Karma and Rebirth

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

Page 54

INTERFERING WITH KARMA
himself does not understand Karma. There is but one Karma, though each part of the wholeness suffers the effects of what the smallest part has caused. My brother's suffering is my own and mine is his, and “in my brother's face I see my own unanswered agony”. To say of a suffering friend, "It is his Karma,” which is true, but to assume that therefore it is not yours too, is to prison the heart in the iron bars of illusion, and it is the heart which so regards its neighbour, not the Law, that is cold. Interfering with Karma
One cannot' interfere 'with Karma, as many seem to suppose. A man may have placed himself in a serious predicament, and a friend is fearful lest, in helping him, he is interfering' in the working out of his Karma. The friend fails to realize that it may be the man's Karma that he should be helped, and the help or withholding of it is just as much his Karma as his present suffering. The misconception probably arises froin the Western preoccupation with its neighbour's affairs, for we are so bent on social service' that we forget a greater duty still, our own improvement. Yet thc Biblical story of the inote and the beam should be borne in mind, and practised. There may be nothing finer than self-forgetfulness, but the very thought of whether or not one is interfering is self-remembrance, not forgetfulness, and he who helps wherever help is needed, and for the rest removes his own beams from his eye, is doing his duty, and no inan can do more. The question has been raised in extreme form by certain pacifists who, refusing to lend themselves to violence, equally refuse to help a dying man in an air-raid lest they should seem to be taking part in the war. Egotism could hardly go further, and such absorption in selfish thinking is pathetic. The Law of compassion, which never clashes with that of Karma, overrides all else.“ Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.”Karma will act according
1 The Voice of the Silence.
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