In the above example another point is clarified. If an action does not have the whole-hearted support of the innermost being of a person, it is quick in inviting its opposite. If, however, an action has had the whole-hearted support of the innermost being, it can evade deflection as long as it does not gather in its train some other things which strike a note of discord within the innermost being. The way to transcend the alternation between fractional opposites is to steer one’s own life so as to make it a true and complete expression of the inner-most being.
Nevertheless, until the entire accumulated self of a person comes into complete harmony with the One Divine Self within, the law of opposites inevitably comes to this help, whether he consciously wants it or not. Suppose a person kills sick animals out of what he regards as compassion for them, i.e., with the intention of giving them relief from suffering. His innermost being does not sanction this apparent act of compassion, since he would not like that sort of compassion to be expressed towards him if he were ill. This implicit acknowledgment of cruelty involved in killing animals is sufficient to necessitate his having to become in some life a shepherd or a cowherd or a herder of the animal kingdom. Very similar is the case of one who keeps hens awake all night in order that they should lay more eggs, not realizing the callousness involved in it. In the world of plants also, one may inadvertently or deliberately cause wanton destruction, only to attract to himself the role of a horticulturist or a gardener. The harm which one may have inadvertently or deliberately have done to any living beings has to be made good. In a future incarnation he has to nourish and protect those very souls (in some other form) either as a kind head of a family or a wise ruler.
The law of opposites does not function through arithmetical or mechanical calculus but through the requirements of karmic adjustments and a supreme need for full and free unfolding of life in every form. Alternation between the palatable and unpalatable opposites is a game of see-saw
which must continue until arrival at a dynamic poise, which is beyond the opposites and which is the unhampered expression of the unalloyed eternal.
Beams, p65