Coming Back Again?

Thursday the 1st of February, 2001. Cowley Road Church, Oxford. The President was in the Chair and sorting out a reading. I mentioned the book 'The Boy Who Saw True' and she read this from it.

...what is it that you were asking me?"

"I wanted to know what the soul has to do so as not to require to come back to earth any more?"

"It has to lay up for itself treasures in heaven instead of treasures on earth. In short, a man has to become selfless, or as the Indian sages have put it, he must become unattached. First of all he must avoid doing evil so as to incur no debts to be paid off in a future incarnation, and secondly, he must do good for its own sake without any desire for reward. Because strong desires, unless unselfish, have sooner or later to be fulfilled; they are fetters which bind one to earth. Strong desires act somewhat like a boomerang; you hurl these forth into time in the shape of desires, and they come back to you in the shape of fulfilments.

Say, that in a given incarnation a man strongly wishes for some sort of fame, but circumstances are against him and he dies before his wish has been gratified. What happens? Through his powerful wish, he has generated subtle forces which cannot just disappear into space, so he has eventually to come back to experience the gratification of his wish. And as with one thing so with another. Most people want to be wealthy, to wield power, to occupy high positions, or to shine in society. All these desires, which are actuated by vanity, are the lassoes which catch the soul and drag it back into incarnation. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes, but am I to understand that all the things you have mentioned are evil, and that nobody ought ever to be rich and famous?"

"They are neither good nor evil in themselves. It is our attachment to them that makes them evil for us. Jesus said, for example, the love of money is the root of all evil. My Master says the same thing but uses a different word; he says attachment to money is the root of all evil. I know that the Indian idea of non-attachement may seem puzzling to you. Yet after all it is very simple. It practically means that you must not allow yourself to be dependent on external things for your happiness. For the only true and lasting happiness is to be found within, that is to say in the subtler bodies, and above all, in the highest spiritual body which is at one with God.

Taken from page 145 of "The Boy Who Saw True".
Published by The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd. ISBN: 0-85435-493-X