VI. THE STARRY HEAVEN ABOVE ME THE MORAL LAW WITHIN ME
The last lecture given in Neuchatel in the year 1912 was to have been supplemented by that given the following day in St. Gallen, a full report of which is, unfortunately, not available. All that exists is in the form of notes and headings, so scattered and sparse that one is almost afraid to reproduce them. Yet their importance for the explanation of how the karma of man plays between his microcosmic and macrocosmic being is such that they are made accessible in order that the discerning render may lose nothing.
Theosophy teaches us that the processes in operation between death and
a new birth are connected with the conditions prevailing in the
Cosmos. A very significant difference has here to be considered.
Changes may take place within us during physical existence, but not,
in the same sense, during the period between death and a new birth.
Suppose, for example, between birth and death we have been related in
some way to a human being, or have shared experiences with a friend.
And now, after his death, we have learnt from him something that was
not a common experience between us on the Earth. How is a
relationship established after death? How can our feelings towards him
give expression to sympathy or antipathy? When we ourselves have
passed through the gate of death and are followed, later on, by
someone with whom we had a certain relationship in physical life, this
must necessarily remain unchanged for a long time after death; for
after death we cannot add anything new to the old relationship. After
passing into the spiritual world we are still subject to our own,
individual karma. The time when this karma can be transformed comes
only in a new life and can only be adjusted or fully discharged in a
new incarnation. An individual among the Dead cannot, in spiritual
existence, work upon the other Dead in such a way as to change their
life. But it is possible for a man still living on the Earth to have
an effect upon one who has passed through death. Take the following
case as an example. Two human beings who love one another have
different attitudes to Theosophy: one of them loves and the other
hates it; hence there is a spirit of opposition between them.
If the human being is able to speak of the freedom of his will, this
is because the I-consciousness takes far deeper paths than
does the astral consciousness; in the depths of soul, therefore, a man
often yearns for what, in his conscious life, he hates. How can we be
of help to one of the Dead? We must be united with him by a spiritual
bond. We can help, for example, by quietly reading to him; uniting
ourselves with him inwardly and lovingly, we can take him with us
through a sequence of thoughts, we can send ideas and imaginations up
to him in the higher worlds. Such services of friendship are always
helpful. Reading in this way is of benefit, although in earthly life
the man may have been too indifferent, too easy-going; we can lighten
his sufferings even when there was no evidence in his life that he
longed for these things. Much blessing is often sent from the physical
plane into the spiritual worlds, in spite of the great gulf which
separates the life between birth and death from the life between death
and a new birth. Many living people will feel that they are intimately
connected with the Dead; they will also be conscious that they help
the Dead. The first souls with whom we come into contact after death
are those with whom we had already formed close ties on the Earth, not
those who were unknown to us on Earth. A direct continuation of the
earthly life takes place after death. The soul is inside
whatever it perceives, fills it through and through.
During the period of Kamaloca, the ether-form of man expands as far as
the orbit of the Moon. All human beings occupy the same space; they
are not in each other's way during the Kamaloca-period.
After this period of Moon-existence we inhabit the Mercury sphere;
then the Venus-sphere, then the Sun-sphere; here we live within a
sphere of higher spirituality, for the astral elements of the
Moon-sphere have been overcome. Life in each of the planetary spheres
depends upon the mood and quality of soul acquired during the
Moon-period; the life of those who have unfolded the quality of moral
fellow-feeling differs from the life of those who are egoists. The
former open themselves to humanity. Above all we shall be able to form
a connection with those with whom we were together in earthly life.
The nature of these relationships will depend upon whether we have
been a comfort or a source of trouble to the others. A man of inferior
morality will become a spiritual hermit; a truly moral man, on the
contrary, a sociable inhabitant of the Mercury-sphere.
During the following Venus condition, we expand to the outermost
circumference of the Venus-sphere. A man who in earthly life had no
religious feelings, who had received into himself nothing of the
Eternal, the Divine, who during the Mercury-period had no bonds with
other human souls, will become a hermit even during the Venus-period;
but there too he is a sociable being if, during the Mercury-period he
was together with other kindred spirits and warm mutual relationships
existed between them. Atheists become hermits in the Venus-period;
monists are condemned to live in the prison-house of their own souls,
so that the one is shut off from the other. A hermit has a dull,
torpid kind of consciousness from which other human souls are
excluded. A sociable being has a bright, clear consciousness which,
finds its way into the other being. Man ascends higher and higher into
the world of the stars; but the more dimly he lives through these
regions, the more rapidly he skims through the ages and therefore
returns the more quickly to reincarnation this applies, for
example, to those who were criminals or idiots in their previous
existence. On the other hand, the clearer consciousness has been in
the world of the stars, the more slowly does the soul return to
incarnation. Man must have been fully conscious out in the Cosmos if
he is to be capable of building and shaping the physical brain of his
subsequent life. The condition of existence in which he becomes
an inhabitant of the Sun-sphere sets in about a century after death.
During this Sun-period it is possible to acquire a certain
relationship to all human beings. If a man has consciously received
the Christ Impulse, the way to all other human beings is open for him.
