This is the essential meaning of what in India has so long been called karma. Many people all over the world say that they believe in karma. They mean that a man cannot reap as he has not sown, that nothing can happen to any one of us of pleasure or of pain except as he has caused it to happen to himself by his own actions in the past. In connection with this there is often too much thought about the pleasure and the pain, and about what is sometimes called the opportunity and the lack of opportunity which these things give. Every moment there is [Page 35] the very fullness of opportunity, because we have made our own environment. The painter painted a picture yesterday. Is not that picture, whatever it may be, his opportunity for today. Will he not look at it this morning and see some of its imperfections, which are his own imperfections that he would never have felt or seen if he had not painted that picture yesterday? And now, when tries again, setting aside those imperfections, will he not paint a better picture today, because he has had before him his work of yesterday. He must be a better painter at the end of a piece of work than he was at the beginning of it, because his powers have grown in the process, so the picture helps him to develop his capacity and to enlarge or improve his vision at the same time. [ All the world is eager to do creative work. As opportunities of education, leisure and freedom from set forms in every department of life increase, the life so freed burgeons delightedly into creative activity of innumerable kinds. There are thousands of students and inventors where there were tens, and whatever anybody may say thousands also of great writers, singers, speakers, painters, etc., where there were ten. This does not reduce the audience or the market, as might at first appear, because capacity to receive and collective life are increasing at the same time. But in any case an audience of one is sufficient for the unselfish man. Not only man shows this inner law - no two horses, no two flowers, no two atoms are alike, as they would be if they were stamped from the die of another's thought] [Page 36]

Our world is our work; it is nothing else. It calls us to new self-expression, which is greater realization of ourselves. This world is not more than we are; it is less than we are. So, if there were a God, he would be more connected with our inner life than our outer forms. But the idea is inconsistent with our knowledge. This is a world of life engaged in building forms, not a world of forms which become vehicles of life. You cannot put life in a form as you can put water in a cup. Water rests in the cup because it is of the same nature as the cup. But the relation between the life and the form is that the life handles the form as a gardner handles a spare. While he is handling the spade he cannot very well write a letter with a pen. He concentrates upon one thing at a time, but in each case it is the life that is everything. The garden does not compel him to dig; the letter does not compel him to write.

In the course of a lifetime (or rather a body time) a man makes and uses his forms, as though a pianist should make first his piano, then play upon it, wear it out and cast it aside. It is only a matter of time before even that which is called death will be seen to have a psychological cause. Even now no [Page 37] scientist can tell us what is the cause of death or when comes the moment of death. That is because the moment of death is decided not physiologically but psychologically, by the man or by the life, which can leave the body when it determines, at various stages of its decrepitude. Animals die easily but men die with difficulty, or reluctantly, because they have more purpose.

Once I was sitting with a friend who had been lying a bed at death's door for many days, suffering from an incurable disease. There was present a man who was or thought himself to be somewhat clairvoyant. He said that he could see our sick friend standing outside his body, looking at it very dolefully. Our friend had been greatly unwilling to die. There was some eager desire of his which was unfulfilled, and though it was quite clear to the rest of us that that body was so far broken that even if he got better he would never be able to do with it what he wanted to do, he was still hanging on to it in suffering and sorrow. Then I said: "Let us reason with him. Let us advise him to break the link from his side and let the body go". The advice was given to the man standing outside his body. He accepted it, and within two or three minutes the body was dead [Page 38] And then the man who was, or thought he was clairvoyant saw an amused smile come over the face of the man who was "dead", as he said: "Listen here and I'll tell you something. Death is nothing, just nothing at all".

Life is everything. Even the form are life, thought they are only a bit of the life, instead of the whole of the life. So he who would travel with swiftness the road to the goal of life must understand that living is the traveling of that road. This means that you do what you can with what you have - that you do not wait for anything, that you do not imagine that you need opportunity, or that karma can stand in your way. The literal meaning of the word karma is work, and it is to be taken in the way in which a carpenter would use it if he said: "This table is my work; this chair is my work". These objects which we call our environment, our world, are our work. There can be no injustice in a world of such forms. There cannot be the dreadful injustice of stark retribution, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But where is the marvelous justice that we live in our own world, and so learn. If, for example, I have been cruel in the past, [Page 39] that expresses my character, with such completeness as it has, and also with such incompleteness - in this case with some completeness of power but great incompleteness of love. And now I meet with cruelty. It is my own cruelty facing myself and it shows me the unsatisfactoriness of a life of cruelty. It helps to awaken my understanding and sympathy.

