Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00109)

            CATACLYSMS AND KARMA
 
 
 
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 human 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 
 
(b) 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. ( P. 140)
 
 
 
            And. to Q. on  OCEAN -  Chapter  on  KARMA, p. 140…
 
 
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Q.:        How is the Johnstown disaster to be interpreted from the point of
view of Karma?
 
 
W.Q.J.—An imperfect view of Karma is held by many Theosophists. Karma is
thought to relate only to human beings, and when it is spoken of as “the law
of ethical causation,” application of it is made solely to man. This not
only leaves us without any law to account for the numerous operations and
effects in the natural world, but raises grave difficulties in the presence
of such a calamity as the Johnstown flood.
 
Another wrong view frequently taken is the looking upon Karma as punishment
only, whereas Karma works alike in reward and punishment. A pleasant life is
due to Karma as much as one that is full of woe.
 
The word “Karma” means “action,” and, in its larger sense, the action of the
great unmanifested, whether that be called God or the Absolute. The moment
the unmanifested begins to make itself manifest in creation or evolution,
then its action and Karma begin. Hence, every circumstance great or small,
every manifestation of life, every created thing and all of the facts and
circumstances of man’s life are under the law of Karma.
The three sorts of Karma are: —
           
                                                                            
                    
That which we are experiencing; that which we are making for the next life;
and that which we have made, but which is held over unfelt until some other
life or lives.
 
This division applies throughout nature.
 
By what means does Karma have its operation? By means of the apparatus fit
to carry it out into view and exhaust it; when this is furnished, the
appropriate Karma is felt or seen.
 
Having all this in view we see that the Karma of the material world (so
called), as it now exists, is its Karma left over from a previous manvantara
or period of manifestation, working out in the fit apparatus which we call
the world. And it may be that there is some “World-Karma” left over to be
felt or seen in the next cycle or manvantara.
 
Under these laws it is possible that many individuals may congregate at just
such a place as Johnstown, who possess such physical, mental, and psychical
apparatus as tends to bring out at some one period many accumulated weights
of Karma; and in such a case they will feel the effects as seen in the flood
sweeping them away.
 
But to say that such a catastrophe is to be called evil Karma in every case
cannot be right. Some were killed, and for them we may not say it was not a
benefit; others doubtless will suffer through their lives; and still more
may be benefited through the circumstances which brought about a complete
change in life.
 
We must also remember that during any one hour of the day as many as 10,000
people die in various spots of the earth. Hence we have accumulated and felt
at any hour the Karma which brings death about for that number of
people.”           WQJ --  FORUM ANSWERS  p.  2
 
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“Q. On the basis that man is a spiritual being and can always change his
course, I do not see how Masters could work out cycles unless people
necessarily act very much alike.
 
A. They figure out cycles according to the average of the mass of mankind,
not on the basis of the individual’s position in regard to the cycle. An
individual may take a very different position from that of the mass toward
some cycle, but none the less he moves with it and is bound to that cycle;
he has to move with that race, either above it or below it. No one can
escape from the race to ‘which he belongs.
The effect of cycles upon us, however, or the use of the cyclic return,
depends upon the individual. Should there be, let us say, a revolution all
over the world, all forms upset, all ideas of valuation and property
destroyed, how would men be affected? Some would be affected terribly;
others, very little. It would depend altogether on the individuals—on the
measure of their attachment to the results brought about by such a course of
events. Freedom comes from lack of self interest in the results of anything
we do. If we work with things ,not for things, for the best of all, without
being attached to either success or failure, then we are not struck by such
catastrophes They cannot touch us. We are interested in their effects upon
others and not upon ourselves.
 
 
Q. Then masses of people must learn as the individual must, to act
regardless of self-interest?
 
A. That is the position. If every man did all that he could for every other
man, then no one would suffer. There would he no poverty of any kind.
 
 
Q. Might we expect  a cyclic return of the Reign of Terror?
 
A. Undoubtedly. The same conditions that brought it about in France might
bring the same upheaval in any other country. It is significant to note that
many years before the Revolution, a certain great personage known as Count
St. Germain was on the scene in France. He performed many diplomatic
missions for the potentates of the time, and warned them over and over again
of what would come, as soon as certain changes were made and certain
safeguards put up. There, an attempt was made by One who knew to hold back
that Karma. His effort all the time was in the line of truth—of true
fraternity in its highest sense.
 
