The Law of Karma

The creation of new karma by free will

As we know now, the Law of Karma is not a blind law in accordance with the morale "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". When a man changes his mind, temper and behaviour what is then attracting the balancing of karma also changes. We have also seen that not all the influences to which an individual is exposed are his fault alone?

In spite of this, it is a tumbling block for many people that karmic balancing often causes injustice. Be it sexual assaults, violence or murder, we humans find it hard to accept that all this injustice may be ascribed to injustice done by the victim himself in previous lives. Some creeds claim that there will always be a karmic balancing, and if this is true life is a well-regulated machine that will see to it? Whatever happens is subject to fate or predetermined. However, this opinion does not leave room for the free will to work. If we have a free will to do good things and bad things, then new karma or effects will be created continuously. These new effects may have an effect on victims who have no karmic relation to the violator.

Let us envisage a mentally disturbed man who fires his gun into a group of people. It is not very likely for the bullet to change its course all of a sudden just because an innocent man was in the way. In a world where men are entitled to exercise their free will it will of course be a dangerous to live. It is also dangerous to drive a car because of the traffic. Yet suppose that all traffic accidents were a consequence of actions in previous lives and that they were closely ruled by karmic laws, then this would mean that man was a robot with no free will of his own.

H.P. Blavatsky explains this principle of unmerited sufferings in The Key to Theosophy: "Our philosophy teaches that karmic punishment reaches the Ego only in its next incarnation. After death it receives only the reward for the unmerited sufferings endured during its past incarnation." In a footnote she stated:

"Some Theosophists have taken exception to this phrase, but the words are those of Master, and the meaning attached to the word "unmerited" is that given above. In the T. P. S. pamphlet No. 6, a phrase, criticised subsequently in LUCIFER , was used which was intended to convey the same idea. In form, however, it was awkward and open to the criticism directed against it; but the essential idea was that men often suffer from the effects of the actions done by others, effects which thus do not strictly belong to their own Karma -- and for these sufferings they of course deserve compensation".

Consequently, the soul governing the karmic balancing together with the Lords of Karma (please see explanation below), will be credited with any effects that may arise, but which were not meant for this incarnation. We have all been responsible for much suffering throughout history and some of it has been written off.