There is immeasurable benefit to be drawn from our experiences, whatever they may be. I recollect an example of this truth which was given to me many years ago by an old paradeshi of South India. This gentleman was blind and also penniless. Sometimes he lived in a very primitive cottage which had been put up for him by some friendly villagers, and where a very old woman would cook a little food for him, but more often he wandered from village to village over a considerable area. This man was by no means ignorant or unintelligent, but could converse lucidly on a great variety of subjects. He was also a master of certain psychic powers, and showed me again and again that when he chose to do so he could see what was happening at a distance, although he was totally blind.

He told me one day that in addition to [Page 40] these clairvoyant powers he had the capacity to look back in memory into past lives, and thereby he explained to me the cause of his blindness and poverty. It was due, he said, to the fact that when he had been living some eight hundred years before as a rich man, in the neighborhood of Delhi, he had been cruel and vindictive. His present troubles were the outcome of that, but he did not regret them in the least, because in the course of his helpless wanderings he had made many kind friends, and he said that the human affection which he now gave and received contained happiness such as he had not known and would never have known had he continued in his old condition of wealth and power. But of course he would not have the same experience again, because with his newly developed character along the lines of love he could not himself perform the old cruelty any more, even though he might again become a rich man.

This was a good example of the way in which karma always presents the best opportunity for the exercise of our life, for efforts of thought, love and will. It is only such efforts that make for progress on the [Page 41] road to the goal of life. Obviously, then, the road is long in proportion to our failure to make such efforts. I am not proposing that anyone should live in a state of strain. There is a certain wise degree of efforts which each of us can find if he measurers his own strength. The question: "Are we quietly turning our attention to the goal of life and to the meaning of experience in the light of that goal, or are we instead passing our time, or even our 'spare time', in the indulgence of sensual and selfish thought". It must be one or the other. There is no question of strain, but there is a question as to which way our faces are turned.

Let us suppose that a waking week consists of a hundred hours. Are we spending ninety-nine hours each week in idleness, selfishness or carelessness, and only one hour with our faces turned towards the goal? If that is so, is it not obvious that we are making future time for ourselves, that we are carrying forward to another week those nine-nine ill-spent hours? Let me put this in terms of reincarnation. Some of my friends have an idea that many people require 777 lives in which to complete their evolution, from start to finish. This implies that if they had not on the average [Page 42] spent 776 out of every 777 minutes of the day in non-essentials, that is, with their faces not turned towards the goal, but had made full use of every minute, they would have completed the task in one life.

Time ill-spent is time created for the future, for the living which you might do now you are simply putting off into the future. In such ways men are making a long, long road for themselves and dooming themselves to wander in comparative misery for many incarnations. Our future incarnations are not a necessity, but they mark our failure. [ Reincarnation is the perfect opposite of the hell-fire theory. Many who hold that view state that we deserve to be punished for not taking the opportunity put before us by Christ! The Orientals are kinder, because the hells they propose are temporary, and are very literal punishments for particular sins, as when the lascivious man is doomed to embrace a red-hot statue of a woman, or a dealer in meat is pecked by crows with iron beaks. But reincarnation is a kind theory, for it announces that men will have their opportunity again and again until at last they take it ] There will come a time when we shall live one life without turning our faces away from the goal. It will be a very perfect life on earth, though it may deal with very little things, as the world counts littleness. In those things we shall never be shaken from understanding, love and purpose, [Page 43] all of which spring from the vision of the goal.

Next, evolution is individual. In theological terms, God is fulfilling himself in each man - otherwise there would be no point in that man's existence. But it is not necessary to be theological in the matter, because we can see what is happening in any country. You cannot by process and act of parliament invent a dynamo or plane, or discover the electron, or paint the most beautiful picture. Every original achievement - a little part or a big part of any discovery or invention, is due to the evolution of the powers of an individual, which in turn was due to his exertion of those powers. That country is most progressive which gives most opportunity for individual freedom in the exercise of those powers, not that which drills its citizens like common soldiers, who, though well trained, are notoriously unintelligent. If today it can no longer be said with accuracy, as it could in former times, that the history of a nation may be written in the biography of a few individuals, that is because with the advancement of liberty our nations are seething with geniuses - there [Page 47] are too many to mention, so that we do not even know who is the inventor of many most useful articles, or who is the originator of most important elements in our social code. Can you say who invented or discovered matches, pins, rubber, the carburetor, the dynamo or artificial silk?

