CHAPTER XXV

EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
The Education of Children
As we should naturally expect, much attention is paid in this community to the education of the children. It is considered of such paramount im¬ portance that nothing which can in any way help is neglected, and all sorts of adjuncts are brought into play ; colour, light, sound, form, electri¬ city are all pressed into the service, and the Devas who take so large a part in the work avail them¬ selves of the aid of armies of nature-spirits. It has been realised that many facts previously ignored or considered insignificant have their place and their influence in educational processes — that, for example, the surroundings most favourable for the study of mathematics are not at all necessarily the same that are best suited for music or geography.
People have learnt that different parts of the physical brain may be stimulated by different lights and colours — that for certain subjects an atmosphere slightly charged with electricity is useful, while for others it is positively detrimental. In the corner of every class-room, therefore, there stands a variant upon an electrical machine, by means of which the
398 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
surrounding conditions can be changed at will. Some rooms are hung with yellow, decorated exclusively with yellow flowers, and permeated with yellow light. In others, on the contrary, blue, red, violet, green or white predominates. Various perfumes are also found to have a stimulating effect, and these also are employed according to a regular system.
Perhaps the most important innovation is the work of the nature-spirits, who take a keen delight in executing the tasks committed to them, and enjoy helping and stimulating the children much as gardeners might delight in the production of especially fine plants. Among other things they take up all the appropriate influences of light and colour, sound and electricity, and focus them, and as it were spray them upon the children, so that they may produce the best possible effect. They are also em¬ ployed by the teachers in individual cases; if, for example, one scholar in a class does not understand the point put before him, a nature-spirit is at once sent to touch and stimulate a particular centre in his brain, and then in a moment he is able to comprehend. All teachers must be clairvoyant ; it is an absolute prerequisite for the office. These teachers are members of the community — men and women indiscriminately; Devas frequently materialise for special occasions or to give certain lessons, but never seem to take the entire responsibility of a school.
The four great types which are symbolised by the Temples are seen to exist here also. The children are carefully observed and treated according to the results of observation. In most cases they sort
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
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themselves out at a quite early period into one or other of these lines of development, and every op¬ portunity is given to them to select that which they prefer. Here again there is nothing of the nature of compulsion. Even tiny children are per¬ fectly acquainted with the object of the community, and fully realise that it is their duty and their privilege to order their lives accordingly. It must be remembered that all these people are immediate reincarnations, and that most of them bring over at least some memory of all their past lives, so that for them education is simply a process of as rapidly as possible getting a new set of vehicles under control and recovering as quickly as may be any links that may have been lost in the process of transition from one physical body to another.
It does not of course in any way follow that the children of a man who is on (let us say) the musical line need themselves be musical. As their previous births are always known to the parents and schoolmasters, every facility is given to them to develop either along the line of their last life or along any other which may seem to come most easily to them. There is the fullest co-operation be¬ tween the parents and schoolmasters. A particular member who was noticed took his children to the schoolmaster, explained them all to him in detail, and constantly visited him to discuss what might be best for them. If, for example, the schoolmaster thinks that a certain colour is especially desirable for a particular pupil he communicates his idea to the parents, and much of that colour is put before the
400 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
child at home as well as , at school ; he is surrounded with it, and it is used in his dress and so on. All schools are under the direction of the Master K. H., and every schoolmaster is personally responsible to Him.
Training the Imagination
Let me take as an example the practice of a school attached to one of the yellow Temples, and see how they begin the intellectual development of the lowest class. First the master sets before them a little shining ball, and they are asked to make an image of it in their minds. Some who are quite babies can do it really well. The teacher says :
“ You can see my face ; now shut your eyes ; can you see it still ? Now look at
this ball ; can you shut your eyes and still see it?”
The teacher, by the use of his clairvoyant
faculty, can see whether or not the children are making satisfactory images. Those who can do it are set to practise day by day, with all sorts of simple forms and colours. Then they are asked to suppose that point moving, and leaving a track behind it as a shooting star does; then to imagine the luminous track, that is to say, a line. Then they are asked to imagine this line as moving at right angles to itself, every point in it leaving a similar track, and thus they
mentally construct for themselves a square. Then all sorts of permutations and divisions of that
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
401
square are put before them. It is broken up into triangles of various sorts, and it is explained to them that in reality all these things are living symbols with a meaning. Even quite the babies are taught some of these things.
