Theos-Talk Archives (April 1996 Message tl00558)

Jerry writes,

> The Gnostics consider Jehovah (the creator)
>  to be Satan and hate him, and so on
You are speaking here of the more Jewish Gnostics, grouped under the term
"Sethians" because of their mythical descent from Adam's third son Seth.
 Valentinians and the more Christian Gnostics never used the word "Jehovah"
and had no great hate of the creator deities.  The Nag Hammadi Library gives
ample evidence for this (*The Gospel of Truth*, etc. on the Valentinian side
compared to *Hypostasis of the Archons* and its vengeance on the creator
deity in the Sethian side)

> HPB hints that this is so, that
> by gaining esoteric knowledge, all things are possible.  Today we know
> that this kind of determinism simply isn't true.
I don't know who the "we" is you are speaking for, possibly "all scientists
alove today"?  But "we" don't know that it isn't true that salvation can be
by gnosis o JNANA, and "we" aren't all convinced the Western notions on
quantum mechanics are entirely true.  Einstein and many other great
scientists, being fully acquainted with quantum theories and claims, never
accepted them.  This includes many systems dynamics theorists today,
including Fritjof Capra and Amit Goswami.

>
> The teaching that the law of karma is a remorseless unending
> chain of cause and effect is pure determinism.  Alexis says that he doesn't
> believe in karma this way.  Neither do I.  If I am "grotesquely
misinterpreting"
> HPB here, then so be it

Yup, that's misinterpretation.  Karma wold only be deterministic if no new
causes could be set in motion.  But that is not the Theosophical doctrine,
and that isn't the Buddhist, Jain, or Hindu doctrine either.  Karma is not
merely the inevitable results of PAST actions, but the nearly INFINITE
potentiality of present and future actions.  While we are indeed doomed to
suffer or enjoy based on previous decisions, we are also quite FREE to choose
differently now and in the future.

The mysterious power of VOWS is wrapped up in this doctrine, namely the great
power one can tap into by calling on the higher Self to aid one in radically
changing one's orientation and one's direction karmically.  There is NOTHING
"deterministic" about this, nor does it militate against Tibetan and other
esoteric ideas about "distributing" merit or burning off old karma in sudden
awakenings.  All, ALL, is under law, but not all is pre-determined.  Not even
close.

> Karma is not an
> unbreakable chain going on forever, nor will it ever come to an end by
> doing good deeds and cultivating moralistic attitudes
Jerry, no one ever suggested (to my knowledge) what you are suggesting here.
 Karma is never "ended" by producing new actions, however harmonious and
fair.  Karma can only be ended by TOTAL AWAKENING, which is samadhi and
nirvana, taking oneself totally outside the "stream of becoming" and entering
into totally identification with the ABSOLUTE.  This does not make karma
false, it makes karma LAW for all worlds below absolute SPIRIT.  On any plane
where there is a being and the ability to perform action, there must karma
also be.  But there is a state or station or BE-ness beyond action and
beings, and there also karma cannot reach.

This is no secret teaching, Mr. Judge makes it perfectly clear in his *Ocean
of Theosophy* in the chapters on Karma, and HPB mentions it quite often as
well.  There is nothing deterministic about karma, especially when one is on
the path to absolute transcendence.