Theosophy holds that order pervades the universe because everything exists according to the laws of nature. Natural law operates throughout the physical world, and also in feelings, thoughts, and aspirations.
LAW OF SPIRITUAL DYNAMICS
Karma is the
law of spiritual dynamics related to every act in daily life.
The word karma is Sanskrit,
meaning literally "action," but it implies the entire cycle of a cause
and its effects.
Ralph
Waldo Emerson called it the "law of compensation." Every thought,
desire, and action affects in some measure the equilibrium of the universe.
Once its harmony has been disturbed, the universe seeks to return to
balance; the process of seeking to restore equilibrium is what we call karma.
Karma, according to H. P. Blavatsky (one of the founders of the Theosophical Society), is "the Ultimate Law of the Universe, the source, origin and fount of all other laws which exist throughout Nature.
Karma
is the unerring law which adjusts effect to cause, on the physical, mental and
spiritual planes of being." It 'adjusts
wisely, intelligently and equitably each effect to its cause." Al I
laws of science and all moral laws are expressions of this tendency to restore
harmony, which we call karma.
WE CHOOSE OUR DESTINY
BACK TO TOP
We ourselves create our
own future destinies by our choices each minute.
By ignorant action, we bind ourselves through selfish creeds, feelings,
and thoughts.
To
find happiness and peace, we must stop the flow of such selfish action. When we know this, we will begin to use the law of karma
consciously for our liberation from the effects of our past ignorance.
Death does not settle old scores, any more than moving to a new town cancels the debts and credits made in an old one. We carry over effects from one life to the next and must expect to meet the consequences of our past. . Each of us is born with an inherited character, in an environment and family that seem either to help or block our progress.
In
reality, all circumstances are opportunities for us, for they are the natural
results of our past living and are stepping stones for our future growth.
Our destiny is not imposed upon us.
We make it as we daily weave the threads of our future.
Karma
is the law that dynamically adjusts effects to causes.
It is the law of harmony or equilibrium that balances all things.
But it is also the law of opportunity, which allows us to change our past
for a better future. We have made ourselves what we are. And we can remake ourselves.
CAUSE-EFFECT
Because the
working out of the law is complex, we may not always see how causes and their
effects are related. Sometimes we
see only a result, which appears unaccountable.
Or we witness a cause but cannot see ahead to its result, which therefore
seems not to exist.
When
we first hear about reincarnation and karma, we may feel resentful that we have
to bear the results of causes set in motion by "somebody else." But
when we recognize that the 'real" us is imperishable and lives through many
successive lives, we can understand that everything we experience has its cause
in this or a past life and will have its inevitable consequence now or in a
future life.
If
we understand karma as the law of spiritual dynamics, of order and opportunity,
we will become self-reliant. We
will realize that we cannot escape responsibility-and should not want to.
Instead we can become self-conscious shapers of our environment.
Only by understanding and working with it can we use natural law, as an
aviator can fly by understanding gravity and neutralizing it with other natural
principles.
Similarly,
in the moral world we transcend the inevitability of consequences by
understanding karma and setting in motion causes that will produce desirable
effects and neutralize undesirable ones. In
the inviolability of law lies freedom, for it enables us to remake our present
character, which is the outcome of past living, and to create our future
character as we would have it.
NOT PREDESTINATION
Karma is neither
predestination nor fatalism. Fatalism
and predestination imply that individuals are so bound by circumstances or by
some outside power that no effort of their own can free them.
That is the opposite of karma.
Because of karma, we who generate causes can modify or neutralize the resulting forces. We may be temporarily bound, but that is the result of our own binding. We have the power to modify and improve our future.