Manifestations of Karma E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Why do people have such differing events and circumstances to deal with in their lives? What are the meanings of diseases, illnesses, accidents and natural disasters? From his clairvoyant spiritual research, Rudolf Steiner speaks of karma, or destiny, as a reality - an actual scientific phenomenon which can and should be understood today. We create our own karma in all areas of existence, says Steiner, laying the foundation in one incarnation for the following one. We cannot seek for a complete pattern or meaning in one earthly life, but must begin to take into account many lives on earth. He indicates that although we may not be aware of particular causes, the knowlege that a resolution of our own self-induced karma is in process can help to bring both an acceptance and a sense of purpose into our present lives./

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

MANIFESTATIONS OF KARMA

Eleven lectures given in Hamburg between 16 and 28 May 1910

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translation revised by Heidi Herrmann-Davey

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Originally published in German under the title Die Offenbarungen des Karma (volume 120 in the Rudolf Sterner Gesamtamgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 1995

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 310 3

Cover by Andrew Morgan Typeset by Imprint Publicity Service, Crawley Down, Sussex

CONTENTS

Foreword by Heidi Herrmann-Davey

LECTURE 1Hamburg, 16 May 1910 The Nature and Significance of Karma in Humanity, the Earth and the Universe

LECTURE 2Hamburg, 17 May 1910 Karma and the Animal Kingdom

LECTURE 3Hamburg, 18 May 1910 Karma in Relation to Health and Illness

LECTURE 4Hamburg, 19 May 1910 Karma in Relation to the Curability and Incurability of Diseases

LECTURE 5Hamburg, 20 May 1910 Karma in Relation to Natural and Accidental Illness

LECTURE 6Hamburg, 21 May 1910 Karma in Relation to Accidents

LECTURE 7Hamburg, 22 May 1910 Karma in Relation to the Forces of Nature, Volcanic Eruptions, Earthquakes and Epidemics

LECTURE 8Hamburg, 25 May 1910 Karma of the Higher Beings

LECTURE 9Hamburg, 26 May 1910 Karmic Effects of our Experiences. Karma in Relation to Death and Birth

LECTURE 10Hamburg, 27May 1910 Free Will and Karma in the Future of Human Evolution

LECTURE 11Hamburg, 28 May 1910 Individual Karma and Shared Karma

Notes

FOREWORD

Traditional interpretations of human destiny or karma rest on the assumption that the human being’s cognitive powers either cannot, or else must not, penetrate to the deeper mysteries of existence, to an understanding of the laws of karma. Rudolf Steiner has shown that it is possible and indeed essential for human beings to become aware of karma today.

The lectures in this book were given in 1910, to an audience familiar with the fundamental concepts of spiritual science. Rudolf Steiner had already described the laws of reincarnation and karma in several of his written works as well as detailing a clear path towards gaining knowledge of the higher worlds through self-transformation. In the Manifestations of Karma lectures he gives illustrative examples of the workings of karma which reveal the interweaving of individual personal karma with the karma of larger groups of people and ultimately that of humanity as a whole.

We fashion our destiny in accordance with the insights gained between death and a new birth. Consequently certain things will happen to us of necessity. How we respond to these in our earthly life is a matter of our individual freedom and will determine our future karma.

Karmic awareness is the key to attaining greater freedom in the choices we make. The implications of this are somewhat wider than suggested by the emphasis some contemporary notions of spirituality place on personal fulfilment or self-redemption.

By exploring the more hidden aspects of a whole range of life phenomena in the light of the evolution of our planet Rudolf Steiner raises our consciousness to the vital role we play in helping or hindering the powers which serve the world’s evolvement.

