Under his teaching, Cardonald learns the age-old rules. By mastery of self, attained by the practice of Raja Yoga, he gains the power to pay his Karmic debts, thus unravelling the tangled skein of past actions, setting him free to travel the Path.

This spiritual adventure is the heart of the story. The author has greatly helped her hero by giving him the companionship of people who walk in light, and by placing him during his bitterest struggles in natural surroundings so beautiful and exotic that they cannot but impel him to seek the blooming of that rare and perfect flower within, the thousand-petalled lotus of the brain. But the author of this tale is careful that this magic setting should not discourage her less fortunately situated readers from starting on the path to the House of Fulfillment, and points out that the Way is open to each earnest seeker,—accomplishment being greater victory in unlovely surroundings and an antagonistic environment, for these obstacles are but the excuses of an indolent spirit.

The message of this book is a prod to inertia. The author has given the first steps of the ancient and well-tried rules of Yoga in clear, succinct form and has also given flashing glimpses of the fulfillment that comes from faithful and devoted practice.—Reviewed for EAST-WEST by H. A.

"To many, including so unlikely a sympathiser as the late Prof. Huxley, one of the strongest arguments for reincarnation is its analogy with other rhythmic processes in nature. Perhaps the best, as it is the nearest example, is that of our own lives, with their sequence of days of wakeful activity, severed by nights of slumber and dream. The resemblance of sleep and death is a commonplace of poetry: every night when we close our eyes we rehearse that greater surrender. Every day is a short life, every life but a longer day. Sleep and waking, birth and death, ebb and flow, contraction and expansion; such rhythms pervade the universe."

"I am a believer in reincarnation and I believe we all have been here many times before and been through, many times, the experiences that we are going through now. Perhaps we have flown many times before and flown on a greater scale than we have at any time since aviation came to the present civilization. The time may come when we shall learn how to fly to other planets."

"Without air upon which to fly?" his interviewer asked, referring to the fact that only a thin envelop of air surrounds the earth.

"Exhaust all the air from an electric light bulb," said Ford, "and still the light will find something to travel on. I do not regard it as impossible that we shall learn someday how to reach other planets."

"The human mind can be changed,

If you but have the patience. Moral force

Can be substitute for violence.

I can wait—

Fifteen years, one hundred fifty,

Four hundred, are the same

To the man of the spirit."—Mahatma Gandhi.

_________

"A truly good book is something as natural,

And as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair

And perfect, as a wild flower

Discovered on the prairies of the West

Or in the jungles of the East."—Thoreau.

Recently an American, Miss Mayo, has written a vicious book against India, full of falsehoods, half-truths cunningly misrepresented as whole truths, distorted facts, quotations torn out of their proper context, and bitter anti-India propaganda. In her book, which has had an enormous sale in England and America, the author pictures the Indian race as unfit to breathe the very air of heaven. She finds not one thing to praise or emulate throughout the entire structure of Indian life.

Her book has produced a most unfortunate reaction against America in India. Mass meetings have been held in almost every city protesting against the sale of a book designed to arouse hatred and contempt for three hundred million Indians from their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. The American author does not realize that Divine Providence does not take geographical locality into consideration when sending souls to this earth. One cannot say with truth that any race is stronger or weaker in character than any other race, since the qualities of human nature are found distributed very evenly wherever one may go—provided, of course, that one sees clearly and without race prejudice.

How unfortunate that books like the one in consideration should be published to wither the delicate flower of friendship and growing understanding between East and West!

Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, both of whom the American writer freely quotes in her book, have denounced the book as false and malicious.

Professor John J. Cornelius, formerly professor of philosophy at Lucknow University, India, writing in the December, 1927, issue of "Current History" in defense of India, and exposing the falsehoods in Miss Mayo’s book, says:

"It seems a tragedy in race relations that the creed-monger, the bagman, the diplomat and the soldier should have been, for the most part, the interpreters of the different cultures and civilizations. Add to these the international meddler and scavenger, whose ‘literary’ output deludes the public with the half-truths and no-truths of their one-sided experience, and we have the modern world of chaos and confusion, hatred and bitterness."

