{"id":143,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=143"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:11","slug":"16-karma-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\/16-karma-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-16_Karma.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span>                      
\n<\/span><\/span>    O<\/span><\/b>NE
\nfinds an unanswerable truth in the theory of Karma, – not necessarily in the
\nform the ancients gave to it, but in the idea at its centre, – which at once
\nstrikes the mind and commands the assent of the understanding. Nor does the austerer reason, distrustful of first impressions and critical of plausible
\nsolutions, find after the severest scrutiny that the more superficial
\nunderstanding, the porter at the gateways of our mentality, has been deceived
\ninto admitting a tinsel guest, a false claimant into our mansion of knowledge.
\nThere is a solidity at once of philosophic and of practical truth supporting the
\nidea, a bed-rock of the deepest universal undeniable verities against which the
\nhuman mind must always come up in its fathomings of the fathomless; in this way
\nindeed does the world deal with us, there is a law here which does so make
\nitself felt and against which all our egoistic ignorance and self-will and
\nviolence dashes up in the end, as the old Greek poet said of the haughty
\ninsolence and prosperous pride of man, against the very foundation of the throne
\nof Zeus, the marble feet of Themis, the adamantine best of Ananke. There is the
\nsecret of an eternal factor, the base of the unchanging action of the just and
\ntruthful gods, dev<\/span>\u00e3n<\/span>\u00e3m
\ndhruva-vrat<\/span>\u00e3ni, in the
\nself-sufficient and impartial law of Karma.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nThis
\ntruth of Karma has been always recognised in the East in one form or else in
\nanother; but to the Buddhists belongs the credit of having given to it the
\nclearest and fullest universal enunciation and the most insistent importance. In
\nthe West, too, the idea has constantly recurred, but in external, in fragmentary
\nglimpses, as the recognition of a pragmatic truth of experience, and mostly as
\nan ordered ethical law or fatality set over against the self-will and strength
\nof man: but it was clouded over by other ideas inconsistent with any reign of
\nlaw, vague ideas of some superior caprice or of some divine jealousy, – that was
\na notion of the Greeks, – a blind Fate or inscrutable Necessity, Ananke, or,
\nlater, the mysterious ways of an arbitrary, though no doubt<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 125<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

an
\nall-wise Providence. And all this meant that there was some broken half-glimpse
\nof the working of a force, but the law of its working and the nature of the
\nthing itself escaped the perception, – as indeed it could hardly fail to do,
\nsince the mental eye of the West, absorbed by the passion of life, tried to read
\nthe workings of the universe in the light of the single mind and life of man;
\nbut those workings are much too vast, ancient, unbrokenly continuous in Time and
\nall-pervading in Space, – not in material infinity alone, but in the eternal
\ntime and eternal space -of the soul’s infinity, – to be read by so fragmentary a
\nglimmer. Since the Eastern idea and name of the law of Karma was made familiar
\nto the modern mentality, one side of it has received an increasing recognition,
\nperhaps because latterly that mentality had been prepared by the great
\ndiscoveries and generalisations of Science for a fuller vision of cosmic
\nexistence and a more ordered and majestic idea of cosmic Law. It may be as well
\nthen to start from the physical base in approaching this question of Karma,
\nthough we may find at last that it is from the other end of being, from its
\nspiritual summit rather than its material support that we must look in order to
\ncatch its whole significance – and to fix also the limits of its significance.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nFundamentally,
\nthe meaning of Karma is that all existence is the working of a universal Energy,
\na process and an action and a building of things by that action, – an unbuilding
\ntoo, but as a step to farther building, – that all is a continuous chain in
\nwhich every one link is bound indissolubly to the past infinity of numberless
\nlinks, and the whole governed by fixed relations, by a fixed association of
\ncause and effect, present action the result of past action as future action will
\nbe the result of present action, all cause a working of energy and all effect
\ntoo a working of energy. The moral significance is that all our existence is a
\nputting out of an energy which is in us and by which we are made and as is the
\nnature of the energy which is put forth as cause, so shall be that of the energy
\nwhich returns as effect, that this is the universal law and nothing in the world
\ncan, being of and in our world, escape from its governing incidence. That is the
\nphilosophical reality of the theory of Karma, and that too is the way of seeing
\nwhich has been developed by physical Science.<\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage \u2013 126<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

