d the river of death "in the boat of
knowledge." All others must again return and further, by new births,
the cause of the soul's emancipation.

(2) The second path of liberation here inculcated is that of
self-restraint, of asceticism. From time immemorial the ascetic has
been India's ideal of a man of piety. He is a man who has turned his
back upon the pleasures of the world, even its harmless amusements and
physical enjoyments, and has given himself to stern rigid self-denial.
By thus denying himself every pleasure that body can bring and every
satisfaction that human society can furnish; yea, more, by a
renunciation of everything worldly to the extent of supreme physical
pain and social deprivation, he separates and weans himself from all
that is temporal, that he may pass on in sadness up the pathway of
redemption. This is the way of Yoga; and the Yogi to-day finds highest
admiration in India as its ideal of life.

In the Divine Lay also this pathway of Yoga finds emphasis and
exaltation.

"The devotee whose self is contented with knowledge and experience,
who is unmoved, who has restrained his senses, and to whom a sod, a
stone, and gold are alike, is said to be devoted.... A devotee should
constantly devote himself to abstraction, remaining in a secret place,
alone, with his mind and self restrained, without expectations and
without belongings. Fixing his seat firmly in a clean place, not too
high nor too low, and covered over with a sheet of cloth, a deerskin,
and kusa grass--and there seated on that seat, fixing his mind
exclusively on one point with the working of the mind and sense
restrained, he should practise devotion for the purity of self....
Thus constantly devoting himself to abstraction, a devotee whose mind
is restrained attains that tranquillity which culminates in final
emancipation and assimilation with me.... The self-restrained,
embodied self lies at ease within the city of nine portals, renouncing
all actions by the mind, not doing or causing anything to be done."

This path of abstraction and asceticism leaves the soul to theosophic
knowledge, which is consummated in the supreme bliss of assimilation
with the Divine.

So enamoured has India been of this method of life throughout the
centuries that Yoga has been reduced to a science, and has been
elaborated to a degree which is ridiculous and almost idiotic. Listen,
for instance, to Krishna's instructions where he speaks of the ascetic
a