some, and have conversed in private with some of my friends who have given up the world and are what you call yogis and bramacharis, who have told me of seeing and meeting others of the same class and all telling the same story and declaring the existence of their order. So many proofs of that sort exist for any sincere observer, we have no hesitation in our belief.

Once I thought the Westerns never had any record of such beings among themselves, and I excused them, as their karma seemed hard to have crowded out such noble men and women, or rather such noble souls. But after my Guru-deva told me to read certain works and records of the Western people, I discovered you had almost as much testimony as ourselves, allowing for the awful materiality of your civilization and the paralyzing power of priestcraft. You have a Paracelsus, the Rosicrucians, Boehme, Cagliostro, St. Germain, Apollonius, Plato, Socrates, and hosts of others. Here is a vast mass of testimony to the fact of the existence of a school or schools and of persons sent out by them to work in the world of the West. Looking further I hit on the Rosicrucians, an order now extinct evidently, and imitated by those who now carry on so-called orders that might be called in fact bazaars or shops. But the real order once existed, and I am sure some one or two or more of the old companions are on the earth. They were taught by our older Masters, and carried the knowledge home from the old eastern journies of the Crusaders. you look you will find no trace of the order before that time. It is then another testimony to the Adepts, the Rishees, those known as Mahatmas. So karma did not leave the West without the evidence.

If

I have also with sorrow seen writings by men in literature who should never be guilty of the crime of falsification, wherein it was said in derision that the Mahatma is not known in India, that the word is not known, and that the name given out of one is not even Indian. All this is mere lie. The word Mahatma is well known, as well as Rishee; even the name attributed to one of the Masters of H. P. B. is known in India. I took the trouble to look it up in European sources at a time one of these scholars uttered the lie, so as to have the proof that the West had the information, and I found in an old and much used book, a dictionary of our Indian names, the name of the Mahatma. Such lies are unpardonable, and beyond doubt karma will give these men many lies to obstruct their progress in another life, for what you give you get back.

Some of us have objected to the giving out of the names of the

Masters because we have a very great feeling of the sacredness of the name of such a person and do not wish to give it out to the ordinary man, just as a good man who has a good wife does not like to have her name thrown about and used by a lot of wicked or beastly men. But we never objected to the fact of the existence of the Rishees being discussed, for under that belief lies the other of the possibility of all men reaching to the same condition.

Lastly, it appears to me that the reason the West so much lays stress on the fact that the Masters do not come out to help them is, that the West is proud and personal, and thinks that any man who will not come forth and ask for their judgment and approval must by that mere fact be proven a myth or a useless and small person. But we know to the contrary, and any man can prove for himself that our humble fakirs and yogis do not want the approval of the West and will not go to it to procure any certificate. When one does go there, it is because his powers are on the wane and he has but little good to live for.

I hope your friends will not doubt the great fact under the existence of the Masters, but will feel it and put it into action for the good of the race. LAKSHMAN.

Punjab.

A

FACES OF FRIENDS.

LLEN GRIFFITHS was born in St. Louis, Mo., Feb. 8, 1853. His ancestors came from Wales to America and settled in Pennsylvania in 1685. In 1864 his parents crossed the plains in a horse team to Oregon.

At the age of fifteen Bro. Griffiths was caught in a revival in a church there. He went to San Francisco in 1874 and was asked by his church to take a letter of demit, but refused, saying his views had altered; and as that church lets one out by death, by demit, or by expulsion, he supposes he was expelled. In 1877 he graduated as a dentist, and in 1880 married. Investigated "spiritualism", recognized something in it, but had no satisfaction. Just then a friend asked him if he had read the Occult World, but even the word "occult" was new. Yet he felt a thrill on hearing the title, and got the book. The first three lines showed him he had the end of the thread he had looked for, and, after finishing the book, felt he had known all this, and never had a doubt of the

great doctrines of Karma, Reïncarnation, and the Masters. He then learned of the T. S. and joined the Golden Gate Branch on Dec. 18, 1887, serving in it until March 15, 1892, when he was appointed by the Branches on the Coast as the lecturer for the T. S. there.

Brother Griffiths is now lecturing for the T. S. in California, and has visited nearly all the Branches and towns and had good success in promulgating Theosophy according to his lights in all parts of that District. He is not a large man, has a piercing black eye, and, as some think, a very aggressive manner, but that is simply the vast energy that is in the man, as he thoroughly believes in the idea that no man or woman should be forced into Theosophy.

May all his efforts have success!

A

BRAHMANISM.

ITS FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS.

These

STUDENT of the Divine Knowledge-Brahma Vidya-should practise without fail the Moral and Universal laws. concern him more immediately than the ceremonial ones.

2. There must be a cause for every effect. The material means or basis for a cause or effect is one and the same. It is impossible to create something out of nothing, or to reduce something to nothing.

3. The truths of Buddhism are all found in the writings of Brahmans known by the name of Dorsanas. The word Buddha in Sanscrit means an enlightened man, as in the well-known stanzas of the Mahabharata. A Buddha is he who has seen God, and a Buddhacharya, a man of enlightened conduct, worships not Brahma and Sita-Hunta and other minor deities, since the result of such worship would be of little or no consequence.

4. The Brahmins believe that Buddha is one of the incarnations of God, and that his incarnation took place after that of Krishna.

5. Gautama Buddha or Sakya Muni taught that ignorance produces desire, unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth, and rebirth is the cause of sorrow. This is the same as the Brahmanical doctrine of Chatur Vyuha or the Four Noble Truths.