The Puppet, p. 162

Opening Remarks
There is in us a subconscious mind that acts stealthily in our actions. It is important to understand its mechanism. This forms part of the yogic knowledge necessary for action in the world as well as for the yoga of transformation. Our mind simply acts as a puppet in this vast and complex game unseen by our limited vision.

Mind of life
A thinking puppet is the mind of life:
Its choice is the work of elemental strengths
That know not their own birth and end and cause
And glimpse not the immense intent they serve.

At first mind evolves as an instrument of life. It is there only to serve the animal needs rather than master them. The forces that act from behind upon this mind are forces and beings of the lower vital world, elemental energies that act blindly upon matter without any reason. They are infra-rational forces and energies that merely excite impulse and trigger movements in our bodily life,

The conscious Doll
In this nether life of man drab-hued and dull,
Yet filled with poignant small ignoble things,
The conscious Doll is pushed a hundred ways
And feels the push but not the hands that drive.

These forces and beings use human beings to create an ironic play. They push us to act in a state of meanness and smallness. We think it is we who have chosen but in reality we are merely pushed from behind by these dark energies of a little life.

Masked ironic troupe
For none can see the masked ironic troupe
To whom our figure-selves are marionettes,
Our deeds unwitting movements in their grasp,
Our passionate strife an entertainment’s scene.

Man bound to the surfaces of life sees not these entities that swarm around him, goading and spurring him to act in certain ways. Thus these little entities use human beings for their entertainment and we unwittingly become their playthings and toys.

Playing their part
Ignorant themselves of their own fount of strength
They play their part in the enormous whole.

Yet they themselves are bound to their littleness and do under some cosmic impulsion of which they are themselves unaware. These small entities also serve a purpose in the grand mysterious plan. They too are simply playing out their part in the total scheme of things.

Spirits obscure
Agents of darkness imitating light,
Spirits obscure and moving things obscure,
Unwillingly they serve a mightier Power.

These are obscure beings who know not their own source and the deeper purpose they serve. They are themselves pushed by still darker and dangerous forces and beings that stand behind them. Though agents of darkness they may appear sometimes clothed in light, as knowledgeable beings though their eyes are turned towards the darkness whose breath they absorb and for which they live.

Channels perverse
Ananke’s engines organising Chance,
Channels perverse of a stupendous Will,
Tools of the Unknown who use us as their tools,
Invested with power in Nature’s nether state,
Into the actions mortals think their own
They bring the incoherencies of Fate,
Or make a doom of Time’s slipshod caprice
And toss the lives of men from hand to hand
In an inconsequent and devious game.

It is these beings who deviate us from the straight path and lead us to ruin and fall. Their power and domain extends only in the dark worlds. But human beings open themselves to their dark influence thereby bringing upon themselves an adverse Fate and make life a drama of suffering and pain.

Closing Remarks
These elemental beings, known in ancient Indian occult and spiritual science as rakshasas and pisachas, gather their strength in the darkness and cast their dark influence upon human beings, filling their life with misery.