XI. ON THE MYSTERIES OF RE-INCARNATION.

PERIODICAL REBIRTHS.

ENQ. You mean, then, that we have all lived on earth before, in many
past incarnations, and shall go on so living?

THEO. I do. The life-cycle, or rather the cycle of conscious life,
begins with the separation of the mortal animal-man into sexes,
and will end with the close of the last generation of men, in the
seventh round and seventh race of mankind. Considering we are only
in the fourth round and fifth race, its duration is more easily
imagined than expressed.

ENQ. And we keep on incarnating in new _personalities_ all the time?

THEO. Most assuredly so; because this life-cycle or period of
incarnation may be best compared to human life. As each such life
is composed of days of activity separated by nights of sleep or of
inaction, so, in the incarnation-cycle, an active life is followed
by a Devachanic rest.

ENQ. And it is this succession of births that is generally defined as
re-incarnation?

THEO. Just so. It is only through these births that the perpetual
progress of the countless millions of Egos toward final perfection
and final rest (as long as was the period of activity) can be
achieved.

ENQ. And what is it that regulates the duration, or special qualities
of these incarnations?

THEO. Karma, the universal law of retributive justice.

ENQ. Is it an intelligent law?

THEO. For the Materialist, who calls the law of periodicity which
regulates the marshalling of the several bodies, and all the
other laws in nature, blind forces and mechanical laws, no doubt
Karma would be a law of chance and no more. For us, no adjective
or qualification could describe that which is impersonal and no
entity, but a universal operative law. If you question me about
the causative intelligence in it, I must answer you I do not know.
But if you ask me to define its effects and tell you what these
are in our belief, I may say that the experience of thousands of
ages has shown us that they are absolute and unerring _equity_,
_wisdom_, and _intelligence_. For Karma in its effects, is an
unfailing redresser of human injustice, and of all the failures
of nature; a stern adjuster of wrongs; a retributive law which
rewards and punishes with equal impartiality. It is, in the
strictest sense, “no respecter of persons,” though, on the other
hand, it can neither be propitiated, nor turned aside by prayer.
This is a belief common to Hindus and Buddhists, who both believe
in Karma.

ENQ. In this Christian dogmas contradict both, and I doubt whether any
Christian will accept the teaching.

THEO. No; and Inman gave the reason for it many years ago. As he puts
it, while “the Christians will accept any nonsense, if promulgated
by the Church as a matter of faith ... the Buddhists hold that
nothing which is contradicted by sound reason can be a true
doctrine of Buddha.” They do not believe in any pardon for their
sins, except after an adequate and just punishment for each evil
deed or thought in a future incarnation, and a proportionate
compensation to the parties injured.

ENQ. Where is it so stated?

THEO. In most of their sacred works. In the “_Wheel of the Law_”
(p. 57) you may find the following Theosophical tenet:—“Buddhists
believe that every act, word or thought has its consequence, which
will appear sooner or later in the present or in the future state.
Evil acts will produce evil consequences, good acts will produce
good consequences: prosperity in this world, or birth in heaven
(Devachan)... in the future state.”

ENQ. Christians believe the same thing, don’t they?

THEO. Oh, no; they believe in the pardon and the remission of all sins.
They are promised that if they only believe in the blood of Christ
(an _innocent_ victim!), in the blood offered by Him for the
expiation of the sins of the whole of mankind, it will atone for
every mortal sin. And we believe neither in vicarious atonement,
nor in the possibility of the remission of the smallest sin by any
god, not even by a “_personal_ Absolute” or “Infinite,” if such
a thing could have any existence. What we believe in, is strict
and impartial justice. Our idea of the unknown Universal Deity,
represented by Karma, is that it is a Power which cannot fail,
and can, therefore, have neither wrath nor mercy, only absolute
Equity, which leaves every cause, great or small, to work out its
inevitable effects. The saying of Jesus: “With what measure you
mete it shall be measured to you again” (Matth. vii., 2), neither
by expression nor implication points to any hope of future mercy
or salvation by proxy. This is why, recognising as we do in our
philosophy the justice of this statement, we cannot recommend
too strongly mercy, charity, and forgiveness of mutual offences.
_Resist not evil_, and _render good for evil_, are Buddhist
precepts, and were first preached in view of the implacability
of Karmic law. For man to take the law into his own hands is
anyhow a sacrilegious presumption. Human Law may use restrictive
not punitive measures; but a man who, believing in Karma, still
revenges himself and refuses to forgive every injury, thereby
rendering good for evil, is a criminal and only hurts himself. As
Karma is sure to punish the man who wronged him, by seeking to
inflict an additional punishment on his enemy, he, who instead
of leaving that punishment to the great Law adds to it his own
mite, only begets thereby a cause for the future reward of his own
enemy and a future punishment for himself. The unfailing Regulator
affects in each incarnation the quality of its successor; and the
sum of the merit or demerit in preceding ones determines it.

