by Dr. & Mrs. F. Homer Curtiss

KARMA is the implacable Law of Cause and Effect, bringing to you in exact justice the net results of your past thoughts, desires and acts, but it does not do so in detail and hence is not the Nemesis it is so frequently represented to be.

“For the only decree of Karma – an eternal and immutable decree – is absolute Harmony in the world of Matter as it is in the world of Spirit.”

It is not your acts that are the cause of your Karma, but the possession or lack of certain Soul-quaIities which is the cause of your thoughts, desires and acts, whose effects are brought to you by the great Law of Harmony for readjustment.

Disobedience to the Divine Law is not punished but is adjusted, even though the adjustment brings about sorrow and suffering.

Everything that comes to you as trouble or sorrow is simply the result of your own shortcomings, your failure to learn the lessons which less painful experiences should have taught you.

The main idea of Karma, then, is not one of punishment for past failures, but that you may learn your lesson and gain as quickly as possible the Soul-qualities needed, that you may fulfill your destiny, your special place and work in the Grand Plan.
Isis, 116-3; 117-1.

Know ye not the conditions of life in which you find yourself are those best fitted for your Soul-growth?
Soundless Sound, 31-2.

The adjustment of Karma is brought about consciously through spiritual attainment.
Letters, 116-3.

If you refuse to recognize the lesson, or run away from the conditions before they are conquered, you will have to meet them again and again in various forms in this and other lives until victory is gained.
Isis, 34-2.

The Law works as compensation in that in every experience, be it painful or otherwise, there is a compensating power to be gained or a reward which is well worth the suffering necessary to build it into Soul-growth.

Inextricably blended with the Law as Compensation is that aspect known as Karma. That is, effects of causes set up in previous times or former lives are brought to you in orderly sequence to be worked out, and in turn to set up fresh causes.

The great point to understand in this manifestation of the Law is that Karma is neither a reward nor a punishment for past deeds – and still less is it an avenging Nemesis remorselessly exacting “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – but is the effect of causes in the sense that it brings to the Soul the opportunity to learn certain lessons which it has not learned in a past life, hence which the Law of Love brings to it through this manifestation that it may gain the Soul-quality needed for further progress.
Isis, 194-195

No matter what the burden laid upon you, it is not laid there merely that you may suffer, nor does any God wish you to bear it. It is yours because somewhere, sometime you missed a lesson in life that only such a burden could teach you.

Therefore, conditions worked together and you were brought face to face with your lesson. Try to realize this.

Then, if you can admit that what you are forced to bear is meant merely as a lesson to point out some shortcoming or absolute fault, know well that the moment you learn the lesson or correct the fault the experience will no longer be needed and it will pass away.
Letters, 24-1.

Whatever the condition that confronts you, know well that it will never leave you until you have gained the Wisdom it is intended to teach.
Isis, 34-2.

Do not rail at your experiences or conditions of life, but rather welcome them as opportunities to gain new lessons, experiences whose mastery will give you added strength and understanding.

Do not fight or fear conditions but welcome them; for the thing you fear exhausts you, while the thing you welcome yields you its strength and power.
The Christ, 3-1.

There is only one way effectually to bring about a better condition, and that is to recognize that you are where you are because the Soul, or Higher Self, realizes that there is some important lesson to learn which those conditions can teach better than any other, and set to work to learn that lesson.

Realize that conditions do not really retard, but are intended to make you think and take account of stock. First, try to determine what lesson you must learn, then take it determinedly to heart until you have conquered.

We know that no man has conditions given to him that he does not need, and that the moment he gets out of a condition, its highest good, he is rid of it forever.
Letters, 34-2.

Try to realize that when bound on the Wheel of Karma, to struggle but makes the cords cut deeper into your quivering flesh. Stop struggling. Lo! I say unto you: Peace, be still. All is well.

Learn the lesson of saying, “Thy will be done,” knowing that the Will of the Father is victory and that it will and must be done.
Letters, 19-2.

If the Soul were obliged to reap all the Karma in one life that it had generated in the last preceding life there would be neither time nor opportunity for progress.

Therefore, the Lords of Light hold back a certain percentage from each life, and manipulate the currents of force so that a chance is given the Soul to learn the main lesson of the last earth life and at the same time have an opportunity to gain entirely new experiences.

But, before final liberation can come, each Soul must, of its own choice, take up all the accumulated odds and ends of Karma and work them out or redeem them.
Letters, 125-1.

Just as the grosser flame sweeps the forest, so the subtler “fire of the Lord” or the fire of the Law (Karma), before which the earthly man is but chaff, sweeps humanity.

The flames that consume the debris, the underbrush and the twining parasites which sap the vitality of the giant trees also cause new vegetation to spring up. Likewise in our hearts after we have passed through a karmic burning we find new and unexpected manifestations of life and growth.

Think of the burnings of karmic Law not as something to which you must school yourself, something that will deprive you of every happiness, take from you your cherished ideals and bring naught but desolation, but think of it in its constructive aspect.

Realize that just as the heat and life and light of the sun penetrate the earth to bring forth the seeds, so shall these subtle fires of Karma sink deep into your heart and germinate all the seeds of immortal power which you have stored up in past incarnations and which only await the fire to sweep away old conditions – everything that interferes with your spiritual growth – to germinate and put forth.

