In a tradition that some believe dates back to the Babylonians 4000 years ago, many of us make New Year’s resolutions. In fact, if we don’t make a resolution at this time, we more than likely had to make that decision consciously. Resolutions are personal; we feel vulnerable about whatever we hope to change about ourselves.
We may worry that we will not be able to keep our resolutions. Yet each year we face this issue. Rudolf Steiner says, “On New Year’s Eve it is always fitting to remember how past and future are linked together in life and in the existence of the world…”
When we do make a New Year’s resolution, we usually make one that we believe will improve us. This striving toward a better self is an important decision for our future karma. On the one hand, we understand through karma that we likely deserve our present trials and suffering; that we have a karmic debt from our previous lives that seeks resolution in this one. We can feel trapped by our own karma because the past is written; its consequences are inevitable. But that’s not the only way to look at karma. Though we must accept our present karma as it unfolds, our future karma is ours to master. How do we do this?
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
It is often imagined that the human being is subject to the irrevocable law of karma in which nothing can be changed. Let us take a simile from everyday life to explain the working of this law.
A merchant makes entries of debits and credits in his account books; taken together, these entries tell him the state of his business. The financial state of his business is subject to the inexorable law governing the calculation of debit and credit. If he carries through new transactions, he can make additional entries and he would be a fool if he were unwilling to embark on other business because a balance was once drawn up. In respect of karma, everything good, intelligent and true that has been done by a man stands on the credit side; evil or foolish deeds stand on the debit side. At every moment he is free to make new entries in the karmic book of life. It must never be imagined that life is under the sway of an immutable law of destiny; freedom is not impaired by the law of karma. In studying the law of karma, therefore, the future must be borne in mind as strongly as the past. Bearing within us the effects of past deeds, we are the slaves of the past, but the masters of the future. If we are to have a favorable future, we must make as many good entries as possible in the book of life.
It is a great and potent thought to know that nothing we do is in vain, that everything has its effect in the future. The law of karma is the reverse of depressing; it fills us with splendid hope and knowledge of it is the most precious gift of Spiritual Science. It brings happiness inasmuch as it opens out a vista into the future. It charges us to be active for its sake; there is nothing in it whatever to make us sad, nothing which could give the world a pessimistic coloring; it lends wings to our will to co-operate in the evolution of the earth. Such are the feelings into which knowledge of the law of karma must be translated.
Excerpt from: Theosophy of the Rosicrucian. Lecture VII: The Technique of Karma. Munich. May 31, 1907
The human soul’s evolution ultimately flows forward toward perfection, but in any one life, a person can veer from this path in manifold ways; a person can stall or even move backward in the course of one lifetime. We see this happening to our brothers and sisters when they choose to lie, cheat, steal, etc. We see them going in the wrong direction in their current lives, against their own evolution’s flow, often dragging others with them, thus incurring more karmic debt. When we focus on other people’s destructive choices, we may feel disheartened or frozen by a sense of helplessness to generate positive change in the world.
But we’re never really helpless. Even if all we can do in this moment is improve our own selves, no matter how trivial our resolution may seem to the world at large, we actually succeed in making the whole world better. Eating healthier, going for walks, watching less tv, learning a new language, reading more, whatever our resolution is, changing ourselves for the better benefits us, the people we know, and even the people we don’t know. Whether we inspire others or not is beside the point. In every moment that we master ourselves, we are actively working for humankind’s evolution.
May we succeed in keeping our new resolutions.
Happy New Year!