Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00009)

Friday, April 04, 2003


OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY -- Chapter. 11

-- KARMA -- Questions and Answers


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11	CHAPTER	11


KARMA


DEFINITION of the word.
An unfamiliar term.
A beneficent law.
How present life is affected by past acts of other lives.
Each act has a thought at its root.
Through Manas they react on each personal life.
Why people are born deformed or in bad circumstances.
The three classes of Karma and its three fields of operation.
National and Racial Karma.
Individual unhappiness and happiness.
The Master's words on Karma.


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QUESTIONS and ANSWERS



Q. With regard to "the persistence of savagery"; are those in savage
tribes souls of lesser experience?

A. In the nature of evolution-an unfolding from within outwards-there
must be souls of lesser experience, whose bodies and environment
correspond to their so-far acquired nature. On the other hand there
are diminishing physical tribes of which the Australian aborigines are
an example, where the more advanced egos have incarnated in other
races, leaving the use of that physical line to the less advanced. As
the latter in due course leave the physical race, those remaining,
being less capable, cause the physical strain to deteriorate, so that
only the lowest class of intelligences of that tribe or race occupy
such bodies. Finally, the physical race dies out through sterility,
the egos connected with it having incarnated in other races.


Q. What about the Mexicans?

A. There are many classes of egos among the Mexicans as there are in
every present-day race; the families are mixed, and races are mixed.
In Mexico there are to be seen the results of a mixture of European
blood with that of the decadent remains of ancient American
civilizations; necessarily under karma, those who came from European
strains and mixed with the native ones, are caught in the lines of
their own causations and have to work it out by either eliminating the
defects of the strain, or going down with it from bad to worse.


Q. But the Mexicans show strong patriotism?

A. In that respect they are no different from people of other races.
Patriotism does not come from mere birth into any race, but from the
karmic affinity of the ego for that race; the feeling is there in all
such cases, hut the actions that flow from that feeling are not often
understood, not wisely applied; the sense of separate ness rules
there, as in all more or less ignorant "personalities" of every race.


Q. Is there then such a thing as Intelligent Patriotism ?

A. There must be, as the opposite to unintelligent patriotism which
can he seen on every hand.


Q. Could a definition of Intelligent Patriotism be given?

A. The question is one of Intelligence as applied to patriotism. A
very ignorant man may have a strong patriotic feeling which may be
aroused to inconsiderate action by himself or through the incitement
of others. A more intelligent man would have a wider range of
perception and action and yet concur in national sentiment and action
against other nations with what he as an individual would consider
wrong as against another individual; both of these cases are basically
wrong. A truly intelligent patriotism would consider the individual as
an integral part of the nation to which he belonged; the nation as an
integral part of the assemblage of nations which constitute humanity
as a whole. As every individual is born into a physical body through
parents of some race or nation, and thus into the world of men, the
karma of each such birth indicates the opportunity of one so born to
eradicate in himself the defects of the family through which he came,
and through the family the defects of the nation, for national defects
are the sum total of all the individuals composing it, and the
eradication of these defects begins and ends with the individual.
Intelligent patriotism would therefore consist in doing our whole duty
in that station where our karma has placed us, to our family, and to
humanity as being made up of individuals, families and nations, while
recognizing all as being the same in kind and differing only in
degree. If our family duties are well and wisely per formed, our
duties to tile nation and to humanity would to a great extent take
care of themselves. By "family duties" and "national duties" is not
meant false attachments to family or nation as a means of pride,
pleasure-hunting or sensuality, but cultivating and elevating the
higher sentiments and emotions of ourselves and of our family and
utilizing them for the performance of our duty to tile nation and
humanity in general.


Q. It seems to be a hopeless task?

A. It seems hopeless because individuals will not apply the remedy in
themselves; we would like to wait until the race has improved and then
we would fail into line with it, but never has a race or people
improved without strong and continued efforts by individuals who have
seen a better way and exemplify and impart it. It was said of old that
"a little leaven soon leaveneth the whole lump ;" those who have the
"leaven" must first apply it in themselves before it can begin to work
in others.


