Evolution
   According to the current theories of modern science, evolution is thought to be a patient, inexorable law of nature which causes lower life-forms to gradually mutate into higher ones. In other words, the most popular modem view of evolution is that it is largely an automatic process which is simply happening to us, rather than something we are causing to happen. For example, in just the last hundred years the human brain seems to have developed a remarkable and unprecedented faculty for manipulating our environment, and as a result humankind is accomplishing astounding progress in the fields of physical science and technology. Most of us accept this as proof that humanity is automatically evolving en masse into a future race of super humans with optimal intelligence, capable of completely dominating all the forces and resources of nature.
   The science of Yoga, however, presents a picture of evolution which is dramatically different from the one most of us grew up with. The yogic Rishis advise us that nature has remained essentially the same since the beginning of time, and it will stay essentially the same until the cosmos is dissolved. There are, to be sure, incessant ebbs and flows which give Mother Nature an ever changing face, but ultimately she will end up exactly where she began; there can be no improvements in nature because it was already perfect to begin with.
   Our entire recorded history covers only about 8,000 years, though the cosmos has existed for billions of years. What we know about the activities of nature up to now represents just an infinitesimal sliver of the entire universal cycle, and if we limit ourselves to examining only the events occurring in this tiny isolated section of  the whole, we are bound to see patterns Which seem to indicate that things are moving in certain specific directions. If we could view more of the entire cycle, however, perhaps we’d see that hr the next 8,000 years things will flow in exactly the opposite direction and cancel out all the so-called “progress” of our recorded past.
   It’s the same as if we were to study the ocean only when the tide is coming in; if we did we might well conclude that the land is slowly and steadily being swallowed by the sea. We could watch the tide for six full hours and not see any indication that it ever intended to reverse its march upon the shore. Only if we witness the full cycle of the tide can we realize the perfect balance of its ebb and flow. The same is true for the tides of time. For all we know, there may easily have been thousands of civilizations on earth, as highly advanced or even more so than ours, only these may be so deeply buried in the distant past that the nearest one is nothing but mythology to us now (the fabled Atlantis, for example).
   The human brain is currently displaying an evolutionary surge for the simple reason that at this time in history more of our vital energy is being diverted toward the conscious mind, while less is being used to fuel the deeper mechanisms of our being. Thus, it can hardly be called true evolution when the more important aspect of an organism must go undernourished in order to overdevelop one of lesser significance. Fortunately, however, the rising outcry of spiritual hunger that is now being heard throughout the world and particularly in the West suggests that perhaps this modem era of mind-worship is already on the wane.
   According to yogic philosophy, during the course of each universal cycle there occurs a revolving sequence of ages or yugas, each characterized by a general upswing or downswing in the level of human consciousness. The present age, called Kali Yuga, is said to be one in which the average person has extremely limited use of his inner potential; and during the next yuga he will have access to much more psychic power. Thus, as this age passes to the next, though it may appear to a purely objective observer that humankind is actually evolving en masse into some sort of superhuman species. The fact is that for all the added knowledge and power this “new-age human” will exhibit, he will still be every bit as bound as people are today. As we will see in a later section, the unfolding of psychic powers is only an early phase of the approach to Self-realization, and those who are stuck at this high level will have far less motivation to strive for Self-realization than those of us bound at lower levels.
   Yoga asserts that there is only one truly evolutionary process in all of nature, and that process is neither physical nor mental—it’s spiritual—and this evolution is not something automatic which humankind can simply sit back and let happen, it’s an inner unfolding which must be willfully instigated and sustained by each individual. Yoga defines evolution as the voluntary reversion of individual souls to the supreme source through personal effort. This is just another way of saying that evolution is the process of Self-realization.
   Whenever any one of us attains Self-realization, this does not simply mean that we reach the highest possible advancement that we are personally capable of in this lifetime; it also constitutes the attainment of the highest state that can ever be reached by any human being. The evolution of human into superhuman is a process of transformation which any of us can instigate and complete in this very lifetime, with proper guidance. No human being has the potential to achieve a higher state than any other person. Each of us contains inside us at this very moment the full potential to attain the highest state that any human being ever has or ever will attain. Some of us, however, are capable of attaining this goal more quickly than others, because some of us desire it more fervently. Motivation inspires effort, and effort yields rewards.