“ What does the point mean to you ? ”
“ One. ”
“ Who is One?”
" God.”
“ Where is He ? ”
“ He is everywhere.”
And then presently they learn that two signifies the duality of Spirit and matter, that three dots of a certain kind and colour mean three aspects of the Deity, while three others of a different kind mean the soul in man. A later class has also an intermediate three which obviously mean the Monad. In this way, by associating grand ideas with simple objects, even tiny little children possess an amount of Theosophical information which would seem quite surprising to a person accustomed to an older and less intelligent educational system. An ingenious kind of kindergarten machine was ob¬ served, a sort of ivory ball — at least it looked like ivory — which, when a spring is touched, opens out into a cross with a rose drawn upon it like the Rosicrucian symbol, out of which come a number of small balls each of which in turn subdivides. By another movement it can be made to close again, the mechanism being cleverly concealed. This is meant as a symbol to illustrate the idea of the One becoming many, and of the eventual return of the many into the One.
52
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402 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
More Advanced Classes
For a later class that luminous square moves again at right angles to itself and produces a cube, and then still later the cube moves at right angles to itself and produces a tesseract, and most of the children are able to see it and to make its image clearly in their minds. Children who have a genius for it are taught to paint pictures, trees and animals, landscapes and scenes from his¬ tory, and each child is taught to make his picture living. He is taught that the concentration of his thought can actually alter the physical picture, and the children are proud when they can suc¬ ceed in doing this. Having painted a picture as well as they can, the children concentrate upon it and try to improve it, to modify it by their thought. In a week or so, working at the concentra¬ tion for some time each day, they are able to produce considerable modifications, and a boy of fourteen can, from much practice, do it quite rapidly.
Having modified his picture, the child is taught to make a thought-form of it, to look at it, to contemplate it earnestly, and then to shut his eyes and visualise it. He takes, first, ordinary physical pictures ; then a glass vessel containing a coloured gas is given to him, and by the effort of his will he has to mould the gas into certain shapes — to make it take a form by thought — to make it become, inside its vessel, a sphere, a cube, a tetrahedron or some such shape. Many chil¬ dren can do this easily after a little practice. Then they are asked to make it take the shape of
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
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a man, and then that of the picture at which they have previously been looking. When they can manage this gaseous matter fairly easily they try to do it in etheric, then in astral, and then in purely mental matter. The teacher himself makes materialisations for them to examine when necessary, and in this way they gradually work upward to more ad¬ vanced acts of thought-creation. All these classes are open to visits from parents and friends, and often many older people like to attend them and themselves practise the exercises set for the children.
The School System
There is nothing in the nature of the boarding- school, and all children live happily at home and attend the school which is most convenient for them. In a few cases the Deva-priests are training
children to take their places ; but even in these cases the child is not taken away from home, though he is usually surrounded by a special protective shell, so that the influence which the Deva pours in upon him may not be interfered with by other vibrations.
A child does not belong to a class at all
in the same way as under older methods ; each child has a list of numbers for different sub¬ jects ; he may be in the first class for one sub¬ ject, in the third for another, in the fifth for some
other. Even for small children the arrangement
seems to be far less a class than a kind of lecture-
\
room. In trying to comprehend the system, we
must never for a moment forget the effect of the
404 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
immediate reincarnations, and that consequently not only are these children on the average far more intelligent and developed than other children of their age, but also they are unequally developed. Some children of four remember more of a previous incarnation, and of what they learnt then, than other children of eight or nine ; and again some children remember a certain subject fully and clearly, and yet have almost entirely lost their knowledge of some other subjects which seem quite as easy. So that we are dealing with entire¬ ly abnormal conditions, and the schemes adopted have to be suited to them.
At what corresponds to the opening of the school, they all stand together and sing something. They get four lessons into their morning session, but the lessons are short, and there is always an interval for play between them. Like all their houses, the school-room has no walls, but is sup¬ ported entirely on pillars, so that practically the whole life of the children, as well as of the rest of the community, is lived in the open air ; but nevertheless the children are turned out even from that apology for a room after each of the lessons, and left to play about in the park which surrounds the school. Girls and boys are taught together promiscuously. This morning session covers all of what would be called the compulsory subjects — the subjects which everybody learns ; there are some extra lessons in the afternoon on additional subjects for those who wish to take them, but a considerable number of the children are satisfied with the morning work.
