A LAW OF LIFE: KARMA.

(To be continued.)

There is nothing more common to those who know anything about Theosophy than to be asked:—What is Karma? Karma is a Sanskrit word which has to be used by those who discuss the idea it conveys, simply because there is no English word to correspond to it. That is very easy to answer. Then comes the question:—What is the idea which it conveys? Than this there is nothing more difficult to answer, and the reason why this is the case is not far to seek. Let it once be granted that the constitution of man is complex and complicated, and that the soul has existed for ages that seem like an eternity, and existed, moreover, in a garb of flesh which has been changed thousands of times in the course of those ages. Let this be granted, and, in addition, that no action is without its effect in the physical, moral, and spiritual worlds, then, it will be seen, that the answer to the question: “What is Karma,” is very difficult, if not well-nigh impossible. Still, some endeavour may be made to give a general idea, though the details of any individual case can hardly be calculated.

Granting the principle of reincarnation, Karma is theworkingof the great law which governs those incarnations; but, taken in its wider sense, Karma may be defined as a manifestation of the One, Universal, Divine Principle in the phenomenal world. Thus, it may be further defined as “the great law of Harmony” which governs the Universe.

But it may be replied that Harmony is not the great law of Nature, but, on the contrary, lack of harmony and discord. And what proof is there that Harmony is the law?

When such proof is required, the answer is at once made:—Too short a view of life and the universe has been taken. The man who denies the existence of harmony in the universe has transgressed the law and is experiencing the punishment. He does this unconsciously to himself, because the law of harmony forms an unconscious impulse to its re-adjustment when it has been broken. No better illustration can be given than in the definition of a fugue, which is:—“A musical composition in contrapuntal style, in which a subject is proposed by one part, and then responded to by the others according to certain rules.” Again, in musical chords, the composing notes, if taken by twos and threes, will be found in discord, but, when taken altogether, produce a harmony. Harmony is then the just adaptation of things to each other, and the universe, the personal element of man being eliminated, is essentially an evidence of harmony; otherwise it could not exist, for it would fall topieces and no longer be a universe. To those who find only discord around them, the note to Rule 5, in the second part of “Light on the Path,” may convey a meaning. No other words can express it better. One reason for the apparent disharmony may be given. The desires of man are, as a rule, devoted to the gain of what may be called his personality. While such is the case in any man, to the exclusion of other interests, that man cannot dive deep into his own heart and perceive the real underlying harmony. He is incapable of understanding or even of perceiving it, because his attention is solely devoted to that which produces discord. Naturally, then, to him all things seem out of joint, the reign of discord is ever present, and he cries out perpetually against the injustice of the world he lives in. But if he will but turn his attention from his personality to the greater span of his life, and endeavour first to see evidence of harmony in those around him and then in himself, he will find that harmony; and his way will be made plain to him.

Granting, then, that it is the Great Law of Harmony or Karma which governs the Universe, and which is the Divine principle under one aspect manifested in Nature, then it is easy to understand that any action in violation of Nature’s laws will produce a deviation from the straight line of harmony; consequently the law of harmony will produce an adjusting effect. Now, who is to produce that effect? Nature, or the man who committed the action? Both, or rather, the latter under the influence of the former. The latter most certainly, unless man is to be regarded simply as a blind puppet. It is possible to compare the situation to that of a man whose progress is contingent upon an exact balance being preserved on a pair of scales in front of him. If his actions disturb the balance of those scales and add weight to one side or the other, it is necessary immediately to add a counter-balancing weight on the opposite side and so restore the balance or harmony. (Of course this is a physical illustration, and can hardly be carried very far on the moral plane.) That is to say that the one Divine principle is divided by man’s actions into two opposing forces of good and evil, and man’s progress depends on the exertion of his will to preserve harmony and prevent deviation to one side or the other. Evil only exists in contradistinction to good, and the preservation of such harmony as we have and the advance towards Universal Harmony—the abstract divinity—is what all right-minded persons theoretically aspire to.

It has been thought that, in consequence of the attention paid to the classics in education, the word Nemesis would replace Karma with advantage. So perhaps it might have done, had the earliest traditions of Greek mythology been preserved. But the fatal tendency towards anthropomorphism set in very strongly even in the palmy days of Greece, and in consequence Nemesis only pourtrayed the personification of a human passion. Originally the balancing power, independent of Zeus and all the Olympian gods, who carried out her decrees, Nemesisbecame simply the avenging deity; so much was this the case that in a general sense she might have been called the tutelary deity of those envious of their neighbour’s happiness. Between these points Nemesis appears as the personification of the moral reverence for law, of the natural fear of committing a wrong action, and hence the personification of conscience. It was after this period that Nemesis was said to direct human affairs, with a view to restore the balance between happiness and unhappiness. But, in earlier times, the idea of Nemesis was divided into those ofNemesisandAdrasteia(or what Orientalists would call good and evil Karma), for even then the idea of evil was beginning to be attached to Nemesis.

