Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): Christmas Humphereys
Publisher: Albemarle Street London

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INTRODUCTION
THERE are many books on the twin doctrines of Karma and Rebirth, but the tendency of each new publication is to present the subject as more and more mechanical, until so nearly does this timeless, universal Law approximate to a soulless Fate that what is in fact a reign of law becomes a reign of terror, and compassion, described in The Voice of the Silence as “the Law of Laws, eternal Harmony”, is utterly ignored. The cause of this degradation is probably twofold ; first, the general tendency of Western thought to materialize whatever spiritual principles swim into its ken, and secondly, the increasing departure from the available sources of our knowledge of the doctrine, with the corresponding reliance of cach writer on previous textbooks and his own ideas.
In the result, most Western writers on the subject confine themselves to the “lower knowledge” described by the Vedanta philosophers, which is sufficient for those too lazy to awaken in themselves the higher centres from which alone the “higher knowledge” may be seen. But though the law of Karma must, on its own plane, remain to us unknowable, a thoughtful study of the sources from which our knowledge is derived will give the genuine student a vision of essential principles which, if not yet of the “higher knowledge " reserved for the few, may serve to awaken the higher centres through which, as windows on to the Absolute, the Truth may finally be known.
The present volume is therefore a humble attempt to reconsider the subject in the light of such ‘ authorities 'as are available and from a more spiritual and therefore less mechanical point of view. The doctrine is too old and too widely held to be regarded as the property of any one religion, but the Scriptures of the Hindus and Buddhists provide the oldest available sources.