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Lesson XII: Mind and Spirit.475
sometimes extends over millions of years, and during which time the soul
often temporarily renounces its immediate attainment and returns to the
active Universe in order to help other souls on their upward journey. The
reason for all of this journey on the Path, from gross Matter unto the highest
stages, is known only to the Absolute, as we have explained, but we are fully
able to see the progressive steps on the journey, and to feel the attraction
of the Absolute as well as the Divine urge within us, causing us to mount
step after step of the ladder of Attainment. And we are able to deduce
therefrom, both through our Intellects and our higher mental faculties, that
that which leads the soul upward is “Right” and “Good,” and that which
retards its progress, or causes it to linger at some low stage of the journey, is
“Wrong” or “Bad,” and we are therefore able to deduce rules of conduct and
ethics therefrom, although ethics, and the idea of “right and wrong,” “good
and bad,” etc., are all relative as we have explained in our lessons on Dharma.
Any step in which is recognized the Oneness of All, is always higher than
the step just below it in which the recognition is not so plain. Upon these
conceptions depend all that we know as Right and Wrong—“Good and Bad.”
The “How” of the projection of the Spirit into Matter—the birth of the
Soul, we may call it—is said by those advanced souls who have risen to
planes wherein they may witness many of the processes of the Universe, to
be caused by an action of Divine Will somewhat akin to the expression of
an earnest Desire on the part of Man. God “thinks” and the manifestation
occurs. (Of course the act is not “thinking” just as we know the word, but we
cannot describe it better.) If we may be pardoned for using an illustration
taken from human experience, and if you will remember that we realize the
absurdity of comparing any act of the Absolute to any act of Man, we would
say that this act of the establishing of the Centre of Consciousness—the
birth of a Soul—the projection of Spirit into the confining sheaths of Mind,
Energy, and Matter—is in the nature of the pro-creation and birth of a child.
The Absolute may be compared to the Father-Mother elements in One—the
Spirit may be compared to the child begotten of those elements. The child,