But Nemesis was closely linked to both theMoirae(Fates) and theEumenides(Furies), who were all the children of Zeus and Night. TheMoiraeappear generally as divinities of fate in a strict sense, and act independently at the helm of necessity. They direct fate, and watch that the fate assigned to every beingby eternal lawsshall take its course (Aesch:Prometheus Vinctus, 511-515). Zeus, as well as gods and men, submits to them. They assign their proper functions to the Erinnyes who inflict the punishment, and are sometimes called their sisters (Aesch:Eumen: 335, 962;Prometheus516, 696, 895). These latter were always considered to be more ancient than the Olympian gods, and were therefore not under the rule of Zeus, though they honoured and esteemed him. The crimes which they especially punished were (1), violation of the respect due to old age; (2), perjury; (3), murder; (4), violation of the law of hospitality; (5), improper conduct towards suppliants; and the punishment was inflicted not only after death but during life. (It is somewhat curious that these “crimes” are also those actions which entail the heaviest Karma.) No prayers, sacrifices, or tears could move them or protect the object of their persecution. When they feared that he would escape, they called inDikèto their assistance, with whom they were closely connected, as justice was said to be their only object.

Now when the meaning of all these “minor” Greek deities is considered, and further, if it is considered in connection with the definition of Karma, it will be seen that all are so many personifications of the main divisions of the law of ancient Nemesis or Karma. But the one word cannot, in popular estimation, replace the other; for, as said above, Nemesis has lost its original meaning, and is almost invariably associated with the idea of vengeance. Karma, however, has never lost its essential connection with the law of Harmony, though even in this case there is some tendency to confine it to the law of cause and effects, and to consider what is called evil Karma solely in relation to human life. This is almost inevitable, while the human personality takes the foremost place in the consideration of each man, and his own welfare, in time and eternity, is the goal of hisendeavours. As said above, while this is the case man cannot regard the great laws of the Universe, nor recognise himself as part of it, and thus his life is confined to the world of effects, and can never enter that of causes. Thus it is ignorance of the law of Harmony that leads him to struggle in vain, in this world, for the apparent advantage of surpassing his neighbour, and—worse—to instinctively carry the struggle beyond death, and attempt to advance in favour in the so-called heavenly kingdom.

This is the result of the pernicious doctrine of reward and punishment after death, in heaven or in hell. Nothing could have been found more calculated to circumscribe the view of life as a whole, and concentrate man’s attention on temporary matters. It is inevitable that man should regard his soul as something fashioned after his struggling personality, and very similar to it; and this view of his personality was not calculated to agree with the loftiness of the ideas about the soul. From this point of view he either rejected the idea of soul as altogether worthless, or else he transferred his interest to the soul’s welfare in Heaven—in either case concentrating his attention on what is inevitably transient. It is as though a man lost sight of the fact of respiration in its component parts of inspiration and expiration; that is to say, that one respiration is taken as the whole, and the millions of other respirations in the course of a human life are lost sight of and forgotten. Thus the man who adapts his life to the ordinary views, with regard to life on earth and life in Heaven, fixes his thoughts and aspirations on what is transient, and desires to intensify that. No truer words were ever spoken than by Christ when he said:—“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” It is a loss which man will inevitably experience if he pursues this purblind course of endeavour, for he will lose sight of hisrealsoul altogether, and he—ashe, that is—will never regain it. He follows a flickering Will-o’-the-Wisp, and finds his way only into a treacherous marsh; the result being that the whole of that incarnation is wasted, and a stumbling block, perhaps, placed in the way of the next. This danger is, as said, due to neglect or ignorance of the idea of Karma, and to the purblind view consequently taken of the great scope of human life.

In theTheosophist, of July, 1887, Mr. Subba Row deals with the doctrine of Karma as contained in the Bhagavadgita. His lecture contains one of the clearest elucidations of the metaphysical side of the question which it is possible to put in language, so far as the Kosmic aspect of Karma is concerned. In it, and the previous lectures, Mr. Subba Row dealt with three main bases or vehicles[13](states of matter) through which the light of the spirit is reflected into the phenomenal world. These vehicles, when traced to their origin, lead toprakriti, or matter; as opposed topurusha, or spirit.

