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