ying, at these lower levels, the higher; becoming more and more what one essentially is as a soul. The soul makes its journey into incarnation over aeons of time, and then back, out of the need to incarnate at all. The path of return for the soul is the gradual release of itself from the limitations of the physical, astral and mental planes. This is done by infusing its vehicles -- physical, emotional and mental -- with its energies and qualities. Two things are going on at the same time in this process. One is the gradual spiritualizing of the vehicle by the soul. The other is the burdening of the vehicle, intentionally, by the soul, to burn up ancient karma. As the soul progresses in its incarnational experience, so its reflection, the man or woman in incarnation, receives a heavier and heavier burden of karma until, in the last incarnation of all, in which the person will be a fourth-degree initiate, the burden is at its heaviest. It is for this reason that the fourth initiation is called, in the West, the Crucifixion and, in the East, the Great Renunciation. In that experience everything, all the lower aspects, are being renounced in favor of the higher spiritual reality. That is why the life of the fourth-degree initiate is usually, from the world's point of view, painful, heavy indeed. People imagine that, as a man or woman progresses in evolution, they should become freer and freer of karma. The opposite is true. Not only that, but as a man or woman becomes a disciple, becomes initiate, a world-server, they take more and more of the weight of world karma. They are the upholders of the world. Their shoulders are, and need to be, broad. Imagine a bridge over a river, and the river is the world and its karma, and the disciples and initiates are the pillars of the bridge, and the spaces between are the masses of people. Where there are spaces, the water flows easily through. It is the pillars of the bridge that take the forc...
