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A Study In Karma

by

Annie Besant

Published in 1917

Annie Besant

(1847 - 1933)

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KARMA

From The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold...

It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter true

Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs;

Times are as nought, tomorrow it will judge,

Or after many days.

By this the slayer’s knife did stab himself;

The unjust judge hath lost his own defender;

The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief

And spoiler rob, to render.

Such is the Law which moves to righteousness,

Which none at last can turn aside or stay;

The heart of it is Love, the end of it

Is Peace and Consummation sweet. Obey!

AMONG the many illuminating gifts to the western world, conveyed to it by the medium of the Theosophical Society, that of the knowledge of karma comes, perhaps, next in importance to that of reincarnation. It removes human thought

and desire from the region of arbitrary happenings to the realm of law, and thus places man’s future under his own control in proportion to the amount of his knowledge.

The main conception of karma: "As a man soweth, so shall he also reap," is easy to grasp. But the application of this to daily life in detail, the method of its working and its far-reaching consequences – these are the difficulties which become more bewildering to the student as his knowledge increases. The principles on which any natural science is based are, for the most part, readily

intelligible to people of fair intelligence and ordinary education; but as the student passes from principles to practice, from outline to details, he

discovers that difficulties press upon him, and if he would wholly master his subject he finds himself compelled to become a specialist, and to devote long periods to the unraveling of the tangles which confront him.

So is it also with this science of karma; the student cannot remain always in the domain of generalities; he must study the subdivisions of the primary law, must seek to apply it in all the circumstances of life, must learn how far it binds and how freedom becomes possible. He must learn to see in karma a universal law of nature, and learn also, as in face of nature as a whole, that conquest of and rule over her can only be gained by obedience.( "Nature is conquered by

obedience".)

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

In order to understand karma, the student must begin with a clear view of certain fundamental principles, from the lack of which many remain constantly bewildered, asking endless questions which cannot find full solution without the

solid laying of this basis. Therefore, in this study, I begin with these, though many of my readers will be already familiar with them, through previous

statements of others and of myself.

The fundamental conception, on which all later right thinking on karma rests, is that it is law – law eternal, changeless, invariable, inviolable, law which can never be broken, existing in the nature of things, informed Theosophists say:

"You must not interfere with his karma."

But whenever a natural law is working, you may interfere with it just so far as you can. You do not hear a person say solemnly:

"You must not interfere with the law of gravitation."

It is understood that gravitation is one of the conditions with which one has to reckon, and that

one is perfectly at liberty to counteract any inconvenience it may cause by setting another force against it, by building a buttress to support that which otherwise would fall to the ground under the action of gravitation, or in any other way.

When a condition in nature incommodes us, we use our intelligence to circumvent it, and no one ever dreams of telling us that we must not "interfere with" or change any condition which we dislike. We can only interfere when we have knowledge, for we cannot annihilate any natural force, nor prevent it from acting. But we can neutralize, we can turn aside, its action if we have at command another sufficient force, and while I will never abate for us one jot of its activity, it can be held up, opposed, circumvented, exactly according to our

knowledge of its nature and working, and the forces at our disposal.

Karma is no more "sacred" than any other natural law; all laws of nature are expressions of the divine nature, and we live and move within them; but they are not mandatory; they are forces which set up conditions amid which we live, and which work in us as well as outside of us; we can manipulate them; we understand them, and as our intelligence unfolds we become more and more their masters, until the man becomes superman, and material nature becomes his servant.

LAWS: NATURAL AND MAN-MADE

Much confusion has arisen in this matter, because, in the West, "natural" laws have been regarded as apart from mental and moral laws, whereas mental and moral

laws are as much part of natural law as the laws of electricity, and all laws are part of the order of nature. Natural law has been, in many minds, confused with human law, and the arbitrariness of human legislation has been imported into the realm of natural law. Laws affecting physical phenomena have been rescued from this arbitrariness by science, but the mental and moral worlds are still in the chaos of lawlessness.

Not a divine command, but the immanence of

the divine nature, conditions our existence, and where prophets have laid down moral laws, these have been declarations of inevitable sequences in the moral world, known to the prophet, unknown to his ignorant hearers; because of their ignorance, his hearers have regarded his declarations as arbitrary commands of a divine lawgiver, sent through him, instead of as mere statements of fact

concerning the succession of moral phenomena in a region as orderly as the physical.

Law, in the secondary social sense, is an enactment laid down by an authority regarded as legitimate. It may be the edict of an autocrat, or the act of a

legislative assembly; in either case the force of the law depends on the recognition of the authority which makes it. Among the Hindus we find the ideas both of man-made and natural law. The King, in the conception of the Manu, is an

autocrat, and the subject must obey; but above the King is a Law to which he in his turn must be obedient, a Law which acts automatically and is in the nature of things. In spite of his autocracy, he is bound by the supreme Law, which will crush him if he disregards it. Weakness oppressed is said to be the most fatal enemy of Kings; the tears of the weak sap the foundation of thrones, and the

suffering of the nation destroys the ruler. The physical and the super-physical worlds interpenetrate each other, and causes set going in the one bring about results in the other.

