{"id":127,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=127"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:05","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:05","slug":"18-karma-will-and-consequence-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16\/18-karma-will-and-consequence-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-18_Karma Will and Consequence.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nKarma, Will and Consequence<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span>     
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/span>        W<\/font><\/span><\/b>ILL<\/font>,
\nKarma and consequence are the three steps of the Energy which moves the
\nuniverse. But Karma and consequence are only the outcome of will or even its
\nforms; will gives them their value and without it they would be nothing, nothing
\nat least to man the thinking and growing soul and nothing, it may be hazarded,
\nto the Spirit of which he is a flame and power as well as a creature. The thing
\nwe first see or imagine we see, when we look at the outward mechanism of the
\nuniverse, is energy and its works, action and consequence. But by itself and
\nwithout the light of an inhabiting will this working is only a huge soulless
\nmechanism, a loud rattling of crank and pulley, a monstrous pounding of spring
\nand piston. It is the presence of the Spirit and its will that gives a meaning
\nto the action and it is the value of the result to the soul that gives its
\nprofound importance to all great or little consequence. It would not matter to
\nanyone or anything, not even to the cosmos itself, though this universal stir
\ncame to an end tomorrow or had never been created, if these suns and systems
\nwere not the field of a consciousness which there rolls out its powers, evolves
\nits works, enjoys its creations, plans and exults in its immense aims and
\nsequences. Spirit and consciousness and power of the Spirit and Ananda are the
\nmeaning of existence. Take away this spiritual significance and this world of
\nenergy becomes a mechanical fortuity or a blind and rigid Maya.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nThe
\nlife of man is a portion of this vast significance, and since it is in him that
\non this material plane it comes out in its full capacity of meaning, a very
\nimportant and central portion. The Will in the universe works up to him in the
\ncreative steps of its energy and makes of his nature a chariot of the gods on
\nwhich it stands within the action, looks out on its works from the very front
\nand no longer only from behind or above Nature’s doings and moves on to the
\nultimate consequences and the complete evolution of its purpose. The will of man
\nis the agent of the Eter-<\/p>\n

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nal
\nfor the unveiling of his secret meaning in the material creation. Man’s mind
\ntakes. up all the knots of the problem and works them out by the power of the
\nSpirit within him and brings them nearer to the full force and degree of their
\nindividual and cosmic solutions. This is his dignity and his greatness and he
\nneeds no other to justify and give a perfect value to his birth and his acts and
\nhis passing and his return to birth, a return which must be – and what is there
\nin it to grieve at or shun? – until the work of the Eternal in him is perfected
\nor the cycles rest from the glory of their labour.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nThis
\nview of the world is the standpoint from which we must regard the question of
\nman’s conscious will and its dealings with life, because then all things fall
\ninto their natural place and we escape from exaggerated and depreciated
\nestimates. Man is a conscious soul of the Eternal, one with the Infinite in his
\ninmost being, and the Spirit within him is master of his acts and his fate. For
\nfate is fatum<\/i>, the form of act and creation declared beforehand by a Will
\nwithin him and the universe as the thing to be done, to be achieved, to be
\nworked out and made the self-expression of his spiritual being. Fate is adrsta<\/i>,
\nthe unseen thing which the Spirit holds hidden in the plan of its vision, the
\nconsequence concealed from the travailing mind absorbed in the work of the
\nmoment by the curtained nearnesses or the far invisible reaches of Time. Fate is
\nniyati, the thing willed and executed by Nature, who is power of the Spirit,
\naccording to a fixed law of its self-governed workings. But since this Eternal
\nand Infinite, our greater Self, is also the universal being, man in the universe
\nis inseparably one with all the rest of existence, not a soul working out its
\nisolated spiritual destiny and nature while all other beings are nothing but his
\nenvironment and means or obstacles, – that they are indeed, but they are much
\nmore to him, – which is the impression cast on the mind by the thought or the
\nreligions that emphasise too much his centre of individuality or his aim of
\npersonal salvation. He is not indeed solely a portion of the universe. He is an
\neternal soul which, though limited for certain temporal purposes in its outward
\nconsciousness, has to learn to enlarge itself out of those limits, to find and
\nmake effective its unity with the eternal Spirit who informs and transcends<\/p>\n

