Theos-Talk Archives (July 2003 Message tt00062)

THE KARMA OF THE NATIONS
THE KARMA OF THE NATIONS





When the masses of humanity finally awake to the truth of the inexorable law
of Karma, the law of cause and effect-and that law is made the basic
principle of all forms of Government-there will be no more making of war by
one nation against another, or of revolutions within their own borders. The
certainty of reprisal would be so fixed in the minds of the masses of
humanity that they would not countenance such action under any
circumstances. If that portion of the French people that instigated the
French Revolution and carried out its bloodthirsty programs could have known
that for every head that fell by their action into the basket of the
guillotine the life of another French man or woman would be sacrificed when
the corre­sponding point in the same cycle rolled around, as it did roll
around during the recent war with Germany, they would have hesitated in
precipitating such a revolution.



Likewise if the people of the Belgian race and nation could have known that
the wanton cruelty to and murder of the native Africans by the soldiery and,
at the instigation of King Leopold may have been primarily responsible for
the fate that has overwhelmed the Belgians of the present cycle they could
have better understood what befell them. We cannot prove this all to be
true, but if the law of Karma is inexorable it is not difficult to see the
reasonableness of the belief, as we can also see that in the squaring of
karmic accounts the English nation may have paid the debts contracted by the
killing of number­less non-combatant East Indians by the soldiery of another
era. The lives of many Americans may have been sacrificed in payment for the
lives of the American Indians taken by American soldiers of an earlier date.
The closing of the cycle during the recent great war in which these karmic
debts were made, may have created the conditions which were taken advantage
of by the Lords of Karma to fulfill the Law.



It is very difficult to reconcile the belief of the Christian in the
forgiveness of sin by Christ with the action of karmic law, but the
difficulty will be overcome when man understands what the founder of
Christianity meant by the words "Forgiveness of sin." The Christ in man may
forgive the sin against the Spiritual Self, even while pun­ishment is
inflicted by the Law upon the personality responsible for the sin.



It appears to be an evident fact that so long as man believes that
forgiveness may be had for broken Law he will not make a very . strong
effort to keep from breaking that Law. It is so natural for the lower self
to rebel against control by the Higher Self.



It is strange that any historian of wide experience can fail to see the
working out of the law of Karma in view of the innumerable instances
available in the history of any of the older nations wherein the evil effect
of the causes set up by humanity during past ages has been so much in
evidence. As far back as sacred or profane history can take us we may find
that as day follows night every nation's evil cause set up by man has been
followed by some act of forced expia­tion. The interference of cyclic law
may defer the expiation of that act for a time but it is inevitable in the
end. The extremes of life when brought into conjunction invariably produce
friction-heat, energy. That energy of itself is impersonal and when mankind
is wise enough always to turn the energy set free by friction, usually
resulting from opposition, into constructive channels instead of destructive
channels, or letting it go to waste as is now so frequently the ease, the
human race will have made a great advance. For instance, when the qualities
of Love and Hate coalesce in a human mind, as they often do in spite of
their opposition, there is produced a friction within the mentality which
may generate the power to render service to the objects of Love or Hate
hitherto unsuspected by the producer and quite possibly a long karmic debt
may be so paid.



With the karmic results of long past upheavals in government, social and
religious life which are made so noticeable at the present time, and which
the great war has made provision for, it is difficult to see how a thinker
can deny the existence of karmic law. The causes back of the terrible events
which have occurred since the year 1814 are not far to seek.



June 1920


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