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
405
The Curriculum
The school curriculum is different from that of the twentieth century. The very subjects are mostly different, and even those which are the same are taught in an entirely different way. Arithmetic, for example, has been greatly simpli¬ fied ; there are no complex weights and measures of any kind, everything being arranged on a decimal system ; they calculate but little, and the detailed working-out of long rows of figures would be denounced as insufferably tedious. Nothing is taught but what is likely to be practically useful to the average person in after-life ; all the rest is a matter of reference. In earlier centuries they had books of logarithms, by reference to which long and com¬ plicated calculations could be avoided ; now they have the same system immensely extended, and yet, at the same time, much more compressed. It is a scheme by which the result of practically any difficult calculation can be looked up in a few moments by a person who knows the book. The children know how to calculate, just as a man may know how to make his own logarithms, and yet habitually use a book for them to avoid the waste of time in tedious processes involving long rows of figures.
Arithmetic with them is hardly a subject in itself, but is taken only as leading up to calcula¬ tions connected with the geometry which deals with solid figures and the higher dimensions. The whole thing is so different from previous ideas that it is not easy to describe it clearly. For example.
406 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
in all the children’s sums there is no question of money, and no complicated calculation. To under¬ stand the sum and know how to do it is sufficient. The theory in the schoolmaster’s mind is not to cram the brains of the children, but to develop their faculties and tell them where to find facts. Nobody, for example, would dream of multiplying a line of six figures by another similar line, but would employ either a calculating machine (for these are common), or one of the books to which I have referred.
The whole problem of reading and writing is far simpler than it used to be, for all spelling is phonetic, and pronunciation cannot be wrong when a certain syllable must always have a certain sound. The writing has somewhat the appearance of short¬ hand. There is a good deal to learn in it, but at the same time, when he has learnt it, the child is in possession of a finer and more flexible instrument than any of the older languages, since he can write at least as fast as any ordinary person can speak. There is a large amount of convention about it, and a whole sentence is often expressed by a mark like a flash of lightning.
The language which they are speaking is natural¬ ly English, since the community has arisen in an English-speaking country, but it has been modified considerably. Many participial forms have disap¬ peared, and some of the words are different. All subjects are learnt so differently now. Nobody learns any history, except isolated interesting stories, but everyone has in his house a book in which an epitome of all history can be found. Geography
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
407
is still learnt to a limited extent. They know where all the different races live, and with great precision in what these races differ, and what qualities they are developing. But the commercial side has dropped ; no one bothers about the exports of Bulgaria ; nobody knows where they make woollen cloth, or wants to know. All these things can be turned up at a moment’s notice in books which are part of the free furniture of every house, and it would be considered a waste of time to burden the memory with such valueless facts.
The scheme is in every respect strictly utili¬ tarian ; they do not teach the children anything which can be easily obtained from an encyclopaedia. They have developed a scheme of restricting educa¬ tion to necessary and valuable knowledge. A boy of twelve usually has behind him, in his physical brain, the entire memory of what he knew in previous lives. It is the custom to carry a talis¬ man over from life to life, which helps the child to recover the memory in the new vehicles — a talis¬ man which he wore in his previous birth, so that it is thoroughly loaded with the magnetism of that birth and can now stir up again the same vibrations.
Children’s Services
Another interesting educational feature is what is called the children’s service at the Temple. Many others than children attend this, especially those who are not yet quite up to the level of the other services already described. The children’s service in the music-Temple is exceedingly beautiful;
408 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
the children perform a series of graceful evolu¬ tions, and both sing and play upon instruments as they march about. That in the colour-Temple is something like an especially gorgeous Drury Lane pantomime, and has evidently been many times carefully rehearsed.
In one case they are reproducing the choric dance of the priests of Babylon, which represents the movement of the planets round the sun. This is performed upon an open plain, as it used to be in Assyria, and groups of children dress in special colours (representing the various planets) and move harmoniously, so that in their play they have also an astronomical lesson. But it must be understood that they fully feel that they are engaging in a sacred religious rite, and that to do it well and thoroughly will not only be helpful to themselves, but that it also constitutes a kind of offering of their services to the Deity. They have been told that this used to be done in an old religion many thousands of years ago.
