Theosophy Cardiff:- Thoughts on Karma by L A Bosman

Theosophy

Cardiff

Thoughts on Karma By L A Bosman

Cardiff Theosophical Society,

206 Newport Road,

Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF24 – 1DL

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Thoughts on Karma

L A Bosman

Published 1912 in the Vahan

Some people on hearing of the doctrine of karma feel as if bound in the chains of an inexorable fate, from which it is vain to attempt escape. But even the Arab, with his belief in kismet and the so much misunderstood idea of resignation, says: " Trust in Allah, but tie the camel's leg!"

Certainly, some of the happenings of a life are inevitable and not to be escaped from, but that need not prevent us from doing our utmost to escape from them, for while so doing we are building up strong centres of resistance, as does the oak tree during its years and years of endurance of wind and rain.

Even if a thing be inevitable we are bound to do all in our power to avert it. It is unwise to sit down and say" kismet," for that shows that we have but half understood the law of karma. Of what use to let the waves overwhelm us? Is it not better to swim, or float upon their surface, and thus make a calm but effectual effort to escape from drowning? To struggle in any other way, to fret and groan and toss under the weight of the karmic burdens we have imposed upon ourselves, is but to prepare fresh troubles for this and future lives. Karma is made afresh whilst the results of past actions are working themselves out, and it is not therefore the present effects with which we have to concern ourselves, but our attitude of mind. If we accept our karma philosophically, knowing that nothing can possibly happen unless we have earned it, then it will work itself out and stop there, but if we resent and groan at our hard fate, then are we setting fresh causes in motion which must as inevitably work themselves out in the near or distant future.

Many of the happenings in the lifetime even of an advanced Ego are inevitable, and more so in the case of the ordinarily developed man, yet who shall say how much is or is not inevitable? Useless to go to a fortune teller, a psychic, or a medium, for in the first place the true occultist will not prognosticate in the material world although he will help in every other way, and secondly prognostications may not help very- much. If the psychic predict good, then; however sub-consciously, we may fall into a state of nonchalance so that even if his prognostications prove correct as they sometimes do, then by this attitude we shall be unable to appreciate the good when it does come to pass. On the other hand, if the psychic predict evil, then there is the same danger of knowing, or thinking that we know of. The inevitability of the future, we may be inclined to lay down beneath the wheels of the Car-of Jagannath and say, "Alas! this. is my karma."

The wise man does-not deliberately seek to know the future, for he is content to live in the eternal and puts his mind therefore into all his present activities, knowing that he is building up a future according to his present way of living, and content to take what comes, whilst preparing for better, or .even" worse."