ny clear
idea of the admiration she excited, from the fact that we were neither of
us in natural space. Still the sympathy between our _linga shariras_ was
so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for my _rupa_,
and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in her
_rupa_ at once.

Every _chela_ even knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily
in nothing but your _linga sharira_. It is quite different after you are
dead, and have gone in your fourth principle, or _kama rupa_, which is
often translated "body of desire," into _devachan_; for, as Mr Sinnett
most correctly remarks, "The purely sensual feelings and tastes of the
late personality will drop off from it in _devachan_; but it does not
follow that nothing is preservable in that state, except feelings and
thoughts having a direct reference to religion or spiritual philosophy.
On the contrary, all the superior phases, even of sensuous emotion, find
their appropriate sphere of development in _devachan_." Until you are
obliged to go to _devachan_--which, in ordinary parlance, is the place
good men go to when they die--my advice is, stick to your _rupa_; and
indeed it is the instinct of everybody who is not a _mahatma_ to do this.
I admit--though in making this confession I am aware that I shall incur
the contempt of all _mahatmas_--that on this occasion I found my _rupa_ a
distinct convenience, and was not sorry that it was still in existence.
In it I crossed the neutral zone still inhabited by ordinary Thibetans,
and after a few days' travel, found myself on the frontiers of "the
Sisters'" territory. The question which now presented itself was how to
get in. To my surprise, I found the entrances guarded not by women, as I
expected, but by men. These were for the most part young and handsome.

"So you imagined," said one, who advanced to meet me with an engaging
air, "that you could slip into our territory in your astral body; but
you found that all the entrances _in vacuo_"--I use this word for
convenience--"are as well guarded as those in space. See, here is the
Sister past whom you attempted to force your way: we look after the
physical frontier, and leave the astral or spiritual to the
ladies,"--saying which he politely drew back, and the apparition whose
astral form I knew so well, now approached in her substantial _rupa_--in
fact, she was a good deal stouter than I expected to find her; but I was
agreeably