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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-2237
On-line since: 11th October, 2000
KARMA OF THE HIGHER BEINGS
IF we wish to resolve the contradiction which was placed before us at
the end of yesterday's lecture, we must to-day once more look back
upon the two forces, the two principles, which in the course of time
have appeared to us to stimulate and also at the same time to regulate
our karma.
We have seen that our karma is brought into action only through the
influences which the luciferic powers bring to bear upon our astral
body, and that through the temptations of these powers we are led into
expressions of feelings, impulses and passions, which in a certain way
make us less perfect than we should otherwise be. Whilst acting upon
us, the luciferic influences call forth the ahrimanic influences whose
forces do not act from within, but from without, working upon and in
us by means of all that confronts us externally. Thus it is Ahriman
who is evoked by Lucifer, and we human beings are vitally involved in
the conflict of these two principles. When we find ourselves caught in
the clutches of either Lucifer or Ahriman, we must endeavour to
progress by triumphing over the ill that has been inflicted upon us.
This interplay of activity of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers
around us can be understood quite clearly if we consider from a
somewhat different aspect the case we alluded to in the last lecture
the case where the person succumbs to ahrimanic influence,
whereby he experiences all kinds of deceptive images and illusions. He
believes that knowledge of one thing or another has been specially
imparted to him, or is in one direction or another making an
impression upon him, while another person who had preserved a sound
power of judgement would easily recognise that the person in question
has succumbed to errors and delusions. Last time we spoke of those
cases of clairvoyant delusions regarding the spiritual world,
clairvoyance in the invidious sense, and we have also seen that there
is no other, or at least no more favourable defence against the
delusions of false clairvoyants than a sound power of judgement
acquired during our physical life between birth and death.
What has been said in our last lecture is of great significance and of
fundamental importance if we are dealing with clairvoyant aberrations,
for in the case of clairvoyance not attained through regular training,
through systematic exercises under strict and proper direction, but
showing itself through old inherited characteristics, in images, or
else in hearing of sounds in the case of such false
clairvoyance we shall always find that it diminishes, or even ceases
altogether if the person in question finds the opportunity and has the
inclination seriously to take up anthroposophical studies, or to take
up a training that is rational and normal. So we can say that a person
who has a wrong perception of the super-sensible always finds that the
true sources of knowledge, if he is susceptible to them, will
invariably prove helpful to him and lead him back to the right path.
On the contrary, we all know that if someone through the complexities
of karma has arrived at a condition in which he develops symptoms of
persecution mania, or megalomania, he will develop a whole system of
delusive ideas, all of which he can substantiate most logically but
which are nevertheless delusive. It may happen for instance that he
thinks quite correctly and logically in every other department of
life, but has the fixed idea that he is being pursued everywhere for
some reason or another. He will be able, wherever he may be, to form
the cleverest combinations out of the most trivial happenings:
Here again is that clique whose one and only aim it is to
inflict this or that upon me. And in the cleverest way he will
prove to you how well founded is his suspicion.
Thus a person may be perfectly logical and yet give expression to
certain symptoms of madness. It will be quite impossible to impress
such a person by logical reasoning. On the contrary, if we make use of
logical reasoning in such a case it may well happen that this will
challenge the delusive ideas and the victim will try and find even
more conclusive proof of the assertion resulting from his persecution
mania. When we speak in the terms of Spiritual Science things must be
taken literally. If a little while ago, and also the last time, we
pointed to the fact that in the knowledge of Spiritual Science we
possess an opposing force against any aberration of clairvoyant
powers, we were then referring to something entirely different from
what we are now discussing. We are not now concerned with influencing
the person in question by means of revelations of Spiritual Science.
Such a person is not amenable to any reasoning derived from the realm
of ordinary common sense. Why should this be so?
In a disease whose symptoms are such as we have described, we have to
deal with a karmic cause in previous incarnations. The errors which
come from the inner being do not in every case proceed from the
present incarnation but from a preceding one. Let us now try to get an
idea of how something may be carried from an earlier into the present
incarnation.
