Theos-Talk Archives (October 1999 Message tt00117)

Oct 27th 1999

	Thoughts on Karma and Reincarnation and Our Evolution

( Offered by a Student of Theosophy)


Karma is the name adopted by students of theosophical philosophy
for one of the most important of the laws of Nature.  It is said
to be ceaseless in its operations.  It bears alike on planets,
systems of planets, suns, galaxies, races, nations, families and
individuals.

Karma is the twin doctrine to Reincarnation.  No spot or being in
the Universe is exempt from the operation of cause and effect
(Karma) but, all are under its sway and rule.  Punished for error
by it, yet beneficently led on, through discipline, rest and
reward every being can reach the distant heights of perfection.

Applied to man's moral life, it is the law of ethical causation,
justice, reward and punishment.  It is the cause for birth and
rebirth, yet equally it is the means for escape from incarnation.
Viewed from another point, it is merely effect flowing from
cause, action and reaction, cause and effect.

Theosophy views the Universe as an intelligent whole.  Hence
every motion in the universe (whether of an atom, a human or a
Sun) is an action of that whole.  These lead to results, which
themselves become causes for further results.  Thus cycles are
built, large and small.  They are the ripples of life and living.

In ancient India it was said that every being up to Brahma is
under the law of Karma.  Just as all the many segments of law and
time occur in phases which we call cycles, the law of Karma is
said to rule the individual man and woman -- so, similarly, they
operate on races, nations and families.

Each "race" is said to have its Karma as a whole.  If it be good,
that race goes forward.  If it be bad, it is eventually
annihilated as a "race," though the Souls concerned pick up their
continuing Karma in other races.  Any Nation that has acted in a
wicked manner, must suffer some day, be it sooner or later.  So
too, one may trace a parallel with the lives of individuals.

This heavy operation of Karma is always brought about through
seemingly natural events:  famine, war, convulsions of Nature and
even the mass sterility of the women of that Nation.  This latter
cause comes near the end and sweeps the whole remnant away.

With Reincarnation, the doctrine of Karma explains the misery and
suffering seen in certain parts of the world.  Yet no one can
accuse Nature of injustice, as the present misery of any nation
or race is the direct result of the thoughts and actions of the
Egos who make it up.  In the dim past they did ill together, and
now suffer together, because they violated the laws of harmony,
cooperation, protection of the weak and poor, and brotherhood.

Such a mass of Egos must go on incarnating together and
reincarnating as a nation or race until they have worked out to
the end the causes they set up.  Though a nation may disappear
for a time, the Egos that constituted it do not leave the world,
but come out as the makers of some new Nation, in which they must
go on with their task, and take either reward or punishment in
accord with their Karma.  Egypt is an illustration as they, a
group of Egos, reached a high point in development, and then were
extinguished as a nation, but the old Egos live on and are now
fulfilling their self-made destiny in some other nation in our
present time-period.

HPB gives us a cyclic average of between 10 and 15 centuries
between incarnations, so perhaps one can see in the present
Nations the cyclic return of those general tendencies which had
characterized  the mass of souls who had made up ancient Egypt,
Greece, Rome and those who constituted the Byzantine empire of
the past.

Karma is of three kinds:

1.	the Karmic effects we receive every day from the way in which
we live our lifes -- from past causes that we may have set in
motion either in past lives or earlier in this one.

2.	Our reaction to these events as they arrive is important
because we then start making Karma for our future, depending on
the nature of our reaction.  We can see that we are, every
moment, sending out new impulses and new causes that shape our
future Karma in this or a future life.

3.	There is that Karma which is waiting -- it not yet being time
for it to manifest.  It is a kind of reservoir that depends on
the things we thought or said or did in our past, perhaps in
other earlier lifetimes.  Immediately, the time is not yet ripe
for those held-over events to manifest.  It may be considered
that we could be waiting to be with other Souls so that certain
causes and effects we generated with them may manifest in their
presence.  In the meantime we have more urgent Karma to deal
with.

