Karma

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House

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Personal-Ego in its succession to its karmic inheritance -often felt as a difficulty by the young student of Theosophy-will disappear; for it will be realized that the Ego that made the karma reaps the karma, the labourer that sowed the seed gathers in the harvest, though the clothes in which he worked as sower may have worn out during the interval between the sowing and the reaping; the Ego's astral garments have also fallen to pieces between seed time and harvest, and he reaps in a new suit of clothes; but it is "he" who sowed and who reaps, and if he sowed but little seed or seed badly chosen, it is he who will find but a poor harvest when as reaper he goeth forth.
In the early stages of the Ego's growth his progress will be extremely slow, for he will be led hither and thither by desire, following attractions on the physical plane; the mental images he generates will be mostly of the passional class, and hence the astro-mental images will be violent and short-lived rather than strong and far-reaching. According as mānasic elements enter into the composition of the mental image will be the endurance of the astro-mental. Steady, sustained thought will form clearly defined mental images, and correspondingly strong and enduring 1 See Birth and Evolution of the Soul.