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THE FALL.
185 impart is to be selected not by itself, but by the will. As we might use a lantern to light our footsteps to a place of worship or to a gambling den, so might we employ our intellect to impart to us the wisdom which leads to bliss, or to instruct us on matters whose knowledge is fraught only with suffering and pain. As a matter of fact, whenever and wherever the intellect has been employed in the right direction, it has never failed to lead the ego to the highest heights of glory and power, and, finally, also to Nirvana. Its influence is pernicious and harmful only when the ego employs it exclusively to define and determine the relations of its body with other bodies in the world. Hence, the lesson to be learnt from the profound teaching of the Bible is that if the error of setting up the body in place of the real Man be avoided, and the intellect employed to further the progress of the soul instead of to pander to the will, it ceases to have evil influence and becomes the most potent instrument for good.
It is worth any amount of trouble to understand that faith cannot possibly be acquired without a proper use of intellect, since nothing but Reason is capable of destroying our doubts. It is true that testimony is also capable of affording a temporary sort of satisfaction; but, since it is impossible for it to cover all possible points, and since its worth, reliability and interpretation have to be determined before its acceptance, it is not within its pale to remove all doubts. Hence, he who depends on testimony is like the man who builds his house on sand. It is for this reason that schisms arise endlessly when people begin to rely on the word of
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