If you want further evidence that experience is not evolution, but that evolution is due to our living or our treatment of experience, consider the bluebottle. I do not know whether in the privacy of its own apartment it toils or spins, but when it spends its time among my works of art and science it does not appear to profit particularly thereby. Similarly, when a party of tourists is taken to see the great dynamos at Niagara Falls, no doubt they are much impressed by the mighty power of those revolving drums, and the whirring, singing sound, but have they in their minds the thousandth fragment of the picture which would be in Edison's mind were he standing in that place? Not if they stand there filled with the greatest awe and admiration for a thousand years will they advance one step nearer to it, but the humble student who uses his intelligence gradually comes to understand. Nor do I think, turning to another aspect of human [Page 48] activity, that great love, and ultimately, if we like to call it so, even God's love, can be approached or realized except through the study and practice of common good-will.

The same principle applies also to gifts. Someone asks: "But what of Russia's millions of starving children? Did we not carry food to them across three thousand mils of ocean? And was it not good to do so?" Of course, if it was intelligent, if it was loving, for these are life, or rather living, and only living is good. It was an act of [Page 51] brotherhood towards the unfortunate and weak, in our second class. All brotherhood in this class is of temporary utility. We feed the destitute only that they may become strong enough to feed themselves. And we teach the ignorant so that in future we shall not need to teach them because they will not need to be taught. These things are not gifts, but our contribution to the common work. We have received from mankind; now let us do our share of giving. Those Russian children will owe more to the man or men who have taught or will teach the Russians to live, that is to say, to use their intelligence, their love and their energy, and use them all together, so that such a state of desperate need may never occur again.

Similarly in the great Japanese earthquake of 1923 the Americans instantly conveyed great help to the stricken people, who were as helpless as the victims of a railway accident, and could resort only to the virtues of courage, fortitude and endurance. They helped a lame dog over a stile, but nobody suggests, except in some religious circles, that the lame dog should be carried all along the road.

There are special times in which we can help one another, as the expression is, but [Page 52] let us recognize that those who are being helped are not at the moment making progress, are not themselves evolving. They are merely being "saved". There may be some personal satisfaction which I would call emotional dissipation, in carrying a lame dog all along the road, but in that case, there is no progress either for the carrier or for the dog. It may be argued that there is affectionate feeling, and that that involves living and evolution. But people who carry lame dogs all along the road usually do so to gratify their own feelings, not for real love. They must have someone to help, or they are at a loss to know what to do with themselves. But the true test of the living which is love is in association with those who do not need our help. It is easy to be kind to the unfortunate, the ignorant, the inferior, because that at the same time ministers to our pride, but what is much more needed is kindness to equals in ordinary life.

If you have reason to go to a doctor, he may possibly give you two things - pills for your indigestion and wisdom for you to think about. Quite frequently the latter is forgotten, or I must say, in justice to the doctors, is not wanted, and would be resented. Our doctors know quite well that [Page 53] most of our diseases and ill-health are not natural, but the result of idleness, indulgence, disordered imagination and sensuality - in other words they are all superstitions, physical, emotional and mental. Sometimes this is recognized, as when a certain little boy went into a chemist's shop and piped forth: "Please sir, mother wants a bottle of indigestion mixture, because we are going to have crumpets in our hose tomorrow!? All help is medicine. If I were a doctor I should be a poor man, for I would give wisdom with my pills. It is said that in civilized lands, as they are called, our doctors have caused more disease than they have cured, but this must not be misunderstood. It means that people become less careful about their health because they think that the doctor is there to cure them, or at least to relieve them of their pain. Let the man think that he can live without exertion (that is to say, can enjoy sensations without true living) and it is all up with him. Cannot people recognize that every step upwards is self-taken, that we can receive help in all outside things, but not in growth or evolution. The only thing of permanent value that the doctor can supply is his wisdom, and that cannot be given, it must be received. [Page 54]

All life is like learning a language. To learn it we must speak it, and badly at first. If someone else speaks for us until we can speak well we shall never speak well. Every helper becomes a parasite unless his help is for the moment, and is in the nature of exchange, or his contribution to the common lot. It is this exchange that constitutes true brotherhood; it is not gift, except in so far as our contribution to the common lot of things is made in the spirit of gift,without thinking of the particular return or the particular exchange that we shall receive, thought we know full well that it must be received.

