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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-2238
On-line since: 11th October, 2000
KARMIC EFFECTS OF OUR EXPERIENCES AS MEN AND WOMEN. DEATH AND BIRTH IN RELATIONSHIP TO KARMA
AS I have several times pointed out, the great karmic laws can be here
only briefly referred to, so that your interest in this almost
infinite domain shall be stirred. If you reflect upon all that has
been said within the last days, you will no longer be astonished at
the idea that man is urged to seek in the external world for
compensating effects of karmic causes which he himself has
incorporated within his organism. He may, for instance, be driven to a
place where he will encounter an infection which will offer him the
compensation sought for, or he may even be driven by this need for
compensation to what might be termed a fatal accident.
How does it affect the karmic course, if through some kind of measures
we are able to prevent the person from seeking this adjustment?
Let us suppose that by certain hygienic measures we render impossible
certain causes, certain maladies towards which the karma of a person
draws him. We have already shown that the taking of such measures in
no wise rests with him. We have seen, for instance, that in a certain
period a need for cleanliness is felt simply because this inclination
that had disappeared in earlier periods, reappears by its reversed
repetition in evolution. From this we see that it is in accordance
with the great laws of human karma that we at definite periods adopt
this or that measure. But it is easy to understand why such measures
were not invented before our epoch, for humanity in an earlier epoch
was in need of such epidemics from which the world is now delivered by
these measures. With regard to the great plans of life, human
evolution is subject to definite laws, and we are not in a position
to adopt such measures until they will be of significance and utility
for the whole of human evolution. For these measures do not spring
from the fully conscious life, from the rational life, between birth
and death, but they spring rather from the general mind of humanity,
so we need only remember that when mankind is ripe for it, and not
before, these inventions or discoveries will make their appearance. A
brief summary of the history of human evolution upon earth may prove
useful.
Let us not forget that our ancestors that is to say our own
souls dwelt upon the Atlantean continent in bodies quite
different from the present human body. This continent was then
submerged and it was only after a definite period that the inhabitants
upon the one half of the earth which had emerged were brought into
contact with these of the other half. It is only recently that the
peoples of Europe have been able again to reach those territories that
had emerged on the other side of the submerged Atlantean continent.
Indeed, such matters are ordered by great laws. The discovery of one
thing or another, the adoption of measures which make it possible to
intervene in the realm of karma these things are not dependent
upon the caprice or the will of mankind, but they arrive when they are
due to arrive. But notwithstanding, we can influence a person's karma
by removing certain causes which would otherwise have existed, and
which would have come to him as a karmic fulfilment. This
influencing does not mean that we have removed it, but
merely that we have changed its direction. Let us suppose that a
certain number of people are impelled by karma to seek for certain
conditions which would represent to them a karmic compensation.
Through hygienic measures these conditions have been removed and can
no longer be met. These beings, however, will not be liberated from
the karmic effect evoked by their inner being, but rather are they
urged to seek other effects. Man cannot escape his karma. Through such
measures he is not freed from that which he would otherwise have
sought.
From this we may conclude that if the karmic reparation is escaped in
one direction, it will have to be sought in another. When we abolish
certain influences, we merely create the necessity of seeking other
opportunities and influences. Let us assume that many epidemics and
diseases can be traced to the fact that victims are seeking to remove
what they have karmically fostered within themselves. This is the
case, for instance, with smallpox which is the organ of
uncharitableness. Although we may be in a position to remove the
possibility of this disease, still the cause of uncharitableness would
remain, and the souls in question would then be forced to seek another
way for karmic compensation either in this or in another incarnation.
The following will help us to understand what actually takes place. It
is a fact that, at the present time, many influences and causes are
removed which would otherwise have been sought for as adjustment for
certain karmic matters with which mankind had burdened itself in
earlier periods. But, in removing these influences we only remove the
possibility of man's succumbing to their external effects. We make his
external life more pleasant, and also more healthy, but what he would
otherwise have sought as a karmic adjustment in the corresponding
disease, will now have to be sought in another direction. People who
to-day are saved in regard to health, are at the same time condemned
to seek a karmic adjustment in another way. If life to-day is
healthier and more agreeable, the soul receives an influence in the
opposite sense. Little by little it discovers a certain emptiness
or frustration. If this state of things continued in such a way
that the external life became ever more pleasant and healthy, in the
materialistic sense of these words, then such souls would have but
little inducement to inner progress and there would result an
emptiness of the soul. This can be observed even today by anyone who
examines life more closely. There has been hardly a single epoch in
which so many people have had such pleasant external conditions as is
the case today and yet go about with such stagnant and empty souls.