In closing his long article in "Current History," Professor Cornelius observes:

"India does not resent criticism of its customs and culture, since a stranger’s appraisal has much of value, but she insists the criticism be fair and unbiased." But, he says, the American writer of the recent attack on India, "packs her book full of half-truths and no-truths. She overstates, suppresses, misinterprets facts and distorts evidence to support her prejudices; she uncompromisingly condemns the moral and religious life of a whole people; she refuses to see anything good in the Indian Nationalist movement or anything bad in the British administration. A critical study of her book, and an examination of her ‘carefully documented’ evidences, and the way she has handled them, lead me to say without reserve that her book is dishonest, misleading, provocative of ill-will and calculated to produce hatred between the people of India and those of Great Britain and America. In fact, those in close touch with the Indian press have already noticed how India, now turning her eyes to this country, has been led to expose America as the crime centre of the world."

This American author, concludes Professor Cornelius, "is likely to produce as much hatred against the United States in India as the other American tourists produced in France last year. In this age of hatred and bitterness, of political friction and commercial greed, the strain in relations between nations and people is so great that a book such as this cannot but be inimical to the cause of better understanding and international friendship."

The proferred excuse of Miss Mayo for having written such a book against India, was that she wished to "help" in reforming the country. The following extract from "The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda" might well have been written in rebuke for her insincerity:

"If those whose eyes have been blinded by the glamour of material things, whose whole dedication of life is to eating and drinking and enjoying, whose ideal of possessions is land and gold, whose ideal of pleasure is that of the senses, whose God is money, and whose goal is a life of ease and comfort in this world and death after that, whose minds never look forward, and who rarely think of anything higher than the sense objects in the midst of which they live—if such as these go to India, what do they see? Poverty, squalor, superstition, darkness, hideousness everywhere. Why? Because in their minds enlightenment means dress, education, social politeness."

Continuing, he sets forth the necessary equipment of a true reformer, one whose words will reach the mark, whose statements, even though painful, will indeed be received as the "wounds of a friend."

"If you wish to be a true reformer, three things are necessary. The first is to feel. Do you really feel for your brother, do you really feel that there is so much misery in the world, so much ignorance and superstition? Do you really feel that men are your brothers? Does this idea come into your whole being? Does it run with your blood? Does it tingle in your veins? Does it course through every nerve and filament of your body?"

If you have this first qualification for a reformer, Swami Vivekananda goes on to say that the second is to have a definite remedy to offer. Do you know a better method than the one in use of burning the dross while preserving the gold, one swifter, surer? And, lastly, is your motive perfectly pure from all taint of desire for fame and gain? If you cannot pass these tests, be silent. They alone entitle you to lay bare the wounds in your brother’s body.

"I partook of nourishment once in a day, once in two days, once in seven days. I have been an eater of the herbs, and fungi of the fields, moss and grass, roots and fruits. I took the vow standing. When I lay down to rest, it was with thorns upon my sides.

"I was in a woodland place,—in solitude, and seeing anybody, I fled from grove to grove, from thicket to thicket, from glen to glen, from hill to hill,—so that he might not know me, nor I him. I was in a dark and dreadful wood,—a fearsome forest, burning in summer’s sun, frozen in winter’s cold, far in the forest-depths, naked I sat.

"Yet by this ascetic method," Buddha significantly adds, "With all these painful practices, I did not attain to knowledge. Why not? To Wisdom I was not come; for Wisdom cometh to the man who reasons and reflects, who is recollected and restrained in conduct, who is constant of heart and in full possession of mental powers at their best." Buddha left his two ascetic teachers. Buddha understood that the ascetic path was the path of repression, not of spiritual expression and unfoldment. And when uddh attained to Enlightenment, he realized that the true path was the "Noble Eight-fold Path," the "Middle Path," that avoids the two extremes of asceticism and indulgence. Neither repression nor sense-gratification is spiritually helpful. "Tune the sitar neither low or high." This "Middle Path" did Buddha declare in the very first Discourse he gave after his enlightenment—the discourse at Benares.

