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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Manifestations of Karma
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Manifestations of Karma
Schmidt Number: S-2234
On-line since: 11th October, 2000
THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN KARMA AND ACCIDENTS
IT is easily understood that karmic law can operate when, in the sense
demonstrated, a cause of illness asserts itself from within man. But
it is more difficult to understand that the experiences and actions of
a previous life brought in by the individual at birth can provoke such
illnesses as are the result of exterior causes such illnesses
as science calls infections. Nevertheless, if we go deeper into the
true nature of karma, we shall learn not merely to understand how
these external causes can be related to the experiences and deeds of
earlier lives, but we shall also learn that accidents which befall us,
events which we are prone to describe as chance, may stand in a
definite relationship with the course of a previous life. We must
indeed penetrate somewhat deeper into the whole nature of man's being
if we wish to understand the conditions that are so veiled by our
human outlook.
We saw yesterday how chance or accident always presents the external
event in a veiled form, because in those instances where we speak of
chance, the external deceptions created by the ahrimanic powers are
the greatest possible. Now let us examine in detail how such
accidents, that is to say those events that are generally called
accidents, come about.
Here it is necessary to bear in mind the law, the truth the
recognition that in life much of what we describe as arising
from within, or as derived from the inner being of
man is already clothed in illusion, because if we truly rise
above illusion, we find that much of what we at first believe to have
originated within man must be described as streaming in from outside.
We always encounter this when we have to deal with those dispositions,
those traits of character, which are summed up under the name of
hereditary characteristics. It seems as though these
hereditary characteristics are a part of us only because our forbears
had them, and it may appear to us in the most eminent degree as though
they had fallen to our lot through no fault of our own, and without
our co-operation. It is easy to arrive at a mistaken distinction
between what we have brought from earlier incarnations and what we
have inherited from our parents and forbears. When we reincarnate we
do not come haphazard to such and such parents or to such and such a
country. There is operating here a motive allied to our innermost
being. Even in those hereditary characteristics which have nothing to
do with illness, we must not assume anything haphazard. In the case of
a family such as Bach's for instance, there were for many generations
again and again more or less renowned musicians born (there were more
than twenty more or less renowned musicians in Bach's family). We
might well believe that this has purely to do with the line of
heredity, that the characteristics are inherited from the forbears,
and that as such characteristics are there, certain tendencies towards
musical talent brought over from a previous incarnation will be
unfolded. This is not so however; the facts are quite different.
Suppose that someone has the opportunity of receiving many musical
impressions in a life between birth and death, that these musical
impressions pass by him in this life, simply for the reason that he
has not a musical ear. Other impressions which he receives in this
life do not pass by him in the same way, because he has organs so
formed that he can transform the experiences and impressions into
capacities of his own. Here we can say that a person has impressions
in the course of his life which are capable of being transformed into
capacities and talents through the disposition which he has brought
with him from his last birth; and he has other impressions, which on
account of his general karma, because he has not received the suitable
powers, he cannot transform into the corresponding capacities. They
remain, they are stored up, and in the period between death and a new
birth they are converted into the particular tendency to be expressed
in the next incarnation. And this tendency leads the person to seek
for reincarnation in a particular family which can provide him with
the suitable organs. Thus if someone has received a great many musical
impressions, and because of an unmusical ear, he was unable to
transform them into musical capacities or enjoyment, this incapacity
will be connected with the tendency in his soul to come into a family
where he will inherit a musical ear. From this we shall now see that
if a certain family inherits a certain construction of the ear
which can be inherited just as well as the external form of the nose
all those individuals who in consequence of their former
incarnation long for a musical ear, will strive to come into this
family. From this we see that, in fact, a person has not inherited a
musical ear or a similar gift in a particular incarnation. by
chance, but that he has looked for and actually sought for the
inherited characteristic.
If we observe such a person from the moment of his birth, it will seem
to us as though the musical sense were within him, a quality of his
inner being. If, however, we extend our investigation to the time
before his birth, we shall find that the musical ear for which he had
to seek is something that has come to him from outside.