Scientists will never find a missing link between the animal kingdom and humankind, for we ourselves are a missing link— between animal and god. Yoga states that Self-realization can only be attained in a human body; it is not possible for any other form of life to unite its consciousness with the source of all Creation. Every life-form does, however, play a very important part in the cosmic pattern of spiritual evolution, and to understand this we must now turn our attention to the doctrine of reincarnation.

Reincarnation
   Regardless of whether or not lower life forms are in fact physically evolving into higher ones, Yoga asserts that there is something which does evolve through the various forms of life, beginning with mineral and passing through the vegetable and animal kingdoms before earning the capability of inhabiting a human form. This nonmaterial, evolving entity is called a “soul” in Western spiritual traditions, and in Yoga it is called purusha. As we saw earlier, the process of Creation involves the accepting of limitations by both of the supreme cosmic principles; Shakti becomes veiled and manifests as prakriti—as insentient objects—and Shiva becomes veiled and manifests as individual purushas—the sentient perceivers of all the objects in Creation.
   We must always remember, however, that even though there appears to be purusha and prakriti, the perceiver and the perceived, in reality there is only one thing in Creation, Paramashiva, the two supreme principles of Shiva and Shakti eternally united. Therefore, both Shiva a and Shakti must be present in every element of Creation, so when we speak of “purusha” we refer to those things in which the subjective (Shiva) principle predominates, and when we speak of “prakriti” we refer to those things in which the objective (Shakti) principle predominates. In other words, strictly speaking, there is a purusha in everything, but in insentient objects it is essentially dormant and in lower life-forms it is only slightly active. This is why Yoga states that subjective Consciousness is sleeping in minerals, dreaming in plants stirring in animals, awakening in humans and fully aware in realized beings.
   According to Yoga, the only way an individual purusha can become “fully aware,” meaning aware of its identity as Shiva, is through personal experience. This means that every object in Creation is a vehicle for awakening purushas, and some vehicles take a lot more experience to operate than others. For example, the difference between a rock and a human body is like the difference between a kiddy car and a rocket ship just as an Australian aborigine is incapable of flying a rocket ship, a primitive purusha is incapable of inhabiting a vehicle as sophisticated as a human body.

   A lowly evolved purusha has so little awareness it is capable only of inhabiting simple, insentient forms such as stone and earth. As it gains experience, however, it evolves into more complex vehicles. Once a purusha evolves into the realm of living organisms, its evolutionary journey is called “reincarnation.” Every living thing, be it a plant, animal or human body, exists only temporarily: so each time such a vehicle dies, the purusha which has inhabited it moves on to a form more suitable to its present level of evolution.
   After it evolves through the vegetable kingdom, each purusha then inhabits simple forms of animal life, gradually moving up to forms which are more mobile and sophisticated. When at last it becomes perceptive enough to merit the rudiments of an inner psychic apparatus (mind, ego, intellect and subconscious), it earns a human vehicle for itself. Each time its vehicle dies, the purusha recycles itself into a new vehicle, carrying with it all the awareness and experience it has gained throughout its existence; and each vehicle it incarnates into is exactly suited to its needs and capabilities. A human vehicle is Creation’s finest instrument of perception because it is not only physically mobile, but it also has the potential for tremendous psychic mobility, and this gives the purusha access to all the subtle realms of Creation. (The exact mechanics of human psychic mobility will be detailed in our next pages.)
   As a purusha evolves, it not only gains wisdom, it also gains power—the ability to direct the power of its own Consciousness. Just as everything in Creation is Shiva, everything is also Shakti, so every object contains her awesome power. In insentient objects, however, this power is completely unavailable to the inhabiting purusha, while in living forms it can be utilized in varying degrees. Shakti which has become available for use by a purusha is called prana, or “life-force.” Higher forms of life have more prana than lower ones, so as a purusha evolves it is able to command more and more of the Self’s unlimited power. A Siddha-purusha (a fully realized being) attains sovereignty over all the power in Creation.
