is certain because it is here already,
because to inherit it we have only to fit ourselves for it.

Chapter VII

REINCARNATION

This life of the ego in his own world, which is so glorious and so fully
satisfying for the developed man, plays but a very small part in the life
of the ordinary person, for in his case the ego has not yet reached a
sufficient stage of development to be awake in his causal body. In
obedience to the law of Nature he has withdrawn into it, but in doing so he
has lost the sensation of vivid life, and his restless desire to feel this
once more pushes him in the direction of another descent into matter.

This is the scheme of evolution appointed for man at the present
stage--that he shall develop by descending into grosser matter, and then
ascend to carry back into himself the result of the experiences so
obtained. His real life, therefore, covers millions of years, and what we
are in the habit of calling a life is only one day of this greater
existence. Indeed, it is in reality only a small part of one day; for a
life of seventy years in the physical world is often succeeded by a period
of twenty times that length spent in higher spheres.

Every one of us has a long line of these physical lives behind him, and the
ordinary man has a fairly long line still in front of him. Each of such
lives is a day at school. The ego puts upon himself his garment of flesh
and goes forth into the school of the physical world to learn certain
lessons. He learns them, or does not learn them, or partially learns them,
as the case may be, during his schoolday of earth-life; then he lays aside
the vesture of the flesh and returns home to his own level for rest and
refreshment. In the morning of each new life he takes up again his lesson
at the point where he left it the night before. Some lessons he may be able
to learn in one day, while others may take him many days.

If he is an apt pupil and learns quickly what is needed, if he obtains an
intelligent grasp of the rules of the school, and takes the trouble to
adapt his conduct to them, his school-life is comparatively short, and when
it is over he goes forth fully equipped into the real life of the higher
worlds for which all this is only a preparation. Other egos are duller boys
who do not learn so quickly; some of them do not understand the rules of
the school, and through that ignorance are constantly breaking them; others
are wayward, and even when t