The Law of Karma

3. National karma

The same kind of group interaction also takes place for a nation as a whole. The culture and national identity are the result of decision processes and behaviour of earlier generations. Yet we should not forget that we do not incarnate in the same country only, as national states have not existed for that many years, historically speaking. However, if we were able to follow incarnations of large soul groups, we would see that they would follow a pattern where the same nations would consist of the same groups of incarnating souls and form a bond with them over and over again.

The conditions of society according to which the population of every nation lives are the consequences of choices made by previous generations. Politics represent the type of science we implement today to mitigate the effects that inexpedient choices of earlier incarnations have on us. This is why there is certain truth to the saying that a nation is responsible for the type of government it has. The national consciousness is of great importance to the individual and holds decisive influence on his life circumstances. It is therefore within this framework that one should ask the following question: Who is responsible for the poverty in the world? God did not decide to let poverty be the life conditions of man just because he was cruel in a previous incarnation.

This is a gross twist of the teaching of karma. God created an abundance of everything on this planet, but the problem was and continues to be that a human minority has taken the abundance away from a majority. Such selfish souls will, of course, meet the consequences of their unkind actions. They may lose all their means in one life in order that they themselves may feel the pain of poverty. However, not all poor people were selfish landlords in earlier lives. There were simply not that many landowners.

Consequently, there is a secondary cause of poverty, namely the ignorance of the poor. Poor people in the developing countries must learn to fight in order to free themselves from the usurpation of the rich, just as labour movements in the rich countries gained their victories. They must be helped to fight this battle through education and money provided by their well-off brothers and sisters from the rich countries. We cannot fight their battles. They must find their own strength through unity and professional struggle. What we can do, however, is to put pressure on selfish leaders who enslave compatriots by pressing them economically and politically.