Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00078)

OCEAN11.TXT

CHAPTER XI

KARMA IS AN UNFAMILIAR WORD for Western ears. It is the name
adopted by Theosophists of the nineteenth century for one of the
most important of the laws of nature. Ceaseless in its
operation, it bears alike upon planets, systems of planets,
races, nations, families, and individuals. It is the twin
doctrine to reincarnation. So inextricably interlaced are these
two laws that it is almost impossible to properly consider one
apart from the other. No spot or being in the universe is exempt
from the operation of Karma, but all are under its sway,
punished for error by it yet beneficently led on, through
discipline, rest, and reward, to the distant heights of
perfection. It is a law so comprehensive in its sweep, embracing
at once our physical and our moral being, that it is only by
paraphrase and copious explanation one can convey its meaning in
English. For that reason the Sanskrit term Karma was adopted to
designate it.

Applied to man's moral life it is the law of ethical causation,
justice, reward and punishment; the cause for birth and rebirth,
yet equally the means for escape from incarnation. Viewed from
another point it is merely effect flowing from cause, action and
reaction, exact result for every thought and act. It is act and
the result of act; for the word's literal meaning is action.
Theosophy views the Universe as an intelligent whole, hence
every motion in the Universe is an action of that whole leading
to results, which themselves become causes for further results.
Viewing it thus broadly, the ancient Hindus said that every
being up to Brahma was under the rule of Karma.

It is not a being but a law, the universal law of harmony which
unerringly restores all disturbance to equilibrium. In this the
theory conflicts with the ordinary conception about God, built
up from the Jewish system, which assumes that the Almighty as a
thinking entity, extraneous to the Cosmos, builds up, finds his
construction inharmonious, out of proportion, errant, and
disturbed, and then has to pull down, destroy, or punish that
which he created. This has either caused thousands to live in
fear of God, in compliance with his assumed commands, with the
selfish object of obtaining reward and securing escape from his
wrath, or has plunged them into darkness which comes from a
denial of all spiritual life. But as there is plainly, indeed
painfully, evident to every human being a constant destruction
going on in and around us, a continual war not only among men
but everywhere through the whole solar system, causing sorrow in
all directions, reason requires a solution of the riddle. The
poor, who see no refuge or hope, cry aloud to a God who makes no
reply, and then envy springs up in them when they consider the
comforts and opportunities of the rich. They see the rich
profligates, the wealthy fools, enjoying themselves unpunished.
Turning to the teacher of religion, they meet the reply to their
questioning of the justice which will permit such misery to
those who did nothing requiring them to be born with no means,
no opportunities for education, no capacity to overcome social,
racial, or circumstantial obstacles, "It is the will of God."
Parents produce beloved offspring who are cut off by death at an
untimely hour, just when all promised well. They too have no
answer to the question "Why am I thus afflicted?" but the same
unreasonable reference to an inaccessible God whose arbitrary
will causes their misery. Thus in every walk of life, loss,
injury, persecution, deprivation of opportunity, nature's own
forces working to destroy the happiness of man, death, reverses,
disappointment continually beset good and evil men alike. But
nowhere is there any answer or relief save in the ancient truths
that each man is the maker and fashioner of his own destiny, the
only one who sets in motion the causes for his own happiness and
misery. In one life he sows and in the next he reaps. Thus on
and forever, the law of Karma leads him.

Karma is a beneficent law wholly merciful, relentlessly just,
for true mercy is not favor but impartial justice.

My brothers! each man's life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss
This is the doctrine of Karma.

How is the present life affected by that bygone right and wrong
act, and is it always by way of punishment? Is Karma only fate
under another name, an already fixed and formulated destiny from
which no escape is possible, and which therefore might make us
careless of act or thought that cannot affect destiny? It is not
fatalism. Everything done in a former body has consequences
which in the new birth the Ego must enjoy or suffer, for, as St.
Paul said: "Brethren, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for
whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." For the effect
is in the cause, and Karma produces the manifestation of it in
the body, brain, and mind furnished by reincarnation. And as a
cause set up by one man has a distinct relation to him as a
center from which it came, so each one experiences the results
of his own acts. We may sometimes seem to receive effects solely
from the acts of others, but this is the result of our own acts
and thoughts in this or some prior life. We perform our acts in
company with others always, and the acts with their underlying
thoughts have relation always to other persons and to ourselves.

No act is performed without a thought at its root either at the
time of performance or as leading to it. These thoughts are
lodged in that part of man which we have called Manas, the
mind, and there remain as subtle but powerful links with
magnetic threads that enmesh the solar system, and through which
various effects are brought out. The theory put forward in
earlier pages that the whole system to which this globe belongs
is alive, conscious on every plane, though only in man showing
self-consciousness, comes into play here to explain how the
thought under the act in this life may cause result in this or
the next birth. The marvelous modern experiments in hypnotism
show that the slightest impression, no matter how far back in
the history of the person, may be waked up to life, thus proving
it is not lost but only latent. Take for instance the case of a
child born humpbacked and very short, the head sunk between the
shoulders, the arms long and legs curtailed. Why is this? His
karma for thoughts and acts in a prior life. He reviled,
persecuted, or otherwise injured a deformed person so
persistently or violently as to imprint in his own immortal mind
the deformed picture of his victim.

