MUCH
      has been said and written on the Qualifications for Discipleship,
      as they are set down in Eastern Scriptures; they are
      laid down therein as the ideal according to which the
      aspirant should try to shape his life, and are intended
      to help a candidate for discipleship by pointing to the
      direction in which he should turn his efforts. Among
      the Eastern Peoples, Hindus and Buddhists, to whom they
      were given, they have always been so regarded, and men
      have taken them as guides in self-culture, as pupils
      may strive to copy, to the best of their ability, the
      perfect statue set up in the midst of the class for study.
      As these qualifications have become known in the Western
      world through Theosophical literature, they have been
      used in a somewhat different spirit, as a basis for the
      criticism of others rather than as rules for self-education.
      Frederic Denison Maurice spoke once of people who — “used the
      bread of life as [Page
      2] stones to cast at their
      enemies”, and
      the spirit which thus uses information is not uncommon
      among us. It
      may be open to question whether Those who have spread
      through the world much information that once was kept
      secret, may not occasionally have felt a twinge of doubt
      as to the wisdom of pouring forth teaching liable to
      so much misuse. 
      
      Our great Teacher, H. P. Blavatsky, has
suffered much at the hands of those who use the qualifications
for discipleship as missiles for attack instead of as
buoys to mark out the channel. It has been asked — as
      in the Vahan last year — why a person who
smoked, who lost her temper, who was lacking in self-control,
      should have been a disciple,
      while — this was not said but implied — many
      eminently respectable people, with all the family virtues,
      who never outrage conventionalities, and are models of
deportment, are not considered worthy of that title. It may
not be useless to try to solve the puzzle.
Those
  who have read carefully the unpublished letters from
  Those whom we call the Masters must have been sometimes
  struck with surprise over the opinions therein expressed,
  so different is Their envisagement of people and things
  from the current appreciations in the world. They look
  at many things that to us seem important with utter indifference,
  and lay stress on matters that we overlook. So surprising
  are sometimes the judgments [Page
    3] passed that they teach
    the readers a great lesson of caution in the formation of opinions about
    others, and make one realise the wisdom of the Teacher who said: “Judge
  not, that ye be not judged”. A judgment
  which has not before  it all the facts, which knows nothing
  of the causes from which actions spring, which regards
  superficial appearances and not underlying motives, is
  a judgment which is worthless, and, in the eyes of Those
  who judge with knowledge, condemns the judge rather than
  the victim. Eminently
  is this true as regards the judgments passed on H. P.
  Blavatsky, and it may be worthwhile to consider what
  is connoted by the words “disciple” and
  “initiate”, and why she should have held the
  position of a disciple and an initiate, despite the criticisms
  showered upon her. 
  
  Let us define our terms. A “disciple” is
  the name given in the occult schools, to those who,  being
  on the probationary path, are recognized by some Master as
  attached to Himself. The term asserts a fact, not a particular
  moral stage, and does not carry with it a necessary implication
  of the highest moral elevation. This comes out strongly in
  the traditional story of Jesus and His disciples; they quarrelled
  with each other about precedence, they ran away when their
  Master was attacked, one of them denied Him with oaths, and
  later on showed much duplicity. The
  truth is that discipleship implies a past tie between [Page
    4] Master and disciple,
  and a Master may recognise that tie, growing out of past
  relationship, with one who has still much to achieve; the
  disciple may have many and serious faults of character,
  may by no means — though his face be turned to the
  Light — have
  exhausted all the heavy Karma of the past, may be facing
  many a difficulty, fighting on many a battlefield with the
  legions of the past against him. The word “disciple” does
  not necessarily imply initiation, nor saintship; it only
  asserts a position and a tie — that the person is on
  the probationary path, and is recognised by a Master as His. 
  