Heidi Herrmann-Davey

LECTURE 1

The Nature and Significance of Karma in Humanity, the Earth and the Universe

Hamburg, 16 May 1910

In this cycle of lectures we will deal with various questions of spiritual science which are extremely important to our lives. As I have already pointed out on many occasions spiritual science is not an abstract theory, a mere doctrine or teaching; it is a source of life and fitness for life and fulfils its task only when the knowledge it can impart pours something into our souls which makes life richer, enhances our understanding of life and makes us more competent and effective. This is something you will all be familiar with. However, if you look around you to find out how such ideals might be applied in life you might feel disheartened. For if we consider impartially what the world thinks it ‘knows’ today, and what makes people feel or act in one way or another today, we might well conclude that all of this is much too far removed from anthroposophical ideas and ideals for the anthroposophist to influence life directly by what he has acquired from spiritual science. Yet such a view would be rather superficial since it takes no account of what we ourselves need to learn. If the forces we develop through anthroposophy really do become sufficiently strong they will find ways of working in the world; whereas if no efforts were ever made to strengthen these forces it would be impossible to make a difference in the world. But there is something else which may comfort us when we are in danger of losing heart, and this is the very purpose of what I am going to deal with in this cycle of lectures—the subject of karma in human life and in general. For with every hour we spend here we shall see more clearly that there is no end to what we can do to make anthroposophy work in the world; we shall also see how karma itself will bring us what we need to do in the short or long term to develop our forces, as long as we seriously believe in it. We shall also understand the following: whenever we believe that we cannot yet apply the forces gained from our view of the world, it is simply a question of our not having developed these forces sufficiently for karma to enable us to work in the world with them. In other words, these lectures will do more than build up a body of knowledge about karma; in every hour our confidence in karma will be more fully awakened, and we shall have the certainty that when the time comes—be it tomorrow or the day after or in many years’ time—our karma will bring us the tasks which we, as anthroposophists, may need to perform. Karma will reveal itself to us as a teaching which not only tells us how different things in the world relate to one another, but will make our lives more satisfying and rich.

But if karma is really to do this we must go more deeply into its laws and its working in the universe. In this case, it is to a certain extent necessary that I should do something unusual for me in dealing with questions of spiritual science, namely, to give a definition, an explanation, of a word. I don’t normally do this, as explanations of words are usually not very useful. In our considerations we generally begin by the presentation of facts, and if these facts are grouped and arranged in the proper way, the concepts and ideas follow of themselves; but if we were to follow a similar course with regard to the comprehensive questions which we have to discuss during the next few lectures, we should need much more time than is at our disposal. So in this case, for better understanding, I must give, if not exactly a definition, at least some description of the concept which is to occupy us for some time. Definitions are for the purpose of making clear what is meant when one uses a particular word. In this way, a description of the concept of ‘karma’ will be given, so that we know what we are talking about when in future the word ‘karma’ is used in these lectures.

From various previous considerations you will all have formed some idea of what karma is. It is a very abstract idea of karma to call it ‘the spiritual law of causes’, the law by which certain effects follow certain causes found in spiritual life. This idea of karma is too abstract, because it is on the one hand too narrow and on the other much too comprehensive. If we wish to conceive of karma as a ‘law of causes’, we must connect it with what is otherwise known in the world as the ‘law of causality’, the law of cause and effect. Let us be clear about what we understand to be the law of causes in general before we speak of spiritual facts and events.

It is very often emphasized nowadays by natural science that its actual importance lies in the fact that it is founded on the universal law of causes, and that it traces effects to their respective causes. But it is not quite so clear how this linking of cause and effect actually takes place. For you will still find in books of the present day which are held to be scholarly works of philosophy such expressions as the following: an effect is that which follows from a cause. But this is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. In the case of a warm sunbeam falling on a metal plate and making it warmer than before, science would speak of cause and effect in the ordinary sense. But can we claim that the effect—the warming of the metal plate—follows from the cause of the warm sunbeam? If the warm sunbeam had this effect already within it, why is it that it warms the metal plate only when it comes into contact with it? Hence, in the world of phenomena, in the inanimate world which is all around us, it is necessary, if an effect is to follow a cause, that something should encounter this cause. Unless this takes place one cannot speak of an effect following upon a cause. This preliminary remark, philosophical and abstract though it apparently sounds, is by no means superfluous; for if real progress is to be made in anthroposophical matters we must get into the habit of being extremely accurate in our ideas and not take the casual approach adopted sometimes in other branches of knowledge.

In relation to effects like that of the sunbeam warming a sheet of metal we should not speak of karma at all. Certainly there is causality. The connection between cause and effect is there, but we should never obtain a true idea of karma if we spoke of it only in that way. Hence, we cannot use the term karma in speaking of a simple relation between effect and cause.

Let us now try and develop a more advanced concept of the connection between cause and effect. For instance if we have a bow, and we bend it and shoot off an arrow with it, an effect is caused by the bending of the bow; but we can no more speak of the effect of the shot arrow in connection with its cause as ‘karma’ than in the foregoing case. But if we consider something else in connection with this process, we shall, to a certain extent, get nearer to the idea of karma, even if we still do not quite grasp it. For example, we may reflect that the bow, if often bent, becomes slack in time. So, from what the bow does and from what happens to it, there will follow not only an effect which shows itself externally, but also one which will react upon the bow itself. Through the frequent bending of the bow something happens to the bow itself. Something which happens through the bending of the bow reacts, so to speak, on the bow. Thus an effect is obtained which reacts on the object by which the effect itself was caused.

