Karma and Rebirth

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

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WHAT KARMA EXPLAINS that a given tribe or race by hereditary evolution of its inherent abilities grows rapidly from mediocrity to genius, but that an ever higher standard of souls 'find in the rising race opportunity for their own development. In due course, when the cycle has reached its grcatest height, these great ones, far on the road of genius in their several ways, begin to leave, and with the assistance of external causes, themselves Karmic, such as disease, sterility, conquest or moral decay, the race dies out. The Cause of War
One of the obvious cycles is that of peace and war. War is an effect, the mass-effect of mass thinking, and once the cause is produced the effect is inevitable. The cause of war, as of all evil, is the 'Three Fires 'burning in the human mind, desire, hatred and illusion. Hatred is born of illusion, the illusion that life is separate, the ignorance of man's essential unity, and desire, or its negative aspect, fear, is the product of and in turn engenders hate. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. It is the constant presence in our midst of every element of strife and opposition, and the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and individuals into Cains and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of the 'ways of Providence.' Hate is a force, a tremendous force, and mass hate slowly accumulates as a thunder-cloud in the sky. When the opposing thought-forms on the psychic plane have reached a point of over-loading it needs but the lightning flash to cause a discharge. But the analogy is insufficient. When the thunder-cloud has fallen the tension is over ; the discharge itself does not, in the ordinary sense, produce another cloud. But in war there is hate, deliberate cruelty, revenge and lust. All these are causes, and each must bear its inevitable effect. Thus wars are the cause of wars, and a 'war to end war' is one of the wilder illusions of the human mind.
1 The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky.
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