ual absorption into infinity can the Part become acquainted with the
Whole, and that that which is now something can only feel, know, and
enjoy EVERYTHING when lost in Absolute Totality in the vortex of that
Unalterable Circle wherein our Knowledge becomes Ignorance, and the
Everything itself is identified with the NOTHING.

Is the Desire to "Live" Selfish?

The passage "to live, to live, to live must be the unswerving resolve,"
occurring in the article on the Elixir of Life, is often quoted by
superficial and unsympathetic readers as an argument that the teachings
of occultism are the most concentrated form of selfishness. In order to
determine whether the critics are right or wrong, the meaning of the
word "selfishness" must first be ascertained.

According to an established authority, selfishness is that "exclusive
regard to one's own interest or happiness; that supreme self-love or
self-preference which leads a person to direct his purposes to the
advancement of his own interest, power, or happiness, without regarding
those of others."

In short, an absolutely selfish individual is one who cares for himself
and none else, or, in other words, one who is so strongly imbued with a
sense of the importance of his own personality that to him it is the
crown of all thoughts, desires, and aspirations, and beyond which lies
the perfect blank. Now, can an occultist be then said to be "selfish"
when he desires to live in the sense in which that word is used by the
writer of the article on the Elixir of Life? It has been said over and
over again that the ultimate end of every aspirant after occult
knowledge is Nirvana or Mukti, when the individual, freed from all
Mayavic Upadhi, becomes one with Paramatma, or the Son identifies
himself with the Father in Christian phraseology. For that purpose,
every veil of illusion which creates a sense of personal isolation, a
feeling of separateness from THE ALL, must be torn asunder, or, in other
words, the aspirant must gradually discard all sense of selfishness with
which we are all more or less affected. A study of the Law of Kosmic
Evolution teaches us that the higher the evolution, the more does it
tend towards Unity. In fact, Unity is the ultimate possibility of
Nature, and those who through vanity and selfishness go against her
purposes, cannot but incur the punishment of annihilation. The
occultist thus recognizes that unselfishness and a feeling of universal
ph