Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book
Rate this book
Тази поредна малка книга от теософската серия на издателство Шамбала ще ни разкрие:
• Как човешката мисъл преминава в духовния свят и се превръща в активна същност, свързвайки се с елементалите.
• Как човек непрекъснато заселва своя поток в пространството със свой собствен свят, изпълнен със създанията на собствените му фантазии, желания, пориви и страсти.
• Кои са трите най-нисши равнини или области на вселената и свързаните с тях принципи.
• Как съзнанието създава от фината материя на висшата психична равнина мисъл-формата като ментален образ; как мисъл-формите се свързват посредством магнетична връзка със своя създател; как се проявява активността на душата по време на земния живот чрез създаването на мисъл-формите.
• Как се създава кармата.
• Как се изпълнява кармата (как Душата прекрачва прага на Девачан, менталния свят и попада в равнината на превъплъщението)
• Как съзнателно се моделира кармата, как се изгражда бъдещето и как се създава бъдещата съдба.
• Каква е тайната на прекратяването на кармата.

Такова е краткото изложение на великия Закон на Кармата и неговите проявления. Човекът, който ги познава, може да ускори еволюцията си. Законът, който на пръв поглед изглежда като окови, чрез познанието се превръща в крила и чрез това познание човек може да се издигне до области, за които без Закона би могъл само да мечтае.

104 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1917

28 people are currently reading
161 people want to read

About the author

Annie Besant

2,117 books151 followers
Noted British reformer Annie Wood Besant vigorously supported socialism, birth control, trade unionism, and rights of women; the cause of independence interested her through her involvement with the theosophical society, and she moved and founded the home rule league in 1916 and served as president of the Indian national congress in 1917.

This prominent activist and orator wrote of Irish.

She, aged 20 years in 1867, married Frank Besant but separated over religious differences.

Once free of Frank Besant and exposed to new currents of thought, she began to question her long-held religious beliefs and the whole of conventional thinking. She began to write attacks on the way of the churches in lives of people. In particular, she attacked the status of the Church of England as a state-sponsored faith.

She quickly wrote a column for the National Reformer, the newspaper of the national secular society, to earn a small weekly wage. The society stood for a secular state and an end to the special status of Christianity and allowed her to act of its public speakers. Very popular public lectures entertained in Queen Victorian times. People quickly greatly demanded Besant, a brilliant speaker. Using the railway, she crisscrossed the country, spoke on all of the most important issues of the day, and always demanded improvement and freedom.

For many years, Besant befriended Charles Bradlaugh, leader of the national secular society. Bradlaugh, a former soldier, long separated from his wife; Besant lived with him and his daughters, and they worked together on many issues. He, an atheist and a republican, also tried to get elected as member of Parliament for Northampton.

She then prominently spoke for the national secular society, wrote, and closely befriended Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877, people prosecuted her and Bradlaugh for publishing a book of campaigner Charles Knowlton.

Besant and Bradlaugh, household names in 1877, then published a book of the American campaigner Charles Knowlton. It claimed that never happy working-class families ably decided not want of children. It suggested ways to limit the size of their families.

The scandal made them famous, and people elected Bradlaugh as member of Parliament for Northampton in 1880.

Actions included the bloody Sunday demonstration and the match girls strike of London of 1888. She led speakers for the Fabian society and the social democratic federation of Marxists. She topped the poll and won election to the school board of London for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll even despite few qualified female voters at that time.

In 1890, Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years, secular matters waned. She joined as a member and a prominent lecturer on the subject. As part of her related work, she traveled. In 1898, she helped to establish the central Hindu college.

In 1902, she established le Droit Humain, the first overseas lodge of the international order of co-freemasonry. Over the next few years, she established lodges in many parts of the empire. In 1907, she led at international headquarters in Adyar, Madras (Chennai).

She also joined politics. When World War I broke in 1914, she helped to launch to campaign for democracy and dominion status within the empire. This led to her election in late 1917. After the war, she continued to campaign.

In 1922, she helped establish the Hyderabad (Sind) national collegiate board in Mumbai.

She fought, starting with freedom of thought, Fabians, and workers as a leading member of the national secular society alongside Charles Bradlaugh.

