By doing that, he would have implanted in himself another impression, that is of joy, so that when this thing returned once more, instead of being of the same quality and extension, it would have been changed by the impression of joy or elation and the two things coming together would have counteracted each other, just as two billiard balls coming together tend to counteract each other's movements. This has a bearing also on the question of the civilization in which we are a point ourselves. I told you that the old Egyptians disappeared. In my poor and humble opinion, we are the Egyptians. We have drawn back with us, by the inevitable law of association in cyclic return, some personages connected with us by some acts of ours in that great old civilization now disappeared.
Nothing is lost.
But each individual in the civilization, wherever it may be, puts the record in himself, and when he comes into the favorable circumstances for it, he will bring out the old impression. So we retain in ourselves the impression of all the things that we have done, and when the time comes that we have cycled back, over and over again, we come at last to an environment physically and in every other way to enable us and the others who are coming after us to do well. For what prevails in one place must prevail in another. So generally we talk about the fine progress, and how you will at last escape the necessity of reincarnation, and at last escape the necessity of doing this or that, but if you do your duty, you must make up your mind when you reach the height, when you know all, when you participate in the government of the world, instead of sleeping away your time, you will stay to help those who are left behind, and that is the great renunciation. That is what is told of Buddha, and of Jesus.