Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00217)

June 8th 1998

Dear Jerry:

In considering all your points, I think we agree on most
concepts.

The only thing that I would say there is a difference about, is
the broad aspect of karma, which includes all aspects of
Universal manifestation.  As far as I can see it includes
everything, and the word "Karma" is (to me) not restricted to
mankind.  If so, then all aspects of differentiation, time
observation, cycles, events in Nature as well as in man's
personal life, etc... are broadly included.

As I study I learn that Karma is (for us here and now) past,
present and future.  We generated some in the past, and are
reaping those effects now, and when we react we generate more for
our own future and for those around us.  Karma may be held over
for lives, so that when the right time arrives and circumstances
develop for its manifestation it all comes together as
circumstance for us to handle -- it is we who have to readjust
things at that time.  It is the basis for our personal advancing,
and we always will affect others.  How can we learn to be
"harmless ?"  [ The idea of pupils in a vast School.]

We -- (perhaps it is only me) make the distinctions that we name
personal, family, national, and also "chaos, indeterminacy,
quantum," etc...are included in its broad and also very minute,
particular scope.

We -- (again maybe only me) are the ones who seek to classify
aspects of Karma (LAW) -- but LAW is still law by whatever name.

I am also quite convinced that Karma works for us humans on the
basis of our motive when we generate, or create, or adopt some
reason for our acts, be they thoughts, desires, or work --- to
use a very broad group classification.

Am I still "off base ?"

Best wishes,                Dallas.

I append a few notes to your observations below.

====================================


>>According to the Theosophy I am familiar with, tornadoes, tidal
>>waves, earthquakes, solar flares, draughts, floods, epidemics
and
>>in fact all cataclysms are generated by the turbulent aspects
of
>>our human emotions and thoughts -- their impact on the
>>"elements."  In which case even destructive events are the
>>product of the destructive aspects of our thinking and
choosing.
>>They do not happen at random and when they do occur they
involve
>>those persons who in this life or in earlier ones had
contributed
>>to their formation.  You may say this is far-fetched.
================================================
>>
>
>Not far-fetched as long as we agree that such natural events are
>the result of our collective karma and not our personal karma.
>If I was hit by lightning and died, you would probably say it
was
>a result of my personal karma--something that I did in a past
life.
>I see it rather as collective karma and the fact that I am
human
>and I equate collective karma with chaos because neither is
>predictable nor are they deterministic.
================================================

DALLAS:

Agreed, but however you designate it, it is still the
all-enveloping KARMA of everything.  Those who decide to act,
deterine the results that will either individuallly, or
collectively accrue to them and others -- it is all intermeshed,
we all live together and share in the environment we have
individually and collectively created.  We both determine and
enjoy (or are burdened) with the "proceeds."

Karma is not a thing or a person, it is simply (to me) the reflex
action of Nature to what we do individually, and collectively.

Nature is compsed on innumerable sensitive "life-atoms."  They
are impressed by our thoughts, feelings and deeds.  Being so
impressed they leave us eventually carrying the imprss of what we
have done to them.  When, under cylcic law they "return" to us
and again become part of our persoanl environment, they bring
that origianl imperss with them.  Since they form our
personality, and are our "tools" at that time, the impress we
madeon them has eihter improved their sensitivity or dulled it in
certain directions.  We then experince an envet in life with our
personal nature either more sensitive or more dulled.  When we
act anew we either change those impression on these "personal"
eements up or down the universal scale of progress.  Thus we
participate intimately in alll phases of evolution.  We as
humans, are the prime movers and have a much greater
responsibility than we know.
        Dal.
=================================================
>
>
>>But, if we are dealing with living beings everywhere, each with
>>its own intelligence and a nature that is not destroyed when it
>>is dispersed, then we are dealing with the ethical impact of
our
>>acts, thoughts and feelings on those beings that compose our
>>bodies and the rest of our environment, in one way or another.
>>To look at such events as fortuitous, chancy, or lucky (or the
>>reverse) is to say that we do not yet know the laws under which
>>they occur.  But to say that there is no law simply means that
we
>>do not know of any, yet.
===============================================
>
>This is very deterministic thinking, and a few years ago I would
>have agreed with you. Nowdays I tend to think that some things
>in life are not deterministic (and therefore, by definition, are
>chaotic). It is rather like the Uncertainty Principle in Quantum
>Physics: our seemingly deterministic world is based on an
>indeterministic foundation. It is not a question of lacking data
>or needing more information.
=================================================
DALLAS

