By this the slayer's knife did stab himself; The unjust judge hath lost his own defender; The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief And spoiler rob, to render. Such is the Law which moves to righteousness, Which none at last can turn aside or stay; The heart of it is Love, the end of it Is Peace and Consummation sweet. Obey! The Books say well, my Brothers! each man's life The outcome of his former living is; The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes The bygone right breeds bliss. That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields The sesamum was sesamum, the corn Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew! So is a man's fate born. He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed, Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth; And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar Him and the aching earth. If he shall labour rightly, rooting these, And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew, Fruitful and fair and clean the ground shall be, And rich the harvest due. If he who liveth, learning whence woe springs, Endureth patiently, striving to pay His utmost debt for ancient evils done In Love and Truth alway; If making none to lack, he throughly purge The lie and lust of self forth from his blood; Suffering all meekly, rendering for offence Nothing but grace and good; If he shall day by day dwell merciful, Holy and just and kind and true; and rend Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots, Till love of life have end: He--dying--leaveth as the sum of him A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit, Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near, So that fruits follow it. No need hath such to live as ye name life; That which began in him when he began Is finished: he hath wrought the purpose through Of what did make him Man. Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths And lives recur. He goes Unto NIRVANA! He is one with life Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. OM, MANI PADME, OM! the Dewdrop slips Into the shining sea! This is the doctrine of the KARMA. Learn! Only when all the dross of sin is quit, Only when life dies like a white flame spent Death dies along with it. Say not "I am," "I was," or "I shall be," Think not ye pass from house to house of flesh Like travelers who remember and forget, Ill-lodged or well-lodged. Fresh