{"id":1558,"date":"2013-07-13T01:35:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:35:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:41","slug":"48-mind-nature-and-law-of-karma-vol-13-essays-in-philosophy-and-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/13-essays-in-philosophy-and-yoga\/48-mind-nature-and-law-of-karma-vol-13-essays-in-philosophy-and-yoga","title":{"rendered":"-48_Mind Nature and Law of Karma.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\tMind Nature and Law of Karma <\/font><\/b>
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\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tM<\/font>AN IS<\/b> not after all in the essence of his manhood or in the inner reality of his soul a vital and physical
\nbeing raised to a certain power of mental will and intelligence If that were so, the creed that makes our existence
\na manifestation of a Will to life, a Life Force moved by no other object than its own play, heightening, efficient power, expansion, might have a good chance of being the sufficient theory of our universe, and the law of our Karma, the rule of our
\nactivities would be in entire consonance with that one purpose and ordered by that dominant principle Certainly in a great
\npart of this world’s outer activities, —or if we, fixing our eye mainly on the vital play of the spirit of the universe, consider
\nthem as man’s chief business and the main thing that matters, —there is a colourable justification for this limited view of the
\nhuman being But the more he looks into himself and the more he goes inward and lives intimately and pre-eminently in his
\nmind and soul, the more he discovers that he is in his essential nature a mental being encased in body and emmeshed in the life
\nactivities, manu<\/i>, manomaya purusa<\/i> He is more than a thinking,
\n willing and feeling result of the mechanism of the physical or an understanding nexus of the vital forces There is a mental energy
\nof his being that overtops, pervades and utilises the terrestrial action and his own terrestrial nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThis character of man’s being prevents us from resting satisfied with the vitalistic law of Karma: the lines of the vital
\nenergy are interfered with and uplifted and altered for man by the intervention of the awakened mental energy of the spirit
\nthat emerges in the material universe and creates here on earth the form of man for its habitation, his complex nature to be
\nits expressive power, the gamut of its music, and the action of his thought, perception, will, emotions the notation of its
\n  
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\n\t\t\tharmonies The apparent inconscience of physical Nature, the beautiful and terrible, kindly and cruel conscious but amoral
\nLife Force that is the first thing we see before us, are not the whole self-expression of the universal Being here and therefore
\nnot the whole of Nature Man comes into it to express and realise a higher law of Nature and therefore a higher system of
\nthe lines of Karma The mental energy divides itself and runs in many directions, has an ascending scale of the levels of its
\naction, a great variety and combination of its dynamic aims and purposes There are many strands of its weaving and it follows
\neach along its own line and combines manifoldly the threads of one with the threads of another There is in it an energy of
\nthought that puts itself out for a return and a constant increase of knowledge, an energy of will that casts itself forth for a return
\nand increase of conscious mastery, fulfilment of the being, execution of will in action, an energy of conscious aesthesis that feels
\nout for a return and an increase of the creation and enjoyment of beauty, an energy of emotion that demands in its action a
\nreturn and a constant increase of the enjoyment and satisfaction of the emotional power of the being All these energies act in a
\nway for themselves and yet depend upon and are inextricably accompanied and mingled with each other At the same time
\nmind has descended into matter and has to act in and through this world of the vital and physical energy and to consent to and
\nmake something of the lines of the vital and physical Karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan, then, since he is a mental being, a means of the evolution of the mental self-expression of the spirit, cannot confine the rule of his action and nature to an obedience to the vital and
\nphysical law and an intelligent utilisation of it for the greater, more ordered, more perfect enjoyment of his vital and physical
\nexistence, perpetuation, reproduction, possession, enjoyment, expansion There is a higher law of mental being and nature of
\nwhich he is bound to become aware and to seek to impose it on his life and his action At first he is very predominantly governed
\nby the life needs and the movement of the life energies, and it is in applying his mental energy to them and to the world around
\nhim that he makes the earliest development of his powers of   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\nknowledge and will and trains the crude impulses that lead him into the path of his emotional, aesthetic and moral evolution
