The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE TWO PATHS grade. Everyone’s first duty is to himself, and to his prog- ress in the Path; but his second duty, which presses the first hard, is to give assistance to those not so advanced. 56. Tell him, O Candidate, that he who makes of pride and self-regard bondmaidens to devotion; that he, who, cleaving to existence, still lays his patience and submission to the Law, as a sweet flower at the feet of Shakya-Thub-pa, becomes a Srotapatti in this birth. The Siddhis of perfec- tion may loom far, far away; but the first step is taken, the stream is entered, and he may gain the eyesight of the moun- tain eagle, the hearing of the timid doe. It seems rather a bold assertion that Srotapatti is so easily attained, and I know of no Canonical Buddhist authority for this statement. (A Srotapatti becomes an Arahat in seven more incarnations. “Siddhis’”—magic powers.) 57. Tell him, O Aspirant, that true devotion may bring him back the knowledge, that knowledge which was his in former births. The deva-sight and deva-hearing are not obtained in one short birth. The promise in this verse is less difficult to believe. By true devotion is meant a devotion which does not depend upon its object. The highest kind of love asks for no return. It is however misleading to say that “deva-sight and deva- hearing are not obtained in one short birth,” as that appears to mean that unless you are born with them you can never acquire them, which is certainly untrue. It is open to any one to say to any one who has acquired them, that he must have acquired them in a previous existence, but a more stupid argument can hardly be imagined. It is an ex-ca- 65