Theos-Talk Archives (January 1999 Message tt00249)

Jan 21st 1999

Dear Bee:

According to what I understand from what HPB has taught in the
KEY TO THEOSOPHY, and the SECRET DOCTRINE individual Karma plays
the most important deciding factor in reincarnation.  Being free
minds we are able to choose and thus change our Karma (as a
balance) all the time, every moment.

Our whole life is like (this is only an analogy) a "Karmic
ledger."  That which remains as "unfinished business," is, so to
say, every day as in every life,  carried over to the next day,
or life.

As Karma is to be treated (by definition (Second Fundamental of
the SD, vol. 1,
Pp, 15-17) as inflexible (because fair and just to all who are
affected), the "balance" (as maintained by Karmic law) is always
impersonally exact.

Just like when we were going to school each day in our early
years, we pick up at each new life (after training a new
"personality (mask)," beginning with babyhood and youth) where we
left off, with the abilities or disabilities we always carried
around with us as our 'inner' environment:  mind, memories,
hopes, and feelings.  So too, with our many incarnations, as they
proceed from a vast past, through our "today," and on into the
future.

The Real SELF within (Atma-Buddhi-Higher Manas) uses a fresh tool
(the newly formed 'Personality'), (which is aggregated from those
elements of the old one which was abandoned at death) and which,
in the meantime, were dispersed throughout Nature.  Nose old/new
aggregates ( Skandhas, or "life-atoms") are the
"bearers of our past karma."  And the reason for that is that it
is they who were shaped by our use of them in the past life.  So,
when they "return" to us, to help  shape our "new Personality,"
they bring that old impression which we imposed on them, and,
according as to whether we used them well or ill, so they will
assist or annoy and delay us now.

HPB indicates that the time spent in the "after-life" interlude
largely depends on the nature of the unresolved nobleness, and
altruistic actions, and thoughts we had, especially those we
could not give full expression to.  The incarnated ego (Lower
Manas) is in communion with its HIGHER SELF (ATMA) and the HIGHER
EGO (Buddhi + Higher-Manas) - also called "the immortal EGO,"
resides in that (we might call it meditative) condition for a
time commensurate with the quality of its living in the life just
ended.  So that time is variable and not a fixed one - at least
it is only fixed by our karma as adjusted to the karma of all
other things we have affected in the past.  Nature is said to
mathematically exact in this.

HPB also indicates that for the average person of today the stay
between incarnations is about 10 to 15 centuries, although in the
case of little children, young people and those whose lives are
cut short by war, accident, or murder, the rapidity of
incarnation is increased - she sets those limits from -- a few
years, to up to 10,000 years (in the case of the very pure and
just and have much to meditate on in Devachan).

As to the accuracy of the astrological setting, I can only say
that the astronomical positions of planets, etc. are like the
hands of a vast "clock."  They were called the "hands of the
clock of Karma."  I would never, without some kind of reasonable
and verifiable basis, state positively that the star of a life's
setting and the star of a new incarnation are identical, unless
that was a fact.  But can it be a fact when time every proceeds
and we as a whole, pas through changing circumstances (in space
and time) all the time ?

Again, if this is a fact, then the logic of it would be plain to
all of us, and ought to be given (or found) in Theosophical
doctrines.  If we look at the sweep of time, then we see that it
runs in spiraling cycles - analogies, certainly - but never a
repeat - as time and space have changed.  The only unchangeable
things are those based in and on the ONE SPIRIT. And, as I see
it, the innumerable Spiritual "Rays" which inform all the various
evolving beings (including Man's Self-conscious SELF) in the
Universe do not change because of that ONE BASIS.  The forms and
personalities change,  the stars ever move forward as the
Universe spirals along everywhere, but the ONE CENTER, and the
impelling Centers of a Spiritual kind, remain ONE.  Hence:  we
have the concept of the immortality of the Pilgrims, and, the
fact of a constructive and practical brotherhood as its
application.  And, to me, this is supported by the act that we
may pass through many states of consciousness and never lose our
own "I-ness."

( "The STAR of the Soul" will be found mentioned in the SECRET
DOCTRINE between pages 570-575 in Vol. 1.  It makes very
interesting reading.)

best wishes,

Dallas.

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