English
In dealing with these problems I have endeavoured to avoid the comfortless dissipation of thought and conjecture apt to ensue if we endeavour to examine the conditions of our present existence by the light of metaphysical thinking which seeks to adapt itself to infinity. But if the subject has thus been kept upon a plane of thought below the level of some to which our speculations may occasionally soar, I would, nevertheless, suggest that, in dealing with the circum- stances under which the lower self may be drawn towards the true individuality of the Ego, which is the Higher Self, we are really dealing also with the circumstances under which the true individuality— overshadowed by the spirit as it overshadows the incarnate man—is itself drawn towards the highest influence—the universal self or universal spirit. We may not, from our present standpoint, be able to divine very much concerning that process, but we can infer, with complete confidence, that the development, and evolution of the Higher Self, which it is within the power of the lower self, or incarnate man, to promote, is none the less its response to that mysterious emana- THE HIGHER SELF. 123 tion from the supreme, that is the ultimate goal towards which the later efforts of a perfected humanity, in some remotely future epoch, may consciously and appreciatively turn. I24 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. CHAPTER V. FREE WILL, AND KARMA. THE general purpose of this work is to interpret the opportunities for spiritual progress lying before human- ity. The nature of these opportunities is the first great revelation of occult science, and the prospects before us, if we are resolute enough to explore them, are the subject of the occult student’s most eager study. Every phase of emotion and faith embraced in religion, if rightly understood, is in harmony with the theosophical exposition of the evolutionary task provided for us by the design of the world. We have traced in the great law of Re-incarnation the method employed by Nature in working out that design up to a certain point, and have seen how the Higher Self of each human unit is the permanent centre of consciousness which 7s in fact the Ego, and the final expression of every effort which it puts forth during the successive periods of its long struggle in incarnate life. We shall go on ultimately to endeavour, as far as it is possible, to do this from the point of view of consciousness reflected in a material organism, to realise the kind of existence towards which the Higher Self, strengthened and illuminated by accumulated knowledge and capacity, must strive if it would fulfil the loftiest potientalities of its Nature. FREE WILL AND KARMA. 125 And the explanation will be fortified by a review of the traces in ancient and medizval history which show us, now that we have the key to their real meaning, how earlier generations of men were already bent upon the supreme task. But many side lights have to be thrown on the explanations already given before the sufiicing character of the theosophic revelation can be entirely appreciated. And at this stage it may be convenient to deal with some metaphysical embarrass- ments which thinkers, trained in European schools of philosophy, will be apt very likely to regard as stum- bling blocks in the way of the all-important doctrine on which the whole argument turns—that which recognises in the spontaneous Will of each individual the force which may direct his evolution into the right channel. Although few European thinkers adopt in its naked simplicity the doctrine of fatalism, we find the essential idea of that doctrine firmly established in the theories of ‘“ necessity,’’ which stand in time honoured antagon- ism to the doctrine of “free will.” The arguments which make for each of these theories considered separately, are often regarded as so irrefragable that the paradox in these days is accepted as such more often than discussed. The conflict of Free Will and Necessity is hardly any longer an academical—rather a schoolboy theme for the exercise of wit, just as perpetual motion and the quadrature of the circle are problems left now to amuse juvenile engineers and mathe- maticians. Reason out the matter how we like, each man feels 126 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. within him that he has a liberty of choice between various courses of action at every step in his progress through life. Moreover, he not only feels this, but, as a reasonable being, if he has any faith in an ulterior destiny—whatever it may be—for the soul, he feels that human beings must have free will, or the notion of any spiritual consequences befalling them as a sequel to this life, is incompatible with the operation of justice as a law of Nature. If rewards and punishments are meted out to saints and sinners in accordance, not with their independent responsible acés in life, but in accord- ance with the way they were compelled to act by an overruling power which dictated every thought and movement of which they fancied themselves the authors—then, of course, such an overruling power would represent the principles of mockery and malignity, instead of justice and goodness. On the other hand, the theory of Necessity is sup- ported by an unbroken chain of logical reasoning. In its broadest aspects we all recognise it as a matter of course. We can all see that people born under condi- tions of extreme degradation, brought up in ignorance of all motives for right action and of all meritorious example, surrounded, as they grow, by every tempta- tion, and educated in vice and crime, must take to such pursuits, like ducks to the water. Their evil deeds in the main are the outcome of moral influences as power- ful as the forces of the storm and tide on the floating driftwood of the sea. So with the self-denial, and actively benevolent lives of others. The persons who lead such lives must, of course, trace their general FREE WILL AND KARMA. 127 character to the teaching and influences of their bring- ing up. They may feel—in accordance with the other view of the subject—that when they came to years of discretion, they exercised their own free will in apply- ing to the opportunities of existence, the principle of deliberate choice, but many of the best among them have, as a matter of intellectual conviction, declared on the whole for Necessity as the only logical theory of life. There is no line to be drawn in Nature between important things that it is worth while for her laws to pay attention to, and others which are insignificant and fit to be left to chance. The earth’s attraction operates equally on a microbe and a mastodon; and the chemical affinity that holds together the elements of the ocean is not permitted to neglect those of the smallest drop of dew. So argues the metaphysician with regard to human conduct. He is withheld from shooting the man who offends him by the influences that have been poured into his mind by his education, his observation of others, by reading, and reflection. The minor acts and abstinences of his life are in just the same way the product of moral causes working in his interior consciousness. He.takes such and such a journey, let us say, because he has read such and such a book. He read the book because he had acquired certain habits of study. These were the product of previous influences, and soon. This kind of reasoning has, at all events, grasped one efficient principle. Cause and effect rule on the moral as well as the physical plane of Nature, and if the recognition of this is plainly at variance with the theory that human beings are 128 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. responsible agents, the devotee of Necessity may sometimes say, ‘‘So much the worse for the general character of the Universe,’ “the contra- diction is a mystery which can only be elucidated, if at all, hereafter.’’ For some of us—yes—‘‘ hereafter ’’’—a very distant hereafter—may be the only period at which we shall be qualified to fathom such mysteries. But the “here- after’’ of one man may be the “now’”’ of another, more advanced than himself in cosmic evolution. The conventional thinker is too apt to suppose that all human intelligence is waiting to bear him company in that progress which he may, perhaps, admit as a possi- bility of Nature, after he shall have passed on to other states of being. All phases of consciousness are co-existent if we take all planes of Nature into account together. Time and change are merely conducive to the advance of knowledge qua any given centre of consciousness localised at one point of space at the moment under consideration. If A B—any man of our generation—is destined, in the lapse of ages, to attain a condition of consciousness in which any given mystery of this period shall be made plain, assuredly Y Z in the progress of past ages, has already accom- plished that amount of development. We are not d or sometimes necessarily bound to wait so long as is sometimes imagined for revelations that we may rightly conceive to be outside the reach of mere intellectual cogitation of the kind with which we are familiar. That which is known may sometimes be communicated—in a world which has many more avenues to its consciousness FREE WILL AND KARMA. I29 than the general multitude of its inhabitants are yet in the habit of using.