However much we may accept reincarnation as a fact mentally, it is exceedingly difficult for us to realize it as a fact on the plane of action. This is mainly because we do not apply the knowledge that action is threefold. Our acts are objective on this plane, but they are ensouled by desire-feeling and thought. We do not realize sufficiently that no action can take place without a thought at its base, and no thoughts can arise without desire at their base. Because we are weak in desires and will, therefore it is that we find it so difficult to alter our actions or to act in the way we wish to act.

Let us, then, seek the cause of which action in the present is the effect. But the interrelationship that exists between thought, desire-feeling and action is so complex that it is difficult to disentangle them. The desire even to gain spiritual knowledge or to aspire to a better life has to arise before thought is devoted to that knowledge or aspiration, and without thought, desire would die unfulfilled. Therefore our prime need is to see the importance of thought and not to look on it merely as a means of acquiring knowledge; it should rather be seen as the amanuensis of our desire-feeling nature.

The phrase, "A man can have no attachment to that on which he does not think," should become a mantram which rises in the mind when we awaken to the fact that we are suffering through remembrance of some tragedy, insult or cause of despair. "Kill in thyself all memory of past experiences," we are taught. This will help us to meet the events of life which disturb us, but it will not help us to seek the true base of action and our reactions.

It is only the teaching of reincarnation which helps us to see that all our miseries, hatreds, etc., are the due effects of actions performed by us either in past lives or in this life. All hatreds or displeasures should, therefore, be seen as unjustifiable, for what happens to us is only what we have "desired" at some time or other, though then we desired without knowing accurately what the results would be. The Buddha taught:

All that we are is the result of what we have thought: all that we are is founded on our thoughts and formed of our thoughts. (Dhammapada, verse 1)

And The Secret Doctrine (I, 643) reminds us:

It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or—break them.

But all this seems negative! We need to remember that if the present is the result of past incarnations, then this present incarnation will be, or rather is, the cause of the effects which will appear in our future incarnations. Hence The Voice of the Silence reminds us that the effects that come to us in this life as the result of past causes must be accepted with the right attitude and allowed to work themselves out. "The ripple of effect, as the great tidal wave, thou shalt let run its course." We can do nothing to prevent their coming to us, but the manner in which we greet them, or work with them or against them, brings to our mind the educative aspect of these effects, for as we deal with them they become causes for future effects.

With the usual paradox in matters spiritual, we are told also to "teach to eschew all causes." How, then, can we deal with effects? The use of the imagery of the "tidal wave" is interesting, for we all know full well that we can do nothing against it when it comes. Whatever can be done in preparation against it when it comes. Whatever can be done in preparation against it has to be done before the wave comes. But while it brings suffering, we can do much by always remembering, "Rigid Justice rules the world." Only this firmly rooted concept will help us to see the "wave" as the "mighty sweep of never erring action...the karmic progeny of all our former thoughts and deeds" (The Voice of the Silence, p. 37). By our right attitude to the wave we may "exhaust the law of Karmic retribution."

But there is a positive side to this question of retribution; that is, we can "create this 'day'" our chances for our "morrow." "In the 'Great Journey.' causes sown each hour bear each its harvest of effects." We can "gain Siddhis" for our future births by our present actions. The Buddha pointed out that our only real possessions are our actions. They are the one thing that we possess which we cannot lose or have taken away from us.

It is with this creative aspect of action, the building of the future by our present actions, that we should be more concerned. Also, the knowledge of the threefold aspect of action must be applied practically.

Life is made up of effort. It is an effort to learn to walk, to talk, to be what we plan to be. Without effort, apathy will take hold of us and we shall "drift into the eddies" of life and be lost. Effort has, therefore, to be applied to our thoughts if we would alter our mode of action.

We are told: "Thy Soul cannot be hurt but through thy erring body." This body is the field of action for our thoughts, feelings and desires; hence it is necessary to deal with our thoughts and emotions, with the picture we have of ourselves in the mind, lest the senses which produce desire-feeling "make a playground" of the mind. The Soul itself, we are told, is a stronghold, and we have to chase all our foes away from it. The Soul is the permanent part of ourselves, and it will last through all "tidal waves" that may destroy the body and sweep away all desire-feelings and actions. But it can be "hurt" through our erring body, the field of action for the Soul's foes.

The foes that we have to drive away are the qualities that pertain to the body, to the desires-emotions and the thoughts. Hence The Voice of the Silence asks us to chase away "ambition, anger, hatred, e'en to the shadow of desire."

Desire lies at the root of ambition; anger comes when we are thwarted; hatred is directed against the people or the conditions that prevent us from getting what we want. Hence, since ambition is the result of thought devoted to a desire, we have to get at our thoughts, lest they bring our desires to fruition and breed thought-children which harm us.

On the creative side, in order to avoid being slain by these thought sensations which "swarm round humankind," we have to make our own thoughts harmless. Realizing that what makes these thoughts harmful are the sense-organs and sensations which produce desires and feelings, we must refuse to let these senses and remembrances "make a playground of the mind." We have to "withhold internal images" also, which are mostly born of remembrances which tempt.

A few moments spent in looking at our thoughts when we are not thinking of anything particular will show us that our sense-impressions and desire-feelings have been receiving pleasure from the possession and use of our mind. At times we allow them to do so consciously, and breed dreadful consequences for ourselves in the future.

Control of our thoughts will aid us at the further stages on the Path, for we have to reach that state where no thoughts can disturb us. We have to reach that fixity of mind in which "all earthly thoughts fall dead before the fane"—"e'en as the butterfly, o' ertaken by the frost, falls, lifeless at the threshold."

Control of thought helps towards the control of feelings and desires and even actions. It is by thinking about feelings and desires that they are strengthened.

The use of the will in all this is important, for, without effort either in right or wrong direction, nothing can be achieved. What is will? The Glossary tells us that it is sevenfold in its degrees of manifestation, and at our stage it is mostly locked up in desire. Thought plans a line of action towards the goal decided upon by desire, but only through the will aspect of desire, forcing the mind to execute the plan, will result its fruition in action. Therefore we are told to will to desire the right.

The Path is strenuous, but we need not fear, for impersonal Law is the one aspect of life that is completely trustworthy.

Our efforts, though they do not yield any result in this life, will not be wasted, but will form the basis or starting point for success in other lives. What we clear off of our debts from the past will not come again to us. If we can keep our vision clear, if we can keep alive in us the inherent idea of perfection attained by becoming one with the highest, and then see that this is not isolation but union, we can pass through heart-breaking circumstances undisturbed. We must keep in mind that only by the tears we shed for the troubles of others can action follow to relieve the causes of others' woes. To live to benefit mankind, not ourselves, is the first step. All the help we can get to achieve progress, whether in life's daily journey or in the journey of an entire lifetime, are means to this end. We have to water the seed, the inherent idea, and take away the weeds, so that the former may grow until all life is seen as an education in the art of helping.

This is not easy, for remembrances of past pleasures and pains flood the mind. At every moment of conscious awareness we should think of the purpose of life—to live to benefit mankind; not the chosen few, but the whole of mankind that suffers and toils, and whom we can help by letting more of the true Spirit of Life manifest through our earthly life. Becoming one with all, clearing away all disharmonies of the past and creating only harmonies in the present and the future, we shall be brought into the Company of the Servants of Humanity to whose Work we are dedicated.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude....

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misundestood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson