part in human destiny. The great karmic deities of the

Kosmos (called in The Secret Doctrine the Lipika) weigh the deeds of each personality when the final separation of its principles takes place at the end of its astral-life, and give as it were the mould of an etheric double exactly suitable to its karma for the man's next birth ; but it is the Devarajas who, having command of the "elements" of which that etheric double must be composed, arrange their proportion so as to fulfil accurately the intention of the Lipika.
It is they also who constantly watch all through life to counterbalance the changes perpetually being introduced
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into man's condition by his own free will and that of those around him, so that no injustice may be done, and karma may be accurately worked out, if not in one way then in another. A learned dissertation upon these marvellous beings will be found in The Secret Doctrine, vol. i., pp. 122- 1 26. They are able to take human material forms at will, and several cases are recorded when they have done so.
All the higher nature-spirits and hosts of artificial elementals act as their agents -in the stupendous work they carry out, yet all the threads are in their hands, and the whole responsibility rests upon them alone. It is not often that they manifest upon the astral plane, but when they do they are certainly the most remarkable of its non-human inhabitants. A student of occultism will not need to be told that as there are seven great classes both of nature- spirits and elemental essence there must really be seven and not four Devarajas, but outside the circle of initiation little is known and less may be said of the higher three.