That is why such people rush from sensation to sensation. When means
permit, they travel from town to town in order to see something, or if
they are forced to remain in the same town, they rush night after
night from pleasure to pleasure. Yet for all this the soul remains
empty, realises the void, and in the end does not know what to seek in
the world to fill it. In a life spent in external and physically
pleasant conditions the tendency towards materialism is specially
marked. Thus souls become increasingly diseased as external life is
rendered more healthy. Least of all should an anthroposophist complain
at this because anthroposophy teaches us a true understanding of these
matters, and thus gives us knowledge as to where the compensation may
be sought. Souls can remain empty only to a certain stage; then
through their own elasticity, they rush on to the opposite direction.
They seek for something akin to their own souls, and they will then
see how greatly they stand in need of an anthroposophical world
conception.
We see from this how the results of a materialistic conception of life
may well ease external life, but creates difficulties in our inner
life, leading us finally from the depths of sufferings to seek
spiritual truths. The spiritual world conception as it is today
presented by Spiritual Science, thus addresses itself to those souls
who cannot find satisfaction through impressions with which the
external world can provide them. Souls will continue in their search,
and seek ever again for new impressions until their elasticity will
act so strongly in the other direction, that they will feel themselves
again drawn to a spiritual life. Thus there exists a relationship
between hygiene and the future hopes of the world conception of
Spiritual Science.
Even today this can be observed in a small way. Today there exist
people who add to other superficialities a new superficiality, namely,
an interest in the anthroposophical world conception and who take up
the anthroposophical world conception as a new sensation. It is
inevitable that what is of profound inner significance also appears as
fashion, as sensation, and this tendency can be traced in every
current of human evolution. But those souls who are truly ripe for
anthroposophy are those who fail to find satisfaction from external
sensations, and who realise that external science in spite of all its
explanations cannot explain certain facts. These are the souls who
through their general karma are so prepared that they become united to
anthroposophy with the innermost members of their soul life. Spiritual
Science forms part of mankind's general karma, and as such will take
its place there.
It is thus that we can give an orientation to human karma, but to the
extent to which it is the effect of past actions we cannot prevent the
reaction upon the individual souls. In some way it comes home.
We can show how logical is the working out of karma in the world, by
considering karma where its activity is still independent of morality
where we see it manifest in the universe, without concerning
itself with the moral impulses emanating from the soul of man and
leading him to moral or immoral deeds. We shall set before ourselves
an aspect of karma in which morality plays no part, but in which
something neutral appears as karmic link.