For in proportion to the intensity of his thought will be the
intensity and depth of the picture. It is exactly similar to the
exposure of the sensitive photographic plate, whereby, just as
the exposure is long or short, the impression in the plate is
weak or deep. So this thinker and actor, the Ego, coming again
to rebirth carries with him this picture, and if the family to
which he is attracted for birth has similar physical tendencies
in its stream, the mental picture causes the newly-forming
astral body to assume a deformed shape by electrical and
magnetic osmosis through the mother of the child. And as all
beings on earth are indissolubly joined together, the misshapen
child is the karma of the parents also an exact consequence for
similar acts and thoughts on their part in other lives. Here is
an exactitude of justice which no other theory will furnish.

But as we often see a deformed human being, continuing the
instance merely for the purpose of illustration, having a happy
disposition, an excellent intellect, sound judgment, and every
good moral quality, this very instance leads us to the
conclusion that karma must be of several different kinds in
every individual case, and also evidently operates in more than
one department of our being, with the possibility of being
pleasant in effect for one portion of our nature and unpleasant
for another.  Karma is of three sorts:

First, that which has not begun to produce any effect in our
lives owing to the operation on us of some other karmic causes.
This is under a law well known to physicists, that two opposing
forces tend to neutrality, and that one force may be strong
enough to temporarily prevent the operation of another one. This
law works on the unseen mental and karmic planes or spheres of
being just as it does on the material ones. The force of a
certain set of bodily, mental, and psychical faculties with
their tendencies may wholly inhibit the operation on us of
causes with which we are connected, because the whole nature of
each person is used in the carrying out of this law. Hence the
weak and mediocre furnish a weak focus for karma, and in them
the general result of a lifetime is limited, although they may
feel it all to be very heavy. But that person who has a wide and
deep-reaching character and much force will feel the operation
of a greater quantity of karma than the weaker person.

Second, that karma which we are now making or storing up by our
thoughts and acts, and which will operate in the future when the
appropriate body, mind, and environment are taken up by the
incarnating Ego in some other life, or whenever obstructive
karma is removed.

This bears both on the present life and the next one. For one
may in this life come to a point where, all previous causes
being worked out, new karma, or that which is unexpended, must
begin to operate.

Under this are those cases where men have sudden reverses of
fortune or changes for the better either in circumstances or
character. A very important bearing of this is on our present
conduct. While old karma must work out and cannot be stopped, it
is wise for the man to so think and act now under present
circumstances, no matter what they are, that he shall produce no
bad or prejudicial causes for the next rebirth or for later
years in this life. Rebellion is useless, for the law works on
whether we weep or rejoice. The great French engineer, de
Lesseps, is a good example of this class of karma. Raised to a
high pitch of glory and achievement for many years of his life,
he suddenly falls covered with shame through the Panama canal
scandal. Whether he was innocent or guilty, he has the shame of
the connection of his name with a national enterprise all
besmirched with bribery and corruption that involved high
officials. This was the operation of old karmic causes on him
the very moment those which had governed his previous years were
exhausted. Napoleon I is another, for he rose to a very great
fame, then suddenly fell and died in exile and disgrace. Many
other cases will occur to every thoughtful reader.

Third, that karma which has begun to produce results. It is the
operating now in this life on us of causes set up in previous
lives in company with other Egos. And it is in operation
because, being most adapted to the family stock, the individual
body, astral body, and race tendencies of the present
incarnation, it exhibits itself plainly, while other unexpended
karma awaits its regular turn.

These three classes of karma govern men, animals, worlds, and
periods of evolution. Every effect flows from a cause precedent,
and as all beings are constantly being reborn they are
continually experiencing the effects of their thoughts and acts
(which are themselves causes) of a prior incarnation. And thus
each one answers, as St. Matthew says, for every word and
thought; none can escape either by prayer, or favor, or force,
or any other intermediary.

Now as karmic causes are divisible into three classes, they must
have various fields in which to work. They operate upon man in
his mental and intellectual nature, in his psychical or soul
nature, and in his body and circumstances. The spiritual nature
of man is never affected or operated upon by karma.

One species of karma may act on the three specified planes of
our nature at the same time to the same degree, or there may be
a mixture of the causes, some on one plane and some on another.
Take a deformed person who has a fine mind and a deficiency in
his soul nature. Here punitive or unpleasant karma is operating
on his body while in his mental and intellectual nature good
karma is being experienced, but psychically the karma, or cause,
being of an indifferent sort the result is indifferent. In
another person other combinations appear. He has a fine body and
favorable circumstances, but the character is morose, peevish,
irritable, revengeful, morbid, and disagreeable to himself and
others. Here good physical karma is at work with very bad
mental, intellectual, and psychical karma. Cases will occur to
readers of persons born in high station having every opportunity
and power, yet being imbecile or suddenly becoming insane.

