Theos-Talk Archives (August 2003 Message tt00025)

Saturday, August 09, 2003

Re: Subject:	[Blavatsky_Study] Re: [Blavatsky Study] Masters and
Karma: The Lords of Karma


On Karma, the following review may prove useful


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K A R M A


"For the only decree of Karma-an eternal and immutable decree-is
absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of
Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but
it
is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we
work
with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which
that Harmony depends, or-break them." S D I 643


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KARMA -- A UNIVERSAL LAW

P. 43	The...doctrine of reward and punishment of the human Ego is
very different... since [it ] fixes the place of punishment and
compensation upon this earth of ours... It obeys the words of
Jesus,... "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto
you again"

P. 44	...the doctrine is...Karma...it "is the good and bad deeds
of sentient beings, by the infallible influence or efficacy of
which, those beings are met with due rewards or punishment,
according as they deserve..."


KARMA AND REINCARNATION

P. 44	When a being dies, he emits...a mass of force or energy,
which goes to make up the new personality when he shall be
reincarnated. In this energy is found the summation of the life
just given up, and by means of it the Ego is forced to assume
that sort of body among those appropriate circumstances which
together are the means for carrying out the decrees of
Karma...for it is on the earth, in earth-lives experienced in
human bodies, that we are punished for bad deeds previously done,
and meet with happiness and pleasure as rewards for old merit.

When one sees, a good man suffering much in his life...For those
who believe in Karma it is quite just, because this man in a
previous life must have done such acts as deserve punishment
now...similarly, the wicked man who is free from suffering, happy
and prosperous, is so because in a previous existence he had been
badly treated by his fellows or had experienced much suffering.
And the perfect justice of Karma is well illustrated in his case
because, although now favored by fortune, he, being wicked, is
generating causes which, when...reborn, will operate then to
punish him..


EARTH REINCARNATES As A WHOLE

P. 45	...the moon is held...to be the planet on which we lived
before reaching the earth and ...when our..."satellite" came to
die, all the energy contained in it was thrown out into space,
where in a single vortex it remained until the time came for that
energy to be again supplied with a body - this earth - so the
same law prevails with men.

Men being, as to their material envelope, derived from the moon,
must follow the law of their origin...a mass of energy devoid of
conscience and crowded with desires [and passions] of the person
from whom it emanated; and its special province is to await the
return of the individuality (Mind) and form for that a new body
in which it shall suffer or enjoy.


MAN CREATES HIS OWN FUTURE

P. 46.	Each man is therefore his own creator under the great
Cosmic laws that control all creations. A better term is
"evolution," for we, from life to life, are engaged in evolving
out of the material provided in this Manvantara new bodies at
every turn of the wheel of rebirth.

P. 46	The instruments we use in this work are desire and will.
Desire causes the will to fix itself on objective life; in that
plane it produces force, and out of that comes matter in its
objective form.

P. 46	...many people say...Karma is difficult to understand...But
a whole mass of people accept and seem to understand it. The
reason...lies probably in Reincarnation, which may be said to be
the twin doctrine to Karma. Indeed, the one cannot be properly
considered without keeping the other in view, for Karma - whether
as punishment or reward - could have no actual or just operation
upon the Ego unless the means for its operation were furnished by
Reincarnation.

P. 46-7 Our deserts are meted out to us while we are
associating in life with each others, and not while we are alone,
nor in separateness. [It brings] us into life again and again,
bringing with us uncounted times the various Egos whom we have
known in prior births. This is in order that the Karma - or
causes - generated in company with those Egos may be worked out,
for to take us off separately into a [hell or heaven]...would be
as impossible as unjust.

P. 47	...no...murderer...can escape. He, together with his
victim, must return to this earth, each to aid the other in
adjusting the disturbed harmony, during which process each makes
due compensation. With this doctrine we restore justice to her
seat in the governance of men, for without it the legal killing
of the murderer ...is only a half remedy, since no provision is
made by the State for...the [victim and his] dependants he may
have left behind, and...nothing is done for those who in the
family of the murderer survive him.


UNIVERSAL KARMA

P. 47	...the Theosophical sages of all ages...view all worlds as
being bound together...by Karma...Hence it acts on all
planes...they say this world, as it is now conditioned, is the
actual result of what it has come to be...That the world evolves
just as man does. It is born, it grows old, it dies, and is
reincarnated. This goes on many times, and during those
incarnations it suffers and enjoys in its own way for its
previous evolutions. For it the reward is a greater advance along
the line of evolution, and the punishment is a degraded state.