   The highest goal of every purusha is to perceive its own Self by removing the veils of ignorance which obscure its eternally pure Light of Consciousness. As these veils are slowly dissolved by knowledge obtained through experience, each purusha becomes more and more able to perceive its own true nature and also the true nature of the rest of Creation as well. Just as a beam o[ light penetrates a veil of darkness and reveals the true identity oh whatever the darkness obscures, pure subjective Consciousness pierces the veils which enshroud the imminent Consciousness in all things sentient and insentient; thus, true perception reveals the whole of Creation to be a single, cosmic being, completely alive and aware of itself. When all the purusha’s veils are removed, what remains is just its own pure light, and with this “Enlightenment” comes the realization that both perceiver and perceived arc one divine being—one omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, all-blissful Self.
   Only when we our self attain Self-realization will everything become completely clear to us, but meanwhile another short allegory might help us to have a better understanding about the hows and whys of reincarnation:
   One day, after Shakti had emanated from Shiva and become the manifest universe, Shiva found himself all alone with just his thoughts. Having pondered various things, he finally came to the problem of his own identity. “Who in the world am I, anyway?” he wondered. (Of course, you and I realize that Shiva, knowing everything, could never be ignorant about his own true nature; and yet, it was a grand game to play—one that he had instigated countless times before, purely for his own amusement.)
   The only one who would surely know the answer, he decided, was his cosmic mate, but how was he to ask her this important question now that she had gone off and become everything in Creation? There seemed to be only one alternative: to find out who he really was, Shiva had to ask everything in Creation. To do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, he split himself up into a myriad of fragments, called souls, and he scattered them throughout the whole of Creation, each with but a single assignment—to find the answer to the question, “Who am I?” Since the Earth Realm was the ground floor of the entire cosmos, it became the main laboratory for the souls’ research.

Only when a soul has developed enough sophistication to perceive and analyze Creation with intelligence and discrimination does it become capable of seeking a meaningful answer to the question “Who am I?” Answering this question, then, is the entire purpose of a human being. To solve the great cosmic riddle, each soul can only proceed by a process of elimination: in discovering all the things which we are not, we are eventually led to the place where we can learn who we really are. If we look around us right now we will see many souls (including our own) in the process of eliminating all the things which they are not. Some are currently examining the possibility that their basic nature is to be found in such things as money, power, or status; others are diligently researching areas such as sex, evil, violence or gluttony; still others explore the fields of science, art, philosophy, sports or business. There are so many possibilities to examine that the research takes a great many lifetimes, between which each soul spends varying amounts of time in the other realms, organizing and digesting its work to date, as well as investigating those more subtle realms.
   Only after exhaustive research over innumerable lifetimes, after every aspect of worldly life has been experienced and examined in minute detail, is the soul finally willing to consider looking inward. Turning inward, this ancient soul is at last able to perceive its own nature directly, and then returns to the Lord in triumph, joyfully proclaiming the answer it has scoured all of Creation to discover and experience: “I am Shiva! I am Shiva! I am Shiva!” When all the souls finish their research and merge back with Shiva, the cycle is complete and the entire Creation is absorbed back into its source. Then, after a period of rest, the great cosmic cycle is ready to begin again.
   The entire cosmos is an enormous circle of birth and death, and every detail of this magnificent Creation reflects its cyclical essence. Vibration is the basic nature of everything in existence, and since vibration is cyclical. This means that everything in existence is alternately dying and being reborn with astounding frequency. In a single second of time, for example, every atom in Creation dies and is reborn one quadrillion times!

   Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is cyclical;  it revolves around some as yet undiscovered point in the universe. Our own star system revolves around a fixed point in the Milky Way. Our own sun revolves around a point in its star system. Our own planet revolves not only around its sun and around its own axis, but it and its moon also revolve around each other. All this movement is cyclical—it’s vibration.
