The Path of Discipleship; Four Lectures Delivered at the Twentieth Anniversary of the Theosophical Society, at Adyar, Madras, December 27, 28, 29 and baixar o livro de graça

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...him all their seductive glamour. His eyes must be opened, he must pierce through the veil of Maya, at least sufficiently to rate earthly things at their true value, for from Viveka is born the second of the qualifications--Vairagya. I have already pointed out to you that a man must begin to train himself in separation from action as regards its fruit. He must train himself to do action as a duty without continually looking for any sort of personal gain. That training we will suppose has been carried out by a man certainly for life after life, before the demand is made on him which he must answer to a very considerable extent before Initiation is possible, that he shall become definitely indifferent to earthly objects. Indifference to earthly objects, indifference to worldly objects, Vairagya, is the second of the qualifications in the probationary path of chelaship. He has developed Viveka and, as we have seen, this means the discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the transitory and the permanent. And as reality and permanency make themselves felt in the man's mind, it is inevitable that worldly objects shall lose their attraction, and that he shall become definitely indifferent to them. When the real is seen the unreal is so unsatisfactory; when the permanent is recognized, if only for a moment, the transitory seems so little worth striving after; in the probationary path all the objects around us lose their attractive power, and it is no longer an effort for the man to turn away from them; it is no longer by deliberate effort of the will that he does not permit himself to work for fruit. The objects have no longer an attraction in themselves; the root of desire is gradually perishing, and these objects, as it is said in...