Before his birth or conception the musical ear was not within him.
There was only an impulse urging him to acquire such an ear. In this
case man has drawn to himself something external. Before reincarnation
the feature which is later termed hereditary was something external.
It approached man, and he hastened to take it. At the moment of
incarnation it became internal, and made its appearance within. Thus,
in speaking of hereditary disposition, we suffer from a delusion,
because we do not take into account the time when the inner quality
was an external one.
Let us now enquire whether an external event occurring between birth
and death, might not be the same as the case we have just now been
discussing whether it might be capable of being transformed
into something internal. We cannot reply to this question without
examining still more closely the nature of sickness and health. (We
have given many instances in order to characterise sickness and
health. And you know that I do not define, but try little by little to
describe things, and to add ever more characteristics, so that they
may gradually become comprehensible. So let us now add some more
characteristics to those we have already collected.)
We must compare sickness and health with something that appears in
normal life, namely, sleeping and waking, and we shall then find
something of still greater significance. What is taking place within a
human being when the daily states of sleeping and waking succeed one
another? We know that when we sleep, the physical and the etheric body
are abandoned by the astral body and the Ego, and that the awakening
is a return of the astral body and Ego to the physical and etheric
body. Every morning on waking, all that constitutes our inner being
astral body and Ego dives down again into our physical
and etheric bodies. What happens with regard to those experiences
which a human being has when going to sleep and when awakening?
If we consider the moment of going to sleep, we see that all
experiences which from morning to night fluctuated in our lives,
especially the psychic experiences of joy and sorrow, happiness and
pain, passions, imaginations, and so forth, sink down into the
subconscious. In normal life, when asleep, we ourselves are
unconscious. Why do we lose consciousness when we fall asleep? We know
that during the state of sleep we are surrounded by a spiritual world,
just as in the waking state we are surrounded by things and facts of
the physical world of the senses. Why do we not perceive this
spiritual world? Because in normal life to see the spiritual facts and
spiritual things surrounding us at the present stage of human
development between going to sleep and awakening, would prove
dangerous in the highest degree. If the person were today to pass over
consciously into the world which surrounds us between going to sleep
and awakening, his astral body which gained its full development in
the Ancient Moon period, would flow out into the spiritual world, but
this could not be done by the Ego, which can be developed only during
the Earth period, and which will have completed its Evolution at the
end of the Earth period. The Ego is not sufficiently developed to be
able to unfold the whole of its activity between falling asleep and
awakening. If we were to fall asleep consciously, the condition of our
Ego could be illustrated as follows. Let us suppose that we have a
small drop of coloured liquid; we drop this into a basin of water and
allow it to mix. The colour of that small drop will no more be seen
because it has mixed with the whole mass of the water. Something of
this nature happens when man in falling asleep leaves his physical and
etheric bodies. The latter principles are those which hold together
the whole of the human being. As soon as the astral body and Ego leave
the two lower principles, they disperse in all directions, impelled
always by this principle of expansion. Thus it would happen that the
Ego would be dissolved, and we should indeed be able to envisage the
pictures of the spiritual world, but should not be able to understand
them by means of those forces which only the Ego can bring to bear
the forces of discernment, insight, and so forth in
short, with the consciousness we apply to ordinary life. For the Ego
would be dissolved and we should be frenzied, torn hither and thither,
swimming without individuality and without direction in the sea of
astral events and impressions. For this reason, because in the case of
the normal person the Ego is not sufficiently strong, it reacts upon
the astral body and prevents it from entering consciously the
spiritual world which is its true home, until there comes a time when
the Ego will be able to accompany the astral body wherever it may
penetrate. Thus there is a good reason for our losing consciousness
when we fall asleep, for if it were otherwise, we should not be able
to maintain our Ego. We shall be able sufficiently to maintain it only
when our Earth evolution is achieved. That is why we are prevented
from unfolding the consciousness of our astral body.
