Sow a thought to reap an act, sow an act and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a character, sow a character and reap a destiny.

Karma decrees that every decision must have its determinate consequences, but the decisions themselves are, in the last analysis, freely arrived at.

. . . the career of a soul as it threads its course through innumerable human bodies is guided by its choices.

Never during its pilgrimage is the spirit of man completely adrift and alone.  From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman -the self-luminous abiding point, "boundless as the sky, indivisible, absolute," the only reality.

The sufferings of one's present life are not only deserved --since they are in fact the fatal effect of crimes and faults committed in previous lives-- they are also welcome, for it is only in this way that it is possible to absorb and liquidate part of the karmic debt that burdens the individual and determines the cycle of his future existences.  Thus man is not a victim of cyclic and karmic law, but has the power to change its course, and use it to reach the heights of perfection.

. . . being aware of the Karma bondage is the spiritual privilege of humanity. For this privilege, implying freedom, means our being able to transcend karma . . . .

. . . Because man is free to exercise his will for good or evil, he often oscillates between the two during his lifetime, not being wholly good  nor  wholly evil.

It was a truly wonderful sight, he said, to watch how each soul selected its life --a sight at once melancholy and ludicrous and strange.  The experience of their former life generally guided. the choice . . . .

If a man were . . . nothing more than a made thing, acting and acted upon according to a fixed nature --he could be no more subject to reproach and punishment than the mere animals.

All things in the world of Nature are not controlled by Fate . . . . for the soul has a principle of its own leading to the realm of Intelligence, and not only standing aloof from things of the world of generated existence, but also joining it to that which IS, even to the divine nature.

Spirit . . . comes forth [from the body] exalted, glorified, a purer spirit . . . . Spirit is immortal; with it there is no past, no future, but an essential now.  This necessarily implies that the present form of spirit comprehends within it all earlier steps . . . . The life of the ever present Spirit is a circle of embodiments, which looked at in one aspect still exist beside each other, and only as looked at from another point of view appear as past.  The grades which Spirit seems to have left behind it, it still possesses in the depths of its present.

Physics has never given support to that truly consistent determinism which maintains the unconditional necessity of everything which happens . . . .

The "Higher Ego" cannot act directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to quite another plane and planes of ideation; the "Lower Self" does: and its action and behavior depend on its free will and choice as to whether it will gravitate more towards its present . . . or the "animal" which it informs, the man of flesh.

                                  The Secret Doctrine

It is not . . . karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which . . . Harmony depends, or break them . . . .

. . . each of you choose life conditions that you have for your own purpose, knowing ahead of time where your weaknesses and strengths lie.

You are not fated to dissolve into All That Is.  The aspects of your personality as you presently understand them will be retained.  All That Is is the creator of individuality, not the means of its destruction.