  Among the people
  who occupy that position in the world today are many types.
  For those who are perplexed regarding them it is well that
  the law should be recalled, that a man is what he desires
  and thinks, and not what he does. What he desires and thinks
  shapes his future; what he does is the outcome of his past.
  Actions are the least important part of a man's life, from
  the occult standpoint — a hard doctrine
  to many, but true. Certainly
  there is a karma connected with action; the past evil
  desire and thought, which are made manifest in an evil
  act in the present, have had their evil fruit in the
  shaping of tendencies and character, and the act itself
  is expiated in the suffering and disrepute it entails;
  the remaining karma of the action grows out of its effect
  on others, and this reacts later in unfavourable [Page
    5] circumstance. Action,
    in the wide sense of the term, is composed of desire, thought and
  activity; the desire generates thought; the thought
  generates activity; the activity does not generate directly
  but only indirectly. Hence the man's desires and thoughts
  are the most vital elements in the formation of the judgment
  passed on the man. What he desires, what he thinks, that
  he IS; what he does, that he WAS. It follows that a man
  with past heavy karma may, if he become a disciple, expedite
  the manifestation of that karma, and its fruitage in
  the outer world may be of actions that do not bring him
  credit in the eyes of his world. From the occult standpoint
  such a man is to be helped to the utmost, so that he may
  be able to pass through the awful strain, the bearing of
  which successfully means triumph, the succumbing to which
means failure. 
Moreover,
  in passing right judgments on actions, not only must
  we know the actor's past, in which the roots of the actions
  are struck, but we must know the immediate past, that
  which immediately preceded the action. Sometimes a wrong
  action is done, but it has been preceded by a desperate
  struggle, in which every ounce of strength has been put
  forth in resistance, and only after complete exhaustion
  has the action supervened. From outside we see only the
  failure, not the struggle. But the struggler has profited
  by the effort that preceded the failure; he is the
  stronger, [Page
    6] the nobler, the better,
    and has developed the forces which will enable him to overcome the difficulty
    when it next presents itself, perchance even without a struggle. In the
  eyes of Those who see the whole, and not only a fragment, that
  man condemned by his fellows as fallen has really risen, for
  he has won as the fruit of his combat the strength which assures
him of victory.
This
  disciple stands on the probationary path; he is a candidate
  for initiation. He comes under conditions different from
  those that surround men in the outer world; he is recognised
  as pledged to the service of Light, and hence is also
  recognised as an opponent of the power of Darkness. His
  joys will be keener, his sufferings sharper, than those
  experienced without. He has called down the fire from
  heaven; well for him if he shrinks not from its scorching.
  And well too for him, if, like the Red Indian at the
  torture-stake, he can face an unsympathetic world with
  a serene face, however sharply the fire may burn.
  
 
  What
  of the famous qualifications for initiation which he
  must now seek to make his own ? They are not asked for
  in perfection, but some possession of them there must
  be ere the portal may swing open to admit him. In the
  judgment passed on him, which opens or bars the gateway,
  the whole man is taken into account. With some, so greatly,
  are other qualities developed, that but a small modicum
  of those specially demanded weighs down [Page
    7] the scale.
  With others, more average in general type, high development
  of these is demanded. It is, so to speak, a general stature
  that is expected, and the stature is made up in many
  ways. A
  candidate may be of great intelligence, of splendid courage,
  of rare self-sacrifice, of spotless purity, and bringing
  such dower with him may lack somewhat in the special
  qualifications. Something of them, indeed, he must have.
  If he have no sense of the difference between the real
  and unreal; if he be passionately addicted to the joys
  of the world; if he have no control over tongue or thought,
  no endurance, no faith, no liberality, no wish for freedom,
  he could not enter. The completion of the qualities may
  be left for the other side, if the beginnings are seen;
  but the initiate must fill up the full tale, and the
  more there is lacking the more will there be to be done. 
  
  It is not well to minimise the urgency of the demand,
  for these qualities must be reached some time, and far
  better now than later. Every weakness that remains in
  the initiated disciple, who has entered the path, affords
  a point of vantage to the Dark Powers, who are ever seeking
  for crevices in the armour of the champions of the Light.
  No earnestness is too great in urging the uninitiated
  disciple to acquire these qualities; no effort is too
  great on his part to compass their achieving.  For
  there is something of pathos in the case of a hero-soul who
  has “taken the kingdom
  of heaven by [Page
    8] violence” and
  has to pause to give a life-time to the building up of the
lesser perfections which in the past he neglected to acquire. 
Though the mills of God grind slowly
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though He stands and waits with patience
With exactness grinds He all.
The
      lofty initiate who has left some minor parts of human
      perfection unbuilt must be born into the world of men
      to lead a life in which these also shall be perfected.
  And if any chance to meet such a one in the flesh he would
      do wisely to learn from his best rather than to use his
      worst as his excuse for his own shortcomings, making
      it a justification for his own faults that he shares
      them with the initiate.
      
