Therefore let each student watch the fire that burns upon his altar. Let him also make that altar, his body, as beautiful and harmonious as possible, and let him also sacrifice upon that altar the frankincense and myrrh, his actions and his deeds. As in the Tabernacle he offers all upon the altar of divinity, so let him day by day dispel the symbols of mortality--the coffin and the open grave by which he prepared himself through the mastery of the lower emotions within himself--and recognize that no matter how crystallized or dead his life may be, the fact that he exists at all proves that the sprig of acacia, the promise of life and immortality, is somewhere within himself; and although the flame of life may appear faint or cold, if he will supply the fuel by his daily actions, he will kindle the altar flame once more within himself, which, shining forth, will also help his brother to kindle this flame, which is a living sacrifice to the living God. CHAPTER II. THE SACRED CITY OF SHAMBALLA In every mythology and legendary religion of the world there is one spot that is sacred above all others to the great ideal of that religion. To the Norseman it was Valhalla, the City of the Slain, built of the spears of heroes, where feasting and warfare was the order of the day. Here the heroes fought all day and reveled by night. Every day they killed the wild boar and feasted on it, and the next day it came to life again. In the Northland they tell that Valhalla was high on the top of the mountains, and that it was connected to the earth below by Befrost, the Rainbow Bridge; that up and down this bridge the Gods came, and Odin, the All-father, came down from Asgard, the City of the Gods, and worked and labored with mankind. Among the Greeks, Mount Olympus was held sacred, and here the gods are said to have lived high on the top of a mountain. The Knights of the Grail are said to have had their castle among the crags and peaks of Northern Spain on Mount Salvart. In every religion of the world there is a sacred spot: Meru of the oriental, and Mount Moriah and Mount Sinai (upon which the tablets of law were given to man); all those are symbols of one universal ideal, and as each of these religions claimed among the clouds a castle and a home, so it is said that all the religions of the world have their headquarters in Shamballa, the Sacred City in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia.