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Lesson V: Karma Yoga.315
mean? These are questions that thinking people are constantly asking, and
which but few are able to answer even partially.
The Yogi Philosophy teaches that the end of all human endeavor and life is
to allow the soul to unfold until it reaches union with Spirit. And as Spirit is the
divine part of man—the bit of God-material in him—this union eventually
will result in what is known as Union with God—that is the bringing of the
individual soul into conscious touch and union with the centre of all life.
Some may think and teach that the end of human life is happiness, and this
is true if they mean the real happiness of the soul—the only true happiness.
But if they mean the relative and transitory thing usually called “happiness,”
they quickly find that they are pursuing a “will-o’-the-wisp,” that constantly
recedes as they approach it. True happiness is not to be found in relative
things, for these turn to ashes like Dead Sea fruit, the moment we reach out
to grasp them. We may find a certain amount of happiness in the pursuit of
things, but when we pluck the fruit it withers. No matter how high may be
the thing pursued in the chase for happiness, the result is the same. Relative
things cannot help being relative and consequently fade away. They are
creatures of time and space and while they serve their purposes they cannot
live beyond their time. They are mortal, and like all mortal things must die.
Only the absolute thing remains unchanged, and is deathless.
And all this struggle, and pain, and life, and effort, really is directed toward
the unfoldment of the soul that it may recognize its real self. This is what it all
means. This is why we pursue first this thing and then that thing, thinking that
we need them, only to find out that we need them not. We feel a hunger
that cannot be appeased—a thirst that will not be quenched. And we try
all the experience of life, sometimes feverishly and eagerly, sometimes
listlessly and sluggishly, but find them all to be shadows and unrealities. But
the hunger and thirst still remain, and torment us to further efforts. And this
will be so always, until we learn that the thing we desire is within us, instead
of outside of us—and when we learn this lesson, even faintly, we begin to