ENQ. Are we then to infer a man’s past from his present?

THEO. Only so far as to believe that his present life is what it justly
should be, to atone for the sins of the past life. Of course—seers
and great adepts excepted—we cannot as average mortals know what
those sins were. From our paucity of data, it is impossible for us
even to determine what an old man’s youth must have been; neither
can we, for like reasons, draw final conclusions merely from what
we see in the life of some man, as to what his past life may have
been.


WHAT IS KARMA?

ENQ. But what is Karma?

THEO. As I have said, we consider it as 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. As no cause remains without its due effect from greatest
to least, from a cosmic disturbance down to the movement of your
hand, and as like produces like, _Karma_ is that unseen and
unknown law _which adjusts wisely, intelligently and equitably_
each effect to its cause, tracing the latter back to its producer.
Though itself _unknowable_, its action is perceivable.

ENQ. Then it is the “Absolute,” the “Unknowable” again, and is not of
much value as an explanation of the problems of life?

THEO. On the contrary. For, though we do not know what Karma is _per
se_, and in its essence, we _do_ know _how_ it works, and we can
define and describe its mode of action with accuracy. We only
do _not_ know its ultimate _Cause_, just as modern philosophy
universally admits that the _ultimate_ Cause of anything is
“unknowable.”

ENQ. And what has Theosophy to say in regard to the solution of the
more practical needs of humanity? What is the explanation which
it offers in reference to the awful suffering and dire necessity
prevalent among the so-called “lower classes.”

THEO. To be pointed, according to our teaching all these great social
evils, the distinction of classes in Society, and of the sexes in
the affairs of life, the unequal distribution of capital and of
labour—all are due to what we tersely but truly denominate KARMA.

ENQ. But, surely, all these evils which seem to fall upon the masses
somewhat indiscriminately are not actual merited and INDIVIDUAL
Karma?

THEO. No, they cannot be so strictly defined in their effects as to
show that each individual environment, and the particular
conditions of life in which each person finds himself, are nothing
more than the retributive Karma which the individual generated in
a previous life. We must not lose sight of the fact that every
atom is subject to the general law governing the whole body to
which it belongs, and here we come upon the wider track of the
Karmic law. Do you not perceive that the aggregate of individual
Karma becomes that of the nation to which those individuals
belong, and further, that the sum total of National Karma is that
of the World! The evils that you speak of are not peculiar to the
individual or even to the Nation, they are more or less universal;
and it is upon this broad line of Human interdependence that the
law of Karma finds its legitimate and equable issue.

ENQ. Do I, then, understand that the law of Karma is not necessarily an
individual law?

THEO. That is just what I mean. It is impossible that Karma could
readjust the balance of power in the world’s life and progress,
unless it had a broad and general line of action. It is held as
a truth among Theosophists that the interdependence of Humanity
is the cause of what is called Distributive Karma, and it is this
law which affords the solution to the great question of collective
suffering and its relief. It is an occult law, moreover, that no
man can rise superior to his individual failings, without lifting,
be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral
part. In the same way, no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of
sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as “Separateness”;
and the nearest approach to that selfish state, which the laws of
life permit, is in the intent or motive.

ENQ. And are there no means by which the distributive or national Karma
might be concentred or collected, so to speak, and brought to its
natural and legitimate fulfilment without all this protracted
suffering?

