________________
(287)
the influence of his ego which activates the will and produces karma with its necessary consequences. Every system of Indian thought has pointed out that it is impossible to say anything regarding the beginning of this life. Anyhow this life seems parallel to the life of the ego and individual will. In this life a man passes through all possible stages as devas in heaven as astral and mental beings above earth, as human-beings in different stages of life, as subhuman animals etc. on the earth or even as inhabitants of hell. This chequered life of every man is an invariable consequence of his past karmas of infinite variety of nature. This long period of transmigration of a man does not indeed represent an actual evolution in terms of graded developments as it marks the activities of egocentric will but looking deeper into things it would appear that even this long period of apparent stagnation is not really a period of stagnation, for it marks in the subconsciousness of man a gradual advancement under the dispensation of the Divine in the direction of Vijñāna, Vairāgya and Surrender, for after the lapse of a long period it is found that the Ātma feels itself impotent in regard to any course of evolution in the direction of purification and illumination. A sense of detachment asserts itself in the human soul which by this time begins to feel that the ceaseless life of enjoyment and suffering has been so much waste of precious time and more precious human energy. The ego seems to give way and the bonds of attachment and delusion seem to slacken. A sense of detached vision rises in the human soul when it finds that whatever action it performs is really an action done by the forces of nature and not by himself. He begins to feel that he is always a mere witness though under the influence of Māyā. The activities of Praksti are taken by him as his own free action. This is a critical moment in the life of the human soul, when it passes from one stage to the other. In Vedānta, Buddhism and in Jainism we have a remarkable account of this period which seems to initiate a new chapter in human life. It is a period which is marked by surrender to the divine will. Indian societies based on religious patterns also recognize this fact, for this state of
