HIGHER REASON AND JUDGMENT: Page 108

When water is allowed its free course, it flows on smoothly. But just put a bar across its onflow. How it struggles, hisses and fumes in order to get rid of the barrier! Now you understand why the will arms itself with sudden force when the lash of disgrace and contumely stirs it up. The greater the stirring and the more continued the spasm of pain, the deeper the impression left upon the memory, the fiercer the out-put of soul energy. When it is a gentle twinge only, the soul turns over like the proverbial sleepy boy and forgets it instantly. You repeat your folly. Now our psychology fixes itself ever on the ultimate analysis of fact. Hence Vyasa in his commentary on Patanjili gives pain the first seat as an important factor that goes to build up the Causal Body-the Karana Sharira, or the receptacle in which lie all the seeds of actions- the proper development of which blazes the way to Self-realisation. The first and most important function of pain is to call out the activity-aspect of the soul. Remember it has no permanent place. Take your cue and learn to love exertion, and pain shall not come. The next function of pain is to establish rythmic conditions in the physical form. It organises the body aright. I have told you in my paper on "Man's Divine Heritage" how the transition to peace must always be through struggle and painful fighting. Says the Lord Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita:-1. That is like poison at first, but nectar at the end, that happiness is de-