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232 "Ready!" he called, and to the surprise of Hale, no less than that of Dutton, the woods echoed to the report of artillery where none was supposed to be. A white puff of smoke on Hale's left flank told him that some movement was in progress over there. He was about to order one of his guns to reply to the unexpected bombardment, when there came a ringing shout from the same quarter, and, above the cheer, Dick Hamilton yelled:

"Charge!"

Down upon the all but victorious defenders of the hill rushed the little force of six cavalrymen.

Behind them, leading about thirty cadets, who were as fresh as daisies, came Dick.

"Charge! Charge!" he yelled, and then he ordered the lads to open fire.

They did it with a will, for they had not had a chance to use their guns yet, and they were wild to do so.

What a fire they poured into the ranks of the defenders. How the one lone field piece, well screened by bushes, sent shell after shell (theoretically) screaming into the midst of the enemy.

Hale was all but demoralized. He had seen victory just within his grasp, and now he was attacked by fresh reinforcements. Dutton had been too much for him, after all, he thought.

As for Dutton, he hardly knew what to make of it. He could not understand how Dick had been able to lead up his forces, to execute a


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/I

THE LAW OF EQUILIBRIUM WHEN we are considering the life of man we have three principal forces to take into account, all interacting and limiting one another: the steady pressure of evolution, the law of cause and effect which we call karma, and the free-will of man. The action of the evolutionary force has, so far as we can see, no reference whatever to the man's pleasure or pain, but only to his progress, or rather his opportunities for progress. One would say that it was absolutely indifferent as to whether the man was happy or unhappy, and that it might press him sometimes into one of these conditions and sometimes into the other, according to what was best calculated to afford opportunity for the development of the particular virtue on the formation of which he is for the moment engaged. Karma appears as the manifestation of the action of the man's free-will in the past. He has accumulated energies which either afford opportunities for the evolutionary force, or limit it in its operation. Then the man's present use of such free-will as he possesses is a third factor. The doctrine of karma explains that advancement and well-being are the results of well-doing; but there should be no mistake as to exactly what is meant by well-doing and well-being respectively. The object of the entire scheme is, so far as we are concerned, the evolution of humanity; and consequently the man who does best is he who does most to help forward the evolution of others as well as his own. The man who does this to the utmost extent of his power and opportunity in one life will certainly find himself in the next in possession of greater power and wider opportunities. These are not unlikely to be accompanied by worldly wealth and power, because the very possession of these usually gives the opportunity required, but they are by no means a necessary part of the karma; and it is important for us to bear in mind that the result of usefulness is always the opportunity for further and wider usefulness, and we must not consider the occasional concomitants of that opportunity as themselves the reward of the work done in the last incarnation. One instinctively shrinks from the use of such words as reward and punishment, because they seem to imply the existence, somewhere in the background, of an irresponsible being who deals out both at will. We shall get a truer idea of the way in which karma works if we think of it as a necessary readjustment of equilibrium disturbed by our action — as a kind of illustration of the law that action and reaction are always equal. It will also help us much in our thinking if we try to take a broader view of it — to regard it from the point of view of those who administer its laws rather than from our own.

Though the inevitable law must sooner or later bring to each man unerringly the result of his own work, there is no immediate hurry about it; in the counsels of the eternal there is always time enough, and the first object is the evolution of humanity. Therefore it is that one who shows himself a willing and useful instrument in forwarding that evolution always receives as his “reward” the opportunity of helping it still further, and thus, in doing good to others, to do best of all for himself. Of course if the thought of self-advancement were his motive for thus acting, the selfishness of the idea would vitiate the action and narrow its results; but if, forgetting himself altogether, he devotes his energies to the single aim of helping in the great work, the effect upon his own future will undoubtedly be as stated. A definite protest ought once for all to be entered against the theory that suffering is the necessary condition of spiritual progress. Exercise is the condition of attaining physical strength, but it need not be painful exercise; if a man is willing to, take a walk every day, there is no need to torture him on the tread-mill in order to develop the muscles of his legs. For spiritual progress a man must develope virtue, unselfishness, helpfulness — that is to say, he must learn to move in harmony with the great cosmic law; and if he does this willingly there is no suffering for him but that which comes from sympathy with others. Granted that at the present time most men refuse to do this, that when they set themselves in opposition to the great law suffering invariably follows, and that the eventual result of many such experiences is to convince them that the path of wickedness and selfishness is also the path of folly; in this sense it is true that suffering conduces to progress in those particular cases. But because we wilfully elect to offend against the law, and thereby bring down suffering upon ourselves, we have surely no right so to blaspheme the great law of the universe as to say that it has ordered matters so badly that without suffering no progress can be made. As a matter of fact if a man only will, he can make far more rapid progress without suffering at all. It must, however, be remembered that any man who has once realized the glorious goal which lies before us can never be perfectly happy until he has attained that goal, and that he finds an ever-present source of dissatisfaction in his own failings. Now even dissatisfaction is a modified form of suffering; and from that no man can hope to be free until the imperfection has been outgrown. “God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are ever restless till they find their rest in Thee.” Whether it is comforting or the reverse to know that one's sufferings are deserved may be a matter of opinion; but that in no way alters the undoubted fact that unless they had been so deserved they could not possibly come to us. It is lamentable that so many people should adopt the unphilosophical and indeed childish attitude which leads them to assume that any idea which does not fall in with their particular sectarian preconceptions cannot possibly be true. Unintelligent people constantly say: “The Theosophical teaching about karma does not seem to me so comfortable as the Christian idea of forgiveness of sins,” or “The Theosophical heaven-world does not seem so real and beautiful as the Christian, and so I will not believe in it.” They evidently think poor creatures that their likes and dislikes are powerful enough to alter the laws of the universe, and that nothing of which they do not approve can possibly be on any plane. We, however, are engaged in studying the facts of existence, which after all are not modified because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so would rather believe them to be otherwise than they are. If it were possible for anyone to be an innocent victim there would be no certainty of the operation of the great law of cause and effect anywhere in the universe, which would be a far more terrible thing for us than having to work out the results of any amount of sin committed in former lives. It can never be too strongly emphasized that the law of karma is not the vindictive vengeance of some angry deity, but simply an effect naturally and inevitably following upon its cause in obedience to the action of universal law. Every individual will have to pay to the utmost every debt that he contracts, and to every individual the most perfect justice will be done; but for this purpose it is not always necessary that a vast crowd of egos should be perpetually meeting one another in successive lives. If one man so acts towards another as seriously to hasten or retard his evolution, if he does anything which produces upon the other a marked or permanent effect, it is fairly certain that the two must meet again in order that the debt may be adjusted. It is obvious that that may be done in various ways. A man who murders another may conceivably sometimes himself be murdered in turn in another incarnation; but he can cancel the karma much more satisfactorily if he happens to have an opportunity in that next incarnation of saving the life of his former victim at the cost of his own. It would seem that sometimes he may cancel it without losing his own at all; for among the many lines of lives which have been examined we found at least one case in which a murderer apparently fully expiated his fault by patiently devoting the whole of a later life to the service of the person whom he had previously slain. There is a vast amount of minor karma which appears to go into what may be described as a kind of general fund. The schoolboy who mischievously pinches a classmate will certainly not have to meet that classmate a thousand years hence under other skies in order to be pinched by him in return, though it is unquestionable that even in so small a matter as this perfect justice will be done to both the parties. Constantly as we pass on through life we shower small kindnesses upon those whom we meet; carelessly and often unconsciously we do them small injuries in thought and word and deed. Every one of these brings its corresponding result of good or evil to ourselves, and we too, though we knew it not, were the agents of karma in those very actions. The small kindness which we attempt will prove a failure if the recipient does not deserve even that much of help; the careless slight will pass unnoticed by its victim if there has been nothing in his past for which it is a fitting retribution. It is not easy to draw the line between these two classes of karma — that which necessitates personal adjustment and that which goes into the general fund. It is certain that whatever influences a person seriously belongs to the first category, and small everyday troubles belong to the second; but we have at present no means of knowing exactly how much influence must be exerted in order that an action may rank in the first-class. We must remember that some of the greatest and most important of all karma can never be personally repaid. In all our line of lives, past and future, no benefit can be greater than that which the Masters have conferred upon us in giving us access to the Theosophical teaching; yet to Them as individuals we can make absolutely no return, since They are far beyond the need of anything that we can do. Yet even this stupendous debt must be discharged like all the rest; but the only way in which we can ever repay it is by handing on the knowledge to others. So we see that here is another kind of karma which may be said to go into the general fund, though not quite in the same sense as before. A querent asks: “If it is a man's karma to have scarlet-fever, by what mechanism is the result brought about?”