She continued to campaign until her death.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
50 (47%)
4 stars
31 (29%)
3 stars
14 (13%)
2 stars
7 (6%)
1 star
3 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Paul.
Author 4 books135 followers
May 22, 2020
A thought-provoking and brief overview of a very important topic, packaged in a slapdash print-on-demand format.

Annie Besant, one of the leading lights of the Theosophical Society of the early 20th century, here presents the understanding of karma attained by direct clairvoyant perception of herself and other Theosophists. At least, that is my understanding of how the material was derived, and if that's the case, then the book is tremendously valuable, for it provides an alternative view to the teachings of karma handed down by tradition by Vedic, Jain, and Buddhist masters. It is a work based on experience rather than on authority.

There are significant differences between the way karma is presented here and the way it is presented in those Indian traditions. I'm no expert on the subject, but as a student of Buddhism I have come to understand karma as a strictly impersonal force, like magnetism or gravity, but one that operates primarily from the mental realm rather than the physical one. Even though that's so, karma nonetheless has distinctly physical consequences. As for the exact mechanism of its workings, this is mysterious. In the Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha himself narrates how he saw directly into the workings of karma in the second watch of the night on which he gained supreme enlightenment. He saw this with the "divine eye" of clairvoyance, which is beyond normal human perception. As for his students, they were instructed not to try to understand the exact workings of "karma and result"; the Buddha placed this topic, along with three others, on the list of the "four unthinkables"--subjects that, if a student tried to understand them conceptually, would lead him only to frustration and madness.

In this text the author offers something like a full account of the mechanism of karma, but it is not seen as an impersonal force; for the Theosophists found that karma is regulated by spiritual entities knows as the Lords of Karma. It is our thoughts, rather than our actions, that generate karma, for thought is the primary creative principle of the cosmos, in the Theosophical teaching. Indeed, our actions are generated by our thoughts. According to this text, every single thought we have, no matter how trivial or fleeting, leads to an eventual experienced result. The function of the Lords of Karma is to "right-size" the circumstances of our next birth according to the karma we have accumulated and, perhaps, according to how much bad karma we wish to extinguish at one time.

The Theosophical account of karma is quite different from the Buddhist account. To the Theosophists we are all fundamentally immortal souls, while the Buddha taught that belief in an immortal soul is an error. According to him, there is no such thing, and belief in its existence is exactly the cause of all our sufferings. So in the Buddhist system karma must be an impersonal force, since, fundamentally, there is no person anywhere anyway. That said, it doesn't mean there can't be Lords of Karma; it's just that they, like ourselves, have a conventional existence rather than an ultimate one. They would be among the devas of the Buddhist cosmology, beings that exist on an exalted plane, but which are samsaric beings as we are, and thus subject to change and suffering.

A lot of people have difficulty believing in karma; indeed, Besant notes that even many Theosophists, while affirming it intellectually, do not really let it guide their actions. And the purpose of the doctrine is to guide our actions, for it is a moral law. For my own part, I have no such difficulty. I believe in karma as much as I can believe in anything I can't see or touch. To the best of my ability, I try to let it guide my actions. In the end, does it really matter whether karma is regulated by a strictly impersonal law or by tremendously powerful spiritual beings existing at a much higher plane of reality? To us on the earthly plane, the upshot is the same: our thoughts, words, and actions have power, and will all visit results upon us at some point.

It's wonderful that this book is available to modern readers in a paperback edition such as this one, but the book has some serious flaws. The physical book is fine; it was printed on demand by Amazon in Bolton, Ontario. But no one has proofread the book. It contains typos and formatting flaws such as the printing of footnotes in the body of the text instead of at the bottom of pages, and the burying of headings in the text of paragraphs. The text has been machine formatted and printed, and the result is clumsy. They need to get someone to review a proof of the book and fix the source file.

