Part 10

That is how form is builded, when the human Self is beginning to co-operate with the work of Íshvara, when the centre is beginning to take the control of its vehicles. It rationalises its workings, and builds and modifies them step by step. When this has been done for many lives, then comes the life for Yoga; then the man may be taught how to make more rapid progress, and how to vivify the inner and subtler sheaths of his being by certain practices, that will be taught him the moment he is ready--but that will never be taught him until he _is_ ready, nay though he range the world over in search of a Guru, or live the life of an ascetic in the cave or in the jungle. That is not enough, so long as his desire is unconquered, so long as his mind is still restless. When the senses are dominated, when the mind is controlled, and not before--but then, as certainly as before there will not be the coming--a Guru will appear who will take that man by the hand and lead him along the path that is narrow as the edge of a razor, that may only be trodden by the controlled in sense and by the steady in mind, for the fall either to the one side or to the other means delay for many a birth to come. Then is developed that aspect of Bliss which shows itself outwardly as love; a faint reflection of that bliss is felt in many stages of meditation, and joy has birth within you, wells up within you, enwraps you fold by fold, until you in yogic trance reach the true A'nanda, which is the essence of beauty, and makes you quiver under its subtle vibrations of ineffable delight. And later, later still, at a stage that you may reach, when all is purified through long evolution, there comes the rising into the highest, where the subtlest matter becomes the vehicle of that developed centre, now no longer a circumference restraining and necessary, but an obedient vehicle which will serve when it is wanted and fall away when wanted it is not. As it is written that in the A'kâsha there is every possibility of form, so the life that has reached Self-existence is a being that garbs itself in any form by gathering the A'kâsha around it. Thus it may develop vehicle after vehicle until the whole of the human series is builded for use, but none of them is prison for limitation; then we say that the man is a Jîvanmukta, He is free, and all matter has become His servant, to use when He has need of it, to cast aside when He needs it not; every region of the world is His to use, no region of the world is its own to bind Him; He is liberated, and as the liberated Self He may, if He will, still work for His brother men, remaining, as Shrî Shankarâchârya taught us, until the end of His age, in order to lift humanity more rapidly on its upward climb. Thus are formed Those who are the co-workers of Íshvara in the helping of humanity, who, having gone through all suffering, throw everything they have gained at the feet of the Lord, who turn back to the world, never again to be bound by it, but still responding to the compassion which is the very life of Íshvara Himself. As long as Íshvara wills to remain in manifestation, so long does He whose will is one with that of Íshvara, will also to remain. He has nothing to gain, nothing to learn, nothing to take that any world can give Him; but He stands beside His Lord as an organ of the expression of the highest life, existing no longer for anything that He takes, but as the channel of the life of God. That is the prize of our calling, that the goal on which our hearts are fixed.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

The following variants appear in this text: "A'kâsha" and "Akâsha", "A'nanda" and "Ananda", "Kabbalah" and "Kabala", "kârmic" and "karmic", "out-pouring" and "outpouring", "Self-existence" and "Self-Existence", "wellnigh" and "well-nigh".

The spelling "Brahmâ" appears to be standard, but "Brahma" also appears, in the phrase "Mahad Brahma".

The phrase "may by" in "may by it be brought" on p. 20 should possibly be "may be" but has been left unchanged.

Words in italics are indicated by underscores, _like this_.

The following amendments to spelling and punctuation have been made:

1) "hierachies" amended to "hierarchies" on p. 27.

2) "philosphy" amended to "philosophy" on p. 28.

3) "manâsic" amended to "mânasic" on p. 52.

4) Period added after "tato bhavati Bhârata" on p. 97.

5) "Avâtara" amended to "Avatâra" on p. 119.

6) Comma added after "kingdom" on p. 119.

End of Project Gutenberg's Evolution of Life and Form, by Annie Wood Besant