4l8 TALKS ON (< AT THE FEET OF THE MASTER "

should come. So often people are. They work and
work at a thing, and then they are very much sur-
prised when what they are working for really comes
to pass. It is the same with meditation. They
practise it for a long time in order to obtain certain
results ; at last they slip out of their bodies and they
are dreadfully frightened, but it is a thing which they
have been trying to do. So you offer yourself to the
Master in all goodwill; and when some suffering
comes suddenly upon you which shows that that offer
has been partially accepted, you are very much
surprised and rather hurt.

You remember the series of " Lives of Alcyone "
published in The Theosophist. Look at them and see
what terrible troubles came to AIcy<Tne, and through
how much difficulty he passed. He was executed at
one time for a murder that he had not committed.
In several other cases frightful suffering of different
kinds came to him. He lost his son, his daughter,
once or twice, under terrible circumstances. All kinds
of things happened to him, quite terrible things; yet,
if you read the t( Lives," you will not see anything
particular in them that seems to justify that. No,
but these are the last few lives leading up to a
culmination, and therefore there must be in them the
working out of all that remains, and often it seems a
great deal of suffering. It was one of the advantages
of that series of " Lives " (they were good stories, no
doubt, but it was not to gratify personal curiosity