Q&A: Is there such a thing as collective karma?: Part II
Collective tendencies
Note: These next few articles will be devoted to answering questions asked by readers. If you have questions, please submit them by clicking the button below!Is there such a thing as group karma or collective karma, not just the individual?
For example, the karma of a nation?
As an example, in the 1920s we went through the Great Depression. People said it felt like "getting the rug swept up under them."
Right after, the US experienced a polio wave, and the president that got us out of the Depression was FDR, who had...polio.
I feel this for a lot that is going on in the world right now…
Om Sri Gurubhyo Namah. Salutations to all the teachers.
Last week, we began a discussion on this question.
While it does not seem like there is any mention of the topic of collective karma in any traditional sources1, there were a few non-traditional sources where it has been discussed. In particular, the teachings of the Buddhist teacher Lati Rinpoche, as well as the writings of Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society.
The goal of Yoga is not to investigate karma, but rather to break free from it. However, given that the question has been asked, we dove into an exploration of the idea, investigating it from first principles, through the following aspects:
The concept of collective karma at face value
Collective tendencies
Group dynamics and group experiences as shared karma
The utility of the idea of collective karma
Whether, in fact, all karma is collective karma
In the last article, we investigated the first aspect - the concept of collective karma at face value. We looked at the four aspects of karma - the decision, the action, the result, and the resultant mental tendency - and found that all of these actually occur at the individual level, and are later superimposed upon the collective (e.g. in a democracy, each person votes individually, even though we later say “the country voted”).
In summary, we found that “collective karma” - on the face of it - is just a figure of speech. That is, karma actually occurs at the individual level, and any talk of a group doing something or bearing a result is just a superimposition of a concept upon a more complex reality.
You can find a more detailed discussion in the article here:
In this article, we will examine the second aspect - collective tendencies.
Recap: Individual tendencies
Karma itself can be framed as a set of tendencies in the mind, which manifest in the form of thoughts, words, and/or actions when conducive conditions arise.
An example we have previously used is the tendency towards anger, which may not arise when you are watching a movie or listening to music, but which may suddenly appear when you are driving and someone cuts you off. Fundamentally, we find that anger does not appear from an external source, but rather arises from pre-existing tendencies in the mind, often independent of the actual external condition. The story of the empty boat brings this idea to light:
If a man is crossing the river and an empty boat collides with his skiff, even though he is a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry. But if he sees a man in the other boat he will scream and shout and curse at the man to steer clear. If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world, no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you. Thus is the perfect man – his boat is empty.
- Zhuang Zhou
P: Ok, I understand that these tendencies exist in seed form in the mind, and flower into thoughts, words, and actions when the appropriate conditions arise. But where do the tendencies come from in the first place?
These tendencies - called samskaaras - are deposited in the mind with every thought, word, or action that we endorse with the feelings of kartrittva (doership) and bhoktrittva (enjoyership). That is, the moment we take credit for being either the doer or experiencer of a thought, word, or action, we have now generated a new tendency in the mind. More on this topic here:
These tendencies are what are colloquially referred to as ones karma, since they are the source of all action.
P: Can these tendencies appear at the collective level?
Collective Tendencies
The question of collective tendencies can be investigated at two levels:
Can tendencies exist at the collective level?
If we imagine these tendencies as seeds, are they stored in the collective, or in the individual?
Can tendencies exist at the collective level?
For the first question, let us consider the examples of a family or friend group, an organization such as a team, a company, a religious organization, or a non-profit, and a larger group such as a state or a nation.
Starting with the small group, we find that different groups have different patterns of behaviour.
Each of us are most often members of many such groups - a family, a group of friends, a book club, and so on. Each of these groups have sets of behaviour which they - consciously or unconsciously - adhere to.
For example, while one family may eat dinner in front of the TV every night, another family may eat dinner at the table. While one family may have a habit of greeting each other every morning and evening, another family may not. One family may want to meet each other frequently, while another may meet eachother only on special occasions, while still others may rarely or never meet at all.
These habit patterns are an example of a collective tendency, which the group exhibits with one another.
Another such example is the manner of speech. While one family may be habituated to speaking to each other with great respect or formality, another family may be habituated to speaking to each other with brash language.
Yet another such example is feelings of possession over objects. While one family may be habituated to strong boundaries of ownership (ie. this yogurt is mine, this book is yours, this money belongs to me, and not to you, etc.), another family may view ownership completely differently, seeing all property as belonging to the collective, with no one person having a right to ownership of particular objects.
As karma is itself infinite, these examples are infinite as well. However, it is apparent that these tendencies can and do exist at the collective level.
Some of these collective tendencies may be conscious, others may be unconscious, some may start as unconscious and become conscious, and some may start as conscious and become unconscious.
Let us continue with the example of eating dinner together, apart, in front of the TV, or at the table.
One family may have, at some point, had an explicit conversation about how it is important to eat at the table every night. This was likely then enforced in some way, with regular reminders, reward, or punishment. If successful, this kind of enforcement is likely less necessary as time goes on.
This is the exact same pattern one may take when setting a habit within ones own body-mind.
If, for example, you want to work out every day, you may consider it, then explicitly decide to do so, and then enforce it with yourself in some way - perhaps rewarding yourself when you worked out, or simply giving yourself a mental pat on the back - until eventually, this kind of enforcement is no longer needed.
