its negative aspect, for convenience regarded as a separate
agent. If an individual attempts to move in a direction other than that
in which Nature is moving, that individual is sure to be crushed, sooner
or later, by the enormous pressure of the opposing force. We need not
say that such a result would be the very reverse of pleasurable. The
only way, therefore, in which happiness might be attained is by merging
one's nature in great Mother Nature, and following the direction in
which she herself is moving: this again can only be accomplished by
assimilating men's individual conduct with the triumphant force of
Nature, the other force being always overcome with terrific
catastrophes. The effort to assimilate the individual with the
universal law is popularly known as the practice of morality. Obedience
to this universal law, after ascertaining it, is true religion, which
has been defined by Lord Buddha "as the realization of the True."

An example will serve to illustrate the position. Can a practical
pantheist, or, in other words, an occultist, utter a falsehood? Now, it
will be readily admitted that life manifests itself by the power of
acquiring sensation, temporary dormancy of that power being suspended
animation. If a man receives a particular series of sensations and
pretends they are other than they really are, the result is that he
exercises his will-power in opposition to a law of Nature on which, as
we have shown, life depends, and thereby becomes suicide on a minor
scale. Space prevents further discussion, but all the ten deadly sins
mentioned by Manu and Buddha can be satisfactorily dealt with in the
light sought to be focused here.

--Mohini M. Chatterji

Occult Study

The practical bearing of occult teaching on ordinary life is very
variously interpreted by different students of the subject. For many
Western readers of recent books on the esoteric doctrine, it even seems
doubtful whether the teaching has any bearing on practical life at all.
The proposal which it is supposed sometimes to convey, that all earnest
inquirers should put themselves under the severe ascetic regimen
followed by its regular Oriental disciples, is felt to embody a strain
on the habits of modern civilization which only a few enthusiasts will
be prepared to encounter. The mere intellectual charm of an intricate
philosophy may indeed be enough to recommend the study to some minds,
but a scheme of teaching that