   One year is a cycle of birth and death for the planet Earth. Each day dies at dusk and is reborn again at dawn. Cyclical recurrence is the very keystone which supports Creation. Is it possible then that the human spirit is the only cosmic component that’s non-cyclical?
The idea of reincarnation may well seem strange to those of us raised in a culture based upon the assumption that “You only go around once in life,” but just because we were raised to believe otherwise does not mean that the doctrine of reincarnation is false. Had we grown up in the Eastern Hemisphere, chances are our beliefs would be quite different.
   Many reliable people claim to recall past lifetimes, and countless cases have been researched and documented throughout the ages. In such spiritual disciplines as Yoga, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, practitioners regularly reach a stage in their psychic development at which many of their past existences become revealed to them.
   There is also a strong philosophical support for the validity of reincarnation. If we accept the contrary idea that each of us lives only one life, then we must either believe that we are placed here that single time by a divine overseer, or that we simply sort of “happen” as a result of some meaningless sequence of cosmic coincidences. In the light of all we’ve learned about the universe so far, even scientists agree that the random-chance theory is no longer defensible. The universe is a system of perfect order; if anything in it seems to occur at random, it’s only because we have not yet discovered the underlying harmony from which that event has sprung.
   On the other hand, to uphold the belief that a Creator puts us each here for but a single lifetime opens up a real philosophical can of worms. Firstly, it implies that God creates a new soul for every birth putting Him in the unseemly position of servant to the carnal whims of humankind, forcing Him to stand dutifully by, ready to supply a new soul on demand every time a man and woman conceive a child either intentionally or by accident, through seduction or rape, for wise or foolish reasons. It seems highly unlikely that any Creator would cast himself in such a role. Secondly, every scripture on earth describes God as all-powerful, all-knowing, just, loving and compassionate. Why then, if He gives each of us only one turn at life, does He deal some of us such a rotten hand? Why are some of us born blind, crippled, destitute or demented? Why do so many of us die right in the cradle after only a few brief moments of life, having our one and only precious existence snuffed out for all eternity even before it ever really gets started?
   Not only do there seem to be inequities at birth, but life itself is often filled with incomprehensible injustices. Why are there so many senseless tragedies all over the world each day? Why do good, innocent people get struck down, tortured, mutilated and destroyed, while ruthless criminals live in comfort and luxury to a ripe old age? In the eyes of Western religion, the only way this situation can be explained is by assuming that the scales of justice are balanced after death, when the quality of our life is judged by our Creator, who then sees to it that we get the rewards and punishments we earned on earth.
   The problem with such a system, however, is that it again casts grave doubt upon the just, compassionate nature of God. If we are all to be punished or rewarded according to the way we live our lives, how then could a Creator be considered benevolent if he deals some of us a handful of aces right from the very beginning, while others get the deck stacked against them? Some of us are born with good looks, talent, intelligence, material wealth and other attributes conducive to living a righteous, fulfilling, productive, ideal life; little wonder then that such people earn entry into heaven after death. Others, however, are born with twisted bodies and minds, no aptitude for productive work, in an environment which all but forces them to live a life of degradation and evil; little wonder then that such people end up in hell for the rest of eternity.
   Some get dealt a winning hand and then are rewarded for winning, while others are dealt a losing hand and are punished for losing. Is this the work of a benevolent God’?
   The fact is, one of the most appealing aspects of the single lifetime theory is that we can take all the credit for our successes in life, while blaming either God or rotten luck for all our failures. Those who believe in reincarnation, however, must accept full responsibility for everything that comes to them in life, good or bad. According to Yoga, our present situation is the direct result of things we did in previous lifetimes, and the things we are doing now are determining the exact nature of our future. The yogic doctrine of karma explains how this process works.

Karma
   Do unto others as you would have done unto you. This biblical statement is considered to be the Golden Rule of human behavior. It appears almost verbatim in the scriptures of most other religions, and as commonly interpreted it seems to be a reasonable code of conduct for civilized humans. If we don’t like being hurt, it tells us, don’t hurt somebody else. But wait a minute. What if we like to be hurt’? Upon closer examination, the Golden Rule quite clearly advises us to be more considerate of our own preferences than those of others; it does not enjoin us to treat others as they would like to be treated, but as we ourselves would like to be treated if we were they. What is the true significance of this cryptic advice’?
