Continued from Part 1SOUL GROUPS
These basic ideas of past relationships and their present influences are not only true of individual relationships but also of group relationships. From the beginning our souls have tended to travel together in groups, and the very act of traveling together for such long periods creates forces of attraction that help to maintain and build on these group relationships. Nearly all souls on the planet today were together in past ages of human history. As a result, the relationships among the peoples of the world today are a reflection of their past activities with each other.
The souls who came in to this planetary system and entered the realms of consciousness associated with this region of the cosmos comprise our largest soul group. This group can then be divided into the subgroups we call "the generations," containing souls who move through the natural cycles of Earth life together, which can be further divided into the various nations, cultures, races, religions, etc., that have formed during ages of interaction together. Within these groups are the subgroups of souls who share similar philosophies, ideas, purposes, aspirations and attitudes. From here the soul groups further divide into the many smaller groups of personal relationships: communities, families, businesses, teams, schools and so on.
Soul groups create an affinity among their members by not only the cumulative experiences they share, but also through their collective memory of how life has been for them and what they have come to mutually desire out of it. In a manner of speaking, such groups form a distinct collective consciousness and spirit, much like the souls who gave us "the spirit of '76," reflecting that soul group's mutual hopes, attitudes, purposes and memories.
Soul groups are neither rigid nor static. Any individual soul can use its free will to seek an experience in another group. There are many cases of souls changing political allegiance, race, or religion from one lifetime to another. Neither do the generations incarnate in strict, rigid patterns. A member of one generation may enter again with another generation. For example, two members of a family group who were father and son in one life may change positions and become son and father in another, or grandfather and grandson. They may even choose to be in the same generation in an incarnation as brothers, for example. However, they may choose not to be in the same family again.
Although soul groups are fairly well established and have significant pull on the individuals within them, they do not have greater influence than an individual soul's will to change.
Generally, however, soul groups cycle in and out of the Earth together and, therefore, at approximately the same time. (I am speaking in eras and ages, not days or years.) This is particularly evident in the past-life readings, as they are called, of Edgar Cayce. Many of them were for souls who fell into one of two major soul groups and naturally followed their cycles of incarnation. Notice in the following listing that the two groups mentioned were sometimes in the Earth at the same periods, but in different locations, not surprisingly. Edgar Cayce and those who worked closely with him also traveled with one of these two groups.
THE INCARNATIONS OF TWO MAJOR SOUL GROUPS FOUND IN THE EDGAR CAYCE READINGS
Group l:
Early Atlantis
Early Ancient Egypt
Persia (during the time of Croseus I,II)
Palestine (during the time of Christ)
The Crusades
Colonial America
Group 2:
Late Atlantis
Late Ancient Egypt
Early Greece
Rome (during the time of Christ)
France (during the time of Louis XIV, XV, XVI)
The American Civil War
Of course, these are only the most significant incarnations for these souls; they would most probably have incarnated many more times than the list indicates. There were also other incarnation-sequences given, but the majority of the readings were for souls who typically cycled with one of these two major groups. We should also take a look at.some significant exceptions to this pattern. Some souls did not always incarnate with their group, choosing instead to skip a cycle or enter with another group, though they usually rejoined their original group eventually. Others, though cycling into the Earth-plane with their group, did not actually incarnate, i.e., did not enter into a body; rather they stayed in the spirit and helped from a higher vantage point while the others incarnated. One example of this comes from an Edgar Cayce reading for a woman who wanted to know why she hadn't been given an incarnation during the Palestine era in which her present son and husband had incarnated. She was told that she was there, but not in the flesh. She was, as some of us would term it today, a "guardian angel" for her present son while he lived and worked in that period.
A group of souls may find themselves together again and yet not one of them desired it to be so. In these cases, it is often the forces of the Universal Law that cause them to come together. For better or for worse they now have to meet the effects of their past actions with each other. The Universal intention is that the confrontation will lead to a resolution of their karma or at least a recognition of how their past actions with each other have caused the present predicament, and they will resolve not to act that way again.
Both in individual and group relationships, the karmic effects of past actions with others can create some very difficult, even terrible situations. The meeting can result in murder, rape, torture and other atrocities. Even in lesser cases karmic effect can result in back-biting, back-stabbing, bickering, fighting and other turmoils. Imagine what might happen if the universal forces of cause and effect brought together the souls of the Roman Coliseum and the souls they fed to the lions, or the Conquistadors and the Incas and Aztecs, or the Nazis and Jews.
The same cause-and-effect forces play a part in individual lives, too. Imagine if the Law brought together a victim killed in a family quarrel and his or her murderer. What about a soul who betrayed another's trust or love? What would be the reaction toward one another in this present Life? When lives are heavily burdened by the negative effects of their past actions, their present experience is often tragic, and occasionally their lives may appear to be wasted senselessly. However, from the soul's perspective a single incarnation is a learning-experience and an opportunity to resolve past actions that are now holding the soul back from a fuller life. One physical life is not the ultimate living experience for the soul. It is an opportunity to resolve the burdens past actions have placed upon our souls and to clear away the many ideas that continue to confuse and limit us. So even though the seventy or eighty years that comprise the average lifetime seem so very singular and final, it is only a temporary sojourn, a brief experience along an infinite path of soul-life.
Of course, all the good that has been experienced among the various souls and soul groups has just as strong an effect on present situations as does evil, and when we focus on this "good karma" we often find better ways to resolve the negative influences.
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