DECEMBER 2006

  Adapted from an interlodge symposium on “Universal Brotherhood and the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy”  held on June 10, 2006:
 

Part Four (continued)
THE LIVING POWER OF IDEAS

  When something happens to us, it is a consequence of things that we have done in the past.  Let’s say, for instance, somebody insults us, our typical reaction would be either of two things, either fight or flight.  Fight is to immediately respond to the insult in return, flight is to run away from the situation and brood about it, maybe complain to our friends:  Can you imagine what that person said?  The nerve of her!  And so forth.

   These are the two responses we tend to resort to and so what does that do karmically?  That only intensifies the karmic situation so we will continue to experience that effect, that karmic dance between these two souls, later on in this life, maybe in future incarnations. But there is another alternative.

   Let’s say somebody insults us and we have been studying Theosophy.  We have been studying about karma and we have been trying to put into practice accepting responsibility, recognizing effects as the results of our own actions.  And we say, “Well, no I don’t have to run and I don’t have to fight; I can stand here and make a difference.”  I could recognize that this person is in pain and that’s why they are insulting us.  I could recognize that if I do what I have done in the past, I only perpetuate the same situation; I can change it, I can forgive, I can look upon this person with compassion, I can extend the hand of friendship.  I might, if I have enough detachment, be able to say a little joke and defuse the whole situation.  And all that energy that has been wrapped up in that karmic cycle of cause and effect is now released.  And the necessity of coming into that experience again ceases and that energy that has been released can now be given to a whole new cycle of karma, a better cycle, a positive cycle, a cycle of compassion and friendship, a cycle of harmony.

   And we can do this with each and every situation in life because that is what karma does:  karma brings us, moment by moment, the results of all our actions so that we can learn from them and transform ourselves and go on and make a better future for ourselves and others.

   The twin law of karma is reincarnation.  We apply this because one of the most important aspects of our lives is our feeling about death.  And that feeling, more than any other, is fear.  We might try to avoid thinking about it,  we may repress the ideas and the fear but it is there, affecting us all the time.  The idea of reincarnation is the idea of immortality, that we are truly immortal beings at our core, that we will live forever.  The acceptance of this idea alone does much to mitigate the fear of death and replace it with courage.

    Reincarnation does something else, too.  It shows us that we are dual in nature, that there is a part of us that does live forever, the immortal soul that incarnates from one life to the next, taking on one body after another, always the same individual soul, growing and growing, learning, evolving.  But there is also the temporary us, the exterior us that we use for a single lifetime, the mortal part of us, our body, our feelings, ninety-nine percent of our thoughts, the lower self, the mortal self.

   For most people, for most of us in our stage of evolution, our energies, our thoughts, our concerns, are wrapped up in this single lifetime self, this covering, this mask, this personality.  And little is expended in behalf of the true Self, that is what we really are.  An idea of reincarnation lets us know that we should be acting for that Higher Self.  Every moment gives us a choice between acting for the momentary pleasure or the perennial joy.  When we go into the after-death condition, we throw away the personality and anything associated with it is cast away; we can’t take it with us.  Anything that we put into the larger Self we take with us, we have meditated on it in our after-death condition and we take it with us into our subsequent life. 

   The third idea:  evolution.  There is a lot to say about evolution.  Clearly we are here to make ourselves better and that means perfecting ourselves in our senses, in our feelings, in our minds, in our thoughts, in our motives, in every aspect of ourselves.  We are here to evolve, and the way we do this actually is by perfecting the virtues, the noble virtues: compassion, selflessness, generosity, courage, fortitude, all of them.  Not because it is expected of us by others, not because we have been told by others that we are going to be thought of as better by others, but because this is the gateway to knowledge and to realization.  This is the way we will have the skill and the knowledge and the power to perceive the Self and to act on that basis, to act for and as the Self of all. 

   We will close with one other very important application of the teachings of Theosophy, and that is to share them.  Because there is no greater tool than these ideas and their application if we want to attain the true goals of life, if we want to have true peace and joy in our lives and in the lives of the entire world.  That is why Theosophy is in the world; that is why the United Lodge of Theosophists is in the world; and that is what we can do each and every moment.


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