Part 16

“But it is more. It rewards merit as unerringly and amply as it punishes demerit. It is the outcome of every act, of thought, word and deed, and by it men mould themselves, their lives and happenings. Eastern philosophy rejects the idea of a newly created soul for every baby born. It believes in a limited number of monads, evolving and growing more and more perfect through their assimilation of many successive personalities. Those personalities are the product of Karma and it is by Karma and re-incarnation that the human monad in time returns to its source—absolute deity.”

E. D. Walker, in his “Re-incarnation,” offers the following explanation:—

“Briefly, the doctrine of Karma is that we have made ourselves what we are by former actions, and are building our future eternity by present actions. There is no destiny but what we ourselves determine. There is no salvation or condemnation except what we ourselves bring about.... Because it offers no shelter for culpable actions and necessitates a sterling manliness, it is less welcome to weak natures than the easy religious tenets of vicarious atonement, intercession, forgiveness and death-bed conversions.... In the domain of eternal justice the offence and the punishment are inseparably connected as the same event, because there is no real distinction between the action and its outcome.... It is Karma, or our old acts, that draws us back into earthly life. The spirit’s abode changes according to its Karma, and this Karma forbids any long continuance in one condition, because _it_ is always changing. So long as action is governed by material and selfish motives, just so long must the effect of that action be manifested in physical rebirths. Only the perfectly selfless man can elude the gravitation of material life. Few have attained this, but it is the goal of mankind.”

And then the writer quotes from the _Secret Doctrine_:

“Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which, from birth to death, every man is weaving, thread by thread, around himself, as a spider does his cobweb, and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the network of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny.... An Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach that, nevertheless, it guards the good and watches over them in this as in future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer—aye, even to his seventh re-birth—so long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in the infinite world of harmony has not been finally readjusted. 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. Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways—which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate; while another sees in them the action of blind fatalism; and a third simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them—would surely disappear if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause.... We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident of our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life.... The law of Karma is inextricably interwoven with that of re-incarnation.... It is only this doctrine that can explain to us the mysterious problem of good and evil, and reconcile man to the terrible and apparent injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can quiet our revolted sense of justice. For, when one unacquainted with the noble doctrine looks around him and observes the inequalities of birth and fortune, of intellect and capacities; when one sees honour paid to fools and profligates, on whom fortune has heaped her favours by mere privilege of birth, and their nearest neighbour, with all his intellect and noble virtues—far more deserving in every way—perishing for want and for lack of sympathy—when one sees all this and has to turn away, helpless to relieve the undeserved suffering, one’s ears ringing and heart aching with the cries of pain around him—that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from cursing life and men as well as their supposed Creator.... This law, whether conscious or unconscious, predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in eternity truly, for it is eternity itself; and as such, since no act can be coequal with eternity, it cannot be said to act, for it is action itself. It is not the wave which drowns the man, but the personal action of the wretch who goes deliberately and places himself under the impersonal action of the laws that govern the ocean’s motion. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plants and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects, which adjustment is not an act but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position, like a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigour. If it happen to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we say it is the bough which broke our arm or that our own folly has brought us to grief? Karma has never sought to destroy intellectual and individual liberty, like the god invented by the Monotheists. It has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man, nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinize its mysteries. On the contrary, he who unveils through study and meditation its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellow-men. Karma is an absolute and eternal law in the world of manifestation; and as there can only be one Absolute, as one Eternal, ever-present Cause, believers in Karma cannot be regarded as atheists or materialists, still less as fatalists, for Karma is one with the Unknowable, of which it is an aspect, in its effects in the phenomenal world.”