The very reverse takes place when we awaken. When we awaken and sink
down into our physical and etheric bodies, we ought in reality to
experience their inner nature. But this does not happen, for at the
moment of waking we are prevented from regarding the inner nature of
our corporeal being, because our attention is immediately directed to
external events. Neither our faculty of sight nor our faculty of
perception is directed towards penetration of the inner being, but is
distracted by the external world. If we were immediately to apply
ourselves to our inner being, there would be an exact reversal of the
situation that would occur if we fell asleep and entered the spiritual
world with our ordinary consciousness. Everything spiritual that we
had acquired through our Ego in the course of our Earth life would
then concentrate, and after our re-entry into the physical and etheric
bodies, it would act upon them most powerfully, bringing about a
tremendous increase of our egotism. We should sink down with our Ego;
and all the passions, the desires, the greed, and the egotism of which
we are capable would be concentrated within this Ego. All this egotism
would pour away into the life of the senses. So that this may not
happen we are distracted by the external world, and are not permitted
to penetrate our inner being with our consciousness.
That this is so can be confirmed from the reports of those mystics who
attempted really to penetrate the inner being of man. Let us consider
Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and other mystics of the Middle
Ages, who in order to descend into their own inner being dedicated
themselves to a state in which their attention and interest was
entirely turned away from the external world. Let us read the
biographies of many Saints and Mystics who tried to descend into their
inner selves. What was their experience? Temptations, tribulations,
and similar experiences which they have depicted in vivid colours.
These were compressed in the astral body and Ego, and made themselves
felt as opposing forces. That is why all those who as Mystics have
attempted to descend into the inner self found that the further they
descended, the more were they impelled to an extinguishing of their
Ego. Meister Eckhart found an excellent word to describe this
descending into his own inner self. He speaks of Ent
Werdung, that is to say the extinction of the Ego. And we read
in ;The Theologia Germanica; (German Theology) how the
author describes the mystic path into the inner human being, and how
he insists that he who wishes to descend will act no longer through
his own Ego, but that Christ with Whom he is fully permeated, will act
within him. Such Mystics sought to extinguish their Ego. Not they
themselves, but Christ within them should think, feel, and will, so
that there may not emerge what dwells within them in the form of
passion, desire and greed, but rather that which streams into them as
Christ. That is why St. Paul says Not I, but Christ in me.
We can describe the processes of awakening and falling asleep as inner
experiences of the human being: awakening as a sinking down of the
compressed Ego into the corporeality of man, and falling asleep as a
liberation from consciousness, because we are not yet ready to see
that world into which we penetrate on falling asleep. Through this we
understand waking and sleeping in the same sense in which we
understand many other things in this world, as a permeation by one
another of the various members of the human entity. If we consider a
waking person from this point of view, we shall say that in him are
present the four members of the human entity, the physical body,
etheric body, astral body, and the Ego, and that they are linked
together in a certain way. What results from this? The fact of
being awake. For we could not be awake were we not so to
descend into our corporeality that our attention is distracted by the
external world. Whether we are awake or not depends upon a certain
regulated co-operation of our four members. And again, whether we are
asleep or not depends upon the proper separation of our four members.
It is not enough to say that we consist of physical body, etheric
body, astral body, and Ego, for we understand man only when we know to
what extent the various members are linked together in a certain
state, and how intimately they are connected. This is necessary to an
understanding of human nature. Now let us examine how these four
members of man are linked together in the case of a normal person. Let
us set out from the standpoint that the condition of man when awake is
the normal condition.
Most of us will remember that the consciousness we at present possess
as earth-men between birth and death, is only one of the possible
forms of consciousness. If, for instance, we study Occult
Science, we shall see that our present consciousness is a stage
among seven different stages of consciousness, and that this
consciousness which we possess today developed out of three other
preceding stages of consciousness, and that it will at a later period
develop into three other succeeding forms of consciousness. When we
were Moon beings we had not yet an Ego. The Ego became united with man
only during the Earth period. That is why we could not gain our
present consciousness before the Earth period. Such a consciousness as
we have today between birth and death, presumes that the Ego
co-operates with the other three members exactly as it is doing today
and is the most exalted of the four members of the human entity.