\nBut always there is a certain obscure element that takes pleasure in the action of the mental energies for their own sake
\nand it is this, however imperfect at first in self-consciousness and intelligence, that represents the characteristic intention of
\nNature in him and makes his mental and eventually his spiritual evolution inevitable The insistence of the external world around
\nhim and the need of utilising its opportunities and of meeting its siege and dangers causes his mind to be much obsessed by
\nlife and external action and the utility of thought and will and perception for his dealings with the physical and life forces, and
\nto this preoccupation the finer more disinterested action and subtler cast of motive of the mind nature demanding its own
\ninner development, seeking for knowledge, mastery, beauty, a purer emotional delight for their own sake, and the pursuits
\nwhich are characteristic of this higher energy of the mental nature, appear almost as by-products and at any rate things
\nsecondary that can always be postponed and made subordinate to the needs and demands of the mentalised vital and physical
\nbeing But the finer and more developed mind in humanity has always turned towards an opposite self-seeing, inclined to regard
\nthis as the most characteristic and valuable element of our being and been ready to sacrifice much and sometimes all to its calls
\nor its imperative mandate Then life itself would be in reality for man only a field of action for the evolution, the opportunity of
\nnew experience, the condition of difficult effort and mastery of the mental and spiritual being What then will be the lines of
\nthis mental energy and how will they affect and be affected by the lines of the vital and physical Karma?
\n\t\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThree movements of the mental energy of man projecting itself along the lines of life, successive movements that yet overlap and enter into each other, have created a triple strand of the law of his Karma The first is that, primary, obvious, universal,
\npredominant in his beginnings, in which his mind subjects and assimilates itself to the law of life in matter in order to make the
\nmost of the terrestrial existence for its own pleasure and profit,  
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\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tartha<\/i>, kama<\/i>, without any other modification or correction of
\nits pre-existing lines than is involved in the very impact of the human intelligence, will, emotion, aesthesis These indeed are
\nforces that lift up and greatly enlarge and infinitely rarefy and subtilise by a consciously regulated and more and more skilful
\nand curious use the first crude, narrow and essentially animal aims and movements common to all living creatures And this
\nelement of the mentalised vital existence, these lines of its movement making the main grey solid stuff of the life of the average
\neconomic, political, social, domestic man may take on a great amplitude and an imposing brilliance, but they remain always in
\ntheir distinctive, their original and still persistent character the lines of movement, the way of Karma of the thinking, willing,
\nfeeling, refining human animal, —not to be despised or excluded from our total way of being when we climb to a higher plane
\nof conception and action, but still only a small part of human possibility and, if regarded as the main preoccupation or most
\nimperative law of the human being, then limiting and degrading it; for, empowered up to a certain point to enlarge and dynamise
\nand enrich, but not raise to a self-exceeding, they are useful for ascension only when themselves uplifted and transformed
\nby a greater law and a nobler motive The momentum of this energy may be a very powerful mental action, may involve much
\noutput of intelligence and will power and aesthetic perception and expenditure of emotional force, but the return it seeks is
\nvital success and enjoyment and possession and satisfaction The mind no doubt feeds its powers on the effort and its fullness
\non the prize, but it is tethered to its pasture It is a mixed movement, mental in its means, predominantly vital in its returns; its
\nstandard of the values of the return are measured by an outward success and failure, an externalised or externally caused pleasure
\nand suffering, good fortune and evil fortune, the fate of the life and the body It is this powerful vital preoccupation which has
\ngiven us one element of the current notion of law of Karma, its idea of an award of vital happiness and suffering as the measure
\nof cosmic justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe second movement of mind running on the lines of life
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\ncomes into prominent action when man evolves out of his experience the idea of a mental rule, standard, ideal, a concretised
\nabstraction which is suggested at first by life experience, but goes beyond, transcends the actual needs and demands of the
