This case is very
clearly and beautifully put in "Zanoni," and it is correctly put and
must be so, unless all "adeptism" is a baseless lie. The adept may be
more secure from ordinary dangers than the common mortal, but he is so
by virtue of the superior knowledge, calmness, coolness and penetration
which his lengthened existence and its necessary concomitants have
enabled him to acquire; not by virtue of any preservative power in the
process itself. He is secure as a man armed with a rifle is more secure
than a naked baboon; not secure in the sense in which the deva (god)
was supposed to be securer than a man.
If this is so in the case of the high adept, how much more necessary is
it that the neophyte should be not only protected but that he himself
should use all possible means to ensure for himself the necessary
duration of life to complete the process of mastering the phenomena we
call death! It may be said, why do not the higher adepts protect him?
Perhaps they do to some extent, but the child must learn to walk alone;
to make him independent of his own efforts in respect to safety, would
be destroying one element necessary to his development--the sense of
responsibility.
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