Before we were impregnated with the Ego we comprised only physical
body, etheric body, and astral body. The astral body was then our most
exalted member, and our consciousness then was such as can to-day be
compared only with our dream consciousness which is a survival of the
past. But we must not think of the present dream consciousness, but
one in which the dream images represent realities. If we study the
dream as it is to-day, we shall find in its manifold images much that
is chaotic, because our present dream consciousness is an ancient
inheritance. But if we study the consciousness that preceded that of
today, we should find that we could not at that time see external
objects such as plants, for instance. Thus it was impossible for us to
receive an external impression. Anything that approached us evoked an
impression analogous to that of a dream, but corresponded to a certain
external object or impression.
Thus before dealing with the Ego-consciousness, we shall have to deal
with a consciousness which might be termed an astral consciousness,
because it is attached to the astral body which was formerly the most
exalted member. It is dim and nebulous, and not yet irradiated by the
light of the Ego. When man became earth-man, this consciousness was
outshone by the Ego-consciousness. The astral body, however, is still
within us, and we might ask how it was that our astral consciousness
could be so dimmed and eliminated that the Ego-consciousness could
fully take its place? This became possible because through man's
impregnation by the Ego, the earlier connection between the astral
body and the etheric body was greatly loosened. The earlier and more
intimate connection was, so to speak, dissolved. Thus before the
Ego-consciousness, there existed a far more intimate relationship
between man's astral body and the lower members of his being. The
astral body penetrated further into the other members than it does
today. In a certain respect the astral body has been wrested from the
etheric and physical bodies.
We must make ourselves quite clear about this process of the partial
exit, this detachment of the astral body from the etheric and physical
bodies. Even today, might there not be a possibility with our ordinary
state of consciousness to establish something similar to this ancient
relationship? Could it not happen also today in a human life, that the
astral body should try to penetrate further into the other members
than it ought, to impregnate and penetrate more than is its due? A
certain normal standard is necessary for the penetration of the astral
body into the etheric and physical bodies. Let us suppose that this
standard is exceeded in one direction or another. Certain disturbances
in the whole of the human organism will result from this. For what man
is to-day depends upon that exact relationship between the various
principles of his being which we find in a normal waking state. As
soon as the astral body acts wrongly, as soon as it penetrates deeper
into the etheric and physical bodies, there will be disorder. In our
past discussions we saw that this really takes place. We then looked
at the whole process from another aspect. When does this happen? It
happens when man in an earlier life impregnated his astral body with
something, allowed something to flow into it that we conceive as a
moral or intellectual transgression for that earlier life. This has
been engraved on the astral body. Now, when man enters life anew, this
may in fact cause the astral body to seek a different relationship
with the physical and etheric bodies than it would have sought had it
not in the preceding life been impregnated with this transgression.
Thus are the transgressions committed under the influence of Ahriman
and Lucifer transformed into organising forces which, in a new life
induce the astral body to adopt a different relationship towards the
physical and etheric bodies than would be the case had such forces not
intervened.
So we see how earlier thoughts, sensations, and feelings affect the
astral body and induce it to bring about disorders in the human
organism. What happens when such disorders are brought about? When the
astral body penetrates further into the physical and etheric bodies
than it normally should, it brings about something similar to what
takes place when we awaken, when our Ego sinks down into the two lower
principles. Awakening consists in the sinking down of the Ego-man into
the physical and etheric bodies. In what then consists the action of
the astral body when, induced by the effects of earlier experiences,
it penetrates the physical and etheric bodies further than it should?