The children take great delight in it, and there is quite a competition to be chosen to be part of the Sun ! Proud parents also look on, and are pleased to be able to say : “ My boy is part of Mercury to-day,55 and so on. The planets all have their satellites — more satellites in some cases than used to be known, so that astronomy has evidently progressed. The rings of Saturn are remarkably well represented by a number of children in con¬ stant motion in a figure closely resembling the c grand chain 5 at the commencement of the fifth figure of the Lancers. An especially interesting
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY 409
point is that even the inner ‘ crape 5 ring of Saturn is represented, for those children who are on the inside of the next ring keep a gauzy garment floating out so as to represent it. The satellites are single children or pairs of children waltzing outside the ring. All the while, though they enjoy it immensely, they never forget that they are performing a religious function and that they are offering this to God. Another dance evidently indicates the transfer of life from the Moon Chain to the Earth Chain. All sorts of instruction is given to the children in this way, half a play and half a religious ceremony.
Symbolic Dances
There are great festivals which each Temple celebrates by special performances of this kind, and on these occasions they all do their best in the way of gorgeous decoration. The buildings are so arranged that the lines are picked out in a kind of permanent phosphorescence, not a line of lamps, but a glow which seems to come from the substance. The lines of the architecture are graceful, and this has a splendid effect. The children’s ser¬ vice is an education in colours. The combinations are really wonderful, and the drilling of the children is perfect. Great masses of them are dressed identically in the most lovely hues, delicate and yet brilliant, and they move in and out among one another in the most complicated figures. In their choric dance they are taught that they must not only wear the colour of the star for spectacular purposes,
53
410 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
but must also try mentally to make the same colour. They are instructed to try to fancy them¬ selves that colour, and try to think that they actual¬ ly are part of the planet Mercury or Venus, as the case may be. As they move they sing and play, each planet having its own special chords, so that all the planets as they go round the sun may produce an imitation of the music of the spheres. In these children’s services also the Devas often take part, and aid with the colours and the music. Both kama and rupa Devas move quite freely among the people, and take part in daily life.
The children’s service in connection with the yellow Temple is exceedingly interesting. Here they dance frequently in geometrical figures, but the evolutions are difficult to describe. One performance, for example, is exceedingly pretty and effective. Thirty-two boys wearing golden brocaded robes are arranged in a certain order, not all standing on the same level, but on raised stages. They evidently represent the angles of some solid figure. They hold in their hands thick ropes of a golden- coloured thread, and they hold these ropes from one to another so as to indicate the outline of a certain figure — say a dodecahedron. Sud¬ denly, at a preconcerted signal, they drop one end of the rope or throw it to another boy, and in a moment the outline has changed into that of an icosahedron. This is wonderfully effective, and gives quite a remarkable illusory effect of changing solid figures one into another. All such changes are gone through in a certain order, which is somehow connected with the evolution of the matter
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
411
of the planes at the commencement of a solar system. Another evolution is evidently to illustrate something of the formation of atoms out of bubbles. The children represent bubbles. A number of them rush out from the centre and arrange themselves in a certain way. Then they rush back again to the centre and again come still further out, and group themselves in quite a different way. All this needs much training, but the children appear most enthusiastic about it.
The Underlying Idea
The education and the religion are so closely mingled that it is difficult clearly to differentiate one from the other. The children are playing in the Temple. The underlying idea which is kept before them is that all this is only the physical side of something far greater and grander, which belongs to higher worlds, so that they feel that to everything they do there is an inner side, and they hope to realise this and to be able to see and comprehend it directly ; and this is always held before them as the final reward of their efforts.
Birth and Death
The various influences which take such a prominent part in the education of the children are brought to bear upon them even before birth. Once more we must reiterate that when a birth is about to take place the father and mother and all
412 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
parties concerned are quite aware what ego is to come to them, and therefore they take care that for months before the actual birth takes place the surroundings shall in every way be suitable to that ego, and such as may conduce to a perfect physi¬ cal body. Great stress is laid upon the influence of beautiful surroundings. The future mother has always before her eyes lovely pictures and graceful statues. The whole of life is pervaded with this idea of beauty — so much so that it would be considered a crime against the community that any object should be ugly or ungraceful. In all architecture this beauty of line as well as of colour is the first consideration, and the same is true with regard to all the minor accessories of life. Even before the child’s birth preparation will be made for him ; his mother dresses chiefly in certain colours, and surrounds herself with flowers and lights of what are considered the most appropriate kind.
