only of Divinities in the
world external to himself. And this misconception is the more easy,
because the final touch, the vibration that breaks the imprisoning
shell, is often the answer from the Divinity within another man, or
within some superhuman being, responding to the insistent cry from the
imprisoned Divinity within himself; he oft-times recognises the
brotherly aid, while not recognising that he himself, the cry from his
inner nature, called it forth. As an explanation from a wiser than
ourselves may make an intellectual difficulty clear to our mind, though
it is our own mind that, thus aided, grasps the solution; as an
encouraging word from one purer than ourselves may nerve us to a moral
effort that we should have thought beyond our power, though it is our
own strength that makes it; so may a loftier Spirit than our own, one
more conscious of its Divinity, aid us to put forth our own divine
energy, though it is that very putting forth that lifts us to a higher
plane. We are all bound by ties of brotherly help to those above us as
to those below us, and why should we, who so constantly find ourselves
able to help in their development souls less advanced than ourselves,
hesitate to admit that we can receive similar help from Those far above
us, and that our progress may be rendered much swifter by Their aid?

Now among the changes that go on in a man's inner nature, unknown to his
lower consciousness, are those that have to do with the putting forth of
his will. The Ego, glancing backward over his past, balancing up its
results, suffering under its mistakes, determines on a change of
attitude, on a change of activity. While his lower vehicle is still,
under his former impulses, plunging along lines of action that bring it
into sharp collisions with the law, the Ego determines on an opposite
course of conduct. Hitherto he has turned his face longingly to the
animal, the pleasures of the lower world have held him fast enchained.
Now he turns his face to the true goal of evolution, and determines to
work for loftier joys. He sees that the whole world is evolving, and
that if he sets himself against that mighty current it clashes him
aside, bruising him sorely in the process; he sees that if he sets
himself with it, it will bear him onwards on its bosom and land him in
the desired haven.

He then resolves to change his life, he turns determinedly on his steps,
he faces the other way. The first result of the effor