“So Krishna says that all Karma is traceable to Upadhi, and hence toPrakriti.Karmaitself depends upon conscious existence. Conscious existence entirely depends upon the constitution of man’s mind....Upadhiis the cause of individual existence. Existence itself, I mean living existence, is, however, traceable to this light (of the Logos). All conscious existence is traceable to it, and, furthermore, when spiritual intelligence is developed, it directly springs from it.... Now it is through the action of thisKarmathat individual existence makes its appearance. On account of thisKarmaeindividual existence is maintained, and it is on account ofKarmathat man suffers all the pains and sorrows of earthly existence. Birth, life, and death, and all the innumerable ills to which human nature is subject, are endured by mankind owing to thisKarma.... ThusKarma, being the inevitable result ofPrakriti, andPrakriticontinuing to exist as long as you are a human being, it is useless to try to get rid ofKarma.... When you renounce this desire (desire to do Karma other than from a sense of duty),Karmawill become weaker and weaker in its ability to affect you, till at last you arrive at a condition in which you are not affected byKarmaat all, and that condition is the condition ofMukti.”[14]“Those philosophers who want to reject allKarmapretend to renounce it altogether. But that is an impossible task. No man, so long as he is a human being, can ever give upKarmaaltogether. He is at least bound to do that which the bare existence of his physical body requires, unless, indeed, he means to die of starvation, or otherwise put an untimely end to his life.”“Supposing you do give upKarma—that is abstain from it in action, how can you keep control over your own minds? It is useless to abstain from an act, and yet be constantly thinking of it. If you come to the resolution that you ought to give upKarma, you must necessarily conclude that you ought not even to think about these things. That being so, let us see in what a condition you will then place yourselves. As almost all our mental states have some connection with the phenomenal world, and are somehow or other connected withKarmain its various phases, it is difficult to understand how it is possible for a man to give up allKarma, unless he can annihilate his mind, or get into an eternal state ofSushupti(dreamlessslumber). Moreover, if you have to give up allKarma, you have to give up goodKarmaas well as bad, forKarma, in its widest sense, is not confined to bad actions. If all the people in the world give upKarma, how is the world to exist? Is it not likely that an end will then be put to all good impulses, to all patriotic and philanthropic deeds, that all the good people, who have been and are exerting themselves in doing unselfish deeds for the good of their fellow men, will be prevented from working? If you call upon everybody to give upKarma, you will simply create a number of lazy drones, and prevent good people from benefiting their fellow beings.”“And furthermore, it may be argued that this is not a rule of universal applicability. How few are there in the world who can give up their wholeKarma, and reduce themselves to a condition of eternal inactivity. And if you ask these people to follow this course, they may, instead of giving upKarma, simply become lazy, idle persons, who have not really given up anything. What is the meaning of the expression, to give upKarma? Krishna says that in abstaining from doing a thing there may be the effects of activeKarma, and in activeKarmathere may be no real Karmic results. If you kill a man, it is murder, and you are held responsible for it; but suppose you refuse to feed your old parents and they die in consequence of your neglect, do you mean to say that you are not responsible for thatKarma? You may talk in the most metaphysical manner you please, you cannot get rid ofKarmaaltogether.”“Taking all these circumstances into consideration, and admitting the many mischievous consequences that will follow as the result of recommending everyhuman being to give upKarma, Krishna adds all that is to be found in the teaching that makes the Logos the means of salvation, and recommends man—if he would seek to obtain immortality—a method by following which he is sure to reach it, and not one that may end in his having to go through another incarnation, or being absorbed into another spiritual being whose existence is not immortal.”“The recommendation to practice and obtain self-mastery, Krishna accepts. But he would add to it more effectual means of obtaining the desired end—means sufficient in themselves to enable you to reach that end. He points out that this practise of self-mastery is not only useful for training in one birth, but is likely to leave permanent impulses on a man’s soul which come to his rescue in future incarnations.”...“Krishna, in recommending his own method, combines all that is good in the five systems, and adds thereto all those necessary means of obtaining salvation that follow as inferences from the existence of theLogos, and its real relationship to man and to all the principles that operate in the cosmos. His is certainly more comprehensive than any of the theories from which these various schools of philosophy have started, and it is this theory that he is trying, in the second six chapters of theBhagavadgitaBhagavadgita,to inculcate.”

“Those philosophers who want to reject allKarmapretend to renounce it altogether. But that is an impossible task. No man, so long as he is a human being, can ever give upKarmaaltogether. He is at least bound to do that which the bare existence of his physical body requires, unless, indeed, he means to die of starvation, or otherwise put an untimely end to his life.”

“Supposing you do give upKarma—that is abstain from it in action, how can you keep control over your own minds? It is useless to abstain from an act, and yet be constantly thinking of it. If you come to the resolution that you ought to give upKarma, you must necessarily conclude that you ought not even to think about these things. That being so, let us see in what a condition you will then place yourselves. As almost all our mental states have some connection with the phenomenal world, and are somehow or other connected withKarmain its various phases, it is difficult to understand how it is possible for a man to give up allKarma, unless he can annihilate his mind, or get into an eternal state ofSushupti(dreamlessslumber). Moreover, if you have to give up allKarma, you have to give up goodKarmaas well as bad, forKarma, in its widest sense, is not confined to bad actions. If all the people in the world give upKarma, how is the world to exist? Is it not likely that an end will then be put to all good impulses, to all patriotic and philanthropic deeds, that all the good people, who have been and are exerting themselves in doing unselfish deeds for the good of their fellow men, will be prevented from working? If you call upon everybody to give upKarma, you will simply create a number of lazy drones, and prevent good people from benefiting their fellow beings.”

“And furthermore, it may be argued that this is not a rule of universal applicability. How few are there in the world who can give up their wholeKarma, and reduce themselves to a condition of eternal inactivity. And if you ask these people to follow this course, they may, instead of giving upKarma, simply become lazy, idle persons, who have not really given up anything. What is the meaning of the expression, to give upKarma? Krishna says that in abstaining from doing a thing there may be the effects of activeKarma, and in activeKarmathere may be no real Karmic results. If you kill a man, it is murder, and you are held responsible for it; but suppose you refuse to feed your old parents and they die in consequence of your neglect, do you mean to say that you are not responsible for thatKarma? You may talk in the most metaphysical manner you please, you cannot get rid ofKarmaaltogether.”

