Karma and Rebirth

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

Page 55

SOME DIFFICULTIES CONSIDERED to its nature, and needs no help from any man. He who acts according to his heart, as controlled by experience and sweet reasonableness, may act in error, but only by error will he learn his error. For the rest he will earn the merit of doing what he feels to be right, and no man can do more. Vicarious Atonement
Those who have studied the Buddhism of the Northern or Mahayana School will have read of the doctrine of merit, and of certain men or bodies of men being fields of merit' for the commonweal. It is obvious that a person with a lovely mind will shed a radiance round him in which all may share, and a monastery of persons leading a holy life will radiate its own vibration. But when it is suggested that their efforts will neutralize the ‘ evil' Karma of others the door is open to the dangerous doctrine of ' vicarious atonement'. The dangers are obvious. “Work out your own salvation,” said the Buddha, and there would be chaos indeed if any Being, however great, could 'forgive' another's sins. Each time that a repentant sinner is assured that the effects of causes he himself sct in operation can be nullified by forgiveness from any source, he is being taught an untruth which cannot but imperil the future development of his soul. Each time a priest pronounces absolution over some terrified being whom the shadows of the gallows, perhaps, has frightened into 'repentance' after a long life of selfishness and crime, he assumes an authority and a power which is absolutely at variance with the law to which he owes his own existence.1
The doctrines of vicarious atonement and Karma are therefore incompatible. But the doctrine of vicarious salvation is a little different, and though casily abused, has a foundation in one aspect of the Karmic Law. Remembering man's essential unity, both with other forms of life and with the Law which is another aspect of the Namelessness, it may be seen how the goodly deeds of one may benefit and so hasten, though never
1 Reincarnation, Anderson.
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