{"id":466,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=466"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:10","slug":"11-the-tangle-of-karma-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17\/11-the-tangle-of-karma-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","title":{"rendered":"-11_The Tangle of Karma.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe
\nTangle
\nof Karma<\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n                        O<\/font><\/b>BVIOUSLY<\/font>
\n
\nwe must leave far behind us the current theory of Karma and its shallow attempt
\nto justify the ways of the Cosmic Spirit by forcing on them a crude identity
\nwith the summary notions of law and justice, the crude and often<\/span> <\/b>savagely primitive methods of reward and punishment, lure and
\ndeterrent dear to the surface human mind. There is here a more authentic and
\nspiritual truth at the base of Nature\u2019s action and a far less mechanically
\ncalculable movement. Here is no rigid and narrow ethical law bound down to a
\npetty human significance, no teaching of a child soul by a mixed system of
\nblows and lollipops, no unprofitable wheel of a brutal cosmic justice
\nautomatically moved in the traces of man\u2019s ignorant judgments and earthly
\ndesires and instincts. Life and rebirth do not follow these artificial
\nconstructions, but a movement spiritual and intimate to the deepest intention
\nof Nature. A cosmic Will and Wisdom observant of the ascending march of the
\nsoul\u2019s consciousness and experience as it emerges out of subconscient Matter
\nand climbs to its own luminous divinity, fixes the norm and constantly
\nenlarges the lines \u2014 or, let us say, since law is a too mechanical
\nconception, the truth of Karma.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

    For
\nwhat we understand by law is a single immutably habitual movement or
\nrecurrence in Nature fruitful of a determined sequence of things and that
\nsequence must be clear, precise, limited to its formula, invariable. If it is
\nnot that, if there is too much flexibility of movement, if there intervenes too
\nembarrassing a variety or criss-cross of action and reaction, a too rich complex of forces, the narrow uncompromising incompetence of our logical
\nintelligence finds there not law but an incertitude and a chaos. Our reason must
\nbe allowed to cut and hew and arbitrarily select its suitable circumstances,
\nisolate its immutable data, skeletonise or mechanise life; otherwise it stands
\nopen-mouthed at a loss unable to think with precision or act with effect in a
\nfield of subtle and indefinite measures. It must be allowed to deal<\/p>\n

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


\nPage
\n– 33<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

with
\nmighty Nature as it deals with human society, politics, ethics, conduct; for it
\ncan understand and do good work only where it is licensed to build and map out
\nits own artificial laws, erect a clear, precise, rigid, infallible system and
\nleave as little room as possible for the endless flexibility and variety and
\ncomplexity that presses from the Infinite upon our mind and life. Moved by
\nthis need we endeavour to forge for our own souls and for the cosmic Spirit even
\nsuch a single and inflexible law of Karma as we would ourselves have made had
\nthe rule of the world been left to us. Not this mysterious universe would we
\nhave made, but the pattern of a rational cosmos fitted to our call for a simple
\ndefinite guidance in action and for a well-marked thumb rule facile and clear to
\nour limited intelligence. But this force we call Karma turns out to be no such
\nprecise and invariable mechanism as we hoped; it is rather a thing of many
\nplanes that changes its face and walk and very substance as it mounts from level
\nto higher level, and on each plane even as it is not one movement but an
\nindefinite complex of many spiral movements hard enough for us to harmonise
\ntogether or to find out whatever secret harmony unknown to us and incalculable
\nthese complexities are weaving out in this mighty field of the dealings of the
\nsoul with Nature.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

    Let
\nus then call Karma no longer a Law, but rather the many-sided dynamic truth of
\nall action and life, the organic movement here of the Infinite. That was what
\nthe ancient thinkers saw in it before it was cut and shredded by lesser minds
\nand turned into an easy and misleading popular formula. Action of Karma follows
\nand takes up many potential lines of the spirit, into its multitudinous surge,
\nmany waves and streams of combining and disputing world-forces; it is the
\nprocessus of the creative Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the
\nprogression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities
\ncannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial
\nappearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling forward in the cloud of
\nits own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the maze of these
\nmyriad favouring and opposing forces that surround and urge and drive and hamper
\nus from the visible and invisible worlds.<\/p>\n

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


\nPage
\n– 34<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Nor
\nca<\/span>n
\nit be perfectly classified, accounted for, tied up in bundles
\nby the precisions of our logical intelligence in its inveterate search for
\nclear-cut dogmas. On that day only shall we perfectly
\n<\/font><\/span>decipher what is now to us Nature\u2019s obscure hieroglyph
\nof Karma when there rises
\nin our enlarged consciousness the supramental way of knowledge. The supramental
\neye can see hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in
\nthe largeness of its harmonising vision of Truth all that <\/font><\/span>to<\/span> <\/span><\/b>our
\nminds is clash and opposition and the collision and interlocked strife of
\nnumberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at
\nonce single and infinite and the <\/span><\/font><\/font>comple<\/span>xities of its play
\nserve to bring out with an abundant ease to rich significance of the Eternal\u2019s
\nmany-sided oneness.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n


\n Page
\n– 35<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tangle of Karma                             OBVIOUSLY we must leave far behind us the current theory of Karma and its shallow attempt to justify…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","wpcat-9-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","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=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}