making of the universe: determined actions

2/08/18

“A man may bring over with him some ripe karma of this kind, and the first vibration that touches such a mass of thoughts ready to solidify into action will hurry him without his renewed volition, unconsciously, into the commission of the act.

He cannot stop to think; he is in the condition in which the first vibration of the mind causes action: poised on the very point of balancing, the slightest impulse sends him over.

Under these circumstances a man will marvel at his own commission of some crime, or at his own performance of some sublime act of self-devotion. He says: “I did it without thinking”, unknowing that he had thought so often that he had made that action inevitable.

When a man has willed to do an act many times, he at last fixes his will irrevocably, and it is only a question of opportunity when he will act.

So long as he can think, his freedom of choice remains, for he can set the new thought against the old and gradually wear it out by the reiteration of opposing thoughts;

but when the next thrill of the soul in reponse to a stimulus means action, the power of choice is exhausted.”