As, however, "no confusion need arise" from my describing how I went about in my _linga sharira_, I will continue to use it as the term for my vehicle of transportation. Nor need there be any difficulty about my being in two places at once. I have the authority of Mr Sinnett's Guru for this statement, and it is fully confirmed by my own experience. For what says the Guru?--"The individual consciousness, it is argued, cannot be in two places at once. But first of all, to a certain extent it can." It is unnecessary for me to add a word to this positive and most correct statement; but what the Guru has not told us is, that there is a certain discomfort attending the process. Whenever I went with my astral body, or _linga sharira_, into the mysterious region of Thibet already alluded to, leaving my _rupa_, or natural body, in Khatmandhu, I was always conscious of a feeling of rawness; while the necessity of looking after my _rupa_--of keeping, so to speak, my astral eye upon it, lest some accident should befall it, which might prevent my getting back to it, and so prematurely terminate my physical or objective existence--was a constant source of anxiety to me. Some idea of the danger which attends this process may be gathered from the risks incidental to a much more difficult operation which I once attempted, and succeeded, after incredible effort, in accomplishing; this was the passage of my fifth principle, or ego-spirit, into the ineffable condition of _nirvana_. "Let it not be supposed," says Mr Sinnett,--for it is not his Guru who is now speaking,--"that for any adept such a passage can be lightly undertaken. Only stray hints about the nature of this great mystery have reached me; but, putting these together, I believe I am right in saying that the achievement in question is one which only some of the high initiates are qualified to attempt, which exacts a total suspension of animation in the body for periods of time compared to which the longest cataleptic trances known to ordinary science are insignificant; the protection of the physical frame from natural decay during this period by means which the resources of occult science are strained to accomplish; and withal it is a process involving a double risk to the continued earthly life of the person who undertakes it. One of these risks is the doubt whether, when once _nirvana_ is attained, the ego will be willing to return. That the return will be a terrible effort and sacrifice is certain, and will only be prompted by the most devoted attachment, on the part of the spiritual traveller, to the idea of duty in its purest abstraction. The second great risk is that of allowing the sense of duty to predominate over the temptation to stay--a temptation, be it remembered, that is not weakened by the motive that any conceivable penalty can attach to it. Even then it is always doubtful whether the traveller will be able to