Theosophy - Karma and Free-Will - An Elementary Study by Emily Kislingbury - as published in Volume 5 of Theosophical Siftings
KARMA AND FREE-WILL
AN ELEMENTARY STUDY
by EMILY KISLINGBURY, F.T.S.
As published in Volume 5 of “Theosophical Siftings” [1892-1893]
ONE of the benefits accruing from the study of Theosophy
should be the power of clearing our thoughts and conceptions
on those subjects which are of vital importance to our right-living.
The hopeless muddle in which some of us have been landed
by conflicting theologies, cosmogonies and philosophic systems
make such a clearing most necessary and desirable, and the
confusion they have created is the main reason, why many
in these days have fallen back on materialism, where the
deductions of physical science are refreshingly clear and
simple by comparison, and satisfactory to the mind, so far
as they go. In dealing with the abstruser side of Theosophy,
there is danger of a return to the old state of mystification,
and a darkening of knowledge by a multiplicity of words and
so-called explanations. Would it not be better to lay firm
hold of a few basic laws, and try to see how many things
which now seem so complicated may be referred through all
their windings to these few mainsprings of action in the
Macrocosm, and therefore of reaction or reflection in the
Microcosm? We worry our brains and puzzle over things which
are perfectly simple, and would be so regarded if the philosophers
had not spun out of the haziness of their psycho-materialist
conceptions difficulties which would never have presented
themselves to those who see by the clearer light of intuition.
Then, again, the intolerance and self-assertiveness of these
so-called philosophers and the brilliancy of expression with
which some of our modern scientists have certainly put forward
their own teachings, have so imposed upon a world expectant
of new truth, that the voices of the intuitionalists have
been feeble in comparison and proportionately disregarded.
Now, however, that the turn of the tide has come, we should
make the most of our opportunities, and try to make clear
statements about our own position. Much has been said, I
know, to the effect that Theosophists must not dogmatize,
for Theosophy has no creed. But surely that which we all
accept as truth must constitute our body of doctrine [Page
18] or teaching, and a dogma is nothing but a truth clearly
laid down and stated, for the guidance of the student and
of all who come after. True, we must always bear in mind
that such dogma, or definite statement of truth, is capable
by its nature, of indefinite expansion, but it must have
its root unshaken, rivetted in Eternal Iaw.
Even inductive
science, having arrived by its own methods at certain generalizations
which it calls laws of nature, lays these down for general
acceptance; such are the laws of gravitation, attraction,
cohesion, the correlation of forces, etc.. This does not prevent students from verifying
each and all of these laws by experiment, and proving the
truth of every statement made by the teacher, and even starting
new theories in connection with them. And so it should be
in Theosophy. The student should accept, at least provisionally,
the laws of the science he has come to study; when he has
heard the statements of his teachers concerning their own
doctrines, he will be in a position to test their truth for
himself. Without some such definitions to anchor by and work
up to, he will soon be "in endless mazes lost", and
will never arrive at any correct conclusions, nor find the "law
within the law".
And no Theosophist desiring to teach others must shrink
from the admission that such definite statement, call it
doctrine, law, dogma, or what you will, must be taken as
a basis of Theosophic study.
Such a law, then,
is Karma, and to many amongst us the unveiling of this
truth by Theosophy has been the way out of a maze of difficulty,
and the deliverance from a burden greater than that borne
by Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress. But already there
is a tendency shown by some to darken this blessed light
by sophistry, to blur over those "Eastern
windows that look towards the sun", by confusing Karma
with fatalism, or by allowing their half-formed convictions
to be shaken on account of some of the forms in which its
action does not seem clearly traceable. If we could explain
it all, we should indeed be as gods, knowing good and evil,
and should be fit to pass away altogether from this plane
of being.
Of course also
we are here confronted with another difficulty — the
appeal to authority. "Who are those that say these things
are so? and why should I believe them?". Well, we are
not going into that question here. Those who have accepted
on good grounds, or at least on grounds satisfactory to their
own minds, the Eastern teachings, do not require to discuss
it, and I am not now engaged in trying to convince those
who have not yet done so, to accept that authority. I only
want to make a statement of what is meant by Karma, according
to the [Page 19] teachings of the Secret Doctrine, and to
show its various aspects, and then to try and point out how
it bears upon that other arch-difficulty and bête noire of theologians and philosophers — man's free-will.