The King and his Council in ancient India made the laws of the State, but these were artificial, not natural, laws; they were binding on the subjects, and were enforced by penalties, but such laws differ wholly from natural law. It seems a pity that one word should be used for two things so

different as natural and artificial laws, yet they are clearly distinguishable by their characteristics. Artificial laws are changeable; those who make them can alter them or repeal them. Natural laws are unchanging; they cannot be altered nor repealed, but lie in the nature of things.

Artificial laws are local, while natural are universal. The law in any country against robbery may be enforced by any penalty chosen by the legislator; sometimes the hand is cut off, sometimes the thief is sent to goal, sometimes he is hanged.

Moreover, the infliction of the penalty is dependent on the discovery of the crime. A penalty which is variable and artificial, and which may be escaped, is obviously not causally related to the crime it punishes. A natural law has no penalty, but one

condition follows invariably on another; if a man steals, his nature becomes more thievish, the tendency to dishonesty is increased, and the difficulty of being honest becomes greater; this consequence works in every case, in all countries; and the knowledge or ignorance of others as to theft makes no difference in the consequence.

A penalty which is local, variable and escapable

is a sign that the law is artificial, and not natural. A natural law is a sequence of conditions; such a condition being present, such another condition

will invariably fellow. If you want to bring about condition No.2, you must find or make condition No.1, and then condition No.2 will follow as an invariable consequence.

These sequences never vary when left to

themselves, but if a new condition is introduced the succeeding condition will be altered. Thus water

runs down a slanting channel in accordance with the force of gravitation, and if you pour water in at the top, it will invariably run down the slope; but you can obstruct the flow by putting an obstacle in the way, and then the resistance which the obstacle opposes to the force of gravitation balances it, but the force of gravitation remains active and is found in the pressure on the obstacle.

The first condition is called the cause, the resulting condition the effect, and the same cause always brings about the same effect, provided no

other cause is introduced; in the latter case, the effect is the resultant of both.

THE LAW OF LAWS

Karma is natural law in the full sense of the term; it is Universal Causation, the Law of Cause and Effect. It may be said to underlie all special laws, all causes and effects. It is natural law in all its aspects and in all its subdivisions; it is not a special law, but a universal condition, the one law

whereon all other laws depend, of which all other laws are partial expressions.

The Bhagavad-Gita says that none who are embodied can escape it – Shining Ones, human beings, animals, vegetables, minerals, are all evolving within this universal law; even the LOGOS Himself, embodied in a universe, comes within a larger sweep of this law of all manifestation. So long as any one is related to

matter, embodied in matter, so long is he within karmic law. A being may escape from or transcend one or other of its aspects, but he cannot, while remaining in manifestation, go outside this law.

THE ETERNAL NOW

This universal Law of Causation binds together into one all that happens within a manifestation, for it is universal interrelation. Interrelation between all that exists – that is karma. It is therefore coexistent, simultaneous, with the

coming into existence of any special universe. Therefore karma is eternal as the Universal Self.

The interrelation of everything always is. It never begins; it never ceases to be. "The unreal has no being; the real never ceases to be."

Nothing exists isolated, alone, out of relation, and karma is the interrelation of all that exists. It is manifest during the manifestation of a universe, as

regards that universe; it becomes latent in its dissolution.

In the All everything IS always; all that has been, all that now is manifest, all that will be, all that can be, all possibilities as well as all actualities, are ever in being in the All. That which isoutwards, the forth-going, existence, the unfolded, is the manifested universe.

That which IS as really, although inwards, the infolded, is the unmanifested universe. But the Within, the Unmanifested, is as real as the Without, the Manifested. The interrelation

between beings, in or out of manifestation, is the eternal karma. As Being never ceases, so karma never ceases, but always is.

When part of that which is simultaneous in the All becomes manifested as a universe, the eternal

interrelation becomes successive, and is seen as cause and effect. In the one Being, the All, everything is linked to everything else, everything is related to everything else, and in the phenomenal, the manifested universe, these links

and relations are drawn out into successive happenings, causally connected in the order of their succession in time, i.e., in appearance.

Some students shrink from a metaphysical view such as this, but unless this idea of eternal Being, within which all beings ever are, is grasped, the centre cannot be reached. So long as we think from the circumference, there is always a question behind every answer, endless beginnings and endings with a "Why?" behind each beginning. If the student would escape this, he must patiently seek the centre, and let the concept of All sink into his mind, until it becomes an ever-present part of his mental equipment, and then the universes on the circumference become intelligible, and the universal interrelation between all things, seen from the simultaneity of the centre, naturally becomes cause and effect in the successions on the circumference. It has been said that the Eternal (The Hindu name is Brahman, or more strictly, Nirguna Brahman, the Brahman without attributes) is an ocean, which throws up universes as waves.