Parentage is a matter of arrangement between all parties concerned, and death is usually voluntary. As the members of this community live entirely healthy lives, and have surrounded themselves with perfect sanitary conditions, disease has been practical¬ ly eliminated, so that except in the rare case of an accident no one dies except of old age, and they do not drop the body as long as it is useful. They do not feel at all that they are giving up life, but only that they are changing a worn-out vehicle. The absence of worry and unhealthy conditions has certainly tended on the whole to lengthen physical life. Nobody looks at all old
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
413
until at least eighty, and many pass beyond the century.
When a man begins to find his powers failing him, he also begins to look round him for a desir¬ able re-birth. He selects a father and mother whom he thinks would suit him, and goes round to call upon them to ask whether they are willing to take him. If they are, he tells them that he expects to die soon, and then hands over to them his personal talisman which he has worn all his life, and also sends to them any personal effects which he wishes to carry over to his next life. The talisman is usually a jewel of the particular type appropriate to the ego, according to the sign of the Zodiac to which as an ego he belongs, the influence under which he attained individuality. This charm he always wears, so that it may be fully impregnated with his magnetism, and he is care¬ ful to make arrangements that it may be handed over to him in his next birth, in order to help in the arousing in the new body of the memory of past lives, so as to make it easier to keep unbroken the realisation of life as an ego. This amulet is always correspondent to his name as an ego — the name which he carries with him from life to life. In many cases men are already using this name in ordinary life, though in others they have per¬ petuated the name which they bore when they entered the community, carrying it on from life to life and altering its termination so as to make it masculine or feminine according to the sex of the moment. Each person has therefore his own name, his permanent name, and in addition in each
414 MAN : WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
incarnation he takes that of the family into which he happens or chooses to be born.
The personal effects do not include anything of the nature of money, for money is no longer used, and no man has more than a life-interest in houses or land, or in other property. But he has sometimes a few books or ornaments which he wishes to preserve, and if so he hands them
over to his prospective father and mother, who, when they hear that his death is approaching, can begin to prepare for him. He does not alter his ordinary mode of life ; he does nothing which in the slightest degree resembles committing suicide; but he simply loses the will to live — lets his life go, as it were — and generally passes away peace¬ fully in sleep within a short period of time. Usual¬ ly, indeed, he takes up his abode with the pros¬
pective father and mother as soon as the agreement is made, and dies at their house.
There is no funeral ceremony of any sort, as
death is not regarded as an event of any import¬
ance. The body is not cremated, but is instead placed in a kind of retort into which some chemi¬ cal is poured — probably a strong acid of some sort. The retort is then hermetically sealed, and a power resembling electricity, but far stronger, is passed through it. The acid fizzes vigorously, and in a few minutes the whole body is entirely dissolved. When the retort is opened and the process is completed there is nothing left but a fine grey powder. This is not preserved or regarded with any reverence. The operation of disposing of the body is easily performed at the house, the apparatus
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
415
being brought there when desired. There is no ceremony of any kind, and the friends of the de¬ ceased do not assemble for the occasion. They do, however, come round and pay him a visit soon after his rebirth, as the sight of them is supposed to help to reawaken the memory in the new baby body. Under these circumstances there are of course no prayers or ceremonies of any kind for the dead, nor is there any need of help upon the astral plane, for every member of the community re¬ members his past lives and knows perfectly well the body which he is about to take as soon as it can be prepared for him. Many members of the community continue to act as invisible helpers to the rest of the world, but within the community itself nothing of that kind is necessary.
The Manu has a careful record kept of all the successive incarnations of each of the members of His community, and in some rare cases He interferes with an ego’s choice of his parents. As a general rule all the members of the community have already disposed of such grosser karma as would limit them in their choice, and they also know enough of their own type and of the conditions which they require not to make an unsuitable selection, so that in almost every case they are left perfectly free to make their own arrangements. The matter is, how¬ ever, always within the knowledge of the Manu, so that He may alter the plan if He does not approve.
As a rule the dying man is at liberty to select the sex of his next birth, and many people seem to make a practice of taking birth alternately as man and as woman. There is no actual regulation
416 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
as to this, and everything is left as free as possible ; but at the same time the due proportion of the sexes in the community must be maintained, and if the number of either sex falls temporarily below what it should be, the Manu calls for volunteers to bring things once more into harmony. Parents usually arrange to have ten or twelve children in the family, and generally the same number of girls as boys. Twins, and even triplets, are not at all uncommon. Between the birth of one child and the next there is mostly an interval of two or three years, and there are evidently theories with regard to this matter. The great object is to pro¬ duce perfect children, and no cripples or deformed persons are to be seen, nor is there any infant mortality. It is manifest that the labour of child¬ birth has diminished almost to vanishing-point ; indeed, there seems to be scarcely any trouble,
except perhaps a little with the first child.
