Incense. The same idea carried out in a different way shows itself to us in the blessing of the incense before it is burned. For the incense has alwa… - Charles Webster Leadbeater

Let no man.. despair because he thinks the task too great for him; what man has done man can do, and just in proportion as we extend our aid to those whom we can help, so will those who have already attained be able in their turn to help us. So from the lowest to the highest we who are treading the steps of the path are bound together by one long chain of mutual service, and none need feel neglected or alone, for though sometimes the lower flights of the great staircase may be wreathed in mist, we know that it leads up to happier regions and purer air, where the light is always shining.

In thinking of the Lord Buddha we must not forget that He is very much more than merely the founder of a religion. He is a great official of the Occult Hierarchy, the greatest of all save one, and the founder in previous incarnations of many religions before this one which now bears His title. For He was the Vyasa who has done so much for the Indian religion; He was Hermes, the great founder of the Egyptian mysteries; He was the original Zoroaster, from whom came the sun and fire worship; and he was also Orpheus, the great bard of the Greeks. In this last of His many births, when He came as the Lord Gautama, it does not appear that He had originally any intention of founding a new religion. He appeared simply as a reformer of Hinduism —a faith which was already of hoary antiquity, and had therefore departed much from its original form, as all religions have. It had become hardened in many ways, and appears to have been very far less elastic even than it is now. Even now we all know how strictly drawn are the lines between the castes, what an iron rigidity there is as to forms and ceremonies. We know that even now no man can be converted to Hinduism; the only way to enter that faith is to be born into it. p. 98

The most convenient method in which we can arrange the various branches of our subject will perhaps be the following: first, to consider rather carefully the mechanism — physical, etheric and astral — by means of which impressions are conveyed to our consciousness; secondly, to see how the consciousness in its turn affects and uses this mechanism; thirdly, to note the condition both of the consciousness and its mechanism during sleep; and fourthly, to enquire how the various kinds of dreams which men experience are thereby produced. Chapter 1: Introductory