Another able Theosophic writer says (_Purpose of Theosophy_, by Mrs. P. Sinnett):—

“Every individual is making Karma either good or bad in each

## action and thought of his daily round, and is at the same

time working out in this life the Karma brought about by the acts and desires of the last. When we see people afflicted by congenital ailments it may be safely assumed that these ailments are the inevitable results of causes started by themselves in a previous birth. It may be argued that, as these afflictions are hereditary, they can have nothing to do with a past incarnation; but it must be remembered that the Ego, the real man, the individuality, has no spiritual origin in the parentage by which it is re-embodied, but it is drawn by the affinities which its previous mode of life attracted round it into the current that carries it, when the time comes for re-birth, to the home best fitted for the development of those tendencies.... This doctrine of Karma, when properly understood, is well calculated to guide and assist those who realize its truth to a higher and better mode of life, for it must not be forgotten that not only our actions but our thoughts also are most assuredly followed by a crowd of circumstances that will influence for good or for evil our own future, and, what is still more important, the future of many of our fellow-creatures. If sins of omission and commission could in any case be only self-regarding, the effect on the sinner’s Karma would be a matter of minor consequence. The fact that every thought and act through life carries with it for good or evil a corresponding influence on other members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and unselfishness so necessary to future happiness or progress. A crime once committed, an evil thought sent out from the mind, are past recall—no amount of repentance can wipe out their results in the future. Repentance, if sincere, will deter a man from repeating errors; it cannot save him or others from the effects of those already produced, which will most unerringly overtake him either in this life or in the next re-birth.”

Mr. J. H. Connelly proceeds—

“The believers in a religion based upon such doctrine are willing it should be compared with one in which man’s destiny for eternity is determined by the accidents of a single, brief earthly existence, during which he is cheered by the promise that ‘as the tree falls so shall it lie’; in which his brightest hope, when he wakes up to a knowledge of his wickedness, is the doctrine of vicarious atonement, and in which even that is handicapped, according to the Presbyterian Confession of Faith.

“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death.

“These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are

## particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is

so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. ... As God hath appointed the elect unto glory.... Neither are any other redeemed by Christ effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

“The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin to the praise of his glorious justice.”

This is what the able defender says. Nor can we do any better than wind up the subject as he does, by a quotation from a magnificent poem. As he says:—

“The exquisite beauty of Edwin Arnold’s exposition of Karma in ‘The Light of Asia’ tempts to its reproduction here, but it is too long for quotation in full. Here is a portion of it:—

Karma—all that total of a soul Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had, The “self” it wove with woof of viewless time Crossed on the warp invisible of acts.

* * * * *

Before beginning and without an end, As space eternal and as surety sure, Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good, Only its laws endure.

It will not be contemned of anyone; Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains: The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss, The hidden ill with pains.

It seeth everywhere and marketh all; Do right—it recompenseth! Do one wrong— The equal retribution must be made, Though Dharma tarry long.

It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true, Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs; Times are as naught, to-morrow it will judge Or after many days.

* * * * *

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.

And now I advise you to compare our Theosophic views upon Karma, the law of Retribution, and say whether they are not both more philosophical and just than this cruel and idiotic dogma which makes of “God” a senseless fiend; the tenet, namely, that the “elect only” will be saved, and the rest doomed to eternal perdition!

ENQ. Yes, I see what you mean generally; but I wish you could give some concrete example of the action of Karma?

THEO. That I cannot do. We can only feel sure, as I said before, that our present lives and circumstances are the direct results of our own deeds and thoughts in lives that are past. But we, who are not Seers or Initiates, cannot know anything about the details of the working of the law of Karma.

ENQ. Can anyone, even an Adept or Seer, follow out this Karmic process of readjustment in detail?

THEO. Certainly: “Those who _know_” can do so by the exercise of powers which are latent even in all men.

WHO ARE THOSE WHO KNOW?

ENQ. Does this hold equally of ourselves as of others?

THEO. Equally. As just said, the same limited vision exists for all, save those who have reached in the present incarnation the acme of spiritual vision and clairvoyance. We can only perceive that, if things with us ought to have been different, they would have been different; that we are what we have made ourselves, and have only what we have earned for ourselves.

ENQ. I am afraid such a conception would only embitter us.

