These notes express my personal opinions, but I have drawn extensively on the work of the late Dr. Paul Brunton, who has been my teacher and inspiration for many many years.
The trouble with trying to understand the principles behind and the operation of karma is that karma and its method of action are intrinsically tied in with the nature of Man and the Universe itself. karma is, if you like, a property of this creation, and therefore cannot be understood completely without a proper understanding of the Real nature of the Universe in which we find ourselves. Because it is inappropriate for the purposes of this discussion to examine in detail the nature of our universe, it may be necessary to use concepts and ideas which seem unproved or speculative while attempting to describe the operation of karma and to throw some light on the question of Free Will Vs. Determinism. If any readers of this message wish to discuss these matters separately just drop me a line and I will answer them the best I can, or refer them to the writings of others who are able to explain things far more thoroughly than me.
Now, coming to the consideration of karma specifically. some people reject the idea believing that destiny is extremely unfair. Consider, for example, the case of a person who has had the apparent misfortune to be struck down by some debilitating disease or crippling deformity through no apparent fault of their own. Such physical maladies are frequently traceable back to the genetic inheritance from their parents. If despite the best efforts of the person concerned the ailment refuses to depart, they may turn for relief to religious faith, mystical experience or metaphysical reflection. These have the effect of enlarging our horizons and diminishing our Self-centredness, and consequently the sorrowful experience will not have been without value. There will be some ethical or philosophical lesson to be learned indirectly through it.. Know that sorrow, being the means of convincing Man of the need of inner life, is a spiritual teacher.
Those who have suffered deeply will listen to a spiritual message sooner than those who have not. As said, The swiftest horse that brings us to perfection is suffering. A man may be suffering what is really good for him, but he will weep as though it were really bad for him. If suffering brings men closer to the blessed life which transcends it, then if only for that reason and to that extent its existence is justified.
One of the properties of a manifested universe is the manifestation with it of what in Hindu terminology is known as the pairs of opposites - light and darkness, life and death, pleasure and pain etc. This duality is inherent in the very structure of the universe. Consequently it is an inevitable accompaniment of our own human existence too. In the physical body pleasurable sensations lure us to eat to sustain physical life and to procreate and so ensure the continuation of our species. But painful reactions also serve to repel us from what could be potentially harmful. What would happen in a world totally free of suffering, to a hand accidentally put into a fire if there was no painful reaction to warn us of our mistake. In this case, the pain of the burn is really a disguised friend helping to preserve life. It is useless to expect a life of pleasure only in a body built on such opposing tensions.
A similar duality applies to our mental and emotional life also. To look for one-sided perfection is to invite disappointment. The forces of winter wither the foliage of trees but can not as a consequence be regarded as a force of evil. The destructive element in Nature withers the forms of individuals, nations, civilisations and continents when they have out served their utility and the appropriate time for disintegration arrives. This is not a victory for evil, but rather a manifestation of one side out of a pair of opposites. Pain fills a place in the present evolutionary stage of our ethical existence which is hardly less, and more often useful, than that filled by pleasure, but our egoism blinds us to this fact.
The pain inflicted on a swollen sense of 'I' by karmic compensatory working is not really punishment any more than is the pain inflicted by a surgeon who opens an abscess with a knife. The coils of karma which entwine themselves around the wrong-doer are primarily there as a natural consequence of his own acts, not as a fiat of punishment. Time is educating him and developing him to perceive what is right. When he finally faces the responsibility for his own past errors he will see how many of his troubles were self-earned. Nobody likes to impose discipline upon themselves, and that is why everybody has to submit to a discipline imposed by karma. Hence pain and suffering come to us principally through the operations of karma.
