Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The law of karma and rebirth powerfully affects human life. Here is a little from Christmas Humphreys booklet Karma and Rebirth:
Quote:
Only by studying, and to some extent grasping, an outline of the Wisdom of which Karma and Rebirth are part can the meanest vision of the doctrine be attained, and even then it is difficult to examine it apart from the Wisdom itself from which, as sunlight in the air, it is inseparable. Yet the difficulty is largely of our own making. For centuries the Western mind has been building up an utterly false notion of a separate ‘I’, and it is hard for us to grasp a view of existence in which the separative self is viewed as an illusion and the father of all suffering. It follows, whether or not the idea be pleasing to the scholar mind, that only he who treads the Way which leads to the end of separative self-hood will attain to understanding of the Wisdom wherein self, as something separate, can have no abiding-place.
Study, deep study, quiet meditation on the living principles revealed in that study, and the constant, self-regardless application of those principles to daily life, these alone will provide the final ‘proof’ of the laws of Karma and Rebirth, and only he who knows them thus will be in a position to offer to the West, by the written and the spoken word and by the force of character, the Wisdom of which the West has so abundant and so urgent need.
The word Karma, or in its neuter form, Karman (in Pali, Kamma), is a Sanskrit word from the root kri, meaning to do or to make. Karma is therefore ‘doing’ or ‘making’, but in the course of time the word has been applied to what Lessing has described as the oldest doctrine in the world. It may be viewed exoterically, from the material point of view, in which case it is merely the law of causation, the balance of cause and effect, the fact known in every science laboratory that action and reaction are equal and opposite. Esoterically, from the spiritual point of view, Karma is the law of moral retribution, whereby not only does every cause have an effect, but he who puts the cause in action suffers the effect. Professor Radhakrishnan has called it ‘the law of the conservation of moral energy’...
This law of merit and demerit, Karma in the sense of the reign of moral law, is neither particularly Hindu, Buddhist nor Theosophical. It is fundamental in all Oriental philosophy, and was preached by St. Paul. ‘Brethren, be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ For the first few centuries of Christianity it remained a cardinal belief in the West. But at the Council of Constantinople, in A.D. 551, the Christian Fathers, finding the doctrine of Rebirth incompatible with the curious system of thought which they were in the process of creating, decided that belief in Rebirth should be henceforth anathema, and with this doctrine went that which
makes it necessary of acceptance, Karma.
Deeply sensible of the Titanic struggle that is now in progress between materialism and the spiritual aspirations of mankind, our constant endeavor has been to gather into our several chapters, like weapons into armories, every fact and argument that can be used to aid the latter in defeating the former. Sickly and deformed child as it now is, the materialism of To-Day is born of the brutal Yesterday. Unless its growth is arrested, it may become our master. It is the bastard progeny of the French Revolution and its reaction against ages of religious bigotry and repression. To prevent the crushing of these spiritual aspirations, the blighting of these hopes, and the deadening of that intuition which teaches us of a God and a hereafter, we must show our false theologies in their naked deformity, and distinguish between divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice is raised for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or THEOLOGY.
Student.—How is one to know when he gets real occult information from the Self within?
Sage. [HP Blavatsky]—Intuition must be developed and the matter judged from the true philosophical basis, for if it is contrary to true general rules it is wrong. It has to be known from a deep and profound analysis by which we find out what is from egotism alone and what is not; if it is due to egotism, then it is not from the Spirit and is untrue. The power to know does not come from book-study nor from mere philosophy, but mostly from the actual practice of altruism in deed, word, and thought; for that practice purifies the covers of the soul and permits that light to shine down into the brain-mind. As the brain-mind is the receiver in the waking state, it has to be purified from sense-perception, and the truest way to do this is by combining philosophy with the highest outward and inward virtue.
Student.—Tell me some ways by which intuition is to be developed.
Sage.—First of all by giving it exercise, and second by not using it for purely personal ends. Exercise means that it must be followed through mistakes and bruises until from sincere attempts at use it comes to its own strength. This does not mean that we can do wrong and leave the results, but that after establishing conscience on a right basis by following the golden rule, we give play to the intuition and add to its strength. Inevitably in this at first we will make errors, but soon if we are sincere it will grow brighter and make no mistake. We should add the study of the works of those who in the past have trodden this path and found out what is the real and what is not. They say the Self is the only reality. The brain must be given larger views of life, as by the study of the doctrine of reincarnation, since that gives a limitless field to the possibilities in store. We must not only be unselfish, but must do all the duties that Karma has given us, and thus intuition will point cut the road of duty and the true path of life.
From “Conversations on Occultism” in Blavatsky Collected Writings volume IX.
The whole of our literature proves that real Theosophists, worshipping universal wisdom, worship in reality the same wisdom which has been proclaimed by St. James in the third chapter of his Epistle [verse 17], i.e., “the wisdom that is from above (δοΦία ἄνωθεν [which] is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” avoiding, on the advice of the same Apostle [verse 15], wisdom that “is earthly, sensual, devilish (ψυχική δαιμονιώδης).”
Far from us be the thought of the slightest irreverence — let alone blasphemy —
toward the Divine Power which called into being all things, visible and invisible.
Of its majesty and boundless perfection we dare not even think. It is enough for us
to know that It exists and that It is all wise. Enough that in common with our fellow
creatures we possess a spark of Its essence. The supreme power whom we revere is
the boundless and endless one — the grand "Central Spiritual Sun" by whose
attributes and the visible effects of whose inaudible will we are surrounded — the
God of the ancient and the God of modern seers. His nature can be studied only in
the worlds called forth by his mighty fiat. His revelation is traced with his own
finger in imperishable figures of universal harmony upon the face of the Cosmos. It
is the only infallible gospel we recognize.
Abuse of power, whether it proceeds from excess of wisdom or ignorance is alike obnoxious
in its effects. Besides, the clergy are silenced now. Their protests would at this day [1877]
be scarcely noticed in the world of science. But while theology is kept in the
background, the scientists have seized the sceptre of despotism with both hands,
and they use it, like the cherubim and flaming sword of Eden, to keep the people
away from the tree of immortal life and within this world of perishable matter.
This book, H.P. Blavatsky: the Mystery by G. de Purucker, is out of print, but some used copies may be out there. Here are the first six chapters, lightly edited from The Theosophical Path issues in 1929-30:
This is nothing but violation of forum rules.
Any extensive c/p is prohibited.
There is no discussion initiated, only continuous stream of references.
Do you have YOUR OWN opinion on anything? Not just parroting others and, in many instances, wrong ones?
empty the cup, empty the cup.
Though, why even bother...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Intuition