THEO. I believe it is precisely the reverse. It is disbelief in the just law of retribution that is more likely to awaken every combative feeling in man. A child, as much as a man, resents a punishment, or even a reproof he believes to be unmerited, far more than he does a severer punishment, if he feels that it is merited. Belief in Karma is the highest reason for reconcilement to one’s lot in this life, and the very strongest incentive towards effort to better the succeeding re-birth. Both of these, indeed, would be destroyed if we supposed that our lot was the result of anything but strict _Law_, or that destiny was in any other hands than our own.

ENQ. You have just asserted that this system of Re-incarnation under Karmic law commended itself to reason, justice, and the moral sense. But, if so, is it not at some sacrifice of the gentler qualities of sympathy and pity, and thus a hardening of the finer instincts of human nature?

THEO. Only apparently, not really. No man can receive more or less than his deserts without a corresponding injustice or partiality to others; and a law which could be averted through compassion would bring about more misery than it saved, more irritation and curses than thanks. Remember also, that we do not administer the law, if we do create causes for its effects; it administers itself; and again, that the most copious provision for the manifestation of _just_ compassion and mercy is shown in the state of Devachan.

ENQ. You speak of Adepts as being an exception to the rule of our general ignorance. Do they really know more than we do of Re-incarnation and after states?

THEO. They do, indeed. By the training of faculties we all possess, but which they alone have developed to perfection, they have entered in spirit these various planes and states we have been discussing. For long ages, one generation of Adepts after another has studied the mysteries of being, of life, death, and re-birth, and all have taught in their turn some of the facts so learned.

ENQ. And is the production of Adepts the aim of Theosophy?

THEO. Theosophy considers humanity as an emanation from divinity on its return path thereto. At an advanced point upon the path, Adeptship is reached by those who have devoted several incarnations to its achievement. For, remember well, no man has ever reached Adeptship in the Secret Sciences in one life; but many incarnations are necessary for it after the formation of a conscious purpose and the beginning of the needful training. Many may be the men and women in the very midst of our Society who have begun this uphill work toward illumination several incarnations ago, and who yet, owing to the personal illusions of the present life, are either ignorant of the fact, or on the road to losing every chance in this existence of progressing any farther. They feel an irresistible attraction toward occultism and the _Higher Life_, and yet are too personal and self-opinionated, too much in love with the deceptive allurements of mundane life and the world’s ephemeral pleasures, to give them up; and so lose their chance in their present birth. But, for ordinary men, for the practical duties of daily life, such a far-off result is inappropriate as an aim and quite ineffective as a motive.

ENQ. What, then, may be their object or distinct purpose in joining the Theosophical Society?

THEO. Many are interested in our doctrines and feel instinctively that they are truer than those of any dogmatic religion. Others have formed a fixed resolve to attain the highest ideal of man’s duty.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE; OR, BLIND AND REASONED FAITH.

ENQ. You say that they accept and believe in the doctrines of Theosophy. But, as they do not belong to those Adepts you have just mentioned, then they must accept your teachings on _blind faith_. In what does this differ from that of conventional religions?

THEO. As it differs on almost all the other points, so it differs on this one. What you call “faith,” and that which is _blind faith_, in reality, and with regard to the dogmas of the Christian religions, becomes with us “_knowledge_,” the logical sequence of things _we know_, about _facts_ in nature. Your Doctrines are based upon interpretation, therefore, upon the _second-hand_ testimony of Seers; ours upon the invariable and unvarying testimony of Seers. The ordinary Christian theology for instance, holds that man is a creature of God, of three component parts—body, soul, and spirit—all essential to his integrity, and all, either in the gross form of physical earthly existence or in the etherealized form of post-resurrection experience, needed to so constitute him for ever, each man having thus a permanent existence separate from other men, and from the Divine. Theosophy, on the other hand, holds that man, being an emanation from the Unknown, yet ever present and infinite Divine Essence, his body and everything else is impermanent, hence an illusion; Spirit alone in him being the one enduring substance, and even that losing its separated individuality at the moment of its complete reunion with the _Universal Spirit_.

