Monasteries are the result of this idea, and this Buddhistic practice was adopted by the first Christian church, since which time the real purpose and intention of the monastery and the nunnery have become lost in the concept of sacrifice or punishment.  The Christian monk almost invariably retires to a monastery, not for the purpose of consciously attaining to that enlarged area of consciousness which insures liberation, mukti, but as an “outward and visible sign” that he is willing to undergo the sacrifice of worldly pleasures at the behest of the Lord Jesus.  Thus, the real object of retirement is lost, and the sacrifice again becomes in the nature of a “bargain.”

In the Bhagavad-Gita, we find these words: 

“Renunciation and yoga by action both lead to the highest bliss; of the two, yoga by action is verily better than renunciation of action.  He who is harmonized by yoga, the self-purified, self-ruled, the senses subdued, whose self is the self of all beings, although acting, yet is such an one not affected.

“He who acteth, placing all action in the eternal, abandoning attachment, is unaffected by sin as a lotus leaf by the waters.”

This is interpreted according to the viewpoint of the translator, even as, among an audience of ten thousand persons, we may find almost as many interpretations, and shades of meaning of a musical composition.

True, the Oriental meaning seems to be the one that we shall cease to love friends, relatives, and lovers, abandoning them as one would abandon the furniture of one’s household when outworn, and no longer of service.

We do not accept this interpretation.

To abandon one’s friends, one’s loved ones, yea, even one’s would-be enemies is equivalent to leaving one’s companions on a sinking raft and, without sentiment or remorse, save one’s physical self from destruction.

No higher sentiment is known to struggling humanity than love of each other.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.”

Oriental or Occidental philosophy, whichever may be presented to the mind, as an unfailing guide, should be distrusted, if that philosophy prescribes the abandonment of lover, friend, relative, neighbor, brother, companion.  That is, if we accept the dictionary meaning of the word “abandoned” as translated into English.

A western avatar has said: 

“I will not have what my brother can not,” and in this we heartily concur, not hesitating to say that until all human life shall accept and realize the fullness of this message, we shall not, as a race, have attained to the inheritance that is ours.

But shall we then believe, that the Oriental doctrine is erroneous?  Not necessarily.

Errors of interpretation are not only natural but inevitable, and this interpretation of abandonment is in line with the idea of sacrifice (using the word in its old sense of paying a debt), which prevailed throughout all the centuries just passed—­centuries in which the idea of God was estimated by the conduct of the kings and monarchs of earth.