Esoteric V10: July 1896 - Iapsop.com

1896.] WHAT IS KARMA? 245
Now, this reasoning leads directly to the doctrine of Karma;
and here is the door which admits so many of the errors connected
with that doctrine. For in considering the necessities
of a partially developed aoul, we reach the following conclusions:
The «'lay-the material body-is not the man (or the
woman); it is the house in which he lives. The circumstances
surrounding the physical body lay bold upon, and place certain
conditions upon the man, the soul, implant in him certain
mental demands; therefore the soul cannot return and take up
a body and go on with its work of development unless the conditions
and demands peculiar to ita characteristioa and stage of
growth are complietl with; and, if reincarnation be a truth, it
must be governed by the aame law which produced or brought
about the first incarnation.
Time and space do not permit us to carry out this thought
here, for it would be a long story ; bnt we m·'y reach the conclusion
by a ci'088-Cut. In the worltl to-day Wtt find pre-natal
conditions shaped, and. to a great extent, createtl by surrounding
ciroumstanoes and forced mental habits. Those mental conditions
and habits in the life of the parents become the organic
qualities of the soul, causmg the real man to love oenaip things
and to hate certain other thingA. In social life people are a}.
ways attracted to tho~>e J)l"'".essing qualities similar to their own,
and so, becoming identified with a certain clau of people, the
circumstances surrounding the individual are such as adapt him
to that cla'l&; in thiA way his sphttre of U3t'fulness is shaped.
"That Aphere is the litth~ world in which the soul must live and
gain development through experience.
Now, whatever nne believes without a dmtbt is an almighty
and unvaryiug law to that iluliviclual, and, tnrougb the consaionsness,
takes absolute control of the soul and bod.v: therefol'fJ
whatever be believes tn he good ami to be desired. or whatever
he believes. to be a neceMity of his life, becomes a chord
which will bind the soul to the conditions in which that thing
exists, until experience has proven to it its error and destroyed
that belillf ; and it is these beliefs that make the Karma of the
individual. In other words: when the soul is to be rein~rnated.
the beliefs of the to-be father and mother, the habits and
desires of their life which have formed their character, by the
law of sympathy become a magnet, drawing that soul to the
u1an and woman while in the act of procreation.
Digitized by Coogle