is to compress into one or two lives the evolution which would naturally
take perhaps a hundred lives. That is not the sort of undertaking in which
immediate results are to be expected. We attempt to uproot an evil habit,
and we find it hard work; why? Because we have indulged in that practice
for, perhaps, twenty thousand years; one cannot shake off the custom of
twenty thousand years in a day or two. We have allowed that habit to gain
an enormous momentum, and before we can set up a force in the opposite
direction we have to overcome that momentum. That cannot be done in a
moment, but it is absolutely certain that it _will_ be done eventually, if
we persevere, because the momentum, however strong it may be, is a finite
quantity, whereas the power that we can bring to bear against it is the
infinite power of the human will, which can make renewed efforts day after
day, year after year, even life after life if necessary.

Another great difficulty in our way is the lack of clearness in our
thought. People in the West are little used to clear thought with regard to
religious matters. Everything is vague and nebulous. For occult development
vagueness and nebulosity will not do. Our conceptions must be clear-cut and
our thought-images definite. Other necessary characteristics are calmness
and cheerfulness; these are rare in modern life, but are absolute
essentials for the work which we are here undertaking.

The process of building a character is as scientific as that of developing
one's muscles. Many a man, finding himself with certain muscles flabby and
powerless takes that as his natural condition, and regards their weakness
as a kind of destiny imposed upon him; but anyone who understands a little
of the human body is aware that by continued exercise those muscles can be
brought into a state of health and the whole body eventually put in order.
In exactly the same way, many a man finds himself possessed of a bad temper
or a tendency to avarice or suspicion or self-indulgence, and when in