Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-27

sistance, sftouches the springs of nature, 30
to speak, and provokes the development OF
| a child within whose parentage, j. e., her
| edity. it finds, by the power of selectlye
affinity, the exact conditions required tor
Its renewed life. ~
'The differences always observable be-
tween children and their parents, depslte
the law of heredity, are thus made explain
able; such differences originating IN the re-
incarnated spirit within, the latter by right
and might always dominating its environ
ment. Heredity, therefore, SO far from
confuting reincarnation, is itself a most i'm
portant factor in its final efectuation.
As We Sow SO Shall We Reap.
Apart from being the enforced consequent
of the evolutionary process, necessary to the
perfect development of a human being, and
man, we are told, is not even physically
perfect-reincarnation is also an effect, the
moving cause of which is Karma. karma
and reincarnation are in fact, doctrines in
is the sum total of spiritual, and hence,
physical, effects that have sprung from
previous lives Gas We sow, so We reap"
is law that holds good from one life to
another, as well as in the life that now is
The karmic seed that we have sown in
previous life, therefore determines in
fundamental and general way, our condition
in the present. As We are, we are the re-
suit of what we were; and that which we
will be, will be as surely determined by
that which we now are Karma in fact, is
simply the ine1orable law of cause aud
effect, operating on the spiritual and psychic
plane.
karmic effects may be either good, bad or
Indifferent. So long as man sows karma
of any sort, however, so long will he be
drawn back again to earthly fields. By
earthly karma is meant all that pertains to
material qualifications and self. The man
who frees himself from all material desires
and selfish qualities of heart and mind, be-
comes karmaless.
Periods of Heavenly Happiness.
But karma also reacts in another way.
Between each reincarnation, there is. we are
told, more or less lengthy periods of
heavenly happiness-fruit of the higher
purer and more spiritual karma we have
previously sown, and which on earth, be-
cause OF the universal discord and perver-
sion of moral law, could not meet with its
due and commensurate reward. The supple
mental statement is that it is on earth that
we chiefly atone for our evil deeds. A
period of separation. more or less painful
and prolonged, is indeed gone through with,
in the ego's passage to higher state,
period which may, in a sense, answer to the
orthodox ideas of hades or purgatory. But
it is, as has been said, here on the material
plane that we really suffer for the evil
karma sown. The chance to amend is given
from life to life, the ego ever being on the
rise or fall according as it makes use of the
opportunities offered the one way or the
other.
Man, therefore, is virtually the arbitrator
of his own fate and the maker of his own
i po{rr hat ia 70
during the period of devachanic happiness,
the baser principles of the soul, are, in the
generality of cases, removed beyond the cir
cumference of his conscious life, and it is
only when the higher karrnic effects are ex-
hausted, that they begin to reassert them
selves. drawing the ego
Back Once More to Earthly Life.
The fact that it does so, is simply the
working effect of an adequate cause; for it
is here only, upon the material and their
corresponding plane, that they can be ulti-
mately gratifed, or openly met with and
VIGOROUSLY overcome. In the latter case,
the man becomes as has been already stated,
karmaless, and therefore freed from the fur
ther necessity of returning to earth.
Thenceforth he enters upon higher
evolutionary process which may
be called superhuman, involving
godlIke activities OF mind and power. In
such case, too, standing upon the threshold
of this 'tthe mystic parting of the ways"
he will, it is said, have power at last, to
read backward through all his previous
lives, and to trace his steps upward from
age to age unto the final goal. For al
though memory fails and we forget, the
spirit within keeps eternal record of all,
and the book of life thus inscribed, unrolls
obedient to the touch Of the acquired
knowledge and skill.
A word more; the doctrine of reincarna-
tion as herein presented, should not be con-
founded with the transmigration of the
human ego into and through the bodies of
animals. Whatever may have been its ante
human condition, the soul of man having
once attained its human estate, can only be
retrograded to the animal plane by the alb
solute extinction of its essential human
qualities. And this, we are told, is an
event of most infreeuent occurrence.
MARK f. GRISwoLn.