{"id":2635,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:54","slug":"48-karma-and-heredity-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/28-letters-on-yoga-i\/48-karma-and-heredity-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","title":{"rendered":"-48_Karma and Heredity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\tChapter Two <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tKarma and Heredity
\n<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tKarma <\/a> <\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Karma is not luck, it is the transmission of past energies into the
\npresent with their results. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

All energies put into activity
\n\u2014thought, speech, feeling, act \u2014go to constitute Karma. These things help to develop the nature
\nin one direction or another, and the nature and its actions and reactions produce their consequences inward and outward: they
\nalso act on others and create movements in the general sum of forces which can return upon oneself sooner or later. Thoughts
\nunexpressed can also go out as forces and produce their effects. It is a mistake to think that a thought or will can have effect only
\nwhen it is expressed in speech or act: the unspoken thought, the unexpressed will are also active energies and can produce their
\nown vibrations, effects or reactions. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

If it [the soul<\/i>] goes on with its Karma, then it does not get liberation. If it wants only farther experience, it can just stay
\nthere in the ordinary nature. The aim of Yoga is to transcend Karma. Karma means subjection to lower Nature; through Yoga
\nthe soul goes towards freedom. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The bondage to the effects of Karma remains so long as one has not passed out of the ordinary human consciousness which is its
\nfield to the higher spiritual consciousness where all bonds are untied. As for peace one can gain it by an entire reliance on the
\nDivine and surrender to the Divine Will. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 520<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

In life all sorts of things offer themselves. One cannot take anything that comes with the idea that it is sent by the Divine. There
\nis a choice and a wrong choice produces its consequence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tKarma and Heredity
\n<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Karma and heredity are the two main causes [of
\n\tone’s temperament<\/i>]. According to some heredity is also subject to Karma, but
\nthat may be only in a general way, not in all the details. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Many things in the body and some in the mind and vital are inherited from the father and mother or other ancestors
\n\u2014that
\neverybody is supposed to know. There are other things that are not inherited, but peculiar to one’s own nature or developed by
\nthe happenings of this life. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

You must realise that all human beings are made partly of what is given them by their ancestors (not only father and mother
\nbut all the ancestors), partly of what they bring with them. The part they get from the ancestors is called hereditary
\n\u2014it is part
\n(not the whole) of the physical and lower vital consciousness, sometimes a little of the external mind also
\n\u2014it is a small portion
\nof the external being, but although small, it is sometimes very persistent and active. The rest of the being, inner and a great part
\ntoo of the external, is brought from past lives. This hereditary part has to be got rid of and replaced by the true individuality
\nspreading itself to the whole external nature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

A very big stamp in most cases1
\n\u2014it is in the physical vital and physical material that the stamp chiefly exists
\n\u2014and it is
\nincreased by education and upbringing. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n     1 The correspondent asked whether the influence of heredity, race, caste and family<\/i>
\nleaves a stamp on one’s lower nature. \u2014Ed.<\/i>
\n  <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 521<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

There is always a hereditary part of the nature which is a large portion of the outward nature
\n\u2014there is also the educational
\ninfluence of the father which has put a stamp on you. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Hereditary influence2 creates an affinity and affinity is a living thing. It is only when the hereditary part is changed that the
\naffinity ceases. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

It is your own being that seeks for the Divine. The hereditary part is not your true being, but something you have taken up as
\npart of this birth. It can be got rid of or changed. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tEvolution, Karma and Ethics
\n<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question as put in your letter seems to me to be too rigidly phrased and not to take into sufficient account the plasticity
\nof the facts and forces of existence. It sounds like the problem which one might raise on the strength of the most recent scientific theories \u2014if all is made up of protons and electrons, all exactly similar to each other (except for the group numbers, and
\nwhy should a difference of quantity make such an extraordinary difference or any difference of quality?) how does their action
\nresult in such stupendous differences of degree, kind, power, everything? But why should we assume that the psychic seeds or
\nsparks all started in a race at the same time, equal in conditions, equal in power and nature? Granted that the One Divine is the
\nsource of all and the Self is the same in all; but in manifestation why should not the Infinite throw itself out in infinite variety,
\nwhy must it be in an innumerable sameness? How many of these psychic seeds started long before others and have a great past of
\ndevelopment behind them and how many are young and raw and half-grown only? And even among those who started together,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