That which takes place when our Ego and our astral body sink down into
our physical and etheric bodies on awaking and perceive something,
shows the very fact of our awakening. Just as the state of waking is
the result of the descent of the Ego-man into our physical and etheric
bodies, there must now take place something analogous to what is done
by the Ego something done by the astral body. It descends into
the etheric body and the physical body. If we see a man whose astral
body has a tendency towards a closer union with the etheric and the
physical bodies than should normally take place, we shall see the
astral body accomplish the phenomenon which we otherwise achieve by
the Ego upon awakening. What is this excessive penetration of the
physical and etheric bodies by the astral body? It consists in that
which may otherwise be described as the essence of disease. When our
astral body does what we otherwise do upon awakening, namely pushes
its way into the physical body and the etheric body, when the astral
body which normally should not develop any consciousness within us,
strives after a consciousness within our physical and etheric bodies,
trying to awaken within us, we become ill. Illness is an abnormal
waking condition of our astral body. What is it we do when in normal
health we live in an ordinary waking condition? We are awake in
ordinary life. But so that we could possess an ordinary waking
condition, we had at an earlier stage to bring our astral body into a
different relationship. We had to put it to sleep. It is essential
that our astral body should sleep during the day whilst we are
dominated by our Ego-consciousness. We can be healthy only if our
astral body is asleep within us. Now we can conceive of the essence of
health and illness in the following way. Illness is an abnormal
awakening within man of the astral body, and health is the normal
sleeping state of the astral body.
And what is this consciousness of the astral body? If illness really
is the awakening of the astral body, something like a consciousness
must be manifested. There is an abnormal awakening, and so we can
expect an abnormal consciousness. A consciousness of some kind there
must be. When we fall ill something must happen similar to what occurs
when we awake in the morning. Our faculties must be diverted to
something different. Our ordinary consciousness awakens in the
morning. Does any consciousness arise when we become ill?
Yes, there arises a consciousness that we know all too well. And which
is this consciousness? A consciousness expresses itself in
experiences! The consciousness which then arises is expressed in what
we call pain, which we do not have during our waking condition when in
ordinary health, because it is then that our astral body is asleep.
The sleeping of the astral body means that we are in
regular normal relationship to the physical and etheric bodies, and
are without pain. Pain tells us that the astral body is pressing into
the physical body and the etheric body in such a way in an abnormal
state, and is acquiring consciousness. Such is pain.
We must not apply this statement without limits. When we speak in
terms of Spiritual Science we must put limits to our statements. It
has been stated that when our astral body awakens, there arises a
consciousness that is steeped in pain. We must not conclude from this
that pain and illness invariably go together. Without exception, every
penetration into the etheric and physical bodies by the astral body
constitutes illness, but the inverse does not hold. That illness may
have a different character will be shown by the fact that not every
illness is accompanied by pain. Most people take no notice of this
because they usually do not strive after health, but are satisfied to
be without pain; and when they are without pain they believe
themselves to be healthy. This is not always the case; but generally
in the absence of pain, people will believe themselves to be healthy.
We should be under a great delusion if we believed that the experience
of pain goes always together with illness. Our liver may be damaged
through and through, and if the damage is not such that the abdominal
wall is affected, there will be no pain at all. We may carry a process
of disease within us which in no way manifests itself through pain.
This may be so in many instances. Objectively regarded these illnesses
are the more serious, for if we experience pain we set to work to rid
ourselves of it, but when we have no pain we do not greatly trouble to
get rid of the disease.
What is the position in those cases where there is no pain with
illness? We need but remember that only little by little did we
develop into human beings such as we are today, and that it was during
our earth period that we added the Ego to the astral body, etheric
body, and physical body. Once, however, we were men who possessed only
etheric body and physical body. A being possessing only these two
principles is like a plant of the present day. We meet here a third
degree of consciousness infinitely more vague, which does not attain
to the clarity even of today's dream consciousness. It is quite a
mistake to believe that we are devoid of consciousness when we sleep.
We have a consciousness, but it is so vague that we cannot call it up
within our Ego to the point of memory. Such a consciousness dwells
also within plants; it is a kind of sleep consciousness of still lower
degree than the astral consciousness. We have now reached a still
lower consciousness of man.