Spiritual value of the Physical.—The "Middle Path" needs to be re-proclaimed today. For a wrong conception of the spiritual life has long prevailed; and many with beautiful emotions confound spirituality with repression, with inaction—with rejection of the physical and material. True spirituality is not rejection but conquest. Religion is not negation of the material but its sublimation. For the physical is a form of the spiritual and the body is a temple of the Atma (Spirit.) Buddha himself had a strong body,—a herculean frame. And it is interesting to note that Buddha like Sri Rama was a good archer. "The path of health," said Buddha, "is the path of holiness." This truth needs to be impressed today, upon the minds and hearts of the nation’s youth.—"The Punjab."

Oh India, Country of Divine discontent,

Grieve thou not, at the cruel comment

In a recent book;

Having the eyes the author seeth not at all.

Having ears she heareth not the call

Of thy soul. She’s swayed by things external,

As most of us are.

She hitched not her vehicle to a star—

She loveth "brass tacks."

She heweth down here and scattereth there

She forgetteth her ancestors bowed in prayer

For the truths which she lacks.

Forgive her, India—forgive us all

For our spiritual blindness—

For the Pekin-like wall

We’ve built round our hearts

Lest seeing the light of the ages we’ll be

Converted to true Christianity

That thy country imparts.

The Mount Washington Helpers’ Association of the Yogoda Sat-Sanga Headquarters in Los Angeles reports that it was able to meet the $500.00 indebtedness for street bonds for the Yogoda property on Mount Washington, thru the selling of Yogoda Christmas cards and mottoes, and the Christmas Bazaar. Thanks are extended by the Association to the Yogoda Centers in Eastern cities, and to other Yogoda friends, for their splendid cooperation in selling the Christmas cards.

After a short trip to Eastern Yogoda Centers, Swami Dhirananda, residential Swami at the Los Angeles Yogoda Headquarters, returned to Los Angeles and was welcomed home by several hundred students.

On January 21st, Swami Dhirananda addressed an audience of 2,300 people at the Trinity Auditorium in Los Angeles, at which time he outlined the work and ideals of the Yogoda cause in America. On this occasion the Hon. James McLachlan, ex-congressman, also gave a stirring speech on the beautiful, spiritual message of Yogoda, and its wholesome influence on American life. The large audience demonstrated the loyal support of the Los Angeles people for the Yogoda work in their city.

On January 22nd, a dinner attended by several hundred Yogoda students and friends, was held in honor of Swami Dhirananda at the Mount Washington Center.

Dr. Robert Taylor, professor of Comparative Religion at Pomona College, Claremont, California, came to hear Swami Dhirananda’s address on "Culture and Christ Spirit" at the regular Sunday service at the Mount Washington Center on January 15th. The professor was so enthusiastic about the Swami’s talk that he is bringing an entire class in philosophy to hear Swami Dhirananda on the subject of "The Religious Life in India" on January 29th. After the services, the professor and his class will attend a Hindu dinner in their honor at the Center.

Swami Dhirananda has accepted an invitation to address the Pasadena Forum.

The Mount Washington Center, headquarters of the Yogoda Sat-Sanga movement in America, will be glad to inform inquirers regarding the work of the Center or any other matter pertaining to the Yogoda cause. The Mount Washington Center is a non-sectarian institution for men, women and children, with Sunday devotional services open to the public. Membership in week-day classes and all other activities of the Center is open to any earnest seeker of truth.

The Center, founded in 1925 by Swami Yogananda, has the support of many prominent and thoughtful citizens of California who follow the Yogoda teaching of all-round development of body, mind and soul thru self-discipline and self-knowledge, and which embodies the highest moral and spiritual ideals of Christ and other world teachers.

After his Minneapolis classes, Swami Yogananda gave a series of lectures at the Peoples Church in St. Paul. While in that city, the Swami addressed the following clubs:

Elks Club, Lions Club, Traffic Club, Conopus Club, Kiwanis Club, Optimists Club, Professional and Business Men’s Club.

