THEOSOPHY
KARMA
A Study in
Karma
by
Annie Besant
Published in
1917
Annie Besant
1847 - 1933
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Succession
We have seen
that as the manifestation of a universe implies succession of phenomena, so the
universal inter-relation becomes the sequence of cause and effect. But each
effect becomes in turn a cause, and so on endlessly, the difference between
cause and effect not being one of nature but of relation. The inter-relations
which exist in the thought of the Eternal become the inter-relations between
phenomena in the manifested universe – the portion of the thought put forth as
a universe. Before the manifestation of any special universe, there will be, in
the Eternal, the thought of the universe which is to be, and its
inter-relations. That which exists simultaneously out of time and
space in the
Eternal Now, gradually appears in time and space as successive phenomena.
The moment
you conceive a universe as made up of phenomena, you are obliged to think of
these phenomena successively, one after another; but in the thought of the
Eternal they always are, and the limitation of succession has there no
existence.
Even in the
lower worlds, where the measures of time are so different from each other, we catch
a glimpse of the increasing limitations of denser matter. Mozart tells us of a
state of consciousness in which he received a musical composition
as a single
impression, although in his waking consciousness he could only reproduce that
single impression in a succession of notes. Or again, we may look at a picture,
and receive a single mental impression – a landscape, a battle; but an ant,
crawling over that picture, would see no whole, only successive impressions
from the parts travelled over.
By simile, by
analogy, we may gain some idea of the difference of a universe as it appears to
the LOGOS and as it appears to us. To Him, a single impression, a perfect
whole; to us an immense sequence, slowly unfolding. So what is to Him
inter-relation becomes to us succession. Instead of seeing childhood, youth,
old
age as a
whole, we see them successively, day by day, year by year.
That which is
simultaneous and universal becomes successive and particular to our small
minds, crawling over the world as the ant over the picture.
Go up a
mountain and look down on a town, and you can see how the houses are related to
each other in blocks, streets, and so on. You realise them as a whole. But when
you go down into the town you must pass from street to street, seeing each
separately, successively. So in karma, we see the relations only one by one,
and one after another, not even realising the successive relations, so limited
is our view.
Such similes
may often help us to grasp the invisible things, and may act as crutches to our
halting imagination. And out of all this we lay our foundation stone for our
study of karma. Karma is universal inter-relation, and is seen in any universe
as the Law of Causation, in consequence of the successive appearance of phenomena
in the becoming, or coming forth, of the universe.
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THEOSOPHY
KARMA
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The Ocean of Theosophy
William Quan Judge
Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
Devachan
Cycles
Septenary Constitution Of Man
Arguments Supporting Reincarnation
Differentiation Of Species Missing Links
Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena
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Instant Guide to Theosophy
Quick
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What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis
Anthropogenesis
Root Races
Karma
Ascended Masters After Death States Reincarnation
The Seven Principles of Man Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical Society
History of the Theosophical Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the Theosophical Society
Explanation of the Theosophical Society Emblem
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
Elementary Theosophy
An Outstanding
Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of
Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
The Seven in Man and Nature
The Meaning of Death
Quotes
from the Writings of
Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky
Blavatsky Quotation
That which is to be
shunned is pain not yet come. The past cannot be changed or amended; that which
belongs to the experience of the present cannot and should not be shunned; but alike to be shunned are
disturbing anticipations or fears of the
future, and every act or impulse that may cause present or future pain to
ourselves or others.
Practical
Occultism, Page 87
Blavatsky Quotation
Perfection, to be
fully such, must be born out of imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out
of the corruptible, having the latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 2, Page 100
Blavatsky Quotation
It is only by the
attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented
together on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find
themselves wedded in Eternity.
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 2, Page 108
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step
forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be
found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their
strength. Its source is profound conviction.
Practical
Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive,
and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white,
beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the
slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and
forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as
by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend
themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.
Practical
Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason
agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our
Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal casket,
does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for the
sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic
faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in
man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky Quotation
It may be a pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of
the beauties of the spirit world; but the time can be spent more profitably in
a study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary that the subject for
study should be in the spirit world.
Modern Panarion
Page 70
Blavatsky Quotation
Physical existence
is subservient to the spiritual, and all physical improvement and progress are
only the auxiliaries of spiritual progress, without which there could be no
physical progress.
Modern Panarion
Page 78
Blavatsky Quotation
Mankind — the majority at any rate — hates to think
for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a
moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging for itself, to enter
into a new path in some fresh direction.
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 3, Page 14
Blavatsky Quotation
Even ignorance is better than
Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
The Voice of the Silence, Page 43
Blavatsky Quotation
Many theosophists
have had slight conscious relations with elementals, but always without their
will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see, hear or act for them, a
total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is all they have got in
return. These failures are due to the fact that the elemental cannot understand
the thought of the person; it can only be reached when the exact scale of being
to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound, or
whatever else
Annotation - The
Path, May, 1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Parabrahman is not
“God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is supreme, and not supreme”.
....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.
The Secret Doctrine
, Proem [Volume 1], Page 35
Blavatsky Quotation
The ancients .....
fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations between the planetary bodies
is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of the blood, which float in a
common fluid; and that each one is affected by the combined influence of all
the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the others.
Isis, Volume 1,
Page 275
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step
forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be
found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their
strength. Its source is profound conviction.
Practical
Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
There are two kinds
of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the one holy and natural, the
other evil and unnatural.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 210
Blavatsky Quotation
In the phenomenal
and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital power, which, under the
Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them
the first impulse, which in time becomes law.
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 1, Page 134
Blavatsky Quotation
Oaths will never be
binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest
manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an
incarnation of his
God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so
developed in him
that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as
well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without
any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 2, Page 374
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive,
and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become
black, malignant,
or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if
there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The
powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and
revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of
spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine
Magic.
Practical
Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Woe to those who
live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that
vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better
without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 2, Page 498
Blavatsky Quotation
The person who is
endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from
the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a
plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination. Whatever such a
person may think about, his thought will be so far more intense than the
thought of an ordinary person, that by this very intensity it obtains the power
of creation.
Lucifer, December,
1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason
agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our
Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal
casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for
the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No
dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling
inherent in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky Quotation
Our voice is raised
for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of Science of
Theology.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, I2.
Blavatsky Quotation
If through the Hall
of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses
against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest.
Voice of the
Silence, Page 23
Blavatsky Quotation
From strength to
strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the
greater beauty and
perfection of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh
knowledge and power
in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus
becomes its own
saviour in each world and incarnation.
The Key to
Theosophy, Page 105
Blavatsky Quotation
The assertion that
“Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes the fact that “Theosophy
is Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only correct sense is a bond
uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now
Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all Men
but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.
Lucifer, November,
1888
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