making of the universe: accidents

2/12/18

“The karma which is in the course of making has already been studied.

Collective karma. When a group of people is considered karmically, the play of karmic forces upon each as a member of the group introduces a new factor into the karma of the individual.

We know that when a member of forces play on a point, the motion of the point is not in the direction of any one of these fotces, but in the direction which is the result of their combination.

So the karma of a group is resultant of the interacting forces of the individuals composing it, and all the individuals are carried along in the direction of that resultant.

An Ego is drawn by his individual karma into a family, having set up in previous lives ties which closely connect him with some of the other Egos composing it;

the family has inherited property from a grandfather and is wealthy; an heir turns up, descended from the grandfather’s elder brother, who had been supposed to have died childless, and the wealth passes to him and leaves the father of the family heavily indebted;

It is quite possible that our Ego had had no connection in the past with this heir, to whom in past lives the father had contracted some obligation which has resulted in this catastrophe, and yet he is threatened with suffering by his action, being involved in the family karma.

If, in his own individual past, there was a wrong doing which can be exhausted by suffering caused by the family karma, he is left involved in it; if not, he is by some “unforeseen circumstances” lifted out of it, perchance by some benevolent stranger who feels an impulse to adopt and educate him, the stranger being one who in the past was his debtor.”

 

Annie Besant