Gentlemen, you said something that struck me:
[“The better you deal with your own demons, the greater the effect you may have on society. It isn’t a matter of social position, but of effectiveness. Herman Hesse made no attempt at a political career, but had a much greater effect upon world thought and culture after he went into analysis with Jung than before. In freeing his will from his karma (so to speak) he vastly increased his effectiveness as a writer, which was only a side-effect of increased effectiveness as a man.”]
Although I think I know what you mean by “freeing his will from his karma,” I get the feeling there’s more to be seen.
Here is a simple way to put it. One way to see any individual is as a society of other lives, many previous individuals getting to know each other more intimately. They are cohabiting a new structure (you) rather than being the new structure, as when they were containers themselves.
That is, after I die, if I return to 3D life, it will be as a strand in some new 3D individual.
Although that description contains a few distortions, it is close enough to be serviceable.
Now, you all know from personal experience that you are born with (and need to learn to deal with) contradictions within yourself. No one is born an empty slate. Everyone is born with patterns of inner behavior built into the structure.
We are born with certain automatic reaction-patterns – the equivalent of instincts, in a way – and what we are born with obviously can’t be caused by events and our reaction to choices that haven’t yet been made. Our life is the intermingling of whatever traits comprise us. If they all fit together harmoniously, we will have one kind of temperament. If they don’t, we’ll have a different temperament.
In a way you could say that an individual’s karma is formed of
- the unfinished business of its strands, plus
- the results of the interaction of its strands.
This forms patterns of automatic behaviors, which interacts with events. (Remember, this is all “in a way.” It isn’t exact, it’s a pointer.)
You are a personality, interacting with a world that you experience as “external.” The personality is not exactly you, it is more like a ratio between you and your life in the world. Your personality expresses your internal tendencies in various circumstances.
This is one reason to choose your associates, your media-driven mental environment, your aspirations. To be conscious is to choose rather than drift, and choosing is done within limits, which are, initially, the baggage you bring into your life by who your strands were. That initial pattern may be called your karma. It is a valuable resource and a source of difficulties, depending on what is happening.
But you are not helpless, here, if you choose not to be. Herman Hesse, in analysis, learned how to make what was unconscious (and hence out of his control), conscious (and hence malleable). In learning who he was, he gained the freedom to choose rather than be buffeted by the winds. And haven’t we been stressing the duty and value of choosing, from the beginning?
The more you gain control of unconscious forces within you, the wider your areas of choice; the freer you are to choose to be this rather than that. We have talked about this in terms of values, but it is at least equally true in terms of personal evolution. And your own personal evolution cannot be separated from any larger abstraction like “humanity as a whole,” or “the greater good,” or whatever.
Your personal task is always conducted within the context of everything you are connected to, which, if you look at it widely enough, is everything.