The voice of Isis Author:Harriette Augusta Curtiss Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE VOICE OF ISIS CHAPTER I. Life's Duties. s "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with / thy might."—Ecclesiastes, IX-10. "Believe thou not tha... more »t sitting in dark forests, in proud seclusion and apart from men; believe thou not that life on roots and plants, that thirst assuaged with the snow from the great Range—believe thou not, O Devotee, that this will lead thee to the goal of final liberation."—The Voice of the Silence, Blavatsky, Fragment I. Many students of the higher life find themselves surrounded by conditions which absolutely preclude their devoting themselves to study and to the observances which seem necessary for self-development. Life often seems to press so heavily upon them that both body and mind are wearied to the point of exhaustion, and both men and women are reduced to a state of beasts of burden. Yet even here let us seek a remedy. There are two classes of duties, the real duties which must be performed and the mere superfluities of life which we are wont to call duties but which we voluntarily impose upon ourselves. No real duty is given you which you have not the strength to perform or without a purpose to be gained by its performance. Real duties do not exhaust you, for "as thy days, so shall thy strength be." Instead of letting any duty arouse in your mind the thought that it can by any possibility separate you from the InnerLight or from your spiritual development or your real advance along the Path or prevent you from drawing close and learning Wisdom at the Master's feet, realize that it would be impossible for you to take one step onward while you were leaving any real duty undone. "But to attain true renunciation of action without devotion through action is difficult, O thou of mighty arms; while the devotee who is engaged in t...« less