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the
\nuniverse. That spiritual necessity is the truth behind the religious dogma.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nBut
\nalso he is one in God and one in Nature with all beings in the cosmos, touches
\nand includes all other souls, is linked to all powers of the Being that are
\nmanifest in this cosmic working. His soul, thought, will, action are intimate
\nwith the universal soul, thought, will and action. All acts on and through him
\nand mixes with him and he acts too on all and his thought and will and life mix
\nin and become a power of the one common life. His mind is a form and action of
\nthe universal mind. His call is not to be busy and concerned only with his own
\ngrowth and perfection and natural destiny or spiritual freedom. A larger action
\ntoo claims him. He is a worker in a universal work; the life of others is his
\nlife; world-consequence and the world-evolution are also his business. For he is
\none self with the selves of all other beings.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 
\n The
\ndealings of our will with Karma and consequence have to be envisaged in the
\nlight of this double truth of man’s individuality and man’s universality. And
\nseen in this light" the question of the freedom of our individual will
\ntakes on another appearance. It becomes clear enough that our ego, our outward
\npersonality can be only a minor, a temporal, an instrumental form of our being.
\nThe will of the ego, the outward, the mentally personal will which acts in the
\nmovement cannot be free in any complete or separate sense of freedom. It cannot
\nso be free because it is bound by its partial and limited nature and it is
\nshaped by the mechanism of its ignorance, and again because it is an
\nindividualised form and working of the universal energy and at every moment
\nimpinged upon and modified and largely shaped by environing wills and powers and
\nforces. But also it cannot so be free because of the greater Soul in us behind
\nthe mind which determines works and consequence according to the will in its
\nbeing and the nature, its power of being, not in the moment but in the long
\ncontinuities of Time, not solely by the immediate adaptation to the environment,
\nbut by its own previous intention which has shaped the environment and already
\npredetermined in great part the present act and consequence. The inward will in
\nthe being which is in intimacy with that Power is the<\/p>\n

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\n Page
\n\u2013 148<\/p>\n

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\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

real
\nwill and this outward thing only an instrumentation ,for a working out from
\nmoment to moment, a spring of the karmic mechanism. That inward will we find,
\nwhen we get back to it, to be a free will, not armoured in a separate liberty,
\nbut free in harmony with the freedom of the Spirit guiding and compelling Nature
\nin all souls and in all happenings. This thing our outward mind cannot see
\neasily because the practical truth which it feels is the energy of Nature at
\nonce working on us from without and forming too our action from within and
\nreacting upon herself by the mental will, her instrument, to continue her
\nself-shaping for farther Karma and farther consequence. Yet are we aware of a
\nself and the presence of this self imposes on our minds the idea of someone who
\nwills, someone who shapes even the nature and is responsible for consequence.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nTo
\nunderstand one must cease to dwell exclusively on the act and will of the moment
\nand its immediate consequences. Our present will and personality are bound by
\nmany things, by our physical and vital heredity, by a past creation of our
\nmental nature, by environmental forces, by limitation, by ignorance. But our
\nsoul behind is greater and older than our present personality. The soul is not
\nthe result of our heredity, but has prepared by its own action and affinities
\nthis heredity. It has drawn around it these environmental forces by past Karma
\nand consequence. It has created in other lives the mental nature of which now it
\nmakes use. That ancient soul of long standing, sempiternal in being, purusah
\npur<\/i><\/span>\u00e3nah san<\/span><\/i>\u00e3tanah,<\/span><\/i> has accepted
\nthe outward limitation, the outward ignorance as a means of figuring out in a
\nrestriction of action from moment to moment the significance of its infinity and
\nthe sequence of its works of power. To live in this knowledge is not to take
\naway the value and potency of the moment’s will and act, but to give it an
\nimmensely increased meaning and importance. Then each moment becomes full of
\nthings infinite and can be seen taking up the work of a past eternity and
\nshaping the work of a future eternity. Our every thought, will, action carries
\nwith it its power of future self-determination and is too a help or a hindrance
\nfor the spiritual evolution of those around us and a force in the universal
\nworking. For the soul in us takes in the influences it receives from others<\/p>\n

