Understanding the Law of Karma

Karma is the law of spiritual dynamics that can be related to every act in daily life.  The word karma is Sanskrit, meaning action and the entire cycle of cause-effect.  Emerson's law of compensation approximates it in meaning and understanding.  The law refers particularly to the accumulation of effects brought about by causes set in motion through our attitudes and actions in the past, and includes the new causes initiated in the present that will result in future effects.

The science of physics demonstrates that no particle of energy can be put forth anywhere in the universe without a natural result following.  A stone tossed into the air returns at once to earth as a result of the law of gravity.  The energy expended in winding a clock will produce a more delayed result, but the resulting force will exactly equal the original expenditure of energy, or cause.

In mixing chemical elements, the reaction may be immediate or long delayed. This is no less true in the chemistry of living, as we bring together actions, thoughts and feelings.  The result may follow at once or be postponed in accordance with obscure factors.  Every negative thought, desire and action disturbs in some measure the equilibrium of the universe.  Such disturbances ever seek to return to equilibrium through a process of re-adjustment.  The operation of this law is as truly a moral law as it is a physical law, and can be directly observed as such.

We choose our destiny
The law of karma operates whether or not we are conscious of it.  By its functioning, our destinies are shaped.  Its continued action arises from and depends solely upon man's own free will.  By his ignorance, man binds himself through selfish actions, feelings and thoughts. Only when he has learnt that in order to find happiness and peace he must cease the flow of selfish action will he begin to use the law consciously for his liberation from the cyclic necessity of reincarnation.  He must learn that the lightest thought or slightest act has its inevitable consequences.  Death does not settle the score any more than moving to a new town will not cancel the debts incurred in the old one.

Each of us is born with a character, in an environment and family that seems either helpful or inimical to our progress.  In reality, all sets of circumstances are opportunities for us, for they are the natural results of past lives and should be viewed as the stepping-stones for our future growth.  Our destiny is not imposed upon us, but is of our own making, and we daily weave the threads of our future destiny.

Cause-effect
Sometimes the result alone is seen, without the preceding cause and it therefore seems entirely unaccountable.   When one first hears the knowledge of reincarnation and karma, he is apt to feel resentful over the fact that he now suffers the result of causes set in motion by somebody else.  But when viewed from the pattern of immortal life, that he, the man, is truly imperishable, living through successive lives, all events are perceived to have their natural cause and logical consequence.  From one point of view, cause and effect are inseparable, for effect is inherent in the cause, and the two may be thought of as one, cause-effect.

The law of spiritual dynamics makes of man a self-reliant being, with the realization that he neither desires not seeks to escape from responsibility.  Rather he wishes to become a self-conscious master of his environment.  Only by understanding and working with it, can he master natural law, as an aviator learns to fly by understanding the law of gravity and opposing to it other natural principles.  Similarly, in the moral world does man transcend the inevitableness of consequences by understanding the law of karma and setting in motion causes that will produce the desirable effects and neutralize the undesirable.  In the inviolability of law lies his potential freedom, for it enables him to merely change and remake the character that is the outcome of his past life and create more perfectly the character of his future.

Certainly without such a law, man would be drifting aimlessly on a sea without a shore, without chart or compass, at the mercy of every adverse wind and borne onward only by the ceaseless tide of evolution.

Not predestination
Karma is neither predestination nor fate.  The application of this natural law does away with any possibility of such a thing as luck - either good or bad.  On the back of every piece of good fortune lies the cause that was due to the individual’s conscious or unconscious actions, perhaps recently or in a previous life.  Behind every bit of bad fortune lies the energy likewise generated by the person himself.  While it is true that the accumulated karma of an individual helps or hinders his progress, is still free to choose within the limits of his making.  By successive efforts and choices or lack of effort, he determines the orbit of his freedom.  Fatalism or predestination implies that the individual is so much bound by circumstances or by some power outside himself that no effort of his own can free him.  Under the operation of the law, he who generates the causes or forces can modify them.  He may be temporarily bound, but he did his own binding.  In the present, he has the power of modification and improvement for the future.

While the working out of the law may be very complex, with the many permutations and combinations in human lives almost infinite in number and variety, yet certain basic principles of operation may be grasped and employed immediately by anyone.

Man is normally operating on three levels - physical, emotional and mental.

Action on the physical level

If a person acts in such a manners as to bring happiness to others, he will find himself sooner or later in a fortunate physical environment, with an increased opportunity for spreading happiness and good will.  If, on the other hand, he causes pain to others by his actions or his neglect to act, he will find himself eventually in unhappy surroundings until he learns by experience a greater wisdom in living.

The law itself is impersonal, neither good nor bad.  Good or right may be defined from the evolutionist point of view as being all that is in line with the furtherance of evolution; bad or evil is therefore all that opposes progress toward perfection.  Even in the case of bad actions, the law functions not to punish the evil-doer, but to teach him.  With the lesson learned beyond the possibility of failure, nature's purpose is accomplished.

Action on the emotional level
The force generated on the emotional level is that of desire or feeling.  The pursuit of desire stimulates exertion and aids in our development by binding us to the objects of desire.  The desire may judge the wisdom of his desire by experiencing the results of its gratification.  Through experiencing the unpleasant results of unwise desires, the soul learns to raise lower desires into higher ones and finally to attain liberation from all desire.  Through the happiness enjoyed by wise desires, the soul gains expansion and illumination, with the final power of being happy in all circumstances.

Desire also makes opportunities.  Once an individual perceives this principle, he will understand that if he wishes to have future opportunities in any particular line of endeavor he should not only cultivate the present desire, but try to put that desire into action now so far as is possible.

Action on the mental level
The third force is that of thought.  Thought, first brings about the development of the mind.  The force generated in thinking reacts in the production of greater ability or faculty in thinking, with an increased power in the mind as an instrument.

Most thoughts are primarily associated with emotion, and therefore bring the thinker into contact with other persons in the relationships of every day life, either pleasant or unpleasant.

Thought is also a great creative power, by which one can build both habit and character, which is the sum total of one's habits.  Action is but the physical expression of thought, as natural and inevitable in kind as the growth of a plant from the seed.

This is man's key to power.  Knowing that he becomes that which he thinks, he deliberately sets himself to think of those virtues and qualities which he desires to possess.  Bit by bit the moulding power of thought builds those virtues into manifestation.  The process is as natural as that of developing muscles by exercise, and can be as scientifically employed.