to which they were struggling. They had
progressed so far, however, that they had discovered the secret of
eternal youth. Indeed, Ushas herself was 590 years old. I was not
surprised at this, as something of the same kind has occurred more than
once to _rishis_ or very advanced _mahatmas_. As a rule, however, they
are too anxious to go to _nirvana_, to stay on earth a moment longer than
necessary, and prefer rather to come back at intervals: this, we all
know, has occurred at least six times in the case of Buddha, as Mr
Sinnett so well explains. At the same time Ushas announced without
words, but with a slight blush, and a smile of ineffable tenderness, that
from the day of my birth she knew that I was destined to be her future
husband, and that at the appointed time we should be brought together. We
now had our period of probation to go through together, and she told me
that all the other _chelas_ here were going through the necessary
training preparatory to wedlock like myself, and that there would be a
general marrying all round, when the long-expected culminating epoch
should arrive.

Meantime, in order to enter upon the first stage of my new _chela_-ship,
it became necessary for me to forget all the experiences which I had
acquired during the last twenty years of my life, as she explained that
it would be impossible for my mind to receive the new truths which I had
now to learn so long as I clung to what she called "the fantasies" of my
_mahatma_-ship. I cannot describe the pang which this announcement
produced. Still I felt that nothing must impede my search after truth;
and I could not conceal from myself that, if in winning it I also won
Ushas, I was not to be pitied. Nor to this day have I ever had reason to
regret the determination at which I then arrived.

It would be impossible for me in the compass of this article to describe
all my experiences in the new life to which I dedicated myself, nor
indeed would it be proper to do so; suffice it to say, that I progressed
beyond my Ushas' most sanguine expectations. And here I would remark,
that I found my chief stimulus to exertion to be one which had been
completely wanting in my former experience. It consisted simply in this,
that altruism had been substituted for egotism. Formerly, I made the
most herculean spiritual effort to tide myself over the great period of
danger--the middle of the fifth round. "That," as Mr Sinnett correctly
says, "is the