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Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism192
of slower brothers, who must work up by degrees. But the race will again
be united, before it finally passes on from the earth, as it is bound together
by the Law of Spiritual Cause and Effect. We are all interested in each
other’s progress—not only because we are brothers but because our own
soul must wait until the whole race develops. Of course the more rapidly
developed soul does not have to be reincarnated simply because its slower
brother has to do so. On the contrary the highly developed soul spends a
long period of waiting on the higher planes of the Astral World while its
slower brother works out his evolution in repeated births, the sojourn in
the higher planes giving the developed soul great happiness and benefit, as
explained in other lessons. Many of these “waiting souls,” however, choose
to sacrifice their well-earned rest, by coming back to earth to help and uplift
their brethren, either in the form of Astral Helpers, or even by a deliberate
and conscious re-birth (which is not needed for their development) they
deliberately taking on the body of flesh, with all its burdens, in order to
assist their weaker brothers toward the goal. The great teachers of the races,
have been largely composed of these self-sacrificing souls, who voluntarily
“renounced heaven” for the love of their fellow man. It is very hard to
imagine what a great sacrifice this is—this coming back to a comparatively
low developed civilization, from a high plane of spiritual development. It is
like Emerson doing missionary work among the Bushmen.
Toward what goal is all this evolution tending? What does it all mean?
From the low forms of life, to the highest—all are on The Path. To what place
or state does The Path lead? Let us attempt to answer by asking you to
imagine a series of millions of circles one within the other. Each circle means
a stage of life. The outer circles are filled with life in its lowest and most
material stages—each circle nearer the center holding higher and higher
forms—until men (or what were men) become as gods. Still on, and on,
does the form of life grow higher, until the human mind cannot grasp the
idea. And what is in the center? The brain of the entire Spiritual Body—The
Absolute—God!