“Mr. Old: There is a statement that the attainment of freedom of individual progress and eventual happiness can only be attained by life experience. Might this not be logically proven without going very far into words?
Mme. Blavatsky: How would you do it?
Mr. Old: You need a logical necessity. It is a bare statement, and not satisfactory, perhaps, to the inquirer. It has to be shown how individual happiness – which, in the altruistic sense, of course, is based in the happiness of the whole body, of which that ego is only an atom – it has to be shown how this happiness can be attained only by life experience.
For myself, I should first go to show that the earth plane upon which we live – or perhaps, this would be entering rather deeply into the matter – by showing this earth is the ultimate of spiritual action, it is that plane on which action ceases and reaction commences, and therefore the dual action is only manifest here. That is to say, the descending and ascending, and therefore it is the only point at which evolution can take place.
There is a decided motion or progress of spirit towards matter from the standpoint of the spiritual planes; that is, they are all downward, and there is – or, as HPB puts it in The Secret Doctrine – the angel has desired to be man, and man desired to become an angel.
You can quite see what I mean, perhaps? The personality, the incarnating ego, is the only point of differentiation – of individual differentiation – at which mankind are interblended; and, therefore, co-mingle and produce individual evolutions.
Mme. Blavatsky: Would you put this there?
Mr. Old: Do not put my words.
Mme. Blavatsky: We avoid putting metaphysics. This is the complaint of everyone, that they don’t understand half or two-thirds in The Secret Doctrine. What I have tried to avoid was metaphysics in this little book, because if you do put metaphysics it will confuse them, and they won’t understand anything, and there will be complaints again. These things, as I put them, are as plain as can be.
Mr. Kingsland: I think you want a little more connection.
Mr. B. Keightley: Your statement is open to this objection: on the three planets preceding our own, there must be evolution of some kind. You must be careful not to land yourself in subsequent [ ].
Mr. Kingsland: What he said is very valuable, but does not touch that point in reference to the question which has been asked, it is in reference to incarnation. The questioner may grant all that, and then say: “well, the man has passed through his earthly life into another plane.”
Mr. B. Keightley: The drift of the question is this: a man finds no satisfaction or peace as the result of his life. He has left (original “lived”) unsatisfied, then he asks, where is the necessity for reincarnation, if you don’t attain peace during one life? Then the answer is , because it is only attainable by a series of life experiences.
Mr. Kingsland: That is the point Old wants to prove.
Mr. Old: I was a bit too metaphysical, perhaps.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 