Karma

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

Page 77

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Let us put the same thing again a little differently, for the conception is an important and a fruitful one. As knowledge grows, it becomes easier and easier to get rid of the karma of the past. Inasmuch as causes which are working out to their accomplishment, all come within the sight of the soul which is approaching its liberation, as it looks back over past lives, as it glances down the vista of centuries along which it has been slowly climbing, it is able to see there the way in which its bonds were made, the causes which it set in motion: it is able to see how many of those causes have worked themselves out and are exhausted, how many of those causes are still working themselves out. It is able not only to look backwards but also to look forwards and see the effects these causes will produce; so that, glancing in front, the effects that will be produced are seen, and glancing behind, the causes that will bring about these effects are also visible.
There is no difficulty in the supposition that just as you find in ordinary physical nature that knowledge of certain laws enables us to predict a result, and to see the law that brings that result about, so we can transfer this idea on to a higher plane, and can imagine a condition of the developed soul, in which it is able to see the karmic causes that it has set going behind