Theos-Talk Archives (September 1997 Message tl00166)

"Jerry Schueler" <gschueler@netgsi.com> wrote:

> Anyone who kills another out of ignorance produces no more 
> karma than an lion or bear would. I agree that they still cause
> karma and misery, but this goes into the collective pool rather
> than their personal burden. A lot of misery going on today is
> because of our collective karma (just one example, what the
> white man did to the red man will have to be karmically balanced
> someday, and the whole white race will pay a collective price).
> When I speak of motive causing karma, I am speaking only of
> personal karma (along with motive, guilt, and other emotions
> also have a part to play as does memory).

Interesting comments. Possibly true. I think it depends on a person's level of
evolvement. As we progress, we become more individually responsible for our
actions and bear more karma individually. How else could we emerge from the
collective soup?

I don't know about producing no more karma than a lion or bear. An animal has
instincts to kill based on its necessity to survive. Man, having
consciousness, is not so dependent on instinct and bears the burden of making
choice - so he probably always has some personal karma.