\nvital energy and returns upon it to impose some ideal mental rule, some canon embodying a generalised conception of Right
\non the law of life For its essence is the discovery or belief of the mind that in all things there is a right rule, a right standard,
\na right way of thought, will, feeling, perception, action other than that of the intuition of vital nature, other than that of the
\nfirst dealings of mind seeking only to profit by the vital nature with a mainly vital motive,
\n\t\t\t\t—for it has discovered a way of the
\nreason, a rule of the self-governing intelligence This brings into
\n the seeking of vital pleasure and profit, artha<\/i>, kama<\/i>, the power of the conception of a mental truth, justice, right, the conception
\nof Dharma The greater practical part of the Dharma is ethical, it is the idea of the moral law The first mind movement is
\nnon-moral or not at all characteristically moral, has only, if at all, the conception of a standard of action justified by custom, the
\nreceived rule of life and therefore right, or a morality indistinguishable from expediency, accepted and enforced because it
\nwas found necessary or helpful to efficiency, power, success, to victory, honour, approval, good fortune The idea of Dharma
\nis on the contrary predominantly moral in its essence Dharma on its heights holds up the moral law in its own right and for
\nits own sake to human acceptance and observance The larger idea of Dharma is indeed a conception of the true law of all
\nenergies and includes a conscience, a rectitude in all things, a right law of thought and knowledge, of aesthesis, of all other
\nhuman activities and not only of our ethical action But yet in the notion of Dharma the ethical element has tended always
\nto predominate and even to monopolise the concept of Right which man creates, —because ethics is concerned with action of
\nlife and his dealing with his vital being and with his fellow-men and that is always his first preoccupation and his most tangible
\ndifficulty, and because here first and most pressingly the desires, interests, instincts of the vital being find themselves cast into a
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tsharp and very successful conflict with the ideal of Right and the demand of the higher law Right ethical action comes therefore
\nto seem to man at this stage the one thing binding upon him among the many standards raised by the mind, the moral claim
\nthe one categorical imperative, the moral law the whole of his Dharma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAt first however the moral conceptions of man and the direction and output and the demand of return of the ethical
\nenergy in him get themselves inextricably mixed with his vital conceptions and demands and even afterwards lean on them very
\ncommonly and very considerably for a support and incentive Human morality first takes up an enormous mass of customary
\nrules of action, a conventional and traditional practice much of which is of a very doubtful moral value, gives to it an imperative
\nsanction of right and slips into the crude mass or superimposes on it, but still as a part of one common and equal code, the true
\nthings of the ethical ideal It appeals to the vital being, his desires, hopes and fears, incites man to virtue by the hope of rewards
\nand the dread of punishment, imitating in this device the method of his crude and fumbling social practice: for that, finding its
\nlaw and rule which, good or bad, it wishes to make imperative as supposing it to be at least the best calculated for the order
\nand efficiency of the community, opposed by man’s vital being, bribes and terrifies as well as influences, educates and persuades
\nhim to acceptance Morality tells man, accommodating itself to his imperfection, mostly through the mouth of religion, that
\nthe moral law is imperative in itself, but also that it is very expedient for him personally to follow it, righteousness in the
\nend the safest policy, virtue the best paymaster in the long run, —for this is a world of Law or a world ruled by a just and virtuous
\nor at least virtue-loving God He is assured that the righteous man shall prosper and the wicked perish and that the paths of
\nvirtue lie through pleasant places Or, if this will not serve, since it is palpably false in experience and even man cannot always
\ndeceive himself, it offers him a security of vital rewards denied here but conceded in some hereafter Heaven and hell, happiness
\nand suffering in other lives are put before him as the bribe and   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\nthe menace He is told, the better to satisfy his easily satisfied intellect, that the world is governed by an ethical law which determines the measure of his earthly fortunes, that a justice reigns and this is justice, that every action has its exact rebound and his
\ngood shall bring him good and his evil evil. It is these notions, this idea of the moral law, of righteousness and justice as a thing
\nin itself imperative, but still needing to be enforced by bribe and menace on our human nature,
\n\t\t\t\t—which would seem to show