I do not think that, in the sense in which the questioner means it, it ever is a man's karma to have scarlet-fever. It is his karma in a given incarnation to have as the result of his actions in past lives a certain amount of physical suffering, and if a scarlet-fever germ happens to be at hand when he is in a sensitive condition, it may be permitted to fasten upon him, and part of that debt of suffering may be discharged in that way. But if such a germ does not happen to be there at the moment, one of cholera or tuberculosis will do just as well, or instead of a disease there may be a broken limb caused by a bit of orange-peel on the pavement or by a passing motor car. I am aware that there are books which lay down with great precision the exact type of karma which follows upon certain action — as, for example, that if a man is rude to his father in one incarnation he will be born lame of the right leg in the next, whereas if it is with his mother that he has a difference of opinion it will be the left leg which is affected, and so on. But in the many lines of lives which we have examined in order to study the working of karma we have found no such rigidity. On the contrary, we were especially struck no less by the wonderful flexibility of karma than by its unerring certainty. By no possible effort can the man escape a single feather-weight of the suffering destined for him, but he may often avoid it in one shape only to find it inexorably descending upon him in a different form, from some unsuspected quarter. Just as a debt of ten pounds can be paid in a single note, in two smaller notes, in gold or silver, or even in a bag-full of copper, so a certain amount of karma may come in one terrible blow, in a number of successive but less severe blows of various kinds, or even in a long series of comparatively petty annoyances; but in any and every case the full tale must be paid. The same sin, committed under the same circumstances by two exactly similar people, must result in the same amount of suffering, yet the kind of suffering might be almost infinitely varied, according to the requirements of the case. Take as an example one of the very commonest of failings, and let us think what would be the probable result of selfishness. This is primarily a mental attitude or condition, so we must look for its immediate result on the mental plane. It is undoubtedly an intensification of the lower personality at the expense of the individuality, and one of its results will therefore certainly be the accentuation of that lower personality, so that selfishness tends to reproduce itself in aggravated form, and to grow steadily stronger. Thus more and more of the higher would be lost in each life through entanglement with the lower, and persistence in this fault would be a fatal bar to progress; for nature's severest penalty is always deprivation of the opportunity for progress, just as her highest reward is the offering of such opportunity. So here we have already a glimpse of the way in which selfishness may itself bring about its own worst result, in so hardening the man as to make him insensible to all good influences, and to render his further progress impossible until he had conquered it. There would also be the karma on the physical plane of all the unjust or unkind acts which the man's selfishness might lead him to commit; but the worst penalty that those could bring upon him would be trivial and evanescent beside the effect upon his own mental condition. It is possible that one result might be that he would be drawn by affinity into the society of selfish people, and so through suffering from this vice in others he would learn how heinous it is in himself. But the resources of the law are endless, and we mistake if we imagine it as cramped down to the line of action on which we in our ignorance think it ought to be administered. A large proportion of the man's suffering is what Mr. Sinnett calls “ready-money karma” — that is to say, it is not due to the result of actions in past lives, and not in any real sense necessary at all. But his actions, in spite of examples put before him and advice freely given to him, are so foolish, and his ignorance is so invincible, so apparently perverse, that he is constantly involving himself in suffering the causes of which are transparently obvious and readily evitable. I do not think that I exaggerate when I say that nine-tenths of the suffering of the ordinary man is utterly unnecessary, for it is not the result of the distant past, but is simply the outcome of the mistaken action or foolish attitude of this present life. Another point to be taken into account is that man in his calculations so often fails to discriminate between good and evil effects. The average man regards death as the greatest of all evils, either for himself or for his friends; yet in many cases karma grants it as a reward. It is, indeed, hardly ever an evil or a punishment, but simply an incident — a kind of move in the game, inevitable at certain intervals, but at all times available as a temporary solution of a difficult position when it is seen to be desirable. It is rarely a matter of anything approaching the importance which is commonly attributed to it. If we can conceive two newly-formed egos standing side by side, absolutely primitive and karmaless, and one of them should kill the other, or, indeed, act in any way with regard to the other, a result would be produced which would be, strictly speaking, undeserved. I doubt whether any such condition ever exists, for I think that the individualized animal brings over something of karma into his first human birth. Many animals have a sense of right and wrong, or at least a knowledge that some things ought to be done and that others ought not to be done; and they are capable of feeling ashamed when they have done what they think to be wrong. They have in many cases a power of choice; they can exercise (or not exercise) patience and forbearance; and where there is a power of choice there must be responsibility, and consequently karma. The savage animal becomes a savage and cruel man; the gentle and patient animal becomes a gentle and kindly man, however primitive he may be. This serious difference is clearly the consequence of karma made in the animal kingdom. Such karma must inhere in the group-soul, but must be equally distributed through it, so that when a portion breaks off as an individual, it will carry within it its share of that karma. It may be said that that only pushes our difficulty a little farther back, for there must be a first step sometime, and we must technically consider the result of that first step as unjust. Not necessarily. Let us suppose the first step to be a fight between two animals. The wish to kill or wound would be equally present in both; the karma of that wish would in the case of the vanquished be worked out at once by death, whereas the victor would still owe a debt which would probably be discharged later by his own death by violence. In considering the case of humanity, however, we need not indulge in any such speculations.

We have behind us a great mass of accumulated energy of both kinds, desirable and undesirable, and I can hardly imagine any conceivable “accident” that would not suit as an expression for some part of its infinite variety. Therefore shipwreck or financial ruin does not discriminate, because it need not; there is always something which can work itself out in that way in the whole mass of karma which lies behind an ordinary man. In the rare cases where there is nothing remaining which can so work itself out, the man cannot be injured, and is therefore what is commonly called miraculously saved. Nothing could be more wildly absurd than the idea that anything we can do can prevent the working out of karma. For example, if a child is born under circumstances which lead to its being cruelly treated, no doubt such treatment is in accordance with its previous karma; but if kindly intervention delivers it from the demons in human form who torment it, then that intervention also is in accordance with its karma. If it were not, then the well-intentioned effort to rescue it would fail, as we know it sometimes does. Our obvious duty is to do all the good we can, and to render all the help within our power in every direction; and we need have no haunting fear that in doing so we are interfering with the work of the great karmic deities, who are assuredly perfectly capable of managing their business with absolute exactitude, whatever we do or do not do. Does karma seem merciless? If that adjective can be correctly applied to the working of Nature's laws, I suppose we must admit that it is so, just as the law of gravitation is. If a child slips over the edge of a precipice, no matter how sad may be the circumstances surrounding the slip, he usually falls to the bottom of that precipice just as effectually as would an older and more responsible person; if a man seizes a red-hot iron bar, he is equally burnt whatever may have been his object in seizing it, or whether he knew that it was hot or not. Yet it would hardly occur to us to think of the bar or the precipice as merciless, or to blame the law of gravitation or the law of the radiation of heat. Does not exactly the same thought apply in the case of karma?

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title: The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/I


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Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/251

Rh flank movement, and, above all, to bring a field piece to bear.

Hale was now in desperate straits. Encouraged by seeing reinforcements Dutton's men turned with cries of gladness to renew the attack. Hale tried to reply to them, but his ammunition was getting low. Closer in came Dick and his lads, pressing on Hale's flank. On the other side Beeby, with the few cadets he had left, returned to the attack. In front Dutton and a handful of soldiers poured in a fire. But Dick's was the fiercest, aided as it was by the cannon.

There was nothing for Hale to do but to retreat, and he had his bugler sound this mournful call. Up the hill he and his men went—what was left of them—while after them rushed Dick, now leading the attack.

"Surrender! Surrender!" cried Dutton. "We've got you!"

"I guess you have," admitted Hale. "But if Hamilton hadn't come when he did there'd been a different story."

Dutton did not reply, nor did he glance at Dick, who, seeing that the battle was over, had ordered his command to cease firing. But, though Major Dutton did not acknowledge that Dick had saved the day, he knew it, and so did his men. Major Webster, however, did not withhold his praise.

