Functions of the Gods. 77 



but if it is not yet his time to be relieved, you will 

 not find the object of your charity; by circumstances, 

 as you will say, he will have been taken outside 

 your reach. Leave you the Gods to do the work 

 of the Gods, the administration of the law ; do you 

 that charity, that love and compassion, which it is 

 ever their will that man should show to man. We 

 cannot break the law ; we cannot change their 

 purpose ; but we have the choice of co- working or 

 refusing, and on that our individual karma depends. 



Then we find further that Devas bring people 

 together and carry them apart, always for the work- 

 ing out of their individual karmas ; that men are 

 guided to places and positions at definite times, 

 according to those circumstances which, by their 

 karma, they must meet. 



Now men are related especially to one or other 

 of the great Gods, by the constitution of their 

 bodies visible and invisible. That gives them a 

 special affinity for ore Deva rather than for another. 

 For instance, the lower hosts of Devas who, we will 

 say, belong to Agni, build into a man's invisible 

 and visible bodies, the kind of matter in which that 

 God normally works. That gives the man a rela- 

 tionship to that particular God. Every man is 

 connected with a special manifestation of God, to 

 whom by his constitution and evolution he should 