Let us suppose that a woman lives in a certain incarnation. It cannot
be denied that this woman, by reason of her sex, will undergo
experiences which differ from those of a man, and that these are not
merely dependent on her inner soul life, but for the most part they
are connected with external happenings, with circumstances in which
she will find herself simply because she is a woman, and which will
again react upon the whole of the condition and disposition of her
soul. We see, therefore, that certain deeds of woman are most
intimately connected with the fact of her womanhood. Only in the realm
of spiritual companionship is there any equality between man and
woman. The further we penetrate into the purely spiritual and into the
outer aspect of the human being, the more is accentuated the
difference between man and woman in relation to their lives. We can
say that woman differs from man also in certain qualities of the soul,
and that she inclines more towards those impulses which must be termed
emotional. For this reason we find that psychic experiences come to
her more easily than to man. Intellectuality and materialism are, on
the contrary, more natural to man's life, and these strongly influence
the soul life. So the psychic and emotional predominate in woman and
the intellectual and materialistic in man. Thus it is that there are
certain shadings in woman's soul life by virtue of her womanhood. It
has already been described how the qualities we experience in our
souls force their way between death and a new birth into our next
bodily organism. That which is psychically and emotionally the
strongest and that which in the life between birth and death
penetrates most deeply into the soul, will have a greater tendency to
enter more profoundly into the organism, and to impregnate it far more
intensively. And because woman absorbs psychical and emotional
impressions, she also receives the experiences of life into the
profounder depths of the soul. Man may have richer and also more
scientific experiences, but they do not penetrate his soul life as
deeply as do those of woman. The whole of the world of her experiences
is deeply graven into a woman's soul. Therefore those experiences will
have a stronger tendency to affect the organism, to modify the
organism more closely in the future. Thus woman's life absorbs the
tendency towards deeper intervention in the organism by means of the
experiences of one incarnation, and thereby towards the formation of
the organism itself in the next incarnation. A deep working into and
working through the organism will bring forth a male organism. A male
organism appears when the forces of the soul desire to be more deeply
graven into matter. From this we see that the effect of woman's
experiences in one incarnation results in a male organism in the next
incarnation. Occult teaching here shows that there is a connection
which lies outside the bounds of morality. For this reason occultism
states Man is woman's karma. The male organism of a later
incarnation is the result of the experiences and events of a preceding
female incarnation. At the risk of arousing in some of those present
reflections which may possibly be uncongenial (it always happens that
modern man is terrified of incarnating as woman), since these matters
are facts, I must illuminate them objectively. What happens in the
case of man's experiences?
We shall best understand them if we base them on what has been said
before. In man's organism the inner man has penetrated thoroughly into
matter, and has embraced it more closely than has woman. Woman retains
more spirituality. She does not penetrate so deeply into matter, but keeps
her materiality more flexible. It is characteristic of woman's nature that
she retains a greater degree of free spirituality, and for that reason
does not penetrate so profoundly into matter, and especially keeps her
brain more flexible. Therefore it is not surprising that women have a
special inclination for what is new, especially in the spiritual
realm. And it is not by accident, but in accordance with a profound
law, that in a movement whose very nature deals with spirituality,
there should be found a greater number of women than of men. Any man
knows that the male brain is frequently an intractable instrument. On
account of its rigidity it offers terrible resistance when one would
use it for more flexible lines of thought. It refuses to follow and
must be educated by all sorts of means before it can lose its
rigidity. With all men this can be a personal experience.
Man's nature is more condensed, more concentrated; it has been
compressed more, rendered more rigid and hard by his inner being of a
man; it has been made more material. A more rigid brain is first and
foremost an instrument for the intellectual, rather than for the
psychic. For intellectuality deals mainly with the physical plane. In
this respect we might speak of a brain being frozen to a certain
degree and if it is to deal with the finer channels of thought, it
must first be thawed. Therefore a man will be inclined to absorb less
of those experiences that are connected with the depths of his own
soul life, and what he does absorb does not so deeply. We have an
external proof of this in the shallowness of external science, and its
comparative failure to comprehend the inner being. Although much
thought is expended in a wide circumference, facts are concentrated
with but little thoroughness. Let us quote an example of the
superficiality of modern science:
Let us suppose a young man is in a college where a rabid Darwinian is
lecturing. This is how the advocate of the theory of selection will
characterise certain facts: Whence does a cock derive his beautiful
iridescent feathers of bluish tints? This is to be traced back to
sexual, natural selection; for the cock attracts the hens by his
colours, and the hens will choose those from among the cocks who
possess these bluish iridescent feathers. In this way the other cocks
are ignored, and the consequence is that one particular species is
developed. This is progress; this is natural selection!
And the student is glad to know how progressive development is brought
about.
Now he goes to the next hall, where physiology of the senses is dealt
with. It may well happen that the student in this second hall will
hear the following: Experiments have been made which show how the
various colours of the spectrum affect various beings. It can be
proved that of the whole colour spectrum, hens, for instance, can only
see the colours ranging from green to orange, and red to ultra-red,
but not those ranging from blue to violet.
Now a student, if he wants to combine these two statements which
really are taught to-day, is forced to regard things superficially.
