Theos-Talk Archives (April 2001 Message tt00077)

Friday, April 13, 2001

 

Dear Friend Barbara:

 

At the risk of being over simplified, can we not say that we all know innately the difference between “right” and “wrong.” In theosophical terms we could say that “right” is all thought, feeling and action that is done in harmony with VIRTUE.  Virtue being simply defined as brotherhood, based on the concept that every being in the universe is an immortal, i.e. a brother.  Would we voluntarily want to hurt or delay a brother in its advance ?  

 

The reverse of this: selfishness, isolation, vice, domination over others, etc.. break the general laws of life, and attract corrective effects which are directed impartially by Nature to us so that we may learn to be cooperativeat all time and respect the rights and conditions of others, just as we expectto have our rights and conditions respected.  One hears of the VOICE OF CONSCIENCE.  In theosophy this is said to be a warning received by the Lower Mind from the Higher Mind interior to us.  We all have this “Higher Mind” (named Buddhi-Manas, or WISDOM-MIND, and it is said to be the memory of all our previous experiences as an immortal, and it says:  “Watch out.  You did that before andyou suffered.  Don’t do it again.”  Some also call it the “INTUITION.” )

 

As  human beings we find that our minds are strongly impressed with materialism and the concept of a “one life” tenure.  This is to be changed to the concept of immortality as an innate and ineradicable condition of the REAL ‘We’. 

 

Our Personality is only a temporary vehicle assumed for this life-time at birthand it will be discarded at death.  It is assumed for the education of the Inner Perceiver, the Witness, the Mind-Being that ever lives.  Hence “progress” viewed Thosophically is an attempt to exemplify this ideal in our living and especially as we choose to direct our lives from moment to moment.

 

KARMA is made of the MORAL QUALITY of our MOTIVES.  It is a living impress placed by us on the “life-units” (immortal MONADS)  which surround us and make up our vehicles:  body, astral body, vital body, body of desires and mind-body.  The “life-units” (Monads) leave us from timeto time, carrying the force of our motives and eventually return cyclically (under law)  to us. 

 

Theybring with them (as they return to us) the impress we had placed on them, for good or evil.  We, being again furnished with those Monads (and the impression they bring back to us), we experience life in the present, as ‘colored’ by those impressions we had placed there in our own past.  Our view of life, then, becomes colored with the same desires and motives we had generated before.  But we are not their slaves.  We have the opportunity of reviewing those effects and of making better choices.

 

Our task is to improve on every moment we are confronted with and thus harmonize any disturbance we may have caused to the Monads and to Nature as well as to any other persons.

 

In our SPIRITUAL NATURE we do have “continuity of consciousness.”  Our embodied Mind and lower Nature (if not convinced of this fact) denies this continuity and does not seek to find the bonds and bridges of memory which are there in IT but not in the lower physical memory of our embodiment.  The Monads that make up every part of Nature (the Universe), and every “life-unit” carry a complete memory tablet of all the experiences each has gone through.

 

The process of evolution demands that every “life-unit” gradually pass through all the experiences afforded by the various kingdoms of nature up to the Man-mind-state.  When it achieves this state,  the conscious sense of “I” demands that it make definite and SELF-CONSCIOUS choices between the two alternatives:  Lawfulness (good), and Lawlessness (evil). This process of self-purification enables the man-mind to access the superior planes of being whereon  are Wisdom (BUDDHI), the Higher Mind (Buddhi-Manas) and the UNIVERSAL SPIRIT  ( Atma).  That is we can communicate any time directly with those.  They are INSIDE us, and not outside.  At the moment we catch glimpses and glimmers of their existence, we have intuitions, and vague feelings about virtue and the brotherhood of all life, etc…theosophy states these are the structural basis for ALL EVOLUTION AND ALL LIFE, and it is within our power, sooner or later to acquire and use them.

 

Mr. Wm. Q. Judge wrote a valuable thesis on Karma in the form of an article called APHORISMS ON KARMA  [THE PATH Magazine,  March 1893;  ULT Judge Articles,  Vol. 1, p. 120]  I have placed it at the end of this.

 

One the Mind has become free of selfishness, isolation and the various vices that are all self centred and isolate the personal mind from the UNIVERSAL, the MONAD becomes an “agent” of Nature.  As such it can do not wrong.  Evil has been expunged from its panorama of active choices. But duties to help serve and succor others remain as responsibilities.  A final question is then asked of the “successful one”:  Will you remain with Mankind to help and serve?

 

Mme Blavatsky wrote a valuable small book titled THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE.  If one reads it carefully one finds that it goes through all these questions and conditions and the final question is there to be found at the end of the book.

 

You may find that many strange and old words taken from a number of philosophies are used in Theosophy.  The reason for that is 1.  to show the united antiquity of WISDOM, and 2,  the English language lacks certain definite terms needed in psychology and philosophy.  The Sanskrit, Hindu, Tibetan and Buddhist systems, being the oldest in language we know of, have been used for many of those terms  You will find definitions given in THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY by Mme. Blavatsky.  All these texts useful for inquirers may be had at http://www.blavatsky.net

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Dallas

 

 

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Buz Buz [mailto:buzzmiao@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 8:10 AM
To: sd@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-sd] Re: trying a second time on this --- Lyris is finicky today!!

 

>Un-adjusted Karma ----- or you could just say KARMA. Our vehicles:

>body, astral, mind, etc., etc., are our past karma and they define the parameter of possibilities for the work of rhe reincarnating higher Triad.

What is the essence of Karma, in the sense what is karma made out of?

 

>The critical problem for a humanis not his form but his consciousness.

>We have no continuity of consciousness. One gets it through service and

>the ability to stand up and facethe music.

