Perhaps you have noticed that some scenes in your life repeat. The same argument with different people. The same kind of job ending the same way. The same disappointment in love.

The tradition explains it simply. What you are inside tends to attract your circumstances. An angry person keeps finding conflict. A fearful person keeps finding reasons to be afraid. The selves are like actors, and wherever they go, they find their play.

So the work of this part is not only inner. When a self ends, the scenes it played in begin to end too, because the play cannot go on without its actor. People who do this work often find their outer life changing, slowly, without their having forced it.

The books call this the law of cause and effect, or karma. Actions have consequences, and many hard things in life are the bill for old ones. But the books also teach that karma is not a cage. A debt can be paid in better ways than suffering: with good deeds, real service, and the work on yourself.

There is one more kind of suffering worth knowing. Most suffering is mechanical; it simply happens to us. But some suffering can be chosen: holding your tongue when anger wants to speak, giving when greed wants to keep. The books call this voluntary suffering, and it is one of the ways the selves lose their power.