Swami also spoke for the Minneapolis Theosophical Society on November 8th, and for the Minneapolis "Ladies of the Round Table" on November 7th.

On November 5th, Swami Yogananda addressed the Cosmopolitan Club of the University of Minnesota on "The Literature of India." On this occasion, he was introduced by Dr. Anna von Helmholtz-Phelan, professor of Literature at the University, and a Yogoda student.

On December 3rd, Swami spoke before the music students of the University of Minnesota, and played for them on three Hindu musical instruments—the talilaf (Indian drum), the esraj, and the dulcetina. With those instruments, he demonstrated the 24 moods and the 21 intervals represented in the Hindu musical scale.

One of the distinguished Yogoda students in the St. Paul class was the Rev. Walter S. Howard, rector of the Christ Episcopal Church of St. Paul. Rev. Broberg also joined the class.

Father Howard opened the Christ Church Parish House for the Yogoda class meetings in St. Paul.

"How beautiful it is to find such love and understanding from my Christian brothers as Father Howard has given me," said Swami Yogananda. "He expresses the true spirit of Christ in his love for truth, from whatever source it may come. India would welcome such true examples of the Christian life as Father Howard typifies."

Father Howard drew such love from Swami Yogananda that the Swami gave a demonstration for the first time in America, in the Parish House, of his ability to vary the heart-beat by will-power. The Swami let Father Howard feel his heart-beat which Swami varied at will from 104 to 74, to 58 and then Father Howard could scarcely feel it at all.

The St. Paul Yogoda class, in giving Swami Yogananda a gift as token of their love, sent the following words of appreciation for the message of India’s great sages, which was presented to the Swami by Father Howard:

"Your message of truth, revealing so beautifully the meaning and blessedness of God and religion, and reconciling for us science and religion, have been a startling revelation and illumination to hundreds of St. Paul people.

"All of us, who have been privileged to attend your classes, owe a great debt of gratitude for the teaching you have given us, and for the practical methods you have taught us for attaining spiritual life and blessedness." The swami rejoiced to know that the deathless light of truth from India is received so eagerly by the seeking Western souls.

The St. Paul students of Swami Yogananda organized themselves into the Yogoda Sat-Sanga St. Paul Center under the leadership of Mr. George A. Young, with Mr. M. R. Keith, a prominent St. Paul attorney, as president. The first meeting of the new Center was held on December 13th at the St. Francis Hotel.

The Minneapolis students of Yogoda also organized themselves into a Yogoda Center under the leadership of Mr. Stanley S. Staring, a leading Minneapolis realtor and a member of the advertising committee of the National Association of Real Estate Boards. This new Yogoda Center held it first meeting in November with 600 students present. Regular weekly meetings are held at the Radisson Hotel.

Thanks are extended by Swami Yogananda to the Minneapolis "Lake District Advocate" and to its Club Correspondent, Mr. D. R. Morrisey, for their kindness and cooperation in spreading the Yogoda message in Minneapolis.

Swami Yogananda visited Pittsburgh on December 9th, to attend the Pittsburgh Yogoda Bazaar and Social, and to introduce the new Pittsburgh Yogoda leader, Mr. R. K. Das, from the University of Calcutta. The Bazaar was a great success, with many fancy booths, a fish pond, and a wonderful exhibit of Indian brassware, scarves and embroideries.

On December 11th, Swami Yogananda paid a visit to his Cleveland students, and lectured in the Hotel Winton on"the Art of Realization" to an enthusiastic audience.

On December 14th, Swami Yogananda visited his two Washington Yogoda Centers, and lectured in the Washington Hotel to an audience of several hundred Yogoda students and their friends. Swami also addressed his Washington students on December 19th.

On January 2nd, Swami Yogananda attended the third Race Betterment Conference at Battle Creek, Michigan, and enjoyed meeting many earnest educators and social welfare workers there.

On December 27th, Swami Yogananda attended the 16th Convention of the Hindustan Association of America, Inc., held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Swami was the principal speaker for the Convention on that evening, and also the next night at their Banquet.