This is indeed an important part of the idea of karma. You cannot speak of ‘karma’ unless an effect is produced which in turn reacts upon the thing or being producing this effect, unless there is this characteristic feature that the effect reacts upon the being who caused it. We thus get somewhat nearer to the idea when it is clear to us that the effects caused by the thing or being must recoil upon that thing or being itself; nevertheless we must not call the slackening of the bow through frequent bending, the ‘karma’ of the bow, for the following reason. If we have had the bow for three or four weeks and have often bent it so that after this time it becomes slack, then we really have in the slack bow something quite different from the tense bow of four weeks before. Thus when the reacting effect is of such a kind that it makes the thing or the being something quite different, we cannot yet speak of ‘karma’. We may speak of karma only when the effects which react upon a being find the same being to react upon, or at any rate that being, in a certain sense, unaltered.

Thus we have come again a little nearer to the idea of karma; but if we describe it in this way we obtain only a very abstract conception of it. If we want to grasp this idea abstractly, we cannot do better than by expressing it in the way we have just done; but one thing more must be added to this idea of karma. If the effect reacts upon the being immediately, that is, if cause and reacting effect are simultaneous, we can hardly speak of karma, for in this case the being from whom the effect proceeded would have actually intended to bring about that result directly. He would, therefore, foresee the effect and would perceive all the elements leading to it. When this is the case we cannot really speak of karma. For instance, we cannot speak of karma in the case of a person performing an act by which he intends to bring about certain results, and who then obtains the desired result in accordance with his purpose. That is to say, between the cause and the effect there must be something hidden from the person when he sets the cause in motion; so that though this connection is really there, it was not actually designed by the person himself. If this connection has not been intended by him then the reason for a connection between cause and effect must be looked for elsewhere than in the intentions of the person in question. That is to say, this reason must be determined by a certain fixed law. Thus karma also includes the fact that the connection between cause and effect is determined by a law independent of whether or not there be direct intention on the part of the being concerned.

We have now grouped together a few principles which may help us to form a clearer picture of what karma is. All of these principles must be part of our concept of karma, and we must not limit ourselves to an abstract definition, or else we shall not be able to comprehend the manifestations of karma in the different spheres of the world. We must now first seek for the manifestations of karma where we first meet with them—in individual human lives.

Can we find anything of the sort in individual lives, and when can we find what we have just presented in our explanation of the concept of karma?

We should find something of the sort if, for example, we experienced something in our life about which we could say: This experience which has come to us is related in a particular way to an earlier experience of ours which we caused ourselves. Let us try in the first place, by mere observation of life, to determine whether this relationship exists. We will take the purely external point of view. Without it we shall never understand the laws by which events and experiences in life are related, any more than someone who has never observed the collision of two billiard balls can understand the elasticity which makes them rebound. Observation of life can lead us to the perception of a law of inter-dependence. Let us take a definite example.

Suppose that a young man in his nineteenth year, who by some accident is obliged to give up a profession which until then had seemed to be marked out for him, and who up to that time had pursued a course of study to prepare him for that profession, through some misfortune to his parents was compelled to give up this profession and, at the age of eighteen, to become a business man. If we observe such incidents in life completely objectively—like one would observe the impact of billiard balls in physics—we might find, for example, that the experience of the business life into which the young man was driven is a stimulating one at first, that he fulfils his duties, learns something and perhaps even makes quite a success out of this career. At the same time one might observe that something very different sets in after a while: a certain malaise, a feeling of discontent. If the change of career took place at eighteen years of age the next few years may pass inconspicuously. Yet, around the twenty-third year, perhaps, it might become apparent that something had taken root in his soul, something quite inexplicable. Looking more closely into the matter, we are likely to find, if the case is not complicated, that the explanation of the boredom arising five years after the change of calling must be sought for in his thirteenth or fourteenth year; for the causes of such a phenomenon are generally to be sought for at about the same period of time before the change of calling as the occurrence we have been describing took place after that change. The man in question when he was a schoolboy of thirteen, five years before the change of vocation, might have experienced something in his soul which gave him a feeling of inner happiness. Supposing that no change of profession had taken place, then that to which the youth had accustomed himself in his thirteenth year would have been fulfilled in later life and would have borne fruit. Then, however, came the change which at first interested the young man and engaged his soul; something entered his soul-life which repressed what had occupied it before. It is possible to repress something for a certain time, but through the very fact of being repressed it gains a special force, especially inwardly; an elastic force, as it were, is built up in the soul. This might be compared with the squeezing of an india-rubber ball which we can compress to a certain point where it resists, and if it were allowed to spring back it would do so in proportion to the force with which we have just compressed it.

