Adyar
Pamphlet No. 20
THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
By C.
W. Leadbeater
October 1912
The Theosophist Office,
Adyar, Chennai (Madras), India
I
have explained elsewhere that what we usually call man's life is simply one
day in the real and larger life, and that when what we call death comes to
him he simply lays himself down to sleep at the conclusion of his life day.
You will see very readily that the benefit to be derived from this scheme
of development in successive lives is contingent upon the continued existence
of the same great general laws. It is only because the great Law of Divine
Justice is always the same, that the experience gained in one incarnation
is useful in the next. So that belief in this law of cause and effect is
in fact an integral part of the doctrine of reincarnation. Its influence
in reality is even more far-reaching than the next physical life; it extends
also into the after-death condition, and a full comprehension of its working
is of the greatest importance to us.
As
to this law of divine justice, there have been various opinions at various
times. Some people; when they have looked out into the world, and seen what
was happening, have wondered whether there was a law of justice at all. I
do not deny that from a purely physical point of view we are sometimes unable
fully to see the action of this great law. Yet I know that it exits, and
that when we do not see its working the fault lies in our own blindness,
and not in the action of the law. We may be quite certain that the law exists,
and yet be fully prepared to admit that it is not always possible for us
down here to see the whole of its working. Although I put this law before
you as a hypothesis for your consideration, it is much more than a hypothesis
for those who are studying from the Theosophical standpoint. Very many of
them know by the use of faculties beyond the physical that reincarnation
is a definite fact. In the same way there are very many students who know
certainly that this law of cause and effect is in action. But we must realize
that this law is working itself out upon other planes besides the physical,
and so is not to be gauged only from one point of view. Suppose we were looking
at the underside of some very beautiful tapestry; you will comprehend that,
being only able to see the underside, we should have a very imperfect idea
of the pattern. Suppose, further that the tapestry had not been finished,
then still less should we be able to form a clear conception of the design.
That is precisely how we stand with regard to the mighty law of karma. We
only see the underside of it from the physical plane because so much of its
action belongs to higher levels. Indeed, we might expect scarcely ever to
be able to trace it fully from this side. Once more, as in the case of reincarnation,
if you will provisionally accept this idea of divine justice, you will find
that it is a more satisfactory theory of life than any other, and you may
gradually come to hold it as firmly as we do.
You
will observe that there are only certain hypotheses. Either everything is
only blind chance, and we are ruled by caprice, or we are under a regular
divine law, and our surrounding are the result of our actions, good or evil,
in previous lives. You will admit that you would like to believe in a law
of divine justice. There must be a reason for that feeling that man has of
always desiring justice. If God is infinitely greater than we, He must surely
have this quality. We believe in Theosophy that it is a rational necessity
that this law should exist, and we see in every direction instances of its
workings. I can explain it only to a limited extent, because it needs long
and careful study. But the broad outline we ought to be able to give, and
then the details can be gathered from the literature. Never think that when
you have heard a lecture on a Theosophical subject you know all about it.
You have only to take up some of our books to see how very much more there
is to be known, for in one lecture it is not possible to give all available
information even on one point.
The
first great characteristic that I should like you to grasp about this law
is that it is automatic in its action, and that therefore there is no possibility
of escape from it. Put aside all theories that man will be judged for his
actions, and punished or rewarded for them. That inevitably suggests to us
the thought of an earthly judge, who may be prejudiced or partially informed,
or may be more lenient in one case and more severe in another. We prefer
rather to speak of the law of cause and effect, because we hold that this
is a law which brings us the result of our actions with an automatic precision.
In mechanics we know that action and reaction are equal, and that no force
can ever be lost, and we find that precisely the same rule obtains on these
higher levels. If you put so much energy into a machine, you will receive
back from it so much work as a result. If you put a certain amount of energy
into a word, deed, or thought, you will obtain from that also a certain result,
for the law of the conservation of energy holds good upon higher planes just
as it does upon this.