      Pre-eminently
  is this true of the criticisms levelled against H. P.
  Blavatsky. "She smoked”. But smoking is not
  the sin against the Holy Ghost. The use of it to depreciate
  a great teacher is a far worse crime than smoking, which,
  at the worst, is only a habit disagreeable to a small
  minority. 
  
“She had a bad temper”. So have a
  good many of her critics, without a thousandth part of the
  excuse she well might have pleaded. Few could bear for
  a week the strain under which she lived year after year,
  with the dark forces storming round her, striving to
  break her down, because the breaking down meant a check
  to the great spiritual movement which she led. In the
  position she was [Page
    9] bidden to hold, the nervous
    strain and tension were so great, the cruel shafts of criticism and unkindness
  were rendered so stinging by the subtle craft of the
  Brothers of the Shadow, that she judged it better at
  times to relieve the body by an explosion, and to let
  the jangled nerves express themselves in irritability,
  than to hold the body in strict subjection and let it
  break under the strain. At all hazards she had to live,
  with strained nerves and failing brain, till the hour
  struck for her release. It
  is ill done to criticise such a one, who suffered that
  we might profit. 
  
“She lacked
  self-control”. Outside sometimes, for the reasons above
  given, but never inside. Never was she shaken within, however
  stormy without. It may be said that such statement will be
  used as an excuse for ill-temper in ordinary people. Let
  them stand where she stood, i.e., become extraordinary people,
  and then they may fairly claim the same excuse. 
  
  H. P. Blavatsky
  was one of those who are so great, so priceless, that their
  qualities outweigh a thousandfold the temporary imperfections
  of their nature. Her dauntless courage, her heroic fortitude,
  her endurance in bearing physical and mental pain, her measureless
  devotion to the Master whom she served — these splendid
  qualities, united to great psychic capacities, and the strong
  body with nerves of steel that she laid on the altar of sacrifice,
  made all else as dust in the balance. Well might her Master [Page
    10] joy in such a warrior, even
    if not free from every imperfection. But
  where a person has no heroism, little devotion, and but
  small tendency to self-sacrifice, a strong manifestation
  of the special qualifications may well be demanded to
  counter-balance the deficiencies. Man worships the sun
  as a luminary and not for his spots. In the sunlight
  of H. P. Blavatsky's heroic figure, the spots are not
  the things that catch the eye of wisdom. But these spots
  do not raise to her level those who are nearly all spots,
  with little gleams of light. It is ill done in these
  days of small virtue and small vices to criticise
  harshly the few great ones who may come into our world. 
  
  Often, with S. Catherine of Siena, have I felt that intense
  love for some one even but a little higher than ourselves
  is one of the best methods for training ourselves into
  that lofty love of the Supreme Self which burns up all
  imperfections as with fire. Hero-worship may have its dangers,
  but they are less perilous, less obstructive of the spiritual
  life, than the cold criticism of the self-righteous,
  directed constantly to depreciation of others. And still
  I hold with Bruno, the Hero-worshipper, that it is better
  to try greatly and fail, than not to try at all. [Page
    11] 
    
      
Reprinted from The Theosophical Review. Vol. 32
IN
  our early Theosophical days we grasped the broad idea
  of Karma, and it is only as we plunge more deeply into
  study that we discover the innumerable complexities in
  the working out of the Good Law; initial difficulties
  vanish as our vision clears, but new ones ever arise
  on the mental horizon, so that our ignorance seems to
  increase more rapidly than our knowledge. 
  
  In taking up
  some of these problems for study, we may assume that
  all Theosophists are acquainted with the three-fold division
  of Karma, and with the general workings of desire, thought
  and action. 
  
