It is so hard to find and take the highest part of those we love, that in the very difficulty of the search there is a serious education. We realise when making that effort, far more clearly what it is that creates the mystery in which we live, and makes us so ignorant. It is the swaying, vibrating, never-resting desires of the animal soul in man. The life of this part of man’s nature is so vigorous and strongly developed from the ages during which he has dwelt in it, that it is almost impossible to still it so as to obtain contact with the noble spirit. This constant and confusing life, this ceaseless occupation with the trifles of the hour, this readiness in surface emotion, this quickness to be pleased, amused or distressed, is what baffles our sight and dulls our inner senses. Till we can use these the mystery remains in its Sphinx-like silence. ------------------ When the unit thinks only of itself, the whole, which is built of units perishes, and the unit itself is destroyed. ------------------ So it is throughout nature on every plane of life. This, therefore, is the first lesson to be learnt. ------------------ What the _true_ occultist seeks, is not knowledge, or growth, or happiness, or power, for himself; but having become _conscious_ that the harmony of which he forms part is broken on the outer plane, he seeks the means to resolve that discord into a higher harmony. This harmony is Theosophy—Divine or Universal Wisdom—the root whence have sprung all “religions,” that is all; “bonds which unite men together,” which is the true meaning of the word religion. Therefore, Theosophy is not _a_ “religion,” but religion itself, the very “binding of men together” in one Universal Brotherhood. THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS OF BUDDHISM. When a man immersed in the darkness of modern civilization awakens, however slightly, to the hollowness of his every-day life, he becomes sensible of a feeling of despair, for he is mentally brought face to face with what appears to him to be a meaningless yet cruel destiny. Now to any one so circumstanced, no truer source of consolation and encouragement can be offered than that which is to be found in a proper consideration of the “Four Noble Truths” of Buddhism. But to give this proper consideration to the Truths, or indeed to promote even a preliminary enquiry into their nature is by no means an easy task, because the fundamental ideas which they embody have scarcely any vitality in the present generation; nay more, they involve for the most part a complete inversion of maxims commonly accepted as axiomatic in current thought. It is, however, in the hopes of doing something towards the elucidation of the matter, that the present exposition is attempted.