self-seeking, kings
and emperors have maintained their vested rights bequeathing to their
progeny the same desires; the same covetousness of worldly power; the same
consideration for the lesser self; the same hypnotism that takes account of
caste.

To escape from these fetters of the soul, into a realization of the Eternal
Oneness of life, was no easy task for the inheritor of such desires and
beliefs and appetites as an ancestry of rulers imposes.

And Prince Siddhartha was anxious to escape reincarnation--a theory or
conviction inseparable from Oriental religion.

His reference to "fickle affection" means literally that selfish affection
of the parent, which would retain the fleeting joy of a few short earthly
years of companionship, while the larger and more perfect love would bid
the child seek its birthright of godhood. The word "fickle" here would more
properly be translated transitory.

Buddha's desire to escape from a continuous round of deaths and
"leave-takings from kindred," does not necessarily imply an absorption into
The Absolute; it may as logically be interpreted to mean, that liberation
from the hypnotisms of externality _(mukti)_ insures the possession and
power of the gods--power over physical life and death, and this power need
not mean a cessation from individual consciousness, but rather, a full
realization of individual _unity_ with the sum of all consciousness.

There is another mistaken interpretation of the means of attainment of that
state of liberation, which has been alluded to in so many varied terms. The
fact that Buddha, like many of the Oriental Masters, sought the seclusion
of the forest; the isolation, and simplicity of the hermit,--has given rise
to the belief, almost universally held among Oriental disciples, that
liberation from _maya_, the delusions of the world, can not be attained
save by these methods.

Monasteries are the result of this idea, and this Buddhistic practice was
adopted by the first Christian church, since which time the real purpose
and intention of the monastery and the nunnery have become lost in the
concept of sacrifice or punishment. The Christian monk almost invariably
retires to a monastery, not for the purpose of consciously attaining to
that enlarged area of consciousness which insures liberation, _mukti_, but
as an "outward and visible sign" that he is willing to undergo the
sacrifice of worldly pleasures at the behest of the Lord Jesus. Thus, the