The Swami wishes to thank the hundreds of Yogoda students and friends from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, Denver, Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, Detroit, Cincinnati, Washington, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Massachusetts and Florida, who so kindly sent him Christmas greetings and gifts. He deeply appreciated these tokens of their love and goodwill.

Swami Yogananda is at present lecturing at the Scottish Rite Temple in Miami, Fla. Yogoda classes will be held during February at the Anglers Club in Miami, and free lectures at the Central High School.

A rare Tibetan antique, consisting of an incense burner, scroll and vase, were presented to Swami Yogananda last summer by some of his Detroit students, who have recently informed him that these articles formerly belonged to the great Russian painter, Nicholas Roerich, and were brought from his home at Darjeeling in Tibet.

The late Ulric Dunbar did work on a bust of Swami Yogananda in Washington, about a year ago. Mr. Dunbar was the creator of many heroic-sized busts of prominent men in the United States Capitol and in numerous galleries. The above bust is now in possession of the Washington Yogoda Center.

You need, occasionally, to be a skillful fencer in the social world in order to protect yourself from other people. You must not be insincere. At the same time, you must preserve your own inviolability. Practice will make perfect. The following are a few examples of defensive retorts in conversation:

(1) "Well, well, and where have you been?"

"Oh, I’ve been going to and from on the earth."

(2) "Come to visit us again."

"Thank you."

(3) "Will you do it?"

"Let me think it over for a few days."

(4) "What do you think of such and such a thing?"

"I really do not know enough about it to think intelligently on the subject."

To work with God in unity,

This alone is harmony

To feel the peace of God steal o’er

The frightened senses, which before

Had racked us. Just to know

That only good will God bestow.

Why do we doubt God’s wondrous love,

And cavil for a sign to prove!

This we may know; If close to God

We seek to draw, the chastening rod

Will lift, the peace that comes will be

Our sign. The truth has made us free.

"When I heard Yogoda Lesson 4 from Swami Yogananda, presented so admirably and so thoroughly scientifically, I was completely taken off my feet with admiration. To that admiration was gradually added, love and keen devotion. Yogoda is an excellent method for self development. I heartily approve of it."—Dr. Aaron Friedell, Physician and Surgeon, 1319 6th Ave., N., Minneapolis.

"I wish to add my thanks for all the blessings I have received thru the Yogoda exercises, which have helped me in every way. I have been relieved from pain in my chest, of long standing, and I have also taken off my glasses, which I have worn for over ten years. In Yogoda I have found something which I have been looking for all my life."—A. Nielsen, 3515 Garfield Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"Not only has the practice of Yogoda corrected a faulty heart action and constant headaches, but it has been a gateway to the true understanding of a Christian life, whereby immortality can be obtained. If it were possible to sell the knowledge which has come to me through Swami Yogananda’s teachings, I would not accept all the material wealth in the universe in exchange for it."—I. B. Norton, 3343 17th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

"Since taking the Yogoda lessons, I have abandoned all other exercises for personal use, and in the past few days, have overcome a cold which, without Yogoda exercises, would have necessitated treatment for a specialist at a cost of $3.00 a treatment for the purpose of preserving my hearing. I am thoroughly convinced that youthfulness of mind and body may be retained indefinitely through the Yogoda exercises."—E. O. Farnsworth, school teacher and physical culturist, 2432 Dupont Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"I have been soul-hungry and mentally asleep. Yogoda is removing the cork of ignorance from my brain and letting in God’s light of truth, which is renewing my health, making my body a fit temple for my soul, stimulating my will by a determination to know God and His laws so that I will sleep no more. It has brought an understanding of why I have had to go thru certain experiences, illustrating God’s law of cause and effect. It has brought to me a greater understanding of Jesus’ teachings. A joy has come into my life which surpasses all other joys and a love for God and all humanity. A greater peace is in my soul."—Mrs. Annette Tell, kindergarten teacher, 4521 Casco Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"The Yogoda lessons and exercises are doing a great deal for me. They have given me a new life and vigor, and I have received a remarkable healing of my deafness."—John A. Cozens, 4030 2nd Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"I had a theater seat fall, injuring my spine, and the bones connecting with the hip joints, causing many disorders. Now I am healed, have no pain thru those injured organs and can bend my spine in any direction."—Edna Ferbes, 4512 Washburn Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"I shall have more power and more understanding because of the Yogoda System which you are giving to the world."—Mr. O. L. Gulbro, 3021 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis (Supt. Munsell’s Health Bureau).