In another family, it may be that the idea of eating dinner on the table was never discussed. This family perhaps gravitated towards the TV, and fell automatically into this habit pattern. This example of unconscious tendencies exists at the individual level as well.
We all may have habits of sitting, speaking, or acting in certain ways, eating particular types or amounts of food, and so on, which we may never have examined closely. Yet, although these habits were not consciously formed, they exist and drive our actions nonetheless.
Furthermore, some habits remain unconscious throughout, while others are eventually explicitly discussed or thought about. Still others remain conscious at all time (e.g. “this family eats dinner at the table”), while others become unconscious (aka “habitual”) over time.
These kinds of tendencies also exist within friend groups, book clubs, and other collections of people - one need only notice at how the individuals speak and act when in proximity with others in that group, and compare with how the same individuals speak and act when not with that group.
We also find these tendencies in mid-sized groups, such as teams, companies, religious organizations, non-profits, and so on. Most often, this set of collective tendencies are described with the term “culture.”
For example, some companies may have a culture of top-down decision making, while others may have a more bottom-up or democratic culture. Some teams may have a culture of written collaboration, while others may have a culture of primarily verbal collaboration. Some organizations may perpetuate a culture of fear, while others may manifest a culture of psychological safety and care for one another.2
Finally, we have the example of states or nations.
Such groups - at the scale of millions of people - also exhibit tendencies. The United States, for example, exhibits a very different set of tendencies than, say, India, which is again very different from France. These differences in collective tendencies can be seen in societal expectations, the way in which people speak, the types of food people eat, and on and on.
P: How can we bring change at the collective level?
Jogi: To bring a change to any tendency, we must look for where the tendencies lie. Therefore, in order to answer this question, let us first investigate where collective tendencies are stored.
Where are the collective tendencies stored?
Let us consider the simple example of a family who tends to speak brashly with one another. The actions, as discussed in the previous article, exist at the individual level. That is, when we say “the family speaks brashly”, what we really mean is that each individual speaks brashly.
This is true for any collective tendency - all the actions are at the individual level, and then later ascribed to or superimposed upon the group.
Now if the action is taken at the individual level, the tendency must also exist with the individual.
However, there is a slight complication. We may find, for example, that the individuals in this family do not speak brashly with their friends, or with their colleagues at work, but only with one another within the family. If this can be true, then the tendency - or at least its appearance - must have something to do with the particular collective in which it appears.
This is certainly true.
If we are honest with ourselves, we all find that we act at least somewhat differently when we are with different people. For example, you may act one way with your friends, another with your family, and a different way in a work context.
To take this further, we may even find that we act differently the moment the group we are in changes even slightly.
For example, if you look closely enough, you can find that when you are in a group with five friends, and two of them leave, your actions and mannerisms will exhibit a subtle difference. Sometimes these differences are too subtle to immediately notice, while other times they are more apparent.
P: So then what is the connection between the group we are in and the tendencies that manifest? Doesn’t this mean that the tendencies are stored somewhere at the collective level?
What we are calling a “group” is in reality, just like any other experience, a collection of perceptions - vrittis - that appear within the mind. These vrittis are of several types - the perception itself, memories, imaginations, and so on.
These vrittis awaken a set of tendencies that are already within the individual mind, just like the example of the empty boat at the beginning of this article.
The moment the group changes, what has happened is that the vrittis have changed. That is, the conditions that bring up those particular “collective” tendencies are now different, and so bring up a different set of tendencies. This can be compared to how cherries appear in the summer but are nowhere to be found during the winter, while apples appear during the winter but have a hard time in hotter months.
Given this, the only way to change a group is to change individual tendencies.
Individual tendencies, as we know, can be changed through the twin foundations of Yoga - practice and letting go.
Collective tendencies, since they live at the individual level, are changed in the same way.
However, the bigger the group, the more the tendencies, and the more the tendencies, the more the effort required to create change. As a result, while the movements of collective change are of the same class at the individual, small group, and larger collective level, the scale is vastly different.
As we know, individual tendencies can only ultimately be changed by the individual themselves.
No matter how much one may try to change another individual’s tendencies, in order for the change to occur, the person needs to decide to adjust their own behaviour.
From the standpoint of Yogic psychology, this is because the buddhi - the deciding and discriminating faculty - is required to repeatedly and regularly intercept the habitual tendency repeatedly in order to create a new channel in the mind. You can find more on this topic in this article:
Given this, in order to make change at the collective level, the first step is to change one’s own mind (since the individual is, after all, a part of the collective), as well as to create an environment which is conducive to such change.
“Do you want to change the world? Then change yourself first.”
- Sri Chinmoy
TL;DR
In this article, we explored the idea of collective tendencies.
Through some investigation, we found that there is are fact such things as collective tendencies. However, we found that they exist at the individual level, and are awakened by the presence of the group, just like all other tendencies which are awakened by particular conditions.
In the following articles on this topic, we will explore the idea of collective or shared karma through the following aspects:
Group dynamics and group experiences as shared karma
The utility of the idea of collective karma
Whether, in fact, all karma is collective karma
Until then, please submit your questions by clicking the button below.
If you come across something, please send it across!
As an aside on company/team culture:
