connected, and their operations are closely interwoven. Constant and
unvarying in operation, Karma manifests upon and in worlds, planets,
races, nations, families and persons Everywhere in space is the great
law in operation in some form. The so-called mechanical operations
called Causation are as much a phase of Karma as is the highest phases
manifest on the higher planes of life, far beyond our own. And through
it all is ever the urge toward perfection--the upward movement of all
life. The Yogi teachings regard the Universe as a mighty whole, and the
Law of Karma as the one great law operating and manifesting through
that whole.
How different is the workings of this mighty Law from the many ideas
advanced by man to account for the happenings of life. Mere Chance is
no explanation, for the careful thinker must inevitably come to the
conclusion that in an Universe governed by law, there can be no room
for Chance. And to suppose that all rewards and punishments are
bestowed by a personal deity, in answer to prayers, supplications, good
behavior, offerings, etc., is to fall back into the childhood stage of
the race thought. The Yogis teach that the sorrow, suffering and
affliction witnessed on all sides of us, as well as the joy, happiness
and blessings also in evidence, are not caused by the will or whim of
some capricious deity to reward his friends and punish his enemies--but
by the working of an invariable Law which metes out to each his measure
of good and ill according to his Karmic attachments and relationships.
Those who are suffering, and who see no cause for their pain, are apt
to complain and rebel when they see others of no apparent merit
enjoying the good things of life which have been denied their
apparently more worthy brethren. The churches have no answer except "It
is God's will," and that "the Divine motive must not be questioned."
These answers seem like mockery, particularly when the idea of Divine
Justice is associated with the teaching. There is no other answer
compatible with Divine Justice other than the Law of Karma, which makes
each person responsible for his or her happiness or misery. And there
is nothing so stimulating to one as to know that he has within himself
the means to create for himself newer and better conditions of life and
environment. We are what we are to-day by reason of what we were in our
yesterdays. We will be in our tomorrows that which we have started into
operation to-day. As we sow in this life, so shall we reap in the
next--we are now reaping that which we have sown in the past. St. Paul
voiced a world truth when he said: "Brethren, be not deceived. God is
not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."
The teachers divide the operation of Karma into three general classes,
as follows:
(1) The Karmic manifestations which are now under way in our lives,
producing results which are the effects of causes set into motion in
our past lives. This is the most common form, and best known phase of
Karmic manifestation.
(2) The Karma which we are now acquiring and storing up by reason of
our actions, deeds, thoughts and mental and spiritual relationships.
This stored up Karma will spring into operation in future lives, when
the body and environments appropriate for its manifestation presents
itself or is secured; or else when other Karma tending to restrict its
operations is removed. But one does not necessarily have to wait until
a future life in order to set into operation and manifestation the
Karma of the present life. For there come times in which there being no
obstructing Karma brought over from a past life, the present life Karma
may begin to manifest.
(3) The Karma brought over from past incarnations, which is not able to
manifest at the present time owing to the opposition presented by other
Karma of an opposite nature, serves to hold the first in check. It is a
well known physical law, which likewise manifests on the mental plane,
that two opposing forces result in neutralization, that is, both of the
forces are held in check. Of course, though, a more powerful Karma may
manage to operate, while a weaker is held in check by it.
Not only have individuals their own Karma, but families, races, nations
and worlds have their collective Karma. In the cases of races, if the
race Karma generated in the past be favorable on the whole, the race
flourishes and its influence widens. If on the contrary its collective
Karma be bad, the race gradually disappears from the face of the earth,
the souls constituting it separating according to their Karmic
attractions, some going to this race and some to another. Nations are
bound by their Karma, as any student of history may perceive if he
studies closely the tides of national progress or decline.
The Karma of a nation is made up of the collective Karma of the
individuals composing it, so far as their thoughts and acts have to do
with the national spirit and acts. Nations as nations cease to exist,
but the souls of the individuals composing them still live on and make
their influence felt in new races, scenes and environments. The ancient
Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Romans, Grecians and many other
ancient races have disappeared, but their reincarnating souls are with
us to-day. The modern revival of Occultism is caused by an influx of
the souls of these old peoples pouring in on the Western worlds.