If
you put a certain amount of force into a steam-engine, you expect to get
a definite proportion back in the shape of work - not all of it, naturally,
because some goes in friction and some is thrown off in the form of heat,
but still a fair proportion. If you do not receive back from your engine
what you know you may reasonably expect, you at once look for a defect in
your machine; it would never occur to you to say that the law of the conversation
of energy is false. But when exactly the same law is working on higher planes,
people who find an individual instance in which they cannot see that evil
flows from evil and that good follows good, seem often to affirm wildly that
no law of justice exists, instead of blaming themselves for their own short-sightedness,
or tranquilly realising that we cannot expect always to see how this law
works out is results, because they are not always immediate, and the time
occupied may often extend far beyond our physical purview. Often forces set
in motion in one life have not time to work themselves out in that incarnation
or even in the next, but they will inevitably be worked out some time. We
are, today, to a large extent, the products of the thoughts, surroundings,
and the teachings of our childhood, even though the details of that life
may be forgotten. Just as today we are bearing the results of yesterday,
and the day before, so precisely is it with the larger day, the incarnation.
We have made ourselves what we are, and we have made our circumstances what
they are. As we have sown in the past, so are we reaping now; and as we are
sowing now, so infallibly shall we reap in the future.
It
is especially important to emphasise the truth that this Divine Law is inexorable,
because a good deal of the religious teaching of the present day distinctly
includes a theory we may escape from the consequences of our actions. In
Theosophy we consider that a very dangerous doctrine, not only because it
is fundamentally inaccurate, but because of the many unsound conclusions
which are deduced from it. The idea suggested is that by doing wrong the
man has simply incurred a debt, and that this debt may just as well be paid
by someone else as by the sinner himself - or rather that the sinner cannot
himself pay, and so must shuffle off his responsibility. This simile of the
debt is one that we have sometimes employed in Theosophical writing, but
it seems to me liable to very serious misunderstanding. A much truer analogy
would be that of a man who wishes to be an athlete and is training himself
for a race. In order to acquire sufficient strength and agility he must develop
certain muscles, and for that purpose he needs a certain training. It would
not at all serve that purpose if someone else did it for him. If we wish
to become perfect men physically we must take much trouble to develop those
parts of the body which we have hitherto neglected, and we must rest others
which we have over worked. The physical condition of the average man is no
inapt symbol of his moral condition. Many muscles are almost atrophied for
want of use, while other parts of the body - the nervous system, for instance
- have been seriously injured by improper use. From the standpoint of the
physical we have committed many sins against our own bodies, and we must
atone for them; if we want to become perfect men physically we must go through
many wearisome exercises and trials, which would not have been necessary
if we had kept our bodies properly and evenly develop. Others can help us,
by telling us what to do and how best to do it, but others cannot take the
exercise for us. It is not like the liquidation of a debt, because in addition
to bearing the result of wrong done in the past, the man must in bearing
it develop strength for the future. He must develop perfect moral qualities
in the same way as he would develop perfect muscles - by exercising them.
He must make the necessary effort to put things right again. No one else
can do it for him, but happily many may help him by advice and sympathy and
affectionate encouragement. This law of cause and effect works just as do
other laws of Nature, and if we can recognise that it will save us much trouble.
If you put your hand into the fire, and it is burnt, you do not say "God
punished me for putting my hand into the fire". You consider it a natural
consequence of your action, and you know that anyone who understands physics
could explain to you along scientific lines exactly what had happened to
you, and why you suffered. He would tell you that incandescent matter is
vibrating at an exceedingly rapid rate, that such a rate of vibration impinging
upon the tissues of your hand had torn them apart, and so had produced the
wound that we call a burn. But there is no special Divine interposition in
that, though it takes place under the operation of those laws of Nature which
are the expression of the Divine Will on the physical plane.
We
hold that sorrow and suffering flow from sin just precisely in that way,
under the direct working of natural law. It may be said, perhaps, that obviously
the good man does not always reap his reward of good result, nor does the
wicked man always suffer. Not always immediately; not always within our ken;
but assuredly eventually and inexorably. If we could see the future, if we
could even see the whole of the present, we should understand this fully.