   According to Yoga, the Golden Rule is not based upon moral or ethical considerations; its advice is purely practical. The reason why we should only do to others what we would like to have done to us is that everything we do will someday be returned to us in kind. The Golden Rule may be looked upon as an interpolation of a universal law: As you do to others, you shall have done unto you. This, poetically stated, is what Yoga calls the law of karma.
   Western religion holds that the fruits of our actions are enjoyed or suffered in some afterlife situation, but the law of karma maintains that what we do in life returns to us in life. Even the most superficial examination of life around us, however, seems to disprove this contention of Yoga’s; many people do not seem to get their just desserts in life. In fact, the law of karma makes no sense at all until examined in the light of reincarnation. Since karma is a system of perfect justice, quite often our actions do not return to us for many lifetimes. The classic example of this principle is as follows:
   Say you are a very highly evolved soul, living a lifetime as an extremely pure and holy human being. I, on the other hand, am a relatively primitive soul, having spent a lot of time in the other realms but not much time on earth, and I am now living a lifetime of evil—hardly better than a savage beast. I, the worthless wretch, ruthlessly murder you, the saint. Now, would it be perfect justice for me to pay for my crime by being myself murdered in this lifetime? Is the life of an evil wretch exactly equal in value to that of a saint? Of course it isn’t, no more than an employee with twenty years’ experience is equal in value to one with just a few days on the job. In order for perfect justice to be achieved in such a situation, the law of karma demands that the primitive soul defer the payment of this karmic debt until that soul has become evolved to the exact same level of the one whose vehicle it once destroyed. When I, who was once a worthless wretch, have become myself a saint, then the saintly life I once took can be repaid; some primitive soul will come and murder me, and even though perfect justice will prevail, those around me at the time, not able to see all the way back to the root of the debt which has just come due, will look upon my death as a senseless tragedy.
   All the unexplainable mysteries which flaw the dogmas of Western religion become solved when looked at from the viewpoint of karma and reincarnation. Even people who do not believe in these doctrines or in the existence of heaven and hell still seem to intuitively understand that somehow or other everything we do comes back to us; thus they try to lead a life of goodness, despite the apparent fact that being had is often easier and more rewarding. Viewed with the law of karma in mind. Acts of heroism, charity, compassion, tolerance or humility yield at least as much concrete benefit to the one who performs them as for those at whom such actions are directed.
   Each of us is completely responsible for the situation in which we find ourself at every moment. Yesterday’s actions become today’s destiny, and today’s actions become our future life. This is the law of karma.

Some spiritual sciences assert that only human beings are subject to karmic law. How can a universal law apply to only those souls which inhabit human bodies? To answer this question we must first understand the basic difference between a human and a subhuman purusha.
   At some point in its evolution, each purusha attains sufficient qualities to merit human birth. As stated earlier, the fundamental difference between a human being and an animal is that a human possesses the inner psychic instrument called “mind,” including the ego, intellect and subconscious. Of course, in the case of the higher animals this distinction becomes a bit hazy, for in such creatures the rudiments of mind are already in development; even so, it can generally be stated that the human being is the only organism in Creation with an “I” awareness—an awareness of itself as a distinct entity clearly delineated from the rest of the cosmos.
   Because humans alone have this “I” awareness, we are also the only creatures with an awareness “not I”—meaning that there are things which we perceive to be distinctly separate from us. As soon as this I / not-I duality is conceived by an evolving purusha, its subjective consciousness, which considers itself to be “I,” seeks to manipulate the objective consciousness considered to be “not I.” This activity represents the birth of the individual will.
   Karma is often called “the law of action and reaction” because it works in an identical way to that same law of physics. For every action sent out, an exactly equal reaction comes back. If there is no willful action, there can be no karmic reaction. In order for a soul to act, it must have an “I” to perform the action and there must be a “not I” upon which the action is directed. Since subhuman life-forms have no concept of “I-ness,” they do not perceive themselves as in any way separate from the rest of Creation, so they cannot act.