The whole of the theory of natural selection is based on the fact that
hens perceive the variegated colours of cocks and that these colours
afford them special pleasure. This is not the case, for the colours to
them appear raven black.
This is merely an example, but anyone willing to investigate really
scientifically will encounter instances of this kind at every step.
This will demonstrate that intellectuality does not penetrate very
deeply into life but that it remains on the surface. I intentionally
chose the more marked examples.
It is not so easy to believe that intellectuality remains external and
affects the inner being of man but slightly. And a materialistic mind
affects the soul life even less. The consequence of this is that the
being on quitting an incarnation in which he has lived but little in
the soul, carries with him the tendency between birth and death to
penetrate less deeply into the organism in the next incarnation. He
has but little power to do this, and that is why in the next
incarnation the organism is less impregnated. So comes the inclination
to build up a female body in the next incarnation, and it is therefore
correct when occultism says that Woman is man's karma.
In this neutral moral domain we see that what we prepare in one
incarnation will be an organising force for our body in the next. And
these influences intervene profoundly not only in our inner life, but
also in our external experiences and deeds. Thus we must say that the
fact of having man's or woman's experiences in one incarnation, in one
way or another determines our external deeds in the next incarnation.
Through woman's experiences we shall be disposed to form a male
organism, and, conversely, through man's experiences a female
organism. Only in rare cases will an incarnation in the same sex be
repeated, and at most it can be repeated seven times. The rule is,
however, that every male organism will in the following incarnation
strive to become female, and conversely. All repugnance is of no
avail, for it is not a question of our wishes in the physical world,
but rather of our inclinations during the period between death and a
new birth, and these are determined by much wiser reasons than a
possible horror conceived during a male incarnation of reincarnating
as woman. From this it is clear that our later life is karmically
determined by the earlier, and also that the deeds of a later life may
be thus ordered.
It is important that we should learn to understand that yet another
karmic connection will be essential if we are to throw light upon the
important discussions of the next few days.
Let us, therefore, look back upon a remote epoch of human evolution
when human incarnations began upon earth. This was in the ancient
Lemurian period. It was then that the luciferic influence first acted
effectively upon man, and that this then evoked the ahrimanic
influence. Let us try to set before our souls how this luciferic
influence acted externally in human life. The fact that man reached
the stage in those ancient times in which he could absorb this
luciferic influence, and also permeate his astral body with the
luciferic influence, had the effect that his astral body was inclined
to penetrate far more deeply into the organism, into the material part
of the physical body, and to do so in quite a different way. Through
the luciferic influence man became more material. Had this influence
not been active, the human tendency to descend into the material
world would have been far weaker, and man would have remained in
higher spheres of existence. Thus there came about a far stronger
penetration of external and internal man, than would have been
possible without the luciferic influence. This penetration was the
first cause of our failure to remember the events preceding our
incarnation. The birth through which we entered existence was of such
a nature that we became closely united with matter, thereby effacing
all memory of earlier experiences. Otherwise we should have retained
the memory of our spiritual experiences before birth. Through the
luciferic influence we were robbed of our memory of the preceding
experiences and for this reason, we are forced during our lifetime to
depend upon the external world for knowledge and experiences.
It would be a grave error to believe that only the coarser substances
which we absorb act upon us. Not only do victuals and nutritious
forces act upon us, but also other experiences, which flow into us by
way of our senses. But through coarser union with matter, victuals
affect us in a different way. Suppose that there had been no luciferic
influence; then everything, from victuals to the sense impressions,
would have a far more refined influence upon us. Everything
experienced by us as our relation to the outer world, would be
permeated with what we experienced between death and a new birth.
Because we have condensed matter, we are inclined to absorb what is
denser.
Thus the luciferic influence is taking effect in such a way that
through the condensation of matter, we also attract towards us out of
the external world denser matter than we should otherwise have done
and the effects are far different. The less dense substances would
have retained a memory of our earlier life, and would also have given
us the certitude that all our experiences between birth and death will
bear results for time without end. We should know that although there
may be death, yet everything happening continues in its effect.
Because man had to absorb dense substances, he creates from birth
onward a strong reciprocal activity between his own bodily nature and
the external world.