We shall see more clearly that this must be so if we define exactly what
we mean by good and evil. Our religious brothers would tell us that that
was good which was in accordance with God's will, and that that was evil
which was in opposition to it. The scientific man would say that that was
good which helped evolution, and whatever hindered it was evil. Those two
men are in reality saying exactly the same thing; for God's will for man
is evolution, and when that is clearly realised all conflict between religion
and science is at once ended. Anything, therefore, which is against the evolution
of humanity as a whole is against the divine will. We see at once that when
a man struggles to gain anything for himself at the expense of others he
is distinctly doing evil, and it is evil because it is against the interest
of the whole. Therefore the only true gain is that which is a gain for the
race as a whole, and the man who gain something without cost or wrong to
anyone is raising the whole race somewhat in the process. He is moving in
the direction of evolution, while the other man is moving against it.
Take
a simple illustration. Suppose that I have here a great weight suspended
from the ceiling by a rope. If I exert a certain force in pushing against
this weight, we know by the laws of mechanics that it pushes back against
my hand with exactly the same amount of force. We find that that same law
of mechanics holds good on the higher planes just as it does here. If a man
exerts his strength against the Divine order, he disturbs the equilibrium
of nature, and that equilibrium infallibly readjusts itself at the expense
of the man who disturbs it. The power of the current of the Divine will is
so much greater than that of any human will which may attempt to deflect
it that it sweeps him inevitably on, and it is only he who suffers, not the
Divine scheme. He cannot delay the current, but he may cause a little temporary
disturbance and foam upon its surface. He is swept along with it in any case,
but he can go on in two ways. He can intelligently observe its direction
and swim with it, and by doing so he will not only progress with ease and
comfort himself, but will also (which is much more important) be able to
extend a helping hand to others. On the other hand, he may set himself against
it, through a foolish misunderstanding of his own interests. He will still
be carried on in spite of his struggles, but with a great deal of trouble
and pain to himself, and perhaps of hindrance to others also. That is precisely
what the wicked man is doing. He will be swept along more slowly and with
a great deal of sorrow and suffering for himself and others, but he must
evolve.
If
we can grasp the grand idea that there is no possibility of final destruction,
but the certainty of final success for all, because that is God's will for
them, we shall at once recognise the utter futility and madness of selfishness.
There is no feeble hope that a few may be saved, but the magnificent certainty
that none can by any possibility be lost.
I
have sometimes wondered how modern orthodoxy can speak of Christ as the Saviour
of the world, and yet in the same breath assert that He does not save it,
that He does not succeed in saving one in ten thousand of its inhabitants,
and has to yield all the rest to the Devil! Would that be considered a successful
effort if we were speaking of any kind of human attempt? Such a doctrine
is a blasphemy; cast it out from your stock of religious ideas. We bring
a grander gospel and we preach a nobler creed than that; for we know that
this evolution will succeed and not fail - that it will be a grand and glorious
success, and that every soul in it shall eventually attain its goal.
It
is only the ignorant who struggles, and even he must yield in the end. He
will struggle against the evolutionary current in one life - perhaps even
in more than one, but his soul will learn its lesson, will observe the inevitable
connection between cause and effect, and will strive to control its vehicles
more efficiently. Let us see a little how this works. In the first lecture
I mentioned the planes of nature, and explained that man had bodies corresponding
to them. We have to remember that this law of cause and effect is acting
with regard to those planes as well as to this. If the man has strong emotions,
those represent forces which are producing their effect in the astral body.
If he has good mental development, that represents a force belonging to his
mental body, which is inevitably producing results also.
Suppose
a man finds himself what we call an emotional person, easily swayed either
by feeling of affection or by annoyance. That man has an emotional nature,
a readily impressible astral body which he brought over from a previous life.