Marriage
This brings us to the question of marriage.
There is no restriction placed upon this, ex¬ cept the one great restriction that no one must
marry outside the community ; but it is generally regarded as rather undesirable that people of the same type of religious feeling should inter¬
marry. There is no rule against it, but it is under¬ stood that on the whole the Manu prefers that it should not take place. There is a certain all-sufficing expression which practically puts any matter beyond the limits of discussion : “ It is not His wish.”
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
417
People choose their own partners for life — fall in love, in fact — much as they used to do, but the dominant idea of duty is always supreme, and even in matters of the heart no one permits himself to do anything or feel anything which he does not think to be for the best for the community. The great motive is not passion, but duty. The ordinary sex passions have been dominated, so that people now unite themselves definitely with a view to carrying on the community and to creating good bodies for the purpose. They regard married life chiefly as an opportunity to that end, and what is necessary for such production is a religious and magical action which needs to be carefully directed. It forms part of the sacrifice of themselves to the LOGOS, so that no one must lose his balance or his reason in connection with it.
When people fall in love, and, as we should say, engage themselves, they go to the Manu Him¬ self and ask Him for a benediction on their union. Usually they also arrange with a prospective son or daughter, so that when they go to the Manu they say that such and such a man wishes to be born from them, and ask that they may be per¬ mitted to marry. The Manu examines them to see whether they will suit each other, and if He approves He pronounces for them a formula : “ Your life together shall be blessed.” Marriage is regard¬ ed almost entirely from the point of view of the prospective offspring. Sometimes it is even arranged by them. One man will call on another and say :
“ I am expecting to die in a few weeks, and I should like to have you and Miss X. for my
54
418 MAN: WHENCE, HOW AND WHITHER
father and mother, as I have some karmic ties with both of you that I should like to work off ; would that be agreeable to you ? 55
Not infrequently the suggestion seems to be accepted, and the plan works out well. One man, who was taken at random for the purpose of investigation, was found to have three egos desiring to incarnate through him, so that when he took his prospective wife to the Manu he asked :
44 May we two marry, with these three egos waiting to take birth through us ? ”
And the Manu gave His consent. There is no other marriage ceremony than this benediction given by the Manu, nor is a wedding made the occasion of feasting or the giving of presents. There is nothing in the nature of a marriage contract. The arrangements are exclusively monogamous, and there is no such thing as divorce, though the agree¬ ment is always terminable by mutual consent. People marry distinctly with a view of furnishing a vehicle for a certain soul, and when that is safely done it seems to be entirely at their option whether they renew their agreement or not. Since the parents are selected with care, in the majority of cases the agreement is renewed, and they re¬ main as husband and wife for life ; but there are cases in which the agreement is terminated, and both parties form other alliances. Here also, as in everything else, duty is the one ruling factor, and everyone is always ready to yield his personal preference to what is thought to be best for the community as a whole. There is therefore far less of passion in these lives than in those of the
EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY
419
older centuries ; and the strongest affection is probably that between parents and children.
There are cases in which the unwritten rule as to not marrying a person of the same type is abrogated, as, for example, when it is desired to produce children who can be trained by the Devas as priests for a particular Temple. In the rare case where a man is killed by some accident, he is at once impounded in the astral body and arrangements are made for his re-birth. Large numbers of people desire to be born as child¬ ren of the members of the Council ; those, how¬ ever, have only the usual number of children, lest the quality should be deteriorated. Birth in the family of the Manu Himself is the greatest of all honours ; but of course He selects His children Him¬ self. There is no difference of status between the sexes, and they take up indifferently any work that is to be done. On this matter it may be interesting to record the opinion of a mind of that period which was examined for that special purpose. This man does not seem to think much of the difference between man and woman. He says that there must be both, in order that the Race may be founded, but that we know there is a better time coming for the women. He feels that in bearing children the women are taking a harder share of the work, and are therefore to be pitied and protected. The Council, however, is composed entirely of men, and, under the direction of the Manu, its members are making experiments in the creation of mind-born bodies. They have produced some respectable copies of humanity, but have not yet succeeded in satisfying the Manu.