The first error which most people make when accepting the tenet of karma is to postpone its operation to future incarnations. The truth is, however, that the consequences of our acts come to us, if they can, in the same birth as when they are committed. If we think of karma as being something whose fruits are to be born in some remote future existence, we think of it wrongly. Each moment we are shaping the history of the next. Every month we fashion the form of the month to follow. To paraphrase Emerson - Every thought either ennobles or debases the Soul. There is no standing still. By thinking a noble thought, the Soul is ennobled at that very moment. Similarly, the Soul is debased at the very moment that a selfish or evil thought passes through the mind. No day stands isolated and alone. karma is a continuous process and does not work by postponement. It is incorrect to regard it as a kind of postmortem judge. But it is not always possible to work out these consequences within a particular incarnation. In such cases, and in such alone, do we experience the consequences in subsequent births.
But even those who accept the twinned doctrines of karma and re-incarnation, are not infrequently hazy about the attitude to adopt as a consequence of this belief. It must be understood that while evil exists we must accept the fact of its existence as the price to be paid for the self-limiting of an emanation from the infinite into the finite. But this does not mean that we should complacently tolerate its activity. Although we may believe that karma operates to bring about appropriate justice in the end, we should not stand indolently aside from aggressive wrong-doing in passive trust of its operation. For karma needs to utilise instruments, and its effects do not spring miraculously out of the air Hence we must not shirk if we are called upon to co-operate with its intended educative effect and to set in motion those causes through which its reactions may be produced.
This brings us to the question of Free Will. We weaken ourselves if we believe that all events are unalterably fixed, that our external lives are unchangeable preordained and that there is nothing we can do to improve the situations in which we find ourselves. It is true that we are compelled to move within the circumstances we have created in the past and the conditions we have inherited in the present, but it is also true that we are free to modify them. Freedom exists in the heart of man, that is in his very Soul. Fate exists only in the surface life - that is in the personality. As man is himself a compound of both these beings, neither the absolute fatalist nor the proponent of absolute free-will is wholly correct. The external life is always a mix of both freedom and fate. No man, however evolved he may be, has complete control over his life, but he is not entirely enslaved to it either. No action is wholly free, and no action is wholly fated, but all are of a mixed double character. The elements of heredity, education, experience, karma (collective and personal), free will and environment all conspire together to fashion both the outer form and inner texture of the life we have to live. We sew the tapestry of our own destiny but the thread we use is of a kind, colour and quality forced upon us by our own past thoughts and acts. Our existence has a semi-independent and semi-predestined character.
So, our past free will is the source of our present fate, just as present free will (constrained but not enslaved by fate) will be the source of our future destiny. The most powerful factor of the two is our own will. But there is no room for either foggy fatalism or over confidence. Man cannot escape the responsibility in the matter of shaping his internal outlook and external environment by laying the blame on something or someone else. Each person should study his mistakes in action and ascertain their source in himself. He must admit to partial responsibility at least, and make what amends that he can. This may be painful, but it is better than continuing to dwell in illusions from which severe checks or repeated disappointments may later bring him down to earth.
In all instances, the thought precedes the act. It is bad or negative thought which leads to selfish and evil acts. Karmic consequences arise from both thoughts and deeds. Once a thought series or deed is strong enough the karmic result is inevitable. When karmic force has gained a certain impetus its onward movement cannot be stopped, although it may be modified. This is why it is a maxim to nip undesirable growths in the bud before they become inexorably decisive. A thought which has not yet attained a certain fullness of growth will not yet yield karmic consequences. The importance, therefore, of nipping off wrong thoughts at the time of their arisal cannot be overstated. The way to fight a bad tendency in oneself, or a bad movement in a nation, is to check it in the early stages before it has gathered momentum. It is easier to scotch it at the start than later when it has gained in strength. Having said all this, it must also be understood that whilst it is correct to fiercely resist karma's decrees at some times, it is also correct to bow resignedly to them at others.
The lesson to be learned is one of letting go when it is wise to do so, and similarly of fighting when it is wise to fight. But this raises the question as to how we know what the wise course is in any given set of circumstances. No book and no teacher can impart this wisdom. But the intuition of man checked by reason, or reason illuminated by intuition may do so. Such intuition must be distinguished from pseudo-intuition, which is a mere echo of his own emotional complexes. The best intuition is a whisper from the Soul. The worst is born of innate prejudice or wishful thinking.