Declare yourself ready to stand in the burnings of the Law, not passively giving up because it is your Karma, but that your heart and mind and life – all that is manifested on all planes – may be purified and make way for the new spiritual growth.
Fire of the Law, 2-4: 3-1: 4-3.

A golden vessel to be placed upon the King’s table must pass through a seven-times heated furnace and be hammered and tested and purified until the gold is without a flaw; then it must be fashioned into the shape best adapted to its purpose. So it is with the vessel of clay which we call our personality.
Isis, 35-3.

Since all evolution tends to develop more and more perfect organisms through which greater and greater degrees of freedom from the bondage of external conditions can manifest, we can be truly free from the bonds of Karma only as we work with evolution through the seeking of those things which are our own and following those things which will perfect and thus hasten our evolution. This is not attained by selfishly trampling on the freedom or rights of others that we may advance, for to do so is to develop selfishness, but through harmonious cooperation for the good of all.
Key, 305.

We do not mind bearing trials when we know that we are merely correcting mistakes made in a past life, or else learning needed lessons in this.

Trials are not given as punishments, but as the only means of making us learn the lessons that will fit us to take our real places at the right hand of God-the-Father, and to gain a greater realization of His nearness and help while here below.
Letters, 210-3.

Understand clearly, whatever sicknesses, troubles or trials come to a person they are either the result of broken law or are conditions given by the Higher Self to teach certain necessary lessons and thus gain the experience needed to take the Soul a step onward.

Often by pouring his personal magnetism (prana) into the aura of a patient, or by sheer force of Will, one may so influence another as temporarily to drive away sickness or trouble, but if the real lesson which the sickness or trouble was meant to teach has not been learned by the patient, the moment the will-power is withdrawn the trouble will return. Or, if the will-power has been strong enough, the trouble may be driven back off the physical-plane to appear upon some higher plane, perhaps in a different form such as some form of nervous disorder or mental trouble.
Letters, 169.

All broken contracts and all disobedience to the Law produce inharmony on all planes at the same time. And the persons bringing into action the particular inharmonious note must themselves readjust every wave of inharmony that has been produced by their acts before harmony can be restored in their lives. This is a benign and beneficent law; for it is only by reaping what we have sown, and eating the fruits thereof, that we can ever learn to plant wheat instead of tares.

It is not denial of inharmony that settles the score, but a recognition of it and the correction of its cause.

If through will-power you push it aside and apparently gain either health, wealth or some other earthly comfort before the readjustment is made, the inharmony will gather force by the very pushing back and will sweep over you again and again until it is recognized and adjusted. True healing combines all physical agencies with the psychic and the Divine, for these three are one.
Letters, 170-176.

The pressure from without cannot harm you, if the within be properly balanced.
Isis, 44-2.

Every inharmony is continually working toward readjustment, just as all wounds tend to heal, and all forms of disease to cure themselves.
Silence, 27-4.

As the conditions of life flow to it the Soul consciously gathers out of the varied experiences of life just those germs of good (lessons) that are needed to make it grow into the likeness of the perfected Being which that particular individual is destined to become.
The Lord Jesus Christ, ii, 3-2.

All seeds are planted in the earth, yet each seed grows into the particular plant whose germ and pattern are within. So each Soul is planted in the soil of its earthly environment, with the pattern of the perfect man to be embodied within the sheath of his personality. That which brings unrest and dissatisfaction is the effort and striving to manifest something that is not within.
The Iron Age, 4.

How many would gladly attempt to bear the hardships and sufferings of their loved ones rather than stand aside and permit them to fulfill their karmic destiny in exact justice.

But their loved ones cannot be purified and pass on to higher things, if their burdens are borne for them and they are not allowed to meet their tests and stand in the fiery furnace which they in ages past have lighted.

Stand aside then, and while giving all love, sympathy and encouragement, allow all to meet their tests and burnings that they may be purified and advance to higher things.
Isis, 82-83.

Every word we utter has not only its vibrations, but, together with the form, color and number of the letters composing it, possesses a potency that will never die, but go on and on through the ages until we, their creator, by the power of The Christ within, shall have redeemed them. Be their power for good or ill, it forms one of the very considerable forces that go to make up the law of Karma.

Suffering of itself has no purifying or uplifting power.

It is uplifting only when the lesson which necessitated it has been learned and the lacking Soul-quality has been built into the character.
Isis, 39-2.

Know absolutely, that the Law is, and that it must work out. If one jot or title of the Law could go wrong in your personal affairs, all creation would be thrown out of harmony.
Letters, 195-2.

As you realize that it is yourself who is responsible for all the disturbing influences which surround you, and that it rests with you to overcome them by eliminating their causes, you have begun in the right way to work with the Law and gain Self-knowledge and Self-poise.

Make yourself one with the Law and all its manifestations will work in harmony.
Isis, 119-1.

Bodily weakness should not be looked upon either as a failure or as a karmic debt, although in some cases it might be either or both. However, no matter what its immediate cause, it is a lesson.

Often it is a needed lesson in patience and sympathy for suffering that locks the Soul in such a body, but more often it is a lesson that only a great Soul is ready to learn.
Letters, 165-2.

You who weep; you who feet discouraged; lift up your hearts and know that today, in this very hour, the mighty forces from out the unknown are being poured out upon you. Open your heart and mind and receive them.
The Iron Age, 4.

Excerpt from Gems Of Mysticism