Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00049)

Oct 7 2002

Dear Friends:
I notice that thee is some question about the law of karma being
associated with the quality of inevitability found on this Earth in
relation to the Law of Gravity.

May I offer the following from the writings of Mr. Judge ?

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Karma --


The Law of Cause and Effect -- Compensation


KARMA is a Sanskrit word, and is a name adopted by Theosophists for
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, that it is
only by paraphrase and copious explanation one can convey its meaning
in English. For that reason the Sanskrit term Karma was adopted to
designate it.

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.

Viewed from another point it is merely effect flowing from cause,
action and reaction, exact result for every thought and act. It is act
and the result of act; for the word's literal meaning is action.


KARMA: LAW of an INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE

Theosophy views the Universe as an intelligent whole, hence every
motion in the Universe is an action of that whole leading to results,
which themselves become causes for further results. Viewing it thus
broadly, the ancient Hindus said that every being up to Brahma was
under the rule of Karma.

It is not a being but a law, the universal law of harmony which
unerringly restores all disturbance to equilibrium. In this the theory
conflicts with the ordinary conception about God, built up from the
Jewish system, which assumes that the Almighty as a thinking entity,
extraneous to the Cosmos, builds up, finds his construction
inharmonious, out of proportion, errant, and disturbed, and then has
to pull down, destroy, or punish that which he created. This has
either caused thousands to live in fear of God, in compliance with his
assumed commands, with the selfish object of obtaining reward and
securing escape from his wrath, or has plunged them into darkness
which comes from a denial of all spiritual life. But as there is
plainly, indeed painfully, evident to every human being a constant
destruction going on in and around us, a continual war not only among
men but everywhere through the whole solar system, causing sorrow in
all directions, reason requires a solution of the riddle.

The poor, who see no refuge or hope, cry aloud to a God who makes no
reply, and then envy springs up in them when they consider the
comforts and opportunities of the rich. They see the rich profligates,
the wealthy fools, enjoying themselves unpunished. Turning to the
teacher of religion, they meet the reply to their questioning of the
justice which will permit such misery to those who did nothing
requiring them to be born with no means, no opportunities for
education, no capacity to overcome social, racial, or circumstantial
obstacles, "It is the will of God." Parents produce beloved offspring
who are cut off by death at an untimely hour, just when all promised
well. They too have no answer to the question "Why am I thus
afflicted?" but the same unreasonable reference to an inaccessible God
whose arbitrary will causes their misery.


KARMA AND JUSTICE

Thus in every walk of life, loss, injury, persecution, deprivation of
opportunity, nature's own forces working to destroy the happiness of
man, death, reverses, disappointment continually beset good and evil
men alike. But nowhere is there any answer or relief save in the
ancient truths that each man is the maker and fashioner of his own
destiny, the only one who sets in motion the causes for his own
happiness and misery. In one life he sows and in the next he reaps.

Thus on and forever, the law of Karma leads him. Karma is a beneficent
law wholly merciful, relentlessly just, for true mercy is not favor
but impartial justice.

"My brothers! each man's life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss. . . .
This is the doctrine of Karma."

How is the present life affected by that bygone right and wrong act,
and is it always by way of punishment? Is Karma only fate under
another name, an already fixed and formulated destiny from which no
escape is possible, and which therefore might make us careless of act
or thought that cannot affect destiny? It is not fatalism.

Everything done in a former body has consequences which in the new
birth the Ego must enjoy or suffer, for, as St. Paul said: "Brethren,
be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap." For the effect is in the cause, and Karma
produces the manifestation of it in the body, brain, and mind
furnished by reincarnation. And as a cause set up by one man has a
distinct relation to him as a center from which it came, so each one
experiences the results of his own acts. We may sometimes seem to
receive effects solely from the acts of others, but this is the result
of our own acts and thoughts in this or some prior life. We perform
our acts in company with others always, and the acts with their
underlying thoughts have relation always to other persons and to
ourselves.


THOUGHT AND CHOICE PRODUCES KARMA

No act is performed without a thought at its root either at the time
of performance or as leading to it. These thoughts are lodged in that
part of man which we have called Manas -- the mind, and there remain
as subtle but powerful links with magnetic threads that enmesh the
solar system, and through which various effects are brought out.

The theory put forward earlier, that the whole system to which this
globe belongs is alive, conscious on every plane, though only in man
showing self-consciousness, comes into play here to explain how the
thought under the act in this life may cause result in this or the
next birth. The marvellous modern experiments in hypnotism show that
the slightest impression, no matter how far back in the history of the
person, may be waked up to life, thus proving it is not lost but only
latent.

