exercises I give you in this lesson on Self-Control, Will-Culture and
Memory-Culture if gone through with perseverance will further develop
Concentrative ability. In fact, this entire series of lessons will call
for Effort and Concentration. "Rome was not built in a day"--nor can you
achieve real greatness in a few months. No. All I can do is to indicate
the line and the nature of the effort required of you and if clearly
followed, Progress and Growth will commence from the first day. In
connection with this, a little digression would be necessary. The
Occultist says: Nature, unaided, fails. The purposiveness of Deity,
manifesting in nature an evolution, is present in all individual centres
but it has the way to full expression opened out to itself only when the
more evolved centres of life consciously cooperate with it. Evolution is
started and carried only by the creation of centres within the GREAT
CONSCIOUSNESS and by preserving and enlarging or expanding these centres.
So long as the race had not reached "SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS" (see Yoga
Lessons) the sub-conscious forces of nature had entire control over
evolutionary processes, but this stage was reached by the race according
to the LAW OF AVERAGES in the seventeenth century and you are now
expected to take your progress in your hands and consciously direct your
inner forces along such lines as best correspond to the stage of your
growth. So independent study and steady thinking form the secrets of a
keen and broad intelligence. You will always find that the man who is
more powerful than yourself and moves you at his will has an intelligence
and understanding far superior to yours and he can read your whole nature
as he would an open book, although you find him quite beyond your
depth. Learn to regard earnestly the workings of different mentalities
around you. Become a student of human nature. To you, each man
ought to be only a partial expression of his mind. Examine closely into
the motives acting behind each personality. Learn to respond more
quickly to the _Thoughts_ and _Feelings_ of a man than to his outer