FEBRUARY 2011
FINDING BALANCE
Karma is the undeviating universal law of Nature that restores harmony, balance and equilibrium. Finding balance in one’s life is a path of study of Nature’s laws so that one can live in accordance with those laws. Maintaining balance is a path of action or duty continuously pursued and regulated by an understanding of karma. Physical nature alone is so vast that it may seem to be an impossible task to comprehend the laws of nature. Yet nature’s secrets are visible and manifested right before us and within us. If Man is a small copy of the Universe, it follows that "as above, so below." Nature’s secrets and the keys to finding balance lie within us. They may be known and grasped if we cultivate the practice of self-study. This is to be followed by self-discipline.
Looking within, we know immediately what it means to be in balance. Harmony in the outer world corresponds with inner tranquility. Emotional equilibrium exists when there are no stirrings of anger, jealousy, or sorrow. Inner tranquility also exists when our feelings of pleasure and joy are not extreme. There are events, seemingly beyond our control, which disturb our inner tranquility. There are thoughts, desires and actions, within our control, which either disturb or restore and maintain our inner balance. The inner life is not only where we can begin to understand the laws of nature, it is also where we can begin to gain control and find balance. The ancient sage, Epictetus, taught:
"Some things are within our control and some things are not. It is
only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned
to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner
tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible."
Theosophy, the accumulated wisdom of countless generations of sages, gives us this important clue. When we conduct our inner life and perform our outer duties in harmony with our Higher Self, which is the One Self in each and all, we are living in harmony with all that lives. Living in Harmony with our Higher Self requires recognition of the spiritual unity and identity of all beings with the One Self, or Absolute Deity. A prerequisite to this recognition is grasping the idea that we are not separate; therefore, separateness or selfishness in all its expressions must be restrained. This is only half of one’s duty. The other half is cultivating altruism in thought, word, and deed. As soon as we try to check, test and verify this teaching with our own experience, the inner life will be a laboratory where we can study the resulting emotional balance or disturbance, if we waver from our duty.
QUOTES ON BALANCE and HARMONY
In the article "Celestial Experience in Mundane Duties," B.P. Wadia quotes Mahatma K.H.:
Look to the future; see to it that the continual performance of duty under the guidance of a well-developed Intuition shall keep the balance well poised. Ah! if your eyes were opened, you might see such a vista of potential blessings to yourselves and mankind lying in the germ of the present hour's effort, as would fire with joy and zeal your souls!
Every tyro in Theosophy knows that present actions mould our future character as well as our environment. The performance of duty, day by day, has also its immediate recompense. The Master implies, in the words quoted above, that such performance would tend towards sustaining our balance and equanimity. The small, plain duties of life hourly call upon us to acquire skill in action as well as concentration of mind. - B.P. Wadia
It is a great mistake to suppose that an individual is the mere puppet of the past, the helpless victim of fate. The law of Karma is not fatalism, and a little consideration will show that it is possible for an individual to affect his own Karma. - W.Q. Judge
It has often been said that "when the materials are ready, the Architect will appear." So our work must be to get the material ready, and that means we have to get rid of the purely personal bias by making Theosophy a living power in our lives. - Robert Crosbie
Standing as we do in the balance position, the seesaw play between our two natures must be slowed down. The material life is not to be destroyed; it has to be made the vehicle of the Spiritual Light. - B.P. Wadia
The Theosophist who delights to call himself practical and logical, an abhorrer of mysticism, should try to see what the mystical Theosophist means, and the mystic one should read carefully the words of the practical member to the end that he may counterbalance himself. A wholly practical or entirely mystical mind is not well balanced. - W.Q. Judge
Every good as well as evil action has its effects, as palpably as the stone flung into calm water. The simile is trite, but it is the best ever conceived, so let us use it. The eddying circles are greater and swifter as the disturbing object is greater or smaller, but the smallest pebble, nay, the tiniest speck, makes its ripples. And this disturbance is not alone visible and on the surface. Below, unseen, in every direction - outward and downward - drop pushes drop until the sides and bottom are touched by the force. More, the air above the water is agitated, and this disturbance passes, as the physicists tell us, from stratum to stratum out into space forever and ever; an impulse has been given to matter, and that is never lost, can never be recalled! . . .