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THE RESULTS OF SATORI 179 When satori has become a sufficiently deep and common experience for the inner change to affect substantially the outer man, he will, while obeying the laws of the land and the customs of his neighbours, live in his spiritual life according to an inner voice, the voice of the silence”, obedience to which, to one whose life henceforth is selfless and purpose-less, is its own reward. But it would seem that a man can have gained a considerable measure of satori without acquiring the power to control it. For a long time satori just comes as it will, without reference to the appropriateness of the occasion. Certainly my own most vivid experience was in a Turkish bath, while on occasions when I needed all the wisdom I could command I have found myself in a flat and positively peevish state of mind. Only when consciousness can be raised at will and held at the level of satori, that is, beyond discrimination and conceptual thought, does it become a tool in the hands of a master-craftsman; and satori is, I believe, no more than a tool, though the noblest, perhaps, in the use of the perfect man. Even when control is acquired, and this "direct seeing into the heart of man" and of all situations can be turned on like a tap, the Master does not dwell in it all day. As the Master K. H. wrote to A. P. Sinnett, when explaining much of these matters, “An adept—the highest as well as the lowest is one only during the exercise of his occult powers.”:1
Nor does the attainment of satori in itself create a Master of Zen. It is one thing to acquire a thorough knowledge of the ways of Zen; quite another thing to live a life which expresses that understanding. There follows, therefore, a period of "maturing”, when the would be
1 The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, p. 180.
