Karma and Rebirth

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

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CHAPTER III
WHAT KARMA IS NOT
Karma is not new. It is not a new theory of life to be idly discussed by the dilettante inind. Either it is a fundamental Law of the Universe or it is untrue.
It is not an Eastern doctrine, a product of an Eastern mode of thought. If it is true, it embraces not only East and West but the whole Universe, and the lightest study of Western literature for the last threc thousand years will show that it has been held as true by most of the greatest minds. Karma not anti-Christian
It is not opposed to Christianity, nor even incompatible with it. The principal differences between Christianity and Buddhism are in the nature and power of God and the nature of the ' soul'. The Buddhists say that God is so great that not only is this ultimate Principle absolutely impersonal, but it is" beyond the range and reach of thought" and therefore even unnameable. "That', as the Hindus call it, has no say in the affairs of any of its myriad parts, for all are parts or aspects of one inseverable Wholc. To this extent and to this only Buddhists are atheists, in that they refuse to demean the ultimate Namelessness to the status of a tribal deity. On the question of soul the difference is subtle yet profound. The Christian believes that his soul, being' divine ', is immortal, and will go, when purged of sin, to heaven. The Buddhist proves, by sound analysis, that the soul or character, the ray of the One or spark of God or however it be described, so far from being immortal is changing cvery second of time (anicca), is lacking in any permanently separate or special factor which makes it different from any other aspect of the parent One (anatta), and being a (temporarily) separated part of the Whole, a child of illusion wandering in
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