The three philosophic Categories which the Agamanta recognises, are Nature, Soul and Spirit. The entire economy of the present Dispensation is under the active control of the Spirit, and is especially designed by Him in view to the Emancipation of the Soul. Nature is multi-coloured and many-vestured, and is the material cause of not only the outer universe, which hides, within the immensity of its bosom, countless hosts of sidereal systems, but also of our body, with all its grosser and subtler divisions and components, its instruments of knowledge and action, its proclivities and tendencies, in which the Soul lives as in a cottage. The Spirit is immanent in both Nature and Sou), and is in fact their Guiding Principle. He is thus the Soul's Soul. It is not in the power of the Soul to lead an independent existence, either it must remain in unwitting communion with Nature, over-powered by Her blandishments, or in conscious Fellowship with the Spirit, an intermediate state being thus practically denied to it. If it ceases to gravitate towards Nature, it must lean on to the Spirit. The samsara-chakra is the Soul's orbit, which represents the resultant of two forces continually acting upon it.

The orbit certainly shrinks up towards the Spirit, when the Soul would not be attracted by Nature. The Soul has the ability to know both Nature and Spirit, as it is possessed of sentiency, an attribute which it only shares in common with the Spirit. But it cannot be cognised by Nature, as She lacks sentiency; and, for the same reason, the senses and the mind, which are fashioned out of insentient Nature, cannot cognise the Soul. Nor has it usually an opportunity to cognise as such, its own true lineaments, because of its ceaseless and indistinguishable communion with either Nature or Spirit, a communion which prevents the Soul from identifying its genuine lineaments. The Soul is possessed, in other words, of the remarkable tondency of ever appearing in the colours of either of the two other Categories that chances to be in association therewith for the nonce, since, as we have shown, it is, for one thing, seldom, if ever, in a state of complete aloofness from both Nature and Spirit, and cannot, for another, associate with either of those Categories, without its being indistinguishably merged in, or its becoming one with it. Consequently, the Soul ordinarily sees in itself either Nature or Spirit, but not its own form.

It is beginning-lessly entangled in the fascinations of Nature, and the Spirit carries on His five-fold operations with a "body of pure sentient Energy "- the outcome of His own free-will - solely to disentangle it from those ruinous fascinations, The universe that we see around us, has Nature for its material cause, the Spirit for its efficient cause and His "body of pure sentient Energy" for its instrumental cause. Nature is specially superintended by the Spirit, in order that she, albeit insentient, may the more rigorously and consistently exhibit the law of desert and causality, in relation to the Soul. The law of causation is really the inherent and eternal property of Nature. As long as the Soul chooses to enjoy the company of Nature, so long will Her law of causality and desert hold the Soul tight within its meshes. But Her connexion with the Soul is, after all, but temporary, though She is, by Herself, eternal. It is also possessed of an ingrained perversity that is inherited from Nature, and hence eventually eradicable, whereby it mistakes its sensuous or sensual wallowing in the "lap of Nature" for its appointed Goal, and thus converts its Spirit-given instruments of Emancipation, formed out of Nature, into effective engines of its own perdition.

The award of Spiritual Freedom is always made by the Spirit to the Soul by an act of Grace, and when the moment for that award (which involves a complete Emancipation from its bondage to Nature) has arrived, the Spirit reveals Himself to the Soul in any manner He pleases, and blesses it with His Eternal Fellowship of ineffable power and joy. The above, in short, is the plainest summary of the central truths of the Agamanta, when shorn of all learned technicalities, and it will not be difficult to see how simple the whole teaching runs. We shall now look at some of the Agamic teachings a little more closely. The three categories, Nature, Soul and Spirit, are, as we have already seen, eternal, that is to say, are without either star or finish; but the Soul and Nature are under the control of the Spirit, and have nothing like absolute independence of action which the Spirit alone enjoys to the full. The Spirit is an embodiment of love and compassion, or, as it is sometimes expressed, is nothing but Life, Light and Love. The Souls are infinite in number, but a broad marshalling brings them under three classes, with reference to the varying grades of their bondage to Nature. Nature is governed by ceaseless cycles of periodic manifestation and dissolution, cycles which turn out, however, to be of many sorts and conditions, when regard is had not only to the extent of, or the interval between, the periods, but also to the specific character, phase or grade of the manifestations and dissolutions.

Manifestation is simply a process of becoming patent, while Dissolution, that of becoming latent. Nature ever endures, librat-ing between a condition of grossness and ponderability on the one hand, and subtlety and imperceptibility on the other. She is per se inert, and every cycle of Her activity is only rendered possible, by the peculiar impact she receives from the Spirit and His immanence in Her. The essential active attribute of the insentient Nature, is Her rigid adherence to the law of causation and desert, both physically and morally, and if the statement be made that She is the Spirit-appointed material instrument of the Soul's Salvation, all we are to understand therefrom is, the Spirit requires the Soul to seek its Emancipation only by wedding Nature, and thereby passing the ordeal of causality. But the elaborate processes which Nature daily employs to bring in more and more Souls as Her suitors, in order that they may be schooled under the law of causation, are indeed very inscrutable, although exceedingly seductive.