>

Why do we not have continuity of consciousness?  What is missing ?

 

Thanks,

 

Barbara

 

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

 

 

            From http://www.blavatsky.net

 

 

Wm. Q. Judge              APHORISMS ON KARMA

 

 

APHORISMS ON KARMA

(1) There is no Karma unless there is a being to make it or feel its effects.

(2) Karma is the adjustment of effects flowing from causes, during which the being upon whom and through whom that adjustmentis effected experiences pain or pleasure.

(3) Karma is an undeviating and unerring tendency in the Universe to restore equilibrium, and it operates incessantly.

(4) The apparent stoppage of this restoration to equilibrium is due to the necessary adjustment of disturbance at some other spot, place, or focus which is visible only to the Yogi, to the Sage, or the perfect Seer: there is therefore no stoppage, but only a hiding from view.

(5) Karma operates on all things and beings from the minutest conceivable atom to Brahma. Proceeding in the three worlds men, gods, and the elemental beings, no spot in the manifested universe is exempt from its sway.

(6) Karma is not subject to time, and therefore he who knows what is the ultimate division of time in this Universe knows Karma.

(7) For all other men Karma is in its essential nature unknown and unknowable.

(8) But its action may be known by calculation from cause to effect; and this calculation is possible because the effect is wrappedup in and is not succedent to the cause.

(9) The Karma of this earth is the combination of the acts and thoughts of all beings of every grade which were concerned in the preceding Manvantara or evolutionary stream from which ours flows.

(10) And as those beings include Lords of Power and Holy Men, as well as weak and wicked ones, the period of the earth's duration is greater than that of any entity or race upon it.

(11) Because the Karma of this earth and its races began in a past too far back for human minds to reach, an inquiry into its beginning is useless and profitless.

(12) Karmic causes already set in motion must be allowed to sweep on until exhausted, but this permits no man to refuse to help his fellows and every sentient being.

(13) The effects may be counteracted or mitigated by the thoughts and acts of oneself or of another, and then the resulting effects represent the combination and interaction of the whole number of causes involved in producing the effects.

(14) In the life of worlds, races, nations, and individuals, Karma cannot act unless there is an appropriate instrument provided for its action.

(15) And until such appropriate instrument is found, that Karma related to it remains unexpended.

(16) While a man is experiencing Karma in the instrument provided, his other unexpended Karma is not exhausted through other beings or means, but is held reserved for future operation; and lapse of time during which no operation of that Karma is felt causes no deterioration in its force or change in its nature.

(17) The appropriateness of an instrument for the operation of Karma consists in the exact connection and relation of the Karma with the body, mind, intellectual and psychical nature acquired for use by the Ego in any life.

(18) Every instrument used by any Ego in any life is appropriate to the Karma operating through it.

(19) Changes may occur in the instrument during one life so as to make it appropriate for a new class of Karma, and this may take place in two ways: (a) through intensity of thought and the power of a vow, and (b) through natural alterations due to complete exhaustion of old causes.

(20) As body and mind and soul have each a power of independent action, any one of these may exhaust, independently of the others, some Karmic causes more remote from or nearer to the time of their inception than those operating through other channels.

(21) Karma is both merciful and just. Mercy and Justice are only opposite poles of a single whole; and Mercy without Justice is not possible in the operations of Karma. That which man calls Mercy and Justice is defective, errant, and impure.

(22) Karma may be of three sorts: (a) presently operative in this life through the appropriate instruments; (b) that which is being made or stored up to be exhausted in the future; Karma held over from past life or lives and not operating yet because inhibited by inappropriateness of the instrument in use by the Ego, or by the force of Karma now operating.

(23) Three fields of operation are used in each being by Karma: (a) the body and the circumstances; (b) the mind and intellect; the psychic and astral planes.

(24) Held-over Karma or present Karma may each, or both at once, operate in all of the three fields of Karmic operation at once, or in either of those fields a different class of Karma from that using the others may operate at the same time.

(25) Birth into any sort of body and to obtain the fruits of any sort of Karma is due to the preponderance of the line of Karmic tendency.

(26) The sway of Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of an Ego, or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures of repression, elimination, or counteraction are not adopted.

(27) Measures taken by an Ego to repress tendency, eliminate defects, and to counteract by setting up different causes, willalter the sway of Karmic tendency and shorten its influence in accordance with the strength or weakness of the efforts expended in carrying out the measures adopted.

(28) No man but a sage or true seer can judge another's Karma. Hence while each receives his deserts, appearances may deceive, and birth into Poverty or heavy trial may not be punishment for bad Karma, for Egos continually incarnate into poor surroundings where they experience difficulties and trials which are for the discipline of the Ego and result in strength, fortitude, and sympathy.

(29) Race-Karma influences each unit in the race through the law of Distribution. National Karma operates on the members of the nation by the same law more concentrated. Family Karma governs only with a nation where families have been kept pure and distinct; for in any nation where there is a mixture of family - as obtains in each Kaliyuga period - family Karma is in general distributed over a nation. But even at such periods some families remain coherent for long periods, and then the members feel the sway of family Karma. The word "family" may include several smaller families.

(30) Karma operates to produce cataclysms of nature by concatenation through the mental and astral planes of being. A cataclysm may be traced to an immediate physical cause such as internal fire and atmospheric disturbance, but these have been brought on by the disturbance created through the dynamic power of human thought.

(31) Egos who have no Karmic connection with a portionof the globe where a cataclysm is coming on are kept without the latter's operation in two ways: (a) by repulsion acting on their inner nature, and (b) by being called and warned by those who watch the progress of the world.

Path, March, 1893

 From :   http://www.blavatsky.net

 

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