What results from this reciprocity? The spiritual world is eclipsed at
birth. Before man can again live in the spiritual world, his earlier
condition must be restored to him. Everything of dense matter entering
us from outside, will be taken from us. Because we have acquired a
denser materiality, we are forced, in order to re-enter the spiritual
world, to await that period where the external material body will be
taken from us. Denser matter penetrating us, from our birth onward,
gradually destroys our human body. That which flows in destroys the
body more and more, until it has been completely destroyed, so that it
can no longer exist. From the moment of our birth, due to the luciferic
influence, we absorb a denser materiality and we slowly destroy our
body until, at the moment of death, it has become altogether useless.
From this we conclude that the luciferic influence is the karmic cause
of man's death. If birth had not this character then death too would
not be for man what it is. We should, but for the luciferic influence
approach death with an assured prospect of what lies before us. Death
is the karmic effect of birth, and birth and death are karmically
connected. Without birth, as experienced by us today, death as we
experience it would not exist.
I have said before, that we cannot speak of karma for animals in the
same sense as for human beings. Were someone to say that in the case
of animals also, birth and death are karmically connected, such a
person would be ignorant of the fact that the birth and death of a
human being is entirely different from that of an animal. That which
outwardly appears identical, differs inwardly. It is the inner
experience and not the physical event which is significant in birth
and death. In the case of an animal, only the generic or group soul
has experiences. For the group soul the death of an animal resembles
somewhat our experience at the approach of summer, when we have our
hair cut shorter, which will then slowly grow again. The group soul of
a species feels the death of an animal like the death of a limb which
will gradually be replaced. Thus we may compare the generic soul to
the human Ego. It knows neither birth nor death; it is continually
aware of what takes place before birth, and it sees continually what
follows death. To speak of an animal's birth and death in the same way
as we speak of man's would be absurd, because they are preceded by
quite different causes. And it would be a denial of the activity of
the spirit, if we believed that what appears identical externally is
due to identical inner causes. Identity of external events never
points with certainty to identical causes.
If we would consider a little how outward appearances may be identical
whilst inner experiences are not so in the least, we could arrive in a
methodical and logical way at the conclusion that this is so. Suppose,
for instance, we arrived at a certain place at 9 o'clock, and there
saw two people standing together. Later, we arrived at the same spot,
and these two people were again standing in the same place. Now we
might conclude: A is still standing in the same place:
B is still standing in the same place where he stood at 9
o'clock. If we enquire, however, into what these two people have done
meanwhile, we may perhaps find that the one has been standing there
all the time while the other has walked a long distance, and has
become tired. We are here dealing with entirely different events. And
just as it would be foolish to say, if two people at a later hour are
again standing at the same spot, that they must have had identical
experiences, it would be equally foolish when we find two cells of the
same shape to conclude from their structure an identity of their inner
function. It is necessary to know the whole connection of the facts
that have brought the one cell to the place in question.
That is why the modern cellular physiology which sets out from an
examination of the inner structure of the cells is taking the wrong
course. Never can the external appearance prove the inner nature of a
thing.
We must make reflections of this kind if we are to comprehend
conclusions arrived at by occultists through occult observation
such as the difference between birth and death in the case of man and
animals or birds. The study of these matters will be possible only
when we occupy ourselves with what spiritual investigation has to tell
us. As long as this is not generally done, external science, which
adheres to external appearances and external facts, brings to light
very beautiful facts, but all the opinions people can form upon
suppositions concerning such facts will never be decisive for reality.
That is why all our modern theoretical science is a creation of
fantasy which has come about through combinations of external facts,
having regard only to their outward appearance. In many departments
external facts actually impel us towards a true interpretation, but
modern opinion stands in the way.
Today we have allowed two neutral domains of karmic law to act upon
us, and we shall see that they will be the foundation of our further
discussions. We have realised that woman's organism is the karmic
result of man's experiences, and man's organism the karmic result of
woman's experiences; and we also have realised that death is the
karmic result of birth in human life. If we try gradually to
understand this, it may lead us to penetrate more profoundly into the
karmic connections of human life.
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