Can there be any nobler or more worthy object of pursuit for us than the study of our own nature and of Great Nature, in order that we may understand them completely and thus be able to use all our powers and faculties to the highest good, not for ourselves, but for others? We are so busily engaged in actions, one following instantly upon another, that it is but rarely that the ordinary person pauses for a moment to consider the nature of action itself, and yet it is through action of some kind that everything that is came into being and maintains its existence, whether for an ephemeral moment or for the entire life cycle of our earth or even of the solar system.

Let us look, then, at Karma, which means action, yet implies much more than we are accustomed to associate with that term. Let us consider that the power of action is in us; it is in every organ, every cell, every molecule, every atom of our bodies; it is inherent in our feelings, in our emotions, in our desires, in our memories, in our imagination, in our hopes and fears, and equally in our thoughts, because all these are but names for different forms of eternal action.

What we all need is not more powers, but a better understanding of the powers and nature that we have. The teachings of Theosophy are directed to that end. Theosophy, while it deals with action as that word is ordinarily used—the manifested output of the power resident in everyone—takes us at the same time to the source from which issues the never-ending stream of action, of which we are all slaves. The power of action is in every one of us and in every aspect of our make-up—physical, mental, moral, psychical and spiritual; and it is not only in us but everywhere in Nature, even in so-called inorganic matter. This power of action does not take the same form in the lower kingdoms of Nature as it does in us, but all the same it is there in all things. We see it throughout the vegetable kingdom and the mineral kingdom, and the whole molecular world that from the standpoint of our ocular perception appears to be static is, nevertheless, engaged in constant action.

Theosophy calls to our attention that the principle of action, the power of action, is the power of the Omnipresent Deity. Whether a hell is created or a heaven; whether we think of the earth or of the waters, or of the manifold forms of life that live on the earth or under the waters—all are the products of action, and God or Deity is veritably the Supreme Power that underlies all action, all existing things. Anyone can see that that Power is no being, but is the animating principle of each being.

Every itom is a god; every mineral is a god; every vegetable, every animal, every man, every being, visible or invisible, good or bad, is a god, a being in whom resides the power of action, a power which nothing can take away from that being. Slay a man, but the power of action has not ceased in that slain body. The man when alive possessed some kind of a cohering power which kept a measure of peace in the discordant elements that made up the physical body; but the King being withdrawn, action does not cease. Decomposition of the bodily elements is as much of an action as is any other we know of.

If we turn to modern science, we shall find that its theory of action is very simple; it is all the result of: Matter—something which action pushes or pulls; Force—that which pushes or pulls matter and into which all matter is resolvable; Law—which governs the creation, preservation and destruction of anything. The Universe of science is made up of these three. Now, certainly our nature has matter in it—our bodies; has force in it—the energies we exercise every day, in all the departments of our being, consciously or unconsciously; and certainly we are, each one of us, governed by law. But there is also inherent in us the power to choose what we will do or what we will not do—the power of intelligence.

How far can a person act? As far as he has power and as far as he wills; but there is the third factor—as far as he has intelligence, as far as he knows and understands the nature of his own power and of Great Nature around him. So we have three factors: the power to act; the power to choose, and the intelligence that the being may possess. What makes men act, rationally or irrationally, creatively or destructively? The secret lies in the mystery of our own being, and we should begin to understand something of it.

Turning within ourselves, we find that there is present in us the power of action. Next, observation shows us that the power of action resides in everything and is one power. Our experience within and our observation without show us that wherever there is action there is life, and turning once more within we find that action depends not only upon life but upon the intelligence of the life, and that life everywhere does not possess the same intelligence. And then we come to see that every being is a god in the only sense in which the word "god" has any rational or true moral meaning. In every being is the power to see, the power to do according as he sees, and the power of intelligence. Each one is a Perceiver, is a soul; and, what is more, the power of perception exists everywhere; that is to say, this is a universe of Soul and Spirit.

What is it that acts all the time, that thinks and chooses and reasons and experiences? What is the law of action? What is the result of action? Everything we think or say or learn yields a sensation to us. Everything that contacts us from outside is expressible in terms of feeling. Men do not act according to their reason. They do not act according to their power of perception. They do not act according to their judgment. They do not act on the basis that they are Soul and Spirit. The actual basis of their action is simply what they feel at the moment. If we flatter someone, he will be our friend because we have given him an agreeable and happy sensation. If we tell the same person that he is a liar, we have converted a friend into an enemy; we have changed his whole nature in a flash.

One whose actions are based on his emotional nature at once puts all the other principles of his nature in abeyance or in servitude to his emotions, and anybody who has studied human nature, as a pianist has studied the octave, can play on his nature in any tune he chooses, can do with him as he will. The day is already at hand when, without realizing it, people are becoming the victims of the power of suggestion. This is black magic, when exercised to benefit oneself at someone else's expense. But if the power of action is one and is present everywhere in Nature, then when a person benefits himself at another's expense, he has just as much set up the cause of ruin for himself as one who injects a deadly poison in his foot, instead of in his arm, thinking he will remain unhurt thereby. The body is one, its members are many. So, if there is but one Spirit, then any action set up by any being must in time reach out and affect all beings. Any action set up by anyone in any portion of his nature must, in time, reach out and affect his whole nature, and then he gets the reacion of the whole upon the part from which the action originated, and that working out of the reaction we call Law.

When a person realizes that there is no power which he ascribes to his God that is not in him or is not in an atom, then he begins to get a realization of what is meant by the Omnipresent Deity, an understanding of the ancient teaching that every being is a god. If we go back to the beginning of any action we ever performed, we shall find that it was preceded by and came from some feeling we had, and that feeling was based on some idea we held, and it was we who chose that idea as the basis of action. So, no matter what we do, we can trace the action back to the feeling, the thought, the will; that is, the choice, the motive. And here we get a real basis for the consideration of our actions, or anybody's actions—what is the motive?