He need not, however, carry it on with him to another. A man who finds himself
and train himself definitely with a view to the future. If he lets himself
go and allows his passion to dominate him, he encourages his astral body
to indulge in those violent vibrations, he sets up a habit in it which becomes
every time more difficult to conquer. If, on the other hand, he sets himself
to try to curb his anger, he gradually gets those vibrations under his control,
and each time it is a little easier than before. It often happens that a
man who is irritated says something which he afterwards regrets. He resolves
not to do this again, but when the next provocation comes, he does not remember
in time; perhaps for several more times he will pull himself up just as he
has spoken the angry word. But there comes a time when he remembers in the
very act of speaking and checks himself abruptly, and then his victory is
half won. Presently he stops himself just before he speaks the word, and
then he has won the victory as far as the physical plane is concerned, though
he has still to go on and control the feeling itself - to prevent even the
vibration in the astral body. That is the way in which a man learns to break
through a bad habit.
Fortunately
we may set up good habits as readily as bad ones, if we will only take the
trouble. We may try definitely to set up within ourselves good habits of
helpfulness, unselfishness, perseverance, punctuality, and so on; and then
we shall be born with these as inherent qualities upon our next return to
earth. That is a little bit of character-building which anyone may undertake,
and the trouble it costs him will be the best investment he ever made. When
we understand that the mental body and astral body are only expressions of
the man, we shall realize that in learning to control them he is acquiring
definite qualities and building them into the causal body, so that next time
he will have those qualities as part of his stock-in-trade, as it were, with
which he recommences his business of evolution. The man sows certain thoughts
and actions, and later on he reaps the results. Between the spring sowing
and the autumn reaping he many have worn out one suit of clothes and put
on another in the shape of a new body, but he remains the same and he reaps
his harvest just the same.
We
find by investigation that, broadly speaking, the man's thoughts in one life
build his character for the next, and that his actions in the one life produce
his surrounding in the next. A strong desire along certain lines which remains
entirely unfulfilled during one life will often produce a capacity along
those lines in the next. For example, I have known people who are very musical
in the sense that they enjoy music intensely, but yet have no faculty for
producing it, no facility in performance and no opportunity for acquiring
it, although they earnestly wish for it. Now that strong desire will certainly
produce its results in the next incarnation. Assuredly those people will
next time bring back with them the capacity for musical training, and will
have the opportunity for it. They will not be born with the training already
acquired, as Mozart was, he must have had that training in his previous life;
but at least it will bring them back with a vehicle which will readily respond
to the training. Thus aspirations or desires of one life are transmuted into
capacities in the next.
Just so if the
man is constantly thinking some thought over and over again, he sets up a habit
or tendency of thought. Whenever a man thinks strongly he creates a thought-form
- that is to say, he sets up a certain rate of vibration, and the energy thus
generated draws round itself a vehicle of finer matter which it ensouls, and
thus creates a sort of storage battery of force. Now that thought-form hovers
about the man and constantly reacts upon him. We know from telepathic experiments
what is the tendency of a thought when it acts upon another person. It will
work upon the corresponding matter of his matter body and tend to set up in
that its own rate of vibration, so that it provokes in the mind of the recipient
a reproduction of the thought which was in the mind of the sender. That would
be the action on another person; but we often forget that a man is constantly
producing a very similar action on himself. Clairvoyants see every man surrounded
by a cloud of his habitual thoughts, and of course these thoughts are all the
while reacting upon him. To every man there come times when he is not thinking
strongly, when for the moment his mental activities are in abeyance; and at
all such times ever present thought-forms would react upon him, so that any
strong thought which the man has once sent forth will always tend to reproduce
itself and make him think a similar thought whenever his mind is for the moment
vacant.
You
can see how this might work in the case of a sensualist, and how very likely
the man would be to yield to such a returning thought because he has been
in the habit of giving way to similar impressions before. The man himself
sent out the idea in the first place, and perhaps has never thought of it
since, but when the opportunity occurs it reacts upon him. So it may become
a sort of tempting demon like those invented by the diseased imagination
of medieval monks. Most unfortunately it may act upon others as well as upon
himself, and that is the awful responsibility of yielding to evil thought.
