Hence hell is not a mythical place or condition after death in some unknown region specially set apart by the Almighty for the punishment of his children, but is in very truth our own globe, for it is on the earth, in earth-lives experienced in human bodies, that we are punished for bad deeds previously done, and meet with happiness and pleasure as rewards for old merit.
When one sees, as is so common, a good man suffering much in his life, the question naturally arises, "Has Karma anything to do with it, and is it just that such a person should be so afflicted?" For those who believe in Karma it is quite just, because this man in a previous life must have done such acts as deserve punishment now. And, similarly, the wicked man who is free from suffering, happy and prosperous, is so because in a previous existence he had been badly treated by his fellows or had experienced much suffering. And the perfect justice of Karma is well illustrated in his case because, although now favored by fortune, he, being wicked, is generating causes which, when he shall be reborn, will operate then to punish him for his evil-doing now.
Some may suppose that the Ego should be punished after death, but such a conclusion is not logical. For evil deeds committed here on the objective plane could not with any scientific or moral propriety be punished on a plane which is purely subjective. And such is the reason why so many minds, both of the young and old, have rejected and rebelled against the doctrine of a hellfire in which they would be eternally punished for commission of sin on earth. Even when unable to formulate the reason in metaphysical terms, they instinctively knew that it would be impossible to remove the scene of compensation from the very place where the sin and confusion had been done and created. When the disciples of Jesus asked him if the man who was born blind was thus brought into the world for some sin he had committed they had in mind this doctrine of Karma, just as all the Hindûs and Buddhists have when they see some of their fellows crippled or deformed or deprived of sight.
The theory above hinted at of the person at death throwing out from himself the new personality, so to speak, ready to await the time when the Ego should return to earth seeking a new body, is a general law that operates in a great many other instances besides the birth or death of a being. It is that which is used by the Theosophists to explain the relations between the moon and the earth. For, as the moon is held by them to be the planet on which we lived before reaching the earth and before there was any such earth whatever; and that, when our so-called satellite came to die, all the energy contained in it was thrown out into space, where in a single vortex it remained until the time came for that energy to be again supplied with a body—this earth—so the same law prevails with men, the single units in the vast aggregate which is known among advanced Theosophists as the great Manu. Men being, as to their material envelope, derived from the moon, must follow the law of their origin, and therefore the Buddhist priest says, as quoted: "At the death of a being nothing goes out from him to the other world for his rebirth; but by the efficacy—or, to use a more figurative expression, by the ray—of influence which Kamma emits, a new being is produced in the other world very identical with the one who died away," for in this "new being" is held all the life of the deceased. The term "being," as applied to it may be taken by us with some qualification. It is more properly a mass of energy devoid of conscience and crowded with desires of the person from whom it emanated; and its special province is to await the return of the individuality and form for that the new body in which it shall suffer or enjoy. Each man is therefore his own creator under the great Cosmic laws that control all creations. A better term in place of "creation" is "evolution," for we, from life to life, are engaged in evolving out of the material provided in this Manvantara new bodies at every turn of the wheel of rebirth. The instruments we use in this work are desire and will. Desire causes the will to fix itself on objective life; in that plane it produces force and out of that comes matter in its objective form.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] The Rev. T. P. Terunnanse, High-Priest at Dodanduwa, Ceylon.
XVI.
Very many Western people say that this Oriental doctrine of Karma is difficult to understand, being fit only for educated and thoughtful persons. But in India, Ceylon and Burmah, not to mention other Asiatic countries, the whole mass of the people accept and seem to understand it. The reason for this lies probably in the fact that they also firmly believe in Reïncarnation, which may be said to be the twin doctrine to Karma. Indeed, the one cannot be properly considered without keeping the other in view, for Karma—whether as punishment or reward—could have no actual or just operation upon the Ego unless the means for its operation were furnished by Reïncarnation.
Our deserts are meted out to us while we are associating in life with each other, and not while we are alone, nor in separateness. If being raised to power in a nation or becoming possessed of wealth is called a reward, it would lose all value were there no people to govern and no associated human beings with and upon whom we could spend our wealth and who might aid us in satisfying our manifold desires. And so the law of Reïncarnation drags us into life again and again, bringing with us uncounted times the various Egos whom we have known in prior births. This is in order that the Karma—or causes—generated in company with those Egos may be worked out, for to take us off separately into an unknown hell, there to receive some sort of punishment, or into an impossible serio-comic heaven to meet our reward, would be as impossible as unjust. Hence, no just-hanged murderer absolved by priest or praising Jesus can escape. He, together with his victim, must return to this earth, each to aid the other in adjusting the disturbed harmony, during which process each makes due compensation. With this doctrine we restore justice to her seat in the governance of men, for without it the legal killing of the murderer after condemnation is only a half remedy, since no provision is made by the State for the being hurled out of the body nor for the dependants he may have left behind, and, still further, nothing is done for those who in the family of the murderer survive him.
But the Theosophical sages of all ages push the doctrine of Karma beyond a mere operation upon incarnated men. They view all worlds as being bound together and swayed by Karma. As the old Hindû book, the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, says, "all worlds up to that of Brahmâ are subject to Karma." Hence it acts on all planes. So viewing it, they say that this world as it is now conditioned is the actual result of what it came to be at the beginning of the pralaya or grand death which took place billions upon billions of years ago. That is, the world evolves just as man does. It is born, it grows old, it dies, and it is reïncarnated. This goes on many times, and during those incarnations it suffers and enjoys in its own way for its previous evolutions. For it the reward is a greater advance along the line of evolution, and the punishment is a degraded state. Of course, as I said in a former article, these states have man for their object and cause, for he is the crown of all evolution. And, coming down from the high consideration of great cosmic spaces and phenomena, the Theosophist is taught to apply these laws of Karma and Reïncarnation to every atom in the body in especial and apart from the total Karma. Since we are made up of a mass of lives, our thoughts and acts affect those atoms or lives and impress them with a Karma of their own. As the Oriental thinkers say, "not a moment passes without some beings coming to life in us, acquiring Karma, dying, and being reïncarnated."