For this purpose we must envisage the course of our soul evolution. As
external man, we consist of physical body, etheric body and astral
body. In the course of time, into these sheaths we have built by means
of our Ego the sentient soul into the sentient body, the rational or
mind soul into etheric body, and a consciousness soul into the
physical body. These three soul members we have developed and have
built into the three sheaths where they now dwell. Let us suppose that
in some incarnation we were so tempted by Lucifer, or in other words,
we developed such egotistical impulses, greed, and other instincts
that our soul was laden with transgressions. These transgressions may
be in the sentient soul, the rational or mind soul, or in the
consciousness soul. This then is the cause which in some future
incarnation will be implanted in one of the three soul members. Let us
suppose that there was a fault attributable especially to the forces
of the rational soul. In the state between death and rebirth this will
be so metamorphosed that it will be manifested in the etheric body.
Thus in the new incarnation we encounter in the etheric body an effect
that may be traced back to a cause in the rational soul of a preceding
incarnation. But the rational soul of the next incarnation will again
work independently in that incarnation, and it makes a difference
whether this human being has previously committed this fault or not.
If he has committed it in an earlier incarnation, he now carries his
fault in his etheric body. It is now deeper rooted and is not in the
rational soul but in the etheric body. But such rationality and good
sense as we may acquire upon the physical plane will affect only our
rational soul, and will not affect the activity of our rational soul
in an earlier incarnation which has already been woven into the
etheric body. For this reason it may happen that the forces of the
rational soul, as we now encounter them in human beings, are doing
their work logically, so that the real inner being is altogether
intact; but that the co-operation of the rational soul with the
diseased part of the etheric body provokes error in a certain
direction. We can affect the rational soul with reasons which can be
brought forward upon the physical plane, but we cannot directly affect
the etheric body. That is why neither logic nor persuasion will have
any effect. Logic would be of little use were we to place someone in
front of a convex mirror so that he could see his distorted image, and
then try to convince him that he is mistaken in thus seeing the image.
He will nevertheless see a distorted image. In the same way does it
depend upon the man himself if he morbidly misunderstands a thing, for
his logic may be sound in itself but is reflected in a deformed manner
by his etheric body.
Thus we can carry within our deep organism the karmic effects of an
earlier incarnation, and we can actually demonstrate that the defect
is present in a certain part of the organism, as in our etheric body
for instance. We see here how under the luciferic influence we have
contracted an evil in a previous incarnation, and how between death
and a new birth it has been transformed. In the interim between death
and a rebirth is accomplished the transformation of something internal
into something external, and then Ahriman works against us through our
own etheric body. This shows how Ahriman is drawn by Lucifer to
approach our etheric body. Previously the transgression was luciferic;
it has been so transformed that, as it were, a receipt for it is given
us by Ahriman in the next incarnation, and then it is a question of
expelling the defect from one's etheric body. This can be done only by
a deeper intervention in our organism than can be achieved in one
incarnation by the ordinary means of external reason.
He who in a certain incarnation passes through such an experience as
that of persecution mania will, when again passing through the gate of
death, be confronted by all the actions that he has performed in
consequence of this ahrimanic defect, and he will see the absurdity of
what he has done. From this will spring the new force which will
completely heal him for his next incarnation; for he can be healed
only by realising henceforth that the way he acted under the influence
of the symptoms in question was absurd in the external world. We now
realise how we can assist such healing. If someone suffers from such
mad ideas we shall not succeed in healing him by means of logical
reasoning, for such reasoning will only call forth even more violent
opposition. But we shall achieve some result, especially when such a
disposition shows in early youth, if we bring the sufferer into such a
situation where the consequences of these symptoms prove themselves to
be obviously absurd. If we make him face facts called forth by
himself, and which react upon him in a crassly absurd manner, we can
heal him in a certain way.
