A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga - William Walker Atkinson (read full novel .txt) 📗

their operations are closely interwoven. Constant and unvarying in operation, Karma manifests upon and in worlds, planets, races, nations, families and persons Everywhere in space is the great law in operation in some form. The so-called mechanical operations called Causation are as much a phase of Karma as is the highest phases manifest on the higher planes of life, far beyond our own. And through it all is ever the urge toward perfection—the upward movement of all life. The Yogi teachings regard the Universe as a mighty whole, and the Law of Karma as the one great law operating and manifesting through that whole.

How different is the workings of this mighty Law from the many ideas advanced by man to account for the happenings of life. Mere Chance is no explanation, for the careful thinker must inevitably come to the conclusion that in an Universe governed by law, there can be no room for Chance. And to suppose that all rewards and punishments are bestowed by a personal deity, in answer to prayers, supplications, good behavior, offerings, etc., is to fall back into the childhood stage of the race thought. The Yogis teach that the sorrow, suffering and affliction witnessed on all sides of us, as well as the joy, happiness and blessings also in evidence, are not caused by the will or whim of some capricious deity to reward his friends and punish his enemies—but by the working of an invariable Law which metes out to each his measure of good and ill according to his Karmic attachments and relationships.

Those who are suffering, and who see no cause for their pain, are apt to complain and rebel when they see others of no apparent merit enjoying the good things of life which have been denied their apparently more worthy brethren. The churches have no answer except "It is God's will," and that "the Divine motive must not be questioned." These answers seem like mockery, particularly when the idea of Divine Justice is associated with the teaching. There is no other answer compatible with Divine Justice other than the Law of Karma, which makes each person responsible for his or her happiness or misery. And there is nothing so stimulating to one as to know that he has within himself the means to create for himself newer and better conditions of life and environment. We are what we are to-day by reason of what we were in our yesterdays. We will be in our tomorrows that which we have started into operation to-day. As we sow in this life, so shall we reap in the next—we are now reaping that which we have sown in the past. St. Paul voiced a world truth when he said: "Brethren, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."

The teachers divide the operation of Karma into three general classes, as follows: (1) The Karmic manifestations which are now under way in our lives, producing results which are the effects of causes set into motion in our past lives. This is the most common form, and best known phase of Karmic manifestation.

(2) The Karma which we are now acquiring and storing up by reason of our actions, deeds, thoughts and mental and spiritual relationships. This stored up Karma will spring into operation in future lives, when the body and environments appropriate for its manifestation presents itself or is secured; or else when other Karma tending to restrict its operations is removed. But one does not necessarily have to wait until a future life in order to set into operation and manifestation the Karma of the present life. For there come times in which there being no obstructing Karma brought over from a past life, the present life Karma may begin to manifest.

(3) The Karma brought over from past incarnations, which is not able to manifest at the present time owing to the opposition presented by other Karma of an opposite nature, serves to hold the first in check. It is a well known physical law, which likewise manifests on the mental plane, that two opposing forces result in neutralization, that is, both of the forces are held in check. Of course, though, a more powerful Karma may manage to operate, while a weaker is held in check by it.

Not only have individuals their own Karma, but families, races, nations and worlds have their collective Karma. In the cases of races, if the race Karma generated in the past be favorable on the whole, the race flourishes and its influence widens. If on the contrary its collective Karma be bad, the race gradually disappears from the face of the earth, the souls constituting it separating according to their Karmic attractions, some going to this race and some to another. Nations are bound by their Karma, as any student of history may perceive if he studies closely the tides of national progress or decline.

The Karma of a nation is made up of the collective Karma of the individuals composing it, so far as their thoughts and acts have to do with the national spirit and acts. Nations as nations cease to exist, but the souls of the individuals composing them still live on and make their influence felt in new races, scenes and environments. The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Romans, Grecians and many other ancient races have disappeared, but their reincarnating souls are with us to-day. The modern revival of Occultism is caused by an influx of the souls of these old peoples pouring in on the Western worlds.

The following quotation from The Secret Doctrine, that remarkable piece of occult literature, will be interesting at this point:

"Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways—which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate, while another sees in them the action of blind fatalism, and a third simple Chance with neither gods nor devils to guide them—would surely disappear if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbors will no more work harm to us than we would think of harming them, two-thirds of the world's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through … We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways being so intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or another life … Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if—

          'Virtue in distress and vice in triumph
          Makes atheists of Mankind,'

it is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the great truth that man is himself his own savior as his own destroyer; that he need not accuse heaven, and the gods, fates and providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns in the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember that bit of Grecian wisdom which warns man to forbear accusing THAT which 'Just though mysterious, leads us on unerring Through ways unmarked from guilt to punishment'—which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great European nations. The Western Aryans have every nation and tribe like their eastern brethren of the fifth race, their Golden and their Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya age of purity, while now several of them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali Yuga, an age black with horrors. This state will last … until we begin acting from within instead of ever following impulses from without. Until then the only palliative is union and harmony—a Brotherhood in actu and altruism not simply in name."

Edwin Arnold, in his wonderful poem, "The Light of Asia," which tells the story of the Buddha, explains the doctrine of Karma from the Buddhist standpoint. We feel that our students should become acquainted with this view, so beautifully expressed, and so we herewith quote the passages referred to:

     "Karma—all that total of a soul
       Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
     The 'self' it wove with woof of viewless time
       Crossed on the warp invisible of acts.

* * * * *

     "What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
       Worse—better—last for first and first for last;
     The angels in the heavens of gladness reap
       Fruits of a holy past.

     "The devils in the underworlds wear out
       Deeds that were wicked in an age gone by.
     Nothing endures: fair virtues waste with time,
       Foul sins grow purged thereby.

     "Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince
       For gentle worthiness and merit won;
     Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags
       For things done and undone.

     "Before beginning, and without an end,
       As space eternal and as surety sure,
     Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,
       Only its laws endure.

     "It will not be contemned of any one:
       Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains;
     The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss,
       The hidden ill with pains.

     "It seeth everywhere and marketh all:
       Do right—it recompenseth! Do one wrong—
     The equal retribution must be made,
       Though DHARMA tarry long.

     "It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true
       Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs;
     Times are as naught, to-morrow it will judge,
       Or after many days.

     "By this the slayer's knife did stab himself;
       The unjust judge hath lost his own defender;
     The false tongue dooms its lie; the creeping thief
       And spoiler rob, to render.

     "Such is the law which moves to righteousness,
       Which none at last can turn aside or stay;
     The heart of it is love, the end of it
       Is peace and consummation sweet. Obey!

* * * * *

     "The books say well, my brothers! each man's life
       The outcome of his former living is;
     The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrow and woes,
       The bygone right breeds bliss.

     "That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
       The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
     Was corn. The silence and the darkness knew;
       So is a man's fate born.

     "He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed,
       Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth;
     And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar
       Him and the aching earth.

     "If he shall labor rightly, rooting these,
       And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew,
     Fruitful and fair and clean the ground shall be,
       And rich the harvest due.

     "If he who liveth, learning whence woe springs,
       Endureth patiently, striving to pay
     His utmost debt for ancient evils done
       In love and truth