"Hamilton, you did splendidly!" he cried enthusiastically. "That was a master stroke to


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/II

THE METHOD OF KARMA It is scarcely possible to put into words the appearance presented to clairvoyant vision on the higher planes by the working of this law of karma. It seems as though the man's action built cells or channels stored with energy, through the reactions of which he can be reached by the law of evolution. The appearance is as though all sorts of forces are playing round him, but they are able to influence him only by acting through these energies which he has himself set in motion. He is continually adding to the number of these cells or channels of energy, and so is continually modifying the possibilities of reaching him. It is in meeting and dealing with all these kaleidoscopic changes, and yet in spite of them all getting in its work and accurately performing its task, that the marvellous and all but incredible adaptability and versatility of karma is exhibited. There is another aspect of karma the consideration of which I have found helpful in the effort to understand its working; but it belongs to a plane so high that it is unfortunately impossible to put it clearly into words. Imagine that we see each man as though he were absolutely alone in the universe, the centre of an incredibly vast series of concentric spheres. Every thought, or word, or action of his sends out a stream of force which rushes towards the surfaces of the spheres. This force strikes the interior surface of one of the spheres, and, being at right angles to it, is necessarily reflected back unerringly to the point from which it came. From which sphere it is reflected seems to depend upon the character of the force, and this also naturally regulates the time of its return. The force which is generated by some actions strikes a sphere comparatively near at hand, and is reflected back very quickly, while other forces rush on almost to infinity, and return only after many lives. But in any case they inevitably return, and they can return nowhere but to the centre from which they came forth. Each man makes his own spheres, and the play of his forces is in no way affected by the action of those sent up by his neighbor, for they cross one another without interfering, just as do the rays of light from two lamps. And the medium through which they move is frictionless, so that the amount of force which returns is precisely that which the man himself has generated. The prarabdha karma of an individual, that is, the karma selected by the authorities for him to discharge in his present life, divides itself into two parts. That which is to express itself in his physical body is made by the Devarajas into the thought-form or elemental which builds the body, of which we have spoken in a previous section; but the other and far larger block which is to indicate his fate through life, the good or evil fortune which is to come to him — this is made into another thought-form which does not descend; hovering over the embryo, it remains upon the mental plane. From that level it broods over the man and takes or makes opportunities to discharge itself by sections, sending down from itself a flash like lightning to strike, or a finger to touch, sometimes far down on the physical plane, sometimes a sort of extension which reaches only the astral plane, and sometimes what we may call a horizontal flash or finger upon the mental plane. This elemental goes on discharging itself until it is quite empty; and then, like the other, it fades into nothingness, or more correctly is disintegrated and returns to the matter of the plane. The man can modify its action by the new karma which he is constantly making, by the new causes which he is perpetually setting up. The ordinary man has usually scarcely will enough to create any strong new causes, and so the elemental empties itself of its contents according to what may be described as its original program, taking advantage of convenient astrological periods and surrounding circumstances, which make its work easier or more effective; and so the horoscope of the man may work out with considerable exactitude. But if the man be sufficiently developed to possess a strong will, the elemental's action is likely to be much modified, and the life will by no means follow the lines laid down in the horoscope. Sometimes the modifications introduced are such that the elemental is unable fully to discharge himself before the time of the man's death; and in that case whatever is left of him is again absorbed into the great mass of the sanchita karma — that which has not yet been worked out; and out of that another and more or less similar elemental is made ready for the beginning of the next physical life. The great mass of the accumulated karma can also be seen hovering over the ego. Usually it is not a pleasant sight, because by the nature of things it contains more evil than good result. In the earlier days of their development in the remote past, most men have done many things that they should not have done, and thereby have laid up for themselves as a physical result a good deal of suffering on this lowest plane. In the present day all civilized beings have risen at least to the level of good intention, and consequently there is much less of directly evil karma being made by such people. We all do foolish things at times; we all make mistakes; but still on the whole the average civilized being is trying to do good and not harm, and therefore on the whole is likely to be making more good karma than bad. But by no means all of the good karma goes into that great accumulated mass, and so we get the impression in that of a preponderance of evil over good. The result of most good thoughts or good actions is to improve the man himself, to make one or other of his bodies vibrate in response to higher forces, or to bring out in him qualities of courage, determination, affection, devotion, which he did not possess in so full a measure before. All this effect then shows in the man himself and in his vehicles, but not in the mass of piled up karma which is waiting for him. If, however, he does some good action definitely with the thought of its reward in his mind, good karma for that good action will come to him, and will store itself up with the rest of the accumulation until such time as it may be brought forward and materialized into activity. This good karma naturally binds the man to earth just as effectually as evil karma, and consequently the man who is aiming at real progress learns to do all actions absolutely without thought of self or of the result of his action, because if there is no thought of self, results of the ordinary kind cannot touch him. Not that the man can escape the benefit of a good deed, any more than he can escape the result of an evil deed; but if the man thinks of the reward that will come to him he will receive the benefit in the shape of that reward, whereas if he forgets himself entirely and does this thing out of the fulness of his heart, because it is the right thing to do and therefore he can do no other, then the whole force of the result is spent in the building of his own character, and nothing of it remains to bind him to the lower planes. The fact is that in each case the man gets what he wants. As the Christ said Himself: “Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.” The man who thinks of good result to himself obtains that good result; the mail who is not thinking of himself at all, or thinking only of making himself a channel for the forces of the LOGOS, is made into a better channel as the result of the action which that thought prompted. Another complication is introduced by the fact that many people do good deeds in the name of and for the sake of some other, and in that way they make that other a partaker with them of the results. Many a man does a good deed in the name of the Christ, or if he be a Theosophist, in that of the Master, and justice demands that in such a case, since it is the thought of the Christ or the Master which has produced this result, something of the effect must go to the great person in question. In this way vast stores of helpful magnetism are constantly at the disposal of those Great Ones to whom many send thoughts of affection and devotion, in whose name many kindly deeds are done. Naturally it would be utterly impossible that the result of such action should in any way bind the Great One. It simply provides him with additional spiritual force for the work which he has in hand.

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/II


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/III

THE KARMA OF DEATH It is by no means certain that in the majority of cases a time for death is definitely appointed by the Lords of Karma at all. The whole arrangement is far more elastic and adaptable than most students suppose. The clue to its comprehension lies in never forgetting that there are three great types of karma, which the Indians call sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana. The first is the whole vast mass of unexhausted karma, good or bad, which still waits to be worked out; let us call it mass-karma. The second is that particular part of the first which has been selected to be worked out in this incarnation; let us call it the man's destiny for this life. The third is the new karma which we are constantly making by our present actions. It is the karma of the second type that the astrologer or the palmist tries to read; and his calculations, are often invalidated by intrusions from the other two varieties. It is quite certain that nothing can happen to a man which is not in the great mass of his karma, but unquestionably something may happen which was not originally included in his destiny for this life. Suppose the case of a man on board a vessel which is about to be wrecked, or in the first car of a train which is about to come into collision. It may or may not be in the destiny appointed for this particular life that that man should die about this time. If it is, he will no doubt be killed; if it is not, he may be saved, if such saving does not involve too great an interference with the ordinary laws of nature. I think we may say that he probably will be saved if the prolongation of his physical life would appreciably hasten his evolution. It is intended that in each life some lesson should be learnt, some quality developed. If that life-work is already done — or if, on the other hand, it is obvious that the man will not succeed in doing it this time, no matter how long he lives — he has nothing to gain by continued physical life, and he may just as well be delivered from it. Also, if there be in the vast mass of his previous karma some debt that can be adequately cancelled by whatever of physical or mental suffering may be involved in such a death, the opportunity of that cancellation may very well be taken when it thus offers itself, even though it may not have been included in the original plan for this particular life. But if in the whole of the mass-karma there is nothing that will fit in with such a death, the man simply cannot die that way, and he will inevitably be saved, even though it be by means which seem miraculous. We hear of such cases — cases in which a huge beam has fallen so as just to save a man from being crushed by the superincumbent weight of the wreckage, or in which when an ocean steamer has gone down with all hands, one man has somehow floated ashore on a hen-coop. We must not forget the influence on our destiny of that third variety of karma which we are making for ourselves every day. A man may be doing such good work that for the moment he cannot be spared; he may or he may not have acted so as to deserve release from the physical plane at that particular period. Our tendency is to attach an altogether exaggerated importance to the time and the manner of our death. If for a moment we try to imagine how the matter must present itself to the Great Beings in charge of our evolution, we shall gain a much truer appreciation of relative values. To them the progress of the egos in their charge is the one matter of importance. They know the lessons to be learnt, the qualities to be developed. They must regard it much as a schoolmaster regards the amount of work which a boy has to do before qualifying himself for entrance to the university. The schoolmaster divides that work according to the time at his disposal; so much must be done in each year, and the year's work in turn must be subdivided into terms and even into days. But he will allow himself a considerable amount of latitude with regard to these minor divisions; he may decide to devote two days instead of one to some specially difficult point, or he may close a lesson earlier than he intended if its object is clearly achieved. Our lives are exactly these days of school life, and, the lesson may be lengthened or shortened as the teacher sees to be best. Death is merely the release from school at the end of one day's lesson. We need not trouble ourselves about it in the least; we should thankfully accept it whenever karma permits it to us. We must realize that the one important thing is that the appointed lesson should be learnt. The sections into which that lesson shall be divided, the length of the various lesson-hours, and exactly when they shall begin or end — all these are details which we may well leave to the agents of the Great Law. From this point of view no death can be described as premature, for we may always be absolutely certain that what comes to us from without is what is best for us. Our business is to do our very best with each life, and to make every effort to retain it as long as possible. If we ourselves cut it short by recklessness or improper living, we are responsible, and the effect will assuredly be prejudicial; but if it is cut short by something entirely beyond our control, we may be sure that the curtailment is for our good. Nevertheless what has been written in some of our books about “premature” death is quite true. In extreme old age desire fades away, and so something of the work of the astral life is already done before the man leaves the physical plane. A similar result is achieved by long sickness, and so in either of these cases the astral life is likely to be comparatively short and without serious suffering. This may be called the ordinary course of nature, and it is only by comparison with it that an earlier death may be spoken of as “premature.” If a person dies in youth, desire is still strong, and therefore a stronger and more strenuous astral life may be expected — a condition on the whole less desirable. But if the Powers behind decided that an earlier death is best, we may feel sure that They know of other considerations which outweigh the prolongation of the astral life.

