The inner life and the Tao-teh-king

These chapters were originally lectures to a small, but select company. They are now revised and published for a larger world. They claim not to be exhaustive, but only an attempt in direction of a mystic interpretation of the Tao-Teh-King, a manner of reading that famous book but little practiced and less understood. The only proper way of reading that book is in the light of mysticism. The book can certainly not be handled like a Confucian document. I lay no claim to be a Sinologist. I have, however, in many places examined the texts and made translations differing somewhat from others. Elsewhere I have used all the known translations, with which I have usually agreed. It is more than thirty years since I began in this country to call attention to the Tao-Teh-King. It was then an almost unknown book. Since then, several translations and paraphrases have been published in this country and articles of more or less value have appeared in magazines, but much remains to be done if this treasure is to become known where it ought to be known. I hope my undertaking may be a step in that direction. Without the generosity of the theosophists before whom the original lectures were delivered, the book could not have been published. I owe them my profound thanks.