FREE WILL AND KARMA IN THE FUTURE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
THERE are certain deeper questions of karmic connection concerning
more especially our human influence upon karma, particularly upon that
of other people, and concerning also the changing of the direction of
karma, be it to a greater or less extent. Such questions as these one
can neither answer nor even give an idea of how they ought to be
answered, without touching, as we shall today, upon certain important
secrets of our world existence. They may perhaps arise out of what has
been said, if we follow up what has been broached and had light thrown
upon it from one side or another.
We may ask what happens in a person's karma when by reason of his
previous acts or experiences there has arisen a necessity for illness
to compensate for these acts and experiences, and this person is
really healed through human assistance by means of remedies or other
intervention. What does this signify and in what way is such a fact
related to a deeper conception of karmic law?
Now I will begin by saying that in order to throw any important light
at all upon this question, things must be touched upon which are far
removed from the science and the present thought of today and which
may, so to say, only be spoken of amongst Anthroposophists who, having
absorbed some of the truths relating to the deeper foundations of
existence, have already prepared themselves for such things, and have
acquired a perception of how things which today can only be indicated,
may nevertheless be fully proved. I should like, however, to take this
opportunity of asking one thing of you. I am today compelled to talk
about the deeper foundations of the earth's existence which I shall
endeavour to express as precisely as possible. But this would be wrong
if it were used in another connection or spoken of without any
connection at all, and would lead to one misunderstanding after
another. I ask you for the present just to accept it only, and make no
other use of it. I must also make a point, regarding these things,
that they should not be handed on; that no one should consider them as
a teaching which may in any way spread further; for only the
connection justifies such a statement, and such a statement is
justifiable only when it is backed by the consciousness that can coin
suitable words to express thoughts of this kind.
We are now speaking, on the one hand, of the deeper nature of material
existence, and on the other, of the nature of soul existence. We must
today acquire a deeper comprehension of what pertains to the soul and
to the material world. This is, indeed, necessary for a quite definite
reason for the reason given in the previous lectures when we
said that the soul of man can penetrate more or less deeply into
matter. We described yesterday the nature of the male by saying that
in a man the soul penetrates deeper into matter, while in the female
the soul holds back in a certain way and is more independent of
matter. We saw that much of karmic experience depends upon how the
penetration of the soul into matter takes place. We saw also how
certain illnesses in one incarnation appear as the karmic consequences
of errors made by the soul in former incarnations when it worked at
its deeds, experiences and impulses. Then on the way between death and
a new birth the soul acquired the tendency to transform into matter that
which was formerly only a characteristic, a mere influence in the
soul; so it now permeates the body. Because the human being is then
permeated by a soul which has also absorbed either the luciferic or
ahrimanic influence, the human substance will in consequence be
damaged. Here is to be found the cause of illness, and we may
therefore say: In a sick body there dwells a damaged soul which has
come under a wrong influence a luciferic or ahrimanic
influence; and the moment we are able to remove these influences from
the soul, the normal relationship of soul and the body should come
about, and health should be re-established. What then is the relation
between these two members of the earthly human existence of which we
are now speaking, matter and soul? What are they in their deeper
nature?
The man of the present day is generally of the opinion that the answer
to the question, Of what does matter consist? What is the
soul? if it could be given at all must prove to be
the same all over the world. I do not think it would be easy for him
to understand that for the beings who lived upon the old Moon, the
answer to these questions must be quite different from those of beings
who live upon the Earth. For existence is so much in the throes of
evolution, that even the ideas may alter which a being may have about
the deeper foundations of his own nature; so that the answer to this
question, What is matter, what is the soul? must also
vary. It must at once be emphasised that the answers which will be
given are only those which the earth-man can make, and are of
significance only to the earth-man.
A person will at first judge matter according to what
confronts him in the external world in the shape of different beings
and things, and everything which makes an impression upon him in any
way. Then he discovers that there are different sorts of matter. But I
need not go very far into that, for you may find in all the ordinary
books those expositions which could be given here if we had time
enough. These differences in matter present themselves to man when he
sees the different metals, gold, copper, lead, and so on, or when he
sees anything that does not belong to this category. You know, too,
that chemistry traces these different materials back to certain
fundamental substances of matter, called elements. These
elements, even in the nineteenth century, were still considered to be
substances possessing certain properties which did not admit of being
further divided. But in the case of a substance such as water, we are
able to separate it into hydrogen and oxygen, yet in hydrogen and
oxygen themselves we have substances which, according to the chemistry
of the nineteenth century, were incapable of being further divided.