Since the Mystery of Golgotha, union can be achieved with the Christ
Impulse, the supreme spiritual Power. But a man who has not received
the Christ Impulse remains a hermit, even in the Sun-sphere.
When a human being with his aura is revealed to the clairvoyant during
the Moon-period of existence, a seed or kernel, enclosed in a kind of
auric cloud, is perceived within the vast ether-body. This aura is
dark and remains so, even during the Mercury-period. During the
Venus-period, one side of the auric cloud lights up; and if, as
clairvoyants, we then observe the human being, we perceive that if he
was a moral, religious man, he is able, from that time onwards, to
have real contact with the Beings of the higher Hierarchies. If he was
a good and righteous man he lives in spiritual contact with higher
Beings during the Venus-period; if he was an unrighteous man he cannot
know or recognise these higher Beings and is thus condemned to the
pain of isolation.
Before the Mystery of Golgotha, in the first epoch of post-Atlantean
culture, conditions were such that the Throne of Christ was to be seen
upon the Sun. Those who had been good and righteous in their lives
found their way to the Christ on the plane of Sun-existence. In the
age of Zarathustra, the Christ was already on His way to the Earth and
could not be found on the Sun. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ
has been united with the Earth. If, on the Earth, men have not
received the Christ Impulse, they cannot find Christ between death and
a new birth. When a man has become a Sun-dweller and has taken the
Christ Impulse into himself, a multitude of facts, known as the Akasha
Chronicle of the Sun, lie open before him. If, on the Earth, he had
not found Christ, he cannot read the Akasha Chronicle on the Sun. We
can learn to read this great script if, on the Earth, we have accepted
the Mystery of Golgotha with warmth of heart and then, on the
Sun, we are able to perceive the Deeds of Christ on the Sun through
the millennia. Existence today is such that we are strong enough to
become Sun-dwellers. Later on we enter the sphere of Mars, then
the spheres of Jupiter and Saturn and then, finally, the world of the
fixed stars. On the path of return to the Earth, the ether-body of man
shrinks and shrinks in size until it is so tiny that he can
incarnate again in a new human germ-cell.
Up to the period of Sun-existence, we stand under the leadership of
Christ. From the Sun-existence onwards we need a Leader whose task it
is to guide us to the further realms of cosmic space. Lucifer now
comes to our side. If we have fallen prey to him on the physical
plane, it is bad for us; but if on the Earth we have lightly
understood the Christ Impulse, then we are strong enough on the Sun to
follow even Lucifer without danger. From then onwards he has charge of
the inner progress of the soul, just as on this side of the Sun,
Christ has had charge of our ascent. If on the Earth we have received
the Christ Impulse, Christ is the Keeper of the soul on the path to
the Sun. Beyond the periphery of the Sun-sphere, Lucifer leads us out
into the Cosmos within the periphery of the Sun, he is the
Tempter.
If during the Sun-period we have been armed with the Christ Impulse,
Christ and Lucifer guide us as Brothers. Yet how differently words
spoken by Christ and by Lucifer are to be understood! As a wonderful
precept there are the words of Christ: In you lives the spark of
the Divine, ye are Gods.
(John 10:34).
And then, Lucifer's words of temptation:
Ye shall be as Gods.
(Genesis 3:5)
These are similar utterances but, at the same time, in dire
antithesis! Everything depends upon whether here, on the Earth, man
stands at the side of Christ or at the side of Lucifer.
Theosophy gives us a deep and profound understanding of the world. A
certain knowledge must come to us in the physical body. On the Earth
we must acquire understanding of Christ and Lucifer through Theosophy
otherwise we cannot pass with consciousness into cosmic space.
The time is now beginning on the Earth when men must know quite
consciously whether it is Christ or Lucifer who, after death, whispers
these words into the soul. In the life between death and a new birth
we must unfold a true understanding of Christ in order that we shall
not be condemned to wander through the Cosmos in a state of sleep.
Theosophy must be an influence, too, in little things. More and more
it will become apparent whether, or not, forces of life have been
acquired between death and a new birth. There will be human beings
born with dried up, withered bodies, because owing to their antagonism
to Theosophy they have been unable to gather life-forces from the
Cosmos. Understanding of Theosophy is necessary for the sake of
Earth-evolution itself! If men have opened their souls to Theosophy,
the knowledge that before this life they were in a spiritual world,
will bring them happiness. The starry heavens above me the moral
law within me this realisation alone gives the world its
greatness. Man says to himself: In the world of the stars I
received the essence and content of my inner life; what I lived
through in the cosmic expanse flashes up now within my soul. The
existence of evil impulses in my soul is due to the fact that during
my sojourn in the world of the stars I did not try to receive its
forces or the Spirit-Power of Christ. We have, indeed, yet to
learn how to achieve union with the Macrocosm. Today the human being
can have only a dim premonition of what happens between death and a
new birth. He feels: In earthly existence I live within my soul and
bear in my Spirit the forces of the starry heavens. If a man meditates
deeply on this concept it will become a great and might power within
him.
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