The ocean symbolises being without form, ever the same. The wave, by virtue of being a part, has form and attributes. The waves rise and fall; they break into foam, and the spray of the waves is as worlds in a universe.

Or we may think of a huge waterfall, like Niagara, where the mass of its torrent is one ere it falls, and then it divides into innumerable drops, which

separately reflect the light; and the drops are as worlds, and the rainbow they make is the many-coloured life. But the water is one while the drops are many, and life is one though beings are many.

God manifest or unmanifest is one and the same, though different, though showing attributes in manifestation, and attributes in un-manifestation; the LOGOS and His universe are one, though He is

the unity and the universe the diversity, He is the life and the universe the forms.

Out of manifestation karma is latent, for the beings of the manifested are but concepts in the unmanifested; in manifestation karma is active, for all the parts of a world, of a system, of a universe, are inter-related.

Science declares that no movement of a part can take place without affecting the whole, and scientifically all are agreed. The inter-relations are universal, and none can be broken, for the breaking of one would break the unity of the whole.

The inviolability of natural law rests on its universality, and a breach of law in any part would mean universal chaos.

SUCCESSION

We have seen that as the manifestation of a universe implies succession of phenomena, so the universal inter-relation becomes the sequence of cause and effect. But each effect becomes in turn a cause, and so on endlessly, the difference between cause and effect not being one of nature but of relation.

The inter-relations which exist in the thought of the Eternal become the inter-relations between phenomena in the manifested universe – the portion of the thought put forth as a universe.

Before the manifestation of any special universe, there will be, in the Eternal, the thought of the universe which is to be, and its inter-relations.

That which exists simultaneously out of time and

space in the Eternal Now, gradually appears in time and space as successive phenomena. The moment you conceive a universe as made up of phenomena, you are obliged to think of these phenomena successively, one after another; but in the thought of the Eternal they always are, and the limitation of succession has there no existence.

Even in the lower worlds, where the measures of time are so different from each other, we catch a glimpse of the increasing limitations of denser matter. Mozart tells us of a state of consciousness in which he received a musical composition

as a single impression, although in his waking consciousness he could only reproduce that single impression in a succession of notes.

Or again, we may look at a picture, and receive a single mental impression – a landscape, a battle;

but an ant, crawling over that picture, would see no whole, only successive impressions from the parts travelled over.

By simile, by analogy, we may gain some idea of the difference of a universe as it appears to the LOGOS and as it appears to us. To Him, a single impression, a perfect whole; to us an immense sequence, slowly unfolding. So what is to Him

inter-relation becomes to us succession. Instead of seeing childhood, youth, old age as a whole, we see them successively, day by day, year by year. That which is simultaneous and universal becomes successive and particular to our small minds, crawling over the world as the ant over the picture.

Go up a mountain and look down on a town, and you can see how the houses are related to each other in blocks, streets, and so on. You realise them as a whole. But when you go down into the town you must pass from street to street, seeing each separately, successively. So in karma, we see the relations only one by one, and one after another, not even realising the successive relations, so limited is our view.

Such similes may often help us to grasp the invisible things, and may act as crutches to our halting imagination. And out of all this we lay our foundation stone for our study of karma. Karma is universal inter-relation, and is seen in any universe as the Law of Causation, in consequence of the successive appearance of phenomena in the becoming, or coming forth, of the universe.

CAUSATION

The idea of causation has been challenged in modern times, Huxley, for instance, contending, in the Contemporary Review, that we only knew sequence, not causation; he said that if a ball moved after it was hit by a bat, you should

not say that the blow of the bat caused the movement, but only that it was followed by the movement.

This extreme scepticism came out strongly in some of the great men of the nineteenth century, a reaction from the ready credulity and many unproved assumptions of the Middle Ages.

The reaction had its use, but is now gradually passing away, as extremes ever do.

The idea of causation arises naturally in the human mind, though unprovable by the senses; when a phenomenon has been invariably followed by another phenomenon for long periods of time, the two become linked together in our minds, and when one appears, the mind, by association of ideas, expects the second; thus the fact that night has been followed by day from time immemorial gives us a firm conviction that the sun will rise tomorrow as on countless yesterdays.

Succession alone, however, does not necessarily imply causation; we do not regard day as the cause of night, nor night as the cause of day, because they

invariably succeed each other. To assert causation, we need more than invariable succession; we need that the reason shall see that which the senses are unable to discern – a relation between the two things which brings about the appearance of the second when the first appears. The succession of day and night is not caused by either; both are caused by the relation of the earth to the sun; that

relation is a true cause, recognised as such by the reason, and as long as the relation exists unchanged, day and night will be its effect. In order to see one thing as the cause of another, the reason must establish a relation between them which is sufficient for the production of one by the other; then, and then only, can we rightly assert causation. The links between phenomena that are never broken, and that are recognised by the reason as an active relation, bringing into manifestation the second phenomenon whenever the first is manifested, we call causation.