...these states have man for their object and cause, for he is
the crown of all evolution. And...from the consideration of
cosmic spaces and phenomena, the Theosophist is taught to apply
the laws of Karma and Reincarnation to every atom in the body in
especial, and apart from the total Karma. Since we are made up of
a mass of lives, our thoughts and acts affect those atoms or
lives and impress them with a Karma of their own.


THREE DIVISIONS OF KARMA

P. 48	The principal divisions of Karma are three.

1. One sort is that now operating in the present life and body,
bringing about all the circumstances and changes of life...

2. Another class is that which is held over and not now in
operation, because the man does not furnish the appropriate means
for bringing it into action....

3. The last chief class is that Karma which we are making now,
and which will be felt by us in future births. Its appropriate
symbol is the arrow shot forward in the air by the archer.


SPIRIT UNAFFECTED BY KARMA

P. 49	The Spirit is not affected by Karma at any time or under
any circumstances...The Spirit in man... is immutable, eternal
and indivisible - the fundamental basis of all.

...the body and all objects are impermanent and thus delude the
soul whenever they are mistaken for reality. They are only real
on and for this plane, and during the time when the consciousness
takes them up here for cognition. They are therefore relatively
real, and not so in an absolute sense.


DREAMS AND CONSCIOUSNESS

P. 49 In the dream state we lose all knowledge of the objects
which, while awake, we thought real and proceed to suffer and
enjoy in that new state. In this we find the consciousness
applying itself to objects partaking...of the nature of the
experiences of the waking condition, but at the same time
producing the sensations of pleasure and pain while they last.
For the consciousness of the dreamer the reality of objects known
during the waking state is destroyed.

P. 49	...material existence is a necessary evil and the one in
which alone emancipation or salvation can be obtained, it is of
the greatest importance and hence Karma which governs it and
through whose decrees emancipation may be reached must be well
understood and then be accepted and obeyed.

Karma will operate to produce a deformed or deficient body, to
give in a good body a bad disposition or vice versa; it will
cause diseases, hurts or annoyances, or bring about pleasures and
favorable situations for the material frame. So we sometimes find
with a deformed or disagreeable body a most enlightened and noble
mind. In this case the physical Karma is bad and the mental good.

P. 50	At the same time that an unfavorable Karmic cause is
showing in the physical structure, another and better sort is
working out in the mind and disposition or has eventuated in
conferring a mind well balanced, calm, cheerful, deep, and
brilliant. Hence we discover a purely physical as compared with
an entirely mental karma. Purely physical would be that
resulting, say, from a removal from the ground of fruit peel
which might otherwise cause some unknown person to fall and be
hurt. Purely mental might be due to a life spent in calm,
philosophical thought and the like.

Among mental afflictions esteemed as worse than any bodily hurt
or loss is that Karma from a preceding life which results in
obscurity [so] that there is a loss of all power to conceive of
the reality of Spirit or the existence of soul -- that is,
materialism.


THE PSYCHICAL NATURE OF MAN

P.50	The...psychical nature [is next]...in America we have
examples in mediums, clairvoyants, clairaudients, mind-readers,
hysteriacs, and all sorts of abnormal sensitives. There could be
no clairvoyant...if the person so afflicted... had not devoted
much of previous lives to a one-sided development of the
psychical nature, resulting now, in powers which make the
possessor an abnormality....


BALANCING AND NULLIFICATION OF KARMA

P. 51	...the nullification of karma is an application in this
department of the well-known law in physics which causes an
equilibrium when two equal forces oppose each other. A man may
have in his Karmic account a very unpleasant cause and at the
same time a cause of opposite character. If these come together
for expression at the same time they may so counteract each other
as that neither will be apparent and the equilibrium is the
equivalent of both..."Charity covereth a multitude of sins,"
refers to the palliative effect of charitable deeds as opposed to
deeds of wickedness

P. 51	In the Bhagavad-Gita... it is said: "He who, unattached to
the fruits of his actions, performs such actions as must be done,
is both renouncer and devotee...he who, restraining his senses by
his heart, and being free from interest in acting, undertakes
active devotion through the organs of action, is praiseworthy."

P. 51 - 2 The Hindus and Buddhists thoroughly believe in Karma,
convinced that no one but themselves punishes or rewards in this
or any life, yet we do not find them cold or unsympathetic...the
belief in Karma and Reincarnation has made the Hindu more gentle
in his treatment of men and animals than are the Europeans, and
more spiritual in his daily life.

