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SELF-EXAMINATION
89
is over, they will be removed by circumstances, carried off elsewhere. And so with other parts of our environment which, on the surface, are distressful; like a skilful, sailor, who trims his sails to a wind he cannot change and thus forces it too carry him on his way, we use the circumstances we cannot alter by adapting ourselves to them in such fashion that they are compelled to help us.
Thus are we partly compelled and partly free. We must work amid and with the conditions which we have created, but we are free within them to work upon them. We ourselves, eternal Spirits, are inherently free, but, we can only work in and through the thought-nature, the desire-nature, and the physical nature, which we have created; these are our materials and our tools, and we can have none other till we make these anew.