They are the shadows of inter-relations existing in the Eternal, outside space and time, and they extend over the life of a universe, wherever

the conditions exist for their manifestation.

Causation is an expression of the nature of the LOGOS, an Emanation of the eternal Reality; wherever there is interrelation in the Eternal which demands succession for its manifestation in

time, there is causation.

THE LAWS OF NATURE

Our next step in our study is a consideration of the "Laws of Nature". The whole universe is included within the ideas of succession and causation, but when we come to what we call the laws of nature, we are unable to say over what area they extend.

Scientists find themselves compelled to speak with greater and greater caution as they travel beyond the limit of actual observation. Causes and effects which are continuous within the area of our observation may not exist in other regions, or workings which are here observed as invariable may be interrupted by the irruption of some cause outside the "known" of our time, though probably not outside the knowable.

Between 1850 and 1890 there were many positive statements as to the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. It was said that there existed in the universe a certain amount of energy, incapable of diminution or of increase; that all forces were forms of that energy, that the amount of any given force, as heat, might vary, but not

the total amount of energy. As 20 may be made up of 20 units, or of 10 twos, or of 5 fours, or of 12+8, ) and so on, but the total remains as 20, so with the

varying forms and the total amount. With regard to matter, again, similar statements were made; it was indestructible, and hence remained ever the same in amount; some, like Ludwig Buchner, declared that the chemical elements were

indestructible, that "an atom of carbon was ever an atom of carbon," and so on.

On these two ideas science was built up, and they formed the basis of materialism. But now it is realised that chemical elements are dissoluble, and

that the atom itself may be a swirl in the ether, or perhaps a mere hole where ether is not.

There may be atoms through which force pours in, others through which it pours out – whence? – whither ? May not physical matter become

intangible, resolve itself into ether? May not ether give birth to new matter?

All is doubtful where once certainty reigned. Yet has a universe its "Ring-Pass-Not". Within a given area only can we speak with certainty of a "law

of nature".

What is a law of nature? Mr. J.N. Farquhar, in the Contemporary Review for July, 1910, in an article on Hinduism, declares that if Hindus want to carry out reforms, they must abandon the idea of karma. As well might he say that if a man wants to fly he must abandon the idea of an atmosphere. To understand the law of karma is not to renounce activity, but to know the conditions under which

activity is best carried on. Mr. Farquhar, who has evidently studied modern

Hinduism carefully, has not grasped the idea of karma as taught in ancient scripture and in modern science.

A law of nature is not a command, but a statement of conditions. This cannot be repeated too often, nor insisted on too strongly.

Nature does not order this thing or the other; she says: "Here are certain conditions; where these exist, such and such a result will invariably follow." A law of nature is an invariable sequence.

If you do not like the result, change the preceding conditions. Ignorant, you are helpless, at the mercy of nature’s hurtling forces; wise, you are master, and her forces serve you obediently.

Every law of nature is an enabling, not a

compelling, force, but knowledge is necessary for utilising her powers.

Water boils at 100 degrees C. under normal pressure. This is the condition. You go up a mountain; pressure diminishes; water boils at 95 degrees. Now water at 95 degrees will not make good tea. Does Nature then forbid you to have good tea on a mountain-top? Not at all: under normal pressure water boils at the necessary temperature for tea-making; you have lost pressure; supply the

deficit; imprison your escaping steam till it adds the necessary pressure, and you can make your tea with water at 100 degrees.

If you want to produce water by the union of hydrogen and oxygen, you require a certain temperature, and can obtain it from the electric spark. If you insist on keeping the temperature at

zero, or in substituting nitrogen for hydrogen, you cannot have water.

Nature lays down the conditions which result in the production of water, and you cannot change them; she neither supplies nor withholds water; you are free to have it or to go without it; if you want it, you must bring together the necessary things and thus make the conditions. Without these, no water.

With these, inevitably water. Are you bound or free? Free as to making the conditions; bound

as to the result, when once you have made them.

Knowing this, the scientific man, face to face with a difficulty, does not sit down helplessly; he finds out

the conditions under which he can bring about a result, learns how to make the conditions, sure that he can rely on the result.

A LESSON OF THE LAW

This is the great lesson taught by science to the present generation. Religion has taught it for ages, but dogmatically rather than rationally. Science proves that knowledge is the condition of freedom, and that only as man knows can he compel. The scientific man observes sequences; over and over again he performs his testing experiments; he eliminates all that is casual, collateral, irrelevant, and slowly, surely, discovers what constitutes an invariable causative sequence. Once sure of his facts, he acts with indubitable assurance, and nature, without shadow of turning, rewards his rational certainty with success.