  The first type we may consider is an action
  which seems to be entirely out of relation to the character
  of the actor, as when a man of high character suddenly
  commits a crime. Such all action may be the result of
  a cause set going long ago in his past, a cause which
  has not found its opportunity of acting until many lives
  after the one in which it was generated. We have here
  an extreme instance of a general rule, that a man's actions
  often bear little relation to his present [Page
    12] ideas. His
      actions are mostly the results of his desirings and thinkings
      in the past, modified but slightly by his desirings and
      thinkings in the present. A man is at one and the same
      time the reaper and the creator of Karma, and doing is
      reaping. As he acts he is sowing fresh seed for the future
      in his present desirings and thinkings, but the action
      as such is the harvest of past sowings; it is the outcome
      of the man as he was, not of the man as he is. To judge
      a man by his actions is to pass judgment on the man of
      the past, not on the man of the present; hence “Judge
      not” has been the
      maxim of the Teachers. None can judge a man aright, unless
      he can read his thoughts and desires, the outgrowth of
      his present character. Wide is the difference between
      our thoughts and our actions, our aspirations and our
      achievements. The thought comes from what we are at the
      present time, we create it according to the powers we
      have evolved; the action is fettered on all sides by
      its generating causes in the past, and is the manifestation
  of what we were.
  
  The
  most startling discrepancies between present character
  and present actions arise in the more highly evolved
  types, and especially in persons whose evolution has
  been rapid.
  
 
  In a far-off past a man has desired and thought
  an evil thing, and has completed it on the astral and
  mental planes (we will return to this in a moment). Now
  behind each man is a mass of [Page
    13] mixed Karma, and only
    a certain amount of it can be worked out in any given personality.
  The Lords of Karma select out of this mixed mass such portions
  as are sufficiently congruous with each other to be worked
  out in a single type, within certain limitations of character
  and circumstances, and having regard to the persons
  in incarnation at the period of this particular man's
  life. The evil thing awaiting manifestation as action
  cannot find its opportunity for many lives — very
  possibly because the person or persons related to it
  do not take birth at the time when the man is on earth.
  Hence it is held over life after life. Meanwhile the
  man is making rapid progress, develops his character
  and strengthens all his powers. Yet this veritable sword
  of Damocles is suspended over his head, ready to fall.
  The opportunity for action comes at last, and the evil
  thing takes birth as an action. The saint sins, to the
  astonishment of himself and of those around him; and
  all men question: “Why is this ? Surely his present
  strength should suffice to prevent such an act”.
  
  This
  brings us to the meaning of the phrase used above: “completed
  it on the astral and mental planes”. An activity is
  composed of three stages — desire, thought, act;
  we wish for a thing (desire), we think how to obtain it (thought),
  we grasp it (act). During the first two stages we enjoy
  comparative freedom; as we are desiring, thought, prompted
  by experience, may step in and wrestle [Page
    14] with the desire,
  may conquer and slay it, so that, that activity is stayed and
  does not pass on into the second stage. Or we may reach
  the second stage, and be thinking how to accomplish our
  desire, and other thoughts, again prompted by experience,
  may wrestle with this thought and overcome it, and the
  activity is stayed at the second stage. But when the
  second stage is completed, and the thought is ripe for
  action, so that only the open door of circumstance is
  needed for the thought to burst through it into action,
  then freedom is past, and the moment the door opens the
  act will be done. 
  
  Sometimes
  a wall of circumstances is built between the completed
  second stage and the third, and the action waits; death
  may come, but still the action waits, standing on the
  threshold until the door opens. Many lives may pass,
  and the door may not open; suddenly, in some life, circumstances
  open the door of opportunity , and the man performs the
  action without another thought, aye, though fifty or
  a hundred lives may have intervened. Such an action is
  inevitable, for its generating causes are complete, and,
  however incongruous it may be with the tenor of the life
  in which it occurs, it must come. 
  
  It must be remembered
  that the condition of the inevitableness of an action
  is that the desire and thought stages are completed.
  If there is a moment in which the man can think before
  he [Page
    15] acts,
  if the action be not instinctive — done without
  thought — he
  can resist. There are all grades of difficulty in resisting
  the impulse to do a particular act, but wherever there
  is time to think there is power to resist.
  