Take for instance the case of a child born humpbacked and very short,
the head sunk between the shoulders, the arms long and legs curtailed.
Why is this? His karma for thoughts and acts in a prior life. He
reviled, persecuted, or otherwise injured a deformed person so
persistently or violently as to imprint in his own immortal mind the
deformed picture of his victim. For in proportion to the intensity of
his thought will be the intensity and depth of the picture. It is
exactly similar to the exposure of the sensitive photographic plate,
whereby, just as the exposure is long or short, the impression in the
plate is weak or deep. So this thinker and actor -- the Ego -- coming
again to rebirth carries with him this picture, and if the family to
which he is attracted for birth has similar physical tendencies in its
stream, the mental picture causes the newly-forming astral body to
assume a deformed shape by electrical and magnetic osmosis through the
mother of the child. And as all beings on earth are indissolubly
joined together, the misshapen child is the karma of the parents also
an exact consequence for similar acts and thoughts on their part in
other lives. Here is an exactitude of justice which no other theory
will furnish.

But as we often see a deformed human being -- continuing the instance
merely for the purpose of illustration -- having a happy disposition,
an excellent intellect, sound judgment, and every good moral quality,
this very instance leads us to the conclusion that karma must be of
several different kinds in every individual case, and also evidently
operates in more than one department of our being, with the
possibility of being pleasant in effect for one portion of our nature
and unpleasant for another.


KARMA IS OF THREE SORTS:

FIRST -- that which has not begun to produce any effect in our lives
owing to the operation on us of some other karmic causes. This is
under a law well known to physicists, that two opposing forces tend to
neutrality, and that one force may be strong enough to temporarily
prevent the operation of another one.

This law works on the unseen mental and karmic planes or spheres of
being just as it does on the material ones. The force of a certain set
of bodily, mental, and psychical faculties with their tendencies may
wholly inhibit the operation on us of causes with which we are
connected, because the whole nature of each person is used in the
carrying out of this law. Hence the weak and mediocre furnish a weak
focus for karma, and in them the general result of a lifetime is
limited, although they may feel it all to be very heavy. But that
person who has a wide and deep-reaching character and much force will
feel the operation of a greater quantity of karma than the weaker
person.

SECOND -- that karma which we are now making or storing up by our
thoughts and acts, and which will operate in the future when the
appropriate body, mind, and environment are taken up by the
incarnating Ego in some other life, or whenever obstructive karma is
removed.

This bears both on the present life and the next one. For one may in
this life come to a point where, all previous causes being worked out,
new karma, or that which is unexpended, must begin to operate.
Under this are those cases where men have sudden reverses of fortune
or changes for the better either in circumstances or character.

A very important bearing of this is on our present conduct. While old
karma must work out and cannot be stopped, it is wise for the man to
so think and act now under present circumstances, no matter what they
are, that he shall produce no bad or prejudicial causes for the next
rebirth or for later years in this life. Rebellion is useless, for the
law works on whether we weep or rejoice. The great French engineer, de
Lesseps, is a good example of this class of karma. Raised to a high
pitch of glory and achievement for many years of his life, he suddenly
falls covered with shame through the Panama canal scandal. Whether he
was innocent or guilty, he has the shame of the connection of his name
with a national enterprise all besmirched with bribery and corruption
that involved high officials. This was the operation of old karmic
causes on him the very moment those which had governed his previous
years were exhausted. Napoleon I is another, for he rose to a very
great fame, then suddenly fell and died in exile and disgrace. Many
other cases will occur to every thoughtful reader.

THIRD -- that karma which has begun to produce results. It is the
operating now in this life on us of causes set up in previous lives in
company with other Egos. And it is in operation because, being most
adapted to the family stock, the individual body, astral body, and
race tendencies of the present incarnation, it exhibits itself
plainly, while other unexpended karma awaits its regular turn.

These three classes of karma govern men, animals, worlds, and periods
of evolution. Every effect flows from a cause precedent, and as all
beings are constantly being reborn they are continually experiencing
the effects of their thoughts and acts (which are themselves causes)
of a prior incarnation. And thus each one answers, as St. Matthew
says, for every word and thought; none can escape either by prayer, or
favor, or force, or any other intermediary.


KARMA OPERATES ON THREE PLANES OF OUR BEING

Now as karmic causes are divisible into three classes, they must have
various fields in which to work. They operate upon man in his mental
and intellectual nature, in his psychical or soul nature, and in his
body and circumstances. The spiritual nature of man is never affected
or operated upon by karma.

One species of karma may act on the three specified planes of our
nature at the same time to the same degree, or there may be a mixture
of the causes, some on one plane and some on another. Take a deformed
person who has a fine mind and a deficiency in his soul nature. Here
punitive or unpleasant karma is operating on his body while in his
mental and intellectual nature good karma is being experienced, but
psychically the karma, or cause, being of an indifferent sort the
result is indifferent. In another person other combinations appear. He
has a fine body and favorable circumstances, but the character is
morose, peevish, irritable, revengeful, morbid, and disagreeable to
himself and others. Here good physical karma is at work with very bad
mental, intellectual, and psychical karma. Cases will occur to readers
of persons born in high station having every opportunity and power,
yet being imbecile or suddenly becoming insane.


