Nature's Finer Forces

The book is sure to throw a good deal of light upon the scientific research of the ancient Aryans of India, and it will leave no doubt in a candid mind that the religion of ancient India had a scientific basis. It is chiefly for this reason that I have drawn my illustrations from the Tattvic Law from the Upanishads.

There is a good deal in the book which can only be shown to be true by long and diligent experiments. Those who are devoted to the pursuit of truth without prejudice will no doubt be ready to wait before they form any opinion about such portions of the book. Others it is useless to reason with.

Preface

A word of explanation is necessary with regard to the book now offered to the public. In the ninth and tenth volumes of The Theosophist, I wrote certain essays on "Nature's Finer Forces". The subject of these essays interested the readers of The Theosophist so much, that I was asked to issue the series of essays in book form. On reading the essays for this purpose I found that in order to make a book they must be almost entirely re-arranged and perhaps re-written. However, not being equal to the task of re-writing what I had once written, I determined to publish a translation of the book in Sanskrit on the Science of Breath and the Philosophy of the Tattvas. As, moreover, without these essays, the book would have been quite unintelligible, I decided to add them to the book by way of an illustrative introduction. This accordingly has been done. The essays in The Theosophist have been reprinted with certain additions, modifications and corrections. Besides, I have written several more essays in order to make the explanations more complete and authoritative.

I was confirmed in this course by one more consideration. The book contains a good deal more than the essays touched upon, and I thought it better to lay all of it before the public.

The book is sure to throw a good deal of light upon the scientific research of the ancient Aryans of India, and it will leave no doubt in a candid mind that the religion of ancient India had a scientific basis. It is chiefly for this reason that I have drawn my illustrations of the Tattvic Law from the Upanisads.

There is a good deal in the book which can only be shown to be true by long and diligent experiments. Those who are devoted to the pursuit of truth without prejudice will no doubt be ready to wait before they form any opinion about such portions of the book. Others it is useless to reason with.

To the former class of students, I have to say one word more. From my own experience, I can tell them that the more they study the book, the more wisdom they are sure to find in it, and let me hope that era long I shall have a goodly number of colleagues, who will with me try their best to explain and illustrate the book still better and more thoroughly.

RAMA PRASAD

MEERUT, INDIA
November 5th, 1889

Preface to the Second and Revised Edition:

The points on which revision has been attempted are: (1) the style of printing has been made uniform with the rest of the books printed on the "H.P.B." Press; (2) consistency in the transliteration of Sanskrit terms has been studied, and a number of errors corrected; (3) the English of some phrases has been improved; and (4) a few passages have been omitted from the text. R. H. is responsible for some small portion of the world of revision and for the rest of the undersigned, who have a high appreciation of Mr. Rama Prasad's essays - an appreciation, however, which is not extended to certain portions of the Tantrik work he has so ably translated.

G. R. S. M.

London, 1894