“Taking all these circumstances into consideration, and admitting the many mischievous consequences that will follow as the result of recommending everyhuman being to give upKarma, Krishna adds all that is to be found in the teaching that makes the Logos the means of salvation, and recommends man—if he would seek to obtain immortality—a method by following which he is sure to reach it, and not one that may end in his having to go through another incarnation, or being absorbed into another spiritual being whose existence is not immortal.”

“The recommendation to practice and obtain self-mastery, Krishna accepts. But he would add to it more effectual means of obtaining the desired end—means sufficient in themselves to enable you to reach that end. He points out that this practise of self-mastery is not only useful for training in one birth, but is likely to leave permanent impulses on a man’s soul which come to his rescue in future incarnations.”...

“Krishna, in recommending his own method, combines all that is good in the five systems, and adds thereto all those necessary means of obtaining salvation that follow as inferences from the existence of theLogos, and its real relationship to man and to all the principles that operate in the cosmos. His is certainly more comprehensive than any of the theories from which these various schools of philosophy have started, and it is this theory that he is trying, in the second six chapters of theBhagavadgitaBhagavadgita,to inculcate.”

In the above quoted lecture Karma was considered in its Kosmic and universal aspect, but no attempt was made to consider it in its individual aspect as applied to the various great sections of Being on this planet. The first approach to this is seen in the animal kingdom. Doubtless, the mineral and vegetable kingdoms are under the law of Harmony with Nature; it could not possibly be otherwise for they are closer to what is known as nature and much less individualised. But there is so little individualisation in these kingdoms that it is hardly possible to consider them in relation to the law of harmony, or to that of Cause and Effect on the plane of objectivity. But to anyone who has thought about the question it is plain that the animal kingdom, in its individuals, does come at least under the law of cause and effect. This may practically be called the working of Karma on the physical plane and by some has been called the law of Compensation, this being a term expressive of mechanical and physical energy. The word Karma had better be retained to express the working of the law of harmony on that plane where moral responsibility begins, and where “the law of compensation can be modified by will and reason,” and where therefore personal merit and demerit exists. To quote from an article in the Theosophist on the Karma of animals:—

“A piece of iron is attracted to a magnet without having any desire in the matter. If it is exposed to air and water, it may become rusty and cannot prevent it. A plant or a tree may be straight or crooked on account of circumstances over which it has no control. An animal usually follows the instincts of its nature without any merit or demerit for so doing, a child or an idiot may smilingly kick over a lamp which may set a whole city on fire; the cause will have its effect, but the child or the idiot cannot be held responsible for it, because they have not sufficient intelligence to fully control their actions or to judge about the consequences. A person can only be held responsible according to his ability to perceive justice and to distinguish between good and evil. The power to discriminate properly is an attribute of the human mind, and the higher that mind is developed the more it becomes responsible for the effects itproduces. A cat may kill a mouse or an ox gore a man; and to hold them morally responsible for it would be an act of injustice, cruelty and stupidity. Whether or not a dog may have sufficient reason to incur any moral responsibility is a matter of opinion, and no emphatic affirmation or denial will decide the case: but it is reasonable to suppose that a dog, though he may have sufficient reason to know what is good or bad for himself or for those to whom he is attached, has no moral responsibility.”

Thus, though animals may be under the law of compensation, and under the law of harmony or Karma, theyare notunder the law of compensation, or the law of harmony or Karma in the same way as it applies to human beings. With humanity, a fresh element has been introduced—the intellectual, reasoning, and discriminating power. Consequently, while the universal law of harmony or Karma governs the whole Universe, the law of Harmony should be applied to the Universe as a whole, and its manifestations, the laws of Karma and Compensation, should be applied to man and animal respectively.

It is more possible, perhaps, to consider the question in relation to the various grades of humanity so far as we can conceive of it and them. It would be better to commence with the highest and proceed downwards.

All Theosophists, and many who are not, have heard of Mahatmas, and many have speculated very wrongly about them. In this magazine, and in this article, it may be possible to write about them without disrespect,becauseonly through these speculations is it possible to understand the law of harmony and its relation to man as Karma, and to divinity as harmony. The word Karma as limited above does not apply to the Mahatma.

“Gazing only upon the eternal the Mahatma feels neither good nor ill, nor does either good or ill come to him. Personally, he cannot either suffer or rejoice, and is incapable of emotion, because he is indifferent to circumstances. But as he developes, his sympathies increase, until at last his sympathies enter into all beings, and with them he rejoices and suffers until they also pass beyond the sense of joy or pain.”“They do not have good or evil Karma. The glory and good fortune and happiness, these go to the good men who look for temporary joys. Karma produces pleasure or pain by the ordering of circumstances. The Mahatma does not feel pleasure and pain, and is not affected by circumstances, therefore he is Karmaless. The law of cause and effect is only called Karma when it concerns temporary and changing circumstances. The acts of the Mahatma generate spiritual energy which goes to create the power that shall be his when he is no longer man, and consequently form an eternal factor in his future; thus, the Mahatma, being without personal desire, is outside the operation of the law of Karma.”

