The Law Of Karma

Inspired by the lectures of Swami Vivekananda

We all agree that life is eternal. It is not that it has sprung
out of nothing, for that cannot be. Such a life would not
be worth having. Everything that has a beginning in time
must end in time. If life began but yesterday, it must end
tomorrow, and annihilation is the result. Life must have
been existing. It does not now require much acumen to
see that, for all the sciences of modern times have been
coming round to our help, illustrating from the material
world the principles embodied in our scriptures. You
know it already that each one of us is the effect of the
infinite past; the child is ushered into the world, not as
something flashing from the hands of nature, as poets
delight so much to depict, but he has the burden of an
infinite past; for good or evil, he comes to work out his
own past deeds. That makes the differentiation. This is
the law of Karma. Each one of us is the maker of his own
fate. This law knocks on the head at once all doctrines of
predestination and fate and gives us the only means of
reconciliation between God and man. We, we, and none
else, are responsible for what we suffer. We are the effects,
and we are the causes.
We are free, therefore. If I am
unhappy, it has been of my own making, and that very
thing shows that I can be happy if I will. If I am impure,
that is also of my own making, and that very thing shows
that I can be pure if I will. The human will stands beyond
all circumstances. Before it — the strong, gigantic, infinite
will and freedom in man-
-all the powers, even of nature,
must bow down, succumb, and become its servants. This
is the result of the law of Karma.