"I received a healing of my eyes, for which I am very thankful."—Milton Steil, 4512 Washburn Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"I cannot with words express my appreciation for what Yogoda has done for me—not only its physical help but also for its spiritual upliftment. Jesus said, ‘Seek and ye shall find.’"—Mrs. John Nelson, 904 18th Ave., S.E., Minneapolis.

"The affliction in my throat that seemed to be so serious has entirely cleared up,. The doctor was so pleased to see that it is entirely gone. You will recall that I told you the doctor said there was no help. My heart is filled with gratitude inexpressible."—Mrs. Geo. Kapler, 2628 W. 44 St., Minneapolis.

"Yogoda has shown me that everything is possible nothing impossible; that every request is answered if we know how to ask. Yogoda will teach us how. If anything is truth, Yogoda is. It is a blessing to humanity . . . My arm was injured more than nine years ago. I had two operations to regain the use of my hand. Three splendid doctors worked on me four hours the last time. They did wonders in patching it up, but my hand remained numb. I have not been able to close my hand in all these years. I received healing in one of your healing lectures in a most remarkable way, helping not only my arm, but my spine which was injured at the age of three. I suffered dreadfully from this curvature. But it is almost back in place now. I want to mention that the curvature of my spine was not a mere trifle. I dreaded removing my outer garments for fear of being stared at. So you can see I have improved most wonderfully under Yogoda. I am stronger in every way. I am surely getting ‘gold for ashes’ and ‘oil of joy for mourning.’ The Yogoda lessons have given me a new lease on life. I consider Yogoda the greatest blessing that ever came to mankind."—F. Severson, 3910 3rd Ave., S., Minneapolis.

"I attended all your lectures. At first I was somewhat confused, as I had not attended anything like them, but that soon disappeared. I have suffered with insomnia for years. Two years ago my beloved husband passed on into the unknown realm. That caused me to almost collapse, and I have remained in that state up to the time I started your lectures. Last night, I distinctly experienced healing. Yogoda is the most marvelous teaching of the age. I might say, the Twentieth Century Miracle."—Mrs. A. E. Barker, Hotel Allen, Minneapolis.

"Words cannot express my gratitude for what Yogoda has done for me. The joints of my fingers have been stiff and painful for four years. After practicing the Yogoda lessons for two days, the pain and stiffness have entirely left the fingers."—Mrs. H. J. Liebt, 442 Elm St., Buffalo, N. Y.

"About two years ago, I hurt my back while sliding down an ice-hill. Since then it has bothered me greatly paining me severely and being so stiff I could not bend it. But now, since taking the Yogoda lessons, I have received great healing in my back. The pain is gone and I am able to bend backward, and also to touch my head to the floor—a thing I was unable to do, even before I hurt my back. No words can tell how much I appreciate the wonderful teaching you bring."—E. Anderson, 3036 15th Ave., S., Minneapolis.

The following article appeared in the "Minnesota Daily" for Nov. 10, 1927, telling of Swami Yogananda’s talk before the Cosmopolitan Club of the University of Minnesota:

"Amid a recent cosmopolitan gathering on the campus, the noted Indian metaphysician, Swami Yogananda, expressed his opinions of the literature of India very uniquely, saying that ‘the greatest thing for literature to do is to help life and make it better.’ The sentiment expressed seems platitudinous and prosaic to writers and readers of the ‘best sellers.’ For the literary hack grinding away, this is a mid-Victorian attitude. With presses daily pouring forth an unending stream of novels, short stories, startling revelations of revered heroes, histories and outlines of mankind, and innumerable other brands of written offerings, it seems that the Indian’s purpose of literature is strikingly naive and ingenious amid the mercenary efforts of the hosts of the literati. Today professional pessimists and defamers traduce life and fulminate with black calumny against all humanity—all in the name of reality.