Let us suppose that through experiences in a previous incarnation we
have brought about not only that disorder which comes into our
organism when the astral body goes beyond its bounds, but also
disorder caused by the etheric body pushing its way wrongly into the
physical body. There certainly may arise such a condition where the
relationship between the etheric body and the physical body is
abnormal for present day man, where the etheric body has penetrated
too far into the physical body. Let suppose that the astral body takes
no part in this; but that the tendency created in an earlier life
effects a closer connection that there should be between the etheric
body and the physical body in the human organism. We have here the
etheric body behaving in the same way as the astral body when we have
pain.
If the etheric body in its turn sinks too deeply down into the
physical body, there will appear a consciousness similar to that which
we have during sleep, like the plant consciousness. It is not
surprising therefore that this is a condition of which we are not
aware. Anyone unaware of sleep will be equally unaware of this
condition. And yet it is a form of awakening! As our astral body will
awake abnormally when it has sunk too deeply into the etheric and
physical bodies, so will our etheric body awake in an abnormal manner
when it penetrates too deeply into the physical body. But this will
not be perceived by us, because it is an awakening to a consciousness
even more vague than the consciousness of pain. Let us suppose that a
person has really in an earlier life done something that between death
and re-birth is so transformed that the etheric body itself awakens,
that is, it takes intense possession of the physical body. If that
happens there awakes within us a deep consciousness that cannot
however be perceived in the same manner as other experiences of the
human soul. Must it, however, be ineffectual because imperceptible?
Let us try to explain the peculiar tendency acquired by a
consciousness which lies still one degree deeper.
If you burn yourself which is an external experience
this causes pain. If a pain is to appear, the consciousness must have
at least the degree of consciousness of the astral body. A pain must
be in the astral body; thus, whenever pain arises in the human soul,
we are dealing with an occurrence in the astral body. Now let us
suppose something happens which is not connected with pain, but is,
however, an external stimulus, an external impression. If something
flies into your eye, this causes an external stimulus and the eye
closes. Pain is not connected with it. What does the irritant produce?
A movement. This is something similar to what occurs when the sole of
your foot is touched; it is not pain, but still the foot twitches.
Thus there are also impressions upon a human being which are not
accompanied by pain, but which still give rise to some sort of an
event, namely, a movement. In this case, because he cannot penetrate
down into this deep degree of consciousness, the person does not know
how it comes about that a movement follows the external stimulus. When
you perceive pain and you thereby repulse something, it is the pain
which makes you notice that which you then reject. But now something
may come which urges you to an inner movement, to a reflex movement.
In this case the consciousness does not descend to the degree at which
the irritant is transformed into movement. Here you have a degree of
consciousness which does not come into your astral experience, which
is not experienced consciously, which runs its course in a kind of
sleep consciousness, but is not, however, such, that it does not lead
to occurrences. When this deeper penetration of the etheric body into
the physical body comes about, it produces a consciousness which is
not a pain consciousness, because the astral body takes no part in it,
but is so vague that the person does not perceive it. This does not
necessarily mean that a person in this consciousness cannot perform
actions. He also performs other actions in which his consciousness
takes no part. You need only remember the case in which the ordinary
day-consciousness is extinguished and a person while walking in his
sleep commits all kinds of acts. In this case there is a kind of
consciousness which the person cannot share in, because he can only
experience the two higher forms of consciousness: the astral
consciousness as pleasure and pain, etc., and the Ego-consciousness as
judgement and as the ordinary day-consciousness. This does not imply
that a man cannot act under the impulse of this sleep consciousness.
Now we have the consciousness which is so deep that a man cannot
attain to it when the etheric body descends into the physical body.
Let us suppose that he wishes to do something concerning which in
normal life he can know nothing, which is connected in some way with
his circumstances; he will do this without knowing anything about it.
Something in him, namely, the thing itself, will do this without his
knowing anything about it. Let us now take the case of a person who
through certain occurrences in a former life has laid down causes for
himself, which in the period between death and re-birth work down to
where they lead to a penetration of the etheric body into the physical
body. Actions will proceed from this which lead to the working out of
more deeply-lying processes of disease. In this case the person will
be forced by such activities to search out the external causes for
these diseases.
