During the last hundred years, the Western world came in contact with and comprehended the Divine Wisdom by means of H.P.Blavatsky's work.
The Laws of Free Will, of Reciprocal Justice and Re-incarnation, exist in the doctrines of all ancient peoples, as well as of Christianism.
The Law of Karma, which is our subject here, is also called the law of action and reaction, of reciprocal justice, of cause and effect, of natural choice, of universal harmony, of polarity.
Karma is the action and its result. It is the totality of actions, of reactions and of interactions within the physical, emotional and mental world. It is the process which restores the Divine Order, wherever it is impaired. It concerns both the universal and the human course. It is the fundamental law of the universe, the source, the origin and the font of all laws existing in the nature. "The Karmic law exists from Eternity to Eternity, because it is Eternity itself, and marches along with the manifestation for as long as it lasts. It does not take action, because it is action itself".(S.D., II, 305)
It is the Law of Polarity because it tends to unite, to combine and perfect oppositions. It is the law of harmony and balance, because it tends to fit together the components with the Divine Ideal. It is related to the law of Free Will, because it intervenes and settles the result of every action which derives from individual choice and decision. It is also related with the Law of Periodicity, because it adjusts Harmony and Order, in the course of cycles and periods.
We distinguish two aspects of the Karmic Law. The Cosmic Karma and the human Karma, which is a copy of the Cosmic one. Cosmic Karma refers to the whole of manifested universe. "The whole creative motion, the course and process which are accompanied by infinite changes and transformations of beings, and of their subjective and objective states" , is nothing but Karma.(Bagavat Gita, 8-3)
The Karmic Law is known in Philosophy by the term "Law of Causality" or "Determinism". The ancient and modern philosophical thinking has been quite concerned with the law of Causality. Both the ancient and the modern works contain reference and special studies. Such as: Parmenides, Heraclit, Leucipes, Plato, Aristoteles and the Stoics in the Antiquity. Augustin, Calvin, Cartesius, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Laplace, Schopenhauer, Nietsche, Marx, Heizenberg, and others in the Anno Domini period. According to the law of causality, everything that occurs is the result of a certain necessity. Every event has its cause, and under the same circumstances the same causes produce the same effects. Consequently, the events are related with necessary and universal laws. The following phrase by Laplace is characteristic : "We ought to consider the present state of the universe as the result of its previous state and as the cause of the one that will follow."
Inside this Universe, which is the result of Cosmic Will, there is man. He is an offprint of his Creator and acts within the mental world through his thought, within the emotional world through his envy and feeling and within the physical world through his action. He is responsible for the planning and the accomplishment of his actions. According to the Scandinavian Epos "Enda", "Out of the past and the present are born the events and the actions of the future." The results of these actions and choices - positive or negative in relation with the Divine Prototypes - are to be settled by the inevitable Karmic Law, which restores the universal Harmony and Perfection that were disturbed.
Knowing the universal Law, we are able to adapt our actions so as to get along with universal Harmony, Justice and Perfection. The Law of Karma, all along known to mankind, did not belong only to the Initiates, but the message - transmitted to the common people - became a myth, a verse and a proverb. We will now mention a few characteristic excerpts from the ancient and modern tradition, related to Karma.
From Ancient Greece we have the following mentions: Eschil : "There is the vigilant eye of the Law which obseves everything." "The wound is revenged by a wound." Pindar : "The destiny is inevitable." Democrit : "He who gives not to the one who asks, shall not be given when asking."
From the Old Testament we have chosen the following mentions : Proverbs, Ch. 21, 13 : He that stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor shall also cry himself and shall not be heard. Psalm 7, 16 : He hath opened a pit and dug it : and he is fallen into the hole he made. Ecclesiastes, Ch. 11 : Cast thy bread upon the running waters : for after a long time thou shalt find it again. Deuteronomy, Ch. 24, 16 : The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers : but every one shall die for his own sin.
From the New Testament, the following mentions: To the Galatians 6 : 7. Be not deceived; God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. St. Matthew 26 : 52. …St. Matthew 7 : 12 All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do for you, do you also to them. For this is the law… St. Luke 6 : 37. Judge not; and you shall not be judged. Condemn not; and you shall not be condemned. Forgive; and you shall be forgiven. Give; and it shall be given to you ; …For with the same measure that you shall mete withal it shall be measured to you again. St John 5 : 14. …sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee.
The following mentions are also related to our subject:
Cicerone (106-43 B.C.) : Men are born to suffer the punishments for some sins they committed in a previous life.
Balzac (1799-1850) : Perhaps only one life is necessary, in order to achieve the virtues required to wash away the mistakes of the previous life.
Gothilf von Schubert (1780-1860) : The strong attraction towards the lower level of senses in some previous life, has led the souls to this or to that destiny.