Q. The chapter speaks of a deficient or bad ego; what does that mean?

A. There are many classes of egos. We should remember all the time
that egos are evolving; that some Were self-conscious beings when this
world of ours began, and that others have become human beings since
that beginning and up to the middle point of the Third Race. Besides,
the fact that there are bad and deficient men in physical existence
points to badness and deficiency in egos, for it is the egos who
incarnate.


Q. I have understood that the ego is immortal and spiritual in nature!

A. The ego is spiritual and immortal in essential nature, but as he
possesses the power to perceive and to act and exemplifies the law of
action and reaction in himself, as he works from higher to lower
planes of substance he becomes involved in the lower planes through
attachment to them and suffers accordingly until he overcomes his
unwisdom and asserts and uses his real nature on the lower planes. As
egos, we are only partially operative in bodies; Manas is not yet
fully employed by us as a race; each incarnation is but one aspect of
our past existences, we have to make the link between higher and
lower, while we are in a body.


Q. What would be the outcome if an ego while in a body continued a
course of degeneracy and evil for life after life!

A. In such a case, the force of the tendencies set in motion would in
time break the link between the ego and his instrument during some
life-time, and the instrument with the momentum given it would be an
entity without a human soul. There are such creatures in the world,
human in form, but soul-less.


Q. Are we drawing on all our Karmic store during any one life!

A. In the life of worlds, races, nations, and individuals, Karma
cannot act unless there is an appropriate instrument for its action,
and until such instrument exists, that Karma related to it remains
unexpended. While a man is experiencing phases of his past karma
through body, conditions and environment, his other unexpended karma
is held reserved until body, conditions and environment permit the
unexpended karma to operate. Lapse of time does not cause any
lessening of the force of karma, nor does it change its nature.


Q. Must each life express only one phase or class of Karma?

A. Not necessarily. Changes may occur in the instrument during one
life so as to make it appropriate for a new class of karma. This may
take place in two ways; (a) through intensity of thought and the power
of a vow to think and do differently, and (b) through natural
alterations due to the complete exhaustion of old causes.


Q. What determines the karmic tendency of any one life?

A. Birth into any sort of body to obtain the results of any sort of
Karma is due to the preponderance of tendencies existing.


Q. When one is born into the world with certain tendencies that are
seen to be undesirable, what can be done to change them and what would
be the e of such effort?

A. 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.


Q. Different sorts of Karma were spoken of; what was meant by the
statement?

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


Q. Is the body and its circumstances the field of operation of Karma?

A. There are three fields of operation of Karma, (a) the body and the
circumstances; (b) the mind and intellect; and (c) the psychic and
astral planes. As body, 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.


Q. Are any beings free from Karma?

A. None whatever; Karma operates on all things and all beings from the
minutest conceivable atom up to the highest being. No spot in the
manifested universe is exempt from its sway, for manifestation means
action, and action brings its exact results. Karma is the inherent law
of power to act in every being of every grade; in each case the power
to act is exercised according to the degree of intelligence acquired.
The Universe is embodied Consciousness.


Q. Race-Karma, National Karma, and Family Karma have been spoken
about; what do these terms mean?

A. As all beings are the same in kind-that is, spiritual in essence
and source-all are connected on inner planes, and each one affects all
the rest in a helpful or hindering way. Race Karma influences each
unit in the race through this law of cause and effect by distribution.
National Karma operates on the members of a nation through the same
law more concentrated. Family Karma governs only with a nation where
the families have been kept pure and distinct; for in any nation where
there is a mixture of family-as obtains in every Kali Yuga
period-family karma is in general distributed over a nation. All men,
flaying the same principles as constituents of their nature, are
connected by both inner and outer principles of their being; they
therefore affect each other in subtle and unperceived ways, as well as
by the external ways which are ordinarily perceived.


Q. If all beings of every grade are affected by the dynamic power of
human thought and feeling, we, as human beings, must a the lower
kingdoms which constitute the earth upon which we live?

A. Such is the teaching. Cataclysms of nature are brought about by the
separative and destructive effects of selfish and wrong thinking by
human beings. A cataclysm may be traced to a physical cause such as
internal fire and atmospheric disturbance, but these have been brought
on by the disturbance created by the dynamic power of human thought.
Some hint of this is to be found in the writings of St. Paul when he
speaks of the whole of creation groaning in travail because of the
iniquities of man.


