Universal Brotherhood – November 1897

KARMA

     Who is wise
Tears from his soul this Trishna, feeds his sense
No longer on false shows, files his firm mind
To seek not, strive not, wrong not; bearing meek
All ills which flow from foregone wrongfulness,
And so constraining passions that they die
Famished; till all the sum of ended life —
The Karma — all that total of a soul
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
The "Self" it wove — the woof of viewless time,
Crossed on the warp invincible of acts —
The outcome of him on the Universe,
Grows pure and sinless; either nevermore
Needing to find a body and a place,
Or so informing what fresh frame it takes
In new existence that the new toils prove
Lighter and lighter not to be at all,
Thus "finishing the Path;" free from
Earth's cheats; Released from all the skandhas of the flesh;
Broken from ties — from Upadanas — saved
From whirling on the wheel; aroused and sane
As is a man wakened from hateful dreams.
Until — greater than kings, than gods more glad! —
The aching craze to live ends, and life glides —
Lifeless — to nameless quiet, nameless joy,
Blessed Nirvana — sinless, stirless rest —
That change which never changes!
     — Light of Asia.

Universal Brotherhood

Theosophical University Press Online Edition