But I'm happy to have it and to have read it. Few topics are as important as karma for the conduct of our life and of all our future lives. This is a short but serious work by one who claims to have at least glimpsed the actual workings of this great cosmic force. As such, it is worth reading, if anything is.
Profile Image for Sergio ruocchio.
79 reviews
August 6, 2013
Una delle tante ragioni per cui la Società Teosofica è conosciuta in Occidente è quella di aver riportato all’attenzione del dibattito culturale e filosofico il concetto di Karma, visto non soltanto come la Legge di Causa ed Effetto che caratterizza la dimensione umana e quella cosmica, ma anche come lo strumento di comprensione della complessità della vita e delle sue manifestazioni.
In questo libro Annie Besant tratta compiutamente il tema del karma con lo scopo di fornire un vero e proprio “manuale”. Si tratta di uno dei classici fondamentali della Teosofia, che rimanda ad alcune delle fonti originali. Il lettore sarà sorpreso dalla straordinaria attualità dei concetti espressi e dalla loro vasta portata, certo in grado di far meglio comprendere l’esperienza esistenziale proposta dall’autrice nella vita quotidiana.

Profile Image for M Lovely.
Author 5 books175 followers
August 21, 2025
Just finished reading the book and it has left me speechless. There is no other book, direct and clear about the Karma, a term which we are all aware of, and hardly knows anything about.

As we are stepping towards the centre of Kaliyug where even the good doers would be heavily influenced by the elementals, this is a must read to have a clarity where to stand, what to do and what to say.

Although, I liked the book, it is full of precise knowledge, I found the language to be slightly difficult, not beginner friendly, especially to the people who are not yet touched by mysticism.

One thing that has taken away from the book is Karma if for eternity, be wise before making one. It is not for your body, your soul darkens with the every shadow you touch of the sin.
Profile Image for David Passafiume.
11 reviews1 follower
May 1, 2021
A classic of Theosophic education. This was part of a series published by the Theosophical Society to offer a more "mainstream" dissertation on esoteric ideas. But don't be fooled. For modern readers in particular, these books are dense! Each line is pregnant with ideas, and bears re-reading many times.

I have always respected Ms. Besant as a lucid writer and thinker, and this work is no exception. She addresses the most basic questions about karma and touches briefly on the overall concept of reincarnation as well. She has a poet's heart and a scientist's mind.
Profile Image for Fernando Cabezas Astorga.
459 reviews9 followers
November 28, 2023
Un libro que pone por presupuesto la reencarnación. Sirve para entender la mentalidad de lo que pueden pensar las personas que asumen la realidad del karma asociada a la reencanación. No se preocupa de probar nada, sólo asume que quien lee está libre para aceptar, pero al no tener sistema no hace apología de lo que sugiere, sino únicamente decreta lo que cree.
Profile Image for Bugra Sisman.
6 reviews7 followers
October 13, 2017
Türkçe’ye Çolpan Işın Taner tarafından çevrilmiş, karma yasasını müthiş detaylı anlatarak sizi sıkmayan, bitince konu hakkında daha da çok okumak isteyeceğiniz bir kitap. İlk başları fazla teori içerdiğinden içine girmek kolay olmuyor ama ilk çeyrekten sonrası çok akıcı.
Profile Image for Searchingthemeaningoflife Greece.
1,227 reviews31 followers
September 23, 2022
Οι ζωηρές προσδοκίες κι οι πόθοι γίνονται ικανότητες.
Οι σκέψεις που επαναλαμβάνονται πολλές φορές γίνονται τάσεις.
Η θέληση για δράση γίνεται πράξη.
Η πείρα γίνεται «η σοφία».
Οι οδυνηρές δοκιμασίες γίνονται συνείδηση.
Profile Image for Estefania .
19 reviews2 followers
May 9, 2024
SPOILER 🚧🚨

"Sólo nuestras mismas acciones pueden entorpecernos y nuestra propia voluntad encadenarnos. Cuando los hombres reconozcan esta verdad habrá sonado la hora de su liberación, pues nadie puede esclavizar a quien obtuvo el poder por medio del conocimiento y lo emplea en el amor."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Isabel Escamilla.
38 reviews
February 10, 2025
"Cuando los hombres reconozcan esta verdad habrá osado la hora de su liberación, pues nadie puede esclavizar a quien obtuvo el poder por medio del conocimiento y lo emplea en el amor"
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.