One could distinguish about seventy such elements. You will doubtless
also know that owing to phenomena which have been produced in
connection with a few special elements radium, for instance
and also owing to various phenomena produced in the study of
electricity, the idea of the elements has been shaken in many ways.
One has come to the conclusion that the seventy elements were only
temporary limitations of matter, and that one could trace back the
possibility of subdivision to a fundamental substance, which then
through inner combinations, through the nature of its inner elementary
being, manifests at one time as gold, at another time as potash, lime,
and so on.
These scientific theories vary; and just as the scientific theories
changed in each fifty years of the nineteenth century, so
it came about that certain physicists saw in matter certain entities
which are charged with electricity; just as the ionic theory is now in
fashion for there are fashions in science in the same
way at no distant future other scientific methods will exist, and our
idea of the constitution of matter will be quite different. These are
facts. Scientific opinions are changeable, and must be changeable, for
they depend altogether upon those facts which are of significance for
one particular epoch. The teachings of Spiritual Science on the other
hand continue through all ages as long as there are
civilisations on the earth and will continue as long as these
civilisations exist. It has always had the same comprehensive view
regarding the nature of material existence and matter; and in order to
lead you on to what Spiritual Science looks upon as the essential part
of matter and of substance, I should like to say the following:
You all know that ice is a solid body not through its own
nature, but through external circumstances. It at once ceases to be a
solid if we raise the temperature sufficiently; it then becomes a
fluid substance. Therefore it does not depend upon what is in a
substance itself as to what form it takes in the external world, but
upon the entire conditions of the universe surrounding it. We can then
further bring heat to this substance, and out of the water we can,
after a certain point, produce steam. We have ice, water, steam, and
through the raising of the temperature we have caused what we may
describe as the appearance of matter in manifold forms.
Thus we have to distinguish in matter that the appearance it presents
to us does not come out of an inner constitution, but that the manner
in which it confronts us depends upon the general constitution of the
universe, and that one must not isolate any part of the whole universe
into individual substances. Now the methods of modern science cannot
reach where Spiritual Science is able to reach. The science of today
can never, by means of the methods at its disposal, bring the
substance of ice which, when the temperature is increased, is
first made fluidic and then turned into steam into the final
condition attainable on earth, into which every substance can be
transmuted. It is not possible today, by scientific means, to bring
about conditions which show that if you take gold and rarefy it
as far as it can be rarefied upon the earth, you will bring it at last
to a state which could equally be reached by silver or by
copper. Spiritual Science can do this because it is based upon the
methods of spiritual research; is thus able to observe how, in the
spaces between substances, there is always a uniform substance
everywhere which represents the extreme limit to which all matter is
reducible. Spiritual research discovers a condition of dissolution in
which all materials are reduced to a common basis, but what then
appears there is no longer matter, but something which lies beyond all
the specialised forms of matter around us. Every single substance, be
it gold, silver, or any other substance, is there seen to be a
condensation of this fundamental substance, which is really no longer
matter. There is a fundamental essence of our material earth existence
out of which all matter only comes into being by a condensing process,
and to the question: What is this fundamental substance of our earth
existence, Spiritual Science gives the answer: Every
substance upon the earth is condensed light. There is
nothing in material existence in any form whatever which is anything but
condensed light. Hence you see that to those who know the facts, there
can be no necessity for such a theory as that of the vibration
hypothesis of the nineteenth century. Therein one sought to find
light by methods which themselves are coarser than the light itself.
Light cannot be traced back to anything else in our material
existence. Wherever you reach out and touch a substance, there you
have condensed, compressed light. All matter is, in its essence,
light.
We have thus indicated one side of the question from the point of view
of Spiritual Science. We have seen that light is the foundation of all
material existence. If we look at the material human body, that also,
inasmuch as it consists of matter, is nothing but a substance woven
out of light. Inasmuch as man is a material being, he is composed of
light.
Let us now consider the other question: Of what does the soul
consist? If we were to make research in the same way, by means
of the methods of Spiritual Science, into the substance, into the
really fundamental essence of the soul, then it would appear that just
as all matter is compressed light, so all the different phenomena of
the soul upon earth are modifications, are manifold transformations of
that which must be called, if we truly realise the fundamental meaning
of the word: love. Every stirring of the soul, wherever it appears, is
in some way a modification of love, and if the inner and the outer
are, as it were, intermingled, impressed into one another in man, we
find also that his outer bodily part is woven out of light, and his
inner soul is woven spiritually out of love. Love and light are,
indeed, in some way interwoven in all the phenomena of our earth
existence, and anyone who wishes to understand things as explained by
Spiritual Science, will first of all ask: To what extent are love and
light interwoven?
