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		<p align="center" style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">III</p>
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		EDUCATION</p>
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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The Immortal Person</i></font></b></p>
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		&nbsp;</p>

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<font face="Times New Roman">THE whole purpose of man's life upon earth, it may be said,
is to make an individuality of himself and to grow in that
individuality and organise it perfectly.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; An ordinary man is a most disorganised entity and possesses
no individual character. His mind is a conglomeration of
thoughts and ideas which do not particularly belong to him,
but to everybody, being elements of the world-mind in general.
His vital being too is a medley of desires, impulses, energies
that are not personal in any sense, but pass through him or
take a long or short-term asylum in him from the universal
vital force. The body, being a definitely delimited object, is
perhaps the only thing that appears to be personal—the
chief, if not the only source and sign of personal identity; and
with the loss of the body, the whole personality seems to
crumble down and disappear in the world-existence—the
body particles get mixed into the world of matter, the life
elements disperse in the vital world, the mental components
disintegrate into the world of mind. In fact, this is what
happens to the human person after death or would happen
normally.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus man, the ordinary or &quot;natural&quot; man, has 
no personality, no real individuality. It is just like a wave-formation
out of universal nature, moving in and being moved by the
total swell and heave, being formed and being destroyed
every moment—as the poet says:</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; They take birth in you and they dissolve in you like
</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the waves in the sea.</font>&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
&nbsp;<font face="Times New Roman">And yet the building up of an abiding individual is the secret</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">
Page 177<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">urge of Nature's evolution: it is the hidden spring of human
aspiration and the purpose of God's creation. Not mere disparate particles—of substance or energy or consciousness—breaking up constantly and scattering and finally dissolving
into the void (the great law of <i>Running Down</i> or as the Veda
figures it, <i>tucchyena abwapihitam</i> absorbed by the infinitesimal)
—but a gathering of elements, integrating them into organic
wholes, moulding definite forces into definite forms—such is
the secret plan behind. Indeed, ego is the first formation, the
original instrument which Nature fashioned to carry out this
object others.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ego means a hardened core that is not easily broken by
the impact of forces. It delimits, cuts out, endeavours to
maintain its formation by a strong violent self-assertion. Ego
is a helper, but also it is a bar. It assists the 'first formation but
delays and obstructs the true and final formation. For the
ego is a formation, an individual formation, but on the level
of universal Nature: it is of a piece with the normal cosmic
movement, only bounded by a peripheral line. In the general
expanse it puts up enclosures and preserves and fencings; the
constituting elements remaining the same in substance and
quality. Even the delimitation is illusory in reality, it is something like the membrane in the body separating the different
functional organs, rigid yet allowing interaction and inter-
penetration. That is why, when death removes the outward
fencing, the individuality also cannot long maintain itself and
merges into the general. We may look upon egoism as a kind of artificial or 
experimental individuality, a laboratory formation, as it were, tried and developed under given conditions. In fact, however, egoism is a shadow or an echo upon
this side of our nature of the true individuality which lies and
comes from elsewhere.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And that is the soul of the man. We have spoken of the body, 
the life and the mind of the individual, but beside and beyond
these elements which are only instruments there is this secret
master and overlord. It is the particle of divinity in each, the
developing consciousness—the spark of Fire, the ray of Light—&quot;the immortal in the mortal no bigger than one's thumb.&quot;
The soul is an individual, an individual formation of the divine
reality: it is a godhead formulating an aspect or function of</font>
		<font face="Times New Roman">God. </font>

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Page 178<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">We may thus say that the whole purpose of earthly
evolution is the evolution of this soul-formation, that is to say,
its growing individualisation in light and power, in the expression of the godhead. This growth is first in itself and of itself,
its inherent being and consciousness; then, the growth is that
of its instrumentation, in other words, the development and
organisation of the mind, the life and the body.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; So the individualisation and growth of the soul means a
growth and individualisation of the mental being, the vital
being and also of the physical being. Normally the purpose of
intellectual culture is the growth and individualisation of the
mind, the purpose of moral culture is the growth and individualisation of the vital being and the true purpose of physical
culture too should be a well-balanced and well-developed
physical body, not only in a general sense, but in a very
individualised mode. But all these varieties and modes of
