FREEWILL AND KARMA
Freewill [Free Will] and Karma

by William Kingsland

[Reprinted from "Lucifer", June, 1893]

and reproduced from “Theosophical Siftings” - Volume 7 - [1894-1895]

[Page 12] Make pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, the same to thee, and then prepare for battle, for thus and thus alone shalt thou in action be free from sin.

Those who have spiritual discrimination call him wise whose undertakings are all free from desire, for his actions are consumed in the fire of knowledge.

Even if thou wert the greatest of all sinners, thou shalt be able to cross over all sins in the bark of spiritual knowledge.

— Bhagavad Gîtâ.

THE problem of free will, that is to say, the question as to how far that choice which we appear to exercise in our conduct and actions, is actually a free choice or only a necessity, bound and conditioned by causes which lie beyond our reach on this plane of consciousness, is one which we cannot hope to solve, simply because we cannot get at the plane of causes, because the plane on which we live is almost wholly a plane of effects, and we are not therefore in possession of the necessary factors which should go to make the equation.

But though we cannot determine specifically, in reference to any of our actions, to what extent we are bound or free, there are some considerations which we cannot neglect, entering into the question of that free choice which we are conscious of exercising, and which we do exercise, however much our philosophy may prompt us to fatalistic conclusions. For the veriest fatalist does act as if he had free choice in some matters; we have to admit the apparent freedom, and act as if it were a real freedom, however much we may postulate a deeper necessity as the real determining power.

I would make two divisions of the subject, (a) the actual problem as to how far, if at all, we are free to act in one direction or another; (b) what should be our mental and philosophical attitude towards life itself, in view of the limitations imposed upon us by necessity.

(a) I use the term necessity as synonymous with Karma in a restricted sense. Karma is the law of action. All effects are the results of previous action, and the law which counterbalances the cause and the effect, the law which makes action and reaction equal and opposite, is the law of Karma. This Law teaches us that our present life is determined and conditioned on every hand by necessity; that certain forces are operating in the moulding of our life and destiny, because these forces were [Page 13] set in motion by us in previous incarnations. I am speaking now, of course, of our individual life, in so far as it differs in its circumstances from the individual lives of our fellow-men; for there is also the deeper necessity of our human nature as such, by which we have to share in the Karma of the whole race.

The following quotation from The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 639, sets this forth very clearly:

Those who believe in Karma have to believe in destiny, which from birth to death every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider does his web. . . When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in a net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions.

It should be observed that this implies choice as well as necessity; but when the choice has been made, when the die has been cast, there is no longer any room for free will in that particular direction. It may seem to some, however, that this will land us in the deepest depths of fatalism, that it will involve us ultimately in a chain of cause and effect from which there is no hope of escape, that it will finally leave no room whatever for any freedom of choice. There is much to be said for the extreme necessitarian view of the matter, for that philosophy, if such it can be called, which regards choice as a mere matter of habit, or of likes and dislikes engendered by heredity and environment, over which we have no control. I hope to be able to show, however, that this view of the matter may be quite consistent and accurate, even when pushed to its extreme limit, and yet it is in harmony with the deeper teachings of Theosophy, which undoubtedly does leave room for the exercise of free will within the limitations of Karma; but which further shows the way of escape, "even if thou wert the greatest of all sinners".

The question is really one as to the action of Karma, as to how far the Karmic effect of an action may reach. Now Karma is cause and effect, but the effect may be either proximate or deferred. The action of Karma, therefore, is intimately associated with the transfer of energy to a higher plane, where it may remain latent for a long period of time, but will ultimately become the determining power in a new series of actions on the plane of effects. We shall see therefore, that the Karmic effect of any action, in so far as it becomes a determining power in our future lives, must be exactly in proportion to the transfer of energy to a higher plane which is associated with that act. Neglecting for the time being the higher spiritual planes of Atma-Buddhi, and dealing [Page 14] only with the mental plane, we may say therefore that the Karmic effect of any action is just in proportion to the extent to which we can bring our mental powers to bear upon that act; because by exercising the mind in the act, we produce on the mental plane a corresponding dynamic effect. Now this is practically saying that the more we are conscious of freedom of choice, and the more we exercise our mental powers of discrimination in reference to any particular action, the greater and more far-reaching will be the Karmic effects. We all admit that an irresponsible action does not merit the same reward or punishment as one done with deliberate intention. Further we make allowances for the state of society and environment. The act of killing and eating an enemy cannot be regarded in the same light when it is performed by a savage, as it would be if done by a member of a civilized community. Now, we are bound to associate with the law of Karma the idea of absolute justice. Where there is no choice there is no responsibility, and where there is no responsibility there can be no Karmic penalty.