Love and light are the two elements, the two component parts of all
earthly existence: love as the soul part, and light as the outer
material part.
Now, however, another fact comes in. For both these elements, light
and love, which would otherwise be side by side throughout the great
course of the world existence, there must be found an intermediary,
weaving the one element into the other light into love. This
must needs be a power which has no particular interest in love, which
thus weaves light into the element of love a power which is
interested only in causing the light to be spread abroad to as great
an extent as possible, and therefore causes light to stream into the
element of love. Such a power cannot be terrestrial for the earth is
the Cosmos of Love; and its mission is to weave love in
everywhere. Anything, therefore, which is bound up with the earth
existence can have no interest which is not to some degree influenced
by love.
It is the luciferic beings which act here for they remained
behind upon the Moon upon the Cosmos of Wisdom. They are
particularly interested in weaving light into love. The luciferic
beings are everywhere at work when our inner part which is actually
woven out of love comes into any sort of connection with light, in
whatsoever form it may be found; and we are confronted with light in
all material existence. Wheresoever we come into connection with
light, the luciferic beings enter, and the luciferic influence becomes
woven into love. In that way man first, in the course of his
incarnations, entered the luciferic element. Lucifer has woven himself
into the element of love; and all that is formed from love has the
impress of Lucifer, which alone can bring us what causes love to be
not merely a self-abandonment, but permeates it in its innermost being
with wisdom. Otherwise, without this wisdom, love would be an
impersonal force in man for which he could not be responsible. But in
this way love becomes the essential force of the Ego where that
luciferic element is woven, which otherwise is only to be found
outside in matter. Thus it becomes possible for our inner being which,
during earth existence, should receive the attribute of love in its
fullness, to be permeated besides by everything that may be described
as an activity of Lucifer, and from this side leads to a penetration
of external matter; so that which is woven out of light is not
interwoven with love alone, but with love that is permeated by
Lucifer. When man takes up the luciferic element, he
interweaves into the material part of his own body a soul which is, it
is true, woven out of love, but into which the luciferic element is
interwoven. It is that love which is permeated with the luciferic
element, which impregnates matter and is the cause of illness working
out from within. In connection with what we have already mentioned as
being a necessary consequence of an illness proceeding from a
luciferic element, we may say that the ensuing pain, which we have
seen is a consequence of the Luciferic element, shows us the effect of
the working of the karmic law. So the consequences of an act or a
temptation coming from Lucifer are experienced karmically and the pain
itself indicates what should lead to the overcoming of the
consequences in question.
Now ought we to help in such a case or not? Ought we in any way to
cancel what has pressed in from the luciferic element with all its
consequences working out in pain?
Remembering the answer to our question as to the nature of the soul,
it follows of necessity that we have the right to do this only if we
find the means, in the case of a man who has the luciferic element in
him which caused his illness, to expel that luciferic element in the
right way. What is the remedy which exerts a stronger action, so that
the luciferic element is driven out. What is it which has been defiled
by the luciferic element on our earth? It is love! Hence only by means
of love can we give real help for karma to work out in the right way.
Finally we must see in that element of love which has been psychically
influenced by Lucifer resulting in illness, a force which must be
affected by another force. We must pour in love. All those acts of
healing dependent upon what we may call a psychic healing
process must have the characteristic that love is part of the
process. In some form or other all psychic healing depends on a stream
of love, which we pour into another person as a balsam. All that is
done in this domain must finally be traced back to love; and this can
be done. Even if we set simple psychic factors in action; if we assist
another, perhaps, only to overcome depression, this can be traced back
to love. All arises from the impulse of love, from simpler processes
of healing, to that which is often, in amateur fashion called
magnetic healing. What does the healer communicate to the
one to be healed? It is, to use an expression of physics, an
interchange of tensions. Certain processes in the etheric
body of the healer create with the person to be healed a sort of
polarity. Polarity arises just as it would arise in an abstract sense,
when one kind of electricity, say positive, is produced and then the
corresponding electricity the negative appears. Thus
polarities are created, and this act must be conceived as emanating
from sacrifice. One evokes in oneself a process which is not intended
to be significant to oneself only, for then one would call forth one
process only; in this case, however, the process is intended in
addition to induce a polarity in another person, and this polarity,
which naturally depends upon a contact between the healer and the
person to be healed, is, in the fullest sense of the word, the
sacrifice of a force which is no other than the transmuted action of
love. That is what is really active in these psychic healings a
transmuted power of love. We must clearly understand that without this
fundamental love-force the healing will not lead to the right goal.