NATIONAL and RACIAL KARMA

And just as all these phases of the law of karma have sway over the
individual man, so they similarly operate upon races, nations, and
families. Each race has its karma as a whole. If it be good that race
goes forward. If bad it goes out -- annihilated as a race -- though
the souls concerned take up their karma in other races and bodies.
Nations cannot escape their national karma, and any nation that has
acted in a wicked manner must suffer some day, be it soon or late.

The karma of the nineteenth century in the West is the karma of
Israel, for even the merest tyro can see that the Mosaic influence is
the strongest in the European and American nations. The old Aztec and
other ancient American peoples died out because their own karma -- the
result of their own life as nations in the far past -- fell upon and
destroyed them.

With nations this heavy operation of karma is always through famine,
war, convulsion of nature, and the sterility of the women of the
nation. The latter cause comes near the end and sweeps the whole
remnant away. And the individual in race or nation is warned by this
great doctrine that if he falls into indifference of thought and act,
thus molding himself into the general average karma of his race or
nation, that national and race karma will at last carry him off in the
general destiny. This is why teachers of old cried, "Come ye out and
be ye separate."

With reincarnation the doctrine of karma explains the misery and
suffering of the world, and no room is left to accuse Nature of
injustice.

The misery of any nation or race is the direct result of the thoughts
and acts of the Egos who make up the race or nation. In the dim past
they did wickedly and now suffer. They violated the laws of harmony.
The immutable rule is that harmony must be restored if violated. So
these Egos suffer in making compensation and establishing the
equilibrium of the occult cosmos. The whole mass of Egos must go on
incarnating and reincarnating in the nation or race until they have
all worked out to the end the causes set up.

Though the nation may for a time disappear as a physical thing, the
Egos that made it do not leave the world, but come out as the makers
of some new nation in which they must go on with the task and take
either punishment or reward as accords with their karma. Of this law
the old Egyptians are an illustration. They certainly rose to a high
point of development, and as certainly they were extinguished as a
nation. But the souls -- the old Egos -- live on and are now
fulfilling their self-made destiny as some other nation now in our
period.

They may be the new American nation, or the Jews fated to wander up
and down in the world and suffer much at the hands of others. This
process is perfectly just. Take, for instance, the United States and
the Red Indians. The latter have been most shamefully treated by the
nation. The Indian Egos will be reborn in the new and conquering
people, and as members of that great family will be the means
themselves of bringing on the due results for such acts as were done
against them when they had red bodies. Thus it has happened before,
and so it will come about again.



INDIVIDUAL UNHAPPINESS IN ANY LIFE IS EXPLAINED:

(a) It is punishment for evil done in past lives; or

(b) it is discipline taken up by the Ego for the purpose of
eliminating defects or acquiring fortitude and sympathy. When defects
are eliminated it is like removing the obstruction in an irrigating
canal which then lets the water flow on.

Happiness is explained in the same way: the result of prior lives of
goodness.


ETHICS and MORALS

The scientific and self-compelling basis for right ethics is found in
these and in no other doctrines. For if right ethics are to be
practised merely for themselves, men will not see why, and have never
been able to see why, for that reason they should do right. If ethics
are to be followed from fear, man is degraded and will surely evade;
if the favor of the Almighty, not based on law or justice, be the
reason, then we will have just what prevails today -- a code given by
Jesus to the west professed by nations and not practised save by the
few who would in any case be virtuous.

On this subject the Adepts have written the following to be found in
the Secret Doctrine:

"Nor would the ways of karma be inscrutable were men to work in union
and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those
ways -- which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence dark
and intricate, while another sees in them the action of blind
fatalism, and a third simple chance with neither gods nor devils to
guide them -- would surely disappear if we would but attribute all
these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate
with a confident conviction that our neighbors will no more work harm
to us than we would think of harming them, two-thirds of the world's
evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother,
Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for nor weapons to act
through. . . . We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily
with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on
the royal high road of respectability and duty, and then complain of
those ways beings so intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before
the mystery of our own making and the riddles of life that we will not
solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily
there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day or a
misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or
another life. . . . Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if --

'virtue in distress and vice in triumph
Make atheists of Mankind',

it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the great
truth that man is himself his own saviour as his own destroyer; that
he need not accuse heaven and the gods, fates and providence, of the
apparent injustice that reigns in the midst of humanity. But let him
rather remember and repeat this bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man
to forbear accusing That which

'Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment'

-- which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward the
great European nations. The western Aryans had every nation and tribe
like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their Golden and their
Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya
age of purity, while now several of them have reached their Iron age,
the Kali Yuga, an age black with horrors. This state will last . . .
until we begin acting from within instead of ever following impulses
from without . . . Until then the only palliative is union and
harmony -- a Brotherhood in actu and altruism not simply in name."



These statements are extracted from Mr. W. Q. Judge's The OCEAN OF
THEOSOPHY
(Available at http://www.blavatsky.net and at Theosophy Company, Los
Angeles

D T B