In like manner experiences like the one just described—what the young man experienced in his soul in his thirteenth year had consolidated by the time the change of career came along—can also be repressed in a certain way; but then, after a while, resistance arises in the soul. Then one can see how this resistance grows to finally show its effect. Because the soul lacks something it would have if the change of career had not taken place, that which had been repressed emerges and manifests as discontent and boredom with life.

So this is a case where the person concerned experienced something, did something in his thirteenth, fourteenth year, and did something else later, i.e. changed his career; and we can see how these causes show their effect later on, by reacting upon the same person. In a case like this we should have to apply the concept of karma to an individual human life. Now one ought not to object: But we have known of cases where nothing of the kind was shown! That may well be. Yet it would not occur to a physicist examining the laws of velocity of a falling stone to say that the law would not be valid if the stone was deflected by a blow. We need to learn to observe properly and exclude all phenomena which do not affect the establishing of the law concerned. Surely such an individual who, if nothing else intervened, experiences the effects of impressions in his thirteenth year in the form of boredom in his twenty-third year, would not experience this particular boredom if he had married in the meantime, for example. But such an occurrence has no bearing on the establishment of the fundamental law. What is important is that we find the right factors which will lead us to a particular law. Observation in itself is nothing, only methodical observation will enable us to understand the law. For the study of the law of karma we must apply such methodical observation in the right way.

Now let us assume—for the purpose of establishing the karma of a particular individual—that this person suffered a heavy blow of destiny in his twenty-fifth year; this event caused him pain and suffering. If we confine our observations to simply stating that this heavy blow of destiny broke in upon this life and filled it with pain and suffering, in other words, if we do not go beyond the mere observation, we shall never understand karmic connections. But if we go further and examine the life of such an individual who in his twenty-fifth year experienced that stroke of destiny, in his fiftieth year we might arrive at a view such as this one: the person we are looking at has developed into a virtuous and hardworking individual, well established in life; now we look back over his life and we find that at the age of twenty he was still a good-for-nothing, with no initiative at all. Then, at the age of twenty-five, a severe blow of destiny hit him. If this blow had not hit him—we may now say—he would have remained a good-for-nothing character. In other words, the heavy blow of destiny was the cause of the virtue and competence manifest in the individual’s fiftieth year.

Such facts also teach us that we should be mistaken if we considered the blow of destiny in the twenty-fifth year as mere effect. For if we ask ourselves what the stroke of destiny caused, we must go beyond mere observation. But if we consider the blow not as an effect at the end of the phenomena which preceded it, but place it rather at the beginning of the subsequent events, and consider it as a cause, we will find that even our feelings in relation to this blow of destiny may change substantially. We shall very likely be grieved if we think of it only as an effect, but if we think of it as the cause of what happens later on, we shall probably be glad and feel pleasure over it. For we can say that thanks to the fateful blow the man who experienced it has become a decent human being.

So we see that our attitude is essentially different in so far as we consider an event in life as cause or as effect. It matters a great deal whether we consider what happens in life as mere effect or as cause. It is true that if we start our investigations at the time of the painful event, we cannot then clearly perceive the direct effect, but if we have arrived at the law of karma by the observation of similar cases, that law can itself say to us: An event is painful perhaps now because it appears to us merely as the result of what has happened previously, but it can also be looked upon as the starting point of what is to follow. Then we can foresee the blow of fate as the starting point and the cause of the results, and this places the matter in quite a different light. Thus the law of karma itself may be a source of consolation if we accustom ourselves to set an event not only at the end, but at the beginning of a series of events. It is important that we learn to study life methodically, and to place things in the right relationship to one another as cause and effect. If we carry out these observations thoroughly, we shall notice events in the life of a person which take place with a certain regularity; others, again, appear quite irregularly in the same life. In this way you will be able to discover remarkable connections in human life, provided that you observe it properly, and this involves looking further than the end of your nose. Unfortunately the phenomena of human life are only observed over short spans of time at present, no more than a few years at most; and people are not in a habit of relating what happened after many years to earlier events which might well have caused the later. That is why there are very few people today capable of establishing a certain connection between the beginning and the end of human life. Yet this connection is extraordinarily instructive.

