Theos-Talk Archives (December 2001 Message tt00043)

Tuesday, December 04, 2001

Dear Friend:

Let me add to this the APHORISMS on KARMA -- which can be of
help to us all

Dallas

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

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 adjustment
is 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
wrapped up 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, 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.


(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 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.


Path, March, 1893


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

----Original Message-----
From: G s M k
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 12:28 PM
To:
Subject RE: Karma an important Law of Nature

Hello Friends,

I ran across this and thought I would share with all...maybe we
could
discuss the HOW TO -- to dissolve or purify the "bad karma" from
our past and
present life?


(Wm. Q. Judge, Ocean of Theosophy, p. 89)

"Karma...one of the most important of the laws of nature.
Ceaseless in its
operation, it bears alike upon planets, systems of planets,
races, nations,
families, and individuals. It is the twin doctrine to
reincarnation. So
inextricably interlaced are these two laws that it is almost
impossible to
properly consider one apart from the other. No spot or being in
the universe
is exempt from the operation of Karma, but all are under its
sway, punished
for error by it yet beneficently led on, through discipline,
rest, and
reward, to the distant heights of perfection. It is a law so
comprehensive in
its sweep, embracing at once our physical and our moral being.

Applied to man's moral life it is the law of ethical causation,
justice,
reward and punishment; the cause for birth and rebirth, yet
equally the means
for escape from incarnation.


M. G.



CUT