THEO. As a general rule, and within certain limits which define the age
to which we belong, the law of Karma cannot be hastened or
retarded in its fulfilment. But of this I am certain, the point
of possibility in either of these directions has never yet been
touched. Listen to the following recital of one phase of national
suffering, and then ask yourself whether, admitting the working
power of individual, relative, and distributive Karma, these evils
are not capable of extensive modification and general relief.
What I am about to read to you is from the pen of a National
Saviour, one who, having overcome Self, and being free to choose,
has elected to serve Humanity, in bearing at least as much as a
woman’s shoulders can possibly bear of National Karma. This is
what she says:—

“Yes, Nature always does speak, don’t you think? only sometimes
we make so much noise that we drown her voice. That is why it
is so restful to go out of the town and nestle awhile in the
Mother’s arms. I am thinking of the evening on Hampstead Heath
when we watched the sun go down; but oh! upon what suffering
and misery that sun had set! A lady brought me yesterday a
big hamper of wild flowers. I thought some of my East-end
family had a better right to it than I, and so I took it down
to a very poor school in Whitechapel this morning. You should
have seen the pallid little faces brighten! Thence I went to
pay for some dinners at a little cookshop for some children.
It was in a back street, narrow, full of jostling people;
stench indescribable, from fish, meat, and other comestibles,
all reeking in a sun that, in Whitechapel, festers instead
of purifying. The cookshop was the quintessence of all the
smells. Indescribable meat-pies at 1d., loathsome lumps of
‘food’ and swarms of flies, a very altar of Beelzebub! All
about, babies on the prowl for scraps, one, with the face of
an angel, gathering up cherrystones as a light and nutritious
form of diet. I came westward with every nerve shuddering and
jarred, wondering whether anything can be done with some
parts of London save swallowing them up in an earthquake and
starting their inhabitants afresh, after a plunge into some
purifying Lethe, out of which not a memory might emerge! And
then I thought of Hampstead Heath, and—pondered. If by any
sacrifice one could win the power to save these people, the
cost would not be worth counting; but, you see, THEY must be
changed—and how can that be wrought? In the condition they now
are, they would not profit by any environment in which they
might be placed; and yet, in their present surroundings they
must continue to putrefy. It breaks my heart, this endless,
hopeless misery, and the brutish degradation that is at once
its outgrowth and its root. It is like the banyan tree; every
branch roots itself and sends out new shoots. What a difference
between these feelings and the peaceful scene at Hampstead!
and yet we, who are the brothers and sisters of these poor
creatures, have only a right to use Hampstead Heaths to
gain strength to save Whitechapels.” (_Signed by a name too
respected and too well known to be given to scoffers._)

ENQ. That is a sad but beautiful letter, and I think it presents with
painful conspicuity the terrible workings of what you have called
“Relative and Distributive Karma.” But alas! there seems no
immediate hope of any relief short of an earthquake, or some such
general ingulfment!

THEO. What right have we to think so while one-half of humanity is in a
position to effect an immediate relief of the privations which are
suffered by their fellows? When every individual has contributed
to the general good what he can of money, of labour, and of
ennobling thought, then, and only then, will the balance of
National Karma be struck, and until then we have no right nor
any reasons for saying that there is more life on the earth than
Nature can support. It is reserved for the heroic souls, the
Saviours of our Race and Nation, to find out the cause of this
unequal pressure of retributive Karma, and by a supreme effort to
readjust the balance of power, and save the people from a moral
ingulfment a thousand times more disastrous and more permanently
evil than the like physical catastrophe, in which you seem to see
the only possible outlet for this accumulated misery.

ENQ. Well, then, tell me generally how you describe this law of Karma?

THEO. We describe Karma as that Law of readjustment which ever tends to
restore disturbed equilibrium in the physical, and broken harmony
in the moral world. We say that Karma does not act in this or that
particular way always; but that it always _does_ act so as to
restore Harmony and preserve the balance of equilibrium, in virtue
of which the Universe exists.

ENQ. Give me an illustration.

