If the errors of the past did not produce their results, that we might learn from them the lessons they are to teach: if life were without struggle, work and effort: we should be things on the face of the earth, and not Souls as we are. Only by means of these can we draw near to truth and gain a sense of the largeness of life, of eternity, of the augustness of the laws that hold us in their keeping. Only so can we find the way to live the real life, which is altogether cheerful, optimistic, radiant with generous affection: the life that sees no terminus in the grave, nor any limit to its vistas in birth or death.
Thus Reincarnation gives us room and time to grow, as Nature provides soil and season for the flowers: to grow and to learn what life and the world can teach us, and to acquire use of the godlike qualities of our inner selves and the light hidden within the Soul of Man which alone can illumine the path we must tread. . . . We advance from age to age and from heights to greater heights forever. Understanding this, the old become young again in spirit, and the young look out on the world with a new joy.
The days are long and the path is wide: Go forward, then, with far-seeing hope and trust, towards the Great Ultimate! "The Gods await!"
(From Sunrise magazine, April 1952; copyright © 1952 Theosophical University Press)