Highest spiritual and mental development—­an Emerson, for example—­who, in order to raise up the race of earth-worms, would deliberately place himself within the being and nature of the Group-Soul animating the race of earthworms, and then stay within its influence, striving ever upward and onward until finally, after aeons and aeons of time, he was able to bring up the earthworm Group Soul to the level of Man.  Think of this, and then realize what a sacrifice Jesus made of Himself.

In the Wilderness, when Jesus took the final steps of renunciation and sacrifice, He at once passed within the circle of the Race Karma and laid Himself open to all the pain, misery, temptations and limitations of a Man.  His power, of course, remained with Him, but He was no longer a God outside of the world-life, but an imprisoned God working from within the race, using His mighty power, but bound by the Karmic Law.  He became open to influences from which previously He had been immune.  For instance when He was “tempted” by the Devil of Personal Attainment, and urged to seek worldly glory and renown, He was tempted only because He had taken on the world’s Karma and was subject to its laws.  As a God, He would not have felt the temptation any more than a man would feel the temptation of the earthworm.  But as a man He was subject to the desires and ambitions that perplex and “devil” the race.  And according to the rule that the greater the mental development the greater the power of such temptation toward self-aggrandizement (because of the mind being able to see more clearly the opportunities), Jesus was subjected to a test that would have been impossible to an ordinary man.

Jesus, knowing full well that He had in His possession the power to manifest the things with which He was tempted, was compelled to fight off the temptation to place Himself at the head of the race as its ruler—­as the King of the World.  He was shown this picture to compare with the other whose last scene was Calvary—­and He was called upon to feel the desire of the race for such things, even unto its highest degree.  Imagine the desire for personal aggrandizement of all the world thought beating upon His mind demanding the expression which could be had through Him alone.  And then imagine the struggle required to defeat this opposing power.  Think of what the ordinary man has to meet and overcome to conquer the desire for Personal Aggrandizement—­and then think of what the Master had to fight, with the focussed desire of the entire Race-Thought striving to express itself through Him!  Truly the Sins of the World bore down upon Him with their mighty weight.  And yet He knew that He had taken upon Himself this affliction by entering upon the Life of Man.  And He met it like a Man of Men.