It seems probable, therefore, that in the majority of cases the exact time and manner of a man's death is not decided before or at his birth. Astrologers tell us that in many instances they cannot actually foretell the death of the subject whose horoscope they are examining. They say that at a certain time malefic influences are strong, and the man may die then, but if he does not, his life will continue until a certain other occasion when evil aspects threaten him, and so on. In the same way a palmist will tell us that at such and such points there are serious breaks or markings upon the life-line; they may indicate death, or it may be only serious illness. It is likely that these uncertainties represent points which were left open for later decisions, depending largely upon the modifications introduced by the action of the man during his life, and by the use which he makes of his opportunities. At any rate we may be well assured that whatever decision is made it will be a wise one, and that, whether in death or in life, all things are working together for our good.


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234 ford the stream, take the gun over, and use the horses for cavalry. Major Dutton, thanks to Captain Hamilton, your forces have the honor of having won the sham battle. I congratulate you. I am proud of my cadets, even the losers."

"Three cheers for Major Hale!" called Dutton, who was politic, if a bully.

The camp rang with the shouts.

"Now three cheers for Major Dutton!" called Hale, and the huzzahs were louder than before, for Dutton had a magnetic attractiveness in spite of his mean ways with those whom he did not like.

"Three cheers for Captain Hamilton!" called Paul Drew, but, though Dick's freshmen nearly yelled the tops of their heads off, the cheer for our hero was noticeably weaker than either of the two preceding ones.

Dick smiled grimly, but he knew he had done good work that day.


text: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days/Chapter 27

title: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days/Chapter 27


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/IV

KARMA AS AN EDUCATOR No man can ever receive what he has not earned, and all things come to us as the result of causes which we ourselves have set in motion. If we have caused anything we have also caused its result, for the cause and the effect are like the two sides of a coin — we cannot have one without the other; indeed, the result comes upon us as part of our original action, which may be said in this case to be still continuing. Everything which comes to us is our own doing, good and bad alike; but it is also being employed definitely for our good. The payment of the debt is being utilized to develope the man who owes it, and in paying it he may show patience, courage, and endurance in the face of adverse circumstances. People constantly grumble against their circumstances. A man will say: “I cannot do anything, situated as I am, with so many cares, with so much business, with so large a family. If only I had the liberty which so-and-so has!” The man does not realize that these very hindrances are part of his training, and that they are put in his way just in order to teach him how to deal with them. He would like no doubt to have some opportunity of showing off the powers which he has already developed, but what is needed is that he should develope the powers which he has not, and this means hard work and suffering, but also rapid progress. There is assuredly no such thing as punishment and reward, but there is the result of our actions, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. If we upset the equilibrium of nature in any way it inevitably readjusts itself at our expense. An ego sometimes chooses whether he will or will not take certain karma in the present life, though often the brain-mind may know nothing of this choice, so that the very adverse circumstances at which a man is grumbling may be exactly what he has deliberately chosen for himself in order to forward his evolution. When he is becoming a disciple, and is therefore somewhat out of the stage of evolution which is normal at present, he often dominates and largely changes his karma — not that he can escape his share, or any least portion of it, but that he gains much new knowledge and therefore sets in motion new forces in many directions, which naturally modify the working of the old ones. He plays off one law against another, thus neutralizing forces whose results might hinder his progress. It has often been said that the disciple who takes steps to hasten his own progress thereby calls down suffering upon himself. That is not perhaps quite the best way to put it. All that he does is to take his own evolution earnestly in hand, and to endeavour, as rapidly as may be, to eradicate the evil and develope the good within himself, in order that he may become ever a more and more perfect living channel of the divine love. It is true that such action will assuredly attract the attention of the great Lords of Karma, and while Their response will be to give him greater opportunity, it may and often does involve a considerable increase of suffering in various ways. But if we think carefully we shall see that this is exactly what might be expected. All of us have more or less of evil karma behind us, and until that is disposed of, it will be a perpetual hindrance to us in our higher work. One of the earliest steps in the direction of serious progress is therefore the working out of whatever of this evil still remains to us, and so the first response of the Great Ones to our upward striving is frequently to give us the opportunity of paying off a little more of this debt (since we have now made ourselves strong enough to do it) in order that it may be cleared out of the way of our future work. The manner in which this debt shall be paid is a matter which is entirely in Their hands and not in ours; and we can trust Them to manage it without inflicting additional suffering upon others — unless of course those others have also some outstanding karmic debt which can be discharged in this way. In any case the great karmic deities cannot act otherwise than with absolute justice to every person concerned, whether directly or remotely.

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/IV


text:
Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/12

8 Hugh was not the only one who was rendered unhappy. Harry's face grew graver, notwithstanding the pleasant smile Linda gave him, and after a few trifling observations, he said quietly—"I must go as far as the Athenasum Club, Bob; Linda, I am sure, will excuse me."

They knew why he did not stay, and their hearts thrilled as they each thought of his noble self-sacrifice. No one of the three had loved Linda so truly so nobly, so passionately, as quiet Harry, but nevertheless he resigned her calmly to his more fortunate friend. He bowed his head to the stroke of fate, and no one could guess what agony that manly heart had suffered in the still hours of the night, mourning over its lost love, and lost life. Now, with all the force of his strong nature, he strove to drive that hopeless love out of his heart, to make it but a sweet memory of the past, and he knew he could not do it while under the magic influence of that dear face. So he went on his way, seeking solitude, to forget the beautiful vision which once had been his. How differently had Hugh acted!

As he stood in the lane he heard the silvery voice he had loved so well.

"But you must come home with us, Bobs. How dare you refuse me, you saucy fellow? If you go on in that way, I'll pull out some of your curls."

"Time enough for that when they are yours," said Robert, tossing his head until his curls shook again. "Well, if I must, I must; but I protest against your exercising authority before the time."

And he took his seat in the next carriage side by side with Linda, whose face beamed with delight, manifesting her deep affection for dear "Bobs." Yet a slight shade passed over his countenance as he thought remorsefully of poor Harry, away in the lonely suite of rooms they occupied together, poring over some heavy work on banking, science, or philosophy, striving to beat down the rebellious passion that had desolated his young life.

"I wish I were dead; I wish I were dead!" cried Hugh, as the carriage drove away. "I know I will go mad; I feel it, I feel it. What is this""

The exclamation was elicited by the glimpse of the face of a lady who was passing by. She was splendidly dressed—after a fashion—wore gorgeous jewellery, a hoop of gold encircling her throat, and she looked handsome indeed in her black velvet dress, relieved by costly trimmings. Her face was very beautiful, the contour rounded faultlessly, but there was too much in it of the heartless siren to please the pure of heart. It was a fatal and fearful face, and just then there was an expression upon it that justified calling it that of a beautiful demon. She had been watching Robert spring into the carriage, and drive away with Linda nestling close to him. After all, her face and that of Hugh bore the same expression of disappointed love and hate.

She turned round abruptly when she heard Hugh's exclamation.

"You, you"—she said in an amazed tone. "And you, you have seen this."

"Yes," he replied quietly.

She glanced at his shabby garb, or rather no garb, and intuitively understood the whole. Taking out her purse, she handed to him a ten pound note, and then wrote on a card a few words, and gave it to him.

