Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

Understanding Biblical Symbolism


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KARMA

The law of causation and interaction between the higher and lower planes to bring about equilibrium between them and gradually raise the soul. It binds the lower Self to the Higher, and arises through the union of the will with knowledge of a moral standard involving choice. It estimates the experience of the ego and is expressed in effects (treasure in heaven) on the buddhic plane. It relates to the process underlying spiritual evolution and adjustment upon the higher planes. As the soul goes forth into the life of experience, so upon each succeeding level the account is squared, as it were, so that each successive stage carries it to its relatively appointed place. This idea underlies all religions, and the Christian who looks for compensation in heaven, or fears punishment in hell, is holding crudely and unintelligently the truth that what we sow here we reap the result of upon entering the next state. The spiritual law of cause and effect in the soul is made to yield just and right results, so that throughout evolution perfect balance between higher and lower is maintained, and the outcome of it all is stored away in the soul's inner being. As long as the lower nature remains, karma is incurred, but when the lower nature is put away, then the “fruits of the spirit” are reaped by the ego on the buddhic plane.

“An act either mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit; the various transmigrations of men through the highest, middle, and lowest stages are produced by acts.” – Laws of Manu, XII. 3.

Motives arising from opinions in the mental-body, from desires in the astral-body, and from sensations in the physical-body, accepted by the will operating on the mental plane, lead to particular conditions of incarnation on the lower planes. These are karmical results actualising in three stages which may be called good, bad and indifferent.

“Do not complain, O Soul! of the injustice of the Beloved (the karmic aspect of the Divine Law), for such is thy lot.” – Hafiz.

“The essential truth of heaven and hell is ineradicable in the universe. There is the mighty image of God standing in the centre of all things. And all things have to touch Him. And as all things touch Him, according to their characters, he becomes to them blessing or curse. He is the happiness of obedience (to the law of truth), and the misery of disobedience throughout his world. He looks with sympathetic joy or with profoundest pity on the souls He judges, but the judgments both come from Him. The right hand and the left hand are both His. Burning there like the Sun of all the world, He must be a comforting and guiding light or a consuming fire—one or the other to every soul.” – Phillips Brooks, Serm., An Evil Spirit from the Lord.

 

See Also

ADRASTIA
BALANCE
BHISMA
BINDING
BRIDGE (kinvat)
DISEASES
DISPENSATIONS
EXPERIENCE
FATE-KARSHVARES SPHERE
FRUIT
GUNAS
JUDGMENT. HALL
JUSTICE
KAMA
METEMPSYCHOSIS
MOIRAE
NECESSITY
NORNOR
REAPING
SAMKHARAS
SHAI
SHENIT
SI-OSIRI
SOWING AND REAPING
TESTAMENT
THEMIS
TRANSMUTATION