“They do not have good or evil Karma. The glory and good fortune and happiness, these go to the good men who look for temporary joys. Karma produces pleasure or pain by the ordering of circumstances. The Mahatma does not feel pleasure and pain, and is not affected by circumstances, therefore he is Karmaless. The law of cause and effect is only called Karma when it concerns temporary and changing circumstances. The acts of the Mahatma generate spiritual energy which goes to create the power that shall be his when he is no longer man, and consequently form an eternal factor in his future; thus, the Mahatma, being without personal desire, is outside the operation of the law of Karma.”

In his real condition he is in harmony with Nature, and its agent, and hence outside Karma. His physical body is however still within its limits of action. But to him this is a very small matter.

Archibald Keightley, M.B.

(To becontinued.)

THE MYSTERY OF ALL TIME.

The inner light which guides men to greatness, and makes them noble, is a mystery through all time and must remain so while Time lasts for us; but there come moments, even in the midst of ordinary life, when Time has no hold upon us, and then all the circumstance of outward existence falls away, and we find ourselves face to face with the mystery beyond. In great trouble, in great joy, in keen excitement, in serious illness, these moments come. Afterwards they seem very wonderful, looking back upon them.

What is this mystery, and why is it so veiled, are the burning questions for anyone who has begun to realise its existence. Trouble most often rouses men to the consciousness of it, and forces them to ask these questions when those, whom one has loved better than oneself, are taken away into the formless abyss of the unknown by death, or are changed, by the experiences of life, till they are no longer recognisable as the same; then comes the wild hunger for knowledge. Why is it so? What is it, that surrounds us with a great dim cloud into which all loved things plunge in time and are lost to us, obliterated, utterly taken from us? It is this which makes life so unbearable to the emotional natures, and which developes selfishness in narrow hearts. If there is no certainty and no permanence in life, then it seems to the Egotist, that there is no reasonable course but to attend to one’s own affairs, and be content with the happiness of the first person singular. There are many persons sufficiently generous in temperament to wish others were happy also, and who, if they saw any way to do it, would gladly redress some of the existing ills—the misery of the poor, the social evil, the sufferings of the diseased, the sorrow of those made desolate by death—these things the sentimental philanthropist shudders to think of. He does not act because he can do so little. Shall he take one miserable child and give it comfort when millions will be enduring the same fate when that one is dead? The inexorable cruelty of life continues on its giant course, and those who are born rich and healthy live in pleasant places, afraid to think of the horrors life holds within it. Loss, despair, unutterable pain, comes at last, and the one who has hitherto been fortunate is on a level with those to whom misery has been familiarised by a lifetime of experience. For trouble bites hardest when it springs on a new victim. Of course, there are profoundly selfish natures which do not suffer in this sense, which look only for personal comfort and are content with the small horizon visible to one person’s sight; for these, there is but little trouble in the world, thereis none of the passionate pain which exists in sensitive and poetic natures. The born artist is aware of pain as soon as he is aware of pleasure; he recognises sadness as a part of human life before it has touched on his own. He has an innate consciousness of the mystery of the ages, that thing stirring within man’s soul and which enables him to outlive pain and become great, which leads him on the road to the divine life. This gives him enthusiasm, a superb heroism indifferent to calamity; if he is a poet he will write his heart out, even for a generation that has no eyes or ears for him; if he desires to help others personally, he is capable of giving his very life to save one wretched child from out a million of miserable ones. For it is not his puny personal effort in the world that he considers—not his little show of labour done; what he is conscious of is the over-mastering desire to work with the beneficent forces of super-nature, to become one with the divine mystery, and when he can forget time and circumstances, he is face to face with that mystery. Many have fancied they must reach it by death; but none have come back to tell us that this is so. We have no proof that man is not as blind beyond the grave as he is on this side of it. Has he entered the eternal thought? If not, the mystery is a mystery still.

To one who is entering occultism in earnest, all the trouble of the world seems suddenly apparent. There is a point of experience when father and mother, wife and child, become indistinguishable, and when they seem no more familiar or friendly than a company of strangers. The one dearest of all may be close at hand and unchanged, and yet is as far as if death had come between. Then all distinction between pleasure and pain, love and hate, have vanished. A melancholy, keener than that felt by a man in his first fierce experience of grief, overshadows the soul. It is the pain of the struggle to break the shell in which man has prisoned himself. Once broken then there is no more pain; all ties are severed, all personal demands are silenced for ever. The man has forced himself to face the great mystery, which is now a mystery no longer, for he has become part of it. It is essentially the mystery of the ages, and these have no longer any meaning for him to whom time and space and all other limitations are but passing experiences. It has become to him a reality, profound, indeed, because it is bottomless, wide, indeed, because it is limitless. He has touched on the greatness of life, which is sublime in its impartiality and effortless generosity. He is friend and lover to all those living beings that come within his consciousness, not to the one or two chosen ones only—which is indeed only an enlarged selfishness. While a man retains his humanity, it is certain that one or two chosen ones will give him more pleasure by contact, than all the rest of the beings in the Universe and all the heavenly host; but he has to remember and recognise what this preference is. It is not a selfish thing which has to be crushed out, if the love is the love that gives; freedom from attachments is not a meritorious conditionin itself. The freedom needed is not from those who cling to you, but from those to whom you cling. The familiar phrase of the lover “I cannot live without you” must be words which cannot be uttered, to the occultist. If he has but one anchor, the great tides will sweep him away into nothingness. But the natural preference which must exist in every man for a few persons is one form of the lessons of Life. By contact with these other souls he has other channels by which to penetrate to the great mystery. For every soul touches it, even the darkest. Solitude is a great teacher, but society is even greater. It is so hard to find and take the highest part of those we love, that in the very difficulty of the search there is a serious education. We realise when making that effort, far more clearly what it is that creates the mystery in which we live, and makes us so ignorant. It is the swaying, vibrating, never-resting desires of the animal soul in man. The life of this part of man’s nature is so vigorous and strongly developed from the ages during which he has dwelt in it, that it is almost impossible to still it so as to obtain contact with the noble spirit. This constant and confusing life, this ceaseless occupation with the trifles of the hour, this readiness in surface emotion, this quickness to be pleased, amused or distressed, is what baffles our sight and dulls our inner senses. Till we can use these the mystery remains in its Sphinx-like silence.