Out of this assurance grows "the sublime patience of the investigator". Luther Burbank, in California, will sow millions of seeds, select some thousands of plants, pair a few hundreds, and patiently march to his end; he can trust the

laws of nature, and, if he fails, he knows that the error lies with him, not with them.

There is a law of nature that masses of matter tend to move towards the earth. Shall I then say: "I cannot walk up the stairs; I cannot fly in the air"? Nay, there are other laws. I pit against the force that holds me on the ground, another force stored in my muscles, and I raise my body by means of it.

A person with muscles weak from fever may have to stay on the ground-floor, helpless; but I break no law when I put forth muscular force, and walk upstairs.

The inviolability of Law does not bind – it frees. It makes Science possible, and rationalises human effort. In a lawless universe, effort would be futile,

reasons would be useless. We should be savages, trembling in the grip of forces, strange, incalculable, terrible. Imagine a chemist in a laboratory where nitrogen was now inert, now explosive, where oxygen vivified today and stifled

tomorrow! In a lawless universe we should not dare to move, not knowing what any action might bring about. We move sagely, surely, because of the inviolability of Law.

KARMA DOES NOT CRUSH

Now Karma is the great law of nature, with all that that implies. As we are able to move in the physical universe with security, knowing its laws, so may we move in the mental and moral universes with security also, as we learn their laws.

The majority of people, with regard to their mental and moral defects, are much in the position of a man who should decline to walk upstairs because of the law of gravitation. They sit down helplessly, and say: "That is my nature. I cannot help it." True, it is the man’s nature, as he has made it in the past, and it is "his karma". But by a knowledge of karma he can change his nature, making it

other tomorrow than it is today. He is not in the grip of an inevitable destiny, imposed upon him from outside; he is in a world of law, full of natural forces which he can utilise to bring about the state of things which he desires.

Knowledge and will – that is what he needs. He must realize that karma is not a power which crushes, but a statement of conditions out of which invariable results accrue. So long as he lives carelessly, in a happy-go-lucky way, so long

will he be like a man floating on a stream, stuck by any passing log, blown aside by any casual breeze, caught in any chance eddy. This spells failure,

misfortune, unhappiness.

The law enables him to compass his ends successfully, and places within his reach forces which he can utilise. He can modify, change,

remake on other lines the nature which is the inevitable outcome of his previous desires, thoughts, and actions; that future nature is as inevitable as the present, the result of the conditions which he now deliberately makes.

"Habit is second nature," says the proverb, and thought creates habits. Where there is Law, no achievement is impossible, and karma is the guarantee of man’s evolution into mental and moral perfection.

APPLY THIS LAW

We have now to apply this law to ordinary human life, to apply principle to practice. It has been the loss of the intelligible relations between eternal

principles and transitory events that has rendered modern religion so inoperative in common life. A man will clean up his backyard when he

understands the relation between dirt and disease; but he leaves his mental and moral backyards uncleansed, because he sees no relation between his mental and moral defects and the various ghastly after-death experiences with which he is threatened by religions. Hence he either disbelieves the threats and goes carelessly on his way, or hopes to escape consequences by some artificial compact with the authorities. In either case, he does not cleanse his ways.

When he realizes that law is as inviolable in the mental and moral worlds as in the physical, it may well be hoped that he will become as reasonable in the former as he already is in the latter.

MAN IN THE THREE WORLDS

Man, as we know, is living normally in three worlds, the physical, emotional and mental, is put into contact with each by a body formed of its type of matter, and acts in each through the appropriate body. He therefore creates results in each

according to their respective laws and powers, and all these come within the all-embracing law of karma. During his daily life in waking consciousness he is creating "karma," i.e. results, in these three worlds, by action, desire and

thought. While his physical body is asleep, he is creating karma in two worlds – the emotional and the mental, the amount of karma then created by him depending on the stage he has reached in evolution.

We may confine ourselves to these three worlds, for those above them are not inhabited consciously by the average man; but we should, none the less, remember that we are like trees, the roots of which are fixed in the higher worlds, and their branches spread in the three lower worlds in which dwell our mortal bodies, and in which our consciousnesses are working.

Laws work within their own worlds, and must be studied as though their workings were independent; just as every science studies the laws working within its own department, but does not forget the wider working of further-reaching

conditions, so must man, while working in the three departments, physical, emotional and mental, remember the sweep of law which includes them all within its area of activity. In all departments laws are inviolable and unchangeable, and each brings about its own full effect, although the final result of their interaction is the effective force that remains when all balancing of opposing forces has been made.

All that is true of laws in general is true of karma, the

great law. Causes being present, events must follow. But by taking away, or adding causes, events must be modified.