But
\nits seeing has been handicapped in the progress to the full largeness of its own
\ntruth by two persistent errors, first, the strenuous paradoxical attempt –
\ninevitable and useful no doubt as one experiment of the human reason which had
\nto have its opportunity, but foredoomed to failure – to explain supraphysical
\nthings by a physical formula, and a darkening second error of setting behind the
\nuniversal rule of Law and as its cause and efficient the quite opposite idea of
\nthe cosmic reign of Chance. The old notion of an unintelligible supreme caprice,
\n– unintelligible it must naturally be since it is the working of an
\nunintelligent Force, – thus prolonged its reign and got admission side by side
\nwith the scientific vision of the fixities and chained successions of the
\nuniverse.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nBeing
\nis no doubt one, and Law too may be one; but it is perilous to fix from the
\nbeginning on one type of phenomena with a predetermined will to deduce from that
\nall other phenomenon however different in its significance and nature. In that
\nway we are bound to distort truth into the mould of our own prepossession.
\nIntermediately at least we have rather to recognise the old harmonious truth of
\nVeda, – which also came by this way in its end, its Vedanta, to the conception
\nof the unity of Being, – that there are different planes of cosmic existence and
\ntherefore too of our own existence and in each of them the same powers, energies
\nor laws must act in a different type and in another sense and light of their
\neffectuality. First, then, we see that if Karma be a universal truth or the
\nuniversal truth of being, it must be equally true of the inly-born mental and
\nmoral worlds of our action as in our outward relations with the physical
\nuniverse. It is the mental energy that we put forth which determines the mental
\neffect, – but subject to all the impact of past, present and future surrounding
\ncircumstance, because we are not isolated powers in the world, but rather our
\nenergy a subordinate strain and thread of the universal energy. The moral energy
\nof our action determines similarly the nature and effect of the moral
\nconsequence, but subject too, – though to this element the rigid moralist does
\nnot give sufficient consideration, – to the same incidence of past, present and
\nfuture surrounding circumstance. That this is true of the output of physical
\nenergy, needs no saying<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 127<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

nor
\nany demonstration. We must recognise these different types and variously
\nformulated motions of the one universal Force, and it will not do to say from
\nthe beginning that the measure and quality of my inner being is some result of
\nthe output of a physical energy translated into mental and moral energies, – for
\ninstance, that my doing a good or a bad action or yielding to good or to bad
\naffections and motives is at the mercy of my liver, or contained in the physical
\ngerm of my birth, or is the effect of my chemical elements or determined
\nessentially and ultimately by the disposition of the constituent electrons of my
\nbrain and nervous system. Whatever drafts my mental and moral being may make on
\nthe corporeal for its supporting physical energy and however it may be affected
\nby its borrowings, yet it is very evident that it uses them for other and larger
\npurposes, has a supraphysical method, evolves much greater motives and
\nsignificances. The moral energy is in itself a distinct power, has its own plane
\nof Karma, moves me even, and that characteristically, to override my vital and
\nphysical nature. Forms of one universal Force at bottom – or at top – these may
\nbe, but in practice they are different energies and have to be so dealt with –
\nuntil we can find what that universal Force may be in its highest purest texture
\nand initial power and whether that discovery can give us in the perplexities of
\nour nature a unifying direction.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nChance,
\nthat vague shadow of an infinite possibility, must be banished from the
\ndictionary of our perceptions; for of chance we can make nothing, because it is
\nnothing. Chance does not at all exist; it is only a word by which we cover and
\nexcuse our own ignorance. Science excludes it from the actual process of
\nphysical law; everything there is determined by fixed cause and relation. But
\nwhen it comes to ask why these relations exist and not others, why a particular
\ncause is allied to a particular effect, it finds that it knows nothing whatever
\nabout the matter; every actualised possibility supposes a number of other
\npossibilities that have not actualised but conceivably might have, and it is
\nconvenient then to say that Chance or at most a dominant probability determines
\nall actual happening, the chance of evolution, the stumblings of a groping
\ninconscient energy which somehow finds out some good-enough way and fixes itself
\ninto a repetition<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 128<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

of
\nthe process. If Inconscience can do the works of intelligence, it may not be
\nimpossible that chaotic Chance should create a universe of law! But this is only
\na reading of our own ignorance into the workings of the universe, – just as
\nprescientific man read into the workings of physical law the caprices of the
\ngods or any other name for a sportive Chance whether undivine or dressed in
\ndivine glories, whether credited with a pliant flexibility to the prayers and
\nbribes of man or presented with an immutable Sphinx face of stone, – but names
\nonly in fact for his own ignorance.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nAnd,
\nespecially, when we come to the pressing needs of our moral and spiritual being,
\nno theory of chance or probability will serve at all. Here Science, physical in
\nher basis, does not help except to point out to a certain degree the effects of
\nmy physicality on my moral being or of my moral action on my physicality: for
\nanything else of just illumination or useful purpose, she stumbles and splashes
\nabout in the quagmire of her own nescience. Earth-quake and eclipse she can
\ninterpret and predict, but not my moral and spiritual becoming, but only attempt
\nto explain its phenomena when they have happened by imposing polysyllables and
\nfearful and wonderful laws of pathology, morbid heredity, eugenics and what not,
\nof loose fumbling, which touch only the draggled skirts of the lowest
\npsycho-physical being. But here I need guidance more than anywhere else and must
\nhave the recognition of a law, the high line of a guiding order. To know the law
\nof my moral and spiritual being is at first and last more imperative for me than
\nto learn the ways of steam and electricity, for without these outward advantages
\nI can grow in my inner manhood, but not without some notion of moral and
\nspiritual law. Action is demanded of me and I need a rule for my action:
\nsomething I am urged inwardly to become which I am not yet, and I would know
\nwhat is the way and law, what the central power or many conflicting powers and
\nwhat the height and possible range and perfection of my becoming. That surely
\nmuch more than the rule of electrons or the possibilities of a more omnipotent
\nphysical machinery and more powerful explosives is the real human question.<\/p>\n