  It
  may not be amiss here to note the fact that if a man,
  who has some evil thing behind him awaiting birth as
  an act, be a man sufficiently evolved to remember his
  past, he may then destroy the evil Karma that waits on the
  threshold, he may burn up Karma by knowledge. For he
  can send against the completed thought a new current
  of thought of the opposite character and destroy the
  evil ere opportunity has manifested the thought as act.
  In this way also, where the act is connected with a person,
  an ancient enemy, the enemy may be turned into a friend
  by sending to him streams of good will ere the meeting
  on earth takes place, and the old hatred seeking revenge
  may be made love seeking to bless. 
  
  The great Teachers
  of the world, knowing this possibility, have ever inculcated
  universal love and goodwill, and by obedience to Them
  a man may transform an ancient foe into a friend, even
  though he knows not of his existence. For, taking it for granted
  that in his past he has generated some Karma of hatred,
  he may daily send out a wave of goodwill to all that
  lives, so that his love, outspreading in all directions,
  may quench any fires of hatred still fed by long-past
  wrongs. [Page
  16]
  
  Some
  interesting karmic problems arise in connection with
  World-Teachers, the Divine Men who come into the world
  for its helping. For instance, let us consider the
  “working of miracles” by the Founder of Christianity,
  miracles being, as we know, manifestations of the subtler
  forces on the physical plane. 
  
  The Karma generated by a miracle is of
  two kinds. First, there is the good done by it physically
  and mentally; secondly, there is the effect of the miracle
  on the minds of the onlookers. Such a manifestation of super-physical
  power usually convinces a number of the spectators of the
  authority of the person wielding the power; as time goes
  on, the miracle becomes more and more of a difficulty in
  their minds, until in the majority of cases it comes to be
  regarded as a trick or a hallucination, and resentment too
  often grows up against the Teacher, who is regarded as a
  deceiver. This
  evil thinking grows out of the act of the Teacher, since
  if He had not performed the miracle, the antagonism would
  not have been generated. 
  
  Yet it may be necessary for
  the Teacher to gain by such means a hearing for his Message;
  it may be necessary from the condition of the earth at the
  time, that there should be an exhibition of occult powers.
  Then the Messenger of the Great Lodge must, having undertaken
  the task, use the necessary means to win a hearing, and vindicate [Page
    17] the reality of the invisible
    worlds, and hence, He generates this mixed Karma of good and evil, working
    on for hundreds of years. We can see in the modern revolt against
      miracles, due to what is called "the scientific spirit”,
      the weapon against Christianity forged by that past necessity.
      What can the Teacher do ? He must strike the balance between
      the good and the bad results, and do the action which brings
      the preponderance of good as its result. He must deliberately
      take on Himself the evil Karma as part of the sacrifice He
      makes in helping the world. And
      the way this Karma works is to bind Him to the movement
      He has started, and He must remain with His religion,
      guiding, loving, helping, until the Karma is exhausted
      that He generated in performing His work of salvation. 
    
