through a sequence of bodies is known as reincarnation or transmigration of the soul --- in Sanskrit 'samsara,' a word which means 'passing through intensely.' On the subhuman level the passage is through a series of increasingly complex bodies until at last a human one is attained. Up to this point the soul's growth is virtually automatic . . . With the soul's graduation into a human body this automatic . . . ascent comes to an end. Its assignment to this exalted habitation is evidence that the soul has reached self-consciousness, and with this estate comes freedom, responsibility, and effort" (Smith, 1958, p. 68).
Karma is the "mechanism," as Smith puts it, which connects the elements of freedom, responsibility and effort, as well as the various rebirths which follow the acquisition of human bodies. As Smith writes, "The literal meaning of karma . . . is work, but as a doctrine karma means, roughly, the moral law of cause and effect . . . India extends (the) concept of universal causation to include man's moral and spiritual life as well" (Smith, 1958, p. 68).
However, Indian philosophy goes beyond the Western notion of moral cause and effect (which might be summarized in the phrase "As a man sows, so shall he reap") and sees the law as "absolutely binding and brooking no exceptions." Here we see the connection not only between the evolution of the soul through rebirth and karma, but the connection as well be
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