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The Fourth Lesson: The Unity of Life.765
knew that behind its Personality as a cell, there was the Individuality of the
Man—that its Real Self was the Man, not the cell? Of course, even this figure
of speech can be carried only so far, and then must stop, for the personality
of the man, when it is dissolved, leaves behind it an essence which is called
Character, which becomes the property of the Ego and which accompanies
it into after life according to the Law of Karma, of which we shall speak in
future lessons. But back even of these attributes of Personality, is the Ego
which exists in spite of Personality, and lives on and on throughout many
Personalities, and yet learning the lessons of each, until at last it rises above
Personality and enters into higher sphere of Knowing and Being.
Still another favorite illustration of the Hindu teachers is that of the sun
beating down upon the ocean and causing a portion of the water to rise in
the form of vapor. This vapor forms clouds which spread all over the earth,
and which eventually condense in the form of rain drops, dew, etc. This rain
and dew form streams, rivers, etc., and sooner or later every drop finds
its way back to Mother Ocean which is its Real Self. Separate though the
dewdrop be, yet it is a part of the Ocean, no matter how far distant it may
be, and the attraction of the Ocean will surely, and without fail, draw it back
to its bosom. And the dewdrop, if it could know the truth, would be so
much happier and stronger, and braver if it could know that it was superior
to accident, time and space, and that it could not escape its own good, and
that nothing could prevent its final triumph and victory when at last “the
dewdrop glides into the shining sea.” How cheerfully it could have met
its many changes of form, and the incidents of its journey, if it could have
gotten rid of the illusion of separateness, and knew that instead of being a
tiny insignificant dewdrop it was a part of the Mighty Ocean—in fact that its
Real Self was that Ocean itself—and that the Ocean was continually drawing
it toward it, and that the many changes, up and down, were in response to
that mighty power of attraction which was slowly but irresistibly drawing it
back Home to Rest, Peace, and Power.