    Many Messengers of the White Lodge, greater and lesser,
  have brought such reaction on themselves in the doing
  of the work — Mme. H. P. Blavatsky is a notable
      recent example. Out of this we may draw the general principle — one
      of the greatest practical importance  — that no
      action done, in an imperfect world can be wholly good
      in its results.“Every action is surrounded with evil
      as a fire is surrounded with smoke”. No
      action that we can do is wholly good. All actions generate
      mixed Karma, because, being done in an imperfect world, the
      best must cause some friction, and we can only strive to
      choose the lines of work in which [Page
        18] the good most
      preponderates. We must study the Law in order that we may understand
      its workings, and then in all our activities seek the balance
      of good, cheerfully bearing the inevitable evil which must
accompany all the good we do.
Nor
  must we forget the goal to which the universe is tending.
  It bears as fruitage not only Divine Men, but within
  its matrix a LOGOS is evolving, who will be the builder
  of a higher universe. Great as a LOGOS is, He has climbed
  through all the forms — mineral, vegetable, animal,
  human, superhuman; and it is only because He has done
  this that He has acquired all-knowledge, and thus can
  begin a higher universe within the one in which He evolved.
  All the imperfect stages are necessary for the gaining
  of perfect knowledge, and what is a passing misery which
  produces an everlasting power ? All the sufferings round
  us work to this end, as well as towards the evolution
  of each individual, and all the friction that occurs
  is caused by the continual growth. As we all evolve,
  the friction diminishes, and the Saviours in the later
  stages of evolution, being surrounded by more highly
  evolved beings, will have a better field to work in than
  had Those of the past, and thus less evil Karma will
be generated in the doing of Their good work.
When
      we understand this part of the working of the Law, we
      can act with cheerfulness, using our best judgment, reason,
      thought, and all our [Page
      19] experience, performing
      actions to the best of our ability , sure that some good and also some
      evil must result, but striving to maximize the good, to minimise the evil.
      In proportion as we reach this state of mind will our work be efficient,
      and we shall be able to see that while the Logos of the universe
rules and guides all, among us also a Logos is evolving and
we with Him. At every stage there is and must be imperfection,
good and evil mixed, and all we can do is to cause as much
good and as little evil as possible. To be troubled and regretful
is to increase the friction which delays the total evolution,
and anxiety can only throw fresh obstacles in the way. Brave
cheerfulness is our right attitude, and as we advance we must
grow more calm, peaceful, serene, contented, no matter what
troubles may surround us. In the midst of the storm we may
carry a heart of peace. If
      we clear our eyes from personality; if we learn to identify
      ourselves with the Divine Man who is our Self; if we
      seek only God and the Law, indifferent to all our own
circumstances; then the vision will become clearer and clearer,
      the mists will disappear, the path of right conduct will
      shine out, and even if sometimes we fail to tread it,
      the very failure will teach us to tread better in the
      future, for “Never doth one
who worketh righteousness, O Beloved, tread the path of woe”. [Page
20] 
YOU
CREATE YOUR OWN FUTURE: 
DEEDS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
  
Reprinted from New India Weekly,
1930
THERE
      is a law in Nature which links together causes and effects.
      In its most general form it may be stated in the accepted
      axiom of Science: Action and Reaction are equal and opposite.
      This law means that when the equilibrium of Nature is
disturbed, that equilibrium tends to be restored; this is a
      universal truth in Nature. 
      
