18

DEWDROPS

Verily, love is death, and death is life to come.

Man returneth not again; the stream floweth not uphill; the old life is no more; there is a new life that is not his.

Yet that life is of his very essence; it is more He than all that he calls He.

In the silence of a dewdrop is every tendency of his soul, and of his mind, and of his body; it is the Quintessence and the Elixir of his being. Therein are the forces that made him and his father and his father's father before him.

This is the Dew of Immortality.

Let this go free, even at It will; thou art not its master, but the vehicle of It.

COMMENTARY (ΙΗ)

The 18th key of the Tarot refers to the Moon, which was supposed to shed dew. The appropriateness of the chapter title is obvious.

This chapter must be read in connection with Chapters 1 and 16.

In the penultimate paragraph, Vindu is identified with Amrita, and in the last paragraph the disciple is charged to let it have its own way. It has a will of its own, which is more in accordance with the Cosmic Will, than that of the man who is its guardian and servant.