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make them .... hence the urgency of popularising the karma doctrine.44
Our Shackles :
We have already noted so far that every action and thought whether good or bad, invariably affects our lives by generating corresponding reaction. Raynor Johnson has aptly observed that the universal principle of cause and effect or Newtonian law of action and reaction of the physicists, becomes the Karmic law of the spiritualists when applied to our lives at physical, mental and sentimental levels, covering our actions, thoughts and emotions under its jurisdiction. From our experience of life, we realise that every individual's existence is subject to certain limitations; No one can claim complete freedom from these constraints. Man has waged many wars in the hope of gaining control over his external circumstances and modifying them in a way that would permit him to enjoy the liberty of action and freedom of thought. However, such an independent state of existence free from the compulsions of circumstances and struggle for survival has remained only a distant dream for most of us because the fundamental cause of our self-imprisonment is lying within ourselves and not in the external world. We all are slaves of our passions, cravings, habits, ambitions, prejudices and preferences. Not only political or socio-economic conditions but, our intellect and physique, environment and mental make-up-all have a sway upon us. We all are prisoners incarcerated in the cells of our making; give or take a difference of few feet in diameter, our freedom of movement is restricted to the outer limits of our individual circles of captivity with each of us pegged to its hub with a leash. For most of us this zone of confinement is quite narrow and claustrophobic, but it is a pity that we are neither aware of its existence nor mind its constraint.
Exposition of Karma principle takes us to the very core
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