Cyclic Evolution and Karma: From Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Secret Doctrine,” Part 1 of 2

Today, it is a pleasure to present Section 15: Cyclic Evolution and Karma from the book “The Secret Doctrine.” Whereby Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (vegetarian) explains that although people have free will, it is important to act virtuously and follow the Divine path rather than falling into the traps of our own ego.

Section 15 Cyclic Evolution and Karma

“It is the spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal Man that forms the fundamental tenet of the Occult Sciences. To realize even distantly such a process, the student has to believe (a) in the One Universal Life, independent of Matter (or what Science regards as Matter); and (b) in the individual Intelligences that animate the various manifestations of this Principle. […]

The One Life is closely related to the One Law which governs the World of Being – Karma. Exoterically, this is simply and literally ‘action,’ or rather an ‘effect-producing cause.’ Esoterically, it is quite a different thing in its far-reaching moral effects. It is the unerring Law of Retribution. […]

It has been shown that, at the first flutter of renascent life, Svabhâvat, ‘the Mutable Radiance of the Immutable Darkness unconscious in Eternity,’ passes, at every new rebirth of Kosmos, from an inactive state into one of intense activity; that it differentiates, and then begins its work through that differentiation. This work is Karma.

The Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this activity. The one Cosmic Atom becomes seven Atoms on the plane of Matter, and each is transformed into a centre of energy; that same Atom becomes seven Rays on the plane of Spirit; and the seven creative Forces of Nature, radiating from the Root-Essence ... follow, one the right, the other the left path, separate till the end of the Kalpa, and yet in close embrace. What unites them? Karma. […]”

“The root Philosophy of both Advaita and Buddhist scholars is identical, and both have the same respect for animal life, for both believe that every creature on Earth, however small and humble, ‘is an immortal portion of the immortal Matter’ […] and that every creature is subject to Karma. […]”