When the unit thinks only of itself, the whole, which is built of units perishes, and the unit itself is destroyed.

So it is throughout nature on every plane of life. This, therefore, is the first lesson to be learnt.

What thetrueoccultist seeks, is not knowledge, or growth, or happiness, or power, for himself; but having becomeconsciousthat the harmony of which he forms part is broken on the outer plane, he seeks the means to resolve that discord into a higher harmony.

This harmony is Theosophy—Divine or Universal Wisdom—the root whence have sprung all “religions,” that is all; “bonds which unite men together,” which is the true meaning of the word religion.

Therefore, Theosophy is nota“religion,” but religion itself, the very “binding of men together” in one Universal Brotherhood.

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS OF BUDDHISM.

When a man immersed in the darkness of modern civilization awakens, however slightly, to the hollowness of his every-day life, he becomes sensible of a feeling of despair, for he is mentally brought face to face with what appears to him to be a meaningless yet cruel destiny. Now to any one so circumstanced, no truer source of consolation and encouragement can be offered than that which is to be found in a proper consideration of the “Four Noble Truths” of Buddhism. But to give this proper consideration to the Truths, or indeed to promote even a preliminary enquiry into their nature is by no means an easy task, because the fundamental ideas which they embody have scarcely any vitality in the present generation; nay more, they involve for the most part a complete inversion of maxims commonly accepted as axiomatic in current thought.

It is, however, in the hopes of doing something towards the elucidation of the matter, that the present exposition is attempted.

The first Noble Truth relates to human suffering. It proclaims that the conscious, separated, life of individual existence necessarily implies pain, sorrow and misery; that so long as a man feels that he is possessed of anisolated self, or so long as he regards himself and his fellow men asdetached personalities, having antagonistic or even independent interests, so long must he suffer and be subject to trouble, grief and disappointment.

This first Noble Truth gives utterance to one aspect of an inexorable law of universal application, a law from whose operations no man can, or has, or ever will escape, until he has learnt and in the fullest sense realized the four Noble Truths.

The first Truth may also be thus expressed: individual existence necessitates and involves change of state, whether manifested as birth growth, decay or death, and all changes of state are accompanied by pain in one form or another on some plane of being; while those who seem in their own eyes to have escaped from pain, or those who imagine that others escape from it, are alike deluded, for all men are overtaken by it soon or late.

The second Noble Truth deals with the cause of pain, and partially explains its meaning. According to this Truth, it is the desire or thirst for the continuance of individual life, with its various sensations and experiences, that constitutes the true basis of all suffering, whatever the outward form it may assume, and to whatever plane of consciousness it may belong. This thirst for life, called in the Sanscrit languageTanha, gives rise in the mind of man to a delusive belief in thepermanenceandrealityof that separate personality, which, according to Buddhism, is no more than an ephemeral mode of individual existence; it further leads him to suppose that the numerous mental states which in their aggregate make up the personality, are, in themselvesreal; and hence grows that rooted belief in the absolute reality of the manifold objects of sense, and that longing for their possession, that insatiable longing for the enhancement and for the multiplication of the experiences associated with these objects.

The second Truth, like the first, presents an aspect of the universal law already referred to.

This law, the Sanscrit name for which is Karma, is the governing and controlling power, ordering all individual existence, and by virtue of which Tanha operates.

The third Noble Truth announces the fact that, as the individual man grows strong in spiritual knowledge and charity, so Tanha is gradually dissolved, and there is for him a consequent cessation of sorrow and of pain. The individuality becoming proportionately freed from the bondage of Karma, Tanha is indeed a quite necessary adjunct of man’s incipient growth, for it represents thecreativepower which forces the individuality through the earlier stages of its development, yet, while performing this most useful function, being in fact indispensable to the lower nature of man, Tanha, at the same time, forges those Karmic fetters from which the spiritual self struggles desperately to get free.

As the man’s spiritual nature is evolved, the unconscious creative energy, in form of Tanha, is gradually replaced by the newly developed powers of the higher self, thewillbecomes more and more completely associated with the spirit, while the man himself, endowed with true Faith, true Hope, and true Love, becomes a conscious co-worker with the Universal or Macrocosmic Will, the “Great Builder.”

