Book 4 (Part II)

124 Many of the entries in this " ledger " are for the ordinary man neces- sarily illegible; the method of reading them is given in that important instruction of the A. '.A.', called "Thisharb," Liber CMXIII. Now consider that this Karma is all that a man has or is. His ulti- mate object is to get rid of it completely —when it comes to the point of surrendering^ the Self to the Beloved; but in the beginning the Magician is not that Self, he is only the heap of refuse from which that Self is to be built up. The Magical instruments must be made before they are destroyed. This idea of Karma has been confused by many who ought to have known better, including the Buddha, with the ideas of poetic justice and of retribution. We have the story of one of the Buddha's Arahats, who being blind, in walking up and down unwittingly killed a number of insects. [The Buddhist regards the destruction of life as the most shocking crime.] His brother Arahats inquired as to how this was, and Buddha spun them a long yarn as to how, in a previous incarnation, he had maliciously deprived a woman of her sight. This is only a fairy tale, a bogey to frighten the children, and probably the worst way of influencing the young yet devised by human stupidity. ^ To surrender all, one must give up not only the bad but the good ; not only weak- ness but strength. How can the mystic surrender all, while he clings to his virtues?