"Another coterie expend their energy in turning out exposes of beloved figures in history or uncover the ‘truth’ about a chaste divine or an incorruptible statesman. Whether their revelations are supported by data and evidence is of little expedience; the more startling and vivid that their accusations are, the more they will be consumed by the avid readers of the type to which they pander.

"Another characteristic of Indian literature is its emphasis on intuitive power. The Oriental is an ardent disciple of intuition, believing that it is a necessary supplement to the senses. It is in this respect that the Hindu is vastly more spiritual than the Westerner who is more pragmatic and empirical. The Hindu transcends reason and sensation to go into the mystical realm on intuition, while the Occidental forges steadily ahead building his skyscrapers and immersing himself in a tumult of activity with no thought of ephemeral abstractions. The westerner could well become a protege of a bedraggled and unkempt Indian philosopher striving toward Nirvana, who is almost totally oblivious of his surroundings and material wants."

Beds of flowers,

Or vales of tears,

Dewdrops on the buds of roses,

Myriads misers of desert sand,

The little running joys of childhood,

The stampede of wild passions,

The ebbing eddies of laughter,

The drooping petals of hopes,

The haunting melancholy of disease,

The will-o-the-wisp of our desire,

Leading on from mire to mire,

The octopus grip of self-complacency

And time-beaten habits,

The first-born joyous cry of a babe,

And the last groan of death,

Are but shadows seen

On the Cosmic mental screen.

These are but shadows,

Yet they have, O, many shades!

There are dark shadows

And there are light shadows.

So even shadows may entertain.

Take wing, my soul, and upwards bend thy flight

To thy originary fields of light.

Here is nothing, nothing here below

That can deserve thy longer stay;

A secret whisper bids thee go

To purer air and beams of native day.

The ambition of the towering lark out-vy

And, like him, sing as thou dost upward fly.

How all things lessen which my soul before

Did with the grovelling multitude adore!

Those pageant glories disappear,

Which charm and dazzle mortals’ eyes;

How do I in this higher sphere,

How do I mortals with their joys despise!

Pure, uncorrupted element I breathe,

And pity their gross atmosphere beneath.

How vile, how sordid here those trifles show

That please the tenants of that ball below!

THE PRESENCE—By E. Charles

—Swami Yogananda.

An absorbing love-story of unusual worth and meaning, dealing with spiritual problems and inner development.

In Occultism, New Thought, and Metaphysics

1927 Edition, Revised and Enlarged

Compiled and Edited by Wm. C. Hartmann

A Biography, Directory and

Bibliography Combined

Well-planned and indexed sections listing all metaphysical movements, writers and teachers, such as New Thought, Unity, Metaphysical, Rosicrucian, Christian Science, Yogoda Sat-Sanga, Theosophy, Bahai, Jewish Science, Emanuel, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Sufi and allied movements; also esoteric orders and societies.

A monthly journal of approved methods for gaining, renewing, and maintaining superb health and power of body and mind. A frank, but clean, exponent of the attainment of what human beings want most, through better ways of living, healing, thinking, planing, working, saving, hoping, loving, conquering, and achieving.

This magazine is devoted to the proper care, use, knowledge, development, and enjoyment of life. It covers, in particular, all rational, safe, and effective methods of healing, and it opposes all irrational, unsafe, and ineffective methods. It offers a means of proper health education and acquisition for everybody, and is the only authorized Naturopathic Journal of a popular character in the United States.

With NATURE’S PATH is consolidated the former NATUROPATH and HERALD OF HEALTH, the original Naturopathic magazine, published since 1896 by Dr. Benedict Lust.

NATURE’S PATH is the official Journal of the American Naturopathic Association, the American School of Naturopathy and Chiropractic, and several other societies devoted to the Natural Life, Nature Cure, and Medical Freedom.

YOGODA. Eighth edition. Descriptive pamphlet of the System originated by Swami Yogananda for Bodily Perfection thru contacting Cosmic Energy, and for mental and spiritual development along the lines of the great Hindu Teachers. 10c.

