.][t.]i M[=a]rga, the Path of Return. In the first,
the man evolves by taking; in the second, by giving. In the first, he
incurs debts; in the second, he pays them. In the first, he acquires; in
the second, he renounces. In the first, he lives for the profit of the
smaller self; in the second, for the service of the One Self. In the
first, he claims Rights; in the second, he discharges Duties.
Thus Morality is seen from two view-points, and the virtues it
comprises fall into two groups. Men are surrounded on every side by
objects of desire, and the use of these is to evoke the desire to
possess them, to stimulate exertion, to inspire efforts, and thus to
make faculty, capacity--strength, intelligence, alertness, judgment,
perseverance, patience, fortitude. Those who regard the world
as God-emanated and God-guided, must inevitably realise that the
relation of man--susceptible to pleasure and pain by contact with his
environment--to his environment--filled with pleasure and pain-giving
objects--must be intended to provoke in man the desire to possess the
pleasure-giving, to avoid the pain-giving. In fact, God's lures to
exertion are pleasures; His warnings are pains and the interplay between
man and environment causes evolution. The man who does not believe in
God has only to substitute the word "Nature" for "God" and to leave out
the idea of design, and the argument remains the same: man's relation to
his environment provokes exertion, and thus evolution. A man on the Path
of Forthgoing will, at first, seize everything he desires, careless of
others, and will gradually learn, from the attacks of the despoiled,
some respect for the rights of others; the lesson will be learnt more
quickly by the teaching of more advanced men--[R.][s.]his, Founders
of Religions, Sages, and the like--who tell him that if he kills,
robs, tramples on others, he will suffer. He does all these things;
he suffers; he learns--his post-mortem lives helping him much in the
learning. Later on, he lives a more controlled and regulated life, and
he may blamelessly enjoy the objects of desire, provided he injure none
in the taking. Hin[d.][=u]ism lays down, as the proper pursuits for the
household life, the gaining of wealth, the performance of the duties of
the position held, the gratification of desire. The desires will become
subtler and more refined as intelligence fashions them and as emotions
replace passions; but throughout the treading of the Pa
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