The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE TWO PATHS 50. The selfish devotee lives to no purpose. The man who does not go through his appointed work in life—has lived in vain. This verse repeats this lesson yet once more. It is another way of saying: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 51. Follow the wheel of life; follow the wheel of duty to race and kin, to friend and foe, and close thy mind to pleas- ures as to pain. Exhaust the law of Karmic retribution. Gain Siddhis for thy future birth. This again states the same thing, urges the aspirant to live his life fully on every plane, preserving, it is true, an in- difference to all that he does, but only the inner indifference of contempt, not the outer indifference of atrophy. Madame Blavatsky herself smoked like a volcano, drank like a fish, swore like a trooper, loved like a Cleopatra. She was right. Read the Taoist instructions to this effect. 52. If Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble planet. Aye, if thou art debarred from flaming like the noonday Sun upon the snow-capped mount of purity eternal, then choose, O Neophyte, a humbler course. There are a great many people who not only are without marked capacity, but are obviously without any capacity at all, for attainment even on a very modest scale. The ques- tion then arises as to whether they can ‘be any good.’ Unless they are made to do something, they are likely to slip back rather than to make progress. Fortunately, there is a way through which they can make sure of acquiring the capacity in their next incarnation. This way is Karma Yoga: devo- tion through work to the Work. 63