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Two: Aspects of the Path 85
Man has his name, his sex, his personality, his color, his
nationality, his characteristics, his pain and pleasure and all that
he may possess because he must have all these.
This overpowering compulsion is exercised by the force of
innumerable impressions gathered in the past. These accumulated
impressions cloud the consciousness of the “self” at every
stage, in every incarnation of the future, which, in one’s life,
belongs to one’s living present.
The rule of this inexorable “must” governs and reshapes
the so-called destiny of man in every incarnation as long as the
“self” of man remains conscious of impressions. The principle of
“must” which overrides human plans is based on divine law
which both adjusts and gets adjusted by evolutionary impressions.
It is only the divine will that can supersede the divine law.
The so many deaths during the one whole life, beginning
from the evolution of consciousness to the end of the involution
of consciousness, are like so many sleeps during one lifetime.
One who lives for himself is truly dead and one who dies
for God is truly alive.
The Play of Ego
I
For one to declare that he is a saint and allow people to bow
down to and revere him without real authority is to feed one’s
ego with intense happiness. Simultaneously, with the feeding of
the ego comes a feeling of well-being.
One who is addicted to opium (eating or smoking) derives
a similar feeling of well-being, though temporarily. After a time
the opium addict begins to feel the after effects of opium in