In 1889, with his Universal Applications of Doctrine,
Judge delivered another major piece on Karma and Reincarnation and cemented his
commitment to a philosophical exploration of these major theosophical topics.
Let us look at Karma. It must be applied not only to the
man but also to the Cosmos, to the globe upon which he lives. You know that,
for the want of an English word, the period of one great day of evolution is
called a Manwantara, or the reign of one Manu. These eternally succeed each
other. In other words, each one of us is a unit, or a cell, if you please, in
the great body or being of Manu, and just as we see ourselves making Karma and
reincarnating for the purpose of carrying off Karma, so the great being Manu
dies at the end of a Manwantara, and after the period of rest reincarnates once
more, the sum total of all that we have made him — or it. And when I say
"we", I mean all the beings on whatever plane or planet who are
included in that Manwantara. Therefore this Manwantara is just exactly what the
last Manwantara made it, and so the next Manwantara after this — millions of
years off — will be the sum or result of this one, plus all that have preceded
it.
How much have you thought upon the effect of Karma upon
the animals, the plants, the minerals, the elemental beings? Have you been so
selfish as to suppose that they are not affected by you? Is it true that man
himself has no responsibility upon him for the vast numbers of ferocious and
noxious animals, for the deadly serpents and scorpions, the devastating lions
and tigers, that make a howling wilderness of some corners of the earth and
terrorize the people of India and elsewhere? It cannot be true. But as the
Apostle of the Christians said, it is true that the whole of creation waits
upon man and groans that he keeps back the enlightenment of all. What happens
when, with intention, you crush out the life of a common croton bug? Well, it
is destroyed and you forget it. But you brought it to an untimely end, short
though its life would have been. Imagine this being done at hundreds of
thousands of places in the State. Each of these little creatures had life and
energy; each some degree of intelligence. The sum total of the effects of all
these deaths of small things must be appreciable. If not, then our doctrines
are wrong and there is no wrong in putting out the life of a human being.
Let us go a little higher, to the bird kingdom and that
of four-footed beasts. Everyday in the shooting season in England vast
quantities of birds are killed for sport, and in other places such intelligent
and inoffensive animals as deer. These have a higher intelligence than insects,
a wider scope of feeling. Is there no effect under Karma for all these deaths?
And what is the difference between wantonly killing a deer and murdering an
idiot? Very little to my mind. Why is it, then, that even delicate ladies will
enjoy the recital of a bird or deer hunt? It is their Karma that they are the
descendants of long generations of Europeans who some centuries ago, with the
aid of the church, decided that animals had no souls and therefore could be
wantonly slaughtered. The same Karma permits the grandson of the Queen of
England who calls herself the defender of the faith — of Jesus — to have great
preparations made for his forth-coming visit to India to the end that he shall
enjoy several weeks of tiger-hunting, pig-sticking, and the destruction of any
and every bird that may fly in his way.
We therefore find ourselves ground down by the Karma of
our national stem, so that we are really almost unable to tell what thoughts
are the counterfeit presentments of the thoughts of our forefathers, and what
self-born in our own minds.
Let us now look at Reincarnation, Devachan, and Karma. It has been the custom of theosophists to think upon
these subjects in respect only to the whole man — that is to say, respecting
the ego.
But what of its hourly and daily application? If we
believe in the doctrine of the One Life, then every cell in these material
bodies must be governed by the same laws. Each cell must be a life
and have its karma, devachan, and reincarnation. Every one of these cells upon
incarnating among the others in our frame must be affected by the character of
those it meets; and we make that character. Every thought upon reaching its
period dies. It is soon reborn, and coming back from its devachan it finds
either bad or good companions provided for it. Therefore every hour of life is
fraught with danger or with help. How can it be possible that a few hours a
week devoted to theosophic thought and action can counteract — even in the
gross material cells — the effect of nearly a whole week spent in indifference,
frivolity, or selfishness? This mass of poor or bad thought will form a
resistless tide that shall sweep away all your good resolves at the first
opportunity.
This will explain why devoted students often fail. They
have waited for a particular hour or day to try their strength, and when the
hour came they had none. If it was anger they had resolved to conquer, instead
of trying to conquer it at an offered opportunity they ran away from the chance
so as to escape the trial; or they did not meet the hourly small trials that
would, if successfully passed, have given them a great reserve of strength, so
that no time of greater trial would have been able to overcome them.
Now as to the theory of the evolution of the macrocosm in
its application to the microcosm, man.
The hermetic philosophy held that man is a copy of the
greater universe; that he is a little universe in himself, governed by the same
laws as the great one, and in the small proportions of a human being showing
all those greater laws in operation, only reduced in time or sweep. This is the
rule to which H. P. Blavatsky adheres, and which is found running through all
the ancient mysteries and initiations.
It is said that our universe is a collection of atoms or
molecules — called also "lives"; living together and
through each the spirit struggles to reach consciousness, and that this
struggle is governed by a law compelling it to go on in or between periods. In
any period of such struggle some of these atoms or collections of molecules are
left over, as it were, to renew the battle in the next period, and hence the
state of the universe at any time of manifestation — or the state of each
newly-manifested universe — must be the result of what was done in the
preceding period.
Coming down to the man, we find that he is a collection
of molecules or lives or cells, each striving with
the other, and all affected for either good or bad results by the spiritual
aspirations or want of them in the man who is the guide or god, so to say, of
his little universe. When he is born, the molecules or cells or lives that are
to compose his physical and astral forms are from that moment under his reign,
and during the period of his smaller life they pass through a small manvantara
just as the lives in the universe do, and when he dies he leaves them all
impressed with the force and color of his thoughts and aspirations, ready to be
used in composing the houses of other egos.
Now here is a great responsibility revealed to us of a
double character. The first is for effects produced on and left in what we
call matter in the molecules, when they come to be used by other egos, for they
must act upon the latter for benefit or the reverse. The second is for the effect on the molecules themselves
in this, that there are lives or entities in all — or rather they are all lives
— who are either aided or retarded in their evolution by reason of the proper
or improper use man made of this matter that was placed in his charge.
Without stopping to argue about what matter is, it will
be sufficient to state that it is held to be co-eternal with what is called
"spirit." That is, as it is put in the Bhagavad-Gita: "He who is
spirit is also matter." Or, in other words, spirit is the opposite pole to
matter of the Absolute. But of course this matter we speak of is not what we
see about us, for the latter is only in fact phenomena of matter: even science
holds that we do not really see matter.
Now during a manvantara or period of manifestation, the
egos incarnating must use over and over again in any world upon which they are
incarnating the matter that belongs to it. So, therefore, we are now using in our incarnations
matter that has been used by ourselves and other egos over and over again, and
are affected by the various tendencies impressed in it. And, similarly, we are
leaving behind us for future races that which will help or embarrass them in
their future lives.
This is a highly important matter, whether reincarnation
be a true doctrine or not. For if each new nation is only a mass of new egos or
souls, it must be much affected by the matter-environment left behind by
nations and races that have disappeared forever. But for us who believe in reincarnation it has additional
force, showing us one strong reason why universal brotherhood should be
believed in and practised.
The other branch of the responsibility is just as
serious. The doctrine that removes death from the universe and declares that
all is composed of innumerable lives, constantly changing places with each
other, contains in it of necessity the theory that man himself is full of these
lives and that all are traveling up the long road of evolution. The secret doctrine holds that we are full of kingdoms of
entities who depend upon us, so to say, for salvation. How enormous, then, is this responsibility, that we not
only are to be judged for what we do with ourselves as a whole, but also for
what we do for those unseen beings who are dependent upon us for light.
The Path – October 1889
