THEOSOPHY
KARMA
A Study in Karma
by
Annie Besant
Published in 1917
Annie Besant
1847 - 1933
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A
Lesson of The Law
This is the great lesson taught by science to the
present generation. Religion has taught it for ages, but dogmatically rather
than rationally. Science proves that knowledge is the condition of freedom, and
that only as man knows can he
compel. The scientific man observes sequences; over
and over again he performs his testing experiments; he eliminates all that is
casual, collateral, irrelevant, and slowly, surely, discovers what constitutes
an invariable causative sequence. Once sure of his facts, he acts with
indubitable assurance, and nature, without shadow of turning, rewards his
rational certainty with success.
Out of this assurance grows "the sublime patience
of the investigator". Luther Burbank, in California, will sow millions of
seeds, select some thousands of plants, pair a few hundreds, and patiently
march to his end; he can trust the laws of nature, and, if he fails, he knows
that the error lies with him, not
with them.
There is a law of nature that masses of matter tend to
move towards the earth. Shall I then say: "I cannot walk up the stairs; I
cannot fly in the air"? Nay, there are other laws. I pit against the force
that holds me on the ground, another force stored in my muscles, and I raise my
body by means of it. A person with muscles weak from fever may have to stay on
the ground-floor, helpless; but I break no law when I put forth muscular force,
and walk upstairs.
The inviolability of Law does not bind – it frees. It
makes Science possible, and rationalises human effort. In a lawless universe,
effort would be futile, reasons would be useless. We should be savages,
trembling in the grip of forces, strange, incalculable, terrible.
Imagine a chemist in a laboratory where nitrogen was
now inert, now explosive, where oxygen vivified today and stifled tomorrow! In
a lawless universe we should not dare to move, not knowing what any action
might bring about. We move sagely, surely, because of the inviolability of Law.
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THEOSOPHY
KARMA
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The Ocean of Theosophy
William Quan Judge
Preface
Theosophy and the Masters General Principles
The Earth Chain Body and Astral Body Kama – Desire
Manas Of Reincarnation Reincarnation Continued
Karma Kama Loka
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Cycles
Septenary Constitution Of Man
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Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
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The Seven in Man and Nature
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Quotes from the Writings of
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Blavatsky Quotation
That which is to be shunned is pain not yet come. The
past cannot be changed or amended; that which belongs to the experience of the
present cannot and should not be
shunned; but alike to be shunned are disturbing anticipations or fears of the future, and every act or impulse that may
cause present or future pain to ourselves or others.
Practical Occultism, Page 87
Blavatsky Quotation
Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of
imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the
latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 100
Blavatsky Quotation
It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts
that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented together on
Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find
themselves wedded in Eternity.
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 2, Page 108
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step forward is the primary need of him
who has chosen his path. Where is this to be found? Looking round, it is not
hard to see where other men find their strength. Its source is profound
conviction.
Practical Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes
any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. It is
impossible to employ spiritual forces if there is the slightest tinge of
selfishness remaining in the operator .... The powers and forces of animal
nature can equally be used by the selfish and revengeful, as by the unselfish
and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of spirit lend themselves only to
the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine Magic.
Practical Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason agrees with science, and says: “There
is no God”. But, on the other hand, our Ego, that which lives and thinks and
feels independently of us in our mortal casket, does more than believe. It
knows that there exists a God in nature, for the sole and invincible Artificer
of all lives in us as we live in Him. No dogmatic faith or exact science is
able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent in man, when he has once fully
realised it in himself.
Isis Unveiled, Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky Quotation
It may be a pleasant dream to attempt to conceive of
the beauties of the spirit world; but the time can be spent more profitably in a
study of the spirit itself, and it is not necessary that the subject for study
should be in the spirit world.
Modern Panarion Page 70
Blavatsky Quotation
Physical existence is subservient to the spiritual,
and all physical improvement and progress are only the auxiliaries of spiritual
progress, without which there could be no physical progress.
Modern Panarion Page 78
Blavatsky Quotation
Mankind — the majority at any rate — hates to think
for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a
moment outside the old well-beaten tracks and, judging for itself, to enter
into a new path in some fresh direction.
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 3, Page 14
Blavatsky Quotation
Even ignorance is better than
Head-learning with no Soul-wisdom to illuminate and guide it.
The
Voice of the Silence, Page 43
Blavatsky Quotation
Many theosophists
have had slight conscious relations with elementals, but always without their
will acting, and upon trying to make elementals see, hear or act for them, a
total indifference on the part of the nature spirit is all they have got in
return. These failures are due to the fact that the elemental cannot understand
the thought of the person; it can only be reached when the exact scale of being
to which it belongs is vibrated, whether it be that of colour, form, sound, or
whatever else
Annotation - The
Path, May, 1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Parabrahman is not
“God” because It is not a God. “It is that which is supreme, and not supreme”.
