Theosophical Study Paper No 03

Author(s): Theosophical Society in Australia
Publisher: Theosophical Society in Australia

Page 7

We are living one day out of many days, and what we cannot do today tomorrow we shall inevitably achieve. Mighty is the power of it, when once it is fully recognised, and when we feel that there is nothing beyond our strength, for we have time during which our strength may gradually evolve. But not only that; all the people around us take on a new aspect when we realise the fact of reincarnation. With our friends we have a closer tie, for every one we know as a friend comes out of our past, Spirit hailing Spirit across the blinding veil of the material body; and we realise the immortality of love and we realise the immortality of life. And when instead of friends we meet an enemy, how different the aspect when we know the truth of reincarnation! What is the enemy? Someone we have wronged in the past, some one to whom we owe a debt, and he comes forward to claim it. The payment sets us free. He is a liberator, not an enemy; he gives us the opportunity of paying off a debt, without the payment of which liberation may never be ours. When we see him in that light, what becomes of anger or resentment? What becomes of any feeling, save gratitude to the one who takes from us the payment of an ancient debt and leaves us free to go along our road?'
None can injure us save ourselves; the enemy who seems to strike is only our own hand striking our own face, our own action come up in a new incarnation. If we are angry, we are angry with ourselves, resent ourselves, are revengeful against ourselves. There is no enmity when once reincarnation is thoroughly understood. Looking at it thus, a great bitterness will go out of our life. For the thing that hurts is not the injury, but the resentment, the sense of wrong, the feeling of being unfairly treated. Those are the stings which give pain to any action, and when it is only the payment of a debt, none of those is present; there is only the bringing into equilibrium of an ancient wrong. All the stings will vanish, and the mere activity remains, which is the restoration of equilibrium.
Page 5