\nthat at least for that nature they are not altogether imperative, —this insistence on reward and punishment because morality
\nstruggling with our first unregenerate being has to figure very largely as a mass of restraints and prohibitions and these cannot
\nbe enforced without some fact or appearance of a compelling or inducing outward sanction, this diplomatic compromise or
\neffort at equivalence between the impersonal ethical and the personal egoistic demand, this marriage of convenience between
\nright and vital utility, virtue and desire, —it is these accommodations that are embodied in the current notions of the law of
\nKarma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat real truth is there behind the current notions of Karma
\nin the actual facts or the fundamental powers of the life of man here or the visible working of the law of the energies of the
\ncosmos? There is evidently a substantial truth, but it is a part only of the whole; its reign or predominance belongs to a certain
\nelement only, to the emphasis of one line among many of a transitional movement between the law of the vital energy and
\na greater and higher law of the mind and spirit A mixture of any two kinds of energy sets up a mixed and complex action of
\nthe output of the energy and the return, and a too sharp-cut rule affixing vital returns to a mental and moral output of force is
\nopen to much exception and it cannot be the whole inner truth of the matter But still where the demand is for the vital return,
\nfor success, an outer happiness, good, fortune, that is a sign of the dominant intention in the energy and points to a balance of
\nforces weighing in the indicated direction At first sight, if success is the desideratum, it is not clear what morality has to say in the
\naffair, since we see in most things that it is a right understanding  
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\n\t\t\tand intelligent or intuitive practice of the means and conditions and an insistent power of the will, a settled drive of the force of
\nthe being of which success is the natural consequence Man may impose by a system of punishments a check on the egoistic will
\nand intelligence in pursuit of its vital ends, may create a number of moral conditions for the world’s prizes, but this might appear,
\nas is indeed contended in certain vitalistic theories, an artificial imposition on Nature and a dulling and impoverishment of the
\nfree and powerful play of the mind force and the life force in their alliance But in truth the greatest force for success is a
\n\t\t\t right concentration of energy, tapasya<\/i>, and there is an inevitable
\nmoral element in Tapasya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan is a mental being seeking to establish a control over
\nthe life forces he embodies or uses, and one condition of that mastery is a necessary self-control, a restraint, an order, a discipline imposed on his mental, vital and physical being The animal life is automatically subjected to certain measures; it is
\nthe field of an instinctive vital Dharma Man, liberated from these automatic checks by the free play of his mind, has to replace them by willed and intelligent restraints, an understanding measure, a voluntary discipline Not only a powerful expenditure and free play of his energies, but also a right measure, restraint and control of them is the condition of his life’s success and soundness The moral is not the sole element: it is not entirely true that the moral right always prevails or that where
\nthere is the dharma, on that side is the victory The immediate success often goes to other powers, even an ultimate conquest
\nof the Right comes usually by an association with some form of Might But still there is always a moral element among the
\nmany factors of individual and collective or national success and a disregard of acknowledged right has at some time or
\nother disastrous or fatal reactions Moreover, man in the use of his energies has to take account of his fellows and the aid and
\nopposition of their energies, and his relations with them impose on him checks, demands and conditions which have or evolve
\na moral significance There is laid on him almost from the first a number of obligations even in the pursuit of vital success and
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\nsatisfaction which become a first empirical basis of an ethical order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd there are cosmic as well as human forces that respond to this balance of the mental and moral and the vital order First
\nthere is something subtle, inscrutable and formidable that meets us in our paths, a Force of which the ancient Greeks took much
\nnotice, a Power that is on the watch for man in his effort at enlargement, possession and enjoyments and seems hostile and
\nopposite The Greeks figured it as the jealousy of the gods or as Doom, Necessity, Ate The egoistic force in man may proceed
\nfar in its victory and triumph, but it has to be wary or it will find this power there on the watch for any flaw in his strength or
