The world is inclined—at least in this Kali Yuga (the Dark Age)—always to begin at the wrong end of anything and direct all its faculties to the perception of effects and not of their causes. So the ideas of “renunciation,” “asceticism” and of the “true feeling of universal Brotherhood” (or “mercy,” as I call it, in accordance with South Indian Ethics), all of which are compatible with Gnanis, or the most exalted of Mahatmas, all these have come to be recognized by all our Theosophists, in general, as _the means_ of progress for a beginner; while the real means of progress for us mortals—duties to our own families and to our own nation, or “kindness” and “patriotism” in the highest and ethical sense of the terms—are discarded. True, from the standpoint of a Jivanmukta, a true friend of humanity, these two Sadhanas are really “selfishness”; still, until we attain that exalted state, these two feelings should be made the ladders for raising ourselves, the means of not only getting ourselves rid of our family defects and natural idiosyncrasies, but also of strengthening in ourselves the noble qualities of our families and of our nation. Until we reach that ideal slate where the blessed soul has to make neither good nor bad Karma, we must strive to be constantly doing “good” Karma, in order that we might become Karma-less (nish Karmis). Let it not be understood at all, that I mean by “family duties” and “national duties,” false attachments to the family or to the nation. Family duty consists not in sensuality or pleasure-hunting, but in cultivating and in elevating the emotional nature (the fourth principle), of ourselves and of our family; in being equally “kind”, not only to the members of the family, but also to all creatures, and in enjoying all such pleasures of the family life as are consistent with the acquirement of “wealth” (all the means necessary for the performance of Dharma or whole duty) according to the teachings of Valluvar, and in utilizing such pleasures and means for the performance of our duty to our nation. Patriotism consists similarly in theosophising our own nation, in not only getting ourselves rid of our national defects, as well as other members of the nation rid of the same, but also in strengthening in ourselves and in our nation as a whole, all the noble qualities which belong to our nation; in the enjoyment of the privileges[85] of the nation and using them as a means for the performance of _Dharma_. If family duties are taken due care of, our duties to the nation and to humanity would, to a great extent, take care of themselves unimpeded. Our national duties, if strictly performed, serve to purify our fifth lower principle of its dross and to establish and develop the better part of it, while the performance of our duty to Humanity or the _realization of universal tolerance and mercy_, purifies the lower (human) stuff in the fifth higher principle