We can also have a healing influence if we ourselves are so far in
possession of the truths of Spiritual Science, that they have become
the inner possession of our soul. If they have become such an integral
part of us, then the whole of our personality will be radiating these
truths of Spiritual Science. With these truths that stream into life
between birth and death, filling it and yet projecting this life
itself; with these revelations of the super-sensible world we can
achieve more than with external rational truths. When nothing can be
achieved by external logical reasoning we shall, if we patiently apply
the truths of Spiritual Science, be able to bring impulses to bear
upon the person in question, so that we can, as it were, achieve in
the one incarnation what could otherwise take place only by the
circuitous passage from one incarnation to another, namely, through
penetration of the etheric body by the rational soul. For the truths
of the physical plane cannot bridge the chasm between the sentient
soul and the astral body, between the rational and the etheric body,
or even between the consciousness soul and the physical body. That is
why we shall always find that however much wisdom concerning the
material world one may absorb upon the physical plane, this wisdom
will have but little relationship to the world of his feeling
what we might term a permeation of his astral body by the
corresponding impulses and passions. One may be most learned, may have
much theoretical knowledge of things belonging to the physical world,
may have become an old professor, and yet may not have
attained within to a transformation of the impulses, feelings and
passions that dwell within the astral body. One may indeed know a
great deal about the physical world and yet be a gross egotist,
because such impulses have been absorbed in youth. Naturally the two
things can go hand in hand, external material science and cultivation
of the astral and etheric bodies from within. In the same way one can
possess truths and amass such knowledge as may become forces for the
rational soul in regard to the physical plane, and yet be incapable of
bridging the deep chasm existing between the rational soul and the
etheric body. In external truths, though one may be learning an
enormous amount it will seldom be found that what has been learnt will
have any power over the formative forces of the body.
In the case of a person who is affected by these truths to such an
extent that they get a hold upon his entire being, we may find that in
the course of ten years the whole of his physiognomy will have changed
so that upon it we can read the conflict he has experienced. We may
also notice in his gestures if, for instance, with self-restraint he
has become tranquil. These things will find their way into the
formative forces of the organism, and even the most delicate and
subtle parts of the organism will be stirred thereby. If what is
grasped by our mind is not exclusively concerned with the physical
plane we still shall become different after ten years, but the change
will then have kept to the normal course in the same way as
dispositions develop and change in a normal way in ordinary life. In
the course of ten years we may possibly develop a different facial
expression, but unless we have bridged the chasm from within, this
change will have been produced by external influences. In this case we
are not transformed by a force taking possession of us from within. It
is therefore obvious that only the truly spiritual which really unites
itself with our innermost being is able to have a transforming effect
upon our formative forces during the period between birth and death,
and that this transition, this bridging of the chasm will assuredly
take place in the karmic activity between death and re-birth. If, for
instance, those worlds through which we pass in the interim between
death and a new birth are impregnated with the experiences of the
sentient soul, then they will appear in the next incarnation as
formative, shaping forces.
In this way the reciprocal activity of Ahriman and Lucifer has become
intelligible. And now we ask how this combined reciprocal activity
presents itself when things are even more distant, when, for instance,
the luciferic influence has not merely to cross the abyss between the
rational soul and the etheric body, but has, as it were, a longer way
to go.
Let us suppose that in one life we are particularly susceptible to the
influence of Lucifer. In such a case, we should with the whole of our
inner being become considerably less perfect than we were before, and
in the kamaloca period we should have this most vividly before our
eyes, so that we should resolve to make a tremendous effort in order
to balance this imperfection. This desire we incorporate as tendency,
and in the next incarnation, with what have now become formative
forces, we shape our new organism so that it must have a tendency
towards balancing our earlier experiences. But let us suppose that the
release of these luciferic influences had been instigated by something
external, by an external greed, there must have been the influence of
Lucifer. Anything external could not have affected us had not Lucifer
been active within us. Thus we have within us a tendency to compensate
for that which we have become through the luciferic influence.
But as we have seen, the luciferic influence of one incarnation
challenges and attracts to itself the ahrimanic influence in the next
incarnation, so that the two act in alternation. We have seen the
luciferic influence to be such that we can perceive it with our
consciousness; that is to say, however, that our consciousness can
still just reach down into our astral body. We have said that it is
due to the luciferic influence when we are conscious of pain, but we
cannot descend to those realms that may be termed the consciousness of
the etheric and physical bodies. Even in dreamless sleep we have a
consciousness, but one of so low a degree that we are not able to be
aware of it. But this does not necessarily mean that we are inactive
in this consciousness which is possessed normally for instance by
plants, consisting as they do only of physical and etheric body.
