The reason why a moral deed performed by one person would contribute to the attainment by others of supreme enlightenment, is that souls which are ordinarily supposed to be individual and independent of others are not so in fact, but are very closely intermingled with one another, so that a stir produced in one is sooner or later transmitted to another influencing it rightfully or wrongfully. The karmaic effect of my own deed determines not only my own future, but to a not little extent that of others; hence those invocations just quoted by pious Buddhists who desire to dedicate all the merits they can attain to the general welfare of the masses. The ever-increasing tendency of humanity to widen and facilitate communication in every possible way is a phenomenon illustrative of the intrinsic oneness of human souls. Isolation kills, for it is another name for death. Every soul that lives and grows desires to embrace others, to be in communion with them, to be supplemented by them, and to expand infinitely so that all individual souls are brought together and united in the one soul. Under this condition only a man’s karma is enabled to influence other people, and his merits can be utilised for the promotion of general enlightenment. {196} _Karma and Determinism._ If the irrefragability of karma means the predetermination of our moral life, some would reason, the doctrine is fatalism pure and simple. It is quite true that our present life is the result of the karma accumulated in our previous existences, and that as long as the karma preserves its vitality there is no chance whatever to escape its consequences, good or evil. It is also true that as the meanest sparrow shall not fall on the ground without the knowledge of God, and as the very hairs of our heads are all numbered by him, so even a single blade of grass does not quiver before the evening breeze without the force of karma. It is also true that if our intellect were not near-sighted as it is, we could reduce a possible complexity of the conditions under which our life exists into its simplest terms, and thus predict with mathematical precision the course of a life through which it is destined to pass. If we could record all our previous karma from time immemorial and all its consequences both on ourselves and on those who come in contact with us, there would be no difficulty in determining our future life with utmost certainty. The human intellect, however, as it happens, is incapable of undertaking a work of such an enormous magnitude, we cannot perceive the full significance of determinism; but, from the divine point of view, determinism seems to be perfectly justified, for there cannot be any short-sightedness on the part of a world-soul as to the destiny of the universe, which {197} is nothing but its own expression. It is only from the human point of view that we feel uncertain about our final disposition and endeavor to explain existence now from a mechanical,