Functions of the Gods. 75 



of a nation. Not by chance is a man brought into 

 the world, not by the compulsion of a dead law, or 

 of a blind necessity; the Gods are working here 

 with an intelligence that foresees and guides, and 

 they choose for the accomplishment of their ends 

 the men whose own karma fits them to be their 

 agents for the work in hand, and then guide them 

 to take birth at the place where that karma can 

 subserve the collective karma of their people. 



This also is true in a much more limited way 

 with regard to the working of individual karma. 

 Sometimes you must have wondered how, with all 

 the interfering activities of men, the karmic law 

 could work out with undeviating justice; it is 

 because the Gods are guiding the working. You 

 see somewhere a man who is starving and if you 

 misunderstand karma as too many of you do, to 

 the shame of India, in a land where this teaching 

 is of immemorial antiquity you turn aside from 

 that starving man and say that it is his karma to 

 starve and perish ; in those hardened hearts of yours 

 you use the will of God as a cover for your own 

 selfishness, for your indifference and your lack of 

 love. That man's karma to starve? Aye, and 

 therefore he is starving ! But if a Deva guides 

 you to the place where your brother is starving, it 

 is because he would make you the agent of his 