As a landscape hitherto concealed in the shadow of heavy clouds bursts out into brightness and beauty, when the sun shines through a rift, so did Hugh's gloomy face change when that money was placed in his hand. Ah me! Gold is the true sunshine of this world.

"Come to that address," said she quietly; and then gathering up her dress, she walked away.

Again he glanced at that talisman with the eagerness of a madman, joyously clutched it, turned it over and over, grasped it with both hands, as if afraid some one would take it from him; then, with an exultant chuckle, rushed away to the back bar of an hotel close by, where he poured down glass after glass of brandy, until his face grew flushed, his eyes flashed wildly with excitement, and he became a changed being.

Tempus Fugit! Six months have passed since the events last narrated. The turn of the wheel has changed the position of all the parties in our little drama. "Bobs" is now a fast prisoner in the chains of Hymen, forged by beautiful Linda, Harry Robertson has experienced a great alteration in fortune. An aged relative who had never, to all appearances, taken the slightest notice of Harry, died and bequeathed all his property to him. Something very large it was, too, for he had been one of the oldest colonists, and had been very saving. The following in his will, however, showed the old


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/V

VARIETIES OF KARMA The karma of service done is always the opportunity for more service. This is one of the rules which emerge with the greatest certainty from our study of the working of karma in the many past lives which have been examined. When a man leads a particularly good life it by no means follows that in the next one he will be rich or powerful or even comfortable; but it does absolutely follow that he will have wider opportunities for work. Clearly the LOGOS wants His work done, and if we wish for opportunities of progress we must show that we are willing to work. Knowledge brings responsibility, along with opportunity. To yield to what you know to be wrong, or to go back a step in order to gain force for a greater spring forward, is to miss your opportunity. Lives may pass before you gain the same opportunity again. If you neglect the knowledge or vision which points out to you a fault, you will certainly be born in the next life without that knowledge or vision. Knowledge should always be used; it is a mistake to think that you can postpone your activity and retain the knowledge. We may make for ourselves most unpleasant future conditions if we choose to behave foolishly, but it is practically impossible for us who are now cultured people to throw ourselves back in a future birth into the position of savages or people of really low class. We may waste our time and make no progress, but unless we actually take to the practice of black magic, and use tremendous power in the wrong direction, we cannot throw ourselves back as far as that. Through misconduct or through neglect of opportunities we may be born in an uncomfortable position in our own class, or even in one a little lower, but it would upset the scheme of things if we could be thrown back into the savage state. Exceptional actions sometimes produce exceptional results, but as a general rule violent ups and downs are not practical; obviously it would be impossible for a cultured man to work out the kind of karma which in his position he must have made, if he were thrown back into the narrow conditions of an ignorant agricultural labourer. For the plans of the LOGOS an ever-increasing number of cultured people are needed, and therefore when once a man is born into a noble position he is on whole likely to continue to be so born. There are, however, certain kinds of action which bring unusually horrible karma as their results. For example, the karma of cruelty of any kind, whether to men or to animals, is always especially awful in character; it often brings with it chronic physical ailments, accompanied by most acute sufferings, and often also it produces insanity — this last more especially when the cruelty is of a refined and intentional character. We have found, for example, that many members of the ignorant mob who tortured Hypatia in Alexandria have been reborn in Armenia, and have themselves suffered all sorts of cruelties at the hands of the Turks. People who are now, apparently by accident, burnt to death with awful sufferings are often those who have burnt others in the middle ages, or looked on with glee at those ghastly scenes of martyrdom. Any injury done to a highly developed person reacts terribly upon the doer. We should indeed be careful about our attitude towards any Great One who may come, for He, being far in advance of us, is likely to be misunderstood — to be different from what we have expected, and therefore not to be appreciated. One reason why the Great Ones do not more often come amongst men is that the karma of misjudging and ill-using Them is dreadful, and the fools among mankind are sure to incur it. I have myself seen a case in which a great soul, born where he was not understood, fell when young into the hands of a brutal and incompetent pedagogue who shamefully abused him. I have also been allowed to see the karma which will follow upon that cruelty, and I shudder when I think of it. Truly may it be said of that miserable wretch, in the words attributed to the Christ, that before he had “offended one of these little ones, it had been better for him that a millstone had been hanged about his neck, and he had been drowned in the depths of the sea.” Closely associated with this is the subject of the karma of ingratitude, which is always exceptionally heavy — most of all when the ingratitude is shown to an occult teacher. People are constantly pressing forward, desiring to come into touch with the Masters, to attract Their attention; and they sometimes think that the pupils of those Masters try to hold them back, or at any rate decline to assist them in their efforts to approach. The pupil of the Masters exists only to help others, and nothing pleases him more than to draw another to the Feet where he has learned so much himself. But when he sees from the type of the aspirant that he does not yet understand those Great Ones, that his attitude towards Them is captious, irreverent, presumptuous, he will take no responsibility in the matter, for he knows that serious disaster is certain to result. A man of such temperament is sure to make bad karma anywhere; it would be foolish to put him into a position where he can multiply it a hundredfold. For example, I have noticed cases in which people who have been deeply devoted to our President change their minds, and begin to abuse and slander her. That is a wicked thing, and it makes far worse karma than would be the maligning of a person to whom they owed nothing. I do not mean that people have no right to change their minds. If a man finds that he can no longer conscientiously follow our President, he has a full right to withdraw himself from among her disciples; we may regret his blindness, but we have no word of blame for him, for each man must do what he sees to be right. For such a departure there is no evil karma but that of the loss of opportunity — the ordinary result of failing in a test and making a serious mistake. But if after dropping away the man begins venomously to attack her and to circulate scandalous falsehoods against her, as so many have done, he is committing a very grave sin, and the karma of his action is exceedingly heavy. Vindictiveness and lying are always wicked; but when a man directs them against one from whose hands he has received the cup of life, they become a crime the effects of which are appalling. The fact that a man has a large amount of bad karma behind him makes anything like occult advancement impossible for him until it is worked off. For example, those who are deeply involved in karmic debts are not likely to be candidates for membership in the community of the sixth root-race. No one could become an adept if he had evil karma behind him, because he must be free from any necessity for rebirth. A man who can function freely in his buddhic or rational vehicle, and so drop the causal body, need never again take up the latter; but naturally this cannot be done until all the karma of the lower planes is exhausted. The Master sends out all of HIS forces in open curves; but any lower thought of self causes the force sent out to travel in a closed curve, so that, whether it be good or bad, it has to return to its source and the man must come back to receive it. A man is not free from the binding results on lower planes until he is perfectly selfless on those planes. A man who when helping another feels perfectly the unity with him, obtains the result of his action on the rational plane only, and not lower down. Do not forget also that we are making karma on the astral plane, for a man can make karma wherever his consciousness is developed, or wherever he can act or choose. I have seen cases where actions done on the astral plane have borne karmic fruit in the next physical life. Another point to remember is that there is always a general karma belonging to an order or a nation, and that each individual in that order or that nation is, to a certain extent, responsible for the action of the whole. For instance, a priest has a certain responsibility for all that the collective priesthood does, even though he may not personally approve of it.

