Evolution of Form. 153 



sheath is important, being relatively of a permanent 

 nature, and it goes on from birth to birth ; death can- 

 not touch it, birth cannot modify it ; it is the trea- 

 sure-house or receptacle of all the qualities acquired 

 by experience through human evolution, and passes 

 through the whole cycle of re-incarnations ; it is the 

 special human characteristic. The form begins to 

 adapt itself more and more to the life, and here 

 comes in a growing difficulty. The characteristic 

 of the life of man is the life of the intellect ; this the 

 specifically human part of evolution ; but the life of 

 sensation is far more vivid and tumultuous in the 

 beginning, and the earlier stages of form are adapted 

 to answer to these impulses. You may ask, why not 

 give the man at once a mental body only, in which 

 to work out his evolution, why must he struggle 

 through the evolution of this body of sensation? 

 Because, if he misses that stage, he will not be able 

 to make up the links which are necessary for the 

 continuity of his consciousness. At a later time 

 the perfect man is conscious on all planes from 

 Nirvana downward to the physical, from the physi- 

 cal upwards to Nirvana. On every plane in un- 

 broken continuity of consciousness the Jivanmukta 

 lives and works. There is no link lacking. If, 

 then, the man does not establish, in the building 

 of his body of sensation, certain centres or, as 



