There are many people who believe that everything that happens to people is   
   either karmic or a result of what's in their consciousness. Try telling that   
   to the children who got gassed during the Holocaust. It couldn't have been   
   anything in their    
   consciousness, because they were too little to have a consciousness. And it   
   couldn't have been anything karmic, because if it had been, then there would   
   be a sizable population today with similar karma who would experience similar   
   outcomes.   
      
   The idea that everything that happens to people is their own doing absolves   
   oneself of responsibility for doing right by the next person. If this is the   
   case, then if I were to rape you and kill you, it would be your fault rather   
   than mine. And that is    
   not only wrong factually. It is wrong morally. In every sense, it is   
   sociopathic.   
      
   When I was writing on this matter on New Age - influenced forums, I was   
   accused of seeing myself as a victim and not wanting to take responsibility   
   for my life. I was not writing about my life, and I was not writing about   
   myself. I was writing about how    
   these attitudes affect people. And I was also writing from the perspective of   
   someone who knows enough about history to know just how much things differ   
   from one age to the next, and how much of it is a result of some people   
   impacting upon others.   
      
   Where these people are right is in claiming that most of us are not children   
   during the Holocaust, and that there are any number of things that people can   
   do to improve their lot. They are also right that in many cases people being   
   in a bad way is a    
   result of their weakness, ignorance or incompetence. You will not see me argue   
   with these propositions. You will however see me argue intensively against the   
   proposition that, if I were to rape and kill you, it would be your fault   
   rather than mine.   
      
   Corollary with this idea is the notion that nobody can help or injure another.   
   A demonstrably false statement. People both help and injure others all the   
   time. One does not need, as some of these people claim, to see oneself as a   
   victim or to avoid    
   responsibility for one's life in order to understand this. One simply needs to   
   take a look at history.   
      
   If everything that happened to people was a result of their karma or their   
   consciousness, then the world would have been the same way through all of   
   history. As many people would have the karma for gas chambers now as did in   
   1940s; and as many people    
   would have the karma for grinding poverty now as did during the Middle Ages.   
   That things have changed, all the time, as a result of human behavior in   
   politics, business, science and the arts, shows that it is this action that   
   truly determines the fate of    
   humanity.   
      
   Much of what came out of the New Age is good; and I am all in favor of the   
   Western people becoming acquainted with Zen, yoga and herbal medicines.   
   However this attitude has to go. There are all sorts of ways in which people   
   influence others. And for that    
   reason it is imperative that the influence exercised be right rather than   
   wrong.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)