Karma and Rebirth

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

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KARMA IN ACTION one's body in a swaying crowd, and each man's actions are to that extent the effect not merely of his own volition but of the mass volition of the crowd. Hence the well-known phenomena of 'mob psychology', the power of slogans, the whims of fashion, the speed of rumour and, generally, the suggestibility of the weaker by the stronger mind.
Motive, therefore, is the dominating factor in every act, for the act that springs from 'accident ', if such there be, will at any rate have less effect than the carefully intended act. Acting from the highest levels in his being, man is the creative and controlling force in the Universe ; acting from the lowest he is the One Life's and therefore his own worst enemy. He can, if he did but know it, control the forces of nature consciously as he at present uses them unconsciously to produce their incvitable effect. Whether the user of these forces is 'white magic' or 'black magic' depends on the motive alone. Every act is in accordance with or against the stream of progress. He who swims with the current will the sooner reach the sca; he who swims against it will sooner or later suffer for his determined folly and in the end, broken and exhausted, move unwillingly down to the self-same sea.
Hour by hour we are choosing our direction, and the Law with utter justice acts accordingly. The choice between right and wrong is difficult enough to make at times, but the choice is harder still when it lies between right and right. Each man has many duties and many loyalties, and when they conflict it is hard to decide which is the more 'right' of the two. Yet the choice must be made, on principle and, if the heart be stout enough, “in the scorn of consequence". Thercafter the effect on various planes will mirror the wisdom and the selflessness of the decision made. Better, the Wisdom seems to say, a firm decision which, when found to be wrong, is as fırınly changed and the punishment of error cheerfully borne than a vacillation which, if it breeds not error, breeds no right, and carries the weakling mind no further on the road to self-enlightenment.
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