One ought to always remember that Karma does not design or create
or impose anything.  It is we and other men-minds who plan,
scheme, and create causes.  The Law of Karma operates to adjust
disturbed harmony.  Such adjustments are not done by anyone or
anything.  When Karma reaches us  we ought to take it, that is
the manifestation of Universal Harmony that is seeking to return
to its original position -- that of a dynamic balance.  We ought
to avoid imputing to others who may act as agents for our Karma
(good or bad) responsibility for those events.  We created the
cause, they only pass the effects along.

One ought to consider that the Universe is made up of vast
aggregations of living sensitive immortal units.  The word MONAD
has been used in Theosophy to indicate a living, sentient
"life-atom."  It is a "perpetual motion machine."  It does not
die, and lasts for the whole vast period of evolution called a
Manvantara.  Each of these represents the intimate and ever
present conjunction of SPIRIT and MATTER in their most basic and
primordial aspects.

The word "elemental" has been used to indicate those portions of
the living universe that serve to build up our various bodies:
physical, astral, vital and kamic (desire and passional nature).
The  Monads serve to do this as a primary method of themselves
acquiring experience in their commencing development.  Being
impressed with our feelings, thoughts and acts, they become
"Karmic agents."  Being impressed by the changing quality of our
thoughts and feelings, they flow out from us into the rest of
Nature. And having resided there for a while, they eventually
return bearing with them that original impression we gave to
them.  If it was constructive, good karma results.  If it was
distorted and selfish, then we may expect "bad" karma will flow
from their return.  The law of vibratory attraction and repulsion
that is ever active throughout the whole of Nature acts in this
obligatory adjustment.

Karma acts on mankind in several departments of his nature:

1.	On the mental and intellectual Individual Nature,

2.	On the psychic (the feeling, sensitive Soul of the
Personality), and

3.	On the physical body and its circumstances.

In the KEY TO THEOSOPHY HPB writes that the "Neither Atma [the
Spirit]  nor Buddhi [the Wisdom that embodies Spirit] are ever
reached by Karma, because the former is the highest aspect of
Karma, its working agent of ITSELF in one aspect, and the other
is unconscious on this plane."  We see one aspect of Karma acting
on the three planes of our natures at the same time and to the
appropriate degree, or, there may be a mixture of causes that
arrive, some on one plane and some on another.

To use an example, take a deformed person who has a fine mind and
a deficiency in his psyche-soul nature.  Here punitive or
unpleasant Karma is operating on his body, while his mental and
intellectual nature show the effect of good Karma operating
there.  But psychically, the Karma, or cause,  being of an
indifferent sort, the result is indifferent   Or to take another
example, we may see a man with a find body and favorable
circumstances, but his character is morose, peevish, irritable,
revengeful, morbid and disagreeable--to himself and to others.
Here good physical karma is at work, with a very bad mental,
intellectual and psychical Karma.

To sum up this short presentation:  Karma is the ultimate Law of
the Universe--the source, origin and fount of all other Laws.
Karma is that unerring Law which adjusts effect to cause on the
physical, mental and spiritual planes of our being.  It is unseen
and unknown, and always adjusts wisely, intelligently and
equitably, for though we may not know what Karma is, of itself,
and, we may not know how it works, we can describe and define its
mode of action accurately.  We only do not know its ultimate
cause, but, we can be sure that was our choice and action some
time in the past.

The difference between "good" and "bad" is thus seen, basically
and fundamentally, to be a question of our assisting and
conforming to the great and eternal law of Universal Harmony in
Nature; or, the breaking of those laws, by our own selfish and
personal choices.  The only decree of Karma is and eternal and
immutable one:  "absolute harmony in the world of matter as it is
in the world of spirit."  It does not "reward or punish."   We
reward or punish ourselves.  The "real world" -- that of Life
Immortal, is not material or psychical, but is the Spiritual.

Theosophy is the doctrine of Responsibility.  We need to a adopt
an attitude that enables us to act carefully and in harmony with
Nature at all times.  It speaks in whispers or thunders, at
times -- it is the still small Voice of our Conscience, or it may
be the trumpet blast of caution that warns us of pain and
suffering to come to us if we neglect the lessons of our past.
It is the voice of our "inner God" -- of the HIGHER SELF.  In
That, the whole of our past is forever mirrored.

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