The doctrine or re-incarnation, as it is generally understood in the Western world, is one of the greatest hindrances to spiritual progress; for like all truths upon the path of return, it is true, and not true; its truth can only be understood by those who have ceased to vibrate to any note struck by the personality; its not truth is what is being taught and understood by people who are teaching this doctrine; those who know the inner meaning would never teach it, they understand that it cannot be taught, but can only be realized by the awakened soul; when taught to the unawakened the effect is like being in a maze, the soul wanders up and down its many paths, attracted this way and that way, always feeling fresh allurements and ever seeking unexplored paths, which are specially attractive to the curiously minded. When once a soul has started upon this investigation it may go up and down the winding paths for countless ages before it finds the way out, returning again and again to the place from which it started.

One of the greatest dangers of this teaching lies in the so called recognition of old ties; if the Disciple only knew how this idea is used to drag him back from his true goal. Directly any soul takes a definite step upon the path to God, everything in this world and the next, tries to prevent him going forward ; and entities of the astral world find it very easy to impress living personalities with the idea of part relationships; it is one of the subtlest of illusions of that world of illusions, and seldom fails to arrest the steps of a returning soul, as in these astral impressions the idea of a karmic debt is always suggested. The more spiritual the soul the more its feels its obligations to pay to the uttermost what it owes, but a truly accepted Disciple should remember that his karmic debts have been remitted unto him, and realize that these suggestions are always from the shadow-side, and are only phantoms, having no more reality than the figures moving across the screen of a cinema.

Take heed therefore, thou who art seeking God, that this truth be not a stumbling block in thy path.

-oOo-