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\n
\n<\/div>\n

for
\nits own self-determination and gives out influences which the soul in them uses
\nfor their growth and experience. Our individual life becomes an immensely
\ngreater thing in itself and is convinced too of an abiding unity with the march
\nof the universe.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nAnd
\nKarma and consequence also get a wider meaning. At present we fix too much on
\nthe particular will and act of the moment and a particular consequence in a
\ngiven time. But the particular only receives its value by all of which it is a
\npart, all from which it comes, all to which it moves. We fix too much also on
\nthe externalities of Karma and consequence, this good or that bad action and
\nresult of action. But the real consequence which the soul is after is a growth
\nin the manifestation of its being, an enlarging of its range and action of
\npower, its comprehension of delight of being, its delight of creation and
\nself-creation, and not only its own but the same things in others with which its
\ngreater becoming and joy are one. Karma and consequence draw their meaning from
\ntheir value to the soul; they are steps by which it moves towards the perfection
\nof its manifested nature. And even when this object is won, our action need not
\ncease, for it will keep its value and be a greater force of help for all these
\nothers with whom in self we are one. Nor can it be said that it wiJ1 have no
\nself-value to the soul grown aware of freedom and infinity; for who shall
\npersuade me that my infinity can only be an eternal full stop, an endless
\nrepose, an infinite cessation? Much rather should infinity be eternally capable
\nof an infinite self-expression.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 
\n The
\nbirths of the soul are the series of a constant spiritual evolution, and it
\nmight well seem that when the evolution is finished, and that must be, it might
\nat first appear, when the soul involved in ignorance returns to self-knowledge,
\nthe series of our births too ought to come to a termination. But that is only
\none side of the matter, one long act here of the eternal drama, doing, Karma.
\nThe Spirit we are is not only an eternal consciousness and eternal being; its
\ncharacters are an eternal power of being and an eternal Ananda. Creation is not
\nto the Spirit a trouble and an anguish, but a delight expressed, even though in
\nthe entirety of its depths inexpressible, fathomless, endless, inexhaustible. It
\nis only the limited action of mind in the ignorance<\/p>\n

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straining
\nafter possession and discovery and unable to find the concealed power of the
\nSpirit that makes of the delight of action and creation a passion or suffering:
\nfor, limited in capacity and embarrassed by life and body, it has yet desires
\nbeyond its capacity, because it is the instrument of a growth and the seed. of
\nan illimitable self-expression and it has the pain of the growth and the pain of
\nthe obstacle and the pain of the insufficiency of its action and delight. But
\nlet this struggling self-creator and doer of works once grow into the
\nconsciousness and power of the secret infinite Spirit within it and all this
\npassion and suffering passes away into an immeasurable delight of liberated
\nbeing and its liberated action.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

         
\nThe
\nBuddhist perception of Karma and suffering as inseparable, that which drove the
\nBuddha to the search for a means of the extinction of the will to be, is only a
\nfirst phase and partial appearance. To find self is the cure of suffering,
\nbecause self is infinite possession and perfect satisfaction. But to find self
\nin quiescence is not the whole meaning of the spiritual evolution, but to find
\nit too in its power of being; for being is not only eternal status, but also
\neternal movement, not only rest, but also action. There is a delight of rest and
\na delight of action, but in the wholeness of the Spirit these two things are no
\nlonger contraries, but one and inseparable. The status of the Spirit is an
\neternal calm, but also its self-expression in world-being is without any
\nbeginning or end, because eternal power means an eternal creation. When we gain
\nthe one, we need not lose its counterpart and consequence. To get to a
\nfoundation is not to destroy all capacity for superstructure.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 
\n Karma
\nis nothing but the will of the Spirit in action, consequence nothing but the
\ncreation of will. What is in the will of being, expresses itself in "Karma
\nand consequence. When the will is limited in mind, Karma appears as a bondage
\nand a limitation, consequence as a reaction or an imposition. But when the will
\nof the being is infinite in the Spirit, Karma and consequence become instead the
\njoy of the creative Spirit, the construction of the eternal mechanist, the word
\nand drama of the eternal poet, the harmony of the eternal musician, the play of
\nthe eternal child. This lesser, bound, seemingly separate<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n
\n<\/div>\n

evolution
\nis only a step in the free self-creation of the Spirit from its own illimitable
\nAnanda. That is behind all we are and do; to hide it from mind and bring it
\nslowly forward into the front of existence and action is the present play of
\nSelf with Nature.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 152<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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