Karma

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

Page 48

38
to achieve. But it must be remembered that the faculty thus built is strictly limited by the materials supplied to the architect; there is no creation out of nothing, and if the soul on earth fails to exercise its powers by sowing the seed of aspiration and desire, the soul in devachan will have but scanty harvest.
Mental images which have been constantly repeated, but are not of the aspiring character, of the longing to achieve more than the feeble powers of the soul permit, become tendencies of thought, grooves into which mental energy runs easily and readily. Hence the importance of not letting the mind drift aimlessly among insignificant objects, idly creating trivial mental images, and letting them dwell in the mind. These will persist and form channels for future outpourings of mental force which will thus be led to meander about on low levels running into the accustomed grooves, as the paths of least resistance.
The will or desire to perform a certain action, such will or desire having been frustrated, not by want of ability but by want of opportunity, or by circumstances forbidding accomplishment, will cause mental images which-if the action be of a high and pure nature will be acted out in thought on the devachanic plane, and will be precipitated as actions on returning to