A person gets drunk; may he say: "My karma is to get drunk"? He gets drunk because of certain tendencies existing in himself, the presence of loose

companions, and an environment where drink is sold. Let us suppose that he wishes to conquer his evil habit; he knows the three conditions that lead him into drunkenness. He may say: "I am not strong enough to resist my own tendencies in the presence of drink and the company of loose-livers.

I will not go where there is drink, nor will I associate with men who tempt me to drink."

He changes the conditions, eliminating two of them, though unable immediately to change the third, and the new result is that he does not get drunk. He is not "interfering with karma," but is relying on it; nor is a friend "interfering with karma," if he persuades him to keep away from boon

companions. There is no karmic command to a man to get drunk, but only the existence of certain

conditions in the midst of which he certainly will get drunk; there is, it is true, another way of changing the conditions, the putting forth a strong effort of will; this also introduces a new condition, which will change the result – by addition instead of elimination.

In the only sense in which a man can "interfere" with the laws of nature he is perfectly at liberty to do so, as much as he likes and can. He can inhibit the acting of one force by bringing another against it; he can overcome gravitation by muscular effort.

In this sense, he may interfere with karma as much as he likes, and should interfere with it when the results are objectionable. But the expression is not a happy one, and it is liable to be misunderstood.

The law is: such and such causes bring about such and such results. The law is unchangeable, but the play of phenomena is ever-changing. The mightiest cause of all causes is human will and human reason, and yet this is the cause which is, for the most part, omitted when people talk of karma. We are causes, because we are the divine will, one with God in our essential being, although hampered by

ignorance and working through gross matter, which impedes us until we conquer, by spiritualising, it.

The changelessness of karma is not the changelessness of effects but of law, and it is this which makes us free. Truly slaves should we

be in a world in which everything went by chance.

But according to our knowledge are our freedom and our safety in a world of law. In the Middle Ages, chemists were by no means free to bring about the results they desired, but they had to

accept results as they came, unforeseen and for the most part undesired, even to their own serious injury. The result of an experiment might be a useful product, or it might be the reduction of the experimenter into fragments. Roger Bacon set

going causes which cost him an eye and a finger, and occasionally stretched him senseless on the floor of his cell; outside our knowledge we are in peril, and any cause we set going may wreck us, for we are mostly Roger Bacons in the mental and moral worlds; inside our knowledge we may move with freedom and safety, as the well-trained chemist moves today.

It is true in all the three worlds in which we live, that the more we know, the more can we foresee and control. Because law is inviolable and changeless, therefore knowledge is the condition of freedom. Let us then study karma, and apply our knowledge to the guidance of our lives. So many people say: "Oh! how I wish I were good," and do

not use the law to create the causes which result in goodness; as though a chemist should say: "Oh! how I wish I had water," without making the conditions

which would produce it.

Again, we must remember that each force works along its own particular line, and that when a number of forces impinge on a particular point, the resultant force is the outcome of all of them. As in our school days we learned how to construct

a parallelogram of forces and thus find the resultant of their composition; so with karma may we learn to understand the conflict of forces and their composition to yield a single resultant. We hear people asking why a good man fails in business while a bad man succeeds.

But there is no causal connection between goodness and money-getting. We might at well say: "I am a very good man; why cannot I fly in the air?" Goodness is not a cause of flying, nor does it

bring in money. Tennyson touched on a great law when, in his poem on "Wages," he declared that the wages of virtue were not "dust," nor rest, nor pleasure, but the glory of an active immortality. "Virtue is its own reward" in the fullest sense of the words. If we are truthful, our reward is that our nature becomes more truthful, and so sequentially with every virtue.

Karmic results can only be of the nature of their causes; they are not arbitrary, like human rewards.

UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH

This seems to be obvious: whence then arises the general instinct that success in life should accompany goodness? We can successfully combat an error only when we understand the truth which lies at the heart of it, gives it its vitality, and leads to its spread and its persistence. The truth in this case is that, if a man puts himself into accord with the divine law, happiness is the result of such harmony. The error is to identify worldly success with happiness, and to disregard the element of time.

A man going into business determines to be

truthful, and to take no unfair advantage over others. He sees those who are untruthful and unscrupulous going ahead of him; if he is weak, he becomes discouraged, even, perchance, imitates them. If he is strong, he says: "I will work in harmony with the divine law, no matter what may be the immediate worldly results": inner peace and happiness are then his, but success does not accrue to him; nevertheless, in the long run even that may fall to him, for what he loses in money he gains in confidence, whereas the man who once betrays may at any time betray again, and none will trust him. In a competitive society, lack of scrupulousness yields immediate success, whereas in a cooperative society conscientiousness would "pay". To give starvation wages to workers forced by competition to accept them may lead to immediate success as against business rivals, and the man who gives a decent living wage may find himself outpaced in

the race for wealth; but, in the long run, the latter will have better work done for him, and in the future will reap the harvest of happiness whereof he sowed the seed.

