Popular Lectures on Theosophy; By Annie Besant (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1919. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... III. REINCARNATION: ITS NECESSITY. In listening as I sketched for you last Sunday the enormous sweep of evolution, as I traced in rough outline the way in which the divine Life comes down into matter, ensouls every particle, builds up out of that ensouled matter the forms of every description, makes those forms more and more complex, more and more sensitive; then, as I traced the unfolding of consciousness from rung to rung up the Ladder of Lives, showing how the consciousness in man unfolded its powers through the various stages mentioned by Patanjali; then up to the Portal of Initiation; through that to the superhuman evolution which comes after Masterhood; onwards still further from the Man made perfect until the superhuman being is lost in the light that veils such Great Ones as the Bodhisattvas, the Christs, the Buddhas of humanity--some of you surely must have asked yourselves: What is the method of the climbing? how is it possible from the mire of earth to climb upward and upward ever, until the climber is lost in the Diety? what the method, what the fashion of evolution? It is these questions, so natural and inevitable, which I am going to try to answer today and this day week. I have divided my subject into two parts, dealing today only with the necessity for reincarnation. I want to show that it is inevitable, rational, and a fact in nature, and then next week to show how it answers the problems of life, to show how it explains differences in life, the riddle, as I have sometimes called it, of love and hate, the reason for friendship and enmity, the strong links that draw us together and drive lis apart; these questions I shall try to answer next Sunday; today I deal with its necessity. The work to be done is so immense, the ground to be covered so inc...