Every good work that we do without any ulterior motive, instead of forging a new chain, will break one of the links in the existing chains. Every good thought that we send to the world without thinking of any return, will be stored up there and break one link in the chain, and make us purer and purer, until we become the purest of mortals.
Class on Karma Yoga. New York, 1896. Complete Works, 1:116.
Count it rather as an opportunity, a gift of a merciful Father, that there are the opportunities in the present for the sojourn in the material influences; that the advantages may be taken of opportunities that come into the experience, even through the hardships and disappointments that have arisen.