   If we are having trouble with the idea that only humans can act, we are probably thinking of action in the rather general way in which we refer to it daily. Usually we consider any physical movement an action, but technically speaking a movement can be either an action or a reaction. For example, if we have no desire for food, yet we force our self to eat by an act of will, that’s an action; if, however, hunger compels us to eat, that’s reaction. If we kill someone willfully, it’s an action, but the same deed performed in self-defense would be a reaction. Human beings both act and react; subhuman life forms only react instinctively.
Action, as it applies to the law of karma, is the movement of the will, not of the body. Whether or not a particular activity produces karma depends upon whether or not will plays any part in it, and the part which will plays determines the type of karma incurred. A well-meaning surgeon whose patient dies on the operating table does not incur the same kind of karma as the robber who murders his victim to avoid identification.
   The instrument through which the soul discriminates between what it considers to be “1” and “not I” is called the ego. Ego comes into being as soon as “I” comes into being, and the first action which ego performs is the creation of what it calls “not I.” This duality of self and non-self is the essence of ego, and it is upon this foundation that the ego, as it matures through many lifetimes, builds an entire spectrum of dualities which do not exist for any subhuman soul. Qualities such as good and bad, right and wrong, pleasure and pain, perfection and imperfection, do not exist in the real universe; the real world just is, and nothing in it is inherently good or bad, beautiful or ugly, etc. Such qualities are merely projections of the human mind, and in the mind of each of us these qualities mean very different things. In effect, each mind is the creator of its own private universe, no two of which are exactly alike in either structure or character.
   Most of our individual universes have certain things in common, of course; things such as 2+2=4, red means stop and green means go, the earth is round, etc.—but in other respects they are often remarkably different. My universe may include karma and reincarnation, while yours may not; in my universe, John Doe might be a swell guy, while in yours he’s a jerk, and in John Doe’s universe he’s God Himself. When we try to communicate with one another, we often find that we seem to be from different worlds, speaking different languages the same words mean different things to different people.
   All the mental anguish, insecurity, frustration and anxiety we experience in life result from dualities which only exist because our mind has created them. The more dualities we create, the more we suffer. As our awareness of self continues to grow over many lifetimes, however, our fantasy universe of self-imposed qualities begins to fade beneath an ever sharpening perception of the way things really are, until at last we achieve total Self-awareness and change our outmoded, phony reality for the Real McCoy.
   Meanwhile, each of us is a miniature Ishwara, the big boss of a little universe, and through our Board of Directors (the various aspects of our mind) we create, modify, protect or destroy portions of our domain completely at will each time we are presented with a new piece of information. We are omnipotent within our own little kingdom; if we choose not to believe in something it simply does not exist for us.
  Everything would be fine if ours was the only universe in existence, but unfortunately ours too often clashes painfully with rival universes or with the Real McCoy. The problem is that every thought we entertain not only takes form in our own private universe, but in the real one as well.
   Thoughts are little bursts of energy projected from the mind, and energy is vibration. Just as Shakti’s vibration modifies Consciousness into creating all the forms in the cosmos, so too the vibrations of the human mind modify Consciousness and give it form. Thought is an act of creation; in other words, thoughts are things, like little entities of energy launched from the human mind. When these little projectiles get launched, they have to land somewhere eventually; they can’t just cease to exist because they’re made of energy and energy can’t just cease to exist.
   The most powerful karmic missiles that the human mind can launch are those thoughts which project our emotions and desires. When we project an emotion or desire into some activity, this projection is called a motive, and it is the motive which puts a warhead on our karmic missile, not the activity itself. Physical activity is the expenditure of energy, not the production of it in itself it cannot cause karma. Only the projection of emotion or desire through motive or thought can cause a karmic reaction, If the thought or motive is a positive one, the karmic reaction will be pleasant; if negative, someday we will be the unhappy recipient of ”bad” karma.
