r
that guarding love is round him still.

The key to this change in the man, that brings about "forgiveness," is
given in the verse of the _Bhagavad-Gita_ already partly quoted: "Even
if the most sinful worship me, with undivided heart, he too must be
accounted righteous, _for he hath rightly resolved_." On that right
resolution follows the inevitable result: "Speedily he becometh dutiful
and goeth to peace."[321] The essence of sin lies in setting the will of
the part against the will of the whole, the human against the Divine.
When this is changed, when the Ego puts his separate will into union
with the will that works for evolution, then, in the world where to will
is to do, in the world where effects are seen as present in causes, the
man is "accounted righteous;" the effects on the lower planes must
inevitably follow; "speedily he becometh dutiful" in action, having
already become dutiful in will. Here we judge by actions, the dead
leaves of the past; there they judge by wills, the germinating seeds of
the future. Hence the Christ ever says to men in the lower world: "Judge
not."[322]

Even after the new direction has been definitely followed, and has
become the normal habit of the life, there come times of failure,
alluded to in the _Pistis Sophia_, when Jesus is asked whether a man may
be again admitted to the Mysteries, after he has fallen away, if he
again repents. The answer of Jesus is in the affirmative, but he states
that a time comes when re-admission is beyond the power of any save of
the highest Mystery, who pardons ever. "Amen, amen, I say unto you,
whosoever shall receive the mysteries of the first mystery, and then
shall turn back and transgress twelve times [even], and then should
again repent twelve times, offering prayer in the mystery of the first
mystery, he shall be forgiven. But if he should transgress after twelve
times, should he turn back and transgress, it shall not be remitted unto
him for ever, so that he may turn again unto his mystery, whatever it
be. For him there is no means of repentance unless he have received the
mysteries of that ineffable, which hath compassion at all times and
remitteth sins for ever and ever."[323] These restorations after
failure, in which "sin is remitted," meet us in human life, especially
in the higher phases of evolution. A man is offered an opportunity,
which, taken, would open up to him new possibilities of growth. He fails
to grasp it, and falls away