THE EQUINOX
do that without losing anything. And because the sur-
render must be complete, it must beware of that expansion
which is called pride; for it is destroying duality, and pride
implies duality.
56. Thine “isle” is the deer, thy thoughts the hounds that
weary and pursue his progress to the stream of Life. Woe
to the deer that is o’ertaken by the barking fiends before he
reach the Vale of Refuge—Dhyana-Marga, “path of pure
knowledge” named.
Once more the passage harks back to the Abyss where
thoughts prevail. It is another poetic image, and not a good
one. Extraordinary how liable this unassailable Alaya-
Soul is to catch cold! It isn’t woe to him; it’s woe to YOU!
57. Ere thou canst settle in Dhyéna-Mérga and call it
thine, thy Soul has to become as the ripe mango fruit; as
soft and sweet as its bright golden pulp for others’ woes, as
hard as that fruit’s stone for thine own throes and sorrows,
O conqueror of weal and woe.
More trouble, more poetic image, more apparent sen-
timentality. Its true interpretation is to be found in the old
symbolism of this marriage of Chiah and Neshamah. Chiah
is the male, proof against seduction; Neshamah the female
that overcomes by weakness. But in actual practice the
meaning may be explained thus,—you yourself have con-
quered, you have become perfectly indifferent, perfectly
energetic, perfectly creative, but, having united yourself to
the Universe, you become acutely conscious that your own
fortunate condition is not shared by that which you now are.
It is then that the adept turns his face downwards, changes
II2