A STUDY IN KARMA /PART 1

 

A STUDY IN KARMA

                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.