Strindberg (1849-1912) : Life is difficult and everyone's destiny totally different. This destiny is not the inevitable blind fate of the ancient, but the abilities that man has acquired, his duty he must fulfil.
Tolstoi (1828-1910) : The works of the previous life determine the orientation of the present one.
(Reincarnation, an East-West Anthology, by J.Head and S.L.Cranston, p.90, 206, 185, 215, 225)
As for the folk wisdom, this is recorded through many proverbs which are often related to the classical texts : "Self do, self have" "As you sow, you shall mow" "As you brew, so must you drink" "You made your bed, now lie in it" "He who sows storm, will reap whilwind".
These mentions imply that there is no such thing as luck, fate or destiny in the sense that is usually attached to these terms. We believe that it is not the fate but karma that "leads man to the end that has been determined for him" through continuous, painful or not, changes or re-determinations.(S.D. II, 605)
However, there is strong human inclination for the transfer of responsibilities into impersonal powers or divinities (fate, destiny, luck, lot, etc.) and this is obvious from the Antiquity (Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, the Tragics) till today. These characterizations are nothing but the names that man gives to the part of Karma that derives from previous incarnations. Similar verses exist in folk poetry. Such as : "When you were born, the Fates were celebrating/ they presented you with tremendous graces, as many as the sand in the sea". And the opposite : "When you gave birth to me, mother, the Fates were sad/ that's why grief and trouble never desert me". (Homeros, Ilias) For the misfortunes of life, the usual expression is : "it was God's will", which is a terrible blasphemy. (S.D. II, 304) It should be realized that "there are no haphazard events, unlucky days, or misfortunes that are not due to our own actions in another life."(S.D. I, 644) The deliverance will come only through our own behaviour which aim at unity and harmony, brotherhood, sacrifice, altruism, action without attachment to their causes and their effects.
The restoration of harmony which was disturbed, the paymant of Karma, can be done immediately, or during the current life, or be transferred to the next incarnation : "The evil is punished even to its seventh rebirth", is mentioned in the Secret Doctrine. (S.D. I, 643)
The potential of all these causes brings the respective results which appear as incidents, or character internally and externally. That is, perfection or imperfection, beauty or ugliness, soudness or infirmity, health and sickness, as well as everything that characterize psychic and mental health, state and quality, are the result of analogous actions. All human actions are directly related to and have an impact on the environment in which we live and of which we constitute a constituent part : Family, Nation, Race. Consequently, we participate in the karma of each.
Karma cannot be fully accomplished during one lifetime. Thus, the part that corresponds to each incarnation is planned from those forces which are known by the name of "Lipika", that is Recorders or Record-keepers. "The "Lipikas" study the "Book of Life " on which is imprinted every human thought and action, as well as everything that exited, exists and will exist within the manifested Universe."(S.D., I 104) The same powers are mentioned in the Greek Mythology as Fates. They are the daughters of Necessity in the work of whom Zeus never interferes, because thus the universal laws would be violated. Atropos represents the past, Clotho the present and Lahesis the future. Besides the Fates, there is also mention about Adrastia, which is the immutable effect of the causes that man himself created. So is Themis, who is the representative of the cosmic order and harmony, the Goddess in charge with responsible for the inhibition of every abuse and the preservation of man within the limits of Nature and rationality, through the terrible Nemesis who is the instrument of Themis. Nemesis, from Homer to Herodot, was not an incarnate goddess, but the moral emotion, that indefinite something which functions as an obstacle against the evil and immorality, the feeling of guilt which follows every evil action and behaviour.
The leader of these powers is Diania (Intelligence), which is called "Pesh Hun" in the Oriental philosophy, and "Cronus" in the Greek one. It is the performer of the cosmic ranks of Karma on a general scale. "It adjusts, leads and guides the impulsion of the cycles, of Kalpa, of cosmic and human events."(S.D. II 48) It is the preserver of Order and Harmony during the course of evolution and involution. It symbolizes Time, manifestation, during which everything is born, dies and is reborn in a more perfect way. Cronus is the "Divine Trial" and nobody can be forgiven or pardonned without his consent. Each human soul is weighed on the Scales of Libra, by Cronus and Venus or Divine Grace, until it becomes lighter than a feather, in order to pass onto the higher expression of the Ego, Individuality.
To sum up, we could say that, according to the Scriptures, philosophy and tradition, "it is not Karma that rewards or punishes, but we ourselves, to the extent we co-operate with one another, through and according to Nature, obbeying the laws on which Harmony is based, or else violate them." (S.D. I 643) This is learned step by step, by means of everyday life, until it becomes a way of living. All this knowledge, the living experience, is either recorded into the texts, or transmitted by oral tradition through proverbs.