It is for this reason that loyalty to persons is wrong in principle. I have known some [Page 58] people whom I would call great, but have found in each case that there was something to learn of what not to do. Like everybody else they are here to learn, and since all people, even to the very threshold of human perfection, are engaged in getting rid of their faults, and displaying them in the process, no one is an objective ideal. Besides, each man has his own talent, his own experience, his own problem. Edison cannot be the leader of inventors, because there are other inventors, and many of them have arisen in places where even he would have least expected them. He may be the greatest inventor - but that is another mater. He cannot invent everything, and the others will come nearest to new truths when they are least like sheep. Let us clearly recognize the difference between leaders and great people. All men are our friends, but no men are our masters, We meet in our bodies live leaves upon a tree. The same one life vitalizes all, and by that we are united, not by any strings tied from one leaf to another. The tree holds together by its own one life, and needs no veil or net cast over it to prevent its failing apart. [Page 59]

The theosophical world seems to be dividing itself on the old question; which is more important for educative purposes, environment or character? Nobody of any consequence has ever suggested that character can be implanted by environment. No Theosophist proposes the method of the builder, which assumes that a man evolves as a house is built, that he is a vacant site to which you bring various materials and there build them up into a house. Nor the method of the sculptor, which assumes that human character is crude stone and someone must from the outside chip away the unwanted portions, just as a sculptor takes a block of stone and leaves a statue, which in a sense was in the stone all the time. Thousands of forms were in that stone; the sculptor chooses one. But every man is a living being with a character of his own.

If we speak of Masters we do not mean builders of men or sculptors of men, but we mean gardeners or teachers who recognize that they are dealing with life, that every seed will grow according to its kind, that both the pattern that is to be made and the power with which it is to be built come from [Page 60] within the seed itself. Therefore no one of any consequence has ever suggested that Masters can give life to anybody or can evolve anybody or can help anybody to evolve themselves. They can give money, and have been known to do so. And they can give thought-forms. But they cannot give growth or evolution, understanding or love or power. The Theosophical Society has the same function as the Masters. Its purpose is not to attempt to feed the people, but to call their attention to great truths with which they can feed, clothe, shelter, amuse and educate themselves as men, without the suffering which they have been bringing upon themselves so long. Its first object — brotherhood — is to be understood in this deep and essential way. Greater than any gift is the offering of wisdom.

Consider understanding. It is one of the powers of our life. It is tested by power, for if I have made a machine, and it will not work, that tells me that my undertaking was wrong. Now let me tell a story about thought-power which is vouched for my some good and honourable friends. In a certain city in America there was over a deep gully a bridge which came popularly to be known as "suicide bridge", because from it a number [Page 61] of people threw themselves to destruction every year. A group of friends who were accustomed to experimenting with thought power decided to meet once a week, fix their attention upon that bridge, and think thoughts of cheerfulness, strength and hope. They told me that since they had begun the practice, which was about two years before, there had not been a single suicide from that bridge. I cannot personally vouch for their accuracy, but I can easily believe in such an occurrence because I have had other experiences of the power of thought.

Nearly a hundred years ago a well known American thinker, who was certainly a Theosophist in the general and proper meaning of that term, wrote an essay, which is still widely read, entitled "Compensation", in which he pointed out that what is gained in one way is usually lost in another, and what is lost in one way is usually gained in another. As told in the old story, the peacock has beauty for the eye, but the nightingale has beauty for the ear. Of late, we have been reading of medical men who have been curing rheumatism by inoculating their patients with malaria, and vice versa. The whole principle of compensation lies in the fact that one instrument is good for one thing and another for another, and it is not possible to have all powers at once, and yet be the limited creature that we know as man. The Hindus have depicted their divinities with four arms or six faces in their attempts to conceive the whole in the part, but do [Page 70] what we will in this world of parts, we can have nothing that is whole - except the whole.