Q. Do all bunion beings have to suffer in such cataclysms?

A. No. 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 which induces them to
move elsewhere, or (h) by being warned by those who watch the progress
of the world.


Q. How can the actions of men produce convulsions of nature (p. 96)?

A. Through their cumulative effect upon the psychic nature of
elemental beings. Karma is the key-note of all conditions, for it
governs the smallest atom as well as the highest spiritual being. The
elementals of the mineral kingdom, and of the kingdoms below that (the
elementals proper) are psychic embryos." Every thought of man upon
being evolved passes into the inner world, and becomes an active
entity by coalescing with an elemental-that is to say, with one of the
semi-conscious forces of the kingdoms. It survives as an active
intelligence-a creature of the mind's begetting. Thus a good thought
is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power; an evil one as a
maleficent demon. The automatically acting brain stores up only brute
energies, and begets correlations that are unfruitful of benefit, at
last bringing about convulsions in nature. It is analogous to
combinations of chemicals produced by scientific minds-antagonistic
elements held in leash, which at last a spark suffices to release and
bring about terrific explosions.


Q. And similarly, man's actions or Karma can bring about beneficial
effects in the lower kingdoms of nature?

A. It is man who is the real motive and directing power in this
universe, for he is at the head, being self-conscious, with the power
of acquiring qualities, of understanding the natures of all beings,
and of manipulating the lower natures. It devolves on him so to use
those natures as to bring about the best results for all the beings
concerned in the stream of evolution which makes up this earth and
solar system. Man has produced many combinations and transformations
in the lower kingdoms, not possible to them of their un aided powers,
which are beneficent.


Q. Then man is a creator in a far wider sense than We are accustomed
to think

A. Undoubtedly. The impulse to action in the lower kingdoms originally
proceeds from him. The conscious action of the lower kingdoms all
proceeds from man. After the action there is always the reaction. The
elements, the "air, water, fire and earth," or any portion or
combination of these, all have their reactions upon us. We experience
those reactions from the elements because of our attitude towards them
and use of them, for we are the ones who induce them to act whether in
a beneficent or maleficent way. Tornadoes, earthquakes, sufferings of
any kind such as wars or strife, either in the elements or amongst
men, are all produced by man.


Q. You spoke of the "automatically acting brain"; is there another
kind of action possible with our brains?

A. Certainly. In the one case there is but brute force stored up and
flung out without any transmutation of that brute energy into higher
forms of dynamics. In the other, the intellection of the truly
scientifically occupied brain, there is the evolution of a sublimated
form of spiritual energy which, cosmically speaking, is productive of
illimitable results for good. The human brain may be used as an
exhaustless generator of higher forms of energy from lower. The adept
does not create anything new; he only transforms the materials in
nature The one wastes and debases the creative power; the other
conserves and elevates the natures of all.


Q. There would seem to be no limit to any one's responsibility

A. There isn't. Whenever and whatever any one thinks or does, he
cannot do so without affecting other beings, whether human beings or
beings below or above, as every action is felt throughout the whole of
the universe in some degree. He gets the reaction in his own moral
nature from the lines of his mental action; and at the same time he
will he physically acting along the same lines, affecting others for
good or evil both on the inner and the outer planes of action; then he
gets the physical reaction.


Q. Then there is never any injustice?

A. There is no injustice. What we see as apparent injustice seems so
because we do not see the causes which have produced the present ill
effects. If we have no knowledge of our own real nature and the Law of
Karma that is inherent in it, then the feeling can only be that we
have received injustice, and we harbor hatred and resentments. What
prevents our understanding these things is mainly that we do not know
what we are here for. We look at things from a one-life basis, and
finding ourselves in this life we imagine it is something we had
nothing to do with. Seeing others, according to our view, more
fortunate than ourselves, we want to know why, and no answer being
possible on the basis we have assumed, we assume that we are receiving
injustice. If Karma is the doctrine of responsibility, Reincarnation
is the doctrine of hope. The two go together. The reason we are on
earth, according to the Occult teaching: we are not here because of
our virtues; we are here because of our defects. The "personality" is
really the working off of defects. If we do not learn what the object
of life is, and don't do the work, then we are only creating more
defects to adjust, and more trouble for ourselves.


