English
It is for our sake this great act has been accomplished ; for our sake and for that of all others like us or unlike us who are rising through the various gradations of spiritual evolution towards the level of Nature from which the impulse was first given which launched every globe of the planetary system we see, and all that as yet we do not see, on the cosmos of objective life. The first great outbreathing of the life of the Logos which calls our system into being is the primary mani- festation of a law which runs through all the worlds of which we have knowledge—the law which prescribes at every stage of existence that life and energy shall be given out for the benefit of some consciousness other than that of the giver, though ultimately to be identified even with that, the law which is the pulse of the whole system—a law of giving out which involves no absolute and ultimate sacrifice, but is the only law by which progress and exaltation in Nature can be achieved. The outpouring is shown to us in its sublimest aspect in the manifestation of the system itself; in some of its humblest workings it is a law of love and generosity on the physical plane of life; in intermediate degrees it is consciously guided by those who promote, from higher levels of existence than those around us, the Spiritual growth and welfare of mankind. The more we know of true occultism, and of the intelligent exercise of power on superior planes of being, the more we come into appreciative relations with this great principle, which is equally, though in different measure, inspiring 482 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. the ceaseless beneficence of the Adept and the unselfish benevolence of all good men and women still working more or less blindly in obedience to the hardly, as yet, articulate impulses of their awakening spiritual natures. The end we cannot, from our present point of view, discern distinctly, but we may grasp with unhesitating assurance the conception that all who lend themselves in willing sympathy for others to the fulfilment of the mighty principle, are helping on the great enterprise that our system represents, and at a later date, if they persevere, will help that enterprise with a fuller and clearer recognition of its whole design to guide them, and will thus be giving back their response to the Divine sympathy of which their own consciousness as living individual beings is one of the innumerable fruits. Some—we do not know how many, and for exact knowledge on such a subject as that we may well be content to wait—will, by the entire identification of their own life force with the energy of the breath which permeates the whole system, rise up from stage to stage of spiritual exaltation through the various schemes of evolution of which the system consists, until at its final culmination they stand on a level with the Being by whom and through whom all consciousness in the system has been developed. His life energy has gone out from Him in the first instance, and has involved itself in myriad limitations. As the great work culminates it flows back to Him through the new channels of spiritual energy, through’ the new Logoi who constitute His reflection on the manifold planes of Nature INDIVIDUALITY. 483 towards which His influence has been projected. The universe is wide, and sublime activities analogous to His own will doubtless await them in turn. In what way the countless individualities, which will fall in some way short of achieving the maximum possibilities of evolution within the system, will be drawn back into His all but illimitable consciousness when the season of effort is past,—when the night time of pralaya affords rest alike for humble as well as for exalted forms of consciousness,—we cannot foresee as yet. Nor even can we clearly realise the latest chapters in the appointed history of the system, in respect to the gathering in of all the marvellously diversified energies of life which must still be present on the stage of mant- festation as long as any planets continue to circle round the source of all life energy we call the sun. But we are told, and even from some knowledge of spiritual conditions attainable already, can partly understand, that the individuality we think of as the Logos is at all times a host of individualities in one, and will still be a host, how far multiplied it would be vain to inquire, when the harvest of achievement has been gathered, and the purpose of.the great Mahamanvantara shall have been fulfilled.