vast expanses of lake and plain
and forest.

The choice of time and methods for communicating occult knowledge to the
world necessarily includes the choice of intermediary agent. Hence the
double set of misconceptions in India and Europe, each adapted to the
land of its origin. In India, where knowledge of the Brothers'
existence and reverence for their attributes is widely diffused, it is
natural that persons who may be chosen for their serviceability rather
than for their merits, as the recipients of their direct teaching,
should be regarded with a feeling resembling jealousy. In Europe, the
difficulty of getting into any sort of relations with the fountain-head
of Eastern philosophy is regarded as due to an exasperating
exclusiveness on the part of the adepts in that philosophy, which
renders it practically worth no man's while to devote himself to the
task of soliciting their instruction. But neither feeling is reasonable
when considered in the light of the explanations now put forward. The
Brothers can consider none but public interests, in the largest sense of
the words, in throwing out the first experimental flashes of occult
revelation into the world. They can only employ agents on whom they can
rely for doing the work as they may wish it done--or, at all events, in
no manner which may be widely otherwise. Or they can only protect the
task on which they are concerned in another way. They may consent
sometimes to a very much more direct mode of instruction than that
provided through intermediary agents for the world at large, in the
cases of organized societies solemnly pledged to secrecy, for the time
being at all events, in regard to the teaching to be conveyed to them.
In reference to such societies, the Brothers need not be on the watch to
see that the teaching is not worked up for the service of the world in a
way they would consider, for any reasons of their own, likely to be
injurious to final results or dangerous. Different men will assimilate
the philosophy to be unfolded in different ways: for some it will be
too iconoclastic altogether, and its further pursuit, after a certain
point is reached, unwelcome. Such persons, entering too hastily on the
path of exploration, will be able to drop off from the undertaking
whenever they like, if thoroughly pledged to secrecy in the first
instance, without being a source of embarrassment afterwards, as regards
the steady prosecution of the work in hand