Q. Who is to be the judge of a man's motives in what he feels and what
he does?

A. The man himself. But he must forget himself if he is to judge
truly. No judge can be impartial if he has any self-interest in his
own decisions. So if we have any self-interest in our decisions we
cannot judge our motives; we can only judge them aright when we seek
nothing for ourselves. The best guide and the greatest protection any
man can have is a firm desire to benefit humanity and seek nothing for
himself.


Q. By punishing those who have earned punishment, do we not aid Karma,
and become an agent of justice?

A. No. The Bible has many occult sayings. You know the one which says,
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord (Law). The Law takes
care of its own. We do not have to make ourselves instruments of
vengeance. We have in our modern civilization our means of taking
vengeance; but as a matter of fact our means are errant, imperfect,
and injurious. The taking of the life of a fellow being for having
killed another, is no more justified when done by a number of men than
was the first murder. That is wrong, but to sequester the murderer so
that he can not continue to injure others, is quite another story.


Q. Do we injure others with our hatred?

A. No man can feel hatred and not injure others.


Q. But if our own thoughts are such that there is no hatred in us, we
would not be affected by the hatred of another?

A. That is the whole story. If a man thinks and feels toward his
fellow-men without either hatred or revenge in him, nothing of that
kind can touch him.


Q. If one affected by the action of another has no desire to injure
that other, does that mitigate the action for that other?

A. Of course it does. But there are two propositions there. The one
who has been injured is reaping what he has sown or he could not have
been injured. But he may, by his change of nature and attitude and his
desire to cease injuring others, refuse to do any evil in return. But
the one who inflicts or still holds the injury gets all the reactions
that flow from that attitude. He has not changed; he is still the same
nature; still has the same desire. Oftentimes when one does injury to
another and gets no return in kind, he is more incensed than ever. You
cannot make another feel differently unless he wants to. So, while we
may be thinking kindly of another, we cannot change his feelings. He
alone can do that. So we might help him and we might not; hut at all
events we get the benefit of the effect of our own beneficent
attitude. If we do not affect the other favorably it is because he is
so infected (not affected) that we cannot help him. It all depends on
the nature of the recipient; on the "nature of the beast." Take a
rattlesnake. No man, however kind his feelings, could change that
snake's nature.


Q. But if it is our Karma to have bad and revengeful feelings and
thoughts, then we cannot help acting that way?

A. Yes we can. Karma is present action as well as the present effect
of former acting. While we may not always be able to affect the
attitude of another, we can, as just said, always affect our own
attitude. If we could not we would be mere machines, mere creatures of
our past, not Creators in the present. We ought to know that, for
anybody knows better than to inflict injury. He recognizes what is
harmful to another, but if he is so selfish that he does not care, he
becomes a destructive force, not a creative one; and must take the
reaction. "Evil must be in the world, but woe to him by whom evil
comes." Woe to those who make themselves the agent through whom evil
Karma acts, because it is their own nature that is played upon in that
case.


Q. What does it mean to be Karma-less?

A. All that is Karma-less is that in us which lives and thinks, the
Perceiver, the Real Man. He is the institutor and the experiencer of
all Karma. There is no Karma unless he makes it. He is not changed by
Karma, neither made greater nor less; but while attached to action
(Karma) or in a body and circumstances created by him, he experiences
all that flows from the actions to which he is attached, until he
ceases from the attachment to that kind of action. He gets whatever
experiences his actions in that body bring him.


Q. The OCEAN says that certain entities through wickedness are
annihilated. Does that refer to the Eco?

A. How could it, if the Ego, the real Man, is not affected permanently
by action? Let us look at it in this way: An Ego, or spiritual being,
has been so wholly wicked in his actions for many incarnations that
there is not a kind thought or feeling of any kind; nothing but brutal
and selfish thoughts, producing only pain and suffering in the world.
His works are destroyed: the personality built up by that kind of
thought and feeling. Nothing of that personality can be attached to or
assimilated by the spiritual being. His attitude having been wholly
against the rest, the motion of the whole must at
last crush that kind of works (Karma) out of existence. That does not
destroy the Ego, but it destroys his works, his accumulation of
experiences. It throws him out of his place, and he has to start again
from where he was before his evil courses began, for that is where he
be longs. The Ego cannot be annihilated; but his incarnations may be
of such a nature as to be lost and he be thrown out of a certain
stream and have to go back to the place where he left the line and
begin again. But the real Man remains and his real works; that is, the
acquired wisdom and the acquired experience. He may lose a lot of
leaves out of the Book of Life, but He remains.