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/V


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/VI

ANIMAL KARMA Students often ask questions upon the working of karma in connection with the animal kingdom, saying that since it is scarcely conceivable that animals can have made much karma of any kind, it is difficult to account for the extreme differences to be observed in their conditions — one being well and kindly treated, while another is subjected to all kinds of brutalities, one always protected and well-fed, while another is left to starve and to fight for the bare right of living. There are two points to be borne in mind in this connection: first, an animal often does make a good deal of karma; second, the well-treated animal has not always so much advantage as he appears to have, for association with man does not always improve the animal or tend to evolve it in the right direction. The sporting dog is taught by the hunter to be far more savage and brutal than it could ever become in any form of life that could come to it by nature; for the wild animal kills only to satisfy his hunger, and it is only man who introduces into animal life the wickedness of killing for the sake of the lust of destruction. However much his intelligence may be developed, it would have been far better for this unfortunate creature if he had never come into contact with humanity; for through him his group-soul has now made karma — karma of the most evil kind, for which other dogs which are expressions of that group-soul will have to suffer later in order that gradually the savagery may be weeded out. The same may be said of the lap-dog who is pampered by some foolish mistress so that he gradually loses all the canine virtues, and becomes an embodiment of selfishness and love of ease. In both these cases man is criminally abusing his trust with regard to the animal kingdom, and is deliberately developing the lower instead of the higher instincts in the creatures committed to his care, thereby making bad karma himself, and leading a group-soul to make bad karma also. Man's duty towards the dog is clearly to evolve in him devotion, affection, intelligence and usefulness, and to repress kindly but firmly every manifestation of the savage and cruel side of his nature, which a brutalised humanity has for ages so sedulously fostered. Questioners sometimes speak as though they thought that a dog or a cat receives a certain incarnation as a reward of merit. We are not as yet dealing with a separated individuality, and therefore there is for that particular animal no past in which individual karma in the ordinary sense of the word can have been generated — nothing either to merit or to receive a reward. When a particular block of that monadic essence which is evolving along the line of animal incarnation which culminates in (let us say) the dog, has reached a fairly high level, the separate animals which form its manifestation down here are brought into contact with man, in order that its evolution may receive the stimulus which that contact alone can supply. The block of essence ensouling that group of dogs has in the matter so much of karma as is involved in having so governed its manifold expressions that it has been able to reach the level where such association is possible; and each dog belonging to that group-soul has his share of the result. So that when people ask what an individual dog can have done to merit a life of ease or the reverse, they are allowing themselves to be deceived by the illusion of mere outward appearance, and forgetting that there is no such thing as an individual dog, except during the latter part of that final incarnation in which the definite breaking away of a fresh soul from the block has occurred. Some of our friends do not realize that there may be such a thing as the commencement of an entirely new piece of karma. When an injury is done by A to B, they always fall back on the theory that at some previous time B must have injured A, and is now imply reaping what he has sown. That may be so in many cases, but such a chain of causation must begin somewhere, and it is quite as likely that this may be a spontaneous act of injustice on A's part, for which karma will assuredly have to repay him in the future, while B's suffering, though undeserved as far as A is concerned, is the payment for some other act or acts which he has committed in the past in connection with some one else. In the case of the ill-treatment of an animal by a man this is certain — that it cannot be the result of previous karma on the part of the particular animal, because if it were an individual capable of carrying over karma it would not have been again incarnated in animal form. But the group-soul of which it is a part must have acquired karma, or the thing could not happen. Animals do often intentionally cause each other terrible suffering. It is reasonably certain from various considerations that the prey killed by a wild beast for food, in what may be called the natural necessary course of business, does not suffer appreciably; but in the unnecessary and intentional fights which so often occur between animals — bulls, stags, dogs or cats, for example — great pain is wilfully inflicted, and that means bad karma for the group-soul, karma that must in the future be paid by it through some of its manifestations. Not for one moment, however, not by one tittle, does that lesson the guilt of the human beast who treats the animal cruelly, or causes him to fight or inflict pain on other creatures. Most emphatically there is karma, and exceedingly heavy karma, stored up for himself by the man who thus abuses the power to help which has been placed in his hands, and in many and many a life to come he will suffer the just result of his abominable brutality. If one takes the trouble necessary to obtain a complete grasp of such knowledge as is already available in Theosophical literature on the subjects of karma and of animal reincarnation, the main principles upon which their laws work will be found clear and readily comprehensible. I fully recognize how small and general such knowledge is, and I realize that many cases are constantly occurring in which the details of the method in which the karma works itself out are entirely beyond our ken; but you may see enough to show you that what we have been taught as to the inevitability and the absolute justice of the great law is one of the fundamental truths of nature. Secure in that certainty, you can afford to wait for the more detailed comprehension until you gain those higher faculties which alone will give the power to see the working of the system as a whole.

Assuredly, as we progress, the divine light will illumine for us many corners that as yet remain in shadow, and we shall gradually but surely grow towards a perfect knowledge of the divine truth which even now is enfolding us, guarding and guiding us. All those who have had the privilege of studying these subjects under the guidance and with the help of the great Masters of the Wisdom are so fully persuaded of this that even where at present they do not see fully, they are more than willing and ready to trust to that great Power of which as yet only dim glimpses can be vouchsafed to human eye.

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Eighth Section/VI


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section

NINTH SECTION

THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND ITS FOUNDERS

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/253

rest of that day, and far into the night, ignoring the warning of tattoo and taps, the cadets discussed the sham battle. It had been a glorious affair, and they fought it all over again in their tents, the defeated ones explaining that if "this" had happened, "that" wouldn't have taken place.

"But for all that, you can't deny but that Dick saved the day for Dutton," argued Paul.

"He certainly did," was the general reply.

The battle practically ended the military instruction at camp. The next day was devoted to resting and light drills. Several lads had received severe sprains or bruises, due to their haste or enthusiasm, and one horse had a cut leg caused by the accident to the bridge.

There was some disposition to criticize Dutton for not seeing that the structure was secure before sending his artillery over, but Major Webster declared that as no serious accident had resulted no fault could be found. As for the young major it was bitter for him to have to admit, as he


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/I

WHAT IS THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY? IT would appear that some of its members have not quite comprehended the position of this Theosophical Society to which they belong. It is not a Society which is formed merely for the promotion of learning in some special branch, like the Royal Asiatic or the Royal Geographical Societies; still less is it a Church, which exists only to spread some particular form of doctrine. It has a place in modern life which is all its own, for its origin is unlike that of any other body at present existing. To understand this origin we must glance for a moment at the hidden side of the history of the world. All students of occultism are aware that the evolution of the world is not being left to run its course haphazard, but that its direction and administration are in the hands of a great Hierarchy of Adepts, sometimes called the White Brotherhood. To that Brotherhood belong Those whom we name the Masters, because They are willing under certain conditions to accept as pupils those who prove themselves worthy of the honour. But not all Adepts are Masters; not all will take such pupils; many of Them, though equal in occult rank, have the whole of Their time occupied in quite other ways, though always for the helping of evolution. For the better surveillance and management of the field of action, They have mapped out the world into districts, much as the Church divides its territory into parishes (though these are parishes of continental size), and an Adept presides over each of these districts just as a priest does over his parish. But sometimes the Church makes a special effort, not connected specially with any one of its parishes, but intended for the good of all; it sends forth what is called a “home mission,” with the object of stirring up faith and arousing enthusiasm all over a country, the benefits obtained being in no way a matter of personal gain to the missioners, but going to increase the efficiency of the ordinary parishes. In a certain way the Theosophical Society corresponds to such a mission, the ordinary religious divisions of the world being the parishes; for this Society comes forth among them all, not seeking to take away from any one of them those people who are following it, but striving to make them understand it and live it better than they ever did before, and in many cases giving back to them on a higher and more intelligent level the faith in it which they had previously all but lost. Yes, and other men too, who had nominally no religion — who, though at heart of the religious type, have yet been unable to accept the crudities of orthodox teaching — have found in Theosophy a presentation of the truth to which, because of its inherent reasonableness and wide tolerance, they are able heartily to subscribe. We have among our members Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, Jews, Muhammadans and Christians, and no one of them all has ever heard or read from any of the officials of our Society a word against the religion to which he belongs; indeed, in many cases the work of the Society has produced a distinct revival of religious interest in places where it has been established. Why this should be so is readily comprehensible when we remember that it is from this same great Brotherhood that all the religions of the world have their origin. In this true though hidden government of the world there is a department of Religious Instruction, and the Head of that department has founded all the different religions either personally or through some pupil, suiting the teaching given in each case to the people for whom it was destined, and to the period in the world's history which had then been reached. They are simply different presentations of the same teaching, as may at once be seen by comparing them. The external forms vary considerably, but the broad essentials are always the same. By all the same virtues are commended; by all the same vices are condemned; so that the daily life of a good Buddhist or a good Hindu is practically identical with that of a good Christian or a good Muhammadan. They do the same things, but they call them by different names; one spends much time in prayer, and the other in meditation, but really their exercises are the same, and they all agree that the good man must be just, kindly, generous and true. It is said that some hundreds of years ago the leading officials of the Brotherhood decided that once in every hundred years, in what to us is the last quarter of each century, a special effort should be made to help the world in some way. Some of these attempts can be readily discerned — such, for example, as the movement initiated by Christian Rosenkreutz in the fourteenth century, simultaneously with the great reforms in Northern Buddhism introduced by Tsong-kha-pa; the remarkable renaissance of classical learning and the introduction of printing into Europe in the fifteenth; the work of Akbar in India in the sixteenth, at the same time with the publication of many works in England and elsewhere by Lord Bacon, and the splendid development of the Elizabethan age; the founding of the Royal Society, and the scientific work of Robert Boyle and others after the Restoration in the seventeenth; the activities in the eighteenth (the secret history of which on higher planes is known to but few) which escaped from control and degenerated into the French Revolution; and in the nineteenth the foundation of the Theosophical Society. This Society is one of the great world-movements, destined to produce effects far greater than any that we have yet seen. The history of its work so far is but a prologue to that which is to come, and its importance is out of all proportion to what it has hitherto appeared to be. It has this difference from all movements that have preceded it, that it is first, the herald of the Coming Christ, and secondly, the first definite step towards the founding of a new root-race. Many of our students are aware that the Master M., the great Adept to whom both of our founders owe special allegiance, has been selected to be the Manu of that race, and that His inseparable friend the Master K. H. is to be in charge of its religious teaching. It is evident that in the work which these two Great Ones will have to do They will need an army of devoted subordinates, who must above all things be loyal, obedient and painstaking. They may possess other qualities also, but these at least they must have. There will be scope for the keenest intelligence, the greatest ingenuity and ability in every direction; but all these will be useless without the capacity of instant obedience and utter trust in the Master. Self-conceit is an absolute bar to progress in this direction. The man who can never obey an order because he always thinks he knows better than the authorities, the man who cannot sink his personality entirely in the work which is given him to do, and co-operate harmoniously with his fellow-workers — such a man has no place in the army of the Manu. Those who join it will have to incarnate over and over again in rapid succession in the new race, trying each time to bring their various bodies nearer and nearer to the model set before them by the Manu — a very laborious and trying piece of work, but one that is absolutely necessary for the establishment of the new type of humanity which is required for the race. The opportunity of volunteering for this work is now open to us. Those who wish to join in it must begin to differentiate their aims from those of the ordinary man of the world. If we are to be selected for that work, we must show ourselves ready and willing by doing this which is now offered to us. The great Head of the department of Religious Instruction, the Lord Maitreya, who has already spoken as Krishna to the Indians and as Christ to the Christians, has decided soon to pay another visit to the world for the healing and the helping of the nations, and for the revival of spirituality on the earth which has well-nigh lost it. One great work which the Theosophical Society has to do is to try to prepare men for His coming, so that more may be able to profit by the unequalled opportunity which His presence will give. The religion which He founded when He came down in Judaea two thousand years ago has now spread widely over the world; but when, after He left His physical body, His followers gathered together to discuss the situation, we are told that the number of the names was only a hundred and twenty. A single preacher was His herald then; now it is a world-wide Society of twenty thousand members. May we hope to do a little better this time — to keep Him with us longer than three years before the wickedness of the world drives Him away, to draw round Him a somewhat larger body of followers before He leaves us? That is yet to be seen; but it depends largely upon the energy, effort and selflessness of members of the Theosophical Society now. Besides its primary object of spreading occult truth throughout the world, the Theosophical Society has also this secondary object — that it may act as a kind of net to draw together out of all the world the people who are sufficiently interested in occultism to be willing to work for it. Out of that number a certain proportion will be found who desire to press on further, to learn all that the Society has to teach, and to make real progress. Probably not all of those will succeed, but some certainly will, as some have done in the past; and from those who thus obtain a footing the Adepts Themselves may choose those whom They consider worthy of the great privilege of working under Them in the future. Such selection cannot of course be guaranteed to any one who passes even into the innermost groups of the Society, since the choice is absolutely in the hands of the Masters; we can say only that such selections have been made in the past, and that we know that many more volunteers are required. Many have joined the Society without knowing anything of the inner opportunities which it offers, or the close relation with the great Masters of Wisdom into which it may bring its members. Many have come into it almost carelessly, with but little thought or comprehension of the importance of the step which they have taken; and there have been those who have left it equally carelessly, just because they have not fully understood. Even those have gained something, though far less than they might have gained if they had had greater intelligence. The Countess Wachtmeister tells how once when some casual visitors called to see Madame Blavatsky and offered to join the Society, she immediately sent for the necessary forms and admitted them. After they had gone, the Countess seems to have said half-remonstratingly that not much could be expected from them, for even she could see that they were joining only from motives of curiosity or courtesy. “That is true,” said Madame Blavatsky, “but even this formal act has given them a small karmic link with the Society, and that, little as it is, will mean at least something for them in the future.”