Plants live continually in the consciousness of dreamless sleep. The
consciousness of our etheric and physical body is present also in our
waking condition in the daytime, but we cannot descend to it. That
this consciousness may he active, however, is shown when we perform in
our sleep somnambulistic actions of which we later know nothing. It is
this dreamless sleep consciousness that is active. The ordinary
consciousness and the astral consciousness cannot penetrate to the
sphere of somnambulistic action.
But because in the daytime we are living in our Ego-consciousness and
astral consciousness, we must not believe that the other kinds of
consciousness are absent. It is only that we are not aware of them.
Let us suppose that through the luciferic influence of an earlier
incarnation we have provoked a strong ahrimanic influence which will
be unable to act upon our ordinary consciousness. It will, however,
attack the consciousness which dwells within our etheric body, and
this consciousness will not only conduce to a certain organisation of
our etheric body but will impel us even to acts which will be so
expressed, that the consciousness of the etheric body will realise
that we must discard from within us the effects of the luciferic
influence to which we had succumbed in an earlier incarnation; it will
realise further that this can be accomplished only through a deed in
direct contradiction to the earlier luciferic transgression.
Let us suppose that dominated by the luciferic influence, we have been
led to supplant a point of view which was religious or spiritual by
the point of view of the man who says: I want to enjoy
life, and thus plunges headlong into gross material pleasures.
This would challenge the ahrimanic influence in such a way as to
provoke the opposite process. It then happens that passing through
life we seek a spot where it is possible at one leap to return to
spirituality from a life of the senses. In the one, we went with one
plunge into gross material pleasures, and in the other we try by one
leap to return to a spiritual life. Our ordinary consciousness is not
aware of this, but the mysterious subconsciousness which is chained to
the physical body and the etheric body now urges us towards a place
where we may await a thunderstorm, where there is an oak, a bench
placed beneath, and where the lightning will strike. In this case the
subconscious mind has urged us to make good what we have done in an
earlier incarnation. Here we see the opposite process. This is what is
meant by an effect of luciferic influence in an earlier life, and, as
consequence, an ahrimanic influence in the present life. Ahriman's
co-operation is necessary to enable us to put aside our ordinary
consciousness to such an extent that our whole being will obey
exclusively the consciousness of the etheric or of the physical body.
In this way many events become comprehensible. However, we must beware
of concluding that every accident should be traced to something
similar, for this would be taking a very narrow view of karma. There
are currents of thought even in our movement that take a really narrow
view of karma. Were karma really as they conceive it, the whole world
order would have to be specially arranged in the interests of each
single human being, so that each life should run harmoniously and be
duly compensated the conditions of one life would be always
combined in such a way as to result in an exact balancing of the
consequences of an earlier life. This standpoint cannot however be
maintained. Suppose someone were to say to a man who had met with an
accident: This is your karma; this is the karmic result of your
earlier life, and you at that time brought it on yourself. Were
the same man to have some stroke of luck, then the other would say:
This can be traced back to a good deed you did in an earlier
life. If such words are to have any value, the person should
have known what happened in an earlier life which is supposed to have
produced this result. If he had knowledge of the earlier life, he
would there see the causes coming from that life, and he would have to
look towards later incarnations for the effects. From this it is
logical to conclude that in every incarnation there are certain prime
causes which come into play from incarnation to incarnation, and these
will be karmically balanced in the next life. When examining the next
life we can observe the causes. If an accident happens, however, for
which in spite of all means at our disposal we can find no causes in
an earlier life, then we must conceive that this will be balanced in a
later life. Karma is not fate. From every life something is carried
into later lives.