Q. But there must be Karma to bring that Ego back' again?

A. He gets the Karma of having to go back to the mental deposits
stored up in long previous incarnations, whether on this globe or some
other, and starting afresh on a line based on those mental de posits.
He has lost a vast amount of time and effort, and experienced a vast
amount of fruitless suffering- fruitless of good, that is, its only
effect being destructive of all his works. And he has to overcome the
tendencies he has engendered, when he comes into incarnation again-the
tendencies to repeat.


Q. This seems somewhat confusing.

A. There should be no confusion if you keep in mind the idea of the
Individuality-the permanent spiritual being, the reincarnating Ego,
which is the Triad of Atma-Buddhi-Manas. Lower Manas-the personality-
is the outlook upon physical existence which Higher Manas has, as the
result of his thought and action on the physical plane of life. He may
change that outlook, or he may lose it, and begin a new series of
efforts; or in some cases he may be thrown out for that incarnation or
for a great period and have to incarnate in a new period, under
conditions of ignorance instead of knowledge. That, too, is his Karma;
the evil results engendered by his own former actions. The only basis
he would have would be the tendencies he had en gendered; and these he
would have to conquer.


Q. Cannot this fate be avoided?

A. Only by a change of basis; the adoption of a better course of
action. Any attempt to "avoid" the re suits of our own actions only
results in a stronger re action; because by attempting to avoid, we
merely store up or hold back that force which would naturally have
exhausted itself in its own period.


Q. What really is the cause of Karma?

A. Karma is first, last and all the time, action; and we cannot
understand Karma until we grasp the idea that the whole of the
universe is intelligence, expressing itself in myriads of forms and in
many ways. It is the action of intelligence that produces all the
effects perceived on this plane of existence.


Q. How does that statement apply to the individual?

A. Individually each one is Karma, for he is both the actor and the
one who receives the results that proceed from his action. Karma is
never an outside force, nor any being nor beings; it is the collective
actions of beings with which we have placed ourselves in some
relation, but that relation is wholly individual on our part. We set
certain causes in motion and are bound to experience the results that
flow from those causes, for every motion in the universe affects other
beings in every direction, and there is always the reaction upon the
point of disturbance. We must of necessity be the adjuster.


Q. Then Karma is the force that moves the individual's action?

A. We make a mistake in thinking that "forces" do anything of
themselves. Forces are operative all the time; but no number of forces
will set us right when we are acting wrongly. Intelligence, moved in
proper or improper directions, is the real actor, and we ourselves are
that intelligence. If our intelligence is not operated rightly, then
no other intelligence can help us. If there are beneficent and
powerful forces, the only way we can work with them and benefit from
them is by raising ourselves up to their plane of operation. So with
malignant and destructive forces: the only way we can get into the
line of their power is by ourselves being malignant and destructive.


Q. The Lipika are mentioned in the Secret Doc trine as Lords of Karma,
as recorders of Karma. It would seem as if they were outside beings.

A. No, the Lipika are not personal beings, al though that idea has
been given currency by many "theosophical" students who have entirely
misapprehended the statements in the Secret Doctrine. That such beings
practically "manipulate" Karma is foreign to the whole teaching. There
are as component parts of every human being, principles, which are
drawn from the seven great hierarchies of being. Action, whenever
taken, is taken with, through, and felt by one or the other or all of
these principles, and there is registration of the general and
individual effect produced-all that is good and all that is bad-among
those hierarchies to which the principles belong. The action finds its
own place and focus of reaction. Each hierarchy has its own
individuality as a mass; individuality is not characteristic of the
units. Hence, the Lipika may be regarded as the re cording points of
the general and individual effects of Karma; though this statement
requires as a mode of explanation, geometry, which is an expression in
form of the reaction of all the forces in nature.


Q. How, then, can we become Karma-less?

A. We can never become Karma-less, in the sense of being free from
Karma, for Karma operates on every being from the smallest atom to the
highest being in the universe. But when we cease acting in any way for
personal benefit, when the cause is always universal in its action,
then the effects are commensurate with the law. We are Karma-less
because we are not dispensing the law; we are only agents of it and
focuses of it.