This seen in action as well as in form. A man with his versatile brain and hands may hold a space, a pen, the steering wheel of a car or a hundred other things, but he cannot use them all at once. He may choose which he will, and be free in that choice - but his power is never equal to his freedom, and the appearance of activity of a man therefore can never show the full reality of his being. It is the custom of vulgar minds to judge others with extreme superficiality, and therefore to see their faults or incapacities, without realizing the tremendous reserves which thus exist in every human character.

The same principle appears again in the unfoldment of character from childhood to old age. From beginning to end the process is one of loss as well as gain. We have not at twenty-one the sweet simplicity and single-mindedness of early childhood; we have not at forty-two the uncalculating emotions of twenty one, and at sixty-three we have not that confidence in the stark logic of the mind which was ours at forty-two. [Page 71]

Here appears the weak spot in the theory of evolution as it is popularly conceived, as a process of accumulation towards perfection. Some think that we go on adding to our capacities or removing our defects (according to the "builder" theory and the "sculptor" theory) through a series of incarnations, until we have accumulated to perfection. But in this way no perfection is ever reached on the road of life. Every perfection is an initiation, a beginning of something new, within the life of him who attains it. If student understands the significance of a point in science or history it means an awakening in his mind, and it is the beginning of life lived at a higher level or more richly than before.

The circumstances of a day or a lifetime are never equal to the man, because he limits himself in attending to those circumstances, as a gardener limits himself when he is handling a space. Roughly speaking, up to the age of about twenty-one we are giving the physical nature its turn, from then to forty-two we are giving the emotional nature its fling, and from then till sixty-three it is the mental which sits in the seat of the mighty. [Page 72] For example, "calf love" is a thing of physical sensations, [ The other day a visitor had called at the house of a friend of mine, and had nursed the young son of the house on his knee. After he was gone, the little boy said, "Mother, I like that man". "Oh", replied the mother, "Why?" The child knew exactly why, and stated his reason without hesitation - "Because he has hairs in his nose!"] entirely self-centered. The youth would like to display miracles of courage - for his own gratification, but the love of the grown man for wife and children is pure and heroic emotion, with a sensibility that penetrates into the world of life of those other beings and finds in them a set of divine wonders and glories, a vision of other and different parts of life. [In a "soda fountain" in New York, I overheard one young man say to another, with great emphasis and bitterness: "If it wasn't for the wife and kiddies I wouldn't stick it". This is common enough. Few wives know what their husbands endure, and vice versa]Only all beings can express the whole of life. Every one of us would like to be everything at once, but we have to be content with the next best thing, which is love, the recognition in others of other parts of the all-embracing divine life, which have not been vouchsafed to us.

In the third stage, after the age of forty-two, if there is love it has lost some of its bravery, has an eye on the cupboard and is [Page 73] largely a comfortable agreement. If there is then a conflict between love and reason, the latter wins. If the divine fire is not caught in its proper stage, not in this life will it be known to us in its simplicity and power. The opportunity has gone, for life is a thing of phases, as the hands which go round the clock do not carry the numbers with them on their journey.

Why should there be this loss and gain? Because we are not yet truly born to life. The life that we know from day to day consists of fragments. We have not our full life, but are learning to live, and all the objects of the world which are taken up and put down one after another are like the toys of a little child. Something is gained through them that never was in them, for they are but a means for concentrating our attention upon each lesson in turn, as a child develops the mother impulse with the aid of a rag doll.

We are at school, in preparation for life, and as a child at school is immured in one classroom after another, in order to learn, let us say, history, mathematics and music in turn, so we find ourselves greatly limited by [Page 74] one condition after another. And as the child will be soonest done with the mere learning of history, mathematics and music who gives full attention to those subjects each in its proper turn, and does not let its mind rove to the others, so it is the greatest wisdom in practical life to fight the battles and learn the lessons that are before us - not to wait for circumstances to change and other opportunities to present themselves. Whatever the occasion is, take your opportunity. If you have eyes, look; if you are blind, feel and hear. It was an observant man who advised us never to do unwillingly what is our necessity. [Understanding leads to interest and broad desires. The trouble generally is that our desires for certain things cause dislike of other things. Mr. Liliput likes carrots. He then complains of the monotony of his table, but when cabbage or cauliflower is served he grumbles because he does not like them. Or he likes one kind of weather. Happier the man who can look out of the window in the morning, and say: "Ha, sunshine today. Splendid!" or "Ho, nice rain this morning. Fine!" or "Fog! What a long time it seems since we had a slice of real fog!" or if the house is washed away or burned down, "We are to have a change. Good!"]

