Chapter 6 - INDIVIDUALITY - 38

(What Is the Truth about the Individual and His Individuality?)

MASTER: Have you ever given thought to the matter of how you came into existence?

Are you convinced that there was, and is, a definite purpose in the Divine Mind to account for your being here on earth? Or do you think that you create the purpose of your life for yourself, independently of all other factors, after you come into this world?

PUPIL: You ask questions that I scarcely know how to answer. These questions have perhaps been of mild and brief interest to me in the past; but I have never given them any real thought. I have let my mind wander as concerns these points. One time I would think that the Creative Parent Mind does have a definite purpose in my being here, and that this being so there is no use in my trying to change things. But it would then occur to me that this conception of things would mean the "pre-destination" of the fundamentalists. So I would change my mind and decide that I must have some hand in determining my mental and spiritual progress. Is this right?

MASTER: Indeed you do have a hand in your self-development. You have a very great part in it! The life that is you as an individual came directly out of the Great Whole of Intelligent Life (God), from out of its very own sacred heart-center.

Your very life is the Spirit's gift of its own self to you

! Secondly, the Divine did have a specific purpose in having made you namely: That it might have a new form, a new center, through which it might operate as thought and feeling, and through which it might yet more fully enjoy itself in a particular way.

This also is the Spirit's gift of its own self to you! But the manner in which you as an individual use these holy gifts is left entirely in your hands, without interference from the Spirit.

You were given other holy boons; you were given initiative and selection; you were given absolute freedom of choice! The distance that you travel towards the goal of spiritual perfection in this earth life depends solely upon you, just as the degree of rapidity with which you may mentally grow is entirely up to you!