It must not be understood from the above that the Higher Ego ever gets into a passion, or in any similar emotional state, itself. All these passional activities belong to the consciousness of the various hierarchies synthesized in man's body. The kama- manasic reflection of the Higher Ego is the agent by means of which the latter is brought into sense-relations with this plane, and this center of consciousness vibrates from one to another of these vehicles under the impelling influence of the personal will.

This personal will is the reflected will of the Higher Ego tainted and colored by the desires and delights of sensuous existence. It is thus the offspring of the personal or kama-manasic consciousness, and represents the underlying motive which directs our whole personal existence. It is created by kama-manasic or brain thought, which thought arises out of the physical stimuli of sensuous existence. Thus is seen the nature of the intimacy between body and soul, and also the importance of controlling the kama-manasic or lower brain thought, or of not permitting these sensuous stimuli to engross the entire attention of this center of consciousness. "As a man thinks, so he is."If we continuously find ourselves getting into rages, it is not, as most of us delude ourselves into fancying, the result of an unhappy combination of environing circumstances, but because we live habitually upon this level. If our desires really ran in the direction of purity and spirituality, the same set of circumstances would arouse no corresponding vibrations within us; we would be non-receptive to them, as completely as we now are to the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum.

Through all the psychic storms raging in the body, the Higher Ego is only a spectator, powerless to affect the result except as its lower reflection controls or yields to the tempest of vibrations arising in these rajasic elementals.

The effect of permitting the center of consciousness to wander from plane to plane, according as this or that desire demands a hearing or clamors for its attention, is more far-reaching than is generally recognized. It is the karmic agent which is largely determining the conditions of our next subjective life as well as the following incarnation.

Perhaps a resort to object teaching may help to elucidate this. Let us suppose man to be living within a hollow sphere or globe, modeled after the fashion of that he now lives upon. Let us further suppose this globe to have a north and a south pole - that is, a spiritual and a material extreme. An equator would then divide its upper spiritual from its lower material hemisphere. Below this equator would be the physical and Kama Loca consciousness; above, the devachanic and nirvanic. At the upper pole would be the ethereal, spiritual attraction of his Higher Self; at the lower, the kamic desires of his physical body, and each constantly exerting its utmost power to draw his kama-manasic center of consciousness to its own pole. This kama-manasic center of consciousness may be likened to a smaller globe, ever oscillating within the greater one. Now it floats, under the impulse of some altruistic, spiritual impulse, far above the dividing equator into the spiritual region. In an instant it descends to material zones, as some earthly desire or fit of passion reaches it through the physical senses.

Thus it ever vibrates to the impulses arising out of sensuous experiences unless controlled by the will, crossing the dividing line between the spiritual, permanent life, and the fleeting, physical one, perhaps a thousand times a day. With some exceptionally spiritual natures, the oscillation may be within the deva- chanic zone of consciousness for days or weeks, without ever touching the fatal equatorial line of animal appetites or selfish interests. On the other hand, a gross sensualist or materialist might keep his consciousness oscillating entirely below the line of spirituality for months, or even a lifetime.

Carrying our illustration a step further, let us suppose this larger, or environing, globe to have the power of responding to and recording each visit made by the smaller globe, representing the kama-manasic consciousness, to any of its planes or zones, either devachanic or those of Kama Loca or Nirvana. Let us suppose, also, that this record takes the form of a kind of mental or thought deposit within the greater globe, and which under the accretion of numberless visits grows into a thought fund, so to speak - a memory-deposit, upon which the Higher Ego can draw in order to maintain a conscious connection with, or memory of, its last life on earth, during the interval which must elapse in Devachan before it can again descend into the world of causes by reincarnating.

This fanciful thought-deposit roughly represents a fact in nature; for just as our physical brain responds to and records molecular vibrations, so do spiritual thoughts and desires set up vibrations upon higher planes, and which are recorded upon their permanent tablets. These illustrations, crude and imperfect as they of necessity are, enable us to catch a glimpse - a shadowy conception, at any rate - of the mutual inter-relation and interdependence of our life upon earth and that which awaits us after death. By them may be seen how we are daily and hourly creating the conditions which, without the arbitrary interference of any personal god, will determine our state in the next or subjective phase of our existence, as well as the conditions which will environ our next objective life.

After death, when the physical vehicle of consciousness is destroyed, the soul, if it have not evolved the power of objective consciousness upon the inner, astral planes, is compelled to continue its existence in a subjective state. A blind man cannot see, nor a deaf one hear; they lack the physical organs. Therefore, when all of man's physical senses are annulled by death, either his consciousness is annihilated, as the materialists claim, or it uses inner senses to project the astral plane objectively, or it must become subjective - that is to say, it must enter upon a dreaming state similar to that which obtains during life when the physical senses are paralyzed by sleep. Then what happens after death, returning to our globe illustration, would evidently be this: The grossly physical attraction at the lower pole being removed, the consciousness rises to that point in the globe where its mental deposits during life have been of sufficient amount to sustain it. It can no longer select its material vehicle by the self-conscious will, for this has become paralyzed by the disintegration of the lower Principles, through which it had been accustomed to function, and through its not yet having learned to function on spiritual planes and in spiritual vehicles.