\naction, any sufficient opportunity for his defeat and downfall It dogs his endeavour with obstacle and reverse and takes advantage of his imperfections, often dallying with him, giving him long rope, delaying and abiding its time,
\n\t\t\t\t—and not only of his
\nmoral shortcomings but of his errors of will and intelligence, his excesses and deficiencies of strength and prudence, all defects of
\nhis nature It seems overcome by his energies of Tapasya, but it waits its season It overshadows unbroken or extreme prosperity
\nand often surprises it with a sudden turn to ruin It induces a security, a self-forgetfulness, a pride and insolence of success
\nand victory and leads on its victim to dash himself against the hidden seat of justice or the wall of an invisible measure It is
\nas fatal to a blind self-righteousness and the arrogations of an egoistic virtue as to vicious excess and selfish violence It appears
\nto demand of man and of individual men and nations that they shall keep within a limit and a measure, while all beyond that
\nbrings danger; and therefore the Greeks held moderation in all things to be the greatest part of virtue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere is here something in the life forces obscure to us, considered by our partial feelings sinister because it crosses our
\ndesires, but obedient to some law and intention of the universal mind, the universal reason or Logos which the ancients perceived at work in the cosmos Its presence, when felt by the cruder kind of religious mind, generates the idea of calamity as
\na punishment for sin, —not observing that it has a punishment  
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\n\t\t\ttoo for ignorance, for error, stupidity, weakness, defect of will and tapasya This is really a resistance of the Infinite acting
\nthrough life against the claim of the imperfect ego of man to enlarge itself, possess, enjoy and have, while remaining imperfect, a perfect and enduring happiness and complete felicity of its world-experience The claim is, we may say, immoral, and the
\nForce that resists it and returns, however uncertainly and late to our eyes, suffering and failure as a reply to our imperfections,
\nmay be considered a moral Force, an agent of a just Karma, though not solely in the narrowly ethical sense of Karma The
\nlaw it represents is that our imperfections shall have their passing or their fatal consequences, that a flaw in our output of energy
\nmay be mended or counterbalanced and reduced in consequence, but if persisted in shall react even in excess of its apparent merits,
\nthat an error may seem to destroy all the result of the Tapasya, because it springs from a radical unsoundness in the intention
\nof the will, the heart, the ethical sense or the reason This is the first line of the transitional law of Karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tA second line of Karmic response of the cosmic forces to our action puts on also an appearance which tempts us to give
\nit a moral character For there can be distinguished in Nature a certain element of the law of the talion or
\n\t\t\t\t—perhaps a more
\nappropriate figure, since this action seems rather mechanical than rational and deliberate
\n\t\t\t\t—a boomerang movement of energy returning upon its transmitter The stone we throw is flung back by some hidden force in the world life upon ourselves, the
\naction we put out upon others recoils, not always by a direct reaction, but often by devious and unconnected routes, on our
\nown lives and sometimes, though that is by no means a common rule, in its own exact figure or measure This is a phenomenon
\nso striking to our imagination and impressive to our moral sense and vital feelings that it has received some kind of solemn form
\nand utterance in the thought of all cultures, —”What thou hast done, thou must suffer”, “He that uses the sword shall perish by
\nthe sword”; “Thou hast sown the wind and thou shalt reap the whirlwind”; —and we are tempted to erect it into a universal
\nrule and accept it as sufficient evidence of a moral order But the   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\ncareful thinker will pause long before he hastens to subscribe to any such conclusion, for there is much that militates against it
\nand this kind of definite reaction is rather exceptional than an ordinary rule of human life If it were a regular feature, men
\nwould soon learn the code of the draconic impersonal legislator and know what to avoid and the list of life’s prohibitions and
\nvetoes But there is no such clear penal legislation of Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe mathematical precision of physical Nature’s action and
\nreaction cannot indeed be expected from mental and vital Nature For not only does everything become infinitely more subtle,
\ncomplex and variable as we rise in the scale so that in our life action there is an extraordinary intertwining of forces and
\nmixture of many values, but, even, the psychological and moral value of the same action differs in different cases, according
\nto the circumstance, the conditions, the motive and mind of the doer The law of the talion is no just or ethical rule when applied