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

         
\nThe
\nBuddhists’ mental and moral law of Karma, comes in<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 129<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

at
\nthis difficult point with a clue and an opening. As Science fills our mind with
\nthe idea of a universal government of Law in the physical and outward world and
\nin our relations with Nature, though she leaves behind it all a great unanswered
\nquery, an agnosticism, a blank of some other ungrasped Infinite, – here covered
\nby the concept of Chance, – the Buddhist conception too fills the spaces of our
\nmental and moral being with the same sense of a government of mental and moral
\nLaw: but this too erects behind that Law a great unanswered query, an
\nagnosticism, the blank of an ungrasped Infinite. But here the covering word is
\nmore grandly intangible; it is the mystery of Nirvana. This Infinite is figured
\nin both cases by the more insistent and positive type of mind as an Inconscience,
\n– but material in the one, in the other a spiritual infinite zero, – but by the
\nmore prudent or flexible thinkers simply as an unknowable. The difference is
\nthat the unknown of Science is something mechanical to which mechanically we
\nreturn by physical dissolution or laya, but the unknown of Buddhism is a
\nPermanent beyond the Law to which we return spiritually. by an effort of
\nself-suppression, of self-renunciation and, at the latest end, of
\nself-extinction, by a mental dissolution of the Idea which maintains the law of
\nrelations and a moral dissolution of the world-desire which keeps up the stream
\nof successions of the universal action. This is a rare and an austere
\nmetaphysics; but to its discouraging grandeur we are by no means compelled to
\ngive assent, for it is neither self-evident nor inevitable. It is by no means so
\ncertain that a high spiritual negation of what I am is my only possible road to
\nperfection; a high spiritual affirmation and absolute of what I am may be also a
\nfeasible way and gate. This nobly glacial or blissfully void idea of a Nirvana,
\nbecause it is so overwhelmingly a negation, cannot finally satisfy the human
\nspirit, which is drawn persistently to some highest positive and affirmation of
\nitself and only uses negations by the way the better to rid itself of what comes
\nin as an obstacle to its self-finding. To the everlasting No the living being
\nmay resign itself by an effort, a sorrowful or a superb turning upon itself and
\nexistence, but the everlasting Yes is its native attraction: our spiritual
\norientation, the magnetism that draws the soul, is to eternal Being and not to
\neternal Non-Being.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 130<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Nevertheless
\ncertain essential and needed clues are there in the theory of Karma. And first,
\nthere is this assurance, this firm ground on which I can base a sure tread, that
\nin the mental and moral world as in the physical universe there is no chaos,
\nfortuitous rule of chance or mere probability, but an ordered Energy at work
\nwhich assures its will by law and fixed relation and steady succession and the
\nlinks of ascertainable cause and effectuality. To be assured that there is an
\nall-pervading mental law and an all-pervading moral law, is a great gain, a
\nsupporting foundation. That in the mental and moral as in the physical world
\nwhat I sow in the proper soil, I shall assuredly reap, is a guarantee of divine
\ngovernment, of equilibrium, of cosmos; it not only grounds life upon an adamant
\nunderbase of law, but by removing anarchy opens the way to a greater liberty.
\nBut there is the possibility that if this Energy is all, I may only be a
\ncreation of an imperative Force and all my acts and becomings a chain of
\ndetermination over which I can have no real control or chance of mastery. That
\nview would resolve everything into predestination of Karma, and the result might
\nsatisfy my intellect but would be disastrous to the greatness of my spirit. I
\nshould be a slave and puppet of Karma and could never dream of being a sovereign
\nof myself and my existence. But here there comes in the second step of the
\ntheory of Karma, that it is the Idea which creates all relations. All is the
\nexpression and expansion of the Idea, sarvāni vijnāna-vijrmbhitani..
\nThen I can by the will, the energy of the Idea in me, develop the form of what I
\nam and arrive at the harmony of some greater idea than is expressed in my
\npresent mould and balance. I can aspire to a nobler expansion. Still, if the
\nIdea is a thing in itself, without any base but its own spontaneous powers, none
\noriginating it, no knower, no Purusha and Lord, I may be only a form of the
\nuniversal Idea and myself, my soul, may have no independent existence or
\ninitiation. But there is too this third step that I am a soul developing and
\npersisting in the paths of the universal Energy and that in myself is the seed
\nof all my creation. What I have become, I have made myself by the soul’s past
\nidea and action, its inner and outer Karma; what I will to be, I can make myself
\nby present and future idea and action. And finally, there is this last supreme<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 131<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n<\/div>\n

 liberating
\nstep that both the Idea and its Karma may have their origin in the free spirit
\nand by arriving at myself by experience and self-finding I can exalt my state
\nbeyond all bondage of Karma to spiritual freedom. These are the four pillars of
\nthe complete theory of Karma. They are also the four truths of the dealings of
\nSelf with Nature.<\/p>\n

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

\nPage
\n\u2013 132<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

Karma                               ONE finds an unanswerable truth in the theory of Karma, – not necessarily in the form the ancients gave to it,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","wpcat-5-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}