But these processes of love need not always run their course [so] that the
person is fully aware of them with his ordinary day-consciousness;
they run their course also in the region of the subconscious. In that
which is considered as the technique of the healing process, even to
the way in which the movements of the hands are made, and technically
reduced to a system, we have the reflection of a sacrificial act.
Therefore even where we do not see the direct connection in a process
of healing, when we do not see what is being done, we have,
nevertheless, before us an act of love, although the action may be
completely transformed to a mere technique.
Since the soul consists fundamentally of love, we can assist with
psychic factors. And these processes apparently lie very near the
periphery of human nature, and by such factors of healing that which
in its essence consists of love is enriched by what it requires in the
way of love. Thus on the one side we see how we can help, so that,
after being caught in the toils of Lucifer, the sufferer is able to
free himself again. Because love is the fundamental essence of the
soul, we may, indeed, influence the direction of karma.
On the other hand, we may ask, what has become of the substance woven
from light in which the soul dwells?
Take the body the outer man in his material part. If through a
karmic process there had not been imprinted from out of the soul into
matter a love substance such as is permeated by Lucifer or Ahriman; if
a pure love substance only had poured in, it would not have been
impurifying, or damaging to the substance woven out of light. If love
alone were to flow into matter, it would then so flow into the human
body that the latter could not be damaged. It is only because a love
which has absorbed luciferic or ahrimanic forces can penetrate that
the substance woven out of light becomes less perfect than it was
originally intended to be. Therefore it is only through pouring into
man of the luciferic or ahrimanic influences during his consecutive
incarnations, that the human organisation is not what it might be. If
it were as it ought to be, it would manifest healthy human substance;
but because it has absorbed the activities of Lucifer and Ahriman,
sickness and disease result.
How can we draw from outside those influences which have flowed in
from an imperfect soul, that is, from a wrong love
substance? What happens to the body by this influx of something which
is faulty? According to Spiritual Science something happens which
turns light in some way into its opposite. Light has its opposite in
darkness or obscurity. Everything really presenting itself
strange as it may sound as the defilement of that which is
woven out of light, is a darkness woven out of a luciferic or
ahrimanic influence. Thus we see darkness woven into the human
substance. But this darkness was only thus interwoven because the
human body has become the bearer of the Ego that lives on through the
incarnations. This was formerly not there. Only a human body
can be subject to this corruption, for such a corruption was formerly
not contained in that which was woven out of light.
Man today draws the base of his material life out of what he has
gradually rejected in the course of evolution that is, the
animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. These
also contain the different substances woven out of light for earth
existence. But in none of these substances are there any of the
influences which, in the course of human karma have acted on the
organism through the soul. In the three kingdoms around us, therefore,
man cannot through his luciferic or ahrimanic influence, as emanating
from his love forces, have a defiling effect. Nothing of him is here.
And what in man has been defiled is spread around him in all its
purity. Let us consider a mineral substance, a salt or any other
substance which man has also within him, or might have within him. But
in him it is interwoven with the love substance defiled by Lucifer or
Ahriman. Outside, however, it is pure. Thus every substance outside is
distinguished from that which man bears within him. Externally it is
always different from what it is in man, because in him it is
interwoven with the ahrimanic or luciferic influence. That is the
reason why, for everything of external substance which can be more or
less defiled by man, there must be something which can be found
externally representing the same thing in its pure condition. That
which exists in the world in its purity, is the external cure for the
corresponding substance in its damaged state. If you apply this in
the right way to the human being, you then have the specific for the
corresponding injury.
Thus we find in quite an objective way, what may be applied to the
human body as a remedy. Here is the injury characterised as a form of
darkness and that which is not yet dark as the outer woven pure
light; and we see why we are able to remove the darkness to be found
in man if we bring pure substance woven from light to bear upon him.
