In this article William
Judge reflects on the reasons for the environment where we live and how to deal
with this situation.
ENVIRONMENT
To the Western mind the doctrines of
Karma and Reincarnation contain difficulties which while they seem imaginary to
the Eastern student, are nevertheless for the Western man as real as any of the
other numerous obstructions in the path of salvation. All difficulties are more
or less imaginary, for the whole world and all its entanglements are said to be
an illusion resulting from the notion of a separate I. But while we exist here
in matter, and so long as there is a manifested universe, these illusions are
real to that man who has not risen above them to the knowledge that they are
but the masks behind which the reality is hidden.
For nearly twenty centuries the
Western nations have been building up the notion of a separate I —of meum
and tuum— and it is hard for them to accept any system which goes
against those notions.
As they progress in what is called
material civilization with all its dazzling allurements and aids to luxury,
their delusion is further increased because they appraise the value of their
doctrine by the results which seem to flow from it, until at last they push so
far what they call the reign of law, that it becomes a reign of terror. All
duty to their fellows is excluded from it in practice, although the beautiful
doctrines of Jesus are preached to the people daily by preachers who are paid
to preach but not to enforce, and who cannot insist upon the practice which
should logically follow the theory because the consequences would be a loss of
position and livelihood.
So when out of such a nation rises a
mind that asks for help to find again the path that was lost, he is
unconsciously much affected by the education not only of himself but also of
his nation through all these centuries. He has inherited tendencies that are
hard to be overcome. He battles with phantasms, real for him but mere dreams
for the student who has been brought up under other influences.
When, therefore, he is told to rise
above the body, to conquer it, to subdue his passions, his vanity, anger and
ambition, he asks, "what if borne down by this environment, which I was
involuntarily born into, I shall fail." Then when told that he must fight
or die in the struggle, he may reply that the doctrine of Karma is cold and
cruel because it holds him responsible for the consequences which appear to be
the result of that unsought environment. It then becomes with him a question
whether to right and die, or to swim on with the current careless as to its
conclusion but happy if perhaps it shall carry him into smooth water whose
shores are elysian.
Or perhaps he is a student of
occultism whose ambition has been fired by the prospect of adeptship, of attaining
powers over nature, or what not.
Beginning the struggle he presently
finds himself beset with difficulties which, not long after, he is convinced
are solely the result of his environment. In his heart he says that Karma has
unkindly put him where he must constantly work for a living for himself and a
family: or he has a life long partner whose attitude is such that he is sure
were he away from her he could progress: until at last he calls upon heaven to
interpose and change the surroundings so opposed to his perfecting himself.
This man has indeed erred worse than
the first. He has wrongly supposed that his environment was a thing to be hated
and spurned away. Without distinctly so saying to himself, he has nursed within
the recesses of his being the idea that he like Buddha could in this one life
triumph over all the implacable forces and powers that bar the way to Nirvana.
We should remember that the Buddha does not come every day but is the
efflorescence of ages, who when the time is ripe surely appears in one place
and in one body, not to work for his own advancement but for the salvation
of the world.
What then of environment and what of
its power over us?
Is environment Karma or is it
Reincarnation?
The Law is Karma, reincarnation is only an incident. It is one
of the means which The Law uses to bring us at last to the true light. The
wheel of rebirths is turned over and over again by us in obedience to this law,
so that we may at last come to place our entire reliance upon Karma. Nor is our
environment Karma itself, for Karma is the subtle power which works in that
environment.
There is nothing but the Self —using
the word as Max Muller does to designate the Supreme Soul— and its environment.
The Aryans for the latter use the word Kosams or sheaths. So that there
is only this Self and the various sheaths by which it is clothed, beginning
with the most intangible and coming down to the body, while outside of that and
common to all is what is commonly known as environment, whereas the word should
be held to include all that is not The Self.
How unphilosophical therefore it is
to quarrel with our surroundings, and to desire to escape them? We only escape
one kind to immediately fall into another. And even did we come into the
society of the wisest devotees we would still carry the environment of the Self
in our own bodies, which will always be our enemy so long as we do not know
what it is in all its smallest details. Coming down then to the particular
person, it is plain that that part of the environment which consists in the
circumstances of life and personal surroundings is only an incident, and that
the real environment to be understood and cared about is that in which Karma
itself inheres in us.
Thus we see that it is a mistake to
say —as we often hear it said— "If he only had a fair chance; if his
surroundings were more favorable he would do better," since he really could
not be in any other circumstances at that time, for if he were it would not
be he but some one else. It must be necessary for him to pass through those
identical trials and disadvantages to perfect the Self; and it is only because
we see but an infinitesimal part of the long series that any apparent confusion
or difficulty arises. So our strife will be, not to escape from anything, but
to realize that these Kosams, or sheaths, are an integral portion of
ourselves, which we must fully understand before we can change the abhorred
surroundings. This is done by acknowledging the unity of spirit, by knowing
that everything, good and bad alike, is the Supreme. We then come into harmony
with the Supreme Soul, with the whole universe, and no environment is
detrimental.
The very first step is to rise from
considering the mere outside delusive environment, knowing it to be the result
of past lives, the fruition of Karma done, and say with Uddalaka in speaking to
his son:
"All this Universe has the
Deity for its life. That Deity is the Truth. He is the Universal soul. He Thou
art, O Svetaketu!"
Hadji Erinn.
(Path, February 1887, p.346-8;
Echoes I, p.31-34)
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