What about the situation where tasks are carried out by a group of people? Who carries the responsibility for the decisions? Is there such a thing as collective responsibility? How far does the responsibility go within a group in the event of a causal chain of consequences? Can responsibility be shared?
To deal with the most important question here first: There are no changes to the responsibilities. Every person is responsible for the consequences of the decisions which correspond with his awareness, or in the case of the model of the sphere, for all those consequences which take place within his awareness sphere. The co-responsibility in a group or in a company therefore does not primarily depend on the individual employee’s position in the hierarchy, but on his personal development. To return again to the example of supplying war equipment components, it would be theoretically conceivable that the cleaning lady carries co-responsibility and the company directors do not – assuming here that the cleaning lady is personally further developed, in other words she has a higher level of awareness than the members of the board of directors.
It is possibly also of interest here to discuss the degree of co-responsibility in a group of people. This is in any case easy to do since the basic rights of existence in a given situation can only be either observed or violated. There is no grey zone and no hierarchy. It isn’t possible to be more or less on a boat – either you are on the boat or not.
It is essential that we free ourselves from the well-known day-to-day system of having an account with credits for «good deeds» and penalties for «bad deeds». Violation of the basic rights of existence is and remains a violation and cannot made up for by observing the basic rights of existence in other situations. If I am qualified on the basis of my awareness of my co-responsibility, then I am co-responsible but certainly no more or no less than the other co-responsible people.
As a reminder: All beings wish to develop further. This development concerns the living of the basic rights of existence, in other words unconditional love, in every situation. If I am unsuccessful in this in certain situations, then sometime in the future I will be confronted with situations which permit me to relearn the corresponding characteristic. Therefore the degree of co-responsibility in a given situation is unimportant. At best the question as to why I have violated or not violated the basic rights of existence in a given situation can be of interest, for this would permit me to better adapt my individual learning programme in the future to my learning abilities.
The motivation or the reason for not observing the basic rights of existence in a given situation is only of interest for the planning of future education. In the situation under consideration something external can never be drawn in as the reason for, or as an excuse for my decision. The actual reasons for my decisions are always mine alone! – even when I have made the decision within a group of other people.
It cannot be repeated frequently enough: To achieve lasting harmony within ourselves we must live the basic rights of existence in every situation. The reason why we have lived them or not lived them in a given situation is not important for us personally. There is no reason to not live the basic rights of existence in a given situation. There is not one individual exceptional situation where the basic rights of existence should not be lived!