culture can be truly individualised and not merely ordered or
organised, more or less on the surface, only when they obey
and subserve the culture of the soul. The mind, the vital and
the physical each has to grow its individuality in the growing
individuality of the soul. The soul, otherwise called the psychic
being, is man's spiritual being: the growth of the spiritual being
means the advent and establishment of the true personality.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There is, of course, a spiritual path that turns the soul away
from its instruments and demands that it should concentrate
exclusively upon itself, upon its essential essence, upon its
transcendent existence; but that is not our path and, according
to us, that is only a temporary phase, an intermediate necessity
for some persons and at certain stages.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The individualisation of the mind, its organisation as a
Special formation, as a vehicle of the true light, the light of the
Psychic consciousness is comparatively easy for a man. Mind is the first member of the lower sphere that is taken up and
dealt with by the soul; for it is the highest and the most
characteristic element in man and less dense and less subject
to the darkness inherent in human nature. The mental individual persists the longest after the dissolution of the body, it
survives and may survive very long the disruption of the vital
being. This vital being is next in the rung to be taken up,
organised and individualised by and around the psychic being.</font>
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Page 179<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">The organisation of the vital being in view of a particular
object or aim in ordinary life is common enough: the purpose
is limited, the scope restricted. Great men of action have done
it and one has to do it more or less to be successful in life. This,
however, may be called organisation; it is not individualisation in the true sense, much less personalisation. A limb is
individualised, personalised only when it is an instrument and
formation of the soul consciousness, the psychic being. And the
vital is not easily amenable to such a role. For, it is the dynamic
element, the effective power of life and it has acquired a strong
nature and a definite function in its earthly relations. Naturally,
there is a secret drive and an occult inspiration behind over-
riding or guiding all immediate and apparent forces and
happenings: in and through these the shape of things to come
is being built up. In the meanwhile, however, actually the
vital is an executive agent of the lower consciousness: it is an
anonymous force of universal nature canalised in to a temporary
figure that is the normal individual man. The individualisation of the vital being would mean an immortal formulation of
an immortal soul as energy consciousness with a specific role
for the Divine to play. It maintains its identity, its personality
independent of the vicissitudes of the physical body: it continues
to function as a divine being, a godhead, to work for mankind
and the world. The popular legend has imaged this phenomenon in the mystic figure of an immortal Aswatthama and
Vibhishana still wandering in earth's atmosphere.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, it is the turn of the body to become individualised,
personalised, that is to say, when it takes up the <i>disposition</i> and <i>configuration</i> of the psychic person and individual. The first
stage is that of a subtle body individualised, a radiant form of
etherealised elements consisting of the concentrated light
particles of the divine consciousness of the Psyche. This too is
an immortalisation of the personal identity which can be
achieved and is achieved by the gnostic man who is to come,
who will wholly psychicise and divinise his personality. The
second stage is the reorganisation and individualisation of the
material sheath itself. The very cells of the body are impregnated with the radiant substance of the supreme spiritual
consciousness; they live the life of the spiritual individual, the
personal divine embodied in the individual. When the whole</font>
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Page 180<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">process is gone through and the work done, the individual
body, physically too, shares in and attains the immortality of
the soul. The body is firm enough to maintain its physical
identity and yet plastic enough to change in the manner and
to the degree demanded of it at any time.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the process of making the body personal and divine and
immortal, death or what appears as such may be a needed
operation. It is no longer an ineluctable destiny forced upon
you, but an instrument which you use consciously for a definite
purpose. It is a mystic or occult work <i>(kriya)</i> which we can try to
understand by an analogy. The evolution of the ideal or divine
man, the assumption of the mortal by the immortal involves a
twofold operation: rejection and integration. Rejection means
throwing out the elements that belong exclusively to the lower
grade and cannot be taken up and incorporated into the higher;</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">while integration means taking up and absorbing utilisable
elements of the lower into the higher. This double process goes
on on all the levels, on the mental, on the vital, on the subtle
physical and even on the physical level. At a certain stage or in
a concentrated process of alchemy the process of rejection may
demand a mode of reshuffling and redisposition which physically appears like death, but it is inevitably followed or accompanied by the process of integration or recreation.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps this supreme and dangerous gesture only the Master
can make—as the pioneer and pathfinder—and he has made
it.</font>
		<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="center">Page 181</p>
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