Karma

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

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astro-mental images, and there will be a distinct purpose in the life, a clearly recognized ideal to which the mind is constantly recurring and on which it continually dwells: this mental image will become a dominating influence in the mental life, and the energies of the soul will be largely directed by it.
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Let us now study the making of karma by way of the mental image. During a man's life he forms an innumerable assemblage of mental images; some are strong, clear, continually reinforced by repeated mental impulses; others are weak, vague, just formed and then as it were forsaken by the mind; at death the soul finds itself possessed of myriads of these mental images, and they vary in character well as in strength and definiteness. Some are of spiritual aspirations, longings to be of service, gropings after knowledge, vows of self-dedication to the higher life; some are purely intellectual, clear gems of thought, receptacles of the results of deep study; some are emotional and passional, breathing love, compassion, tenderness, devotion, anger, ambition, pride, greed; some are from bodily appetites, stimulated by uncurbed desire, and represent thoughts of gluttony, drunkenness, sensuality. Each soul has its own consciousness, crowded with these mental images,