He may become the centre of moral contagion and do grievous harm to thousands
of whose very existence he is ignorant.
Again,
if a man dwells often upon a certain thought it will presently translate
itself into action. By thinking it so often he sets up a decided tendency,
and if circumstances prevent him from carrying it out in action in this life,
he will probably do so in his next incarnation. Thus it is that we find some
children born with criminal tendencies, with an apparently instinctive desire
to steal or to be cruel - because they indulged in covetous or revengeful
thoughts in the dim distance of the past. Happily the same law holds with
regard to good thoughts. How often we long to do some good deed, but from
lack of means or time or strength we are utterly unable to accomplish it.
Yet the earnest desire is not without its effect and the opportunity which
is denied to us in this life, because our past was not such as to deserve
it, will assuredly be ours in the future, won for us by the very energy poured
out in the yearning of today.
Along
the very same lines is conscience built up in the man. He does a wrong or
foolish act, and through the inevitable action of the law he suffers for
it sooner or later, and through that very suffering the soul acquires the
knowledge that that action is wrong, and must not be repeated. Thus out of
painful experiences the conscience in man is formed, the soul learning perhaps
a different lesson in each of its lives, and so gradually developing a comprehensive
and educated conscience. Usually he cannot impress upon his physical brain
the detailed history of his previous mistake not the reason for his conclusion;
but he is able to send through very definitely that conclusion itself, in
the shape of a firm conviction that a certain action is to be avoided.
It
is necessary to realise that we have all of us had many lives, not only one
or two; and that since we have gradually raised ourselves to this level,
those previous incarnations were all probably less advanced in many ways
than our present one. We must all have been savages in the past - and probably
not once, but many times. So we must have done a great many evil and undesirable
things, and we must each one of us have a tolerably heavy bill to pay. So
there arises the question how we are to clear off such an accumulation of
evil results. In such lives as the more thoughtful among us are living now,
we may reasonably hope that there is a preponderance of good over evil; but
undoubtedly the reverse must have been the case in very many of our earlier
existences, and if we had to bear in any one life the whole of the suffering
due to us on the entire account, we might well find it sufficient to crush
us to the earth, and prevent us from evolving at all. Since the object of
the whole scheme is man's evolution, that obviously cannot be permitted;
and consequently we find that there comes into operation here a certain law
of distribution or adaptation assigning to each successive life such proportion
of the debt as can best be paid in it. This modification does not in the
least change or reduce the results of our past deeds, but it does so apportion
them as to prevent them from overwhelming us.
The
Hindus give to this law of cause and effect the name of karma, and they also
apply the same term to the results which under it follow from action of any
kind. They say that of this karma there are three kinds:
1.
There is the Sanchita or 'piled-up' karma - the whole mass that still remains
behind the man not yet worked out - the entire unpaid balance of the debit
and credit account.
2.
There is the Prarabdha or 'beginning' karma - the amount apportioned to the
man at the commencement of each life - his destiny for that life, as it were.
3.
There is the Kriyamana karma, that which we are now, by our actions in this
present life, making for the future.
That
second type, the Prarabdha, is the only destiny which can be said to exist
for man. That is what an astrologer might foretell for us - that we have
apportioned to us so much good and evil fortune - so much of the result of
the good and evil actions of our past lives which will react on us in this.
But we should remember always that this result of previous action can never
compel us to action in the present. It may put us under conditions in which
it will be difficult to avoid an act, but it can never compel us to commit
it. The man of ordinary development would probably yield to the circumstances
and commit the act; but he may assert his free will, rise superior to his
circumstances, and gain a victory and a step in evolution. So with a good
action; no man is forced into that either, but an opportunity is given to
him. If he takes it certain results will follow - not necessarily a happy
or a wealthy life next time, but certainly a life of wider opportunity. That
seems to be one of the things that are quite certain - that the man who has
done well in this life has always the opportunity of doing still better in
the next. That is nature's reward for good work - the opportunity to do more
work. Of course wealth is a great opportunity, so the reward often comes
in that form, but the essence of the reward is the opportunity, and not the
pleasure which may be supposed to accompany the wealth.