THEO. Later on I will give you a full illustration. Think now of a
pond. A stone falls into the water and creates disturbing waves.
These waves oscillate backwards and forwards till at last,
owning to the operation of what physicists call the law of the
dissipation of energy, they are brought to rest, and the water
returns to its condition of calm tranquillity. Similarly _all_
action, on every plane, produces disturbance in the balanced
harmony of the Universe, and the vibrations so produced will
continue to roll backwards and forwards, if its area is limited,
till equilibrium is restored. But since each such disturbance
starts from some particular point, it is clear that equilibrium
and harmony can only be restored by the reconverging _to that
same point_ of all the forces which were set in motion from it.
And here you have proof that the consequences of a man’s deeds,
thoughts, etc., must all react upon _himself_ with the same force
with which they were set in motion.

ENQ. But I see nothing of a moral character about this law. It looks to
me like the simple physical law that action and reaction are equal
and opposite.

THEO. I am not surprised to hear you say that. Europeans have got so
much into the ingrained habit of considering right and wrong,
good and evil, as matters of an arbitrary code of law laid
down either by men, or imposed upon them by a Personal God. We
Theosophists, however, say that “Good” and “Harmony,” and “Evil”
and “Dis-harmony,” are synonymous. Further we maintain that all
pain and suffering are results of want of Harmony, and that the
one terrible and only cause of the disturbance of Harmony is
selfishness in some form or another. Hence Karma gives back to
every man the _actual consequences_ of his own actions, without
any regard to their moral character; but since he receives his due
for _all_, it is obvious that he will be made to atone for all
sufferings which he has caused, just as he will reap in joy and
gladness the fruits of all the happiness and harmony he had helped
to produce. I can do no better than quote for your benefit certain
passages from books and articles written by our Theosophists—those
who have a correct idea of Karma.

ENQ. I wish you would, as your literature seems to be very sparing on
this subject?

THEO. Because it is _the_ most difficult of all our tenets. Some short
time ago there appeared the following objection from a Christian
pen:—

“Granting that the teaching in regard to Theosophy is correct,
and that ‘man must be his own saviour, must overcome self and
conquer the evil that is in his dual nature, to obtain the
emancipation of his soul,’ what is man to do after he has
been awakened and converted to a certain extent from evil or
wickedness? How is he to get emancipation, or pardon, or the
blotting out of the evil or wickedness he has already done?”

To this Mr. J. H. Connelly replies very pertinently that no one
can hope to “make the theosophical engine run on the theological
track.” As he has it:—

“The possibility of shirking individual responsibility is not
among the concepts of Theosophy. In this faith there is no such
thing as pardoning, or ‘blotting out of evil or wickedness
already done,’ otherwise than by the adequate punishment
therefor of the wrong-doer and the restoration of the harmony
in the universe that had been disturbed by his wrongful act.
The evil has been his own, and while others must suffer its
consequences, atonement can be made by nobody but himself.

“The condition contemplated ... in which a man shall have
been ‘awakened and converted to a certain extent from evil
or wickedness,’ is that in which a man shall have realized
that his deeds are evil and deserving of punishment. In that
realization a sense of personal responsibility is inevitable,
and just in proportion to the extent of his awakening or
‘converting’ must be the sense of that awful responsibility.
While it is strong upon him is the time when he is urged to
accept the doctrine of vicarious atonement.

“He is told that he must also repent, but nothing is easier
than that. It is an amiable weakness of human nature that
we are quite prone to regret the evil we have done when our
attention is called, and we have either suffered from it
ourselves or enjoyed its fruits. Possibly, close analysis of
the feeling would show us that that which we regret is rather
the necessity that seemed to require the evil as a means of
attainment of our selfish ends than the evil itself.

“Attractive as this prospect of casting our burden of sins
‘at the foot of the cross’ may be to the ordinary mind, it
does not commend itself to the Theosophic student. He does not
apprehend why the sinner by attaining knowledge of his evil
can thereby merit any pardon for or the blotting out of his
past wickedness; or why repentance and future right living
entitle him to a suspension in his favour of the universal law
of relation between cause and effect. The results of his evil
deeds continue to exist; the suffering caused to others by his
wickedness is not blotted out. The Theosophical student takes
the result of wickedness upon the innocent into his problem. He
considers not only the guilty person, but his victims.

