he senses turn to ashes and crushing blows
upon their eyes to the unsubstantially of the relative life of Maya.

The lion when stricken to the heart gives out his loudest roar,
When smitten on the head the cobra lifts its hood
And the majesty of the Soul comes out only when a man is wounded to his
depths.

The Western ideal is to be doing: the Eastern to be suffering. The
perfect life would be a harmony between (selfless or non-attached) doing
and suffering. Worship the terrible. Worship Death, for its own sake;
despair for its own sake; pain for its own sake. Yet this is not the
coward's or the suicide's or the weakling's morbid love of Death, but it
is the cry of the philosopher who has sounded everything to its depths
and knows intensely the vanity of the desire for happiness on the
relative plane of limitations. Remember the triumphant cry of St. Francis
of Assisi: "WELCOME, SISTER DEATH!" "Be witness"--of all that goes on but
be not entangled. Reserve to yourself the power to remain unattached at
all times. Accept nothing however pleasant, if it conceals a fetter into
thy Soul. At a word stand ready to sever any connection that gives a hint
of soul-bondage. Keep thy mind clear. Keep thy will pure. Attain the
Impersonal Standpoint, O you man! there alone canst thou quench thy
thirst for happiness never on the plane of personal. Who and what dies
and is reborn?--Your lower self, your personality.

"Sometimes naked, sometimes mad,
Now as a scholar, again as a fool
Here a rebel, there a saint,
Thus they appear on the earth
--the Perfect Ones. Paramhamsas"--Viveka Chudamani.

If you accept the report of the senses as final, you will say "soul
for nature"--but if you can gain the spiritual point of view, you will
say "no-nature for soul." Evolution, devolution and involution are all
in nature and will go on cyclically and eternally. All this is merely due
to the wish of the soul to manifest itself. But such expression can come
only when the soul lives on its plane. Say "Money is my slave, not I."
Say "Nature is my slave, not I". Give up life, give up body, give up all
desire for enjoyment on the relative plane. So shall you transcend all
limitation. Your real nature is Infinite and Absolute. Only when you
lower your nature by limiting it to the "particular self," do you become
bound and unhappy. On the relative plane, you are a slave to the pair
of opposites--life and death, pleasure and pain, and so on. Here is
li