If we understand this, we shall also understand that we may find new
events in our life which are of profound significance. Let us remember
that the great events in the course of human evolution could not come
about without being carried by certain people. At a certain moment
people must take over the intentions of evolution. What would the
development of the Middle Ages have been, had not Charlemagne
intervened at a given moment! How could the spiritual life of olden
times have developed if Aristotle had not at a certain time done his
work! We see from this that people like Charlemagne, Aristotle, Luther
and so on, did not live at a certain period for their own sakes but
for the sake of the world. Nevertheless, their personal fates are
intimately connected with world events. Should we conclude from this,
however, that what they accomplished is the expiation or the
recompense for their previous merits or transgressions?
Take the case of Luther. We cannot just simply ascribe everything he
experienced and endured to his karma; we must be clear that those
things which are due to happen in the course of human evolution must
come about through human agency and that these individual agents have
to be brought out of the spiritual world, without consideration
whether they are fully ready in themselves. They are born for the
purposes of human evolution, and a karmic path has to be interrupted
or lengthened, so that the individuality concerned may appear at a
certain time. In such cases a destiny is thrust upon men which need
have no relation to their past karma. But to have achieved something
between birth and death sets up on earth later karmic causes, so that
though it is true that a Luther was born for humanity and had to bear
a fate which had no vital association with his former karma, yet what
he accomplished on earth will be connected with his later karma. Karma
is a universal law, and each experiences it for himself; but we must
not only look back to our former incarnations; we must also look
forward. From this point of view it is only in a subsequent life that
we can judge and justify earlier incarnations, for some of the events
of this life do not lie in the karmic path.
Let us take a case which actually happened. In a natural catastrophe a
number of people perished. It is not at all necessary to believe that
it was in their karma that they all should thus perish together; this
would be a cheap supposition. Everything need not always be thus
traced back to earlier transgressions. There is an instance that has
been investigated of a number of people perishing in an elemental
catastrophe which resulted in a close alliance of these people at a
later period, and, owing to their common fate, they gained the
strength to undertake something in common. Through this catastrophe
they were able to turn from materialism and brought with them in their
next incarnation a disposition to spirituality.
What happened in that case? If we go back to the previous life we find
that in this instance the common destruction took place during an
earthquake; at the moment of the earthquake the futility of
materialism presented itself to their souls, and so a mind directed
towards the spiritual developed within them. We can see from this how
people whose mission it was to bring something spiritual into the
world, were prepared for it in this way, which demonstrates the wisdom
of evolution. This case has been investigated and authenticated by
Spiritual Science. So we can show how primary events can enter human
life, and that it cannot always be traced back to an earlier
transgression if one person or several people meet with an early death
in a catastrophe or an accident. Such an event may appear as a primary
cause, and will be balanced in the next life.
Other cases may occur. It may happen that someone will have to meet
with an early death in two or three consecutive incarnations. This may
occur because this individuality has been chosen to bring to mankind
in the course of three incarnations certain gifts that can be given
only when living in the material world with such forces as result from
a growing body. To be living in a body that has developed
up to the thirty-fifth year is quite different from living in a body
of greater age. For up to our thirty-fifth year we direct our forces
towards the body, so that the forces unfold from within. But from the
thirty-fifth year onward begins a life in which we progress only
inwardly a life in which we must continually attack the
external forces with our life forces. From the point of view of the
inner organisation, these two halves of life differ in every respect
the one from the other. Let us suppose that according to the wisdom
which presides over human evolution we stand in need of such people
who can flourish only when they do not have to fight against external
stress which comes in the second half of life, then it may be that the
incarnations are brought to a premature close. There are such cases.
At our meetings we have already pointed out an individuality who
appeared successively as a great prophet, a great painter, and a great
poet and whose life was always brought to an end through premature
death, because what had to be accomplished by him in the course of
these three incarnations was possible only by interruption of the
incarnation before he had entered the second half of life. Here we see
the strange interlacing of individual human karma and the general
karma of mankind.
We can go still further and find certain karmic causes in the general
karma of mankind, whose effects show only at a later period. Thus the
individual again sees himself caught up into the general karma of
humanity.