The fourth Noble Truth assures us that there is a way by which all men may, if they only choose, rapidly accomplish this displacement of Tanha by true Love; this way is called the Noble Eight-fold Path leading to enlightenment.

Thus:—1. Right fundamental Belief,i.e., the right basis mentally and spiritually upon which to establish true knowledge. 2. Right Intention,i.e., goodwill towards all that lives, singleness of purpose, correctness and purity of motive. 3. Right Speech,i.e., the use of becoming language, kindly temperate, fair and profitable; patient yet vigorous; thoughtful, courageous, honest and discriminating. 4. Right Behaviouri.e., active philanthropy. 5. Right means of Livelihood,i.e., honest and useful employment of one’s time, paying adequate attention to one’s own material needs and helping others to do the same, yet without care for the morrow. 6. Right Endeavour,i.e., putting one’s heart in one’swork. 7. Right Loneliness,i.e., self-contained and harmoniouswithin.within.8. Right Meditation. This is the SanskritYogaand signifies union with the divine by practising the contemplation of the reality of being. It is the result of a sustained effort to concentrate the mind upon the universal, eternal and immutable law of life; the first stage of such concentration takes the form of an impartial review or survey of all one’s thoughts, actions, desires, sensations and experiences from a thoroughly impersonal standpoint. This Eightfold Path has four stages representing different degrees of advancement towards Buddhahood or the state of perfect enlightenment. The true Buddha or Tathâgata is one who has attained final emancipation from individual existence, whose purified spirit is freed from the last vestige of Tanha, one upon whom Karma has no more hold, for he has reached Para Nirvana, theEternal, the Absolute Being.

St. George Lane-Fox.

THE LAST OF A GOOD LAMA.—Whatever may be said against godless Buddhism, its influence, wherever it penetrates, is most beneficent. One finds the Spirit of “Lord Buddha ... most pitiful, the Teacher of Nirvâna and the Law,” ennobling even the least philosophical of the dissenting sects of his religion—the Lamäism of the nomadic Kalmucks. The Caspian Steppes witnessed, only a few months ago, the solemn cremation and burial of a Mongolian saint, whose ashes were watered by as many Christian as Lamaic tears. The high priest to the Russian Calmucks of the Volga died December 26th, 1886, near Vétlyanka, once the seat of the most terrible epidemics. The Ghelungs had chosen the day of ceremony in accordance with their sacred books; the hour was fixed astrologically, and at noon on January 4th, 1887, the imposing ceremony took place. More than 80,000 people assembling from all the neighbouring Cossackstanitzasand Calmuckooloosses, formed a procession surrounding the pillar of cremation. The corpse having been fixed in an iron arm-chair, used on such ceremonies, was introduced into the hollow pillar, the flames being fed with supplies of fresh butter. During the whole burning, the crowd never ceased weeping and lamenting, the Russians being most violent in their expressions of sorrow, and with reason. For long years the defunct Lama had been a kind father to all the poor in the country, whether Christian or Lamaist. Whole villages of proletarians had been fed, clothed, and their poll-taxes paid out of his own private income. His property in pasture lands, cattle, and tithes was very large, yet the Lama was ever in want of money. With his death, the poor wretches, who could hardly keep soul in their bodies, have no prospect but starvation. Thus the tears of the Christians were as abundant, if not quite as unselfish, as those of the poor Pagans. Only the year before, the good Lama received 4,000 roubles from a Calmuckoolooss(camp) and gave the whole to rebuild a burned down Russian village, and thus saved hundreds from death by hunger. He was never known during his long life to refuse any man, woman, or child, in need, whether Pagan or Christian, depriving himself of every comfort to help his poorer fellow-creatures. Thus died the last of the Lamas of the priestly hierarchy sent to the Astrakhan Calmucks from beyond the “Snowy Range” some sixty years ago. A shameful story is told of how a travelling Christian pilgrim imposed on the good Lama. The Lama had entrusted him with 30,000 roubles to be placed in the neighbouring town; but the Christian pilgrim disappeared, and the money with him.

THE BIRTH OF LIGHT.

Translated from Eliphas Levis“Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.”

The “Lucifer” of the Kabalists is not a proscribed and fallen angel, but the spirit which illuminates and regenerates by fire; he is to the angels of peace what the comet is to the peaceful constellations of spring-time.

The fixed star is beautiful, radiant and calm; she drinks in the aromas of Heaven, and looks lovingly on her sisters; clad in her dazzling garments, and her brow adorned with diamonds, she smiles as she sings her morning and her evening hymn; she enjoys an eternal repose which nothing can disturb, and solemnly she treads the path assigned to her among the sentinels of light.

But the wandering comet, all bloodstained, and her tresses unloosed, rushes on from the depths of the sky; she dashes across the track of the peaceful spheres like a chariot of war breaking the ranks of a procession of vestals; she dares to breast the burning sword of the guardians of the sun, and, like a lost spouse who seeks the partner visioned in her lonely night watches, she forces her way even into the tabernacle of the King of Day.