We must decide on our course and accept its results, not looking for money as payment for goodness, nor seeing injustice when unscrupulous shrewdness reaches that at which it aimed.

An instructive, if not very pleasant, Indian story is told of a man who wronged another, and the injured man cried for redress to the King. When the punishment to be inflicted on his enemy was given into his hands, he prayed the King to enrich his foe; asked for the reason of his strange behaviour, he grimly said that wealth and worldly prosperity would give him greater opportunities for wrongdoing, and would thus entail on him bitter suffering in the life after death. Often the worst enemy of virtue is in easy material conditions, and these, which are spoken of as good karma, are often the reverse in their results.

Many who do fairly well in adversity go astray in prosperity, and become intoxicated with worldly delights.

Let us now consider how a man affects his surroundings, or, in scientific phrase, how the organism acts on its environment.

MAN AND HIS SURROUNDINGS

Man affects his surroundings in innumerable ways, which may all be classified into three modes of self-expression: he affects them by Will, by Thought, by

Action.

The developed man is able to draw his energies together and to fuse them into one, ready to go forth from him, and to cause action. This concentration of his energies into a single force, held in suspense within him, in leash ready for

outrush, is Will; it is an interior concentration, one mode of the triple Self-expression. In the

subhuman kingdoms, and in the lower divisions of the human, the pleasure-giving and pain-giving objects around the living creature draw out its energies, and we call these multifarious energies brought out by external objects its desires, whether of attraction or repulsion.

Only when these are all drawn in, united and pointed towards a single aim, can we term

this single energy, ready to go forth, the Will. This Will is Self-expression, i.e., it is directed by the Self; the Self determines the line to be taken,

basing its determination on previous experience.

In the subhuman and lower human kingdoms, desires are an important factor in karma, giving rise to most mixed results; in the higher human, Will is the most potent karmic cause, and as man

transmutes desires into Will, he "rules his stars".

The mode of Self-expression called Thought belongs to the aspect of the Self by which he becomes aware of the outer world, the aspect of Cognition. This obtains knowledge, and the working of the Self on the knowledge obtained is Thought.

This, again, is an important factor in karma, since it is creative, and as we know, builds character.

The mode of Self-expression which directly affects the environment, the energy giving forth from the Self, is Activity, the action of the Self on the Not-Self.

The power of concentrating all energies into one is Will; the power of becoming aware of an external world is Cognition; the power of affecting that outside world is Activity. This action is inevitably followed by a reaction from the outside world – karma. The inner cause of the reaction is Will; the nature of the reaction is due to Cognition; the immediate provoker of the reaction is Activity. These spin the three threads of the karmic rope.

THE THREE FATES

"God created man in His own image," says a Hebrew Scripture, and the Trinities of the great religions are the symbols of the three aspects of the divine consciousness, reflected in the triplicity of the human. The first Logos of the Theosophist, the Mahadeva of the Hindu, the Father of the Christians, has Will as predominant, and shows forth the power of sovereignty, the Law by which the universe is built. The Second Logos, Vishnu, the Son, is Wisdom, that all-sustaining and all-pervading power by which the universe is preserved. The Third Logos, Brahma, the Holy Spirit, is the Agent, the creative power by which

the universe is brought into manifestation. There is nothing in divine or human consciousness which does not find itself within one or other of these modes of Self-expression.

Again, matter has three fundamental qualities responsive severally to these modes of consciousness, and without these it could no more be manifested than Consciousness could express itself without its modes. It has inertia (tamas),

the very foundation of all, the stability necessary to existence, the quality which answers to Will. It has mobility (rajas), the capacity to be moved,

answering to Activity. It has rhythm (sattva), the equaliser of movement (without which movement would be chaotic, destructive), answering to Cognition.

The Yoga system, considering all from the standpoint of consciousness, names this rhythmic quality "cognisability," that which makes that matter should be known by Spirit.

All that is in our consciousness, affecting the environment, and all the environment affected by our consciousness, make up our world. The interrelation between our consciousness and our environment is our karma. By these three modes

of consciousness we spin our individual karma, the universal interrelation between Self and Not-Self being specialized by us into this individual

interrelation As we rise above separateness, the individual again becomes the universal interrelation, but this universal interrelation cannot be transcended while manifestation endures. This specializing of the universal, and the later universalizing of the special make up of the "world’s eternal ways" – the Path of Forthgoing to gather experience, the Path of Return, bringing the sheaves of experience home; this is the Great Wheel of Evolution, so relentless when seen

from the standpoint of Matter, so beauteous when seen from the standpoint of Spirit.

"Life is not a cry, but a song."