   ‘The form which a karmic reaction takes depends upon how often and how hard we desire something, and upon the intensity of (lie emotions we project. As a soul becomes more highly evolved, gaining more awareness of self, it becomes capable of projecting more conscious energy, and this means that its emotions and desires bring quicker, more intense and more concrete karmic reactions. A powerful yogi, for example, can willfully manipulate objects, people or events in practically any way he wishes. If, on the other hand, the will is weak as in most people, permitting our emotions and desires to vacillate constantly, our present and our Future both become a hopeless tangle of conflicting events, moods, relationships and goals.
   For example, say we desire something—fame, perhaps— more than anything in the world, but our past karma is such that our present desire for fame cannot bear fruit for us right away. When we want something very badly and can’t have it, we experience much pain and frustration, and this in turn leads us to wish we didn’t want the thing, since the wanting causes so much suffering. Thus, we are now projecting conflicting desires: On the one hand we desire fame, and on the other we wish not to want fame. Eventually, perhaps in some future lifetime, both desires pay off for us; we become famous and at the same time we do not want to be famous! More misery follows, leading to more conflicting desires, which in turn result in more chaotic future karma. A knowledge of how karma works can help us to avoid building such painful traps into our future lives.
   Vedantic philosophy delineates three basic categories of karma: sanchita, prarabdha and agami (also called kriyamana). Sanchita karma is the huge stockpile of accumulated actions we’ve projected in the past, actions from which we have not yet experienced reactions. Prarabdha karma is that portion of the main stockpile which circumstances permit us to experience in this lifetime; this present karma is what we refer to as “destiny”—that  which must come to us in life no matter what. Agami karma is the karma we are presently creating by our current actions in this lifetime; these karmas get added to the sanchita stockpile for payoff in the future.
   The chain of karma begins when the soul identifies with the ego, and is broken when the soul identifies completely with the Self. The Self is a purusha with total self-awareness; only the “1” remains—nothing is perceived to be “not I.” A person is said to be Self-realized when the individual will becomes identical to the cosmic will, when the individual mind has expanded beyond its limits into the universal mind. At this point, all concepts of duality cease, all action ceases and the law of karma is transcended. Only one who is completely free of the binding chain of karma can truly be called a liberated being.
   Even the most powerful worldly life is but a shadow of the ecstasy of becoming immersed in Sat-Chit-Ananda (the unmodified Existence, Consciousness and Bliss of Shiva), so even good desires are a trap; they keep us tied to the wheel of reincarnation until they all bear fruit. The only nonentrapping desire is the desire for Self- realization, because when it bears fruit the chain becomes broken.
   Meanwhile, Yoga advises us to learn to use the law of karma to our best advantage. If we try to project only positive, non- conflicting desires and emotions, someday only pleasant things will come to us. In this universe of perfect order, not even the smallest effort goes to waste. If we meditate just once, then lose the discipline for ten years or even ten lifetimes, the next time we meditate will be our second attempt, and the benefits will compound accordingly. Child prodigies who exhibit remarkable talent early in life have earned their gifts through extensive effort in previous lifetimes. People who display occult powers in a lifetime devoid of psychic training are reaping the fruits of spiritual discipline during other incarnations.
   Every emotion, every desire, and every motive that our mind entertains is a fragment of our own being cast out into the sea of time. Sooner or later we’ll have to reel in each one of those baited hooks and swallow whatever we’ve caught. Just as Shiva’s universe cannot end until all the fragments of his being (souls) come home to roost, so too our little bogus universe of limitation, duality arid illusion cannot end until all our karmas have been balanced out, as Jesus put it, “to the last jot and tittle.’’
   Now that we’ve completed our brief examination of evolution, reincarnation and karma, our background in Yoga is now broad enough for us to survey the little-known psychic mechanisms of the human body, as perceived by the ancient Rishis. In the next two sections we will outline the exact nature of a human being; we’ll pinpoint the subtle mechanisms activated by the practice of Yoga, and we’ll detail the precise manner in which the process of Self-realization unfolds within our own being.