The Law of Karma

2. Family and Group Karma

No man is only the result of his own actions. This is what we are told today by science of psychology. Therefore, the individual nature of man is also influenced by the results of group interactions experienced in previous lives. According to the Ageless Wisdom, we incarnate in groups of people with whom we have karmic ties. Each time we love or hate another person, we attach ourselves to him or her. Because of the attachments we shall meet these persons again to reap the fruits of our good relationships or to pay back what we owe them, i.e. when we treated them badly. As time goes on, we may manage to cut the ties we have with other people by no longer hating them and by changing our personal, selfish love into unselfish love. We thus bring the group together and serve God.

A modern term for group karma is social inheritance. We know that each family functions in its own way. As individuals we must be aware of these family patterns, which form and model each individual, and terminate them when they are no longer useful. We know that family dynamics have a tendency to make an individual repeat his family's way of solving problems. This is how violent behaviour, for example, is often passed on from one generation to the next, until someone finally breaks the pattern. For generations families may have consisted of both victims and executioners at the same time. Until such group members change their way of socialising with one another, they will be doomed to meet time and again, as the individual soul chooses its own family members prior to a new incarnation where it gains the desired experience. The same applies to the positive family patterns, of course.

Through family policies, educational activities, psychological and social initiatives implemented by a nation to help families in distress we collectively try to be the servants of God and show the kind of love that breaks the hearts of stone.