If we consider the post-Atlantean evolution, we find the Graeco-Latin
period in the middle, preceded by the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and
followed by our period the fifth period of civilisation. Our
period will be followed by a sixth and seventh cultural epoch. I have
also pointed out on other occasions that in a certain respect there
are cycles in succession of the various civilisations, so that the
Graeco-Latin culture stands by itself, but that the Egyptian-Chaldean
period is repeated in our own. Also in this course, I have already
pointed out that Kepler lived in our period, and that the same
individuality lived earlier in an Egyptian body, and was in that
incarnation under the influence of the wise Egyptian priests who
directed his gaze to the celestial vault, so that the mysteries of the
stars were revealed to him from above. All this was brought further in
his Kepler-incarnation which took place in the fifth period, and
which, in a certain way, is a repetition of the third.
But we can go still further. From the standpoint of Spiritual Science
we can truly assert that most people to-day are blind when they
consider world evolution and human life. These similarities, these
repetitions, these cyclic lives can be followed even in their details.
If we take a certain moment in human evolution, say for instance the
year 747 B.C. we shall find that it constitutes a sort of
Hypomochlion, a kind of zero-point, and that what lies
before and after this point corresponds in quite a definite way. We
may go back to an epoch of the Egyptian evolution, and there we find
certain ritualistic ordinances and commands which appeared as given by
the gods. And this they actually were. These ordinances related to
certain ablutions which the Egyptians had to perform by day. They were
regulated by custom and by certain ritualistic prescriptions, and the
Egyptians believed that they could only live in the manner desired by
the gods, if on this or that day they were to undertake a certain
number of ablutions. This was a command of the gods, that found
expression in a certain cult of cleanliness, and if in the interim we
encounter a period somewhat less clean, we now again, in our own
period, encounter hygienic measures such as are given to humanity for
materialistic reasons. Here we see a repetition of what was lost at a
corresponding period in Egypt. The fulfilment of what happened earlier
is represented in the general karma in a most remarkable manner. Only
the general character is always different. Kepler in his Egyptian
incarnation had directed his gaze up to the starry sky, and what that
individuality there perceived, was expressed in the great spiritual
truths of Egyptian astrology. In his reincarnation during that period
of materialistic aims, the same individuality expressed these facts in
a manner corresponding with our period, in his three materialistically
coloured Kepler laws. In ancient Egypt the laws of
cleanliness were laws of Divine revelation. The Egyptian believed that
he was fulfilling his duty to humanity by caring for his particular
cleanliness at every opportunity. This preoccupation for cleanliness
comes to the fore again today, but under the influence of a mentality
which is entirely materialistic. Modern man does not think that he is
serving the gods when he is obeying such rules, but that he is serving
himself. It is nevertheless a reappearance of what went before.
Thus all things are in a certain way cyclically fulfilled. And now we
begin to understand that the matters that we summarised last time in a
contradiction, are not as simple as one is inclined to suppose. If at
a certain period people were not able to conceive certain measures
against epidemics, these were times at which men could not do so
because, according to the general wise world plan, the epidemics had
to take effect in order to give human souls an opportunity of
balancing what had been effected through the ahrimanic influence and
certain earlier luciferic influences. If other conditions are now
being brought about, these too are subject to certain great karmic
laws. So we see that these matters cannot be regarded superficially.
How does this agree with our statement that if someone seeks an
opportunity of being infected in an epidemic, this is the result of
the necessary reaction against an earlier karmic cause. Have we the
right now to take hygienic or other measures?
This is a profound question, and we must begin by collecting the
necessary material for replying to it. We must understand that where
the luciferic and ahrimanic principles are co-operating, whether
concurrently or over longer periods, or where they are working against
each other, there are manifested certain complications in human life.
