ul to the present
conditions resulting from past lives, and the other ever at work
seeking to uplift and elevate it to greater heights.

The desires and characteristics brought over from the past lives, of
course, seek fuller expression and manifestation upon the lines of the
past lives. These tendencies simply wish to be let alone and to grow
according to their own laws of development and manifestation. But the
unfolding Spirit, knowing that the soul's best interests are along the
lines of spiritual unfoldment and growth, brings a steady pressure to
bear, life after life, upon the soul, causing it to gradually kill out
the lower desires and characteristics, and to develop qualities which
tend to lead it upward instead of allowing it to remain on its present
level, there to bring to blossom and fruit many low thoughts and
desires. Absolute Justice reigns over the operations of the Law of
Karma, but back of that and superior even to its might is found the
Infinite Love of the absolute which tends to Redeem the race. It is
that love that is back of all the upward tendencies of the soul, and
which we all feel within our inner selves in our best moments. The
light of the Spirit (Love) is ever there.

Our relationship to others in past lives has its effect upon the
working of the Law of Karma. If in the past we have formed attachments
for other individuals, either through love or hate; either by kindness
or cruelty; these attachments manifest in our present life, for these
persons are bound to us, and we to them, by the bonds of Karma, until
the attachment is worn out. Such people will in the present life have
certain relationships to us, the object of which is the working out of
the problems in which we are mutually concerned, the adjustment of
relationship, the "squaring up" of accounts, the development of both.
We are apt to be placed in a position to receive hurts from those whom
we have hurt in past lives, and this not through the idea of revenge,
but by the inexorable working out of the Law of Compensation in Karmic
adjustments. And when we are helped, comforted and receive favors from
those who we helped in past lives, it is not merely a reward, but the
operation of the same law of Justice. The person who hurts us in this
way may have no desire to do so, and may even be distressed because he
is used as an instrument in this way, but the Karmic Law places him in
a position where he unwittingly and without desire acts