SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

TREK OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 187
secure to us to attain these ends ?
And God s injunction appears
stranger, when it is seen that there is not only an injunction
not to try to know the evil, but that there is also an injunction
that we sholud not know the good. And to know the good, if
must at least appear to us to be our duty.
not to know the evil,
And all our moral text books and lessons and sermons are
intended to teach us this duty. And the fruits or acts result
ing from our knowledge of both good and bad are both for
bidden to man, and the punishment for disobeying this Law or
Word of God is said to be death itself with the further penalty
of being shut out of partaking of the ever lasting Tree of Life.
And of course there may be no wrong in our knowing
what is good for us and what is bad and in our desiring to seek
the one and avoiding the other, provided we can know what is
really good and what is bad, provided we can get what we
desire and provided also that we can know what it is that we
mean by the us or I . Do understand what will
all persons
really bring them good and what will bring them evil? Is every
act which gives pleasure at once a good, and every act which
gives pain a wrong? When the child cries for sweets, and
struggles hard against swallowing a bitter potion, is it really
seeking its good and avoiding evil ? When the school-boy
chafes under school-discipline and desires to sow his own wild
oats, is he really avoiding pain and seeking pleasure ? Does the
man of the world when he seeks power and pelf and resorts to
all sorts of ways to gain that end really seek his own good, or
when he chafes in a prison as a result of his previous actions,
does he think that it is for his good ? And then again, when we
seek pleasure and beyond our means, does not
us suffering ?
that really bring
More than all, how many of us do rightly under
stand the I and to which we want to minister ? To the great
majority, the I means nothing more than the bare body, and
the external senses, and is not the whole world engaged most
strenuously in satisfying their bodily wants and appetites? How
many are there who understand that they have a moral nature,
how many, that they have a spiritual nature ? Even when we