Q. Could an individual eliminate himself from the national Karma of a
selfish nation?

A. A nation is made selfish by the individuals in it, and selfishness
will make war between individuals, classes of men, or masses of men
since war begins within the man, not outside of him. But if an
individual does not assent to the selfish ideas that rule his nation
nor to the methods pursued in accordance with them, and if he protests
against them wherever he can, then he is not connected with them. He
is amongst it all under Karma, and whatever Karma is due him from his
connection in the first place he will receive, but he has cut the
connection with the national idea so far as any future Karma is
concerned.


Q. Are not all the workers in socialism, in labor unions and in
similar lines helping to mitigate the national Karma?

A. Doubtless they are all sincere in their devotion and
self-sacrificing for it, but what permanent betterment can come if
they are working for wrong things in a wrong way? Their motive is
wholly concerned with physical existence, prosperity, ease, comfort.
No attempt along those lines can ever bring any lasting benefit, as
witness various so-called reforms that have come and gone-reformers
with them. Where are their sacrifices? We all proceed from the same
Source and are all traveling toward the same goal; but we shall not
get right methods and right relations until we
understand our own natures, and act in accordance with them. That is
the only way we can mitigate either national or individual Karma.


Q. But if every one had an education he might be able to understand
these things?

A. One's education makes no essential difference. Any man can
understand justice. He can understand that merit is the only thing
that can bring merit, and he can understand enough to do his duty to
his family and to all others. Generally speaking, men think the world
owes them a living, opportunity, education. All that we need to
consider is that we owe the world our service. The situation of every
man depends on what his nature actually is. If a man is good and just
and noble in his mind, he doesn't require better conditions to bring
it out. The mere living under educational advantages does not mean
knowledge, or under standing of the causes of oppression. Moreover, no
person, with the disposition to learn will fail to find a way to
learn, regardless of conditions.


Q. What, then, prevents men from understanding right and wrong, and
this justice we call Karma!

A. They take the position of irresponsibility, by resentment at
supposed injustice; they expect to reap where they did not sow; they
are looking for some thing for themselves. So they are ready to listen
to any or all of the various panaceas offered, and go after whatever
promises something for nothing. They do not look within; they are not
humble; they do not ask what is the purpose of the Inner Man; how is
it they are as they are, and not in some other place under other
conditions.


Q. Do you feel that the understanding of these ideas of Karma and
Reincarnation alone can save the nation from internal troubles?

A. It is the only way out. Until men understand that they are here not
for once, that whatever they receive they have merited, we shall have
just as much and worse trouble than that we have already had, for the
longer it goes on the more intense will be the reactions. But, perhaps
men will listen to these obvious self-evident truths only when there
has been such an absolute subversion and destruction that they have to
stop and think. How the Masters would if They could, save humanity!
They have done all they can. The Message is here, and it is our only
hope. Jesus said, "0, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered thee under
my wing as a hen doth her chickens, but ye would not." And Jerusalem
was destroyed. We need not think there is not the same danger for us.
There is nothing in our civilization that is enduring--of railroads,
books, buildings-not a single relic would be left after a hundred
years. So if there are those who have eyes to see, who have ears to
hear and who can understand, let them work in sea son and out of
season to put these ideas before their fellow-men, that the ideas may
spread and make others think.


Q. Then the understanding of a comparatively few individuals would
make for right conditions?

A. Let them try it out. Right conditions can only come where
individuals will "follow the Path." Who, then, is going to do it?
There is no one holding any one back from exhibiting a true Theosophic
life. But what is first needed is the understanding of the Theosophic
life. It can be lived anywhere, alone or in crowds, for it is a life
of right ideas. The only way to better conditions is through better
ideas. Bettering conditions without bettering ideas merely puts men in
a place more favorable for acting on wrong ideas and gives them
opportunity for exploiting their selfishness.


Q. Would not the mere desire to aid suffering humanity finally open a
door for action?

A. If we really desire to help humanity and forget our selves, working
for others with no thought of success or failure or reward, the doors
will open to us as soon as we are ready. That is Law.


