Theos-Talk Archives (November 1998 Message tt00340)

Nov 19th 1998

Dear Jerry:

Some comments inserted below.

Dal

> From: Jerry Schueler
> Sent:	Thursday, November 19, 1998 5:12 AM
> Subject: Re:

>If an "accident" occurs - unforeseen and unprovoked - indeed it
>might be karma from a "past life" that comes to strike us.

But it doesn't have to be. It could be collective karma.
Dallas, relative to any living ego, what is the difference
between karma from a past life (which involved another
ego) , and act of God, chance, or acausal synchronicity?
How can it possibly make any difference?

DALLAS
As I understand it, "Collective Karma" is that which we share
with all around us.  Broadly it starts with our Universe and this
Manvantara, then our Solar system, then the Earth, then this
Cycle of time, then our race, nation, family and finally with
ourselves as a center around which cluster all the innumerable
Skandhas, whose individual Karma (since they are imperishable
MONADS) is linked to ours.

Broadly again we could partially limit it to our family, present
situation, and the community and nation we are members of for
this incarnation.

But there have been other incarnations earlier and hence there is
an ever broadening relationship stretching back over an infinite
number of years and cycles from the time when what we now cal "MY
SELF" (as a thinking Ego - both "personal" and "Individual".

As I understand it,  it is "free will" that generates Karma - and
as the
Purpose of the manvantaric cycle of evolution is to enable each
particle of "atomic-consciousness"  (or a MONAD) to achieve
independence and free-will by becoming a "MIND" - a "Human" - the
generating of Karma is not only universal, but also individual -
and in fact everyone of us will affect all the rest - that is
inevitable.

WE would like to see that Karma is restricted to ourselves alone,
perhaps, and also that it is fully comprehensible within the
compass of the brain-mind we are now using, but that can only be
achieved by sensitizing our instrument (brain-mind) to
universality and impersonality as perceptive powers which it has
in embryo, but can develop by will and determination.

You may think this is discursive, but this is what I get out of a
study of the KEY and the OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY, as well as HPB's
article PSYCHIC AND NOETIC ACTION [ LUCIFER 7 PP. 89, 177 Oct,
Nov. 1890 ]




>As I see it Theosophy tries to indicate to us that we are
>immortals, and that justice and fairness to all beings rules the
>Universe and our Earth.  This is the law of Karma, of which we
>know so little.
>

Dallas, I don't want to argue with you on this, just want to
present an alternative viewpoint. I do not believe that karma
(ie., causality) has anything at all to do with fairness or
justice except in an oblique way of being a balance of forces.
Fairness and even justice per se, are human concepts
and not at all universal but rather are very subjective,
cultural, and even personal.

DALLAS
I use the ideas of "fairness and justice" to indicate the
impersonality and universality of Karma - it cannot be
propitiated or swerved from its set course, as I understand it.
It is the effect of general harmony reacting on disharmony
(usually caused by human actions that break its laws) in order to
restore a dynamic flow of life for all concerned.  It is always
educative even when most painful, as that causes reflection on
the "cause of Sorrow" as the Buddha would put it.

Dal
Jerry S.