These complications appear under forms so diverse that we never see
two identical cases. If we study human life, however, we shall find
our way in the following manner: if in a particular case we try to
discover the combined activity of Lucifer and Ahriman, we shall always
find a thread by which this connection will become clear. We must
discriminate clearly between internal and external man. Even today we
had to differentiate sharply between that which is expressed by the
rational soul, and that which appears within the etheric body as a
result of the rational soul. We must examine the continuity in which
karma is accomplished, and we must at the same time understand that we
have still the possibility of influencing our inner being by means of
certain karmic influences, so that in future a new karmic compensation
may be prepared by the inner being. For this reason, it is possible
for a being in an earlier life to have experienced sensations,
feelings and so forth that have developed in him a want of love
towards his fellow-creatures. Let us suppose, for instance, that he
had passed through an experience whereby through karmic action he had
become uncharitable. It may well happen that we, following for a time
a downward grade, beget evil. We at first descend in order to develop
the contrary impetus that will cause us to re-ascend. Let us suppose
that a being, by yielding to certain influences, tends towards
uncharitableness. This uncharitableness will in a later life appear
as karmic result, and will develop inner forces in his organism. We can
then act in two ways consciously, or else unconsciously. In our epoch
we have not progressed so far as to do it consciously. With such a person
we can take precautions by which these characteristics in his organism,
derived from uncharitableness, will be driven out and we may act in such
a way that the effect that is expressed in the external organism as a
lack of charity will be counteracted. By these means, however, the soul
will not be cleansed of all uncharitableness, but only the external organ
of uncharitableness will have been expelled. For if we do nothing further,
we shall have accomplished only half of our task, perhaps even nothing
at all. We may perhaps have helped this person physically, externally,
but we shall not have given succour to his soul. Now that the physical
expression of uncharitableness has been removed he will not be able to
give expression to this uncharitableness, but he will have to retain it
within his inner organism until a future incarnation. Let us suppose that
a great number of people, because of uncharitableness, had been impelled
to absorb certain infectious germs, so that they succumbed to an epidemic.
Let us further suppose we were in a position to protect them from this
epidemic. We should in such a case preserve the physical body from the
effects of uncharitableness, but we should not have
removed the inner tendency towards uncharitableness. The case might be such
that, in removing the external expression of uncharitableness, we
should undertake the duty of influencing the soul also in such a way
as to remove from it the tendency towards a lack of charity. The
organic expression of uncharitableness is killed in the most complete
sense, in the external bodily sense, by vaccination against smallpox.
There, for instance, the following becomes manifest, and has been
investigated by Spiritual Science. In one period of civilisation, when
there prevailed a general tendency to develop a higher degree of
egotism, and uncharitableness, smallpox made its appearance. Such is
the fact. In anthroposophy it is our bounded duty to give expression
to the truth.
Now it will be clear why in our period the protection of vaccination
appeared. We also understand why, among the best minds of our period,
there exists a kind of aversion to vaccination. This aversion
corresponds to something within, and is the external expression of an
inner reality. So if on the one hand we destroy the physical
expression of a previous fault, we should, on the other hand,
undertake the duty of transforming the materialistic character of such
a person by means of a corresponding spiritual education. This would
constitute the indispensable counterpart without which we are
performing only half our task. We are merely accomplishing something
to which the person in question will himself have to produce a
counterpart in a later incarnation. If we destroy the susceptibility
to smallpox, we are concentrating only on the external side of karmic
activity. If on the one side we go in for hygiene, it is necessary
that on the other we should feel it our duty to contribute to the
person whose organism has been so transformed, something also for the
good of his soul. Vaccination will not be harmful if, subsequent to
vaccination, the person receives a spiritual education. If we
concentrate upon one side only and lay no emphasis upon the other, we
weigh down the balance unevenly. This is really what is felt in those
circles which maintain that where hygienic measures go too far, only
weak natures will be propagated. This of course is not justifiable,
but we see how essential it is that we should not undertake one task
without the other.
Here we approach an important law of human evolution which acts so
that the external and the internal must always be counter-balanced,
and that it is not permissible to act with regard to the one only,
leaving the other out of consideration. We here get a glimpse of an
important relationship, and yet we have not even arrived at the
significance of the question: What is the relationship between
hygiene and karma? As we shall see, the answer to this question
will lead us still further into the depths of karma, and we shall
further see that there exist karmic relationships between man's birth
and death. In addition, other personalities influence a human life,
and man's free will and karma are in harmony.
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Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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