. It is an implement, a thing which
is used, evidently. What we desire to discover is,
who is the user; what part of ourselves is it that
demands the presence of this thing so hateful to
the rest?"

The task is, to rise above both pain and pleasure
and unite them to our service. "Pain and pleasure
stand apart and separate, as do the two sexes; and
it is in the merging, the making the two into one,
that joy and deep sensation and profound peace are
obtained. Where there is neither male nor female,
neither pain nor pleasure, there is the god in man
dominant, and then is life real."

The following passage can hardly fail to startle
many good people: "Destiny, the inevitable, does
indeed exist for the race and for the individual;
but who can ordain this save the man himself?
There is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence
of any ordainer other than the man who suffers or
enjoys that which is ordained." But can any earnest
student of Theosophy deny, or object to this? Is it
not a pure statement of the law of Karma? Does it
not agree perfectly with the teaching of the Bhagavat-Gita?
There is surely no power which sits apart
like a judge in court, and fines us or rewards us
for this misstep or that merit; it is we who shape,
or ordain, our own future.

God is not denied. The seeming paradox that a
God exists within each man is made clear when we
perceive that our separate existence is an illusion;
the physical, which makes us separate individuals,
must eventually fall away, leaving each man one
with all men, and with God, who is the Infinite.

And the passage which will surely be widely
misunderstood is that in "The Secret of Strength."
"Religion holds a man back from the path, prevents
his stepping forward, for various very plain reasons.
First, it makes the vital mistake of distinguishing
between good and evil. Nature knows no such distinctions."
Religion is always man-made. It cannot
therefore be the whole truth. It is a good thing for
the ordinary and outside man, but surely it will
never bring him to the Gates of Gold. If religion
be of God how is it that we find that same God
in his own works and acts violating the precepts
of religion? He kills each man once in life; every
day the fierce elements and strange circumstances
which he is said to be the author of, bring on
famine, cold and innumerable untimely deaths;
where then, in The True, can there be any room
for such distinctions as right and wron