. He simply
lifts himself out of the region in which Karma
operates. He does not leave the existence which
he is experiencing because of that. The ground
may be rough and dirty, or full of rich flowers
whose pollen stains, and of sweet substances
that cling and become attachments--but
overhead there is always the free sky. He who
desires to be Karmaless must look to the air
for a home; and after that to the ether. He
who desires to form good Karma will meet
with many confusions, and in the effort to sow
rich seed for his own harvesting may plant a
thousand weeds, and among them the giant.
Desire to sow no seed for your own harvesting;
desire only to sow that seed the fruit of which
shall feed the world. You are part of the
world; in giving it food you feed yourself. Yet
in even this thought there lurks a great danger
which starts forward and faces the disciple,
who has for long thought himself working for
good, while in his inmost soul he has perceived
only evil; that is, he has thought himself to
be intending great benefit to the world while
all the time he has unconsciously embraced the
thought of Karma, and the great benefit he
works for is for himself. A man may refuse to
allow himself to think of reward. But in that
very refusal is seen the fact that reward is
desired. And it is useless for the disciple to
strive to learn by means of checking himself.
The soul must be unfettered, the desires free.
But until they are fixed only on that state
wherein there is neither reward nor punishment,
good nor evil, it is in vain that he endeavors.
He may seem to make great progress, but some
day he will come face to face with his own
soul, and will recognise that when he came to
the tree of knowledge he chose the bitter fruit
and not the sweet; and then the veil will fall
utterly, and he will give up his freedom and
become a slave of desire. Therefore be warned,
you who are but turning toward the life of
occultism. Learn now that there is no cure for
desire, no cure for the love of reward, no cure
for misery of longing, save in the fixing of the
sight and hearing upon that which is invisible
and soundless. Begin even now to practise it,
and so a thousand serpents will be kept from
your path. Live in the eternal.

The operations of the actual laws of Karma
are not to be studied until the disciple has
reached the point at which they no longer affect
himself. The initiate has a right to demand
the secrets of natu