Supposing we have brought up a child during the first seven years of his life without ever assuming—as it is generally assumed—that if an individual is to lead a good and useful life he must conform to our own standards of what makes a person good and useful. For in that case we would be keen to train the child strictly in everything we consider essential to being good and useful. Whereas if we recognize at the outset that one can be good and useful in many different ways, and that there is no need to determine in which of these ways the child with his individual talents is to become a good and useful human being, we would say: ‘Whatever may be my ideas of a good and useful person, this child is to become one through having his best talents brought out, and these I must first discover. What matter the rules by which I myself feel bound? The child himself must feel the need to do what he does. If I wish to develop the child according to his individual talents, I must try first to develop tendencies latent in him and draw them out, so that he may above all realize them and act in accordance with them. This shows us that there are two quite different ways of influencing a child in the first seven years of his life.’

If we now look at the child in his later life it will be a long time before the essential effects are manifested of what we have in this way brought into the first years of his life. Observation of life reveals to us that the actual effects of what was put into the child’s soul in his earliest years as causes do not manifest until the very evening of life. A person may possess to the very end of his life an active mind, if he has been, as a child, educated in this way; that is, if the living, inherent tendencies of his soul have been observed and naturally developed. If we have drawn out and developed his innate powers we shall see the fruits in the evening of his life displayed as a rich soul-life. On the other hand, in a starved and impoverished soul and a correspondingly weak old age (for we shall see later on how a starved soul reacts on the body), is manifested what we have done wrong in our treatment of a person in earliest childhood. This is something in human life which in a certain way is so regular that it is applicable to everyone as a connection between cause and effect.

The same connection may also be found in the intermediate stages of life, and I will deal with this in due course. The way in which we treat a child from his seventh to his fourteenth year produces effects in that part of his life which precedes the final stage, and thus we see cause and effect working in cycles. What existed as cause in the earliest years comes out as effect in the latest ones. But in addition to these causes and effects in individual lives which run their course in cycles, there is what may be described as a straight line law.

In our example which showed how the thirteenth year influenced the twenty-third, we see how cause and effect are so connected with human life that what a person has experienced leads to after-effects which in their turn react upon him. Thus karma is fulfilled in individual lives. However, if we only search for the connection between causes and effects in one life of a particular human being, we shall not arrive at an explanation of human life in general. We will develop this thought further in the next few sessions. I am only pointing out something you are already familiar with from the teachings of spiritual science: that human life between birth and death is the repetition of earlier human lives.

If we now seek for the chief characteristic of the life between birth and death, we can describe this as being the extension of one and the same consciousness—essentially at least—throughout the entire period between birth and death. If you call to mind the earliest parts of your life, you will say: There is indeed, a point of time when my recollections of life begin, which does not coincide with my birth, but which comes somewhat later. With the exception of initiates this is how people experience this—they refer to their consciousness as reaching back to just that point. There is, indeed, something very remarkable in the period of time between birth and the beginning of this recollection of life, and we shall return to it again as it will throw light upon important matters. Except, then, for this period between birth and the beginning of memory we can say that life between birth and death is characterized by the fact of one consciousness extending throughout that period of time.

Normally people do not look for the causes of what happened to them later in life in earlier periods of their life; yet it would be possible to find such connections if sufficient attention were paid and if all possible aspects were properly investigated. When we use the consciousness we all have in the form of our memory consciousness and try to place before our soul the connection between earlier and later events in the karmic sense, we might say, for example: I can see that certain things that have happened to me might not have happened if this or that event had not taken place earlier in my life. Or else: Now I am paying for what my early upbringing has done to me. Even if all you achieve is understanding a certain connection between the wrong others have caused in you through the way you were brought up and certain events in your later life, it will be helpful to an extent. It is easier then to find ways and means of counteracting the early harm suffered. Indeed, recognizing such connections between causes and effects in the different periods of our life which we can contemplate with our ordinary consciousness can be of very great benefit. For if we attain such knowledge we may accomplish something else, too. Naturally, when someone at the age of eighty looks back over his life to find the causes of events in his eightieth year in his earliest childhood, he may find it difficult to find ways of compensating for what he suffered then, and even if he did go about it in the right manner it would not help him a great deal. But if he takes the right approach before, and looks back in, say, his fortieth year on the wrongs that have been done to him, he might then have time to take measures against them.

