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your greatest strength and yet your greatest weakness. It must be controlled,
otherwise your mind will be unsteady. Allow not thoughts of pleasure, brief
and short, to keep you from wisdom that leads to the Eternal. Now enter!
The door opened; and, as though by some secret signal or understanding, as
I stepped through, the whit-robed nun stepped up beside me.
A heathen monk! and in Christian land! she exclaimed, with
well-simulated surprise.
The Buddha was no heathen, nun, he taught the morals of thy Christ and
three of the grandest doctrines that ever man has taught.
Ah! Since when? What were they, monk?
Since five hundred years before thy Christ Buddha and his true disciples
have taugh t the doctrine of Enlightenment, Law, and Evolution, to
perfection.
What! Enlightenment in that benighted country? she said mockingly,
apparently in an altogether different mood this evening.
BROTHER OF THE THIRD DEGREE 69
How long benighted? Only since the sword of Allah usurped th e throne;
only since he British Christians robbed and plundered; only since the iron rule
of might has usurped Buddha s teaching of gentleness and right. While my
garments were assumed this speech was not, and, as I finished, she answered:
Thou hast most firmly-set convictions, monk; what of the law?
The law that every cause has its effect which again reacts upon its cause;
and that all things upon the earth are bound by this eternal law, immutable
and certain.
But what of evolution? That is a modern doctrine; Buddha taught no such.
The materialistic evolution of the West ? no Mind cannot come from cold,
dead matter; life cannot come from lifeless form; but the endless evolution or
unfoldment through manifestation of an invisible and all-pervading
Essence ? yes.
But the Buddhist is an atheist.
Not so; thy priest has taught thee wrong. The Eastern idea of God, I must
confess, is very different from that held in the West; no form -clothed
personality can they conceive as present everywhere, but an i and
nfinite
all-pervading Brahma they do proclaim.
Well, we will not quarrel, Christ and Buddha both were good; and this is
very serious conversation for a ball-room.
Speaking this with her usual tenderness, she took my arm.
Shall we not reliever our minds by participation in the dance? I ventured,
as the music struck up a waltz, and I remembered I had never danced with
her.
To think, she answered, that monk and nun should dance. No mind can
dwell on serious thoughts that drifts thus to the frivolous.
Not so, I answered; the master minds can dwell on different times; but
others mix all things at all times, which brings confusion, never wisdom. Now,
when the dance is over, we will concentrate our thoughts in study and the
recreation will have refreshed us.
You reason with wisdom, monk, and, listening to you, the nun, against her
rules, will dance.
Ah, hitherto a formal handclasp, now like a fairy on my arm! Could this be
the peasant girl? Ah, no! There she had by power of will kept soul restrained;
here she was her real self, her heart alive with fire. Now her head leans on my
shoulder; now I fell her beating heart. Souls attuned to subtle music blend in
unison on earth.
Oh, happiness! What joy! Our souls are one. What! The music ceased already?
How short! How delusive is that thing called time!
She was the first to return to consciousness. For the time she had given
herself to me, but now, again individualized and separate, she spoke:
Come, my monk, we must waste no more time, but get to our studies.
Waste time! I protested, as we started toward the study door.
BROTHER OF THE THIRD DEGREE 70
Yes, waste time, she answered cruelly, and then added earnestly: That
was but a temporary union; there is a union which is eternal.
We had now entered the study-room, and, to my surprise, she took a seat in
front of me and asked:
What have been thinking of since last we met?
Sister, I answered, with some hesitation on the word, my thoughts have
been mostly of thee.
A very poor subject for thought, she answered; and before I could reply
continued:
You spoke with wisdom prior to the dance; is it a fact that you can
concentrate and control you mind?
I had attained some success in that line prior to our meeting, I answered
honestly, trying to draw her into the channel of my thoughts.
Then you have not been so successful since meeting me?
I must confess I have not, I answered, hesitatingly.
Then I have exercised a bad influence on you, have I? There was a tone of
sadness in her voice, and I quickly answered:
No, no bad in fluence, only my heart has become stronger than my head. My
love has become master. Iole, my long-lost love, I love you.
I stretched forth my hands, and, with heart on fire with love would have
caressed her, but with a look that almost consumed my soul she motioned me
back, and with a voice most wonderfully under control, answered:
Have all thy past existences been for naught? Has all the pain and suffering
we have endured been productive of no results? Must we, bound down by
earth desires, still dwell in this vale of misery? Did we die on CEtas mount,
did we languish in convent cells for naught? No! It was but to exhaust the evil
dues that came from lives still prior. It was but to teach us the uncertainty
attached to all selfish loves. And now, with Karmic dues exhausted, with all
these experiences registered within our souls, must we still linger, through
weakness, in this vale of night and death, the victims of rebirth?
She leaned forward as she spoke, her veil thrown aside, and her expressive
brown eyes were luminous with a spiritual fire. Far from repelling me her
words entranced, while they held me checked in action as I answered:
Thou hast recalled the memory of my love for thee in times gone by, and
that, added to the present, only makes it stronger; but know, my soul, this love
is pure, and what can claim superiority to love, pure love?
Love, so long as tinctured by a thought of self, cannot be absolutely pure;
pure love is universal and includes all things, forgetting self. What dost thou
love? My soul or body?
Thy soul; I have no thought of body.
Dost thou realize the meaning of those words? If so, there may be hope on
higher planes of love.
I realize the meaning; I love thy soul.
BROTHER OF THE THIRD DEGREE 71
Canst thou love with all sense of body absent?
You speak of higher planes, but if such a love is possible, I can. Was her
soul lifting mine to her own exalted height? I felt a spirit power stir in me.
It is possible; it is a fact. We can love in mind, in soul, in spirit; and the
highest love of earthly unions is but a dim foretaste of this grand love. Know
you not the meaning of true love?
Tell me, my sister; your words uplift me to a higher world of love.
Then know, what few men know, that every man is complete within
himself, and nothing there lacking if he will but search the depths. Love is but
the soul s desire for a portion of itself which it has lost, and without which its
joy is incomplete. Think not the soul cannot lose a portion of itself; it can. That
which we possess yet are not conscious of, is lost, latent as it were, present but
unmanifest. Now the perfect being is fully self-conscious of all his parts and
attributes, and perfection must be our end and aim. Know that thou art in me
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