The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE TWO PATHS 72. And if he falls, e’en then he does not fall in vain; the enemies he slew in the last battle will not return to life in the next birth that will be his. Further encouragement to proceed; for although you do not attain everything, yet the enemies you have conquered will not again attack you. In point of fact this is hardly true. The conquest must be very complete for it to be so; but they certainly recur with very diminished intensity. Similar is the gradual immunization of man to syphilis, which was a rapidly fatal disease when fresh. Now we all have it in our blood, and are protected (to some extent, at least) against the ladies. 73. But if thou would’st Nirvana reach, or cast the prize away, let not the fruit of action and inaction be thy motive, O thou of dauntless heart. This verse is again very obscure, from overloading. The “fruit” and the “prize” both refer to Nirvana. 74. Know that the Bodhisattva who Liberation changes for Renunciation to don the miseries of “Secret Life,’ is called “thrice Honoured,” O thou candidate for woe through- out the cycles. This verse must not be interpreted as offering the induce- ment of the title of “thrice Honoured” to a Bodhisattva. It is a mere eloquent appeal to the Candidate. This about woe is awful. It suggests a landlady in Dickens who ’as seen better days. 75. The PATH is one, Disciple, yet in the end, twofold. Marked are its stages by four and seven Portals. At one end 69