  No one who has studied anything
  of Science will deny the existence of the Laws of Nature. Those
      laws are not commands. They are simply statements
      of certain successions, or sequences, that have been
      observed to happen, so that when one thing has happened,
      another definite thing invariably follows it. This is
      fundamental for the understanding of what is called Karma,
      and must be clearly understood. The laws of men are commands
      to do or to abstain from doing, and the penalty connected
      with their breach is arbitrary. But with regard to a
      Law of Nature it is different. Certain conditions are
      stated, and wherever these are present some other definite
      conditions will and must follow. Nature leaves you perfectly
      free to sow
      [Page 21] whatever
you please. But if you want rice it is of no use to sow barley,
or thistles. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap”. That is Karma; neither
more nor less. 
You will have no difficulty in extending the
idea of Law to the mental and moral worlds. All the worlds
are connected, and in all, Law holds sway. There is nothing
of the nature of a command; it leaves you free to choose, but
points out that such and such conditions will inevitably follow
as the consequence of your choice. The statement of this might
make a person think he is not a free agent, and can do nothing.
But take the law of gravitation — that bodies tend to
move towards the centre of the earth. An ignorant
person might think: “How is it possible for you to move
upwards? ”.
By putting against the force of Nature that draws you to the
centre another force of Nature by which you may raise yourself
away from it — i.e.,
muscular force. You do not break the law of gravitation. You
feel its working in the exertion by which you lift yourself
against gravity. As
      you go on studying, you find that, because laws are inviolable,
      therefore a man can move freely among them; but on one
      condition only — that he knows and
understands them; otherwise he is a slave. “ Nature is
conquered by obedience”.
You cannot fight against Nature, she is too strong for man's
puny powers; but you can make her do exactly [Page
22] what you will, if you know
the laws within which her forces work. 
Man is not commanded by Nature, is not her
slave; he is in the midst of discoverable and calculable laws
and forces, by knowing which he can rule and use. Nature will
neither fail him nor swerve from her changeless road. When
man fails, it is because his knowledge is imperfect, and that
imperfection has betrayed him. 
Ancient religions and some modern
religions say that it is possible to transfer the certainty
of Law, that changeless inviolable security, to the realms
of mind and morals. Then man is indeed the master of his destiny,
for he can work in those worlds which shape the future, and
make himself what he wills to be. 
There
are three subsidiary laws under the general Law of action:
(1) That thought is the power that builds up character; as
you think, you will become. (2) That the force
which we call desire, or will, (two forms of the same
force) draws together you and
the thing you desire. (3) That the effect of your conduct
upon others, causing them happiness or misery, brings
you happiness or misery in return. If a man understands
these three laws and knows how to apply them, he becomes
master of his own future, maker of his own destiny.
1) Thought
  builds character .—You may test that
  statement either by the authority of the “past
  in the world's great Scriptures; or by your own experience,
  which is, perhaps, better; because your own
  experience [Page
    23] remains
  with you as yours and cannot be shaken. If you want
  to know with absolute certainty that thought
  makes character, try. The way of trying is very simple.
  Let us take as an example
  that you are irritable; this is not a crime, but a very
  common and ordinary weakness. You recognize that you
  are very easily annoyed. Having recognized it, never
  think of it again, because if thought builds character,
  thinking will put more life into it and
  make it grow; think about the opposite quality — patience — for
  some five minutes every morning. Do it regularly, for this
  is a scientific experiment. Think of it in any
  way you like; imagine yourself perfect in patience;
  then think
  of the most aggravating people you know. There
    must not be, in your thought, the least giving way
    to irritability. You must be patient in this mental
    picture. Repeat this every morning for a week. You
    will find that the thought of patience comes up
    in your mind without being summoned in the
    course of the day. That is the first sign that your
    morning thought is working. At first
    it will come up after a burst of irritability. Go
    on until the thought of patience comes before the
    provocation. You will find at the end of a few months
    that you have established patience as part of your
    character. In that way we can go on eliminating
    weakness after weakness. We can definitely build up
    character, build it as certainly [Page
      24] as a mason can build
up, brick by brick, a wall.
2) Desire
  draws together the Desirer and the Desired. — You
  see the one motive power in the universe as attraction
  everywhere. So long as it is drawn out from you
  by outer objects, we call it Desire. When the same power
  is directed  from within, we
  call it Will. Everything you desire to possess is drawn
  towards you by desire, because there is One Life in all, and
  the lives separated by their different forms are
ever trying to rejoin.
3) As
        you give Happiness or Misery to others, so shall
        you reap Happiness or
  Misery for Yourself. — According
to the effect of our action upon others comes a
similar reaction upon ourselves. As by sowing rice you
reap rice, so by sowing
pleasure you reap pleasure. But if done for a selfish
motive, it works out as a selfish character.
Realize
  those three laws and that you can make your future
  by applying them. A little knowledge of Karma is
  often distinctly dangerous, for one of the results
  is a tendency to sit down and say: “It is my Karma”.
  Like all Laws of Nature, it is not a compelling but an enabling
  force. Remember that “Exertion is greater than
  destiny”.
  The thought and desire of the moment is often just enough
  to balance the opposing
  forces. You may fail for the moment, but you will conquer
  tomorrow, or the [Page
    25] day after, or later. You
    should help when another suffers
  under his Karma, for if you do not do your best to help
  him, then you are making a Karma which will entail
  absence of help in the hour of  your own need. Besides,
  your duty is always to help. 
  
  Our duty always is kind action.
Go
            to Top of this page
            Back to our On Line Documents
  Back to our Main Page
 
  A free sample copy of our bilingual magazine can be sent
      to you. This offer is only good for a mailing to a Canadian
      address. You have to supply a mailing address. 
    
  The Canadian
  membership of $25.00 includes the receipt of four seasonal
  issues of our magazine "The
  Light Bearer" . If you are a resident of Canada send
  a note to enquirers@theosophical.ca requesting
  a packet of information and your free copy of our magazine
For membership outside of Canada send a message to the International Secretary in Adyar, India theossoc@satyam.net.in
For a problem viewing one of our documents
  - or to report an error in a document - send a note to the
  webmaster at webmaster@theosophical.ca
  
  We will try to answer any other query -if you
    would send a note to info@theosophical.ca
This document is a
    publication of the 
  Canadian Theosophical Association (a regional association
  of the Theosophical Society in Adyar) 
  website: http://www.theosophical.ca