Aphorisms on Karma

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Aphorisms

on Karma Quan Judge Path,

March, 1893 (1) There is no Karma unless there is

a being to make it or feel its effects. (2) Karma

is the adjustment of effects flowing from causes, during which the

being upon whom and through whom that adjustment is effected

experiences pain or pleasure. (3) Karma is an

undeviating and unerring tendency in the Universe to restore

equilibrium, and it operates incessantly. (4) The

apparent stoppage of this restoration to equilibrium is due

to the necessary adjustment of disturbance at some other spot, place,

or

focus which is visible only to the Yogi, to the Sage, or the perfect

Seer: there is therefore no stoppage, but only a hiding from view.

(5) Karma operates on all things and beings from the minutest

conceivable atom to Brahma. Proceeding in the three worlds of men,

gods, and the elemental beings, no spot in the manifested universe is

exempt from its sway. (6) Karma is not subject to

time, and therefore he who knows what is the ultimate division of time

in this Universe knows Karma. (7) For all other

men Karma is in its essential nature unknown and unknowable.

(8) But its action may be known by calculation from cause to

effect; and this calculation is possible because the effect is wrapped

up in and is not succedent to the cause. (9) The

Karma of this earth is the combination of the acts and thoughts of all

beings of every grade which were concerned in the preceding Manvantara

or evolutionary stream from which ours flows. (10)

And as those beings include Lords of Power and Holy Men, as well as

weak and wicked ones, the period of the earth's duration is greater

than that of any entity or race upon it. (11)

Because the Karma of this earth and its races began in a past too far

back for human minds to reach, an inquiry into its beginning is useless

and profitless. (12) Karmic causes already set in

motion must be allowed to sweep on until exhausted, but this permits no

man to refuse to help his fellows and every sentient being.

(13) The effects may be counteracted or mitigated by the

thoughts and acts of oneself or of another, and then the resulting

effects represent the combination and interaction of the whole number

of causes involved

in producing the effects. (14) In the life of

worlds, races, nations, and individuals, Karma cannot act unless there

is an appropriate instrument provided for its action. (15)

And until such appropriate instrument is found, that Karma related

to it remains unexpended. (16) While a man is

experiencing Karma in the instrument provided, his other unexpended

Karma is not exhausted through other beings or means, but is held

reserved for future operation; and lapse of time during which no

operation of that Karma is felt causes no deterioration in its force or

change in its nature. (17) The appropriateness of

an instrument for the operation of Karma consists in the exact

connection and relation of the Karma with the body, mind, intellectual

and psychical nature acquired for use by the Ego in

any life. (18) Every instrument used by any Ego

in any life is appropriate to the Karma operating through it.

(19) Changes may occur in the instrument during one life so as

to make it appropriate for a new class of Karma, and this may take

place in two ways: (a) through intensity of thought and the power of a

vow, and ( through natural alterations due to complete exhaustion of

old causes. (20) As body and mind and soul have

each a power of independent action,

any one of these may exhaust, independently of the others, some Karmic

causes

more remote from or nearer to the time of their inception than those

operating

through other channels. (21) Karma is both

merciful and just. Mercy and Justice are only opposite poles of a

single whole; and Mercy without Justice is not possible in the

operations of Karma. That which man calls Mercy and Justice is

defective, errant, and impure. (22) Karma may be

of three sorts: (a) presently operative in this life through the

appropriate instruments; ( that which is being made or stored up to

be exhausted in the future; © Karma held over from past life or lives

and not operating yet because inhibited by inappropriateness of the

instrument in use by the Ego, or by the force of Karma now operating.

(23) Three fields of operation are used in each being by

Karma: (a)

the body and the circumstances; ( the mind and intellect; © the

psychic and astral planes. (24) Held-over Karma

or present Karma may each, or both at once, operate in all of the three

fields of Karmic operation at once, or in either of those fields a

different class of Karma from that using the others may operate at the

same time. (25) Birth into any sort of body and

to obtain the fruits of any sort of Karma is due to the preponderance

of the line of Karmic tendency. (26) The sway of

Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of

an Ego, or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures

of

repression, elimination, or counteraction are not adopted. (27)

Measures taken by an Ego to repress tendency, eliminate defects, and to

counteract by setting up different causes, will alter the sway

of Karmic tendency and shorten its influence in accordance with the

strength or weakness of the efforts expended in carrying out the

measures adopted. (28) No man but a sage or true

seer can judge another's Karma. Hence while each receives his deserts,

appearances may deceive, and birth into Poverty or heavy trial may not

be punishment for bad Karma, for Egos continually incarnate into poor

surroundings where they experience difficulties and

trials which are for the discipline of the Ego and result in strength,

fortitude, and sympathy. (29) Race-Karma

influences each unit in the race through the law of Distribution.

National Karma operates on the members of the nation by the same law

more concentrated. Family Karma governs only with a nation where

families have been kept pure and distinct; for in any nation where

there is a mixture of family - as obtains in each Kaliyuga period -

family Karma is in general distributed over a nation. But even at such

periods some families remain coherent for long periods, and then the

members feel the sway of

family Karma. The word "family" may include several smaller families.

(30) Karma operates to produce cataclysms of nature by

concatenation through the mental and astral planes of being. A

cataclysm may be traced to an immediate physical cause such as internal

fire and atmospheric disturbance, but these have been brought on by the

disturbance created through the

dynamic power of human thought. (31) Egos who

have no Karmic connection with a portion of the globe where a cataclysm

is coming on are kept without the latter's operation

in two ways: (a) by repulsion acting on their inner

nature, and ( by being called and warned by those

who watch the progress of the world. Path,

March, 1893