Then she rushes out, breathing forth the fires which consume herself and leaving in her train one long conflagration; the stars pale before her approach, the herded constellations, which browse upon the starry flowers in the vast meadows of the sky, seem to flee from her terrible breath. The grand council of the stars is called, and universal consternation reigns. At last the fairest of the fixed stars is charged to speak in the name of the heavenly concourse, and to propose a truce with the errant messenger.

“My sister,” she says, “why troublest thou the harmony of these spheres? What harm have we done thee, and why, instead of wandering at hazard, dost thou not, like us, take up thy settled rank in the Court of the Sun? Why dost thou not join with us in chanting the evening hymn, attired, like us, in a robe of white clasped above the breast by one pure diamond? Why dost thou allow thy tresses, dripping with the sweat of fire, to float across the vapours of the night? If thou wouldst but take thy due place among the daughters of Heaven, how far more lovely thy mien! Thy face no more would be burnt up by the fatigue of thy unheard-of journeys; thy eyes would shine forth clear, and thy features smile with the tints of lily and of rose, like those of thy happy sisters; all the stars would recognise in thee a friend, and farfrom fearing thy transit, they would rejoice at thy approach. For thou wouldst be united to us by the indissoluble ties of universal harmony, and thy peaceable existence would be but one voice the more in the anthem of Infinite Love.”

But the comet replies:

“Deem not, my sister, that I could stray at chance and disturb the harmony of the spheres. God has traced for me my path, as thine for thee, and if my course appears to thee uncertain and erratic, it is because thy rays cannot reach so far as to embrace the outlines of the great ellipse which has been given me for my career. My burning tresses are the banner of God; I am the messenger of the Suns, and I bathe me in their fires that I may distribute them on my path to those young worlds which have not yet sufficient heat, and to the declining stars that shiver in their solitude. If I court fatigue in my long journeyings, if my beauty is less mild than thine, if my attire less virginal, I am no less than thee a worthy daughter of the sky. Leave in my hands the awful secret of my destiny, leave to me the horror which encompasses me, and slander me not if thou canst not understand me. None the less, shall I fulfil my appointed task. Happy the stars that take their rest and shine like young queens in the stately concourse of the Universe; for me, I am cast out, a wanderer, and claim the Infinite as my only fatherland. They accuse me of setting on fire the planets which I warm, and of terrifying the stars which I illume. I am reproached with disturbing the harmony of the worlds, because I do not revolve round their own fixed points, and because I bind them one to the other, setting my face alone toward the only centre of all the Suns. So rest assured, thou fairest star, I will not deprive thee of one ray of thy so peaceful light; the rather, I will squander on thee my warmth and my own life. Who knows, but I may vanish from the sky when I have consumed myself? My lot will still have been a noble one! For know that in the Temple of God the fires that burn are not all one. Ye are the light of the golden torches, but I, the flame of sacrifice. Let each accomplish her own destiny!”

Her words scarce uttered, the comet shakes her tresses loose, covers herself with her burning shield, and plunges once more into infinite space, where she appears to vanish for evermore.

It is thus that Lucifer appears and disappears in the allegories of the Bible.

One day, so says the book of Job, the sons of God had assembled in the presence of their Lord, and among them came Lucifer.

To him the Lord said: “Whence comest thou?”

And he replied:

“I have journeyed round the world and travelled throughout it.”

This is how a Gnostic gospel, re-discovered in the East by a learned traveller, explains, in treating of the symbolical Lucifer, the genesis of Light.

“Truth which is conscious of itself is living Thought. Truth is the Thought which is contained within itself; and formulated Thought is Speech. When the Eternal Thought sought for aformit said: ‘Let there be Light.’ Therefore this Thought that speaks is theWord, and this Word says: ‘Let there be Light, because the word itself is the light of thespirit.’”

The uncreated light, which is the divine Word, sends forth its rays because it wishes to be manifest, and when it says, “Let there be light,” it commands the eyes to open; it creates theIntelligences.

And, when God said: “Let there be light,” Intelligence was made and light appeared.

Then, the Intelligence which God had breathed forth, like a planet detached from the Sun, took the form of a splendid Angel and the heavens saluted him with the name of Lucifer.

Intelligence awoke and it fathomed its own depths as it heard this apostrophe of the divine Word, “Let there be Light.” It felt itself to be free, for God had commanded it so to be, and it answered, raising its head and spreading its wings, “I will not be Slavery.”

“Wilt thou be then Sorrow?” said the uncreated voice.

“I will be Liberty,” answered the Light.

“Pride will seduce thee,” replied the supreme voice, “and thou wilt give birth to Death.”

“I must needs combat with Death to conquer Life,” said once again the light created.

God then unloosed from his bosom the thread of splendour which held back the superb spirit, and as he watched him dive into the night, cutting in it a path of glory, he loved the child of his thought, and smiling with a smile ineffable, he murmured to himself: “How fair a thing was this Light!”

And Sorrow was the condition imposed upon the free being. If the chief of the angels had not dared confront the depths of night, the travail of God had not been complete, and the created light could not have separated itself from the light unrevealed.

Perhaps Lucifer, in plunging into the night, drew with him a shower of Stars and Sunsby the attraction of his glory? * * * * * * *

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