The Theosophical Forum – March 1942

FORGIVENESS AND KARMIC ACTION — G. de Purucker

Think of what the ancients meant when they spoke of men as the kin of the gods, the children of divinities, co-operating with the divinities in the affairs of the Solar Kingdom. It is true; and as time goes on and from manhood we pass into godhood, into becoming gods, our contributory efforts will be much better, much more beautiful, much wider, much richer, in every way grander. We are at present young gods at school, young gods at play. Our home is the Solar System. It is likewise our school-house, our university. This earth is, as it were, our school-room at present until we graduate to a higher school-room; but all our activity takes place in our university of life, which is the Solar System. How wonderful a picture! And I can assure you that every human thought is registered for eternity on the deathless tablets of time. A thought of mine will touch with the most delicate finger of influence the remotest star in the galaxy and will affect that star by so much, just as I am affected by all thoughts around me.

Imagine two billion human beings on earth, the human race — that is, the imbodied portion of the human race. Suppose they are thinking, as men do, especially today due to the rapid improvements of intercommunication: suppose they think all more or less at the same time about the same thing and pretty much in the same way — let us say it is a scare or a war-hysteria or a great hate or a great emotion: do you think that that vast body of loosened psychic energy is not going to strike somewhere? Of course it will. And here is where karman comes in. It is an old, old teaching, taught more often in the earlier days of the Society than now, that the disasters that afflict mankind are mainly brought about by man, his own evil thinking and evil feeling throwing into the astral light or into the earth's atmosphere a simply terrific volume of energy, of force. You know the old English proverb, which is very true: Curses like chickens come home to roost. They do not go and roost in somebody else's farm. Chickens come home. Thoughts of love, thoughts of beauty, thoughts of kindliness, benevolent thoughts and feelings: they likewise come like messengers from the gods winging their way back to us. Someday, somewhen, somewhere, we reap what we sow. If men knew and felt this great law, how differently would they not act towards each other! All feelings of revenge and hatred, and that diabolic fruit of self-seeking materialism that you must protect yourself at any cost against your brother: such things could never again find lodgment in men's minds and hearts.

How true is the word of the old Hebrew Prophet: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." What a warning! Theosophy shows us why and how. The man who suffers an injury would do infinitely
better to accept and forgive, to take it manfully; for his guerdon in recompense someday will be great, an injurer will become his benefactor; and if he stays his own hand, not only does he not
add to the fearful weight of evil karman pressing on him, but he raises his enemy. An act like that is godlike. I say unto you, "Love your enemies." So spake the Avatara. "Do good unto those who
persecute you. Give not wrong for wrong, nor hate for hate." When will men learn this?



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