Now, if a person's perception of his nature and of Great Nature is such that he believes his life, his will and his actions to be distinct and separate from others' life, will and actions, then he will act in a separative way. If life is in fact one and a person acts as if life were split up into millions of independent entities, he will have produced the same result as when a child stubs his toe and then kicks the rock against which he stubbed it! If a wolf is caught in a trap, it will gnaw its leg off trying to get away; it thinks the leg is part of the trap! So a person acts according to what he sees to be the foundation of existence. He sees either unity or separateness. If he sees separateness, his actions, that is to say, his motives, his ideas, his feelings and their expressions, will be selfish. It is as if he used his own hands to ruin another member of his own body. So we, who are an indivisible part of the One Life, are constantly in a struggle with other indivisible parts of that same Life, and the result is friction. Friction produces heat; heat produces pain. Each being who is in friction with another sees the other as the cause of his pain, and thinks that if only he can destroy that other his pain will cease. So, according as we believe ourselves to be separate or united, we shall act selfishly or unselfishly.

In a universe of law, no compromise is possible. There are no favoured people, no favouring gods. The law of this universe for each being is the same; it is the law of his own being. Having the power of action, he acts on the life around him, and life being one, he suffers the reaction, whatever it be, in company with all others. All the great Teachers humanity has had, have affirmed the reign of Law in the universe. The Buddha said: "Each man's life the outcome of his former living is." Jesus put it: "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit....Wherever by their fruits ye shall know them." St. Paul stated: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." What we are reaping now we have sown in the past. What we are sowing now in motive, idea, feeling and action, that sowing we will reap tomorrow, next year, next life. So the real idea of Brotherhood, which is the law of Compassion, does not rest on a physical basis, or on an emotional basis, or on a reasoning basis. It rests on the essential identity of all life and on the law of our being, which is the same for all.

Karma is the law of Compassion. In time we shall see that Life is One, that we and all other beings are now, and always have been, incessantly in action; that is, all are sowing and are incessantly reaping what they have sown before, and the sowing is always of the same nature as the reaping; the reaping always of the same nature as the sowing. Is there no hope? There is, because with the power to act in any direction comes the power not to act in that direction. When it is impressed on the minds of all that whatever we reap is the fruit of the crop that we ourselves sowed, and that people see that Nature will not harm them, they will not think of hurting their fellows, they will see that the law of life is trust, service, duty; they will see that the only happiness we can find comes from obeying the law of our own being.

Once we begin to study our nature from inside out, we find that we are spiritual beings first, last and all the time; that knowledge and power can be had and retained only on a spiritual basis. Once we see what we are suffering from; once we see that the hand that smites us is our own, we shall gain the courage to do that which our heart longs to do. Everyone would rather give than receive; everyone would rather do good than evil, and yet we do an awful lot of evil. Why? We lack the faith, the confidence and the conviction that this is a universe of justice, of mercy and of charity, and that justice, mercy and charity endure for ever. We get that faith, confidence and conviction through the contact of our spiritual nature with our human nature. Ordinarily, when we think of the immortal and the eternal, we do so from the basis of the mortal and the evanescent. When we think of brotherhood and of charity, we think of them in sectarian terms, or in terms of political parties or social cliques. We do not think of brotherhood in terms of the spiritual identity of all beings; in terms of the fact that the whole of manifested existence is a vast field of evolution; that what we now are, every great being once was.

Such a being kept his moral nature awake by service performed for his fellows. He kept his reasoning power awake; he used his reason to guide his moral nature in the same way as a person's legs carry him but his eyes tell him which way to travel. And by the cultivation of his moral nature and his reason he came to that point where he could see what barrier stops us. If a healthy person performs actions which are against what we know to be the laws of health, he loses his health. We do not see that there are also laws of psychic and spiritual health. We do not seem to understand that memory and knowledge are faculties and functions of consciousness which may be expanded without limit, which may be gained or lost, and that it is absolutely impossible for one to gain spiritual knowledge so long as there is any taint of moral selfishness and self-interest in him. It is impossible for one who is given to telling lies to have any understanding of what is meant by truth and what results from being truthful unless and until he quits falsifying. The road to spiritual knowledge lies through the unselfish use of our faculties, our powers and functions, whatever they are, for the benefit of the One Life of which we and all others are a part. It is not possible for a selfish person to understand what knowledge may exist in a world of unselfishness. It is not possible for one who tries to develop his moral nature by starving his reason to know what powers flow from the right use of the intellect.

The teaching says, "To live to benefit mankind is the first step. To practise the six glorious virtues is the second." Let us look around at those things we seek. We seek wealth—in order to do good, in order to be happy, we say. But are the wealthy really doing good? Are they happy? We want power—again, we say, in order that we may do good, that we may be great statesmen. What are we doing with the power we have, and what good could the greatest statesman who ever lived do in the world today? If Christ were to come back to the earth now, would he tell us anything new, or would he repeat the ancient saying that he and his predecessors reiterated: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." That is the beginning of living according to the great law of Compassion. Such a life gives to us an invisible armour that will protect us, as in the parable Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were protected in the fiery furnace.

The supreme power whom we revere is the boundless and endless one—the grand "CENTRAL SPIRITUAL SUN" by whose attributes and the visible effects of whose inaudible WILL we are surrounded—the God of the ancient and the God of modern seers. His nature can be studied only in the worlds called forth by his mighty FIAT.

Isis Unveiled, I, 29