This book has become a world-wide inspiration. Swami has used these affirmations at Healing Meetings in many of the large American cities, and thousands have been liberated and healed of disease of the body, mind and soul. This book gives not only many beautiful and inspiring Affirmations to use for awakening your inner powers and thus free yourself from the consciousness of sickness, poverty, bad habits and mental sloth, but it also EXPLAINS the scientific reason for healing thru the power of thought, will, feeling and prayer. Unique methods of healing for different types of mind. How to Contact the Curative Life Principle and Cosmic Energy. 50c.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHART. Ninth Edition. This book gives a Chart for Analyzing Human Nature and conduct. Practical understanding of inherent and acquired natures. A Psychological Mirror for Self-Knowledge and Self-Discipline, highly recommended by University professors. Used with great practical success at Swami’s Residential Schools in India. 50c.

SCIENCE OF RELIGION. Fourth Edition, with Frontispiece of the Swami. Of this book, the English poet and philosopher, Douglas Grant Duff Ainslie, writes: "This small book is the clue to the universe. Its value is beyond estimation in words, since between these narrow covers is to be found the flower of the Vedas and Upanishads, the essence of Patanjali—foremost exponent of the Yoga philosophy and method—and the thought of Sankara—greatest mind that ever dwelt in human body—placed for the first time within reach of the multitude. This is the deliberate statement of one who has at last found in the East, after many wanderings, the solution of the riddles of the West." $1.50 (postage 10c extra.)

SONGS OF THE SOUL. Fifth enlarged Edition. intuitional Poems inspired thru spiritual Realization. For Chanting, Meditation and Soul Revelation. "Exquisite imagery and psychological description of mystic experience." "Classical solemnity of thought with fascinating suggestiveness of modern inspired poets." "We mark in some poems the power of Milton, in others the imagery of Keats, and in all the philosophic depth of the Oriental Sages." With a Preface by Dr. Frederick B. Robinson, President of New York City College.

EAST-WEST MAGAZINE, $1.50 yearly, postpaid. 25c per copy.

SONGS FOR PIANO, (Sheet Music). "SONG OF BRAHMA," ancient Hindu Temple melody, 35c. "MY SOUL IS MARCHING ON," words by Swami Yogananda. 20c.

PHOTOGRAPHS of Swami Yogananda. Mounted. $2.00.

YOGODA CORRESPONDENCE COURSE. Send 10c for descriptive pamphlet.

Headquarters of Yogoda and Sat-Sanga

MOUNT WASHING CENTER

Established by Swami Yogananda in 1925

YOGODA means "harmonious development of all human faculties."

SAT-SANGA means "fellowship with truth."

YOGODA Headquarters pictured above is a beautiful structure containing about forty rooms and two large halls seating about a thousand people. The grounds are seven and a half acres in extent, and are planted with camphor, date, palm, pepper and other beautiful trees, as well as plants, shrubs and wonderful flower-beds, making it one of the most beautiful spots in Southern California. There are two tennis courts with a stadium. The property has one thousand feet frontage on Mount Washington Boulevard Drive, and a twenty-five minutes’ drive from the heart of busy Los Angeles will bring you to the quiet hill-top location of this ideally-situated Center.

The Center commands an unsurpassed view of the city below, as well as of other nearby cities, including Pasadena, the "City of Roses." The Pacific Ocean sparkles in the distance, and at night the million twinkling lights of Los Angeles and distant cities may be seen below, a veritable fairyland.

Week-day and Sunday classes and lectures are given, including a non-sectarian Sunday School for children. The Center also carries on the work of the YOGODA CORRESPONDENCE COURSE, and numerous healing, social and welfare activities.

Those who are in sympathy with Swami Yogananda’s plan of starting here a YOGODA-HOW-TO-LIVE School, for children and adults, for training them in ideal all-round physical, mental and especially spiritual development, please communicate with the Swami at the address given below.

SWAMI YOGANANDA

3880 San Rafael Avenue

Los Angeles, California