Sometimes
when men first realise the inexorability of the Divine law of cause and effect,
they feel themselves helpless in the grasp of a destiny against which it
is useless to struggle. Yet this should not be at all the result of increased
knowledge. The more we know the laws of nature, the more intelligently we
can use them; and remember, it is only because they are invariable and inexorable
that we are able to depend upon them and utilise them. Where would be the
use of the magnificent power-works at Niagara if the law of gravitation were
only occasional in its action - if water sometimes ran downhill and sometimes
did not? So it is just the invariability of this law of karma which enables
us to employ it in character-building. If a man finds an impure thought arising
unbidden within his mind now, he knows that it is because he allowed such
thoughts to play through his mind long ago; and in that very knowledge lies
his hope for the future. If he keeps his thought high and pure in this life,
in the next he will assuredly reap the result of his effort, and will have
a mind-body incapable of responding to the vibrations of the low and impure.
Along
the same line of action we can modify not only character but circumstances,
and can arrange for ourselves the certainty of plenty of opportunities to
do good. If we devote ourselves earnestly now to doing all the good work
within reach, we shall certainly have all the more opportunity next time.
Remember
that although we can never recall the force which we have thrown into any
thought or action, we can often modify its effect by sending out a new force
of different type. If you strike a ball, for example, as at croquet, you
set it rolling in a certain direction with a certain amount of energy. No
human power can take that force out of the ball, but of course you may stop
it, by opposing to it a new force of equal power in the opposite direction.
Supposing that, while the ball is rolling, we strike it from one side, it
will then adopt a new path, which is neither that of the original force nor
that of the newly-appointed one, but a diagonal between the two, the exact
direction of which can be determined by means of what is called the parallelogram
of forces. It is exactly the same with karma. We cannot take away one iota,
one least ounce of the force which we have already sent forth; but we can
always endeavour to improve matters by setting in motion a new force of opposite
character. If you have sent forth an angry thought, it is true that you cannot
recall that, but you may swiftly send after it another which will to a large
extent neutralise its effect upon the person to whom it was directed - a
thought of affection and brotherliness, a strong, loving wish for his good
and his progress.
It
is important not to forget that the law is acting upon all planes simultaneously,
upon the astral and mental as well as upon the physical. It is only in this
way that perfect justice is assured. For example, it is only when we remember
this that we can at all understand how a man's intentions can be taken into
account. A man may set out in some matter with the best intentions, thinking
out his plan carefully, and putting a great deal of energy and good-will
into it, yet on the physical plane he may make some foolish mistake, or his
plans may miscarry, and he may do much harm instead of good. The world sees
only the failure and laughs at him, and he feels himself unjustly treated.
But the law meets him at all points and its adjustment is perfect. On the
mental plane he has poured forth much energy for good, and upon that plane
good flows back upon him in unstinted measure; upon the physical plane he
has done harm, and consequently on that plane he receives the result of his
mistaken action. But the action of force upon the mental plane is so much
more rapid and far-reaching than on the physical that there is no comparison
between the value of the results. So it is true that the intention is by
far the most important thing, though absolute justice will be done on each
plane.
We
may see that this is so in every-day life. Law on the physical plane takes
no account of intention. If you seize a red-hot bar it will burn you, whether
you seized it in order to kill somebody, or in order to save a child from
injury. On the physical plane the result will be precisely the same, but
on the plane of intention it is very different. In the one case there could
be nothing but shame and remorse, and the evil result of an outpouring of
hatred and malice; in the other there would be the happy consciousness of
a brave deed done, and the good which flows from a strong thought of heroic
self-sacrifice.
Let
us then remember that just because of its inexorability we can use this Divine
Law, and that with regard to it we must never permit ourselves to feel any
sense of helplessness but only absolute serenity and perfect fearlessness;
for we know that the good must triumph, and that our individual future is
entirely in our own hands.