The Soul holds all the innumerable memories of past experiences and past lives in solution, as it were, so it can be said that they are, and yet they are not. It is the Soul which wills only what is karmically earned during successive lives, and it always wills what will justly compensate for characteristics manifested in past thoughts and actions. Because it is the Soul which is the source of this karmic adjustment, it may be truly said that each man is his own judge. For the Soul is his own central Self, not something remote or alien. The nature of karma is not grasped if it is understood to be a power external to the Self, ruthlessly dictating its decrees for our helpless submission. This leads to the further conclusion that what happens to a man happens to him by the secret will of his own innermost being. Therefore sufferings which may have to be endured are not evils in the ultimate sense, but only in an immediate sense. What appears as a blind external and ruthless force is, in reality, a conscious internal and purifying one.
Evil challenges man to obliterate it. It provokes him to overcome it, as a pain provokes him to seek for peace. It pushes man to question his own motives, and consequently turns him on to the golden road to truth. It is worth remembering that, in the end, evil in the life of every individual is an unstable and insecure phase only. It must eventually perish because it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Through constant adjustments effected by karma the surface self eventually and inevitably ceases the misdirection of its intelligence and brings it into harmony with the divine. So far these notes are mostly concerned with the nature of karma and the mechanism by which it operates. But it operates at a collective level as well as a personal one.
Since writing the above article understanding seems to have deepened a little, and there are one or two issues that I would include now that had not dawned on me before.
Firstly is the question of the motive behind our actions. In a moment I will also mention our reaction to the events which come our way throughout our life and which have a significant bearing on karma, but first the question of motive.
Each persons mind seems generally to be made up of a number of apparent knots of psychic energy which for the sake of easy terminology we could call centres of identification. These centres are groups of related ideas which define us to ourselves. For example, my own mind consists of (among others) of a centre called 'happily married husband and father';, another called 'computer programmer', another called 'devoted son to my parents', another called 'seeker after spiritual reality', and many others: mystic, householder, motorist etc. etc. Just at the moment 'Me' is 'Internet member replying to Email'. A few moments ago 'Me' was 'Responsible parent discussing grown up issues with my wife over a cup of coffee', and earlier on this evening 'Me' was 'Father playing computer games with my son'.
The list seems endless, and of course these psychic centres are not clearly distinct but are in a constant state of flux, each centre merging and blending with other centres in a way reminiscent of waves on the surface of a choppy wind-swept lake. At one moment a particular centre will hold sway, but, as the wind of time and destiny whips the surface, centres fall and rise in an apparently never ending dance of ideas.
And now we come to the crux of the issue - for at any moment there is a prevailing centre or blend of centres which for the moment comprise the mind-set which I know as 'Me', and whenever action is being considered it cannot help but be from the point of view of this current 'Me'. The motive behind just about every action is the preservation of, or at least the improvement of conditions for whichever 'Me' is present when the action is decided upon! Thus most action for most people is energised by a selfish and egoistic motive.
But as seekers after spiritual wisdom we learn that one of the great spiritual truths expounded by many teachers including the Buddha and the Vedanta schools is that the identification of 'Me' with these mind sets, these psychic centres, is in fact the root cause of our bondage. For in the final analysis they consist of ephemeral and transient thoughts, and there is nothing in or behind them which is in any way permanent enough to be called a Self. The concept of 'Me' as a computer programmer or as a loving father or whatever is just that - a concept - i.e. an idea - and is based upon habitual modes of thinking which serve only to deepen and prolong the illusion of a separately existing permanent Self.
Thus every action is tainted with egoism and is born from motives which are themselves rooted in an illusion. But nature has a wonderful self-educating mechanism - karma. When actions are performed which are rooted in the illusion of a separate self they set in motion reverberations (sorry - couldn't think of a better word here) through the deep impersonal layers of mind which will bring experiences to the erring 'Me' which will help to correct the illusion and which will slowly educate the person into a true and vibrant spirituality. When these experiences come to us we complain about the apparent arbitariness of destiny without realising that the cause of these apparent unpleasant experiences is actually within ourselves.
