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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size="4">The Golden Life – line</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><b><i>
<span
style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow";
'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></b></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>As slow
our ship her <span class=SpellE>foaming</span> track </p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Against
the wind was cleaving,</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Her
trembling pennant still looked back<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:
106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>To that dear <span
class=GramE>isle 't</span> was leaving.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>So <span
class=SpellE>loth</span> we part from all we love,</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:
106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>From all the
links that bind us,</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>So turn
our hearts as on we rove,</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:99.25pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:106.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>To
those we've left behind us.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>THIS is not merely children's
homesickness; it is a fundamental note of the human nature as it is at present
constituted. We always look backward, we always are tied to our roots and it is
with great difficulty and much effort that we advance and go forward or upward
away from our origins. In a nobler language this is called tradition. Often
tradition is made identi­cal with and taken for both life and culture. Denying
the past is looked upon almost as refusing the source of life and light.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Viewed
from another standpoint this harking back to the past, to the roots, as we say,
is the greatest obstacle to human progress. Man progresses, indeed the whole
creation advances, by breaking with the past. The leap from the mineral to the
plant, from the inorganic to the organic, is the first and most significant
break. Even so, are the progressive breaks from the plant to the animal and
from the animal to man. In man too similar progressive, that is, radically
progressive steps or leaps are <span class=SpellE>recognisable</span>. The ape
man without tools and the first man with tools mark very different stages in
human consciousness and life. And we have carried on more or less the same
manner of progression till today. But against this forward movement of nature,
there is a counter-pull backward. The 
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.0pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 308<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>principle</span> of inertia, of standing still, is of the very
nature of matter, the basic fact of creation. The force of gravity, earth's
pull, does not allow you to shoot up; it brings you down, and if you stand
erect, the innate tendency of the body is to sit down or lie flat, 'obedient to
the earth's attraction. This physical inertia acts also upon the mind,
including the vital conscious­ness. This is translated in the consciousness as
an attachment to the past, to what man has been familiar with. Conservation is
the term in respect of physical Nature and atavism is its expression in human
nature.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>It
is so difficult for man to leave the beaten track, for that means risk and
danger; our thoughts and movements are all shaped in the mould of the past, we
carry out what old habits have instructed us; any new thought, any new act we
happen to come across we seek to link it to an antecedent or precedent, similar
in kind or form. It is a never-ending succession, a causal chain that makes up
our life, the present being always produced by its past. That means the
present, and so also the future, is only another form or term of the past. What
is not in the past is not in the present or the future, that is to say, such is
the constitution of our consciousness and nature: there is a natural and
inevitable faith and trust in the past, an extension of the past; there is only
apprehension for the future, uncertainty in the present.¹ It was Buddha's
signal achievement to uncover this great illusion, the illusion of an inexhaustible
and inexorably continuing past, continuing into the present and into the
future. He saw that to be is not conti­nuity but a sequence of discrete moments
(and events). It is ignorance that finds a link between these entities; they
are in reality absolutely separate and distinct from each other. If you can
wake up from this ignorance as from a dream you will find they 'all
disintegrate and disperse and end in nothing. The only reality is that Nothing.
<span class=SpellE>Shankara</span> however says that it is not mere Nothing but
Pure <span class=GramE>Existence,</span> instead of an illusion of existences
you have the original Existence, the absolute existence.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">
<font size="2">¹ It is not that the conscious intelligence of man
is ignorant of the truth, his reason and higher perception surely sees and
acknowledges it; but the life impulse that moves him, his spontaneous energy
and instinct turns him away from a dyna­mic recognition of what otherwise
should inspire his movements. The link with the past is of much greater
strength than a possibility of the future.</font><o:p><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></o:p></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;
mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 309<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
Upanishad speaks of the creation as a garland and all the elements of life –
that are like precious jewels – are strung upon a secret thread. Indeed, it is
not on nothing that this multiplicity which is the creation is standing and
holding together. There is however a twofold secret thread – one that binds
together a world of ignorance: that is the thread of ignorance which passes
through, even keeps alive as it were, all the expressions and embodiments of
the ignorance, pain and suffering, greed and hunger, egoism and selfishness and
all forms of what is<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp; </span>called evil. But it
is the apparent world; even so, it is not pure delusion: it is a make-believe
or falsehood which keeps behind</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.2pt;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>it</span> the true, the real world. That world lies behind the mask,
the present actual world; it is another world of light and truth, power and
delight and purity. There the link that binds together the succession of events
and realities is a golden thread of pure consciousness. The link of ignorance
is, one may say, the iron link, and is open to rust and decay inevitably. It is
the link that binds together the ordinary life of ignorance, that pulls always
backward, clings to all that has gone by, seeks to extend the past into the
present and the future, feels unhappy if that is disturbed.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
a new and higher life we are asked to discard that link and come out of it, to
discover the other inner link, the link of light. That turns always to the
future, directs all impulses and activities towards the realities that are to
be.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.7pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;</span>These are then the two chains binding, each in
its own way, our life movements, each building a whole with a special
significance and <span class=SpellE>fulfilment</span>. They are two life-
lines, as it <span class=GramE>were</span>, a running parallel to each other.
