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DOCTRINE OF KARMA
Sanskrit Tamas. We can understand its character better if we examine the condition of deep sleep. In that state the power of walking, of hearing, speaking, is latent and finds no outward expression. It is a state of inertia or inactivity; but when this power wakes up, it produces a vibration in the mind substance, and this vibration we call mental activity. This again, when manifested on the external plane, appears in the form of physical activity. All physical activity, however, necessarily presupposes mental activity.
Each germ of life possesses infinite potentialities stored up within it; and these, as they pass from the condition of Tamas to that of active desire, drive it on through the various stages of evolution-from the vegetable into the animal kingdom and on to that of man. The first glimmering of mental activity appears in the lower animals; and it reaches its climax when the germ of life manifests as a human being. In the
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