The Law of Karma

Individual and collective causes

It is now time to go deeper into the way the problem presents itself with regard to the distinction between collective and individual karma . We therefore define the different types of karma as follows: individual, family, national and planetary karma.

1. Individual karma. The virtues and vices of a man are primarily the result of experiences made in this life and previous lives. When a person dies, his soul will release itself from the physical body and sum up all the lessons and experiences it has learned through its lifetime. The positive experiences will be changed into good qualities, which the soul will bring into a following incarnation to be further developed. The actions and desires causing other people to suffer, including oneself, will be changed into negative qualities, which will then be transferred to a subsequent incarnation.

The vices for example will take the person through the same kind of suffering as he inflicted upon others in order to awaken his understanding of the effects of loveless actions. A man having gained profound knowledge of being mobbed and excluded from the group will later in life have a deep sympathy for people in a similar situation. This, however, may be contradicted by analyses made by psychologists, the result of which seems to indicate that criminals having been exposed to crime often inflict the same kind of crime on others. Violent criminals, for example, have often experienced a lot of violence when growing up. Yet these violent criminals are still in a state of unconsciousness. They are victims themselves of their own violent emotions and must learn by suffering or by love until they have recognised the consequences of a violent behaviour. In order to end the negative karmic spiral, where the violent criminal will meet even stronger consequences of his actions, he must recognise that his actions are wrong and that he has to start changing his behaviour. This can happen in two ways and often it will be a combination of both.

a. Through love. The violent criminal may have the good fortune of meeting a person who feels compassion for him because of his suffering. It may be a psychologist, a minister of religion or a social worker trying to make him change his behaviour through teaching or by appealing to his better self. It may also be that he learns to forgive himself for the harmful things he has done to other people and so realises that the outside world and God will also forgive him. Naturally, God will always love a human being no matter how this being may behave. However, often we cannot experience this forgiveness and accept it before we are able to forgive ourselves. Or, as Mathew says: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again". (Math. 7, 1). Of course this quotation is not just another confirmation that the Law of Karma exists, but also an indication of us becoming victims of our own assumptions and verdicts. And we may think that because we cannot forgive ourselves, nor can God.

Once the violent criminal has become aware of his own faults and begins to change his behaviour and do good actions to balance evil ones he has saved himself through the help of others. In fact he has stopped a long spiral of violent behaviour and consequences, and may later choose a life in which he helps his victims in order to balance his old debts.

b. Through suffering. It can be extremely difficult for man to open his heart if it is closed. Therefore, he will have to live through one painful situation after another until he turns around and chooses another path. History tells us that not even the most perfect love like the one embodied in Christ was enough for man to change his temper. As Christ was not able to, one may doubt whether we shall be able to, no matter how good we are. This is why suffering is God's only instrument when all others fail to make his children walk in the right direction. God does not inflict suffering on each individual, for the Law of Karma is not some kind of punishment; it is simply a mere lawfulness ensuring that we shall meet the effects of our actions. Nobody will claim, to be sure, that it is God's punishment when a person gets stomach-ache because of having eaten too much. It is a suffering we humans inflict upon ourselves when we are being ignorant and cannot control our desires. Ignorance and uncontrolled desires are, indeed, in most cases the main cause of human suffering. It is extremely seldom that we meet people who do evil things on purpose.

Consequently, individual virtues and vices are the results of experiences made in this life and previous ones. The fact that Mozart was able to write his first concert at the age of four shows us that it was the result of a previous life put into practice.