P. 52	...the doctrine of Kismet...[is not] fatalism, it is law...
[So too] is Karma. [It]...[applies] to [more than] one life
only...the doctrine [has a] true majestic, endless sweep,
fatalism is the verdict.


WE MAKE OUR OWN FUTURE KARMA

P. 52	...each man is...the fashioner of the fate for his next
fleeting earth personality...in his own hand is the decree. He
set in motion the causes which will inevitably have certain
results. Just as easily he could have made different causes and
thus brought about different results.

P. 53	...sentiment and our own wishes are not the guiding laws of
nature

P. 53	...the doctrine [of Karma] is found to be as full of
opportunity for the exercise of what is dear to the heart as any
other theory of life.

P. 53	The same law that throws us into life to suffer or
enjoy...decrees that the friends and the relatives who are like
unto each other must incarnate together, until by reason of
differentiation of character they cannot under any law of
attraction remain in company. Not unless and until they become
different do they separate from each other.

P. 53	"Those whom you help will help you in other lives," is the
declaration. In ages past perhaps we knew those who long since
have passed up to greater heights. The very moment...we come
near to where they are pursuing their pilgrimage, they at once
extend assistance, whether that be on the material or moral
planes. And it makes no difference whether one or the other is
aware of who is assisting or who is being assisted. Inflexible
law guides the current and brings about the result. Thus the
members of the whole human family reciprocally act on one
another, forced into it by a law which is as kind as it is great,
which turns the contempt we bore in the past into present honor
and opportunity to help our fellows.

P. 53	There is no favoritism possible in nature; no man has any
privilege or gift which he has not deserved, either as a reward
or a compensation.

P. 54	Karma never errs and will surely repay. And it not only
rewards, but to it solely belong those compensations which we,
with revenge, attempt to mete out. "Vengeance is mine; I will
repay," [teaches the Law... for so surely as one hurts another so
is the certainty of Karma striking the offender -- but let the
injured one beware that he does not desire the other punished,
for by Karma will he be punished also. So from all this web of
life and ceaselessly revolving wheel, Karma furnishes the escape
and the means of escape, and by reincarnation we are given the
time for escape.



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K A R M A - W.Q.Judge	Judge Art. I, p. 112

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PAGE	KEY WORD	COMMENTS	REFERENCES
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SUMMARY

112	JUSTICE	- measure for measure
- as ye sow, so shall ye reap : of well or ill

QUESTIONS	1.- How do past life's acts affect this one ?
2.- Does "Nemesis" ever relent ?
3.- Does the eternal law of cause and effect. unmoved
by sorrow or regret, always deal out its measures
based on the past?	- see ANUGITA, Ch. III
4.- Must yesterday's sin darken today ?
5.- Is Karma fate ?
6.- Does the child unfold the "Book of Life" already
fully written without any escape possible ?
7.- How does Karma interact with our present lives ?
8.- Can man do better than use the already marked
threads of past lives in this one ?


112	GOOD RESOLVES & EVIL TENDENCIES
- can sweep over our natures with resistless force: Is this
true ?

KARMA OF VARIOUS KINDS:	1.- good - bad -
112-3	2.- old Karma can be exhausted
113	3.- new Karma can be accumulated
4.- HIDDEN and MANIFEST

EACH ACTION	- is a cause from which evolve countless
ramifications of effects in time and space.

KARMA = CONTINUANCE OF THE NATURE OF THE ACTION

PAST and FUTURE - are contained in every act. TIME is
illusory.

EFFECT - IS THE NATURE OF THE ACT and cannot be distinct from
its cause

113	THAT WHICH ALREADY EXISTS is brought out by the action of
Karma

- the same action from another point of view in time
ML 29 193-4 SD I 224

- Karma relates solely to the individual who generated it is not
that
of another EGO. (Each Ego is responsible for their own Karma.)

113	DEFECTS - which are realized from an act must be implicit in
it

MIND	- is the source of all acts ( Thought comes before act )

113	DESIRE - is the basis of all acts	( Plane of desire or
egotism
is itself action and the basis of all acts.

114	- both act and consequences are effects.

CAUSAL PLANE - the plane of desire is causal.

MOTIVE	- Then "motive" is to be found in "desire ?"

DESIRE	- determines the continuation of the act in its karmic
relation to the individual

PLANES - of cause/effect and of non-manifestation

EFFECTS - effects are limited by the boundaries when there is no
longer a base or a suitable medium in which they can
inhere. (Ex.: ripples DO NOT affect side of pond.)

114	LIMITS - although Karma begins by a personal act it is not
limited
by that personality, nor dependent upon the
present personality for the effect to manifest in
full. EXAMPLE: seed needs cooperation from water,
soil and culture to germinate and fructify. If no
seed, no plant. The other three need the seed.

