(6) Those who know this, and those too who in the forest truly worship (ujasate) faith (traddka), pass into the flame [of the cremation-fire]; from the flame, into the day; from the day, into the half month of the waxing moon; from the half month of the waxing moon, into the six months during which the sun moves northward; from these months, into the world of the gods (deva-loka); from the world of the gods, into the sun -^ from the sun, into the lightning-fire. A Peison (puntsd) consisting of mind (manasa) goes to those regions of lightning and conducts them to the Brahma-worlds. In those Brahma- worlds they dwell for long extents. Of these there is no return. 1 6. But they who by sacrificial offering, charity, and austerity conquer the worlds, pass into the smoke [of the cremation-fire]; from the smoke, into the night; from the night, into the half month of the waning moon; from the half month of the waning moon, into the six months during which the sun moves southward; from those months, into the world of the fathers; from the world of the fathers, into the moon. Reaching the moon, they become food. There the gods—as they say to King Sotna, " Increase! Decrease!"_even so feed upon them there. When that passes away for them, then they pass forth into this space; from space, into air; from air, into rain; from rain, into the earth. On reaching the earth they become food. Again they are offered in the fire of man. Thence they are born in the fire of woman. Rising up into the world, they cycle round again thus. But those who know not these two ways, become crawling and flying insects and whatever there is here that bites/

(15) The souls peering forth from the Intellectual Realm descend first to the heavens and there put on a body; this becomes at once the medium by which as they reach out more and more towards magnitude they proceed to bodies progressively more earthy. Some even plunge from heaven to the very lowest of corporeal forms; others pass, stage by stage, too feeble to lift towards the higher the burden they carry, weighed downwards by their heaviness and forgetfulness.

As for the differences among them, these are due to variation in the bodies entered, or to the accidents of life, or to upbringing, or to inherent peculiarities of temperament, or to all these influences together, or to specific combinations of them.

Then again some have fallen unreservedly into the power of the destiny ruling here: some yielding betimes are betimes too their own: there are those who, while they accept what must be borne, have the strength of self-mastery in all that is left to their own act; they have given themselves to another dispensation: they live by the code of the aggregate of beings, the code which is woven out of the Reason-Principles and all the other causes ruling in the kosmos, out of soul-movements and out of laws springing in the Supreme; a code, therefore, consonant with those higher existences, founded upon them, linking their sequents back to them, keeping unshakeably true all that is capable of holding itself set towards the divine nature, and leading round by all appropriate means whatsoever is less natively apt.

In fine all diversity of condition in the lower spheres is determined by the descendent beings themselves.

(11) Whoever has done good in the main, has a power of spirit that is pure and clear when death comes. It passes out by the upper" openings of mouth and nose. The pure and light air-power rises upward and loats up to Heaven and becomes the ive-fold, present shadow-genius, or shadow-spirit. But if, during life, the primordial spirit was used by the conscious spirit for avarice, folly, desire, and lust, and has committed all sorts of sins, then in the moment of death, the power of the spirit is troubled and confused, and the conscious spirit passes, together with the air, through the lower openings to the door of the belly. For if the power of the spirit is turbid and unclean, it crystallizes downward/ sinks down to Hell and becomes a demon. Then not only the primordial spirit loses its nature, but the power and wisdom of the true essence is thereby lessened. Therefore the Master says: If it moves itself, that is not good. If one wants to protect the primordial spirit, one must first not fail "to subjugate the knowing spirit. The way to subjugate it leads through the circulation of the Light. If one puts the circulation of the Light into practice, one must forget both body and heart. The heart must die, the spirit live. When the spirit lives, the breath will begin to circulate in a wonderful way. This is what the Master called the best (5). Then the spirit must be allowed to dive down into the abdomen (solar-plexus). The power then mixes with the spirit, and the spirit unites with the power and becomes crystallized. This is the method of putting the hand to it.