FORESEEING THE FUTURE
It is very difficult to explain how the future is foreseen, but there is no doubt whatever as to the fact. Apart from apparently accidental pictures and flashes of intuition, often effective but not under control, there are two ways in which the future may definitely be foreseen by means of the higher clairvoyance. One is quite readily explicable and comprehensible; the other is not explicable at all.
Even with only physical senses we may see enough to foretell certain things. If, for instance, we see a man leading an extravagant life of debauchery, we may safely predict that, unless he changes, he will presently lose both health and fortune. What we cannot tell by physical means is whether he will change or not. But a man who has the sight of the causal body could often tell this, because to him the reserve forces of the other would be visible; he could see what the ego thought of it all, and whether he was strong enough to interfere. No merely physical prediction is certain, because so many of the causes which influence life cannot be seen on this lower plane. But when we raise our consciousness to higher planes we can see more of the causes, and so can come much nearer to calculating the effects.
Obviously if all the causes could be perfectly seen and judged, all their results would be readily calculable. Perhaps none but the LOGOS can see all causes in His system, but an adept would surely be able to see all that could affect an ordinary man! So it is probable that by this method an adept could foretell the life of that man quite accurately. For the ordinary man has little will-power; karma assigns to him certain surroundings, and he is the creature of those surroundings; he accepts the fate marked out for him, because he does not know that he can alter it. A more developed man takes hold of his destiny and moulds it; he makes his future what he wills it to be, counteracting the karma of the past by setting fresh forces in motion. So his future is not so easily predicable; but no doubt even in this case an adept, who could see the latent will, could also calculate how he would use it.
That method of foretelling the future is entirely comprehensible, and it is clear that the chief events of any life could be prophesied along that line. But there is another way for which we cannot so easily account. One has only to raise the consciousness to a plane sufficiently high, to find the limitation which we call time disappearing, and the past, present and future spread out before us like an open book. How that can be reconciled with our freedom of action I am not prepared to say, but I can testify that the fact is so; when this sight is employed the future is simply there, down to the minutest detail. I believe myself that we are free to choose, though only within certain limits; yet a power, far higher than we, may well know how we shall choose. You know what your dog will do under certain conditions, but that does not in the least make him do it; so a power as much higher than man, as man is than the dog, may know quite well how man will use his fragment of free-will.
For it is only a fragment; the plan of the LOGOS is to trust us with a little freedom, and see how we use it. If we use it well and wisely, a little more is given to us; and so long as we continue to use it in harmony with His great intention of evolution, we shall find more and more freedom of choice coming to us. But if we are so foolish as to use it selfishly, so as to bring harm to ourselves and hinder His plan, we shall find ourselves cramped in our action and forced back into line. A child must have freedom to walk, even though that involves a risk of falling, or else he will never learn; but no one would let him make his experiment on the edge of a precipice. So we have freedom enough to do ourselves a little harm if we use it wrongly, but no freedom enough to destroy ourselves altogether.
Times of choice certainly come to us, but between those times we have often little option. When we have made our choice we must abide by its consequences. Looked at from above, human destiny seems rather like a network of railway lines. A man starts out on a locomotive, and chooses his line of rail; but when he has chosen it he must run along it, and cannot swerve to the right hand or the left until he reaches the first set of points. Then he may descend and set the points as he will, but having once set them and started on his way he must accept the consequences of his decision; he has no power to turn aside until the next point of choice comes in his way. We must not confuse free-will with freedom of action.