Cheer up ----, and from your standpoint tell him how to know the distinction between the intellect and spiritual mind. Tell him how to find out his spirit-will and to ignore a little the mental attitude he takes. Do not point to particular instances of his own failure but detail your own inner experience. It will do him good. Upanishads. "Subsisting" here means, not that the self _exists_ by reason of food, but that as a manifestation, as one causing the body to be visible and to act, the self subsists in that state by means of the food which is used. It is really a reversed translation, and ought to read--as I think--"The self exists in close proximity to the heart and causes the body to exist by reason of the food which it takes in for its subsistence." That is, continual reference is had to the doctrine that if the self were not there the body would not exist. Yes: it also means that the self procures vital airs from the food which the one life causes to be digested. For note that which you know, that did we not take food the material unit of the trinity would die and the self be disappointed, and then would get another body to try in again. For is it not permitted to each one to try and set up a habit in that material unit whereby we may as incarnated beings know the self? Then when that is done we do not live as others; but all the same, even then, the self must subsist, so to say, while in manifestation, by means of food, no matter if that food be of a different character, corresponding to the new state. Even the Devas subsist by food. You know "they enter into that colour, or sound, or savour, at the sacrifice, they rise in that colour, etc., and by it they live." Watch words, ---- dear; they are traps. Catch ideas and I will understand you by the context that you are not confined to the ordinary meanings. I am swamped in work, but my courage is up, and I feel the help sent from the right place. Let us go on from place to place and from year to year; no matter who or what claims us outwardly, we are each the property of the self. As forevermore and after. XI. To ----. There is a sentence in your letter not explained by J. Niemand, which, however, needs explaining, for it is the outgrowth of an erroneous idea in you. You say: "Can I help these ignorant elementals with mental instruction? I tried it, but not successfully." In all those cases where it is caused by the elementals you _cannot_. Elementals are not ignorant. They know just as little and just as much as you do. Most generally more. Do you not know that they are reflectors? They merely mirror to you either your own mind, or that mental strata caused by the age, the race, and the nation you may be in. Their action is invariably automatic and unconscious. They care not for what is called by you "mental instruction." They hear you not.