by reason
and intuition, afterwards by personal experience, proof of another
vehicle of consciousness--the mental body. At a further stage he
obtains the certainty of possession of the causal body, then of higher
bodies, and from that time he can no longer doubt the teachings of the
Elder Brothers, those who have entered the higher evolution, the
worlds that are divine. He knows, beyond all possibility of doubt,
that what the ordinary man expresses in such childish language
regarding these lofty problems, what he calls the Absolute and the
Manifested, God and the Universe, the soul and the body, are more
vitally true than he imagined; he sees that these words are dense
veils that conceal the supreme, ineffable, infinite Being, of whom
manifested beings are illusory "aspects," facets of the divine
Jewel.[9]

With this introduction, we will plunge at once into the heart of the
subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Which is nothing but an unknown "aspect" of abstract
Divinity.]

[Footnote 3: Present-day man possesses four bodies of increasing
fineness, the elements of which interpenetrate. Proceeding from the
most dense, these are: The physical, the astral, the mental, and the
causal body. In certain conditions they are capable of dissociation,
and they last for a longer or a shorter time. The astral body, also
called the body of desire, animal soul (Kamarupa, in Sanskrit) is the
seat of sensation. Evolution has in store for us higher bodies
stilt--the buddhic body, the atmic body, &c.... but these need only be
mentioned at this point.

_Yoga_--Sanskrit, _union_--is a training of the different bodies of
man by the will; its object is to make of those bodies complete and
perfect instruments, capable of responding to the vibrations of the
outer universe as well as to those of the individual soul. When this
process is accomplished, man can receive, consciously and at will, in
any one of his bodies, vibrations received by the soul primarily in
one of the others; for instance, he may feel in the physical brain the
direct action of his astral or higher bodies; he may also leave the
physical, and feel directly in his astral body the action of the
mental body, and so on.

_Yoga_ can be practised only under the guidance of a Master, _i.e._, a
highly developed being, capable of guiding the student safely through
the dangers incidental to this training.]

[Footnote 4: When the astral body is externalised, the subject cannot