Some have committed the incredible folly of leaving it because they disapproved of the policy of its President, not reflecting first of all, that that policy is the President's business and not theirs; secondly, that as the President knows enormously more in every direction than they do, there is probably for that policy some exceedingly good reason of which they are entirely unaware; and thirdly, that Presidents and policies are after all temporary, and do not on any way affect the great fundamental fact that the Society belongs to the Masters and represents Them, and that to abandon it is to desert Their standard. Since They stand behind it, and intend to use it as an instrument, we may be sure that They will permit no serious error. It is surely not the part of a good soldier to desert from the ranks because he disapproves of the plans of the General, and to go off and fight single-handed. Nor is such fighting likely to be specially efficient or useful to the cause which he professes to champion. Some have deserted simply from a fear that if they remained in the Society they might be identified with some idea of which they disapprove. This is not only selfishness but self-conceit; what does it matter what is thought or said of any of us, so long as the Master's work is done and the Master's plan carried out? We must learn to forget ourselves and think only of that work. It is true that that work will be done in any case, and that the place of those who refuse to do it will quickly be supplied. So it may be asked, what do defections matter? They do not matter to the work, but they matter very much to the deserter, who has thrown away an opportunity which may not recur for many incarnations. Such action shows a lack of all sense of proportion, an utter ignorance of what the Society really is and of the inner side of its work. This work which our Masters are doing, this work of the evolution of humanity, is the most fascinating thing in the whole world. Sometimes those of us who have been able to develope the faculties of the higher planes have been allowed a glimpse of that mighty scheme — have witnessed the lifting of a tiny corner of the veil. I know of nothing more stirring, more absorbingly interesting. The splendour, the colossal magnitude of the plans take away one's breath, yet even more impressive is the calm dignity, the utter certainty of it all. Not individuals only, but nations, are the pieces in this game; but neither nation nor individual is compelled to play any given part. The opportunity to play that part is given to it or to him; if he or it will not take it, there is invariably an understudy ready to step in and fill the gap. At this present time a magnificent opportunity is being offered to the great Anglo-Saxon race — to the whole Teutonic sub-race, if it will only sink its petty rivalries and jealousies and take it. I hope with all my heart that it will do so; I believe that it will; but this I know, that if unfortunately it should fail, there is another nation already chosen to assume the sceptre which in that case would fall from its hands. Such failure would cause a slight delay, while the new nation was being pushed rapidly forward to the necessary level, but at the end of a few centuries exactly the same result would have been achieved. That is the one thing that is utterly certain — that the intended end will be achieved; through whose agency this will be done matters very much to the agent, but nothing at all to the total progress of the world. Let us throw ourselves into that work, not out of it, trying ever to do more and more of it, and to do it better and better. For if we do well now in comparatively small matters — in Lodge activities, in propaganda work, in the service of those around us — we may be permitted to do something much grander — to help to smooth the way for the coming of the Lord; if we have the glorious privilege of earnestly and humbly making ourselves useful then, we may presently be entrusted with even greater responsibilities in connection with that new root-race, and of us will be true what was said of old: “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/I


text:
The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/II

THEOSOPHY AND WORLD-LEADERS A thoughtful Theosophist cannot but wonder sometimes how it is that Theosophy, though unquestionably representing the most advanced theory of existence and the most complete statement of the highest wisdom at present available, yet does not seem to appeal at all to many of the most eminent leaders of the world's thought and progress, whether it be along the lines of science, art, literature, philosophy or religion. These men of the keenest intellect, these others of the noblest spirituality, surely they ought to be the very first to welcome the splendid effulgence of Theosophy, the clarity and common-sense of its system, the light which it throws upon all the problems of life and death, the beauty of the ideals which it puts before us. But the fact remains that they do not welcome it, but on the contrary many of them treat it with indifference, or even contempt. Their attitude is a remarkable phenomenon; how can we explain it? Again, as to ourselves, putting aside such an altogether abnormal person as our President, we know quite well that we who are Theosophists are in intellect far behind the great leaders of scientific and philosophical thought, just as in spirituality and devotion we are far behind some of the great saints of whom we hear in the various religions. Yet we have the inestimable privilege of finding ourselves in the Theosophical Society, we can understand, believe and assimilate its teachings, while these others apparently cannot. We are clearly no better than they; along certain lines we are obviously less developed; why should this great and glorious reward come to us and not to them? It is a great and glorious reward; let us make no mistake as to that. The strongest adjectives in the language, the most poetical description that we can conceive, would fail adequately to convey what Theosophy is to those who can grasp it, what it does for those who put it into practice. Since it does all this for us who are commonplace folk, why does it leave these much higher and grander people cold and Unmoved? They are higher and grander; here is another point about which no mistake must be made. The intellect of the great scientific man is a very wonderful and wholly desirably thing, the culmination of ages of development. The spirituality, the utter unworldliness and the deep devotion of the saint are beautiful and precious beyond all words, and such saintship comes only as the crown of many lives of earnest effort along that special line. These are indeed gifts which none can despise or gainsay; “more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” Yet their possessors have not the inestimable pearl of Theosophy, and we have it — we who stand on the plain, and look up to them on the mountain heights. Clearly these great men have much that we have not — much at least that in us is as yet merely rudimentary; what have we that they have not, that we are worthy of so great an honour? This is what we have — the knowledge of the direction in which to put forth our forces. We have it because from the Theosophical teaching we understand something of the scheme of things, something of the plan upon which the world is built, something of the object and method of evolution — and that not only in a broad and general sense, but also in sufficient detail to make it practically applicable to the life of the individual. But why is all this so much clearer to us, the small people, than to these greater ones? By our own doctrine we know how “utter-true the faultless balance weighs,” how none can have even the smallest benefit to which he is not entitled; what have we done to merit this greatest of all rewards — we who are very much like thousands of other people, full of ordinary human faults, neither better nor worse than the great majority of our fellow-men?