Thus we have a specific remedy for the injury. Now attention has often
been drawn to the fact that Anthroposophists in particular should not
fall into the narrow-minded error of denying that in such cases there
really is a specific remedy against this or that injury, or which
beneficially affects this or the other organ. It has often been said
that the organism has within it the forces with which to help itself.
Even although the Vienna School of Nihilistic Therapeutics may be
right in its assertion that by calling up the opposing forces we can
bring about a cure, we may nevertheless help on the cure by specific
remedies. Here we see a parallel which one may describe from Spiritual
Science.
From what I have said about diphtheria, for instance, you may gather
that the karmic causes have in this case particularly affected the
astral body. Now closely related to the astral body is the animal
kingdom You will always find in those forms of illness closer
connected with the astral body, that medical science, unconsciously
driven by a dim impulse, seeks for remedies from the animal kingdom.
For such illnesses whose causes lie in the etheric body, science seeks
for remedies out of the vegetable kingdom. An interesting lecture
might be given about the relation of the purple foxglove to certain
illnesses of the heart. These are things which, inasmuch as they are
based on truth, are not right for five years only as one doctor
states and then begin to be wrong as in the case when
only external symptoms are taken into consideration. But there is a
certain treasure of remedies which can always in some way be traced
back to some connection with Spiritual Science, which have been
inherited without any knowledge whence they came. Just as today the
astronomers do not know that the theory of Kant and Laplace came from
the mystery schools of the Middle Ages, so people do not know whence
came these real valuable remedies. Causes of illness, which are
connected with the nature of the physical body, lead to the use of
remedies from the mineral kingdom.
A simple consideration of these analogous views will provide a
fingerpost for these matters. Through his connection with the
surrounding world, man can be helped from two different sides: on the one
hand bringing him transmuted love from the psychic method of healing
and on the other hand by bringing him transmuted light in various ways
by those processes which are connected with external methods of
healing. Everything which can be done is brought about either by inner
psychic means by love or by the external means of
densified light. When one day science has advanced so far as to learn
to believe in the super-sensible and in the saying: Matter is a
form of condensed light, then a spiritual light will be thrown
by these words upon the systematic research on external remedies.
Hence we see that what during long ages, from the mystery schools of
old Egypt and old Greece, was gradually added to the treasure of
healing is not mere nonsense, but that in all these things there is a
sound kernel. Anthroposophy does not exist in order to attack a
certain school of medicine, and to say, There they give people
poisons! The word poison today works as a suggestion, and people
do not reflect how relative this word is. For what is
poison? Every substance may be a poison. It is only a
question of the methods of healing and of how much is taken at a time.
Water is a strong poison, if one takes ten bucketfuls at one time. The
results of this, considered chemically, are not very different from
what they would be if one gave a person any other substance. It
depends always upon the quantity, for all these ideas are relative.
From what we have gone into today, we can be glad that for every
injury we can do to injure our body, there is to be found in
surrounding nature, which now appears to us as the world, that which
will make it whole again. It is also a beautiful relationship that we
have for the external world, and we may rejoice not only because we
see the beautiful flowers and the mountains glowing in the sunlight,
but also because our surroundings are so intimately connected with
what is in man himself, good or bad. We can rejoice in nature, not
only for what appeals at first sight, but the deeper we go into what
has condensed into external material existence, the more we shall find
that this nature which causes us to rejoice has within it at the same
time the mighty healer for all the damage man can cause himself.
Somewhere in nature the remedy is concealed. It is a question, not
only of understanding the language of the healer, but also of obeying
it and really carrying it out. Today it is in most cases impossible
for us to hear the voice of healing nature because our
misunderstanding of light, and the darkness which has penetrated into
knowledge has in many respects brought about conditions preventing us
from hearing. Therefore we must clearly understand that where in one
case no help can properly be given, where, on account of karmic
connections, some suffering may not properly be lessened, this does
not mean that it absolutely could not be done.
Here again we see a remarkable connection which allows us to perceive
the whole great world, inclusive of mankind, as One Being. In
the sayings: Matter is woven light, and
the soul is in some way or other diluted love, are
to be found the keys of innumerable secrets of earth existence. But
these hold good only for the earth existence, and would not concern
any other domain of the world existence. Thus we have shown nothing
less than that we, if in any way we alter the direction of karma,
unite ourselves in one or the other case with the elements composing
our earth existence: on the one side with light which has become
matter and on the other side with love which has become soul.
