This evening's subject is to explain the question whether more attributes are inherited from the father or from the mother, or whether more are brought by the soul itself, or are the original attributes of the soul, or are God-given. The soul acquires attributes and qualities throughout life. A coward who is enlisted for the war, by hearing always of bravery, by living with soldiers, may in time think: "I should go to the war, I should fight." A joyous person, from being in the society of serious people, may become serious, and a sad person from being with cheerful people may become cheerful. Those qualities which were first impressed upon the soul are the strongest, and those attributes which are acquired later are the more active.

When the soul first starts from its original point, it comes first to the world of the angels, and is impressed by the angelic qualities. The work of the angels is love for light, to live in light and sound. Therefore the infant always loves light and sound. They do not distinguish good and bad, high and low. Their work, too, is to admire beauty. The infant will always turn to what appears to it radiant and beautiful.

There are two sorts of angels, those who have never manifested as man, Fereshta, and those who upon their journey to the infinite, have reached the world of angels. These are called Hur and Malak. Love, light and lyric are the attributes of the Hur and Malak. From them the soul receives these impressions. Devotion, service and worship are the attributes of the Fereshta.

In the world of angels, the soul for years and years enjoys these experiences. When the desire for more experience urges it on, it goes forth, and comes to the world of jinns (peri and gulman), that means the astral plane. In the Bible we find that Adam was driven out of paradise. This means that the wish for more experience makes the soul leave the world of angels, and go to the astral plane and the physical plane. The work of the jinns is to imagine and to think.

The jinns are of two sorts. There are those who have never manifested physically, and there are those spirits who have left the earth with all the load of their actions and experiences upon them. From the first sort of jinns, those who have not manifested physically, the soul receives the impressions of imagination and thought.

The soul that leaves the earth can take to the world of the angels only whatever little love, whatever little nice feelings and kindness it may have. Even its love and kindness and its nice feelings it cannot take higher than to the world of the angels. This is still too heavy for the higher plane. There is a higher plane, and on that plane there is no individuality, nothing but the infinite consciousness. All the rest the soul must leave in the astral stock, and until it can leave all the evil that it has gathered it must remain there; it is too heavy to go higher.

This earth is just like a street, where someone is walking with a bundle. He says to the soul: "Will you take this bundle?" The soul is inexperienced. It says: "Yes. Is it a nice bundle? Has it a good sound, or a perfume?" It takes the bundle, and receives these impressions.

Every soul has the best qualities. However wicked a person may be, be assured that his soul has the best qualities, as a spiritual inheritance but they are covered up by all that has been gathered afterwards. And so there is always possibility of spiritual progress for every soul, even the most wicked.

The soul goes always to what appears to it radiant and beautiful, and so it goes on and on, and finds different qualities and different experiences, and collects them around it until at last it finds the mother's womb. The soul of the saints and murshids has remained long in the world of the angels, more impressed by the world of angels, and it brings with it angelic qualities.

When it is said in the Bible, the son of God, and the son of man, it means that son of God is he who has recognized the eternal spirit as his parent, and son of man, is he who has recognized himself as the son of his parents, who are as limited as he. We recognize our father and mother as our origin. The parents claim the child as their own, and so they delude themselves. The soul has no father and no mother. Its origin is the universal spirit. And in this we are all brothers and sisters, without distinction of high and low, of race, caste, creed, or religion.

Now the question comes whether the soul inherits more qualities from the father or the mother. The soul has many more attributes of the father, because these are the fundamental original attributes. The attributes of the mother are added to these. They are the more active, because they are the later attributes. From the society, from the training, from the contact of the mother, very many attributes of the mother may be acquired. A man may not like the attributes of his father and may hide them. A small child may have a face just like its mother, it may be just like its mother, but, in its life, on some occasion, it will be so like its father that it is surprising. A coward, by association with brave people may become brave. He may go to the war, but then, when he hears the guns, the cowardice which was the original attribute of his soul, will show itself.

You will ask me: a child is often like an uncle, an aunt of the father's or mother's. Why is this? This has two aspects. Either the father or mother may have the qualities of this relation, though they may not show, or the grandfather or grandmother, or other relation, even five, ten, or a hundred generations back, may have so much attachment for that grandchild that he may watch and impress with his qualities the child that is born in that house. Also the relatives and surroundings of whom either of the parents think the most, their qualities and features also are impressed upon the child.

You will say: "Then, if we inherit the attributes of our father, our mother, acquire the attributes of the jinns and angels, how can we help how our character is?" A man may say: "I am an angry person, because my father was an angry person." "I am a moody person, because my grandfather was a moody person." "I cannot help this, it is my character." This is half true, but it is developed by belief. The soul acquires only those qualities in which it is interested. If the soul is not interested in the qualities, it will never take them. And the soul keeps only those attributes in which it is interested. If it is not interested in them, it loses them. However wicked a person may be, however many undesirable attributes he may have, he can lose them all if he does not approve of them.

You will say: "But can we change our physical body? Can we change our face?" We can. People become like those of whom they think strongly, or with whom they associate. I have seen herdsmen who live with the cattle and the sheep, and from association with the cattle and the sheep, their face had become very like. Have you seen the pictures of the Prophets, of Christ, of Zoroaster, of Moses, and of the other Prophets? If you have seen them, you will say: "They are made from imagination. The painters had not seen them. They were not alive." I will say: "They are alive. And is not the mind greater than the camera? I could show you in India the pictures of our murshids, of the Order to which we belong, from Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chishti, the pictures of ten or twelve murshids and their mureeds are all alike. If it were imagination, why should not imagination produce different pictures, differing from each other, for the nature of imagination is more to differentiate than to unite.