Theos-Talk Archives (November 1993 Message tl00029)

Earlier, it was suggested that we study something, and the idea of
"karma" was brought up. I've written a few times on it, and there's
a good piece by Jerry S. on group karma. It's a profound area, and
we have a lot to explore.

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Group karma is the karma of a group. It is more than simply the sum
of the individual karmas of the group members, or the karma that they
have in common. It is an expression of something that is independent
of the particular members.

A group could be a race, a nation, an organization (like the T.S.),
a study class, even the people that share the flight on an airplane
fated to crash. There is a particular draw, a particular attractive
force, that brings together the involved people. The force is both
external, from one point of view, and from the people themselves,
from another viewpoint. Since we co-create the world, we can both
say that the group itself brings together the people, or that the
people, in a form of negotiated existence, have come together and
created the group. Both are true.

Take a study class. A collection of people have been meeting to study
a book. The class takes on a life of its own, which acquires a
particular personality, which persists even as people quit the class
and new people join. The group is a form of life, where there is
self-feedback, leading to stabililty, growth, and the acquisition of
specific characteristics, attributes of personality.

Looking at the class, though, it is not an entity in the way that we'd
ordinarily consider one. It does not have a specific, concrete form
that it calls its own, something to say "this is me". It has a
specific area of activity, but its effects are directly on the
surrounding environment, and not through a form. In other words, from
its vantage point, our physical plane is a *formless world*. It is
a step removed from direct manifestation on this physical plane.

The force, power, energy, life that a group expresses comes from some
being, somehere, and we are drawn together to share in its expression.
Our existence and activities in life are not due to membership in one
group or another, although we are affected by many overlapping
influences, we participate in a multitude of groups.

The unseen influences in life, which take on a life of their own, which
we may in some cases call groups or group karma, and in other cases
call the laws or phenomena of nature, come from the two classes of
beings which are a step removed from direct, embodied manifestation on
our physical world.

The first class is the elementals. These are Monads, individual sparks
of life, eternal and deathless, which have not yet progressed to the
point where they are able to sustain embodied existence. They are
more spiritual that we are, but are not yet self-conscious, and are
driven by an *intense* hunger for that precious Treasure, which the
term "self-consciousness" does not do justice to.

The elementals contemplate the material, seek concrete expression to
themselves, but must, for their stage of development, settle for
helping organize, direct, and carry out the laws of nature in the
world. They bring organization to the physical. They are apprentices
in thought, feeling, and action, and pattern themselves after what we
think, feel, and do. They give lasting expression to what we experience.
They are the recorders of the events of life, and the sustainers and
accumulaters of the experiences that we have, that helps build and
give substance to our personalities.

The second class is the Dhyani-Chohans. There are Monads which have
gone beyond the need to have sustained material, embodied existence in
order to acquire "self-consciousness". They have, as former men, found
and reclaimed this Treasure, and drawn it within. They exist in the
formless worlds and have the final step before them of taking the
Treasure deeper within, from the spiritual into the deepest seat
of the divine. Their evolutionary step is to bring this "fire" into
the darkness, into the unmanifest worlds, still buring, bright,
intact.

The elementals are felt thoughout the material world. Their influence
is downward, material, psychical, on our lower nature. In their
proper place, they pattern themselves after us, and empower us to
fucntion in life. When wrongly related to, they lead us, they draw us
down, they affect us with their downward yearning, they attract us to
the dark side of life.

The affects of the Dhyani-Chohans are felt in the world, in a more
universal sense. They set the patterns, the keynotes for the various
great evolutionary periods of humanity, the various Races and subraces.
They uplift us, they draw us along the Upward Arc, they lead us to
center the seat of our consciousness in the spiritual nature, rather
than in the lower parts of ourselves. They are behind the great upward
sweep of nature; they set out the grand plan.

Their affects are felt in our human kingdom, and we participate in
that work as well. The elect of mankind, the Mahatmans, Bodhisattvas,
and Buddhas form a living link to that work, and are collectively
known as the Hierarchy of Compassion. Of all possible groups, this
certainly is the best one to belong to!

                           Eldon Tucker (eldon@netcom.com)