Let us suppose, for instance, that some act in one incarnation, say the act of wilful murder, has thrown a man back by its Karmic effect, into an environment of cruelty and violence. Let us suppose that it has thrown him back into a savage community, where it is the right thing to kill and eat your neighbour. In due time, perhaps, the man himself is killed and eaten by a stronger neighbour. But there the Karmic effect ends. Like produces like: the man by the murderous thought which he cherished in the previous incarnation has been attracted in the next to a corresponding environment. For remember that it was not the act of murder that produced the Karmic effect, but the thought of murder which the man cherished, which produced the dynamic effect on the higher plane, and was therefore carried forward to another incarnation. But in this new incarnation the act of killing is not associated with a dynamic mental effect, with a choice between right and wrong. It is the law of the community to kill, the savage knows no better, unless you succeed in awakening within him the dormant moral faculty; therefore the same act in this incarnation, the act of killing, does not carry forward a Karmic effect. Or take as another illustration the case of the hereditary criminal, the man born with the "criminal brain". It may be impossible for us to determine in any particular case to what extent, if at all, the man is responsible for his criminal acts; but we cannot postulate the same Karmic effects from any particular criminal act of such a man, as we should for one who had a normal brain, and whose associations were not criminal. The criminal himself is the Karmic effect of some previous act on the part of the Ego. The Ego is punished by being forced into an environment of criminal heredity for one or more incarnations: but in so far as it has now only a criminal brain to [Page 15] work through on this plane, it is to that extent irresponsible on the higher plane for the criminal acts, though it may suffer on the lower plane during a long series of Karmic effect.

It is impossible for us to apportion the Karmic merit or demerit which may attach to the acts of any individual, or even to our own acts. It may be that in many cases, even where there appears to be a deliberate choice, there is in reality a deeper necessity governing that action. But we can at least postulate that the retributive action of Karma will only extend to that circle, however limited it may be, where there is really freedom of action. Nor will it avail us to excuse our actions on the plea of necessity. We may deceive ourselves, but we cannot deceive the immutable LAW.

Now it is quite conceivable that although every action can be traced back, in the ever-widening circle of infinity, to some ultimate necessity — the whole manifested universe being itself the "son of necessity" — yet within certain limits, within the limits that condition any particular plane, there may be perfect freedom of action. Moreover it would appear, from the considerations of the action of Karma just educed, that freedom of action is obtained just in proportion as the higher principles are able to act on the lower; or in other words, just in proportion as action on the lower plane is governed by interaction with a higher plane. Man is higher than the animals, he has so much more freedom to work with and through physical laws, just in proportion as he brings to bear upon these laws the rational thinking principle, Manas. And above Manas is Atma-Buddhi; but these principles being as yet only latent in us, we are not responsible above a certain plane.

It is conceivable, therefore, that though an act must produce a specific effect in a smaller or wider circle, and though we may postulate an ultimate or deeper necessity governing all action, yet within certain limits there may be freedom on all planes of action; there may be necessity in the mass, so to speak, but freedom in the individual units of the mass. Thus, individually, we are powerless to resist the great stream of evolution which is gradually moulding humanity into something ever higher and higher in the scale of consciousness; yet we may have power to turn back against that stream, and by so doing generate a Karma which, for a certain number of incarnations, will produce results which we will call evil. The evil, however, is only relative to the small circle in which we are free to exercise a choice; it stands as good to the larger circle where necessity operates, because it is the corrective which, sooner or later, brings us back into line; which, indeed, prevents us from escaping altogether from the great cycle of necessity of our humanity as a whole.

And just as we may thus conceive of the working of both free will and necessity in our individual lives, so we must also conceive the operation of [Page 16] the same principles in those higher intelligences which operate on the more universal planes of consciousness, those hierarchies whose conscious intelligence gives rise to the manifested universe in all its aspects. The universe is the "son of necessity", because it is the Karmic result of the action of these intelligences, of whom man is part, and of whose essence he partakes in his various principles. The conscious choice at some particular period, by such intelligences, will be fraught with Karmic effects on humanity which will last for millenniums untold. The Secret Doctrine gives us the record of such Karmic effects.

Thus good and evil, free will and necessity, are intimately related. Everywhere throughout the universe we can trace the operation of these ; and the one law that binds and harmonizes them is, KARMA.

(b) The second division of our subject takes us at once to a higher region. We leave behind us the question as to how far we are in our individual action conditioned and limited by Karma; nay, we are even able by that deep spiritual insight which Theosophy gives us, to rise above the action of Karma itself. "Even if thou wert the greatest of all sinners, thou shalt be able to cross over all sins in the bark of spiritual knowledge”.

What is this spiritual knowledge ? It is the realization of our own divine nature, of our oneness with the SUPREME, of the SELF within us ; and the working out of our life, the constant reference of all our thoughts and actions to this HIGHER SELF. It is what is called in the Bhagavad Gîtâ "Devotion to the Supreme Spirit", or more simply "Devotion".

The Bhagavad Gîtâ is divided into chapters, each of which gives a phase or aspect of this Devotion. The book itself is the book of the “Science of the Supreme Spirit", or the "Book of Devotion". An understanding of its teachings, and a realization of its principles, brings about true liberation; for only when all our actions are consumed in the fire of the selfless SELF, shall we "in action still be free from sin". But we must note what is the nature of this freedom to which we are to attain; and if we collate the various passages in the Bhagavad Gîtâ bearing upon this, we soon find that it differs most essentially from the popular notion of freedom. It is not freedom to choose between our likes and dislikes. It is not freedom to turn this way or that at our own pleasure, to choose between the pleasurable sin or the painful duty. It is not freedom from conditions nor freedom from action; but it is freedom from attachment to these.