A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga: The Yoga of WisdomAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga: The Yoga of Wisdom
Atkinson, William Walker
Yoga, Jñana
Those individuals of a race who have outstripped their fellows in
spiritual unfoldment, are still bound by the Karma of the particular
race to which they belong, up to a certain point. And as the entire
race, or at least a large proportion of it, must move forward as a
whole, such individuals must needs wait also. But they are not
compelled to suffer a tiresome round of continued rebirths amid
environments and conditions which they have outgrown. On the contrary,
the advanced individual soul is allowed to wait until the race reaches
its own stage of advancement, when it again joins in the upward
movement, in full consciousness, however. In the interim he may pass
his well earned rest either on some of the higher planes of rest, or
else in conscious temporary sojourn in other material spheres helping
in the great work as a Teacher and worker for Good and Spiritual
Evolution among those who need such help. In fact there are in the
world to-day, individual souls which have reached similar stages on
other planets, and who are spending their rest period here amidst the
comparatively lower Earth conditions, striving to lift up the Earth
souls to greater heights.
So long as people allow themselves to become attached to material
objects, so long will they be reborn in conditions in which these
objects bind them fast. It is only when the soul frees itself from
these entangling obstructions that it is born in conditions of freedom.
Some outgrow these material attachments by right thinking and
reasoning, while others seem to be compelled to live them out, and thus
outlive them, before they are free. At last when the soul realizes that
these things are merely incidents of the lower personality, and have
naught to do with the real individuality, then, and then only, do they
fall from it like a wornout cloak, and are left behind while it bounds
forward on The Path fresh from the lighter weight being carried.
The Yogi Philosophy teaches that Man will live forever, ascending from
higher to higher planes, and then on and on and on. Death is but the
physical symbol of a period of Soul Rest, similar to sleep of the tired
body, and is just as much to be welcomed and greeted with thanks. Life
is continuous, and its object is development, unfoldment and growth. We
are in Eternity now as much as we ever shall be. Our souls may exist
out of the body as well as in it, although bodily incarnation is
necessary at this stage of our development. As we progress on to higher
planes of life, we shall incarnate in bodies far more ethereal than
those now used by us, just as in the past we used bodies almost
incredibly grosser and coarser than those we call our own to-day. Life
is far more than a thing of three-score and ten years--it is really a
succession of such lives, on an ascending scale, that which we call our
personal self to-day being merely the essence of the experiences of
countless lives in the past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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