Page:Philosophy of bhagawad-gita.pdf/47

Rh organisms are formed which tend more and more towards differentiation. And when we reach animal life, we find that the differentiation is more complete, and this light moreover manifests itself as consciousness. It must not be supposed that consciousness is a sort of independent entity created by this Light; it is a mode or a manifestation of the Light itself, which is life.By the time we reach man, this Light becomes differentiated and forms that centre or ego that gives rise to all the mental and physical progress that we see in the process of cosmic evolution. This differentiation results in the first instance from the environment of particular organisms. The various actions evoked in a given organism and those which it evokes in other organisms or in its surroundings, and the actions which it generates in itself at that stage, can hardly be called Karma; still its life and actions may perhaps have a certain effect in determining the future manifestations of that life-energy which is acting in it. By the time we reach man, this one Light becomes differentiated into certain Monads, and hence individually is fixed.

As individually is rendered more and more definite, and becomes more and more differentiated from other individualities by man's own surroundings, and the intellectual and moral impulse he generates and the effect of his own Karma, the principles of which he is composed become more defined. There are