“Evil is an infraction of the laws of harmony governing the
universe, and the penalty thereof must fall upon the violator
of that law himself. Christ uttered the warning, ‘Sin no more,
lest a worse thing come upon thee,’ and St. Paul said, ‘Work
out your own salvation. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.’ That, by the way, is a fine metaphoric rendering of
the sentence of the Puranas far antedating him—that ‘every man
reaps the consequences of his own acts.’

“This is the principle of the law of Karma which is taught by
Theosophy. Sinnett, in his ‘Esoteric Buddhism,’ rendered Karma
as ‘the law of ethical causation.’ ‘The law of retribution,’ as
Mdme. Blavatsky translates its meaning, is better. It is the
power which

Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment.

“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.”

ENQ. Faith for faith, is not the faith of the Christian who believes,
in his human helplessness and humility, that there is a merciful
Father in Heaven who will protect him from temptation, help him in
life, and forgive him his transgressions, better than the cold and
proud, almost fatalistic faith of the Buddhists, Vedantins, and
Theosophists?

THEO. Persist in calling our belief “faith” if you will. But once we
are again on this ever-recurring question, I ask in my turn:
faith for faith, is not the one based on strict logic and reason
better than the one which is based simply on human authority
or—hero-worship? _Our_ “faith” has all the logical force of the
arithmetical truism that 2 and 2 will produce 4. Your faith is
like the logic of some emotional woman, of whom Tourgenyeff said
that for them 2 and 2 were generally 5, and a tallow candle into
the bargain. Yours is a faith, moreover, which clashes not only
with every conceivable view of justice and logic, but which, if
analysed, leads man to his moral perdition, checks the progress of
mankind, and positively making of might, right—transforms every
second man into a Cain to his brother Abel.

ENQ. What do you allude to?


HAS GOD THE RIGHT TO FORGIVE?

THEO. To the Doctrine of Atonement; I allude to that dangerous dogma in
which you believe, and which teaches us that no matter how
enormous our crimes against the laws of God and of man, we have
but to believe in the self-sacrifice of Jesus for the salvation
of mankind, and his blood will wash out every stain. It is twenty
years that I preach against it, and I may now draw your attention
to a paragraph from _Isis Unveiled_, written in 1875. This is what
Christianity teaches, and what we combat:—

“God’s mercy is boundless and unfathomable. It is impossible
to conceive of a human sin so damnable that the price paid
in advance for the redemption of the sinner would not wipe
it out if a thousandfold worse. And furthermore, it is never
too late to repent. Though the offender wait until the last
minute of the last hour of the last day of his mortal life,
before his blanched lips utter the confession of faith, he may
go to Paradise; the dying thief did it, and so may all others
as vile. These are the assumptions of the Church, and of the
Clergy; assumptions banged at the heads of your countrymen by
England’s favourite preachers, right in the ‘light of the XIXth
century,’” this most paradoxical age of all. Now to what does
it lead?

ENQ. Does it not make the Christian happier than the Buddhist or
Brahmin?

THEO. No; not the educated man, at any rate, since the majority of
these have long since virtually lost all belief in this cruel
dogma. But it leads those who still believe in it more _easily to
the threshold of every conceivable crime_, than any other I know
of. Let me quote to you from _Isis_ once more (_vide_ Vol. II.,
pp. 542 and 543)—

