Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00189)

Dallas, thank you for providing Judge's aphorisms om karma for us. I
completely agree with them. In fact, they substantiate exactly what I have
been saying on this subject. Allow me to insert my own comments, briefly,
below:


<<<APHORISMS ON KARMA
(1) There is no Karma unless there is a being to make it or feel
its effects.>>>>

JERRY. A great and profound truth here. In this statement is implied the key
to liberation: overcoming karma by transcending the self.


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

JERRY: Agreed - karma is causality which we interpret as good/pleasure or
bad/pain.


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

JERRY: Agreed so long as "Universe" is our 7-plane solar system.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: It is, in fact, "hiding from view" for all but Adepts.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>>

JERRY: Agreed. Note the key phrase "in the manifested universe" which is
exactly what I have been saying.


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

JERRY: This is exactly what I have been saying - karma differs from
scientific causality in the sense that causes and effects are not so
time-dependent. But it is time-dependence, effects quickly following causes,
that allows cause and effect to work as a learning tool. And this is why I
keep saying that karma is a terribly poor learning mechanism, and if life is
a school then I could have come up with a more effective way to learn
lessons in it myself.


<<<<[PARA](7) For all other men Karma is in its essential nature unknown and
unknowable.>>>>

JERRY: Exactly what I have been saying for years.


<<<[PARA](8) But its action may be known by calculation from cause to
effect; and this calculation is possible because the effect is wrapped up in
and is not succedent to the cause.>>>>

JERRY: While effect may follow cause over time, the large gaps of time
between the two make "learning" from it impossible. Such calculations are
impossible until one can review past lives.


<<<[PARA](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.

JERRY: This is collective karma in its most broad sense - the collective of
all manvantaric beings.


<<<[PARA](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.

JERRY: Agreed. Think about what is being said here. It implies a statistical
view of karma and reincarnation over the Globes and Planes, which is what I
have been ssaying.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Agreed. Looking for such origins leads us to logic problems that have
no answers - evolution is NOT linear.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: Agreed. There is no excuse for not being compassionate.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: This explains how one cause can produce different effects on
different beings. Karma is NOT a hard and fast rule of an eye for an eye.


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

JERRY: Without something to act, and without space and time to act in, how
can there be karma? So how can we say it is "universal" when clearly its
existence is dependent, like everything else in this universe is dependent?


<<<[PARA](15) And until such appropriate instrument is found, that Karma
related to it remains unexpended.>>>>

JERRY: Karma, like energy, has potential and kenetic aspects.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: This teaching is very old, and has been explained in a variety of
ways. For example, the Mind Only school established a hypothetical
"storehouse consciousness" (alaya-vijnana) to hold this potential mode of
karma. Tzongkapa taught that there is no storehouse-consciousness, and that
potential karma doesn't need to be held or stored in anything. The idea of
storing it somehwere until it is needed is based on the assumption of its
having a time-dependence, and Tzozngkapa was enlightened enough to realize
that such time-dependence is not necessary.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Agreed, and too obvious for a comment.


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

JERRY: Agreed. This is a natural fallout from HPB's doctrine of evolution
through Globes and Planes.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Herein is explained the mystery of how karma can be extinguished. If
the old "eye for an eye" doctrine of Mosaic Law is true, then the above
statement can not be true. Thank God the Mosaic Law is wrong.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: This is in accord with G de Purucker who tells us that there is
physical karma, astral karma, mental karma, and so on.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Note the last sentence here. Here "mercy" and "justice" are
considered as two sides of a duality. Such a consideration is a purely human
conceptualization, but effective at the beginning of the Path.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Again, karma is time-dependent in the sense that effects follow
causes over time, but there are no rules as to when one particular cause
will culminate in an effect, and so on. Also, there is collective karma,
which produces its effects randomly just because one agrees to take part in
an evolutionary group.


<<<[PARA](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.

JERRY: Note that these three "fields of operation" are all located on the
lower four cosmic planes.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: This statement clearly demonstrates the immense complexity of karma,
which is a lot more complicated than the simplistic "eye for an eye"
business that is intended for children.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>>

JERRY: Note the statistical inferences in this one. There are NO hard and
fast rules being worked out.


<<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: When left to itself, karmic tendencies (a statistical term) can apply
for up to three entire lifetimes. But note here the implication that we can
use "measures of repression" (which delay but do not eliminate) or
"elimination" (Dallas, this speaks volumes on the ability to eliminate
karma, which is what I have been saying for years and you keep ignoring) or
"counteraction" (in which merit can deplete bad karma).



<<<<[PARA](27) Measures taken by an Ego to repress tendency, eliminate
defects, and to counteract by setting up different causes, will alter 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.>>>>

JERRY: This one underscores the Path and how it works. Again, Dallas, this
is exactly what I have been saying - this one clearly shows the falsity of
the "eye for an eye" crap.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: This idea is what finally turned me from Christian Science in my
early 20s after growing up in it. Christian Science teaches that sickness
and disease are ALWAYS wrong and should ALWAYS be cured. Not so.


<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: Note the phrase "law of Distribution" which is clearly statistical.
Each group or population has its statistical or group karma. Karma is a
statistical law, and as such, need not apply to individuals (and thus again
the falsity of "an eye for an eye").


<<<[PARA](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.>>>

JERRY: This one clearly links external environmental effects with human
mental causes, and thus strongly implies that the dualistic split between
subject and object is mayvic. Again, I have been saying this for some time.


<<<[PARA](31) Egos who have no Karmic connection with a portion of 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.[PARA]Path,
March, 1893>>>

JERRY: Here is an explanation of how the individual can "beat" the
statistical law of collective karma - environmental cataclyms are
manifestation of collective karma, which do NOT apply to individuals.

JERRY S.