KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER - 1

KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER

The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action is Karma.
Technically, this word also means the effects of actions. In connection with
metaphysics, it sometimes means the effects, of which our past actions were the
causes. But in Karma-Yoga we have simply to do with the word Karma as
meaning work. The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed
before us by Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but
knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose
that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is
that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man
finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and
that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, and that he learns as much from
evil as from good. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul they have upon it
different pictures, and the result of these combined impressions is what is called
man's "character". If you take the character of any man, it really is but the
aggregate of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind; you will find that
misery and happiness are equal factors in the formation of that character. Good
and evil have an equal share in moulding character, and in some instances
misery is a greater teacher than happiness. In studying the great characters the
world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found
that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught
more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than
praise.
Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from
outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows", should, in strict
psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils"; what a man
"learns" is really what he "discovers", by taking the cover off his own soul,
which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner
waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All
knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite
library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the
suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object
of your study is always your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the
suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the
previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them,
which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in
the centre of the earth.
All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In many
cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being
slowly taken off, we say, "We are learning," and the advance of knowledge is
made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this
veil is being lifted is the more knowing man, the man upon whom it lies thick is
ignorant, and the man from whom it has entirely gone is all-knowing,
omniscient. There have been omniscient men, and, I believe, there will be yet;
and that there will be myriads of them in the cycles to come. Like fire in a piece
of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestion is the friction which brings it
out. So with all our feelings and action — our tears and our smiles, our joys and
our griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses and our blessings, our
praises and our blames — every one of these we may find, if we calmly study
our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so many
blows. The result is what we are. All these blows taken together are called
Karma — work, action. Every mental and physical blow that is given to the
soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power
and knowledge are discovered, is Karma, this word being used in its widest
sense. Thus we are all doing Karma all the time. I am talking to you: that is
Karma. You are listening: that is Karma. We breathe: that is Karma. We walk:
Karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and it leaves its marks
on us.
There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate, the sum total, of a
large number of smaller works. If we stand near the seashore and hear the
waves dashing against the shingle, we think it is such a great noise, and yet we
know that one wave is really composed of millions and millions of minute
waves. Each one of these is making a noise, and yet we do not catch it; it is
only when they become the big aggregate that we hear. Similarly, every
pulsation of the heart is work. Certain kinds of work we feel and they become
tangible to us; they are, at the same time, the aggregate of a number of small
works. If you really want to judge of the character of a man, look not at his
great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another.
Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which
will tell you the real character of a great man. Great occasions rouse even the
lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really
great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.
Karma in its effect on character is the most tremendous power that man has to
deal with. Man is, as it were, a centre, and is attracting all the powers of the
universe towards himself, and in this centre is fusing them all and again sending
them off in a big current. Such a centre is the real man — the almighty, the
omniscient — and he draws the whole universe towards him. Good and bad,
misery and happiness, all are running towards him and clinging round him; and
out of them he fashions the mighty stream of tendency called character and
throws it outwards. As he has the power of drawing in anything, so has he the
power of throwing it out.
All the actions that we see in the world, all the movements in human society, all
the works that we have around us, are simply the display of thought, the
manifestation of the will of man. Machines or instruments, cities, ships, or menof-
war, all these are simply the manifestation of the will of man; and this will is
caused by character, and character is manufactured by Karma. As is Karma, so
is the manifestation of the will. The men of mighty will the world has produced
have all been tremendous workers — gigantic souls, with wills powerful
enough to overturn worlds, wills they got by persistent work, through ages, and
ages. Such a gigantic will as that of a Buddha or a Jesus could not be obtained
in one life, for we know who their fathers were. It is not known that their
fathers ever spoke a word for the good of mankind. Millions and millions of
carpenters like Joseph had gone; millions are still living. Millions and millions
of petty kings like Buddha's father had been in the world. If it was only a case
of hereditary transmission, how do you account for this petty prince, who was
not, perhaps, obeyed by his own servants, producing this son, whom half a
world worships? How do you explain the gulf between the carpenter and his
son, whom millions of human beings worship as God? It cannot be solved by
the theory of heredity. The gigantic will which Buddha and Jesus threw over
the world, whence did it come? Whence came this accumulation of power? It
must have been there through ages and ages, continually growing bigger and
bigger, until it burst on society in a Buddha or a Jesus, even rolling down to the
present day.