The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE SEVEN PORTALS 92. Not so when he hath crossed and won the Aryahata Path. : From here to verse 95 is description of this last Path which leads to the last Gate. 93. There Kleshais destroyed for ever, Tanhd@’s roots torn out. But stay, Disciple . . . Yet one word. Canst thou de- stroy divine COMPASSION? Compassion is no attribute. It is the Law of LAWS—eternal Harmony, Alaya’s SELF; a shoreless universal essence, the light of everlasting Right, and fitness of all things, the law of Love eternal. Here again is apparently a serious difficulty. The idea of Klesha, here identified with Love of worldly enjoyment, seems to put one back almost before the beginning. Is it now only that the almost-Arhat no longer wants to go to the theatre? It must not be interpreted in this low sense. At the same time, it is difficult to discover a sense high enough to fit the passage. With Tanha it is easier to find a meaning, for Madame seems to identify Tanha with the creative force of which we have spoken. But this is of course in- compatible with the Buddhist teaching on the subject. Tanha is properly defined as the hunger of the individual for continuous personal existence, either in a material or a spir- itual sense. With regard to the rest of the verse, it certainly reads as if yet again Blavatsky had taken the sword to a Gordian knot. By saying that Compassion is no attribute she is merely asserting what is evidently not true, and she therefore de- fines it in a peculiar way, and I am afraid that she does so in a somewhat misleading manner. It would be improper here to disclose what is presumably the true meaning of this verse. One can only commend it to the earnest considera- 129