fered
to those who have taken notice of the present opportunity, is, that they
may now give their own evolution an impulse which they may not again
have an opportunity of giving it with the same advantage to themselves
if the present opportunity is thrown aside. True, it is most unlikely
that any one advancing through Nature, life after life, under the
direction of a fairly creditable Karma, will go on always without
meeting sooner or later with the ideas that occult study implants. So
that the occultist does not threaten those who turn aside from his
teachings with any consequences that must necessarily be disastrous.

He only says that those who listen to them must necessarily derive
advantage from so doing in exact proportion to the zeal with which they
undertake the study and the purity of motive with which they promote it
in others.

Nor must it be supposed that those which have here been described as the
lower range of possibilities in connection with occult study, are a mere
fringe upon the higher possibilities, to be regarded as a relatively
poor compensation accorded to those who do not feel equal to offering
themselves for probation as regular chelas. It would be a grave
misconception of the purpose with which the present stream of occult
teaching has been poured into the world, if we were to think it a
universal incitement to that course of action. It may be hazardous for
any of us who are not initiates to speak with entire confidence of the
intention of the Adepts, but all the external facts concerned with the
growth and development of the Theosophical Society, show its purpose to
be more directly related to the cultivation of spiritual aspirations
over a wide area, than to the excitement of these with supreme intensity
in individuals. There are considerations, indeed, which may almost be
said to debar the Adepts from ever doing anything to encourage persons
in whom this supreme intensity of excitement is possible, to take the
very serious step of offering themselves as chelas. Directly that by
doing this a man renders himself a candidate for something more than the
maximum advantages that can flow to him through the operation of natural
laws--directly that in this way he claims to anticipate the most
favourable course of Nature and to approach high perfection by violent
and artificial processes, he at once puts himself in presence of many
dangers which would never beset him if he contented himself wi