And just as all these phases of the law of karma have sway over
the individual man, so they similarly operate upon races,
nations, and families. Each race has its karma as a whole. If it
be good that race goes forward. If bad it goes out, annihilated
as a race, though the souls concerned take up their karma in
other races and bodies. Nations cannot escape their national
karma, and any nation that has acted in a wicked manner must
suffer some day, be it soon or late. The karma of the nineteenth
century in the West is the karma of Israel, for even the merest
tyro can see that the Mosaic influence is the strongest in the
European and American nations. The old Aztec and other ancient
American peoples died out because their own karma, the result
of their own life as nations in the far past, fell upon and
destroyed them. With nations this heavy operation of karma is
always through famine, war, convulsion of nature, and the
sterility of the women of the nation. The latter cause comes
near the end and sweeps the whole remnant away. And the
individual in race or nation is warned by this great doctrine
that if he falls into indifference of thought and act, thus
molding himself into the general average karma of his race or
nation, that national and race karma will at last carry him off
in the general destiny. This is why teachers of old cried, "Come
ye out and be ye separate."

With reincarnation the doctrine of karma explains the misery and
suffering of the world, and no room is left to accuse Nature of
injustice.

The misery of any nation or race is the direct result of the
thoughts and acts of the Egos who make up the race or nation. In
the dim past they did wickedly and now suffer. They violated the
laws of harmony. The immutable rule is that harmony must be
restored if violated. So these Egos suffer in making
compensation and establishing the equilibrium of the occult
cosmos. The whole mass of Egos must go on incarnating and
reincarnating in the nation or race until they have all worked
out to the end the causes set up. Though the nation may for a
time disappear as a physical thing, the Egos that made it do not
leave the world, but come out as the makers of some new nation
in which they must go on with the task and take either
punishment or reward as accords with their karma. Of this law
the old Egyptians are an illustration. They certainly rose to a
high point of development, and as certainly they were
extinguished as a nation. But the souls, the old Egos, live on
and are now fulfilling their self-made destiny as some other
nation now in our period. They may be the new American nation,
or the Jews fated to wander up and down in the world and suffer
much at the hands of others. This process is perfectly just.
Take, for instance, the United States and the Red Indians. The
latter have been most shamefully treated by the nation. The
Indian Egos will be reborn in the new and conquering people, and
as members of that great family will be the means themselves of
bringing on the due results for such acts as were done against
them when they had red bodies. Thus it has happened before, and
so it will come about again.

Individual unhappiness in any life is thus explained:

(a) It is punishment for evil done in past lives; or (b) it is
discipline taken up by the Ego for the purpose of eliminating
defects or acquiring fortitude and sympathy. When defects are
eliminated it is like removing the obstruction in an irrigating
canal which then lets the water flow on. Happiness is explained
in the same way: the result of prior lives of goodness.

The scientific and self-compelling basis for right ethics is
found in these and in no other doctrines. For if right ethics
are to be practiced merely for themselves, men will not see why,
and have never been able to see why, for that reason they should
do right. If ethics are to be followed from fear, man is
degraded and will surely evade; if the favor of the Almighty,
not based on law or justice, be the reason, then we will have
just what prevails today, a code given by Jesus to the west
professed by nations and not practiced save by the few who would
in any case be virtuous.

On this subject the Adepts have written the following to be
found in The Secret Doctrine:

Nor would the ways of karma be inscrutable were men to work in
union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our
ignorance of those ways, which one portion of mankind calls the
ways of Providence dark and intricate, while another sees in
them the action of blind fatalism, and a third simple chance
with neither gods nor devils to guide them, would surely
disappear if we would but attribute all these to their correct
cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident
conviction that our neighbors will no more work harm to us than
we would think of harming them, two-thirds of the world's evil
would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother,
Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for nor weapons
to act through B We cut these numerous windings in our destinies
daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing
a track on the royal high road of respectability and duty, and
then complain of those ways beings so intricate and so dark. We
stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making and the
riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the
great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an
accident in our lives, not a misshapen day or a misfortune, that
could not be traced back to our own doings in this or another
life.  Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if,

'virtue in distress and vice in triumph
Make atheists of Mankind,'

it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the
great truth that man is himself his own savior as his own
destroyer; that he need not accuse heaven and the gods, fates
and providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns in the
midst of humanity. But let him rather remember and repeat this
bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man to forbear accusing That
which

Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment

- which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward
the great European nations. The western Aryans had every nation
and tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their
Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative
irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now several
of them have reached their Iron age, the Kali Yuga, an age black
with horrors. This state will last B until we begin acting from
within instead of ever following impulses from without B Until
then the only palliative is union and harmony, a Brotherhood in
actu and altruism not simply in name.

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Ancient Wisdom for a New Age