The following quotation from _The Secret Doctrine_, that remarkable
piece of occult literature, will be interesting at this point:
"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. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a
confident conviction that our neighbors will no more work
harm to us than we would think of harming them, two-thirds of
the world's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to
hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to
work for, nor weapons to act through ... We cut these
numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands,
while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal
road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those
ways being so intricate and so dark. 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 in our
lives, not a misshapen day or a misfortune, that could not be
traced back to our own doings in this or another life ...
Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if--
'Virtue in distress and vice in triumph
Makes atheists of Mankind,'
it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the
great truth that man is himself his own savior as his own
destroyer; that he need not accuse heaven, and the gods,
fates and providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns
in the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember that
bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man to forbear accusing
THAT which 'Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment'--which are
now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great
European nations. The Western Aryans have every nation and
tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their
Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative
irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now
several of them have reached their Iron Age, the _Kali Yuga_,
an age black with horrors. This state will last ... until we
begin acting from within instead of ever following impulses
from without. Until then the only palliative is union and
harmony--a Brotherhood in _actu_ and _altruism_ not simply in
name."
Edwin Arnold, in his wonderful poem, "The Light of Asia," which tells
the story of the Buddha, explains the doctrine of Karma from the
Buddhist standpoint. We feel that our students should become acquainted
with this view, so beautifully expressed, and so we herewith quote the
passages referred to:
"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.
* * * * *
"What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
Worse--better--last for first and first for last;
The angels in the heavens of gladness reap
Fruits of a holy past.
"The devils in the underworlds wear out
Deeds that were wicked in an age gone by.
Nothing endures: fair virtues waste with time,
Foul sins grow purged thereby.
"Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won;
Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags
For things done and undone.
"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 any one:
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.
"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!
* * * * *
"The books say well, my brothers! each man's life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrow and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss.
"That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The silence and the darkness knew;
So is a man's fate born.
"He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed,
Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth;
And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar
Him and the aching earth.
"If he shall labor rightly, rooting these,
And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew,
Fruitful and fair and clean the ground shall be,
And rich the harvest due.
"If he who liveth, learning whence woe springs,
Endureth patiently, striving to pay
His utmost debt for ancient evils done
In love and truth always;
If making none to lack, he thoroughly purge
The lie and lust of self forth from his blood;
Suffering all meekly, rendering for offence
Nothing but grace and good:
"If he shall day by day dwell merciful,
Holy and just and kind and true; and rend
Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots,
Till love of life have end:
"He--dying--leaveth as the sum of him
A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit,
Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near,
So that fruits follow it.
"No need hath such to live as ye name life;
That which began in him when he began
Is finished: he hath wrought the purpose through
Of what did make him man.
"Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins
Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes
Invade his safe eternal peace; nor deaths
And lives recur. He goes
"Unto NIRVANA. He is one with Life
Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be.
OM, MANI PADME OM! the dewdrop slips
Into the shining sea!
"This is the doctrine of the Karma. Learn!
Only when all the dross of sin is quit,
Only when life dies like a white flame spent.
Death dies along with it."
And so, friends, this is a brief account of the operations of the Law
of Karma. The subject is one of such wide scope that the brief space at
our disposal enables us to do little more than to call your attention
to the existence of the Law, and some of its general workings. We
advise our students to acquaint themselves thoroughly with what has
been written on this subject by ourselves and others. In our first
series of lessons--the _"Fourteen Lessons"_--the chapter or lesson on
Spiritual Cause and Effect was devoted to the subject of Karma. We
advise our students to re-study it. We also suggest that Mr. Sinnett's
occult story entitled _"Karma"_ gives its readers an excellent idea of
the actual working of Karma in the everyday lives of people of our own
times. We recommend the book to the consideration of our students. It
is published at a popular price, and is well worth the consideration of
every one interested in this wonderful subject of Reincarnation and
Karma.
THE TWELFTH LESSON.
OCCULT MISCELLANY.