To begin with
a negative — Karma is not Fate and it
is not Predestination; neither is it Nemesis (alone) nor
is it Providence, though all these may be looked upon as
aspects of Karma. Unfortunately we have no word in the English
language that can embrace all the fulness of its meaning,
for the simple reason that the conception does not exist
in our philosophy, nor in any school of thought that has
taken root on English soil. In a foot-note to the Secret
Doctrine (ii. 305), and much of its most precious teachings
is contained in foot-notes and in very small print, but let
no student pass them over on that account) there is what
seems to me the most complete and satisfactory definition
of Karma, so far as it can be compressed into a few sentences.
I give here its
substance, and alter the wording only as much as is necessary
to connect it with the context. "Karma
is an absolute and eternal law in the world of manifestation" the
concatenation of cause and effect, and as regards its operation
in human lives, it is the practical illustration of the saying "whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap". It is Nemesis,
Adrasteia and Themis in one. As Themis, it is universal Order
and Harmony, and by its action keeps man within the limits
of nature and righteousness; it is therefore also Nemesis,
or the law of Retribution, since it exacts the penalty for
every infraction of the law of order; thus also it is Adrasteia
or the Inevitable, since every action has its reaction, and
is bound within the chain of cause and effect. Each action
committed by man is the effect of some cause previously set
in motion by himself, and becomes in its turn the cause of
never-ending consequences.
Karmic influence
extends not only throughout the life of a man's present
personality, but reaches far back to the dawn of his self-consciousness
in previous incarnations, and will accompany his individuality
to the end of the Manvantara; it will follow him for weal
or for woe in the new personality he puts on at each re-birth;
he cannot escape from it, for it is indeed the "besetting God" spoken
of by the Psalmist. And it is because this haunting quality
of Karma is more felt by us when it concerns our evil deeds
than when it rewards us, so to speak, for our good ones,
that the Greeks personified it as Nemesis, the Avenger,
and as the Erinnyes or Furies, pursuing the evil-doer by
land and sea until he had worked out his allotted punishment.
Some have objected
that this is not borne out by the facts of life, for we
often see the "wicked flourishing as
a green bay-tree", and the [Page 20] poor and deserving
suffering endless trials and misery, from no apparent fault
of their own, and often without sympathy or alleviation from
their more fortunate brethren. Yes; but we must remember
that we see only the course of one short life, and often
not the whole, indeed at best only the outside of that, and
it is just here that the teachings of Theosophy come in to
solve the problem of the inequality and the seeming injustice
of men's lots. Some French writer has said that if there
were no other life, man would have to invent one in order
to adjust the balance of injustice in this; hence also the
popularity of the belief in a rewarding heaven and a punishing
hell. For this belief has an eternal truth at the back of
it. That truth is the continuation of life through a series
of incarnations on earth or some other planet, our condition
being each time determined by Karma, that is to say by that
which is the consequence of our former lives. We have what
we deserve in the long run. Man does not start in each life
with a tabula rasa, at least after his seventh year, a clean
sheet on which he can write, or as some parents and educators
have imagined they can write, what each one pleases. He brings
with him the record of his past deeds, good and bad, the
certificate, as it were, of character from his last place
of service. This character will colour all his acts in each
re-birth, until, following in the track of evolution, he
reaches finally the nirvanic condition, when his will or
his state of consciousness becomes one with the divine.
This doctrine
of Karma does not exclude transmission of characteristic
traits by heredity; but these will on examination be found
to belong to the physical order, or to lie on the borderland
between this and the mental plane, which Theosophy calls "Kama-manasic". In
our study of the seven principles in man, we have seen
how these principles or planes of being overlap one another,
the Astral or psychic being but the shadow of the physical,
and yet having a certain independent existence, as it is
known to survive the physical body often for a considerable
period. The Manas, or spiritual-mental principle, sending
down as it were a ray into the lower quaternary, that ray
is immersed in the matter of that quaternary, and takes
on a certain outward colour or character resembling those
among whom it dwells. Should it be overborne, either by
such outward circumstances, or by hereditary tendencies
inherent in the physical or passional nature, the outcome
cannot fail to be disastrous. It is not uncommon, however,
to see children who at an early age showed a striking likeness
to either parent, by degrees outgrowing that tendency and
developing, as we say, a character of their own, the very
physical features becoming changed as the inner nature asserts
itself. [Page 21]
Now some will ask, where then is man's free-will,
if he is thus bound by the chain of cause and effect? This
celebrated problem has exercised the minds of thinkers not
only in the West but in those parts of the East where, I
suppose, the esoteric teachings were not understood; but
is it really as difficult as it is made to appear? and will
not the Secret Doctrine in this, as in other respects, become
the Karma of the philosophers, by revealing to babes the
mysteries that the most learned have hitherto been unable
to fathom?