Whatever it is that we have done, it must evidently have been in some other life than this. Many of us can bear testimony that when we first met with Theosophy (this time) something within us leapt up at once in glad response to its appeal, in eager recognition of kinship to its thought. Yet we all know that there are many other better people than we in whom it evokes no response whatever — who cannot understand the depth of our enthusiasm for it. We usually (and quite correctly) explain this by saying that we have met with these glorious truths before; that we have known of and studied these things in a former life, and that our unappreciative friends have not. But that does not solve the problem; it only moves it a stage further back. Why, in that former life did we study these things, while our more gifted friends did not? The answer is that the world is still at an early stage of its evolution, and that man has not yet had time to unfold all qualities. He must take them in some sort of order; he must begin somewhere; and men differ because they have chosen different points from which to begin. We have our qualities and our powers (such as they are), and our attraction to these subjects, because it is in that direction that we have been putting out our every effort in the far-away past. No one possesses any quality that he has not worked to unfold within himself. So if our greater friends are “gifted” in certain ways, it is because they have earned their gift by hard work in previous lives. Just as by study in another life we have acquired our “gift” — the power to understand and appreciate something of Theosophical truth — so have they acquired their shining powers of intellect or devotion by practicing these qualities long ago. We have taken different lines then, we have spent our time in developing different qualities. Now we each have what we have earned, but naturally each finds himself without those other qualities at which he has not been specially working. We are all imperfect, but not all imperfect in the same direction. Manifestly we must aim in the future at an all-round development, so that each must acquired the qualities which others now possess, but he as yet does not.

Another very interesting point, which has been somewhere well put by our President, is that the great leaders of thought at the present day are fulfilling a certain function in the world's evolution which they could not so well fill if they knew all that we know. This is the fifth sub-race of the fifth root-race, and the fullest possible unfoldment of the lower mind is the task at the moment set before humanity. These leaders who intensity it, glory in it, almost worship it, are doing the work which they are appointed to do for the majority of mankind. It is precisely because they believe in intellect so thoroughly, because they think that there is nothing beyond it, that they can so intensify it and carry it to so high a place. It is because they know just so much, and no more, that they are convenient pawns to be used in this particular part of the cosmic game. For, as Omar Khayyam says: “We are but pieces in the game He plays Upon this chequer-board of nights and days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays.”

These great men are the appointed leaders of a certain stage, and they are doing their work nobly; we cannot expect them to turn aside from that now to listen to us and our message. There will come a time in the future when they will listen, and then the magnificent intellectual development which they are now acquiring will carry them far and rapidly along the road of occult progress. These three things it is clear that man must have before he can hope to reach perfection: intellect, spirituality, and discrimination — which last quality may in this case be defined as the knowledge of how to use the other two wisely. If any one of these be absent, the working of the others cannot but be to some extent defective. We constantly see that this is so. The scientific man evolves intellect to a very high level, but if the spiritual side of his nature is entirely undeveloped he may use intellect for personal ends instead of for the good of all; or he may be unscrupulous in the pursuit of knowledge, as is the vivisector. The saint reaches a high level of devotion and spirituality, yet for lack of intellect he may often make himself ridiculous by superstition, he may be narrow-minded, and even a persecutor. And both the saint and the scientist may waste their energies in quite wrong direction for want of a clear knowledge of the great plan of the LOGOS — the very thing that Theosophy gives. What a man is now is the consequence of what he has done and thought in the past. If he has devoted his energy to the development of intellect — well and good, he has the intellect for which he has worked; but, since in addition to that he needs spirituality and discrimination, he must now devote himself to working for the acquisition of those faculties. If he has so far spent his time chiefly in devotion he has gained great power in that direction, but he must now proceed to unfold those other qualities of intellect and discrimination to which he has not yet turned his attention. If in previous lives he has studied the great scheme of things, he comes back this time with power to comprehend and the intuition to accept the truth, and that is indeed well for him; but he still needs to unfold from within himself the qualities to which the other men have been devoting themselves. Unfortunately man at these early stages of evolution is so constituted that he is apt to boast of what he himself possesses, and to try to exalt his own qualities by minimizing those of others instead of imitating what is best in them. So it happens that the saint and the man of science rarely appreciate one another, and not infrequently there is a good deal of mutual contempt and misunderstanding. It is for us to be careful that we do not allow ourselves to fall into the same snare. Let us remember that we set before ourselves as a goal the attainment of adeptship, and that the adept is the perfect man in whom all these different good qualities exist in the highest degree. Before we reach adeptship we have to develope as much spirituality as the greatest of the saints, and far more — as much intellect as the most brilliant man of science, and far more. So our attitude towards those who already possess these most desirable attributes should be not carping criticism, but the most generous appreciation and admiration of all that is good, while our own quality — that of knowledge of the direction in which evolution is moving — will prevent us from imitating the mistakes in addition to the excellencies of those who, while far advanced along other lines, are as yet scarcely even on the threshold or ours. All these qualities are necessary, and we have much hard work before us to develope those in which we are at present lacking. Yet I think we may congratulate ourselves upon the choice which we made in other lives, when we devoted ourselves to the study of the great scheme as a whole, to the endeavour to understand the plan of the LOGOS, and in our humble way to co-operate with Him. For that has brought us (or should have brought us) contentment with our lot, the power to make the best of everything, and to see the best in everything. Most men are eager to see the worst in everybody, to pounce upon flaws in everything, to find something at which to carp and cavil. We who are Theosophists should cultivate a spirit exactly the reverse of this; we should see the hidden deity in every one and everything, and our eagerness should ever be to discover in all of them not what is evil, but what is good. If these others despise us; if the scientific man ridicules us as superstitious and refuses to listen to our explanations; if the devotional person regards us with horror as unorthodox, and insists on clinging to a less noble presentation of his deity than that which we offer him; let us on our side take heed that we do not make a corresponding mistake. They have their weak points, no doubt, and one of them is this prejudice which renders them unable to appreciate the truth; let us be courteous enough gracefully to ignore such failings, and focus our attention upon the splendid qualities in which they really excel — those qualities in which we must use our most strenuous endeavour to imitate them. For since we see that the LOGOS wills to use in His service our intellect and our devotion, we have the strongest conceivable motive to develope them as rapidly as we can, and we shall be saved much trouble, much mortification and waste of energy by the knowledge which we already have of the direction in which He wills that these forces should be employed. All that we have is from Him, and therefore all that we have we hold on His behalf and at His disposal, to be used ever and only in His service.

title: The Inner Life, v. II/Ninth Section/II


text:
Page:Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days.djvu/254

236 grudgingly did, that he would have failed but for Dick Hamilton.

Another day spent in camp, when all discipline was relaxed, and the cadets were allowed to do about as they pleased, brought the outing to a close. Then all sorts of tricks were played, and more than one crowd of freshmen found their tent coming down unexpectedly about their heads that night, as the mischief makers loosened the pegs.

Bright and early the next morning the tents were struck, the baggage was loaded into the wagons, and the "hike" to the academy was begun. The cadets fell into line, and with swinging step, to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me," paraded off the camping ground.

It was rather hard to settle down again to the grind of lessons, but Colonel Masterly and his colleague knew how to handle boys, and in between study and recitation periods were drills and cavalry and infantry exercises so that gradually the routine was resumed again, and every one felt better for the outing.

One day, as Dick and Paul came in from the campus, they saw a notice on the bulletin board. It was to the effect that candidates for the 'Varsity baseball team would report in the gymnasium that night.

"That's the stuff!" cried Dick enthusiastically.

"Are you going to play?" asked Paul.

"Sure. Why not?"