In this, the last lesson of this series, we wish to call your attention
to a variety of subjects, coming under the general head of the Yogi
Philosophy, and yet apparently separated from one another. And so we
have entitled this lesson "Occult Miscellany," inasmuch as it is made
up of bits of information upon a variety of subjects all connected with
the general teaching of the series. The lesson will consist of answers
to a number of questions, asked by various students of the courses in
Yogi Philosophy coming from our pen. While these answers, of necessity,
must be brief, still we will endeavor to condense considerable
information into each, so that read as a whole the lesson will give to
our students a variety of information upon several important subjects.
QUESTION 1: _"Are there any Brotherhoods of Advanced Occultists in
existence, in harmony with the Yogi Teachings? And if so, what
information can you give regarding them?"_
ANSWER: Yes, there are a number of Occult Brotherhoods, of varying
degrees of advancement, scattered through the various countries of the
earth. These Brotherhoods agree in principle with the Yogi Teachings,
although the methods of interpretation may vary somewhat. There is but
one TRUTH, which becomes apparent to all deep students of Occultism,
and therefore all true Occultists have a glimpse of that Truth, and
upon this glimpse is founded their philosophies and teachings. These
Occult Brotherhoods vary in their nature. In some, the members are
grouped together in retired portions of the earth, dwelling in the
community life. In others the headquarters are in the large cities of
the earth, their membership being composed of residents of those
cities, with outlying branches. Others have no meeting places, their
work being managed from headquarters, their members being scattered all
over the face of the earth, the communication being kept up by personal
correspondence and privately printed and circulated literature.
Admission to these true Occult Brotherhoods is difficult. They seek
their members, not the members them. No amount of money, or influence,
or energy can gain entrance to these societies. They seek to impart
information and instruction only to those who are prepared to receive
it--to those who have reached that stage of spiritual unfoldment that
will enable them to grasp and assimilate the teachings of the Inner
Circles. While this is true, it is also true that these Societies or
Brotherhoods are engaged in disseminating Occult Knowledge, suited to
the minds of the public, through various channels, and cloaked in
various disguises of name, authority and style. Their idea is to
gradually open the mind of the public to the great truths underlying
and back of all of these various fragmentary teachings. And they
recognize the fact that one mind may be reached in a certain way, and
another mind in a second way, and so on. And, accordingly, they wrap
their teachings in covers likely to attract the attention of various
people, and to cause them to investigate the contents. But, under and
back of all of these various teachings, is the great fundamental TRUTH.
It has often been asked of us how one might distinguish the real
Brotherhoods from the spurious ones which have assumed the name and
general style of the true societies, for the purpose of exploiting the
public, and making money from their interest in the great occult
truths. Answering this, we would say that the true Occult Brotherhoods
and Societies _never sell their knowledge_. It is given free as water
to those who seek for it, and is never sold for money. The true adept
would as soon think of selling his soul as selling Spiritual Knowledge
for gain. While money plays its proper place in the world, and the
laborer is worthy of his hire; and while the Masters recognize the
propriety of the sale of books on Occultism (providing the price is
reasonable and not in excess of the general market price of books) and
while they also recognize the propriety of having people pay their part
of the expenses of maintaining organizations, magazines, lecturers,
instructors, etc., still the idea stops there--it does not extend to
the selling of the Inner Secrets of Occultism for silver or gold.
Therefore if you are solicited to become a member of any so-called
Brotherhood or Occult Society for a consideration of money, you will
know at once that the organization is not a true Occult Society, for it
has violated one of the cardinal principles at the start. Remember the
old occult maxim: "When the Pupil is ready, the Master appears"--and so
it is with the Brotherhoods and Societies--if it is necessary for your
growth, development, and attainment, to be connected with one of these
organizations then, when the time comes--when you are ready--you will
receive your call, and then will know for a certainty that those who
call are the true messengers of Truth.