This brings us back neatly to the subject of judgement in respect to our experiences. If you are anything like me your mind will provide you with an almost non-stop running commentary upon whatever experiences are happening to you. In nearly every case the experiences will be judged from the point of view of the prevailing and ascendant 'Me' mind set. If the judgement is such that the experience is 'bad' from 'my' point of view then we will be suffering in that we will wish that the prevailing circumstances were other than they actually are. If we judge the experience to be beneficial or pleasant then although we may not be suffering as such at the time, we are nevertheless sowing the seeds of future suffering in that we will experience regret or sadness at the passing of the pleasant circumstances and we will wish that we could create the same circumstances again. It is no wonder that the Buddha said that one of the major properties of life is suffering!
Similarly, a large part of our thought life is spent considering past events and situations or in planning for possible future circumstances. The key issue here is that what we miss in all this judging and consideration of the past and the future is what is happening now, in this very moment. Truth exists in the present moment, Reality is here and now - but we forever miss it because our minds are elsewhere - preoccupied with imaginary futures, unchangable pasts or judging present experiences from the point of view of the prevailing illusory 'Me'.
So where do we go from here. All this is an eye opening mind boggling perspective on everyday life, but how does it help us to become 'closer' to our goal.
If nothing else it teaches us to be less judgemental, more dispassionate and more compassionate towards ourselves and others. It is worth remembering that these truths about our own nature are also the same for every single person alive. It teaches us to learn to focus our attention on the reality of the present moment. The Buddhist teaching of Right Mindfulness epitomises this tenet - whatever we do, wherever we are, we must learn to be fully present with all our mind, heart and attention - and as one learns to do this - the constant mental diatribe of judgements, regrets, hopes, fears, anxieties etc., slowly begins to die down, to become still, and an awareness dawns in the heart of a profound and unassailable peace which is not dependant upon outer circumstances, which does not come and go with moods or fortune and which becomes a guiding light and ever present source of inspiration.
Lastly, and perhaps belatedly, I will mention collective karma. As has been mentioned, the corrective effects of karma arise because of our tendency to identify with mind-sets or groups of ideas which collectively comprise what we term our personality, together with the fact that these mind sets have no foundation in what is real, but are in fact based upon an illusory sense of selfhood. Throughout our lives we cannot help but associate ourselves with other people in various contexts. We are schoolchildren, members of a particular race or religion or class or profession or country. We associate ourselves and identify with various groups of people. Our habit of association with like minded or other groups of people means that we share a 'self-image' or mind set with them and with which we identify. As already stated, it is this identification which generates the karmic reaction. If a group of people share the same mind-set then the karmic response will be proportionately larger and will react on all those who participate in it.
In my own case, I am a British citizen, and it does not matter whether I approve or not of what my government may do, the fact remains that I identify with the British nation and as a consequence share and participate in the karma of all others who share that particular mind set. Now it may be that as a consequence of the National karma in which I participate, I may suffer is some shape or form as a direct consequence of that karma. I also identify with being a man, and there I share in the karma of half the worlds population. On the other hand I identify with the other members of a charity committee on which I sit, and I therefore share in the karma relating to that identification with the other eleven members of the committee.
Imagine a large three dimensional net. Each knot of the net is in fact an individual with the constant vibration and change which constitutes the average 'Me'. Each 'Me' is connected via the net, with all other knots in the net, albeit the connection is stronger with those 'knots' close by. If any knot starts to vibrate then the vibration is carried through the fabric of the network to all other knots. But they are all vibrating to various extents, and so the vibrations interact, and interference patterns develop, and vibrations get larger as large numbers of knots vibrate in unison or at the same frequency, and some vibrations cancel each other out and so on and so on eternally.
The beatles had the right idea in the last words of the Abbey Road album: 'And in the end the love you give is equal to the love that you take'.
It would, however, be interesting to hear the reaction of anyone reading these ideas. If you are so inclined drop me a line at the email address below.
Copyright (c) 1997 Peter K Cross, Peter_Cross@lineone.net