5.  Kill out all sense of separateness.

6.  Kill out desire for sensation.

7.  Kill out the hunger for growth.

8.  Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is imbodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal, can aid you.  Learn from sensation and observe it, because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder.  Grow as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air.  So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal.  But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth.  For in the one case you develop in the luxuriance of purity, in the other you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature.

9.  Desire only that which is within you.

10.  Desire only that which is beyond you.

11.  Desire only that which is unattainable.

12.  For within you is the light of the world—­the only light that can be shed upon the Path.  If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere.  It is beyond you; because when you reach it you have lost yourself.  It is unattainable, because it for ever recedes.  You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame.

13.  Desire power ardently.

14.  Desire peace fervently.

15.  Desire possessions above all.

16.  But those possessions must belong to the pure soul only, and be possessed therefore by all pure souls equally, and thus be the especial property of the whole only when united.  Hunger for such possessions as can be held by the pure soul; that you may accumulate wealth for that united spirit of life, which is your only true self.  The peace you shall desire is that sacred peace which nothing can disturb, and in which the soul grows as does the holy flower upon the still lagoons.  And that power which the disciple shall covet is that which shall make him appear as nothing in the eyes of men.

 17.  Seek out the way.

 18.  Seek the way by retreating within.

 19.  Seek the way by advancing boldly without.

20.  Seek it not by any one road.  To each temperament there is one road which seems the most desirable.  But the way is not found by devotion alone, by religious contemplation alone, by ardent progress, by self-sacrificing labor, by studious observation of life.  None alone can take the disciple more than one step onward.  All steps are necessary to make up the ladder.  The vices of men become steps in the ladder, one by one, as they are surmounted.  The virtues of man are steps indeed, necessary—­not by any means to be dispensed with.  Yet, though they create a fair atmosphere and a happy future, they are useless if they stand alone.  The whole nature of man must be used wisely by the one who desires to enter the way.  Each man is to himself absolutely