 
Q. But the watchword of the French Revolution was “Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity”.
 
A. Yes; that very watchword was taken to help bring about revolution and
bloodshed—used for destructive purposes, rather than in line with the
spiritual constructive basis which the words truly represent. An interesting
parallel might be observable in this country. As early as 1886 Mr. Judge
said that this great and glorious country will not long be at rest, that the
people will rise—for what, who can tell? He said that if our legislators
knew what was coming about and could bring about contravening effects, they
would do so; but that no legislation and no efforts of any patriots would
avail when the hour strikes, when Karmic readjustments among the people have
to take place.
 
 
Q. Why do men not listen to warnings of this kind?
 
A. Many take the position that, of course, no such thing could occur here.
They are obsessed with the idea that we are spiritually far advanced beyond
the times when those conditions were possible. But are we so far advanced,
as a whole? Are we not, as a whole, seeking self-interest, personal greed,
personal fame, and possessions of every kind? There is no real understanding
among men in general, particularly among our politicians and so-called “men
of intelligence”, as to what the purpose of life is; consequently, there is
no application of the only knowledge which would help. What is behind the
league of nations now in process of establishment? Self-interest on the part
of each nation. It is absolutely useless to dodge the is sue. We have got to
see what is the real trouble with mankind. The fact is, we have no real
ideals; it is every man for himself—individualism, self-interest,
selfishness. Yet we are connected with other individuals, and with other
nations. What comes upon them we are bound to feel in a greater or less
measure.
 
 
Q. If all men held the ideal of Brotherhood, as Theosophy presents it,
should we see any marked difference in conditions?
 
A. Everything depends upon the ideals that men hold. If people as a whole
could be brought into the position of listening to the message of Theosophy,
and applying it, the misery and suffering and hardship that now exist in the
world would practically cease to exist. But it is beyond the reach of any
power whatever to get men to listen and to apply. They must first desire and
choose to listen.”        Q  and  A,  p. 185-6
 
 
Q. What follows the Iron Age?
 
A. When the Iron Age has run to the completion of its cycle, then follows in
regular succession the Golden Age. But that is yet a long time off. We have
finished only the first five thousand years of Kali Yuga, which leaves us
something over four hundred thousand years yet to run. Let us say that in
fifty thousand years all the civilizations of the earth outrun their
possibilities as such. Then comes a great disturbance, such as the
geological changes apparent on any planet show have taken place. These
disturbances are the re-actions of the forces that man has restrained so
long, and cause a re-distribution of continents. Suppose for a moment that a
great catastrophe over whelmed the earth; that the land went down, as it
does in such periods, and lands came up where the sea was before; that a
remnant of the people escaped and settled on those lands. Those who survived
would be concerned with the first necessities of existence—food, clothing
and shelter. The arts and sciences that had existed would have no place, but
would become merely a tradition to the children born under those conditions.
Their children would have a tradition still further removed from the ancient
arts. Thus an entirely new phase of existence would be established. The in
coming generations, heavy with the burden of sustenance, would learn only
those arts and sciences applicable to their surroundings, and the cycle of
the return of the ancient arts would be long in coming.
Such would he the story of our present Western civilization. All our
landmarks would he gone in two hundred years or more. Then perhaps in some
other life, on some other continent risen from the sea, we should he
wondering what people left this or that small relic of civilization. This
civilization will go through the same phases as any other; it merely
presents the embodiments of souls who have come through past civilizations.
For we are the second race, the third, and the fourth race; the second
blended into the third, the third into the fourth, the fourth into the
fifth, and so the blending into future races must go on. In all those races
has been the living of life in an age of innocence and purity, followed by
an age when purity and innocence decreased through the growth of the
intellect along physical lines, and then the physical rush of civilization
went on in all its complexity until extinction.”          Q  and  A , p.
185-6
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WHY RACES DIE OUT
A THEOSOPHIST'S REASON FOR IT
 