But, to me, those are included in "Karma."  They do not obviate
it, they only indicate that Karma works on the most minute of
planes as well as the broad scene.  If there is a center, a
point, of individualism, of life, of power, there too is the
karma that it/we is/are invoved in already, and, to that existing
situation, it adds whatever it may in terms of, and to the level
of its intelligence -- which may be cognitive and deterministic,
or almost (tio us) unconscious.  ( I do not like the use of that
word, because everyhting is conscious at its own level.)   Dal.
==============================================

>
>>The Theosophist says as I understand it, that there is a great
>>Law that causes all things to be.  And that embodied in this
law
>>are the concepts of a perfection, or a kind of "graduation,"
>>towards which every class of being is progressing, each in its
>>own way.  It is expressed as cooperation and as brotherhood.
============
>
>I consider myself a Theosophist too, but I see karma as
>causality and I happen to agree with Jung that synchronicity
>also exists -- an acausal principle just as real and effective
>as casuality. I call karma causality and synchronicity I call
>chaos, but a rose is a rose is a rose.
===========================================
DALLAS

But synchronim is only evidence of intelligence in coexisting
personalities and/or individualities at any level.  It brings
together in time what appear to us as disparate elements -- their
karmic connection does this.  We have to learn to see this.

I am not sure what an "acausal principle" is, but off-hand I
would say that we would probably relegate that to one of the
all-inclusive aspects of the ABSOLUTE, which includes
everything -- ourselves, worlds, galaxies, and "life-atoms."
"Manifestation -  Manvantara" emanates from IT periodically,
cyclically, [under KARMA] as well as all the "beings" (conscious
units of whatever degree).

This dos not make them "creatures," nor does it make of the
ABSOLUTE a "creator."

As HPB repeatedly states in the first 300 pages of SD I, the
functions of setting up Manifesatation (Manvantara) are relegated
to those Great briengs who one were "men" such as we are at
presnt, but who have "graduated" aeons ago, and are now
responsible (as their duty) to see to the organizing of Nature as
a whole, the worlds, and the functions of human growth -- the
picture as I get it is one of organized intelligence (where every
component has the identical POTENTIAL of the Highest, but has to
learn to organize, recognize and then employ it).     Dallas.
==============================================
>
>>Now if you say Karma does not operate anywhere, and it is a
>>figment of Theosophical delusion then I cannot say anything
more.
>
>No, I never said that.    I KNOW YOU DIDN'T.

>
>>But there is, as I see it an overwhelming flood of evidence to
>>show that causes produce effects according to the aim and
>>intensity of the actor or generator.  So why should Theosophy
be
>>wrong in assigning a probable relationship between cataclysms
and
>>man's generation of emotional cataclysms ?
>>
==========================================
>Theosophy is only wrong when it says, like science said until
>chaos theory came along, that causality is all that there is.
Now
>science knows that chaos exists and can't be eliminated nor
>predicted. One of these days I hope Theosophists will also
>recognise this.
>
============================================
DALLAS

I would say that "Chaos Theory" is a misnomer -- in the sense
that what is apparent 'chaos' to our view, is not CHAOS at all,
but the manifestation of a higher (or is it a subtler) LAW that
organizes what we were once unaware of ?  There are namy things
we are unaware of.  To read a few pages of the SECRET DOCTRINE
brings many into view.            Dallas.
=============================================

>
>>When I used the word "chaos" I meant something that did not
>>happen under LAW.
>
>But synchronicity is a law too. Chaos also works with laws.
>Its just that these laws are acausal--not causally connected,
>and are independent of time and space. You need to redefine
>LAW to allow for acausal events.
=========================================

