I have been pondering the connection between individual and group karma lately. Specifically: what does it say about a group when it creates ecological problems at the scale humans do today. What does it say about humanity when it causes war, poverty and disease to go rampant at the scale of today, despite all the technology we have at our disposal.
And who pays? Who is responsible?
Ultimately the doctrine of karma insists that what we learn from life continues on into our Higher “Self” (not a self, but we have to call it something). Lessons learned, continue somehow.
But in the meantime we have to deal with what is.
One of the ways to deal with what is, is to prevent future bad karma, by acting right today. We are only held responsible for what we helped co-create… But I’m not sure that’s a comfort, given the trouble humanity is in. Can any of us really say we aren’t co-responsible?
What happens today was caused yesterday. We are part of a given group today, in certain circumstances now, that our previous selves have in some way ‘deserved’. That’s the past and karma. The present and karma is: how to act today, to prevent more problems in the future… All that has to do with karma and time, a fascinating subject, I think.
Group karma is a reasonably new working out of the doctrine of karma. It makes sense though: we see people suffering in groups and have to fit that into the doctrine of karma, or that doctrine doesn’t make sense any more. For instance: how does group karma deal with the economic crunch we are going through? Well – since we all impact on each other anyhow, we might as well make the best of it and help each other out. This is why the doctrine of karma is sometimes summarized as the doctrine of harmony. Only by acting in harmony with all that is can disharmony be solved.
On the upside: that Barack Obama was elected despite the color of his skin says something positive about the group karma of the USA… Do you all agree?
When an elephant or group of them uproots trees, is it an action done by individual or group out of free-will, against the Nature and damaging to Nature? Or it is part of ecological scheme of thing for environmental management.
Thinking that Human beings are outside the control of Nature and have capacity to act independently, of their Free-Will, for or against the scheme of Nature for self management seems to me childish anthropocentric egotism of the human race.
You don’t think we impact on nature just a tad bit more than say elephants do? Which means we are just a tad (being cynical here) bit more responsible?
Yes – elephants have free will to an extent. They are intelligent animals. I think we have free will as well.
But I do think you joined the wrong debate. The question here isn’t ‘do we have free will‘, but how does our individual responsibility mix with our being a member of groups.
To deny yourself responsibility may be a way you want to live (sounds like a great excuse to me), but I don’t.
In order for the group to do its best everyone should do what’s best for themselves and the group at the same time. By being selfless your really just helping yourself because your helping the karma of others and thus your own. I think about this too a lot because I recently learned about the New World Order and of the plans to create a North American Union. H.P.B. said if the majority of the world didn’t start acting the way we should then karma would inflict a much greater and more lasting evil upon man. I see the New World Order as being that punishment, because only if the majority of the world woke up to this threat and united could it be prevented.
Isn’t the North American Union just a way to unite groups of people and work together? I don’t see that as a problem. I see that as a solution to issues.
cooperation, working together, uniting groups of people, societies, cultures is all wonderful, yes? But one has only look at what is going on in the world today, or at any point in recorded history, to see that clearly no matter how good the intentions may be if one does not know what they are doing and who they are rather than who they have been told they are supposed to be we humans will advance technologically and flounder in the development of understanding the human aspect of nature. i see no great progress for mankind with just the uniting of people to work together as the efficacy of that concept depends on what one means by uniting. Unions unite groups of people and they are in my experience destructive forces, unless greed and material aquisition is the desired end. We, all of us, need to become aware, awake and involved, totally. When we reach the point at which we are the change we want to see in the world, as M. Ghandi said, when we do not allow more than half the world to suffer in poverty so grim than an honest life is not an option and use that “being the change” ourselves to bring about understanding we may then have the option of clear discernment, spending our time in action rather than focusing on differences in life. Free will can not exist without the space in one’s being that makes them free. It seems nice to live a so-called “free country”; it does allow free speach, freedom of assembly, etc. but we are no different than those in countries who prohibit “freedom”. The free society conditions the minds of its citizens just as do all other countries, so we all feel different, that we are better, that we are worse, that our God is the only God, etc. so that the integrity to live the words one knows to be correct is destroyed. We condition ourselves
to the point that we willingly go out and kill others or destroy others entire ecosystems for no other reason than to reconcile effects, which is the essense of politics today. Everyone is responsible because responsibility is the ability to respond to what life presents on your platter.