It may seem strange that this is not clear to the ordinary
Ego-consciousness but a person would never do it from this
consciousness. He would never in his ordinary Ego-consciousness expose
himself to a host of bacilli. But let us suppose that this dim
consciousness finds that an external injury is necessary, so that the
process which we have described as the whole purpose of illness may
come about. This consciousness which penetrates into the physical body
then seeks for the cause of the disease or of the illness. It is the
real being of man which goes in quest of the cause for illness in
order to bring about what we called yesterday the process of illness.
Thus from the deeper nature of disease and illness we shall understand
that even if no pain appears, inner reactions may always come, but if
pain is manifested as long as the etheric body penetrates too
far into the physical body there may always come that which one
may call: the search for the external causes of illness through the
deeper-lying strata of human consciousness itself. Grotesque as it may
sound, it is nevertheless true, that we search with a different degree
of consciousness for the external causes of our diseases just
as we do for our inherited characteristics when we need them.
But, again, what we have just said only holds good within the limits
we have described to-day.
In this lecture it has been our special task to show that a person may
be in the position without following it with the degree of
consciousness of which he is aware to look for an illness, and
this is brought about by an abnormal, deeper condition of
consciousness. We had to show that in an illness we are concerned with
an awakening of stages of consciousness which as human beings we have
long transcended. Through committing errors in a previous life, we
have evoked deeper degrees of consciousness than are appropriate to
our present life; and what we do from the impulses of this deeper
consciousness influences the course of the disease, as well as the
process which actually leads to it. Thus we see that in these abnormal
conditions ancient stages of consciousness appear which man has long
since passed. If you consider the facts of every-day life but a
little, you will be able to understand in a general way what has been
said today. It is indeed the case, that through his pain, man descends
more deeply into his being, and this is expressed in the well-known
statement that a person only knows that he possesses an organ when it
begins to give him pain. That is a popular saying, but it is not so
very stupid. Why does a person in his normal consciousness know
nothing about it? Because in normal cases his consciousness sleeps so
deeply that it does not dip intensely enough into his astral body; but
if it does, then pain appears, and through the pain he knows that he
has the organ in question. In many of the popular sayings there is
something which is quite true, because they are heirlooms of earlier
stages of consciousness in which man, when he was able to see into the
spiritual world, was aware of much that we now have to acquire with
effort. If you understand that a person may experience deeper layers
of consciousness, you will also understand that not only external
causes of illness may be sought by man, but also external strokes of
fate which he cannot explain rationally, but the rationality of which
works from the deeper strata of consciousness. Thus it is reasonable
to suppose that a man would not out of his ordinary consciousness
place himself where he may be struck by lightning; with his ordinary
consciousness he would do anything to avoid standing where the
lightning may strike him. But there may be a consciousness active
within him, which lies much deeper than the ordinary consciousness,
and which from a foresight which is not possessed by the ordinary
consciousness leads him to the very place where the lightning may
strike him and wills that he should be so struck. The man
really seeks out the accident.
We have understood that it is possible to attribute karmic influences
to accidents and other exterior causes of illness. How this is brought
about in detail, how those forces which are in the deeper layers of
consciousness act on human beings, and whether it is permissible for
our ordinary consciousness to avoid such accidents, are questions we
shall be dealing with later. In the same way as we can understand that
if we go to a place where we may be exposed to an infection, we have
done so under the influence of a degree of consciousness that has
driven us there, so also must we be able to understand how it is that
we take precautions to render such infections less effective, and that
through our ordinary consciousness we are in a position to counteract
these effects by hygienic measures. We must admit that it would be
most unreasonable if it were possible for the sub consciousness to
seek disease germs if they could not on the other hand be counteracted
through the ordinary consciousness.
We shall see that it is both reasonable to seek out causes of illness,
and reasonable too, out of the ordinary consciousness to take hygienic
measures against infection, thus hindering the causes of illness.
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Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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