114	INCARNATION	- first product of "held-over" Karma

TENDENCIES - Ruling tendencies determine this ( desires,
tendencies, affinities, etc...) fresh birth of
the entity Ego

FAMILY - surroundings most in harmony with KARMIC tendencies is
selected = PLACE OF BIRTH

LIMITATIONS	- governed are: station in life, sex, childhood's
years
of personal of irresponsibility, constitution with diseases
inherent in it, "heredity," and "national characteristic."

115	LAW OF LEAST RESISTANCE	- operates in selecting family and
nation of birth - special characteristics

NATIONAL KARMA	- the resultant of masses of individuals with
similar Karmic characteristics and tendencies into life at
one time

115	FAMILY & CASTE KARMA	- similar on a reduced scale

115	END OF KARMIC TENDENCY	- may abruptly occur after any special
set of conditions mandated by past causes are satisfied

- the life then takes an entirely fresh bent

115	END OF KARMA - after observing personal life taking such a
change:
- occasionally there are lingering effects that may be
observed, giving obstacles and obstructions to
progress or success in the rest of the life.

115-6	INJUSTICE	- to be accounted for demands understanding that
Karma is unerring. The sequence to the original cause
is true, "streaks of fortune" are the result of such
changes (but the source remains unknown in this
life.)

116	AFFECTING ONE'S OWN KARMA
- the Karma of action works through many planes:

PLANES OF KARMIC ACTION -

1.	PHYSICAL PLANE - body, senses and organs,

2.	INTELLECTUAL- memory which binds and unites im-
pressions into one organized whole
- reason puts in order its storehouse
of thoughts.

3.	EMOTIONAL PLANE- preferences of one, over others
- 4th principle of man [KAMA-DESIRE ]
These 3 planes deal with objects of perception
- the great battle field of Karma (Kurukshetra)

4.	ETHICAL PLANE	- "To do, or "Not to do."

5.	DISCRIMINATION- harmonizes the intellect & emotions
- the MIND as the basis for desire
116
MIND	- alone initiates actions on the various planes

- alone through Mind can effects of rest or action
be received.

ENTERING INCARNATION	Karmic energy from past existences also
enters intact - awaiting development as effect

117	KARMA ON EACH OF THE 3 PLANES	- is always in harmony with the
basis of the original nature of the act. Unbroken
continuity with the past.

117	KARMIC ENERGY AT BIRTH	- is a definite quantum -

1. cause of rebirth environment

2. It awaits period of life when new Karma can begin.
117

MOMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY	- THE FRESH PERSONALITY THEN BECOMES
RULER
[ around age 7-14 ]

KARMA CAN BE AFFECTED ACTIVELY

UPPER and LOWER NATURE OF MAN

117	LOWER DESIRE/PLANE GRATIFICATION	- debases the higher energy
from the superior planes - a "fire" or center of attraction

LOWER PLANE (Selfish desires) is established and superior energy
is exhausted
trying to achieve them

UPPER PLANE CENTER OF ATTRACTION
= all the needed energy goes there,
resulting in an increase of spirituality

117	TRANSMUTATION
- if detached from plane of sense gratification by
a constant effort to fix the mind on the attainment
of the highest ideal, karma will have no basis to
fix in the physical, and manifesting in harmony with
118	the desire plane it exhausts itself in a higher
plane and thus becomes transmuted in its effects.

NO ATTACHMENT - for objects not thought of.

IDEALISM	- cleanses the mind and the desire principles

- when thought-interest ceases the link breaks and
karmic attachment between an "object" and the
individual ceases.

REPENTANCE AN ERROR. Thought returns to error or sin and
maintains the links.

SIN	- originates in the mind as an idea-desire

KNOT OF THE HEART	= MANAS

MIND ATTITUDE	- draws links of desire to the "soul" (Kama-Manas)

- aspirations imprisoned by difficulties and
obstructions
118
DESIRE	- causes reincarnation, building of personality

NON-ATTACHMENT	- allows the soul to burst through the walls
of pain

CHANGE OF MIND	- enables Karmic burden to be lifted.
118
FREE WILL	- WHEN ASSERTED MAKES MAN HIS OWN SAVIOUR

KARMA	- to the Worldly man	- a stern Nemesis


119	- to the Spiritual Man	- unfolds in harmony with his
highest aspirations

EQUAL MINDEDNESS	- is thus achieved


from ECHOES FROM THE ORIENT - Judge
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DTB