What is the problem
of Free-will and Necessity? Popularly stated it is this:
Man, being the creature of circumstances over which he
has no control, having come into this world by no wish
of his own, and being conditioned and limited on all sides
by the necessities of his nature and of his surroundings,
can only act within those limits and conditions; thus,
though he may appear to act freely, such freedom is an
illusion, perceived only by the philosophic few. Man being
therefore obliged to act in a certain manner under certain
conditions, was said by Calvin and his followers to be predestined
to salvation or perdition, and thus grew up a set of teachings
which have tinged a particular section of the Christian Church
with gloom, narrowness, and uncharity. Surely the ancient
Greeks did not teach this when they pictured Hercules at
the parting of the ways, making his choice between earthliness
and heavenly virtue? What is the meaning of the Two Paths in Theosophy, the broad and the narrow ways
of the Gospels, between which man is to choose, if he has no freedom of will,
no power of choice between good and evil? He would be a mere
senseless machine, the work of an equally senseless Creator.
True, man cannot act altogether contrary to his nature, he
is bound within certain limits and conditions; but he can
rise above the lower part of his nature by continually choosing
the good and refusing the evil, by self-restraint and self-sacrifice.
And by setting his will always in the direction of good,
by making for righteousness in thought as well as deed, he
will, in spite of many failures, gradually rise in the scale
of consciousness, until his will becomes more and more purified,
and is finally united with the Eternal Will of the Universe.
Thus what was once his nature, i.e., to please the flesh,
is so no longer, and he has outstepped the limits and conditions
by which he was formerly bound. He is free, by uniting his
will with the Divine Will. He has put off the old man, and
has put on the new man, being "renewed in the spirit
of his mind".
But among the
limitations to be overcome or patiently suffered, as the
case may be, are those which we have woven around our own
feet [Page 22] by our former actions, and which Theosophy
calls "Karmic results". But we must never take
these as predestining us to a certain end. They are a debt
which we have to pay to the uttermost farthing, and in paying
it cheerfully, honestly, and to the best of our ability,
we shall be making good Karma either for this life, if it
be long enough, or if not for some future existence, and
we shall be freeing our footsteps from that tangle that we
have ourselves woven around them, and be clearing the onward
path for the free exercise of our will, or rather the Divine
Will within us, in the future. Thus the right understanding
of Karma, or even a firm hold on the doctrine as the expression
of a righteous law, should tend to make men happier, more
contented, more patient and persevering in overcoming difficulties,
stronger both to bear and to forbear, to will, to dare and
to do.
Most certainly
its inculcation in youth would act as a strong deterrent
from evil courses, but unfortunately, as an eminent novelist
of our own day has said: "What father now teaches
his children that a human act, once set in motion, flows
on for ever to the great account?" The world wants the
doctrine of Karma, and we cannot doubt that it will, when
once generally accepted, become to the weak a saviour and
to the perplexed a solvent of many difficulties. We are told
by statisticians, and the frequent accounts published in
the newspapers make it patent to all, that suicide is frightfully
on the increase; theosophically, I believe there is nothing
that entails more terrible Karmic results. Is not this one
of the crimes, the decrease of which would naturally follow
on a wider acceptance of this doctrine of Karma, showing
that for all the evil and the curse of life here, there is
not only a cause but a remedy; and that remedy is for each
one to try and become master of his fate instead of letting
his fate master him. By teaching the law of Karma we can
show that no effort on the right path will go unrewarded,
and that every step on the upward climb raises others as
well as ourselves; by inspiring hope in those who believe
that all is lost, by helping those to live who have thought
that life was no longer possible, by showing those among
our sisters who feel their shame and degradation that it
is still possible for them to begin life afresh, and that
though they must suffer for the faults they have committed,
this need not deter them from making every effort to regain
the character they have lost. And this is a work that many
of us may engage in quietly, for who of us, alas! has not
come across some case of the kind I am now thinking of; it
is not possible for all to work on a large scale, but every
one of us can help his neighbour, and it will be our Karma
if we pass by on the other side, or if, worse still, we drive
one back by our indifference [Page 23] or uncharitableness
on the life she would gladly leave if she knew how to get
on to the better path.