\nby man to men and, applied by superhuman dispenser of justice or impersonal law with a rude rule of thumb to the delicate and
\nintricate tangle of man’s life action and life motives, it would be no better And it is evident too that the slow, long and subtle
\npurposes of the universal Power working in the human race would be defeated rather than served by any universality of this
\ntoo precise and summary procedure Accordingly we find that its working is occasional and intermittent rather than regular,
\nvariable and to our minds capricious rather than automatic and plainly intelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAt times in the individual’s life the rebound of this kind of Karma is decisively, often terribly clear and penal justice is done,
\nalthough it may come to him in an unexpected fashion, long delayed and from strange quarters; but however satisfactory to
\nour dramatic sense, this is not the common method of retributive Nature Her ways are more tortuous, subtle, unobtrusive and
\nindecipherable Often it is a nation that pays in this way for past crimes and mistakes and the sign manual of the law of the talion
\nis there to point the lesson, but individually it is the innocent who suffer A commercially minded king of Belgium is moved
\nto make a good thing of the nation’s rubber estate and human  
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\n\t\t\tcattle farm in Africa and his agents murder and mutilate and immolate thousands of cheap negro lives to hasten the yield and
\nswell his coffers This able monarch dies in the splendour of riches and the sacred odour of good fortune, his agents in no
\nway suffer: but here of a sudden comes Germany trampling her armed way towards a dream of military and commercial empire
\nthrough prosperous Belgium and massacred men and women and mutilated children startlingly remind us of Karma and illustrate some obscure and capricious law of the talion Here at least the nation in its corporate being was guilty of complicity, but at
\nother times neither guilty individual nor nation is the payer, but perhaps some well-meaning virtuous blunderer gets the account
\nof evil recompense that should have been paid in of rights by the strong despots before him who went on their way to the end
\nrejoicing in power and splendour and pleasure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is evident that we cannot make much of a force that works
\nout in so strange a fashion, however occasionally striking and dramatic its pointing at cause and consequence It is too uncertain in its infliction of penalty to serve the end which the human mind expects from a system of penal justice, too inscrutably
\nvariable in its incidence to act as an indicator to that element in the human temperament which waits upon expediency and
\nregulates its steps by a prudential eye to consequence Men and nations continue to act always in the same fashion regardless
\nof this occasional breaking out of the lightnings of a retaliatory doom, these occasional precisions of Karmic justice amidst the
\nuncertainties of the complex measures of the universe It works really not on the mind and will of man
\n\t\t\t\t—except to some degree
\nin a subtle and imperfect fashion on the subconscient mind —but outside him as a partial check and regulator helping to
\nmaintain the balance of the returns of energy and the life purposes of the world-spirit Its action is like that of the first line
\nof transitional Karma intended to prevent the success of the vital egoism of man and serves as an interim compression and
\ncompulsion until he can discover and succeed in spite of his vital self in obeying a higher law of his being and a purer dynamism
\nof motive in his directing mind and governing spirit It serves   <\/span> <\/p>\n

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\ntherefore a certain moral purpose in the will in the universe, but is not itself, even in combination with the other, sufficient to be
\nthe law of a moral order.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nA third possible and less outwardly mechanical line of
\nKarma is suggested by the dictum that like creates like and in accordance with that law good must create good and evil must
\ncreate evil In the terms of a moral return or rather repayment to moral energies this would mean that by putting forth love
\nwe get a return of love and by putting forth hatred a return of hatred, that if we are merciful or just to others, others also will
\nbe to us just or merciful and that generally good done by us to our fellow-men will return in a recompense of good done by
\nthem in kind and posted back to our address duly registered in the moral post office of the administrative government of the
\nuniverse Do unto others as you would be done by, because then they will indeed so do to you, seems to be the formula of this
\nmoral device If this were true, human life might indeed settle down into a very symmetrical system of a harmoniously moral
\negoism and a mercantile traffic in goodness that might seem fair and beautiful enough to those who are afflicted with that
\nkind of moral aesthesis Happily for the upward progress of the human soul, the rule breaks down in practice, the world-spirit
