meal still they can never cause sprout, blossom or fruit.  Then the pupil is instructed in the nature of Desire, and shown how desires invariably spring into plant, blossom and fruit, the life of the person being the soil in which they flourish.  But Desires understood, and set off from the Real Man, are akin to baked-seeds—­they have been subjected to the heat of spiritual wisdom and are thus robbed of their vitality, and are unable to bear fruit.  In this way the understood and mastered Desire bears no Karmic fruit of future action.

The Yogis teach that there are two great principles at work in the matter of Karmic Law affecting the conditions of rebirth.  The first principle is that whereby the prevailing desires, aspirations, likes, and dislikes, loves and hates, attractions and repulsions, etc., press the soul into conditions in which these characteristics may have a favorable and congenial soil for development.  The second principle is that which may be spoken of as the urge of the unfolding Spirit, which is always urging forward toward fuller expression, and the breaking down of confining sheaths, and which thus exerts a pressure upon the soul awaiting reincarnation which causes it to seek higher environments and conditions than its desires and aspiration, as well as its general characteristics, would demand.  These two apparently conflicting (and yet actually harmonious) principles acting and reacting upon each other, determine the conditions of rebirth, and have a very material effect upon the Karmic Law.  One’s life is largely a conflict between these two forces, the one tending to hold the soul to the present conditions resulting from past lives, and the other ever at work seeking to uplift and elevate it to greater heights.

The desires and characteristics brought over from the past lives, of course, seek fuller expression and manifestation upon the lines of the past lives.  These tendencies simply wish to be let alone and to grow according to their own laws of development and manifestation.  But the unfolding Spirit, knowing that the soul’s best interests are along the lines of spiritual unfoldment and growth, brings a steady pressure to bear, life after life, upon the soul, causing it to gradually kill out the lower desires and characteristics, and to develop qualities which tend to lead it upward instead of allowing it to remain on its present level, there to bring to blossom and fruit many low thoughts and desires.  Absolute Justice reigns over the operations of the Law of Karma, but back of that and superior even to its might is found the Infinite Love of the absolute which tends to Redeem the race.  It is that love that is back of all the upward tendencies of the soul, and which we all feel within our inner selves in our best moments.  The light of the Spirit (Love) is ever there.