Theos-Talk Archives (September 2005 Message tt00208)

[ http://www.AnandGholap.net - Online Books on Theosophy ]

“ As a man’s intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature develops, he becomes more and more conscious of the purpose of human life, and more and more eager to accomplish that purpose in his own person. Repeated longings forearthly joys, followed by full possession and by subsequent weariness, have gradually taught him the transient and unsatisfactory nature of earth’sbest gifts; so often has he striven for, gained, employed, been satiated, and finally nauseated, that he turns away discontented from all that earth can offer. “What doth it profit?” sighs the wearied soul: “All is vanity and vexation. Hundreds, yea, thousands of times have I possessed, and finally have found disappointment even in possession.” (Page 293) 

“These joys are illusions, as bubbles on a stream, fairy-coloured, rainbow-hued, but bursting at a touch. I am athirst for realities; I have had enough of shadows; I pant for the eternal and the true, for freedom from the limitations that hem me in, that keep me prisoner amid these changing shows.”

This first cry of the soul for liberation is the result of the realisation that, were this earth all that poets have dreamed it, were every evil sweptaway, every sorrow put an end to , every joy intensified, every beauty enhanced, were everything raised to its point of perfection, he would still beaweary of it, would turn from it void of desire. It has become to him a prison, and, let it be decorated as it may, he pants for the free and limitless air beyond its inclosing walls. "
Complete book can be read at
http://anandgholap.net/Ancient_Wisdom-AB.htm