QUESTION II: "_Are there any exalted human beings called Masters, or
Adepts, or are the tales regarding them mere fables, etc?_"
ANSWER: Of a truth there are certain highly developed, advanced and
exalted souls in the flesh, known as Masters and Adepts, although many
of the tales told concerning them are myths, or pure fiction
originating in the minds of some modern sensational writers. And,
moreover, these souls are members of the Great Lodge, an organization
composed of these almost super-human beings--these great souls that
have advanced so very far on THE PATH. Before beginning to speak of
them, let us answer a question often asked by Western people, and that
is, "Why do not these people appear to the world, and show their
powers?" Each of you may answer that question from your own
experiences. Have you ever been foolish enough to open your soul to the
crowd, and have it reveal the sacred Truth that rests there? Have you
ever attempted to impart the highest teachings known to you, to persons
who had not attained sufficient spiritual development to even
understand the meaning of your words? Have you ever committed the folly
of throwing spiritual pearls to material swine? If you have had these
experiences, you may begin to faintly imagine the reasons of these
illumined souls for keeping away from the crowd--for dwelling away from
the multitude. No one who has not suffered the pain of having the
vulgar crowd revile the highest spiritual truths to him, can begin to
understand the feelings of the spiritually illumined individuals. It is
not that they feel that they are better or more exalted than the
humblest man--for these feelings of the personality have long since
left them. It is because they see the folly of attempting to present
the highest truths to a public which is not prepared to understand even
the elementary teachings. It is a feeling akin to that of the master of
the highest musical conceptions attempting to produce his wonderful
compositions before a crowd fit only for the "rag-time" and slangy
songs of the day.
Then again, these Masters have no desire to "work miracles" which would
only cause the public to become still more superstitious than they now
are. When one glances back over the field of religions, and sees how
the miraculous acts of some of the great leaders have been prostituted
and used as a foundation for the grossest credulity and basest
superstition, he may understand the wisdom of the masters in this
respect. There is another reason for the non-appearance of the Masters,
and that is that there is no occasion for it. The laws of Spiritual
Evolution are as regular, constant and fixed as are the laws of
Physical Evolution, and any attempt to unduly force matters only
results in confusion, and the abortive results soon fade away. The
world is not ready for the appearance of the Masters. Their appearance
at this time would not be in accordance with The Plan.
The Masters or Adepts are human beings who have passed from lower to
higher planes of consciousness, thus gaining wisdom, power and
qualities that seem almost miraculous to the man of the ordinary
consciousness. A Hindu writer speaking of them has said: "To him who
hath traveled far along The Path, sorrow ceases to trouble; fetters
cease to bind; obstacles cease to hinder. Such an one is free. For him
there is no more fever or sorrow. For him there are no more unconscious
re-births. His old Karma is exhausted, and he creates no new Karma. His
heart is freed from the desire for future life. No new longings arise
within his soul. He is like a lamp which burneth from the oil of the
Spirit, and not from the oil of the outer world." Lillie in his work on
Buddhism, tells his readers: "Six supernatural faculties were expected
of the ascetic before he could claim the grade of _Arhat_. They are
constantly alluded to in the _Sutras_ as the six supernatural
faculties, usually without further specification.... In this transitory
body the intelligence of Man is enchained. The ascetic finding himself
thus confused, directs his mind to the creation of _Manas_. He
represents to himself, in thought, another body created from this
material body,--a body with a form, members and organs. This body in
relation to the material body is like a sword and the scabbard, or a
serpent issuing from a basket in which it is confined. The ascetic
then, purified and perfected, begins to practice supernatural
faculties. He finds himself able to pass through material obstacles,
walls, ramparts, etc.; he is able to throw his phantasmal appearance
into many places at once. He acquires the power of hearing the sounds
of the unseen world as distinctly as those of the phenomenal
world--more distinctly in point of fact. Also by the power of _Manas_
he is able to read the most secret thoughts of others, and to tell
their characters."
These great Masters are above all petty sectarian distinctions. They
may have ascended to their exalted position along the paths of the many
religions, or they may have walked the path of no-denomination, sect,
or body. They may have mounted to their heights by philosophical
reasoning alone, or else by scientific investigation. They are called
by many names, according to the viewpoint of the speaker, but at the
last they are of but one religion; one philosophy; one belief--TRUTH.