Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00167)

Feb 7 2005

Dear Friends:


Re: Collective Karma, an Esoteric Perspective


What can we learn from the SECRET DOCTRINE THEOSOPHY ?
 
I think we have to learn and occupy ourselves with our present condition and
its derivation.  Our future depends on that. What directions shall we look
for?
 
The more I think of it, the more I believe two main points are emphasized:
 
1          Each human being enshrines in their present incarnation an
IMMORTAL Spiritual Being. This present life of ours is like a "day at
School." [Can we hold this idea and meditate on it?]
 
Questions:        What is the nature of our lessons?  
                        Whatshould we be learning?
What is the benefit from such study and learning?
 
2          The spiritual aspect of living is completely involved in RIGHT
MOTIVE, (the Buddha called it the "Path of Righteousness").  Hence the moral
decisions we make all the time before we act, or think, or speak ought to be
most carefully considered and if necessary, controlled. 
 
Questions:      

Is Karma a fact? 

                        Is the World and our Universe run under
rigid, impersonal laws, that work the same for all ? 

          Do we always get back what we desire for others? In other words:
Do we find ourselves placed in the identical positions later, that we may
have wished for, or enforced on others?

          Are our desires, thoughts and actions always directed at these
immortal companions and relatives of ours (and to ourselves, of course)?  

          Do we wish them well or ill?  

          Is there anything that we do which can be "hidden?"  If so, from
who, and for how long ? 

                        
I have always been puzzled by these questions.

Let me offer this as my own point of view:

Since we are IMMORTALS, (my assumption, and I can grasp that) at the end of
my life, it is logical (to me), that any karmic "unfinished business" will
be held over to a future life, I believe a figure of 3 lives is mentioned
in the "Aphorisms on Karma." (below) 

[(24) Held-over Karma or present Karma may each, or both at once, operate in
all of the three fields of Karmic operation at once, or in either of those
fields a different class of Karma from that using the others may operate at
the same time.

(25) Birth into any sort of body and to obtain the fruits of any sort of
Karma is due to the preponderance of the line of Karmic tendency.

(26) The sway of Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of an Ego,
or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures of
repression, elimination, or counteraction are not adopted.]


As far as I can see we all have a tendency to think that when we die the
slate is wiped clean. If this were true, then the moral strictures we all
know of are voided. I would say that is impossible. They sink or rise on
the same basis. Destroy one and the other vanishes.

The "Lower Mind" seeks all kinds of ways to cast doubts at the ETERNAL
PHILOSOPHY and its VERITIES. Only the HIGHER MIND can vanquish it.

The "Lower Mind" limits itself to this incarnation and so, it has a limited
horizon. Also It loves to do mischief, selfish actions, even evil, and then
hide. And, hypocritically, it invents indefensible arguments as shields
against exposure. Those have to be systematically knocked down. We have to
do that work for ourselves. 

Honesty is the ONLY policy. 

Dallas

Read this interesting list:

"Fearlessness, sincerity, assiduity in devotion, generosity, self-restraint,
piety, and alms-givings, study, mortification, and rectitude; harmlessness,
veracity, and freedom from anger, resignation, equanimity, and not speaking
of the faults of others, universal compassion, modesty, and mildness;
patience, power, fortitude, and purity, discretion, dignity,
unrevengefulness, and freedom from conceit— these are the marks of him whose
virtues are of a godlike character, O son of Bharata. 

Those, O son of Pritha, who are born with demoniacal dispositions are marked
by hypocrisy, pride, anger, presumption, harshness of speech, and ignorance.
The destiny of those whose attributes are godlike is final liberation, while
those of demoniacal dispositions, born to the Asuras' lot, [suffer]
continued bondage to mortal birth; grieve not, O son of Pandu, for thou art
born with the divine destiny." BHAGAVAD GITA, Chapter 15, p. 110

---------------------------------------

APHORISMS ON KARMA


(1) There is no Karma unless there is a being to make it or feel its
effects.

(2) Karma is the adjustment of effects flowing from causes, during which the
being upon whom and through whom that adjustment is effected experiences
pain or pleasure.

(3) Karma is an undeviating and unerring tendency in the Universe to restore
equilibrium, and it operates incessantly.

(4) The apparent stoppage of this restoration to equilibrium is due to the
necessary adjustment of disturbance at some other spot, place, or focus
which is visible only to the Yogi, to the Sage, or the perfect Seer: there
is therefore no stoppage, but only a hiding from view.