Because we are learning one lesson at a time we are not engaged in displaying what we have so far gained, but in gaining what we have not. Therefore we cannot judge [Page 75] ourselves or others by the appearances of the moment. The child may be excellent at music, but that will not be apparent during the history lesson. Every one of us is engaged in showing the worst side of himself to the world, not the best, since we are here to deal with those things which develop our deficient points - and this principle displays itself all along the road of life. A man may be very near his goal; still he is here to reveal to himself some part of what remains of his own incapacity, and by struggle to convert that weakness into strength. This is another reason why no man can be a leader to another. All such leading is the blind leading the blind. Every man has his own problem, and also the key to his problem. If this knowledge disarms uncritical hero-worship it also destroys purblind criticism, which has probably done far more harm than hero-worship has ever done good.

This knowledge is immensely encouraging. No man knows when he will break through the prison-wall and come out into the open air of free full life. He is conscious of the obstruction and of the weakness of his own arms. Let him dig away at the walls; suddenly his pick will go through the last thin section as though it were an eggshell, [Page 76] and he will find himself free.

Achievement is sudden. One day the schooling is finished. The child walks out into the great world armed cap-a-pie with all the capacities which it has laboriously acquired one by one. This is full initiation, the end of schooling, the beginning of life. People have invented various heavens for themselves, but they have been afraid to launch themselves on the ocean of free life, even in imagination. They would have a land flowing with milk and honey. When the missionaries went among the Eskimos, and wanted to translate this point in their scripture into understandable terms, they had to speak and write of a land flowing with blubber. [ Those people think also of the "little seal of God" (instead of "lamb of God") and some of them cannot understand why Jonah missed the opportunity of his life and let that whale go! ] Some want golf, some want music, some want rest. Some say we are souls on probation, being tried to see if we are fit to be kept. Some say we are souls in evolution, accumulating experience and capacity. But I would say we are developing our capacities [Page 77] one after another, in preparation for the beginning of full unlimited life. [ To this end all efforts are beneficial. What is not discovered by thought is learned by experience or, in other words, mistakes. So all is learnt, sooner or later, and in the deeper sense there are no mistakes. Theosophy is "knowledge of God", which means the divine here and now. In all his affairs every man is "alone with God". Beauty must meet beauty, love love, thought thought, in those conversations. How is it that most righteous persons are not beautiful? Because they have not thought of beauty, or if they have, they have not thought beautifully, but have sought it with the ugliness of care. Others restlessly seek rest, but peace will never be attained by rest - only by life, like an eagle swiftly moving on the wing. The world is not destroyed for us when we attain our goal. It becomes vastly more, but the pain of time is gone. ]

I have already explained that there is no material evolution, but there is the evolution of the powers of life in everyone of us. I have explained also that the unfoldment of these powers is usually retarded - that men make for themselves a long road of life, spread out into a long future the attainments which could be gained in a short present. There is thus no penalty for not taking opportunities. They are offered even unto seventy times seven. The evolution of the individual depends entirely upon his answer to the question: "What do you want?" [Page 78] Commonly, people do not examine their desires, but they go on desiring all the same. In this case the desires may be great but the intelligence is small, and therefore theirs is a long path in life, confused and almost purposeless.

What I have now been talking about as the fourth path or the path of life is what we have sometimes called the probationary path. It is the release of the mind for the understanding of life. It begins with the perception that we live under laws of life or spiritual laws, which are superior to and enclose the material laws of the worlds of forms, which are only limitation or partial expressions of life.

I think that Theosophists of all times and countries have always divided mankind into these two classes - those who live for the delights of the body and those who live for the delights of life. It is really the difference between the materialists and the Theosophists, considered not as a matter of [Page 84] mental theory of life, but from that supreme test of belief which is desire expressed in practical life. On this classification, those who desire a bodily heaven, however attenuated, are materialists. But the desire to have capacity indicates that we are interested first of all in the life or living, and that the bodily things are secondary. It indicates that the affairs of life are now governed from within and not by circumstances, although they are the same affairs as before.