ENQ. If we lose even our individuality, then it becomes simply annihilation.

THEO. I say it _does not_, since I speak of _separate_, not of universal individuality. The latter becomes as a part transformed into the whole; the _dewdrop_ is not evaporated, but becomes the sea. Is physical man _annihilated_, when from a fœtus he becomes an old man? What kind of Satanic pride must be ours if we place our infinitesimally small consciousness and individuality higher than the universal and infinite consciousness!

ENQ. It follows, then, that there is, _de facto_, no man, but all is Spirit?

THEO. You are mistaken. It thus follows that the union of Spirit with matter is but temporary; or, to put it more clearly, since Spirit and matter are one, being the two opposite poles of the _universal_ manifested substance—that Spirit loses its right to the name so long as the smallest particle and atom of its manifesting substance still clings to any form, the result of differentiation. To believe otherwise is _blind faith_.

ENQ. Thus it is on _knowledge_, not on _faith_, that you assert that the permanent principle, the Spirit, simply makes a transit through matter?

THEO. I would put it otherwise and say—we assert that the appearance of the permanent and one principle, Spirit, _as matter_ is transient, and, therefore, no better than an illusion.

ENQ. Very well; and this, given out on knowledge not faith?

THEO. Just so. But as I see very well what you are driving at, I may just as well tell you that we hold _faith_, such as you advocate, to be a mental disease, and real faith, _i.e._, the _pistis_ of the Greeks, as “_belief based on knowledge_,” whether supplied by the evidence of physical or _spiritual_ senses.

ENQ. What do you mean?

THEO. I mean, if it is the difference between the two that you want to know, then I can tell you that between _faith on authority_ and _faith on one’s spiritual intuition_, there is a very great difference.

ENQ. What is it?

THEO. One is human credulity and _superstition_, the other human belief and _intuition_. As Professor Alexander Wilder says in his “Introduction to the _Eleusinian Mysteries_,” “It is ignorance which leads to profanation. Men ridicule what they do not properly understand.... The undercurrent of this world is set towards one goal; and inside of human credulity ... is a power almost infinite, a holy faith capable of apprehending the supremest truths of all existence.” Those who limit that “credulity” to human authoritative dogmas alone, will never fathom that power nor even perceive it in their natures. It is stuck fast to the external plane and is unable to bring forth into play the essence that rules it; for to do this they have to claim their right of private judgment, and this they never _dare_ to do.

ENQ. And is it that “intuition” which forces you to reject God as a personal Father, Ruler and Governor of the Universe?

THEO. Precisely. We believe in an ever unknowable Principle, because blind aberration alone can make one maintain that the Universe, thinking man, and all the marvels contained even in the world of matter, could have grown without some _intelligent powers_ to bring about the extraordinarily wise arrangement of all its parts. Nature may err, and often does, in its details and the external manifestations of its materials, never in its inner causes and results. Ancient pagans held on this question far more philosophical views than modern philosophers, whether Agnostics, Materialists or Christians; and no pagan writer has ever yet advanced the proposition that cruelty and mercy are not finite feelings, and can therefore be made the attributes of an _infinite_ god. Their gods, therefore, were all finite. The Siamese author of the _Wheel of the Law_, expresses the same idea about your personal god as we do; he says (p. 25):

“A Buddhist might believe in the existence of a god; sublime above all human qualities and attributes—a perfect god, above love, and hatred, and jealousy, calmly resting in a quietude that nothing could disturb, and of such a god he would speak no disparagement, not from a desire to please him or fear to offend him, but from natural veneration; but he cannot understand a god with the attributes and qualities of men, a god who loves and hates, and shows anger; a Deity who, whether described as by Christian Missionaries or by Mahometans or Brahmins,[55] or Jews, falls below his standard of even an ordinary good man.”