Q. If one desires benefit for the whole, he him self benefits by that
desire?

A. We should remember that a desire is not a condition. A mere desire
does not go very far unless we establish the conditions that cause the
desire to be potent or active. If we desire to benefit humanity, the
question is, What are we doing to produce that benefit? What we have
to do is to stop thinking about ourselves, stop figuring for
ourselves, stop thinking how we are going to come out. For this "we"
is personality, which is always changing, from year to year, month to
month, from day to day.


Q. When our Karma does not permit us to take any active part in
ameliorating the stress of world conditions, what should be our
attitude of mind toward them.

A. It is to maintain a cheerful, calm, confident attitude, realizing
that the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly
small; that Karma is causing adjustments to come about which must
bring a realization, in some degree at least, of universal
brotherhood, not possible under any other conditions. But if we sit
despondent and say there is nothing to do and no use in doing
anything, because people are selfish and never will see, nothing can
be done. We must always be confident in the greatest determination to
hold the right attitude on the basis of thought which Theosophy
presents, working always for right, for principle, for freedom of
Soul.


Q. Yet working on that basis does not bring good Karma, as judged by
the Karma of Jesus on the cross.

A. The question is not whether we are working for good Karma or bad
Karma, but are we trying to do the right thing. In the case of a Being
like Jesus, it is necessary at times to take a body of the race, that
He may communicate with the people, teach them and help them as only
can be done through a body similar to their own. He takes the body of
a family, necessarily, and fulfils his Karma as a member of that
family, physically considered. He mitigates the family or the race
Karma, merely by experiencing their bodily Karma, and in correcting
family defects lifts so much the higher that family Karma.


Q. He ended that Karma. then and there?

A. So far as that body was concerned. But even the highest Being who
enters into a physical body to deliver a message, by His very attitude
and by His very action, and by the Message He is to bring, finds
Himself at variance with the established order of things, and reaps
insult, slander, vilification, and mal treatment from all those who
oppose Him. Does He earn this? No; it is not His Karma, but the Karma
of those who persecute, slander and maltreat Him.


Q. Would a Theosophist fear to do evil on account of the bad Karma
coming to himself.

A. He would fear to do evil, not because of the bad Karma that would
come to him, but because he knows better than to do evil. He knows
only to do good, and if he does evil he must necessarily fear, for the
consequences are sure, and the fact is before him that the evil is not
only at his own expense, personally considered, but must reproduce
itself upon other un suspecting persons who are inclined that way. Was
it not Jesus who said, "As ye mete unto others, so shall it be meted
unto you, so measured unto you again, heaped up, pressed down and
running over?" If we are Theosophists, then we know how to count the
cost, and we are able to figure up beforehand the compound interest
that goes with evil actions. Nor, on the other hand, should we be
looking for protection for our selves against evil doing, but so think
and act that no protection is needed; nothing but right can touch us
if we think right, act right, and feel right. Wrong comes to us in no
other way than by our thinking evilly and selfishly.


Q. The spiritual nature of man is never affected by Karma.

A. No; the Unchanging Spirit in man is not affected in its nature, or
changed by anything it may experience, but it has its increase of
power and knowledge through various phases of evolution and
advancement. Let us not make the mistake of looking for any finality
but rather from the point of view of continuous progression. A state
of perfection as a finality would be stagnation. In an infinite
universe there are infinite opportunities, and whatever heights of
knowledge or power may be attained, there must always be further
fields beyond.


Q. Is it the tendency of Karma to always restore equilibrium, so that
at the end of a Mahamanvantara the whole of the Karma between beings
would be adjusted, or equilibrium absolutely restored?

A. There is not so much a complete readjustment, in the sense that all
beings are individually readjusted, as there is a stoppage of
interaction of the whole mass. Just so, when our physical action
ceases by reason of the death of the body, Karma is not yet
readjusted, but awaits our return into a body again where we may go on
with it. There must always be for any evolution effects not yet
adjusted. The rate of progress of any being is in accordance with the
progress of the whole mass during the manvantara; so his progress is
shared or controlled by the universal Karma of which he is a Part. At
the end of a manvantara, then, there may be said to be a period of
assimilation, rather than one of entire adjustment, which, however,
enables an other basis to be taken by the whore mass of beings
involved.


