Annie Besant

The Birth and Evolution of the Soul Annie Besant

THESE two lectures might better perhaps be described as one lecture in two parts, for I am really going to try and give you in the two a connected tracing of the progress of the soul. There is so much confusion in thought as to the origin of the individual, as to what the individual really means, as to how he is developed, and what is to be his ultimate destiny, that I thought I could take no better subject for a Lodge, which ought to be a Lodge of students, than to trace out somewhat in detail this most important matter in the light of Theosophy. Important, because on it turns your whole view of the purpose of the Universe; and if the growth of the Soul were better understood than it is, we should not hear the continual questions asked as to why there should be a Universe at all, and why there should be manifestation; why, if everything comes out of One and goes back to One again, why this intermediate condition of multiplicity should occur. The whole of these questions really turn on misimderstanding, or on lack of accurate knowledge, and it is to the clearing up of that misunderstanding that I am going to address myself to-night and this night week. In order to make the origin of the individual clear, I must ask you to come back with me to the time when the human race was evolving, but when, as yet, the individual had not come into existence. Come back to what you know, in Theosophical literature, as the first Race of man.