\nhaving greater ends before it and a greater law to realise The rule is true to a certain extent in tendency and works sometimes
\nwell enough and the prudential intelligence of man takes some account of it in action but it is not true all the way and all
\nthe time It is evident enough that hatred, violence, injustice are likely to create an answering hatred, violence and injustice
\nand that I can only indulge these propensities with impunity if I am sufficiently powerful to defy resistance or so long as I am
\nat once strong enough and prudent enough to provide against their natural reactions It is true also that by doing good and
\nkindness I create a certain goodwill in others and can rely under ordinary or favourable circumstances not so much on gratitude
\nand return in kind as on their support and favour But this good and this evil are both of them movements of the ego and
\non the mixed egoism of human nature there can be no safe or  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t\tPage –
\n\t\t\t\t410<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tpositive reliance An egoistic selfish strength, if it knows what to do and where to stop, even a certain measure of violence and
\ninjustice, if it is strong and skilful, cunning, fraud, many kinds of evil, do actually pay in man’s dealing with man hardly less
\nthan in the animal’s with the animal, and on the other hand the doer of good who counts on a return or reward finds himself
\nas often as not disappointed of his bargained recompense The weakness of human nature worships the power that tramples on
\nit, does homage to successful strength, can return to every kind of strong or skilful imposition belief, acceptance, obedience:
\nit can crouch and fawn and admire even amidst movements of hatred and terror; it has singular loyalties and unreasoning
\ninstincts And its disloyalties too are as unreasoning or light and fickle: it takes just dealing and beneficence as its right and
\nforgets or cares not to repay And there is worse; for justice, mercy, beneficence, kindness are often enough rewarded by
\ntheir opposites and ill will an answer to goodwill is a brutally common experience If something in the world and in man
\nreturns good for good and evil for evil, it as often returns evil for good and, with or without a conscious moral intention, good
\nfor evil And even an unegoistic virtue or a divine good and love entering the world awakens hostile reactions Attila and Jenghiz
\non the throne to the end, Christ on the cross and Socrates drinking his portion of hemlock are no very clear evidence for
\nany optimistic notion of a law of moral return in the world of human nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is little more sign of its sure existence in the world measures Actually in the cosmic dispensation evil comes out
\nof good and good out of evil and there seems to be no exact correspondence between the moral and the vital measures All
\nthat we can say is that good done tends to increase the sum and total power of good in the world and the greater this grows
\nthe greater is likely to be the sum of human happiness and that evil done tends to increase the sum and total power of evil in
\nthe world and the greater this grows, the greater is likely to be the sum of human suffering and, eventually, man or nation
\ndoing evil has in some way to pay for it, but not often in any   <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t\t\tPage –
\n\t\t\t\t411<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\nintelligibly graded or apportioned measure and not always in clearly translating terms of vital good fortune and ill fortune.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn short, what we may call the transitional lines of Karma exist and have to be taken into account in our view of the
\naction of the world forces But they are not and cannot be the whole law of Karma And they cannot be that because they are
\ntransitional, because good and evil are moral and not vital values and have a clear right only to a moral and not a vital return,
\nbecause reward and punishment put forward as the conditions of good doing and evil doing do not constitute and cannot create
\na really moral order, the principle itself, whatever temporary end it serves, being fundamentally immoral from the higher point of
\nview of a true and pure ethics, and because there are other forces that count and have their right,
\n\t\t\t\t—knowledge, power and many
\nothers The correspondence of moral and vital good is a demand of the human ego and like many others of its demands answers
\nto certain tendencies in the world mind, but is not its whole law or highest purpose A moral order there can be, but it is in
\nourselves and for its own sake that we have to create it and, only when we have so created it and found its right relation to other
\npowers of life, can we hope to make it count at its full value in the right ordering of man’s vital existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage –
\n\t\t\t412<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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