Q. Then Karma is just suspended for the time?

A. Yes; for time is not a factor in the adjustment of Karma. It is a
question of conditions.


Q. But is it not possible to find the time of reaction from a cause
previously set up?

A. Purely physical reactions can, of course, be so checked up, but
when we come to mental reactions, the time involved is affected by the
conditions in which we put ourselves or find ourselves. We make the
favorable condition for reaction. Karma may be existent, in the sense
that the causation has gone forth and the effect felt by others, but
we may not yet be in that condition where we can make the adjustment,
because other Karma is operating so strongly as to hold this
particular reaction back. It is said that he who understands Karma
under stands the limits of time, and he who understands the limits of
time understands Karma, but that under standing will not be ours until
we understand the Operation of causes, nor is it necessary. If we
could now know exactly when the rebound of an action would come, we
should probably spend all our time figuring just what we could do to
dodge it, to improve it, or to arrange just the right condition in
which to receive it. The thing to do is to meet anything and
everything exactly as it comes. We should not take the position of
providing money for a rainy day, which is just a fig- tiring for
ourselves. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Take care of
today. Never mind the next hour. Take care of this one. Take care of
every moment, every hour, as it comes along, fearing nothing, doubting
nothing, in f till confidence, relying on the Law of our own natures.
If we feel our responsibility and ac quit ourselves as best we can for
the good of all with out taking any thought as to what the effect will
be to ourselves, then we shall be adjusting and working out Karma in
the best possible way.


Q. Can not very good Karma quickly overcome the effects of evil?

A. No, it cannot ; the effects of each must run their course, although
two classes of Karma, equally strong, if of opposite nature, would
neutralize for the time being and permit the operation of a weaker
class of Karma. But if we are talking of the effects felt through a
body, we may know that they are only a small portion of Karma. No
matter what the Karma, however bad or detrimental, however good, if
the attitude of the one going through it is right, it comes as an
opportunity. The only way we can lessen the effects of bad Karma is to
take the right attitude toward it. When good times come, we can sow
good causes; when bad times come, we still can try to sow good causes,
using the opportunity to gain strength, courage, and under standing of
life. We seem to be always trying to avoid evil Karma, and get good
Karma for ourselves, where as what we should do is to make use of
everything as it comes. In this way, we pay our debts to a debtor we
cannot avoid-ourselves. We don't put effort into trying to avoid
anything, but go right to work on what is before us. Then the soul
begins to act, the will begins to act, and the power of the will is
increased. There is no will operating with a shifting, veering
personality, afraid of this, and of that, fearful that it won't be
able to stand this or that. Only the feeling of responsibility will
lift us out of those personal considerations.


Q. The very best Karma would be working off bad Karma, then ?

A. Well, let us say nothing is good and nothing is had, but all is
opportunity,-the very best opportunity, because the soul knows what it
needs for increasing its powers and keeping its energy. We sometimes
do not recognize our opportunities, for they are occurring every
moment of the time. Every single event is an opportunity-even the
passing of people on the street and the thoughts and feelings they
stir up in us; what ever we feel toward others, our relations with
them, our touch with them, our family relations, our social, our
business, and our national relations,-all these are opportunities to
be taken advantage of in every way; every one of them constitutes
Karma. Our touch with Theosophy is a Karmic opportunity.


Q. It seems to be possible to distribute Karma over a long period of
time?

A. Again, that is dependent upon the attitude we hold. We may
distribute Karma over a long period of time, or we may hurry it,
because we are self-conscious beings, and that fact always means we
have the power of choice. Our very different attitude to wards life
because of our study of Theosophy has the tendency to hasten Karma; or
we may say, as we hasten, we meet Karma.


Q. Can Karma be precipitated too heavily?

A. No one of us, perhaps, would have either the disposition or the
courage to push so far ahead that we should be unable to bear the
burden of Karma. We shall never have a burden we can not carry, al
though it may seem too heavy. We must clear up that in us which is not
righteous, which is not just, and which does not permit us to act as
we ought to act. The faster we do that, the better, but we hasten only
just as much as we can take care of. We hasten beneficial as well as
bad Karma, of course, but the man who won't trust his past Karma for
either good or evil can not make very fast progress.

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