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 his real soul altogether, and he—as he, 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 the Theosophist, 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 to prakriti, or matter; as opposed to purusha, or spirit.

“So Krishna says that all Karma is traceable to Upadhi, and hence to Prakriti. Karma itself depends upon conscious existence. Conscious existence entirely depends upon the constitution of man’s mind.... Upadhi is 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 this Karma that individual existence makes its appearance. On account of this Karmae individual existence is maintained, and it is on account of Karma that 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 this Karma.... Thus Karma, being the inevitable result of Prakriti, and Prakriti continuing to exist as long as you are a human being, it is useless to try to get rid of Karma.... When you renounce this desire (desire to do Karma other than from a sense of duty), Karma will become weaker and weaker in its ability to affect you, till at last you arrive at a condition in which you are not affected by Karma at all, and that condition is the condition of Mukti.”[[14]]

“Those philosophers who want to reject all Karma pretend to renounce it altogether. But that is an impossible task. No man, so long as he is a human being, can ever give up Karma altogether. 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 up Karma—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 up Karma, 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 with Karma in its various phases, it is difficult to understand how it is possible for a man to give up all Karma, unless he can annihilate his mind, or get into an eternal state of Sushupti (dreamless slumber). Moreover, if you have to give up all Karma, you have to give up good Karma as well as bad, for Karma, in its widest sense, is not confined to bad actions. If all the people in the world give up Karma, 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 up Karma, 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 whole Karma, and reduce themselves to a condition of eternal inactivity. And if you ask these people to follow this course, they may, instead of giving up Karma, simply become lazy, idle persons, who have not really given up anything. What is the meaning of the expression, to give up Karma? Krishna says that in abstaining from doing a thing there may be the effects of active Karma, and in active Karma there 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 that Karma? You may talk in the most metaphysical manner you please, you cannot get rid of Karma altogether.”

“Taking all these circumstances into consideration, and admitting the many mischievous consequences that will follow as the result of recommending every human being to give up Karma, 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 the Logos, 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 the Bhagavadgita[Bhagavadgita],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:—