This understanding of life establishes a spiritual individuality in the body. I have already explained that individuality may or may not be selfish. It may go forward to many triumphs and still be centered in its own interests. But we cannot find our own life without soon finding the life in others, a discovery which starts us off on a new course of life, and has therefore been called by many "initiation". It is, of course, the beginning of a new life in which the individuality is as strong as ever but its interests reach out far beyond the limits of the body. I am not suggesting that all the people who are interested in family or community or country or humanity, or in any movement connected with these, have therefore begun this new life. In most cases it is not so, for [Page 85] they are careerists, that is to say, they want to be pleased with themselves, and since they have been drilled in the idea that it is good and right and noble and advanced and so forth to have these wider activities, they often labor hard in them, but really they do so in order that they may be pleased with themselves, or so that they may not be displeased with themselves. There is much more genuine spiritual quality in the consideration for others which gives rise to natural courtesy than in many of these much larger efforts.

So there arises the question; what shall we do with our lives, when so many different possibilities are open to us? The answer comes naturally. We become interested in the larger life which is going on all round us. It becomes quite naturally our life. Individuality has gone beyond the boundary or skin of one body, and therefore a new life is begun. Love finds a motive, where reason failed. Then the only thing that holds this new life back from its perfection can be the impurities belonging to the old state. When Buddha spoke of these, he listed them as five fetters or obstacles. I need mention them only briefly, as they have been fully discussed in my little book, The Intuition of the Will. The first is selfishness, which we have already considered. The second is doubt or uncertainty. It is better to live according to a few things of which we are reasonably certain than according to many things as to most of which we are uncertain. If we act on our certainties our lives will be strong, and soon they will be rich. The third is [Page 87] superstition, which is permitting small things to usurp the time and attention which should be given to big things. In the fourth and fifth place come liking and disliking. When there is affection, large interestedness, the incidents which formerly created a great many likes and dislikes begin to look very small indeed.

We have frequently used the word "arhat" in Theosophical literature, having adopted it from Buddhism. It means literally one who is able or competent - one who is really living, whose life is not obscured by circumstances. It thus has reference to the will. I am not forgetting that strictly speaking there are no circumstances, but only the expressions of our own imperfections, which stand around and jeer at us, so to speak. The arhat is an artist in life, so these forms do not trouble him. He has come to a further realization. The many lives around him are not interesting individually, any more than he is interesting to himself individually, but they constitute one picture, which he is beginning to see. There is a certain danger in talking about these things, because persons hearing about them may want to please themselves [Page 88] by being these things, and the difficulty is that such desire to be pleased with oneself stands in the way of the natural unfoldment of this reality.

The last difficulty or obstacle which the arhat has to overcome has been briefly described as the superstition of the ego. The common man thinks his body to be himself. The arhat still thinks his powers of consciousness to be himself. His individuality has grown until there is no life in which he is not interested. But what he fails to realize is that that which he calls his individuality is only the reflection of the whole in the part. The perfection of man is not an individual achievement of all perfections, but is the attainment of perfect harmony, or perfect relations with all others. Achievement must not be thought of as ability to make many more of the imperfect picture which men are making for their own education (which constitute the world), but must be considered in terms of life itself. It is liberation from the necessity, and at the same time from the desire, to concentrate in that manner, to make those forms which are so much less than the reality and are a limitation of the life. No more would the liberated man think of making such forms than a great sculptor [Page 89] would play at producing statues without heads.

There is only one one. There is no integrity except in that whole. The dew-drop must slip into the shining sea. This simile should help us. The drop of water has two parts - its waterness and its dropness. Its waterness is its essential nature; its dropness is accidental and external. If individuality is thought of as the dropness there is an error. Well then, when the dew-drop slips into the shining sea it is the same water that it was before. It is the same life. All the individuality or character that we ever show is but the reflection in part of that which alone has individuality - the whole.

It is very profitable thing to dwell upon the idea of entering the world of life. In that there will be all variety but no limitations. In that we shall have returned to our own true and full nature in full strength and power, so that our will will be as wide as the world and the full aroma of reality will be over all. This is the liberated soul - not one who is full of power and desire to interfere with the world (which is nothing but a collection of life-expressions) but one who has entered into life.

Other books by the same author

Character Building
Concentration
Destiny
Guide to Theosophy
Intuition of the Will
Mind and Memory Training
Personal Psychology and The Sub-Conscious Mind
Raja Yoga: The Occult Training of the Hindus
The Seven Rays
An Englishman Defends Mother India