....It is supreme as cause, not supreme as effect.
The Secret Doctrine
, Proem [Volume 1], Page 35
Blavatsky Quotation
The ancients .....
fully realised the fact that the reciprocal relations between the planetary
bodies is as perfect as those between the corpuscles of the blood, which float
in a common fluid; and that each one is affected by the combined influence of
all the rest, as each in its turn affects each of the others.
Isis, Volume 1,
Page 275
Blavatsky Quotation
Strength to step
forward is the primary need of him who has chosen his path. Where is this to be
found? Looking round, it is not hard to see where other men find their
strength. Its source is profound conviction.
Practical
Occultism, Page 67
Blavatsky Quotation
There are two kinds
of magnetic attraction: sympathy and fascination; the one holy and natural, the
other evil and unnatural.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 210
Blavatsky Quotation
In the phenomenal
and Cosmic World Fohat is that occult, electric, vital power, which, under the
Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them
the first impulse, which in time becomes law.
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 1, Page 134
Blavatsky Quotation
Oaths will never be
binding till each man will fully understand that humanity is the highest
manifestation on earth of the Unseen Supreme Deity, and each man an
incarnation of his
God; and when the sense of personal responsibility will be so
developed in him
that he will consider forswearing the greatest possible insult to himself, as
well as to humanity. No oath is now binding, unless taken by one who, without
any oath at all, would solemnly keep his simple promise of honour.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 2, Page 374
Blavatsky Quotation
It is the motive,
and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become
black, malignant,
or white, beneficent Magic. It is impossible to employ spiritual forces if
there is the slightest tinge of selfishness remaining in the operator .... The
powers and forces of animal nature can equally be used by the selfish and
revengeful, as by the unselfish and the all-forgiving; the powers and forces of
spirit lend themselves only to the perfectly pure in heart — and this is Divine
Magic.
Practical
Occultism, Page 7
Blavatsky Quotation
Woe to those who
live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of all that
vegetates without change. And how can there be any change for the better
without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage?
The Secret Doctrine
, Volume 2, Page 498
Blavatsky Quotation
The person who is
endowed with this faculty of thinking about even the most trifling things from
the higher plane of thought has, by virtue of that gift which he possesses, a
plastic power of formation, so to say, in his very imagination. Whatever such a
person may think about, his thought will be so far more intense than the
thought of an ordinary person, that by this very intensity it obtains the power
of creation.
Lucifer, December,
1888
Blavatsky Quotation
Finite reason
agrees with science, and says: “There is no God”. But, on the other hand, our
Ego, that which lives and thinks and feels independently of us in our mortal
casket, does more than believe. It knows that there exists a God in nature, for
the sole and invincible Artificer of all lives in us as we live in Him. No
dogmatic faith or exact science is able to uproot that intuitional feeling inherent
in man, when he has once fully realised it in himself.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 36
Blavatsky Quotation
Our voice is raised
for spiritual freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of Science of
Theology.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, I2.
Blavatsky Quotation
If through the Hall
of Wisdom thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses
against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest.
Voice of the
Silence, Page 23
Blavatsky Quotation
From strength to
strength, from the beauty and perfection of one plane to the
greater beauty and perfection
of another, with accessions of new glory, of fresh
knowledge and power
in each cycle, such is the destiny of every Ego, which thus
becomes its own
saviour in each world and incarnation.
The Key to
Theosophy, Page 105
Blavatsky Quotation
The assertion that
“Theosophy is not a Religion” , by no means excludes the fact that “Theosophy is
Religion” itself. A religion in the true and only correct sense is a bond
uniting men together — not a particular set of dogmas and beliefs. Now
Religion, per se, in its widest meaning is that which binds not only all Men
but also all Beings and all things in the entire Universe into one grand whole.
Lucifer, November,
1888
Blavatsky Quotation
The Present is only
a mathematical line which divides that part of Eternal Duration which we call
the Future from that part which we call the Past
The Secret Doctrine , Volume 1, Page 69
Blavatsky Quotation
The mind receives
indelible impressions even from chance acquaintance or persons
encountered but
once. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all
that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it
with the mind.
Isis Unveiled,
Volume 1, Page 311
Blavatsky Quotation
“Beneficent Magic” , so called, is divine
magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent
only on doing good, to the world in general and one's neighbour in particular.
The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self
makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.
The Key to Theosophy, Page 228
Blavatsky Quotation
Believing in a
spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot conceive of it in any other way
than as completely dovetailing and corresponding with the material, objective
Universe; for logic and observation alike teach us that the latter is the
outcome and visible manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing
both are immutable.
Modern Panarion
Page 137
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