“If we step outside the little circle of creed and consider
the universe as a whole balanced by the exquisite adjustment
of parts, how all sound logic, how the faintest glimmering
sense of Justice, revolts against this Vicarious Atonement!
If the criminal sinned only against himself, and wronged no
one but himself; if by sincere repentance he could cause the
obliteration of past events, not only from the memory of man,
but also from that imperishable record, which no deity—not
even the Supremes, of the Supreme—can cause to disappear, then
this dogma might not be incomprehensible. But to maintain that
one may wrong his fellow-man, kill, disturb the equilibrium
of society and the natural order of things, and then—through
cowardice, hope, or compulsion, it matters not—be forgiven by
believing that the spilling of one blood washes out the other
blood spilt—this is preposterous! Can the _results_ of a crime
be obliterated even though the crime itself should be pardoned?
The effects of a cause are never limited to the boundaries of
the cause, nor can the results of crime be confined to the
offender and his victim. Every good as well as evil action has
its effects, as palpably as the stone flung into calm water.
The simile is trite, but it is the best ever conceived, so
let us use it. The eddying circles are greater and swifter as
the disturbing object is greater or smaller, but the smallest
pebble, nay, the tiniest speck, makes its ripples. And this
disturbance is not alone visible and on the surface. Below,
unseen, in every direction—outward and downward—drop pushes
drop until the sides and bottom are touched by the force. More,
the air above the water is agitated, and this disturbance
passes, as the physicists tell us, from stratum to stratum
out into space forever and ever; an impulse has been given to
matter, and that is never lost, can never be recalled!...

“So with crime, and so with its opposite. The action may be
instantaneous, the effects are eternal. When, after the stone
is once flung into the pond, we can recall it to the hand,
roll back the ripples, obliterate the force expended, restore
the etheric waves to their previous state of non-being, and
wipe out every trace of the act of throwing the missile, so
that Time’s record shall not show that it ever happened, then,
_then_ we may patiently hear Christians argue for the efficacy
of this Atonement,”

and—cease to believe in Karmic Law. As it now stands, we call upon
the whole world to decide, which of our two doctrines is the most
appreciative of deific justice, and which is more reasonable, even
on simple human evidence and logic.

ENQ. Yet millions believe in the Christian dogma and are happy.

THEO. Pure sentimentalism overpowering their thinking faculties, which
no true philanthropist or Altruist will ever accept. It is
not even a dream of selfishness, but a nightmare of the human
intellect. Look where it leads to, and tell me the name of that
pagan country where crimes are more easily committed or more
numerous than in Christian lands. Look at the long and ghastly
annual records of crimes committed in European countries; and
behold Protestant and Biblical America. There, _conversions_
effected in prisons are more numerous than those made by public
_revivals_ and preaching. See how the ledger-balance of Christian
justice (!) stands; Red-handed murderers, urged on by the demons
of lust, revenge, cupidity, fanaticism, or mere brutal thirst for
blood, who kill their victims, in most cases, without giving them
time to repent or call on Jesus. These, perhaps, died sinful, and,
of course—consistently with theological logic—met the reward of
their greater or lesser offences. But the murderer, overtaken by
human justice, is imprisoned, wept over by sentimentalists, prayed
with and at, pronounces the charmed words of conversion, and goes
to the scaffold a redeemed child of Jesus! Except for the murder,
he would not have been prayed with, redeemed, pardoned. Clearly
this man did well to murder, for thus he gained eternal happiness!
And how about the victim and his, or her family, relatives,
dependents, social relations; has justice no recompense for them?
Must they suffer in this world and the next, while he who wronged
them sits beside the “holy thief” of Calvary, and is for ever
blessed? On this question the clergy keep a prudent silence.
(_Isis Unveiled._) And now you know why Theosophists—whose
fundamental belief and hope is justice for all, in Heaven as on
earth, and in Karma—reject this dogma.

ENQ. The ultimate destiny of man, then, is not a Heaven presided over
by God, but the gradual transformation of matter into its
primordial element, Spirit?

THEO. It is to that final goal to which all tends in nature.

ENQ. Do not some of you regard this association or “fall of spirit into
matter” as evil, and re-birth as a sorrow?

THEO. Some do, and therefore strive to shorten their period of
probation on earth. It is not an unmixed evil, however, since
it ensures the experience upon which we mount to knowledge and
wisdom. I mean that experience which _teaches_ that the needs of
our spiritual nature can never be met by other than spiritual
happiness. As long as we are in the body, we are subjected to
pain, suffering and all the disappointing incidents occurring
during life. Therefore, and to palliate this, we finally acquire
knowledge which alone can afford us relief and hope of a better
future.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Sectarian Brahmins are here meant. The Parabrahm of the Vedantins
is the Deity we accept and believe in.