English
And yet another modification might be introduced into the figure, with which I have not thought it worth while to embarrass the drawing, which should give a somewhat greater breadth to each parallelogram as it swerves from the main centre line in either direction representing the increased efficiency of individual Free Will as the Ego inclines more towards spirituality of either sort. This would hasten the possibility of attain- ing the completely horizontal position as compared with the rate of progress that would be available if the more Spiritualised lives were as narrowly hemmed in by the walls of Karma and circumstance as those on the normal centre line. © I hope it will not be supposed that in the arbitrary length and breadth I have assigned to the parallelo- grams in the foregoing diagram I have been endeavour- 148 ‘THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. ing to indicate the extent to which Free Will is a potent factor in determining the events of our lives. Perhaps if we correlated the figure with events alone, the lateral dimensions would have to be much narrower. But reason about Necessity however much we please, even with the light of the present occult interpretation to fortify the conception, we shall always, when the strain ‘of action comes on, proceed on the practical assump- tion that we have a liberty of choice before us. And there is not much danger for any one with intuitions sufficiently awake to take in the full significance of the occult interpretation, of his taking, as it were, an unfair advantage of his intellectual knowledge of the occult law. Should any one argue after any given surrender to temptation, ‘‘ Now the thing is done, and therefore it could not have been left undone, and it is useless to make a fuss about it,” then the answer would be that the application of such a feeling, state of consciousness, or spirit, to the Karmic result just accomplished would be the very worst possible spirit in which it could be enveloped for its transmission through future ages as a new Karmic force. It must be remembered, after all is said that can be said about the lateral play of Free Will as regards acts, that the law concerned is mainly related to thought in reference to acts. For the last few pages I have been dealing with an all-important qualification of the main rule, but let us now revert to the consideration of the main rule, always keeping the qualification at the back of our minds, but treating the extent to which Free Will can make the centre line of evolution swerve FREE WILL AND KARMA. 149 to the right or left as having chiefly to do with the manner in which we surround the acts of our lives with a Karmic aura imposed on them by our thoughts. Rightly appreciated, the whole doctrine laid down should tend to elevate and dignify life. It exalts, to begin with, the importance of thought regarded in itself as a force in Nature. Too often people imagine that thought is a casual and unimportant concomitant of acts. Take care of the acts, and the thoughts will take care of themselves, may be a view of the subject that many people will consider to embody a sufficiently heavy tax upon the good aspirations of a fallible humanity. That we may be somehow held responsible for what we do, may be admitted, but our thoughts, it may be argued, are beyond our own control. The lessons of esoteric philosophy are directly at variance with that popular delusion. Our thoughts are by no means beyond our own control, and for them, in a very high degree, we shall be “held responsible,” to use a familiar phrase, which can easily be thrown into a more philosophical form. A very crude and imperfect idea, which points the same way as the doctrine here laid down, is embodied in the frequently-expressed theory that after all “motive ”’ is the great thing ; that people may perform the most mischievous acts and yet be blameless in the sight of Providence if they do whatever they do from a good motive. That notion is only to be recognised as sound, in so far as it contains the germ of the far more subtle idea that the Karmic efficiency of acts is greatly qualified by the spirit in which they are 150 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. performed. It is in its straightforward meaning both incomplete and false, as far as it goes. A good motive will not extinguish the Karma of a bad act any more than a previous belief that a piece of iron you may touch is cold will prevent it from burning you if it is really hot. The act done will reverberate through time and produce its consequences, and if these are evil, they will sometimes, under the infallible operation of the Karmic law, react on their author. Motive may qualify their Karmic effect certainly, but if an act be evil, good motive may simply operate to blind the agent to its evil character, to prevent the development in his mind of the thoughts which bring with them remorse for the evil act, and hence the extinction of the Karma of the act. The tendency to repeat such acts, on the contrary, would be established in the mind, and that line of Karma would be intensified till in later lives it developed, perhaps, to a terrible degree the suffering which such a line of action would be calculated to produce. Moreover, when people talk about good motives excusing bad acts, they speak without regard to the complexities of old Karma, which really produce the acts. They treat them as an altogether fresh departure, which a more philosophical comprehension of the matter shows us that they are not. Of course it is needless to grant that a man who does a bad act from a bad motive is worse than another who does a ‘bad act from a good motive, and up to a certain point the good motive doctrine may be better than none for unphilosophical thinkers. But it is a doctrine that will not carry any one very far on the road to a true FREE WILL AND KARMA. 151 conception of ethics, and, above all, it contributes nothing whatever to the elucidation of the mystery concerning Free Will and Necessity, which the corres- ponding occult doctrine so satisfactorily furnishes. With that profound reflection before us, it may be worth while to look back at the pitiable shifts by which a corrupt theology and a conventional system of meta- physics—ignoring the sequence of continuous earth lives—have endeavoured to grapple with the plain contradictions of Free Will and Necessity, applied to the one life. The Articles of Religion, for instance, of the Church of England, inform us—in the interests of the necessitarian theory—that ‘‘ Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath con- stantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour,’’—certain other vessels in large number being accordingly made to dishonour, and provided for in a very different way. The chosen people “ by grace obey the calling,’ and walk religiously in good works. This, of course, is a naked statement so far of the necessity which makes of men the automata of a Deity who would, by that hypothesis, have decided before the founda- tions of the world were laid, to carry it on on principles revolting to the moral sense. But though the Articles may not hesitate to libel Divinity, they are quite ready to contradict themselves, and leave their disciples to take which meaning they prefer. So the article 152 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. containing the words just quoted ends by saying that ‘we must,” after all, ‘‘ receive God’s promises in such wise as they may be generally set forth to us in Holy Scriptures.” Inasmuch as Holy Scriptures leave room for many readings, the adherents of Free Will and justice, as a principle of Divine government, are thus empowered to accept the article set forth if they so please, not in the sense the words convey, but as meaning diametrically the reverse. A is B; that is the doctrine of the Church, but at the same time, if you think that A is not B, then you inay work it out that way, and remain, nevertheless, a faithful believer of the Church’s doctrine. This is as though one should teach geometry by saying the three angles of a triangle were made to equal four right angles before even the foundations of the earth were laid; but, nevertheless, these facts may be received if you are obstinate about them, subject to the general conclusions derived from the study of Fuclid; and with this reflection to ease your mind, please go on saying, whenever you talk of such things, that four is the proper number for good people to put their faith in. Metaphysicians hardly deal with the subject more logically than the church, Materialistic philosophy would, as a rule, plump for “ uniformity,” a pleasanter word than necessity or predestination, but meaning exactly the same thing in this concatenation. Free Will then goes irretrievably overboard, and with it justice in the government of the world and all conjec- tures concerning consciousness prolonged beyond the grave. The Materialist and the Calvinist join hands in FREE WILL AND KARMA. 153 this matter, and there may not be much to choose between the view of the school which makes Divinity a myth and the soul an attribute of matter, on the one hand, and on the other that which recognises a God only to invest Him with moral attributes that would disgrace the most degraded manhood. However, both the Materialist and the Calvinist are so far logical ; that may be granted to them.