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to find fault with us and become hostile to us are, we think, prejudiced and stubborn, and we desire tbem to acquire simplicity of heart and an unbiassed mind to enable them to understand us thoroughly.*[1] We hermits are a nomadic class of people and generally pass our time in places far away from habitation, and do not much cultivate the language and idioms of the world, nor do we care much for these. To attack us about modes of our expressing our ideas is, therefore, only childish. Our readers are to take our idea only and not our style. Because,—we are neither an M.A., nor a B.A.; neither an Addison, nor a Johnson, nor a Macaulay, but simply a hermit of the jungle.
Let us now see what was the purport of our letter. Our words were, "you should bear in mind that, we are speaking of matter and spirit beyond the present developed form or in the state of perfect laya, according to Patanjali's 2nd and 3rd Sutras, or from the stand-point of the Esoteric Theosophy." How can this mean that we are asking you to answer the questions according to Patanjali's 2nd and 3rd Sutras, we fail to understand. By the above sentences, we simply meant to show our own stand-point whence our enquiry commences. We referred to Patanjali's Sutras, because we intended to show that our starting point was in perfect accord with the true yoga state, nirvikalpa, ecstasy, i. e., the Turya state, and not with ordinary Jagrata, Swapna and Sushupta (for the former, i. e., Turya, state of man is of real awaking and the latter illusory), while you have been pleased to understand us as speaking of ordinary human states. Moreover, by laya, we never meant annihilation, as is assumed by you. It is your own version that the word laya means "a state of absolute dissolution, annihilation of all substance, differentiated, &c." In some of the former numbers of the Theosophist the word laya was explained by you as merging, and in this number you
- ↑ * Quite so; and therefore, this kind desire is fully reciprocated.—Ed.
