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(October 1890)
Publications:
- The Path, vol. V, no. 7, October 1890, pp. 210-211
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DATA
Title for references: Keightley J - To Be Remembered by Theosophists
Short description: Four short aphoristic notes under the headings "Karma", "Sevenfold Constitution of Man", and "The Il...
Signed "August Waldersee," a pseudonym of Julia Keightley (see her author card).
210
Karma.
Karma is not a person nor a collection of conscious powers. It is not merely retribution, for it is also reward, help from others and to our fellows.
We have no right to decide that we will not "interfere" with the Karma of others who may need help. As we are ignorant of the exact working of Karma in each case, and are not ourselves above Karmic bonds, we are really not able to "interfere", and to speak of doing so is conceit and assumption. The only persons who can interfere in Karma are adepts, who have reached to perfect knowledge, and when interference in Karma is referred to, it is in respect to these beings.
It is said that Karma is created or comes into existence by action, but it is not well enough understood that action means not only the definite 211conscious acts of life, but also all and each, the smallest acts, conscious or unconscious, automatic or otherwise. Therefore it is said in the Hindu books that the sleeping body of man creates Karma—by its breathing. For, when we breathe, some lives of minute beings are extinguished, and we in order to live ourselves have to bear that small portion of Karma.
The Karma produced by thought is more potent than that from act. Acts are really dead thoughts, for they are the expression on the mortal plane of thought, and while the Karma of some acts may be very small and soon wiped out, the thought behind it may be so strong and deep that it will affect the soul for more than one life.
Sevenfold Constitution of Man.
It is a philosophical and substantial error to say that there are seven principles which include Atma as one. There can be only one Atma, indivisible and present in each so-called principle, high and low. Hence it is the whole. It is more correct to say that one spirit manifests itself by means of six vehicles.
The Illusion of "I" and "My".
There is no greater illusion than that which leads us to say "my Karma", "my spirit". No being on earth has his spirit separate from others, nor any Karma dissociated from the Karma of the race, nation, and Humanity. Remember these words from a letter to the U. S. Convention 1889, "Your Karma, good or bad, being one and the common property of all mankind, nothing good or bad can happen to you that is not shared by many others. * * There is no happiness for one who is ever thinking of self and forgetting all other selves." And the Bhagavad Gita says that only he knows indeed who sees that there is but one Kshetrajna or knower in all the different bodies of creatures. Are theosophists afraid to lose their miserable personal selves in the great unknown one?
August Waldersee.
Footnotes