DALLAS        I have tried to above, by saying that KARMA
includes every aspect of "event."  Both the generation of acts,
visible or invisible to us at present, and their results, again
both visible and invisible.  And furthermore, it is also eternal
in operation, and is affected by neither size or time.  Motive
actuates it.  And motive is a human power.  Logically therefore,
Humanity (represented by the power to think -- by MIND -- is also
a timeless phenomenon -- representing the junction of the polar
opposites of SPIRT and MATTER (metaphysially speaking).   In a
way this forms the primal 3 -- the original triangle of
Spirit-Matter-Mind. [Atma -Buddhi-Manas in manifestation.]
Dallas
===============================================
>
>>  And even cataclysms are the result of a rather
>>large operation of law.  They are the attempt of nature to
bring
>>about an adjustment in the disturbance we human minds and wills
>>have imposed (as a great mass of thinking beings) on Nature's
>>hidden planes.  It is the objective manifestation of those
causes
>>that are subjective (if you will allow me the use of those
>>terms).
>>
>Agreed. But all storms are unpredictable over time (they can
only
>be predicted in a very short term). Karma is cause and effect
and
>is pretty well predictable.
===============================================

DALLAS

We may not be able to predict them with existing technology, but
as time develops I notice that the refinement of instrumentation
enables us to take note of ever increasing slight variations.
Today we use refined Radar to see cloud movements and
concentrations -- which predict possible storms.  Suppose that we
had even more refined instruments capable of evaluing magnetic
and electric densities, and therefore as we gradually move away
from the physical into the realm of astral Nature, we will be
able to perceive (ahead of time -- or event) even more clearly
the cycles of mass action that affect large masses of beings
including men as units and as collectives -- collective Karma
indeed.  What is it that causes "accidents ?"  What is it that
draws some to a cataclysm and on the other hand causes others to
escape its effects ?  Is this all chaos and happenstance ?  Or is
there also a rule that excludes those who are not involved ?  YOu
cannot have a Universe that is half Law and half Chaos.  One or
the other, but not a mixture -- doesn't make sense.  On the other
hand there is a lot for us to learn.  20 years ago we couldnot
see clouds and storms developing.  10 years ago we didnot have
Internet.  50 years ago the jet-plane was an idea only under
development.

When Siinnett and Huma asked HPB to get th Masters to precipitate
an issueof the London TIMES in simla on its day of publication in
London they refused, saying that a psychic "miracle" would work
adversly.  Today this is commonplace.  What will swe have
"tomorrow?"  And will that increase of facitlities make us more
humane, more tolerant, mor caring for the poor and the needy?
why is famine continuing ?  why is drought not alleviated
promptly.  I am told that over 2,500 people died in India in the
last month due to high temperatures and lack of water.  Was that
necessary ?  And of what use is an "atom bomb?"  WEll more
evidence of the foolishness of humanity enveloped in "Kali Yuga."
==================================================

>
>>And while we are at it, we could also ask if there is a
universal
>>plan of evolution -- not just of the physical body, as
considered
>>by the archaeologists and the paleo-physiologists, but as HPB
>>suggests in SD I 181, also of the soul (mind and emotional
>>natures) and the spiritual nature too.
>>
>
>I fully agree with HPB.
>
>
>>Interestingly enough, HPB deals with the questions of returning
>>cycles in her article "The Theory of Cycles," THEOSOPHIST,
July
>>1880  (ULT Edn. of HPB Articles, Vol. 3, p. 72-3).  On p. 78
she
>>writes more on this  ("Ancient Doctrines Vindicated,"
>>THEOSOPHIST, May, 1881).  In her article "Stars and Numbers,"
>>THEOSOPHIST, June 1881, (p. 405-6 same book) she speaks of the
>>relation of conjunctions to the intersection of cycles on our
>>earth involving whole populations.  Dealing with epidemics in
an
>>article entitled "Does Vaccination Prevent Smallpox ?"
>>THEOSOPHIST, March 1881,
>>(ULT Edn. HPB Articles, Vol. 1, p. 341) she offers information
>>about the cycle of the return of diseases.
>>
>
>Collective events tend to be cyclic. Again, I agree with HPB.
>
>
>>If you would like to pursue this further then I will advance
more
>>data, but I am sure that you are already aware of these things.
>
============================================>
>>Best wishes,        Dallas.
>>
=============================================