Thus we see that it is desirable to reach beyond our immediate life karma and attain to an understanding of the laws of karma. This may be very useful in our life. What should a person do who in his fortieth year attempts to avert the effect of wrongs done to him, or wrongs which he himself did in his twelfth year? He will do everything to avert the consequences of his own misdeeds or those of others towards him. He will to a certain extent replace by another the effect which would inevitably have arisen had he not intervened. The knowledge of what happened in his twelfth year will lead him to a definite action in his fortieth year, which he would not have taken unless he had known what it was that had happened in his twelfth year. What, then, has the man done by looking back at his early life? He has applied his consciousness to make a certain effect follow a certain cause. He has willed the effect and has brought it about. This shows us how, in the line of karmic consequences, our will can intervene and bring about something which takes the place of the karmic effects which would otherwise have followed. If we consider such a case in which a person has quite consciously brought about a connection between cause and effect in life, we could conclude that in this case karma, or the laws of karma, have penetrated his consciousness, and he has himself, in a certain way, brought about the karmic effect.

Let us now apply what we know about the repeated earth lives of a human being to such a picture. The consciousness of which we have just spoken which extends, with the exception mentioned, throughout the period between birth and death, is due to the fact that the human being is able to use his brain as an instrument. When we pass through the gate of death a different sort of consciousness comes into play—one that is independent of the brain and works under completely different conditions. We also know that this consciousness which extends up to the point of our next birth experiences a sort of review of everything we have done in our life between our last birth and death. In this period between birth and death we must first form the intention to look back at any wrongs which have been done to us, or which we have done, if we wish to counteract these wrongs karmically. After death, in looking back over life, we see what we have done wrong or otherwise; and at the same time we see how these deeds have affected us; we see how a certain deed of ours has improved or debased us. If we have brought suffering to anyone, we have sunk and become of less value; we are less perfect, so to speak. Now, if we look back after death we see numerous events of the sort, and we say to ourselves: through this I have become less perfect. Then, in the consciousness after death, the will and power arise to win back, when the opportunities occur, the value we have lost; the will, that is to say, to make compensation for every wrong committed. Thus between death and a new birth the tendency and intention is formed to make good what has been done wrong, in order to regain the state of perfection appropriate to the human being which has been compromised by the respective deed.

Then we return once more to life on earth. Our consciousness changes again. We do not recollect the time between death and rebirth, or the resolutions to make compensation. But the intention remains within us and although we do not know that we must do such and such a thing to compensate for such and such an act, yet we are impelled by the power within us to make the compensation. We can form an idea of what happens when someone in his twentieth year encounters some great suffering. With the consciousness he possesses between birth and death, he will be dejected by his suffering; but if he could remember his resolutions made between death and a new birth, he would also be able to feel the power which drove him into the position where he was able to encounter this suffering because he felt that only by passing through it would he win back the degree of perfection which he has lost and was now to regain. When, therefore, the ordinary consciousness says: ‘The trial is there, and you are suffering from it,’ it sees only the trouble itself, and not the effect it produces; but the other consciousness which can look back upon all the time between death and a new birth sees the intentional seeking for the suffering or other misfortune.

This is indeed what we find when we look at human life from a higher point of view. Then we can see that fateful events occur in human life which are not the results of causes in the individual life itself, but are the effects of causes perceived in another state of consciousness, namely, the consciousness we had before our birth. If we grasp these ideas thoroughly, we shall see that in the first place we have a consciousness which extends over the time between birth and death, which we call the consciousness of the individual person. And then we see that there is a consciousness which works beyond birth and death of which man in his ordinary consciousness knows nothing, but which nevertheless works in the same way as the ordinary consciousness. We have, therefore, shown first of all how someone may take on his own karma, and in his fortieth year make some compensation so that the causes of his twelfth year may not come to effect. This is a way of taking karma into one’s individual personal consciousness. In the case, however, where someone is driven to suffer pain in order to compensate for something and to become a better human being, this also proceeds from the person himself; not from his personal consciousness, but from a more comprehensive consciousness which encompasses the time between death and a new birth. That being in us which is encompassed by this later consciousness we will call the ‘individuality’, and the consciousness which is being continually interrupted by the personal consciousness, we will call the ‘individual consciousness’. Thus we see karma working in relation to the individual human being.