   
\n\t2 The correspondent asked whether the hereditary influence created by his father had<\/i>
\ncome to an end in him. \u2014Ed.<\/i>
\n  
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 522<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 why should not there be some who ran at a great speed and others who loitered and grew with difficulty or went about in
\ncircles? And then there is an evolution, and it is only at a certain stage in the evolution that the animal belt is past and there
\nis a human beginning; what constitutes the human beginning, which represents a very considerable revolution or turnover?
\nUp to the animal line it is the vital and physical that have been developing \u2014for the human to begin is it not necessary that
\nthere should be the descent of a mental being to take up the vital and physical evolution? And may it not well be that the mental
\nbeings who descend are not all of the same power and stature and, besides, do not take up equally developed vital and physical
\nconsciousness-material? There is also the occult tradition of a hierarchy of beings who stand above the present manifestation
\nand put themselves into it with results which will obviously be just such a stupendous difference of degrees, and even intervene
\nby descending into the play through the gates of birth in human Nature. There are many complexities and the problem cannot
\nbe put with the rigidity of a mathematical formula. <\/p>\n

\n\tA great part of the difficulty of these problems, I mean especially the
\n\tappearance of inexplicable contradiction, arises from the problem itself
\n\tbeing badly put. Take the popular ac count of reincarnation and Karma \u2014it is
\n\tbased on the mere mental assumption that the workings of Nature ought to be
\n\tmoral and proceed according to an exact morality of equal justice \u2014a
\n\tscrupulous, even mathematical law of reward and punishment or, at any rate,
\n\tof results according to a human idea of right correspondences. But Nature is
\n\tnon-moral \u2014she uses forces and processes moral, immoral and amoral pell-mell
\n\tfor working out her business. Nature in her outward aspect seems to care for
\n\tnothing except to get things done \u2014or else to make conditions for an
\n\tingenious variety of the play of life. Nature in her deeper aspect as a
\n\tconscious spiritual Power is concerned with the growth, by experience, the
\n\tspiritual development of the souls she has in her charge \u2014and these souls
\n\tthemselves have a say in the matter. All these good people lament and wonder
\n\tthat unaccountably they and other good people are visited with <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 523<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

such meaningless sufferings and misfortunes. But are they really visited with them by an outside Power or by a mechanical Law of
\nKarma? Is it not possible that the soul itself \u2014not the outward mind, but the spirit within
\n\u2014has accepted and chosen these
\nthings as part of its development in order to get through the necessary experience at a rapid rate, to hew through,
\ndurchhauen<\/i>,
\neven at the risk or the cost of much damage to the outward life and the body? To the growing soul, to the spirit within us, may
\nnot difficulties, obstacles, attacks be a means of growth, added strength, enlarged experience, training for spiritual victory? The
\narrangement of things may be that and not a mere question of the pounds, shillings and pence of a distribution of rewards and
\nretributory misfortunes! <\/p>\n

It is the same with the problem of the taking of animal life
\nunder the circumstances put forward by your friend in the letter. It is put on the basis of an invariable ethical right and wrong
\nto be applied to all cases \u2014is it right to take animal life at all, under any circumstances, is it right to allow an animal to suffer
\nunder your eyes when you can relieve it by an euthanasia? There can be no indubitable answer to a question put like that, because
\nthe answer depends on data which the mind has not before it. In fact there are many other factors which make people incline to
\nthis short and merciful way out of the difficulty \u2014the nervous inability to bear the sight and hearing of so much suffering, the
\nunavailing trouble, the disgust and inconvenience \u2014all tend to give force to the idea that the animal itself would want to be out
\nof it. But what does the animal really feel about it \u2014may it not be clinging to life in spite of the pain? Or may not the soul have
\naccepted these things for a quicker evolution into a higher state of life? If so, the mercy dealt out may conceivably interfere with
\nthe animal’s Karma. In fact the right decision might vary in each case and depend on a knowledge which the human mind has not
\n\t\u2014and it might very well be said that until it has it, it has not the right to take life. It was some dim perception of this truth that
\nmade religion and ethics develop the law of Ahimsa \u2014and yet that too becomes a mental rule which it is found impossible to
\napply in practice. And perhaps the moral of it all is that we must   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 524<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

act for the best according to our lights in each case, as things are, but that the solution of these problems can only come by
\npressing forward towards a greater light, a greater consciousness in which the problems themselves, as now stated by the human
\nmind, will not arise because we shall have a vision which will see the world in a different way and a guidance which at present
\nis not ours. The mental or moral rule is a stop-gap which men are obliged to use, very uncertainly and stumblingly, until they
\ncan see things whole in the light of the spirit.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\t\tPage <\/font>\u2013 525<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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