Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

Page 62

THE NEW BODY is drawn into the current which will land him in an environment most suited to his (spiritual) needs. Whether the new-born soul dislikes or likes its environment is immaterial. It made its bed, and now must lie on it. In the new life it may be following still further a line of development already begun; hence definite proclivities in one direction and the desire to pursue them ; or it may strike out in a new, and possibly complementary line of progress; or it may, by reason of causes 'good' or 'bad' of past behaviour, find itself with utterly new environment and different opportunities for self-expression. In the words of the Light of Asia :
Who toiled a slave may come anew a Prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won ; Who ruled a King may wander carth in rags
For things donc and undone. But such a change is not necessarily for the worse. Christ reminded his followers that the rich man's lot was a spiritually hard one, for wealth is apt to bind the awakening mind, and he who clings to wealth of pocket or inind will lose it, even as only he who gives away his very life shall find it.
It will be noted that the mind chooses the body and is not its child, as is still the belief of Western materialism. The soul chooses the body most suited to its needs, and therefore comes into the family which will provide that body. If a lawyer wishes further experience as a lawyer he will probably enter a legal family. If so, he will be a lawyer not because his father was a lawyer, but because, being already a lawyer, a 'legal'. brain in the new body will make his task the easier. Other factors are the rhythm of the sexes, of the introvert and extrovert types of mind, and of a thousand other complementary types of character, while men may change the pattern of their lives as the years go by and with it the kind of experience they gain. In all there is infinite variety ; not even the element of progress is constant, for blinded with illusion a man may in a single life
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