IN our own times we have instances of the disappearance of races, and very
often it is attributed to the influence of civilized vices. The Hottentots
have entirely gone, and the decimation of the Hawaiian Islanders is about
complete. Similarly the Red Indians of the Continents of North and South
America have been surely, if slowly, passing away, so that now there is only
a remnant of them left, and soon after the Spanish conquest the great masses
of the aboriginal inhabitants had faded away.
The Hottentots had reached almost the acme of decline when we knew them, but
the Aztecs, Toltecs, and other South Americans had not reached such a pitch
when they encountered the Spanish. The Red Indians had gone down between the
two, while the Hawaiians were still below the Indians. It has always seemed
to me that the claim that these races were destroyed by taking up our vices
is not well founded. It is pleasant, perhaps, to the pessimist who dislikes
this civilization, but it will not agree with all the facts. The decrease of
population in the Hawaiian Islands cannot be justly attributed to rum and
social evils taken over from us, although a great deal of injury no doubt
arose from those abuses. About the Hottentots we may feel pretty sure,
because their degradation was almost complete when they were discovered, and
the Mexicans and South American people had no time to adopt Spanish vices,
nor did such exist in a degree to kill off the inhabitants.
The theory outlined by H. P. Blavatsky is that when the Egos inhabiting any
race have reached the limit of experience possible in it, they begin to
desert that race environment and seek for another, which, in the sure
processes of natures evolution, is certain to be in existence elsewhere on
the globe. The Egos then having left the old families, the latter begin to
die out through sterility attacking the females, so that fewer and fewer
bodies are made for inhabitancy. This goes on from century to century pari
passu with mental decay. And this mental deterioration arises from the fact
that the small stock of what we might call the retarded Egos who come in
during the process have not had the experience and training in that
particular environment which had been gone through by those who have
deserted to another race, and hence--on the theosophical theory that brain
is not the producer of mind--the whole personnel of the old race rushes down
in the scale, sooner or later presenting the sad spectacle of a dying race.
Final extinction is the result when the process has gone far enough.
At the time when the first steps toward old age and decrepitude are taken by
such a race, the eternal cyclic laws that always bring about a universal
correspondence between the affairs of man and the operations of cosmos cause
cataclysms to happen, and even in the seeming height of a nation's power
great numbers of bodies are destroyed. Some indications of this may be seen
in our own day in the great destruction of human life that has begun to
overtake the older portions of the Chinese nation. These are finger posts
that declare the beginning of the exodus of the Egos who have had such a
long experience in that race environment that they have begun to emigrate
elsewhere because their experience has wrought in their character changes
which unfit them for dealing with the old bodies, and those are left for the
starting of other less progressed men. After the lapse of more years the
natural cataclysms will increase in violence and extent, engulfing more and
more millions of bodies and preparing for other cycles.
We may suppose that the Red Indians predecessors went through similar
experiences, for there are in the Americas evidences of great convulsions
such as upheavals from below and overflowing by water that deposited great
masses of mud. In one of the States there was lately found good evidence
that animals had been thus buried for ages. The men, having reason to guide
them, removed themselves to other parts to carry out the sad decrees of
Karma which had ordered their demise. And under the suggestion made above,
the egos untried in that environment only occupied the racial body for the
sake of the experience which might be gained during the time that is left.
Now our civilization with weapons and other means is completing the work, as
it on its part fulfils the law by creating on the old soil an entirely new
race in which the experience gained by the mind in prior cycles of existence
may show itself forth.
This process is almost exactly that which happens in families. Reincarnating
egos continue in families that suit their mental progress just so long as is
needed; and if no more egos are in the cycle of rebirth exactly fitted to
the physical, psychical, and mental state of the family, it begins to die
out. And it even exhibits often in its own small way the phenomena of
natural cataclysm, for we know that sudden ruin and quick extinction often
carry off an entire family, leaving not even a descendant in the very
remotest degree.
Hence I conclude that, like families, Races disappear when they are of no
further use in the gaining of experience by the great pilgrim soul.
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE               Path, October, 1891

 
 
 
 
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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.”            A  TO  Q  p.  136
 
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            From ISIS UNVEILED   [ Vol. 1  pp. 30 -38 ]
 
 
CYCLE OF CLIMATE CHANGE  -  CATACLYSMS
 
 
"     In order to demonstrate that the notions which the ancients
entertained about dividing human history into cycles were not utterly devoid
of a philosophical basis, we will close this chapter by introducing to the
reader one of the oldest traditions of antiquity as to the evolution of our
planet. 
 