(5) Karma operates on all things and beings from the minutest conceivable
atom to Brahma. Proceeding in the three worlds men, gods, and the elemental
beings, no spot in the manifested universe is exempt from its sway.

(6) Karma is not subject to time, and therefore he who knows what is the
ultimate division of time in this Universe knows Karma.

(7) For all other men Karma is in its essential nature unknown and
unknowable.

(8) But its action may be known by calculation from cause to effect; and
this calculation is possible because the effect is wrapped up in and is not
succedent to the cause.

(9) The Karma of this earth is the combination of the acts and thoughts of
all beings of every grade which were concerned in the preceding Manvantara
or evolutionary stream from which ours flows.

(10) And as those beings include Lords of Power and Holy Men, as well as
weak and wicked ones, the period of the earth's duration is greater than
that of any entity or race upon it.

(11) Because the Karma of this earth and its races began in a past too far
back for human minds to reach, an inquiry into its beginning is useless and
profitless.

(12) Karmic causes already set in motion must be allowed to sweep on until
exhausted, but this permits no man to refuse to help his fellows and every
sentient being.

(13) The effects may be counteracted or mitigated by the thoughts and acts
of oneself or of another, and then the resulting effects represent the
combination and interaction of the whole number of causes involved in
producing the effects.

(14) In the life of worlds, races, nations, and individuals, Karma cannot
act unless there is an appropriate instrument provided for its action.

(15) And until such appropriate instrument is found, that Karma related to
it remains unexpended.

(16) While a man is experiencing Karma in the instrument provided, his other
unexpended Karma is not exhausted through other beings or means, but is held
reserved for future operation; and lapse of time during which no operation
of that Karma is felt causes no deterioration in its force or change in its
nature.

(17) The appropriateness of an instrument for the operation of Karma
consists in the exact connection and relation of the Karma with the body,
mind, intellectual and psychical nature acquired for use by the Ego in any
life.

(18) Every instrument used by any Ego in any life is appropriate to the
Karma operating through it.

(19) Changes may occur in the instrument during one life so as to make it
appropriate for a new class of Karma, and this may take place in two ways:
(a) through intensity of thought and the power of a vow, and (b) through
natural alterations due to complete exhaustion of old causes.

(20) As body and 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.

(21) Karma is both merciful and just. Mercy and Justice are only opposite
poles of a single whole; and Mercy without Justice is not possible in the
operations of Karma. That which man calls Mercy and Justice is defective,
errant, and impure.

(22) Karma may be of three sorts: 

(a) presently operative in this life through the appropriate instruments; 

(b) that which is being made or stored up to be exhausted in the future;
Karma held over from past life or lives and not operating yet because
inhibited by inappropriateness of the instrument in use by the Ego, or by
the force of Karma now operating.

(23) Three fields of operation are used in each being by Karma: (a) the body
and the circumstances; (b) the mind and intellect; the psychic and astral
planes.

(24) Held-over Karma or present Karma may each, or both at once, operate in
all of the three fields of Karmic operation at once, or in either of those
fields a different class of Karma from that using the others may operate at
the same time.

(25) Birth into any sort of body and to obtain the fruits of any sort of
Karma is due to the preponderance of the line of Karmic tendency.

(26) The sway of Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of an Ego,
or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures of
repression, elimination, or counteraction are not adopted.

(27) 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.

(28) No man but a sage or true seer can judge another's Karma. Hence while
each receives his deserts, appearances may deceive, and birth into Poverty
or heavy trial may not be punishment for bad Karma, for Egos continually
incarnate into poor surroundings where they experience difficulties and
trials which are for the discipline of the Ego and result in strength,
fortitude, and sympathy.

(29) Race-Karma influences each unit in the race through the law of
Distribution. National Karma operates on the members of the nation by the
same law more concentrated. Family Karma governs only with a nation where
families have been kept pure and distinct; for in any nation where there is
a mixture of family - as obtains in each Kaliyuga period - family Karma is
in general distributed over a nation. But even at such periods some families
remain coherent for long periods, and then the members feel the sway of
family Karma. The word "family" may include several smaller families.

(30) Karma operates to produce cataclysms of nature by concatenation through
the mental and astral planes of being. A cataclysm may be traced to an
immediate physical cause such as internal fire and atmospheric disturbance,
but these have been brought on by the disturbance created through the
dynamic power of human thought.

(31) 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, and (b) by being called and
warned by those who watch the progress of the world.

Path, March, 1893	W Q Judge
=====================

Best wishes, 

Dallas