Mohini Chatterji on Karma – Sowing and Reaping 3

From May to September 1886, an intriguing short story by Mohini Chatterji ran in the Theosophist, entitled Sowing and Reaping. It is a fascinating story about karma and reincarnation in the east and the west, and contains certain recondite passages involving the teachings of a spiritual guide to a student, sometimes of an esoteric nature, some extracts which will be featured in a short series of posts.

Dally not with the enchantress Error and her tire-women, the Passions, who, with loosened girdles and disordered garments, watch the narrow path of Truth, which they cannot cross. The seed was sown in the past, and now the harvest time has come; the hand that scattered the seed must also reap the harvest. The sap that gives bloom to the soul requires for its life both perfect knowledge and perfect love. A sin against love is a sin against knowledge. Listen thou who wert so wise in thy own conceit, a soul plunged in sin and sorrow, though ignorance may call it another and not thyself, is truly and really but a fragment of thee; in ignorance thou holdest fast to the other fragment and callest the whole, thyself. There is no self but one, though a myriad forms reflect its rays. Shun evil but not the evil-doer. Love imperfection for the sake of the perfection that struggles for life through it. Seek to conquer ignorance by knowledge and not by ignorance, with its numberless forms of unlove and ungood. Every denial of sympathy forces the soul to experience that manifestation of life to which sympathy is denied. Sympathy is the super-added life of the soul, it is the vicarious fulfilment of the law. Remember the narrative in the Book of Karma and read the legend inscribed on thy heart by the finger of the stern goddess. It is only by obedience that karma is conquered.

“Know thy soul to be thyself, and from that serene height contemplate the workings of what in thee belongs to the earth, until the earth takes back her own. Be but the witness thyself, and let thy nature fight. Let not karma master you, but be above it. Lose not thyself in action; live in the inner peace. May passion and attachment never grow in thee ! In the midst of trials and Suffering forget not that ignorance alone is pain, and knowledge is the supreme bliss. The hour has come. Go forth to thy work. May the blessings of all the holy men rest upon thy head, my son !” (Ch. 5, The Theosophist, Vol. 7, 645-646)

All mankind formed the object of the divine love in Jesus, and the love of his individual soul was given to all who did the will of his Father. The ideal of marriage in Manu contains the ideal of soul-love. The soul, as manifested in physical life, is a pilgrim following the path of the law. The life of the soul is in the law, and its love is attachment to the law. One embodied soul can love another only to the extent that it finds the law embodied in the other. For this reason Manu looks upon the following of the law as the first requisite in a marriage, and the perpetuation of the race occupies but a very unimportant position in his eyes. The Sanskrit word for wife, Sahadharmini, as you know, really means (a female com­panion on the path of the law. Such a marriage or union, it is obvious, does not die with the body, but re-appears whenever the soul re-appears in incarnation and exists in heaven between incar­nations. Many instances are to be found in which the Hindu sage entered into the married state without the least desire for offspring. You know the celebrated case of Yagnavalka, the sage legislator, and his two wives. These soul marriages were most frequently no marriage at all, as we understand it. (Ch. 8, The Theosophist, Vol. 7, 715)

They say the blood of the heart wash­es the wings of the soul, and makes them grow strong enough to soar to the empyrean of heaven in some future birth.

The sages say no one can read and compre­hend the Book of Karma, unless he is free from Karma himself— unless each individual thought, act and aspiration vibrate in unison with the All and not self. (Ch. 9, The Theosophist, Vol. 7, 779)

The growth of the soul must be like the growth of the flower. It must bend before it can bloom.  (Ch. 9, 784)

Sowing and Reaping 1