     At the close of each "great year," called by Aristotle — according to
Censorinus — the greatest, and which consists of six sars * our planet is
subjected to a thorough physical revolution. The polar and equatorial
climates gradually exchange places; the former moving slowly toward the
Line, and the tropical zone, with its exuberant vegetation and swarming
animal life, replacing the forbidding wastes of the icy poles. This 
 
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* Webster declares very erroneously that the Chaldeans called saros, the
cycle of eclipses, a period of about 6,586 years, "the time of revolution of
the moon's node." Berosus, himself a Chaldean astrologer, at the Temple of
Belus, at Babylon, gives the duration of the sar, or sarus, 3,600 years; a
neros 600; and a sossus 60. (See, Berosus from Abydenus, "Of the Chaldaean
Kings and the Deluge." See also Eusebius, and Cory's MS. Ex. Cod. reg. gall.
gr. No. 2360, fol. 154.) 
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change of climate is necessarily attended by cataclysms, earthquakes, and
other cosmical throes.* 
 
AS THE BEDS OF THE OCEAN ARE DISPLACED, AT THE END OF EVERY DECIMILLENNIUM
AND ABOUT ONE NEROS, A SEMI-UNIVERSAL DELUGE LIKE THE LEGENDARY NOACHIAN
FLOOD IS BROUGHT ABOUT. 
 
This year was called the Heliacal by the Greeks; but no one outside the
sanctuary knew anything certain either as to its duration or particulars.
The winter of this year was called the Cataclysm or the Deluge, — the
Summer, the Ecpyrosis. 
 
The popular traditions taught that at these alternate seasons the world was
in turn burned and deluged. .... 
 
The Neroses, the Vrihaspati, or the periods called yugas or kalpas, are
life-problems to solve. The Satya-yug and Buddhistic cycles of chronology
would make a mathematician stand aghast at the array of ciphers. The
Maha-kalpa embraces an untold number of periods far 
 
—————————————————————————————
 
* Before scientists reject such a theory — traditional as it is — it would
be in order for them to demonstrate why, at the end of the tertiary period,
the Northern Hemisphere had undergone such a reduction of temperature as to
utterly change the torrid zone to a Siberian climate? Let us bear in mind
that the heliocentric system came to us from upper India; and that the germs
of all great astronomical truths were brought thence by Pythagoras…. 
 
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back in the antediluvian ages. Their system comprises a kalpa or grand
period of 4,320,000,000 years, which they divide into four lesser yugas,
running as follows: 
 
1st. —Satya yug . . . .    1,728,000 years.
2d. — Tretya yug. . . .   1,296,000   "
3d. — Dvapara yug. . . .    864,000   "
4th. —Kali yug . . . .         432,000   "
 
           Total. . . . . . .     4,320,000 
 
which make one divine age or Maha-yug; seventy-one Maha-yugs make
306,720,000 years, to which is added a sandhi (or the time when day and
night border on each other, morning and evening twilight), equal to a
Satya-yug, 1,728,000, make a manwantara of 308,448,000 years; * 
 
fourteen manwantaras make 4,318,272,000 years; to which must be added a
sandhi to begin the kalpa, 1,728,000 years, making the kalpa or grand period
of 4,320,000,000 of years. 
 
As we are now only in the Kali-yug of the twenty-eighth age of the seventh
manwantara of 308,448,000 years, we have yet sufficient time before us to
wait before we reach even half of the time allotted to the world. 
 
     These ciphers are not fanciful, but founded upon actual astronomical
calculations, …Bunsen has demonstrated that the Egyptian priests, who made
the cyclic notations, kept them always in the profoundest mystery. ‡ Perhaps
their difficulty arose from the fact that the calculations of the ancients
applied equally to the spiritual progress of humanity as to the physical. It
will not be difficult to understand the close correspondence drawn by the
ancients between the cycles of nature and of mankind, if we keep in mind
their belief in the constant and all-potent influences of the planets upon
the fortunes of humanity. 
 
Higgins justly believed that the cycle of the Indian system, of 432,000, is
the true key of the secret cycle. But his failure in trying to decipher it
was made apparent; for as it pertained to the mystery of the creation, this
cycle was the most inviolable of all. It was repeated in symbolic figures
only in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, the original of which, if now extant,
is certainly not to be found in libraries, as it formed one of the most
ancient Books of Hermes,* the number of which is at present undetermined. 
 
 
Dallas