Karma

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

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for the composition of the etheric double the elements suited to the qualities that are to be expressed through it, and this etheric double thus becomes a fitting karmic instrument for the Ego, giving it alike the basis for expression of the faculties it has evolved, and the limitations imposed upon it by its own past failures and wasted opportunities. This mould is guided by the Mahārājahs to the country, the race, the family, the social surroundings, which afford the most suitable field for the working out of the karma allotted to the particular life-span in question, that which the Hindu calls the prārabdha, or beginning, karma; i.e., that which is to be worked out in the opening life-period. In no one life can the accumulated karma of the past be worked out-no one instrument could be formed, no surroundings could be found, suitable for the expression of all the slowly evolved faculties of the Ego, nor affording all the circumstances necessary for reaping all the harvest sown in the past, for discharging all the obligations contracted towards other Egos with whom the incarnating soul has come into contact in the course of its long evolution. So much then of the total karma as can be arranged for in one life-period, has a suitable etheric double provided for it, the mould of that double being