We either draw the remedies out of our surroundings, out of the
condensed light, or out of our own soul by the healing loving act, the
sacrificial act, and we then heal with the soul-forces obtained from
love. We unite ourselves with what is most deeply justified upon the
earth, when, on the one hand, we unite ourselves with light and on the
other with love. All earth conditions are in some way conditions of
balance between light and love and everything unhealthy is a
disturbance of that balance. If the disturbance is in love, we can
then help by unfolding the forces of love; and if the disturbance is
in light, we can then help by somehow providing for ourselves, out of
the universe, that light which is able to dissolve the darkness within
us.
These are the fundamental ways of help, and we see again how
everything depends upon the balance of opposites. Light and love are
polar opposites and on their being interwoven depend ultimately all
the psychic and material processes of our life. Therefore in all the
spheres of human life, evolution continues from epoch to epoch with
the balance inclining first to one side and then swinging back to the
other, so that evolution resembles the surging of waves. This motion
of an unstable equilibrium throws light even on the most complex
processes of civilisation. Take a period when certain injuries entered
into the evolution of mankind because man contemplated only [the] inner and
neglected the outer, for example, in the Middle Ages. It was then that
through the blossoming of the mystical side, the external remained
unheeded and errors occurred not only in knowledge but in action. Then
followed the age that was repelled by mysticism, and was attracted by
the outer world so as to make the pendulum swing to the opposite side.
Here is the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times and many
such disturbances of the balance, manifest in different ways.
In this connection I should like to note that just in such times as
our own, a characteristic in many people is that they completely
forget, and pay no attention to, that which one may call the
consciousness of a super-sensible world. They pay no attention
whatever to the fact that there is a spiritual world, and they
therefore turn away their thoughts from it. In such an age or
in all such ages there is always in certain respects a
counterpart to be found. I should like to show you this in a very
simple manner.
When there are people upon the physical plane who are so absorbed in
the physical that they completely forget the spiritual, then a
contrary tendency appears among those souls who are living in the
spiritual world between death and a new birth a tendency which
works over from the physical into the spiritual plane impelling
them to occupy themselves with the influences which act out of the
spiritual world into the physical. It is this which brings about in
the physical world the intervention by souls who are still in that
state before birth. These souls work down into the physical world
according to the means which offer and they are able to work
indirectly through persons who are more sensitive to such influence
from the spiritual world. In order to make this clearer, one must not
accept everything that purports to be a revelation from a Spiritual
world. We must distinguish the real characteristic cases in which the
dead are anxious show in a palpable manner that there is indeed a
spiritual world. Because there are so many people completely in the
dark, who have woven so much darkness into themselves that they wish
to know nothing about the spiritual world, there are, on the other
hand, among the dead many who have the impulse to work into the
physical world. Such things generally occur when nothing is done
deliberately to bring them about on the physical plane and they occur
without special preparation.
You will find much proof of these things collected in the book by our
friend, Ludwig Deinhard, Das Mysterium des Menschen (The Mystery of
Man). Here much has been collected and systematised which is just
what one needs, and which in the scientific literature of to-day is so
scattered that it is impossible for everyone to gather it together.
Therefore it is a good thing to have in this book a collection of these
spiritual facts, which, as you now see, are eminently characteristic
of one aspect of our age. You will find very aptly described in this
book the characteristic fact of an investigator, who by materialistic
methods had in his earth life endeavoured to give every possible proof
of the spiritual world I mean the late Frederick Myers
and who after his death was strongly impelled to show to mankind by
means of radiations from the spiritual world and by the help of the
spiritual world, what he had endeavoured to do when here.
This is intended to illustrate how in the world and in world affairs
we see continual disturbances of the balance, and then again the
efforts for the restoring of the balance.
This continual disturbance and restoration of the balance between the
two elements of light and love is fundamental for us; and in human
karma, from incarnation to incarnation, both work to restore the
disturbed condition. Karma, working its serpentine way through
incarnations is just such a disturbed balance, until man, after all
his incarnations, shall at last create the final balance which can be
reached upon earth. Having fulfilled his mission on earth, he evolves
then into a new planetary form.
I have endeavoured to set forth a few facts, without which a deeper
establishment of karmic connections and laws would be impossible. I
have not shrunk from touching to-day upon those mysteries for which
our modern science will not for a long time be ripe: Matter is in
reality woven light, and that which belongs to the soul is in some way
or other refined love. These are ancient occult sayings, but they are
sayings which will for all time remain true and will prove fruitful
for human evolution, not only for knowledge, but also for human work
and action.
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