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836
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
end sooner or later, since that body is a compound of spirit and matter, and since all compounds are Viable to change. Hence, time, which revolves all substances round and thereby forces all combinations and compounds to undergo changes of form, must, sooner or later, destroy the force necessary to maintain a particular form of the kârmana saréra, throwing it antomatically into a new form. The result of the operation is that the association of the soul with its outermost body is rendered impossible any longer, ansi what is known as death immediately supervenes.
It is to be observed further that the dyuh karma is a force which cannot be augmented by any means, inasmuch as it is engendered not in a vartamâ na (current or present) incarnation or life, but in the one that is past. Just as it is not possible to prevent the collapsing of a house built on a sliding bill-top, when he who would put up a prop happens to be imprisoned in the edifice itself, in the same way is it beyond the pale of possibility to staunch the running out of the ayuh karma, that is to say, to augment the force of longevity generated under circumstances and surroundings which have ceased to be actual and accessible since. Like the effervescence of an opened bottle of wrated water, which nothing can re-inforce, the store of ayu! is bound to be exhausted in due course of things, sooner or later. For, just as the duration of the process of bubbling up in ærated water is determined by the quantity of the gaseous matter in combination with water and by the nature of its fusion with the liquid, so is the longevity of living beings dependent on the type of bandha (bonds) forged by the
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