The doctrine of
Karma is never to be applied to others with the same rigour
that we must use in interpreting the mystery of our own
lives. What do we know of their past trials, their present
deserts, their temptations, their difficulties, or of their
striving against evil and the force of circumstances? Besides
which, there is another side of Karma I have not yet touched
upon, that is, its generic or national character. The Secret
Doctrine tells us (i. 635) that the very earliest impulses
of cosmic energy are guided in the right direction by Karma,
and that even the illusive appearance of the marshalling
of events and actions on this earth follow the "cycles
of spiritual evolution."
As there are racial,
national and individual cycles, so there is racial and
national as well as individual Karma. And some of those
very social conditions which have been brought about by
the sins of a whole people may be the result of causes
in which we ourselves have taken part, and therefore it
rests with us to better the conditions of those who are
now the victims perhaps of our misdoing in the past. So that
wherever our eyes are opened to behold the misery of others,
a double responsibility is ours — that which results
from the universal brotherhood we all as Theosophists acknowledge,
and that to which as agents of Karma we are inexorably bound
by obligations entailed upon us by former causes engendered
by ourselves; and once we see this, the removal of the consequences
becomes for us a sacred duty. We may forsake our duty, and
in so doing evince a childish preference for what we may
term our own wills; but then ere long Karma the Beneficent
will return with redoubled force as Nemesis the Avenger,
and there will be no escape from her lash, just as if one
should turn his back unheeding on the first warning of smoke
and flame in a corner of his house, and going his way should
afterwards return to find it a blackened mass of ruins. Within
such limits as these the will of
man must indeed be brought into harmony with universal and
cyclic law, if he wishes to escape destruction; and it is only
by living in conformity with the Will of God, as religion phrases
it and has always taught, that man becomes really free. And
though for each man there is a compelling destiny which, once
being set in a certain direction, works inevitably towards
its goal, yet that direction has been chosen by the man himself,
and whether at the end he finds himself fixed in an eternal
calm, or carried away by the whirlwind, either destination
is the result of his own actions — is KARMA.
So that the summing up of the whole matter appears to me
to be — [Page 24] that man has free-will, is free to
choose, continually; but his choice in the present will,
by Karmic law, be determined by his choice in the past, and
equally that of the future by his choice in the present.
And as the momentum of Karma, so to speak, gathers as it
goes, and increases with the distance, the force to be resisted
becomes greater as time goes on, instead of less. Woe then
be to him who tampers with his choice or dreams for a moment
that he may be exempt from consequences, or free to return
on the path that he once freely chose. I do not say that
a man may not repent of his error, but the forces which draw
him onward maybe too strong for him, and unless he sets his
will betimes firmly to readjust the perturbation he has caused
in the world of harmony, his efforts to right himself will
not prevail.
"Nor", says the Secret Doctrine, "would the
ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and
harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance
of these 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 god nor devil to guide them — would
surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to
their correct cause. .... Were no man to hurt his brother,
Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons
to act through" .... Nor would he have need to "accuse
Heaven and the gods, Fate and Providence, of the apparent
injustice that reigns in the midst of humanity". Let
him rather "by unity in thought and action, and philosophical
research into the mysteries of being", learn how to
suppress some bad effects and cease to create others in a
world already so full of woe and evil.
The will of man, united with the Will of God, its true source,
can do all things; it can create as it can destroy, and the
whole Universe is hung upon its hinges. What a destiny lies
then before the coming race, and before ourselves as its
precursors and inaugurators. But only so long as we will to choose the higher life — in the words of Milton:
Freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
Paradise Lost, Book V.
And having so lived, we shall be free to make the greatest
choice of all — Nirvana, or the Great Renunciation.