"Owe no one anything except to love one another,
for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."
(Romans 13:8)
There is a great legal concept which comes into play when an individual starts a corporate entity. In our financial consumerist economy, many individuals take out large loans and revolving lines of credit under the name of a corporate entity. The endeavor typically starts out innocently enough - the individual is working for him or herself and wants to do everything properly, i.e. set up the proper entity, file all the proper paperwork with the state, keep the business and personal finances separate, etc. But our Western economies have been characterized by regular asset inflations and deflations over the last 120 years, and especially the last 50 years. These "boom-bust" cycles have been getting worse and worse. Inevitably, the small business owner gets caught up in the boom and does not prepare whatsoever for the bust. When it finally dawns on him that the business can no longer turn a profit (if it ever did) and his hard work is only going to pay the costs of operating and servicing debt (interest), he gets 'clever' ideas. Or, only one 'clever' idea - stop paying debts for the business, use business credit for his personal investments and expenses, and siphon off any revenues into his own "salary" from the business.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "
When the creditors inevitably descend on the business to collect what is owed, the owner simply walks away or files for business bankruptcy protection. That's where our great legal concept comes in. Creditors who are paying attention can then seek to "pierce the corporate veil" in state or bankruptcy courts. The legal theory here is that the individual began using the corporate body as an "alter-ego" for the individual and therefore should be obligated to all the business debts accrued only for personal gain. In nearly every case, the business owner has no defense here, because financial statements tell the tale. We will now perceive how this entire structure is a cultural analogy for the modern individual relationship with the corporate body of the Cosmos, i.e. the Cosmic organism to which we all belong, This connection with underlying spiritual principles is not arbitrary, but is the basis for the English common law system which undergirds our current system of financial rights and obligations. The financial economies of the world, with their respective rights for debtors and investors/creditors, is actually rooted in the Old Testament scripture (Leviticus 25).
‘The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me... If one of your brethren becomes poor, and has sold some of his possession, and if his redeeming relative comes to redeem it, then he may redeem what his brother sold. Or if the man has no one to redeem it, but he himself becomes able to redeem it, then let him count the years since its sale, and restore the remainder to the man to whom he sold it, that he may return to his possession. But if he is not able to have it restored to himself, then what was sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the Year of Jubilee; and in the Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his possession...
If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit...
And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. And then he shall depart from you—he and his children with him—and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers. For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.'
We can see in our current financial system many reflections of the spiritual principles above, which have been preserved rather well despite the elapse of several millennia since. The basis for these principles was the fact that the land and resources were not permanently owned by any given individual, but only by God through his collective corporeal body. That is, the land and resources belonged, first and foremost, to the Cosmic organism as a whole. Every individual residing on or utilizing them only did so as "strangers and sojourners", not as permanent owners. As Goethe put it, "we are but dreary guests on the dark Earth...". So what gives us the right to claim the 'collective commons' all for ourselves? In the present day, these sorts of disputes over ownership, debts, rights, and obligations are still rampant in novel forms. But what is truly at stake here are our inner desires, feelings, and thoughts. We should perceive this analogy of socioeconomic relations to the deep spiritual realities they reflect; an analogy which marries corporeal matter and mind (psyche) through our own mediating Reason.
A "debt" is simply an obligation taken on in exchange for present goods or services to be repaid at a later date with some interest (the prohibitions against usurious interest still remain with us today, at least in theory). What does this mean in terms of the human psyche (soul-spirit)? Many spiritual traditions recognize what is called the "laws of Karma" and "karmic debt". These are naturally ordered consequences resulting from an individual's interactions with others in one lifetime, which only unfold in one of their subsequent lifetimes. An image frequently used is that of a Karmic account, ledger, or register, where all of the individual's transgressions against his fellow humans have been imprinted. One could say the human soul's incarnations, governed through the laws of Karma, serve as a school for the individual Ego's inner impulses of thoughts, feelings, and desires, so that the latter may be tamed by Thinking and motivated by conscious moral intuitions. The latter then integrate our innermost experiences with the interests of the corporate body of the Cosmos.
"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body."
That is the individual soul's jubilee after seven times seven years, after which he can return to his rightful possession, with his karmic register perfectly balanced out. In our current age, the individual ego is veiled heavily from the Cosmic whole, as if shrouded in a thick smog of chaotic inner experiences and thoughts which cannot find their way back to a stable home. Since the dawn of the modern age in the 15th century, and especially after the proliferation of Descartes' subject/object division and Kant's corresponding noumenon/phenomenon division, the veil between the Cosmic Body and the individual's corporeal ego was reified through the modern intellect into one which is seemingly impenetrable. The modern corporeal ego then says to itself, "if the veil concealing the spiritual meaning of the world is impenetrable, then I must create a new corporate entity to hold all my karmic debt". What could be a more pleasing solution than this one for the karmic debtor who no longer perceives any Cosmic lessons to be learned in his corporeal existence?
It is no coincidence that this happens to be the solution we are actually given to every economic crisis in recent decades - shift all of your private debts to central governments and taxpayers at large. Dozens of new public agencies have arisen to backstop or otherwise hold the liability for these private debts which are completely "underwater", i.e. abstracted from the value of any underlying assets. These developments are the socioeconomic reflections of what is occurring in the relation between each individual's ego and the Cosmic body. The individual ego erects a dummy corporation to act as his alter-ego and shift all of his karmic debt burden onto this entity. In modern philosophies, this alter-ego corporation takes on many forms. Some register it with the name, "Transcendent God, LLC". Others with the name, "Blind Will, Inc." Yet others use the name, "Empty Void of Nothingness, P.C." These entities are all D/B/A's - they are individuals doing their egoic business as fictitious entities. They are heavily aliased names for the corporeal individual's own desires, feelings, and thoughts, projected into the Cosmic Body which he has cut off with an 'impenetrable' veil.
But our Cosmic and Karmic 'creditors' are paying attention to what we are doing, even if we are not paying attention to them. They will pierce our corporeal veil and hold us liable for the debts we rightfully owe to others in our Cosmic Body. We cannot simply spend and consume endlessly during the boom times and expect to walk away from the inevitable bust, hands washed of all the karmic debts we have accrued. This reality of our situation should not be frightening to us, but liberating. It means that the veil we have erected for our alter-ego is only temporary, and the Light of higher Cosmic laws than our own can still shine through our corporeal existence into the world at large. Our karmic creditors only appear to be 'chasing' us for the debts owed because we have blocked out their activity with our 'impenetrable' veils. If, instead of trying to defraud these karmic creditors, we choose to confront them openly and honestly - to thoughtfully negotiate a reasonable settlement with them - then we will find our debts will be forgiven as we have also forgiven our debtors.
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself."