One, as I have said, is the normal mundane life, the other a transfigured
spiritual life. The Upanishad, we know, speaks of the path of the Sun and the
path of the Fathers – they roughly correspond to the two lines I have just
spoken of. But the <span class=SpellE>Upanishadic</span> path of the Sun is a
vertical ascension from the normal life-line into a transcendent beyond. What
we meant was not <span class=GramE>an ascension</span> beyond but a parallel
growth in transformation, that is to say, what we referred to as the lower iron
links are to be transmuted into the golden ones, without breaking or dissolving
them. The problem is to find out the secret of this alchemy that transmutes the
iron links into the golden ones. Psychologically<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-line-height-alt:
7.9pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;
border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 310<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>the</span> Buddhist way is a great help even if it is not the
unique and inevitable one towards that consummation. For it dislocates,
disintegrates the chain that binds the being to the normal and ignorant life.
It teaches one to see and feel life as separate and isolated 'moments', there
being no real link between the moments; so if one is to live the truth of life
one must learn to live from<i> </i>moment to moment without any thought from
the past or of the future. The Biblical motto gains in this connection a deeper
significance: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. One does not carry
on his shoulders the burden of the past moments <span class=GramE>nor</span> a
possible burden in the thought of the morrow. One becomes free, absolutely
free, with no care but just the need of the moment to note and the immediate
gesture to meet it.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That
is a way, an effective way, for dissolving life, but we seek, as we have said,
not dissolution or disintegration but integration – Integration into a higher
integer, a greater reality. The lower chain dissolved, we have to find a new
status beyond the dissolution. That is perhaps what the Upanishad indicated
when it said: one has to traverse death through Ignorance (perception of
ignorance) and then through Knowledge (perception of the Knowledge) to attain
immortality. Buddha has led us across death, now we have to reach immortality.
There is a higher line of Karma and a lower line running parallel, as I said,
to each other – the lower (the iron chain) leads from death to death, the
higher (the golden one) leads from life to life and from light to light.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;mso-line-height-alt:
11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
transference from the lower chain to the higher is to be effected by the <span
class=SpellE>consciosuness</span> of nothingness (<span class=SpellE>Shunyam</span>)
being filled or impregnated with the new consciousness of Immortality; for the
units of the normal or ignorant. <span class=GramE>con­sciousness</span> are
themselves not wholly or essentially ignorant and mortal. They have in them
what Buddha did not see or <span class=SpellE>recognise</span> – the immortal
soul or self – as the Vedic <span class=SpellE>Rishis</span> said: that which
is immortal in the mortal. What is mortal in the apparently mortal unit is the
covering that hides the immortal nucleus. This covering is made of, as we know,
the mental, the vital and the physical beings. These perish, that is to say,
change; but that does not affect the immortal being within. Thus the
consciousness is to be drawn away or detached<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;mso-pagination:none;
mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 311<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:165.35pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>from</span> the covering and hitched on to the unchanging reality
within. That forms the golden link of the chain of immortality of the Supreme
Light. The transference from the lower chain is to be effected through the
consciousness of the luminous immortal divine unit. It is the Divine in man, familiarly
called '<span class=SpellE>antaryamin</span>.'</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Naturally,
the transference of the consciousness and being from the lower or surface line
to the line that <span class=GramE>lies in a higher and deeper level does</span>
not mean, we must note, the rejection or annihilation of the lower in <span
class=SpellE>favour</span> of the higher. The con­sciousness of the soul or
self does not negate the consciousness of the body and the life and the mind.
It only purifies, elevates, and transmutes them into its true and divine expression
and embodiment.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>To
live in the soul is to live in eternity with the vision and inspiration of the
eternal. It is living in the mind and the vital and the body that turns and
binds one to the past renders one a slave to mortality.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
units of this higher chain of consciousness are free from all drag of the past
or hold of the present: their being is turned automatically towards the future,
the Great Event to which all creation moves; for that is the truth of its
inmost reality: the inspiration of its movements comes from that intimate
source. The units of one's own life, all its moments share in this freedom and
this life-inspiration and all together form the wonderful harmony of the golden
chain. The units are not separated or isolated from each other – freedom of the
individual here does not mean isolation: it is a close union, indeed, it is an
indivisible unity for all units, all individual formations are identical, for
in a sense all are identified with the only reality, the one supreme consciousness.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.25pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>The
soul-consciousness is the golden thread running through the chain of light and
when it comes forward and becomes dynamic it gradually engulfs and purifies
what was its covering, the life, the mind and the body and reforms them in its
own light and energy expressing and embodying its divine truth and <span
class=SpellE>fulfilment</span> here below.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:11.25pt;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 312<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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