THE PAIR OF TRIPLETS

Thus we have three factors in spirit for the creation of Karma, and three corresponding qualities in matter, and we must study these in order to make our Karma that which we would have it be. We may study them in any order, but for many reasons it is convenient to take the cognitive factor first, because in that lies the power of knowledge and of choice.

We can change our desires by the use of thought, we cannot change our thoughts, though we may colour them, by desire; so, in the final analysis action is set in motion by thought.

In the earliest stages of savagery as with the newly born infant action is caused by attractions and repulsions. But almost immediately memory comes in, the memory of an attraction, with the wish to re-experience it; the memory of a repulsion, with the wish to avoid it. A thing has given pleasure, it is remembered, i.e., thought about, it is desired, action to grasp it follows.

The three cannot really be separated, for there is no action which is not preceded by thought and desire, and which does not again set them going, after it is performed.

Action is the outer sign of the invisible thought and desire, and in its very accomplishment gives birth to a fresh thought and desire. The three form a circle, perpetually retraced.

THOUGHT, THE BUILDER

Now thought works on matter; every change in consciousness is answered by a vibration in matter, and a similar change, however often repeated, brings about a similar vibration. This vibration is strongest in the matter nearest to you, and the matter nearest to you is your own mental body.

If you repeat a thought, it repeats the

corresponding vibration, and, as when matter has vibrated in a particular way once it is easier for it to vibrate in that same way again than to vibrate in a new way, the more often you repeat a thought the more ready the vibrationary response. Presently, after much repetition, a tendency will be set

up in the matter of your mental body,

automatically to repeat the vibration on its own account; when it does this – since the vibration in matter and the thought in consciousness are inseparably linked – the thought appears in the

mind without any previous activity on the part of consciousness.

Hence when you have thought over a thing – a virtue, an emotion, a wish – and have deliberately come to the conclusion that it is a desirable thing to have that virtue, to feel that emotion, to be moved by that wish, you quietly set to work to create a habit of thought.

You think deliberately of it every morning for a few minutes, and soon you find that it arises spontaneously in the mind (by the aforesaid automatic activity of matter). You persist in your thought-creation until you have formed a strong

habit of thought, a habit which can only be changed by an equally prolonged process of thinking in the opposite direction.

Even against the opposition of the will, the thought recurs to the mind – as many have found when they are unable to sleep in consequence of the involuntary recurrence of a harassing thought. If you have thus established the habit, say, of

honesty, you will act honestly automatically; and if some strong gust of desire sweeps you into

dishonesty on some occasion, the honest habit will torment you as it would never torment a habitual thief.

You have created the habit of honesty; the thief has

no such habit; hence you suffer mentally when the habit is broken, and the thief suffers not at all.

Persistence in strengthening such a mental habit until it is stronger than any force which can be brought to bear upon it makes the reliable

man; he literally cannot lie, cannot steal; he has built himself an impregnable virtue.

By thought, then, you can build any habit you choose to build. There is no

virtue which you cannot create by thought. The forces of nature work with you, for you understand how to use them, and they become your servants.

If you love your husband, your wife, your child, you find that this emotion of love causes happiness in those who feel it. If you spread the love outwards to others, an increase of happiness results.

You, seeing this and wishful for the happiness of all, deliberately begin to think love to others, in an ever wider and wider circle, until the love-attitude is your normal attitude towards all you meet. You have created the love-habit, and have generalized an emotion into a virtue, for a virtue is only a good emotion made general and permanent (See

Bhagavan Das’ The Science of Emotions)

Everything is under law; you cannot obtain mental ability or moral virtue by sitting still and doing nothing. You can obtain both by strenuous and

persevering thinking. You can build your mental and moral nature by thinking, for "man is created by thought; what he thinks upon, that he becomes; therefore think" on that which you aspire to be, and inevitably it shall be yours.

Thus shall you become a mental and moral athlete, and your character shall grow rapidly; you made in the past the character with which you were born; you are making now the character with which you will die, and will return. This is

karma.

Every one is born with a character, and the character is the most important part of karma. The Musalman says that "a man is born with his destiny tied round his neck". For a man’s destiny depends chiefly on his character.

A strong character can overcome the most unfavourable circumstances, and overclimb

the most difficult obstacles. A weak character is buffeted by circumstances, and fails before the most trivial obstacles.

PRACTICAL MEDITATION

The whole theory of meditation is built upon these laws of thought; for meditation is only deliberate and persevering thought, aimed at a specific

object, and hence is a potent karmic cause. By using knowledge and thought to modify character, you can bring about very quickly a desired result.

If you were born a coward, you can think yourself brave; if you were born dishonest, you can

think yourself honest: if you were born untruthful, you can think yourself truthful. Have confidence in yourself and in the law. There is another point we

must not forget. Concrete thought finds its natural realisation in action, and if you do not act out a thought, then by reaction you weaken the thought.

Strenuous action along the line of the thinking must follow the thought, otherwise progress will be slow.