Karma and Rebirth

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

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THE DOCTRINE OF MERIT good acts acquire merit for the actor in that at some future date, in this life or a later one, the cause will bear its due effect. This is a fact, but it is a low, unworthy motive for the doing of good deeds. As the Chinese Taoist, Chuang-Tzu, proclaimed, * Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education." The reason is that behind such motive is the spur either of fear or else of low desire for the pleasure which the noble deed is believed to bring. This limitation of thought may serve, like blinkers, to keep the thinker to a simple ethical code, but will not produce enlightenment. In a talk to an American audience Krishnamurti said that such “ thought cannot escape from its limited action and reaction until it understands deeply and fully the cause and process of its own bondage”. When such limited thought expresses itself in action, he goes on, that action creates further limitation of thought. Into this simple reality reward and punishment have been introduced to deter so-called wrong action. If one is good--the good depending on limitation of thought, not upon understanding--then in the future or in the next life one will be suitably rewarded, and if one is not, one will be suitably punished. This element of fear, as reward and punishment, destroys understanding and love. If thought is influenced by reward and punishment, gain and loss, it cannot understand the craving that seeks reward and avoids punishment. Thought can only understand its own process if it does not identify itself with and cling to any of its own creations, any of its outgoing desires.
None the less, the doctrine of merit is a useful application of the Law of Karma to the daily round, for whatever the motive the habit of good deeds will purify the mind, and prepare it for greater widening of its scope. A better motive for right living is a wider appreciation of the Law and its relation to the Universe as a whole. With an understanding, however dim, of the basic unity of life and the interielation of all its members comes the desire to assist all life towards enlightenment. This, refined still further, awakens finally the highest springs of action, “to live by Law, acting the Law we live by without fear"'; so to
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