my dear companion (campanero),

your long letter and message received. all i can say is that it is gigantically splendid, marvelously accurate. and let me then return to you this message ... that this must prove to you that you are not standing still.... it's all well enough to be out in the rapids as you say i am, but what of it when i don't hear such a message as yours myself? thank you. it is a bugle blast from the past. perhaps in some other age i taught you that and now you give it to me again. when i said in mine that in kali yuga more could be done than in any other age in the same period, i stated all you say but i didn't know it. now your clear light falls upon it and i see it well. but fear not. you got so familiar to me that i permitted myself to let out some of the things that i now and then feel. but i swear to you that i do not let them always so rush before me. truly you have proved that your place is "where the long roll finds you standing."

now don't you begin to see more and more things? don't you feel things that you know without anyone to tell you?

my friend urban has shown me a letter from —— in which the latter, feeling dark in consequence of various causes, sees no light. this is merely the slough39 of despond, i tell him. we know the light is ahead, and the experience of others shows that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. i tell him also that strong souls are thus tried inevitably because they rush ahead along the road to the light. in the finnish epic it is said that guarding a certain place are hideous serpents and glittering spears. and so it really is.

but although such is the truth, i have also to tell him that he ought, as far as possible, to try to ameliorate the circumstances. i will make my meaning clear. he is living now, as you know, among people of an opposite faith. around them are elementals who would, if they could, implant suspicion and distrust about those whom he reveres, or, if they fail there, will try to cause physical ills or aggravate present ones. in his case these have succeeded in part in causing darkness.... now ——, while not just in that case, is surrounded, while not strong, by those who inwardly deplore his beliefs ... and hence the elementals are there and they quarrel with those of —— and bring on despair, reduce strength, and so on. i tell ---- those circumstances ought to be ameliorated every now and then: for i know he would at once, if changed to a better place, get better. and so i have written to him to make a change as soon as he can.

it is highly important that no replies should be made to attacks. get the people to devote themselves to work and to ignoring attacks. the opposing forces strain every nerve to irritate some or all of us so that we may reply in irritation and precipitate more follies. consider solely how to improve old work, get up new work and infuse energy into work. otherwise the beneficent influences intended for all f.t.s. will be nullified.

cheer up ——, and from your standpoint tell him how to know the distinction between the intellect and spiritual mind. tell him how to find out his spirit-will40 and to ignore a little the mental attitude he takes. do not point to particular instances of his own failure but detail your own inner experience. it will do him good.

upanishads. "subsisting" here means, not that the self exists by reason of food, but that as a manifestation, as one causing the body to be visible and to act, the self subsists in that state by means of the food which is used. it is really a reversed translation, and ought to read—as i think—"the self exists in close proximity to the heart and causes the body to exist by reason of the food which it takes in for its subsistence." that is, continual reference is had to the doctrine that if the self were not there the body would not exist. yes: it also means that the self procures vital airs from the food which the one life causes to be digested. for note that which you know, that did we not take food the material unit of the trinity would die and the self be disappointed, and then would get another body to try in again. for is it not permitted to each one to try and set up a habit in that material unit whereby we may as incarnated beings know the self? then when that is done we do not live as others; but all the same, even then, the self must subsist, so to say, while in manifestation, by means of food, no matter if that food be of a different character, corresponding to the new state. even the devas subsist by food. you know "they enter into that colour, or sound, or savour, at the sacrifice, they rise in that colour, etc., and by it they live." watch words, —— dear; they are traps. catch ideas and i will understand you by the context that you are not confined to the ordinary meanings.

i am swamped in work, but my courage is up, and i feel the help sent from the right place.

let us go on from place to place and from year to year; no matter who or what claims us outwardly, we are each the property of the self.

as forevermore and after.