To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

80 / TO LIGHT A THOUSAND LAMPS
phorically. Like a stream of light and compassion across
human destinies, they leave their impress. By virtue of their
having left a portion of their divine energy in the world, in
a certain mystical sense they take on part of humanity’s
karma. While it is we who must liberate ourselves, everybody
who turns toward the light within and is touched
thereby — be it ever so slightly — to that degree links his
karma with that of the Great Ones.
If, then, we are responsible for ‘‘saving’’ ourselves, God
does not predestine human beings to a life of either eternal
heaven or eternal damnation. Yet we cannot leave it at that,
for there is a grain of truth in the concept of predestination,
in that we have predestined ourselves from the past to be
what we are now. This implies that certain karmic lines of
events and of character are foreordained — not by some
god or being external to us, but by ourselves. As Shakespeare
says: ‘‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew
them how we will.’’* That divinity is our own deepest self;
we are the ones who shape our destiny with our free will.
How we meet the events and circumstances of life, and the
relationships among our fellow humans, is in our hands
every moment. In the process we are shaping and reshaping
our character and future destiny. Nothing can happen outside
of the laws of karma; and as each of us is our karma, we
are the fruitage, the result, the expression of our entire past.
Each of us therefore is the recorder of our own karmic
destiny.
The Passion of Christ represents a profoundly sacred
*Hamlet, Act V, scene ii.