VI
Life Between Death and Rebirth
Munich, November 28, 1912
The
lecture given the day before yesterday on the conditions between
death and a new birth shows how closely the whole being of man is
connected with the universal life in the cosmos. It is really only
during his earthly life that the human being is fixed to one place,
occupies a small space, whereas during the period between death and a
new birth he is part of the planetary system and, at a later period
after death, even of the world beyond the planetary system. In his
development between birth and death the human being is the expression
of a microcosmic image of the macrocosm, so between death and a new
birth he is macrocosmic; he is poured out into the macrocosm. He is a
macrocosmic being, and he must draw forth from the macrocosm the
forces he needs for his next incarnation.
During the first period after death man still bears the shells of
earthly life around him. He is connected with what earthly life gave
him and was able to make of him. This period is especially close to
the needs and the interests of the heart. Occult vision observes
someone who has left the physical plane a comparatively short time
ago in the sphere of kamaloca, which extends in the macrocosmic sense
to the orbit of the Moon. Man's soul and spirit expand in such
a way that he dwells in the whole Moon sphere. During this period he
is still entirely bound up with the earthly world. The wishes,
desires, interests, sympathies, antipathies he has developed formerly
draw him back to the earthly world. During the kamaloca period he is
enclosed within the atmosphere of his own astral nature acquired on
the earth. He still wishes to have what he wished to have on earth.
He is interested in the things that interested him on earth. The
reason for this kamaloca period is that he may put away these
interests, and inasmuch as they are dependent on physical organs, and
this is true of all sense enjoyment, they cannot be satisfied.
Gradually he is weaned from them precisely because they cannot be
satisfied. It will be understood that this refers to the
individuality of man in the narrowest sense, to that part of the
astrality of a human being that has to be extirpated, removed.
In yet another respect man bears his earthly connections with him
into kamaloca, for the beings or events that he will encounter there
are dependent upon the nature of his inner life, the disposition of
his soul. For instance, let us consider a man who goes through the
gate of death and another to whom he had a close relationship who
passed somewhat earlier through the gate of death. Both are in
kamaloca and they may find one another. Occult investigation shows
that man is not only concerned with his own development — the
process of getting rid of his desires and interests, for instance —
but soon after death, following a brief embryonic period of sleep, he
is reunited with those individuals to whom he was closely connected
on earth. Yet, generally speaking, there is little prospect that a
man finds all those who are with him in kamaloca. Space and time
relationships, and especially those of space, are quite different
there. It is not that one does not approach such beings. A man may
come close to them but may not notice them because perception there
is born out of the closeness of a connection in life. So, shortly
after death in the kamaloca period, a man finds himself in the
environment of those with whom he was closely related in life, and
thus in the beginning hardly any other beings come into
consideration. The relationships after death are still in accordance
with what we formerly have developed. In kamaloca we are related to
others in exactly the same way as we were on earth except that we
cannot do what is still possible here, that is, change the
relationship. It remains as it was on the earth. Here we can develop
hatred for someone we once loved, or love for one whom we once hated.
We can endeavor to transform our relationship. This is not possible
in kamaloca.
Suppose we come across a person who died before us. At first we feel
related to him in a way that corresponds to the last relationship we
had with him on earth. Then, as you know, we live backwards in time.
If formerly we had a different relationship, this cannot be produced
artificially. We must live backwards quietly and reach the
corresponding period of time when we can again experience the
relationship we formerly had with him. This again cannot be changed.
It expresses itself as it did on earth. One can readily imagine that
this is an exceedingly painful experience, and this is true in a
certain sense. It is just as if one wished to move, but were chained
to the ground. One feels spiritually bound to a relationship that was
established on earth. One literally feels in a state of coercion.
Naturally, if this condition of coercion is sufficiently intense, the
relationship will be painful. Now in order to understand this
condition rightly and sense it from the heart, we should not merely
imagine it to be painful. In many respects it is so but the dead one
is not conscious only of the painful aspect. He is definitely aware
that this condition is necessary, and that to avoid such pain would
merely mean to create future obstacles in one's path.
What happens as a result of this process? Imagine that after death we
are experiencing the relationship we had formed with another person
in life. Through the fixed gaze of our perception, through the
experience of the relation, forces are formed in our soul, at first
in their spiritual prototypes. These are needed so that our karma
might lead us rightly into the future, so that we may find ourselves
together with the other person in a next incarnation in such a way
that the karmic adjustment may come about. The forces necessary for
this karmic adjustment are welded together technically, as it were.
To begin with, the dead one can hardly bring about any change in his
environment, and yet the instinctive longing to do so does arise at
times. Unfulfilled wishes acquire great significance for him but
mostly those that do not always come to the surface of consciousness
in life. In this connection it is exceedingly important to pay
attention to the following. In our everyday life on the physical
plane we are conscious of our sympathies and make mental
representations of them, too, but below this lies the
subconsciousness. This does not rise powerfully into our upper
consciousness, into the true ego-consciousness. As a result,
something incomplete rises into the consciousness of the human being.
Indeed, he hardly ever lives himself out fully as a conscious being
in life. Our soul life is exceedingly complex. Man is seldom truly
himself. It may happen that out of prejudice, indolence or for some
other reason, a man in his ordinary consciousness strongly dislikes
or even hates something, while in his subconsciousness there is a
powerful longing for the very thing he hates in his upper
consciousness. Moreover, the soul frequently tries to delude itself
about such matters.
Let us take an example. Two people are living together. One of them
comes to anthroposophy and is enthusiastic about it, the other does
not share this enthusiasm. In fact, the more the former becomes
interested in anthroposophy, the more the latter rages against
spiritual science and slanders it. Now the following is possible, for
human soul life is complicated. The one who slandered anthroposophy
would have become an anthroposophist himself at some time if his
friend or the person related to him had not become an
anthroposophist. The one who is living with him is the hindrance to
his becoming an anthroposophist. This certainly can happen. The one
who slanders anthroposophy, bringing forward all manner of things
against it in his ego-consciousness, may have the most intense
longing for it in his subconsciousness or astral consciousness.
Indeed, the more he slanders spiritual science the stronger is his
wish for it. It may well occur that a man slanders those things in
his upper consciousness that appear all the more strongly in his
subconsciousness.
Death, however, transforms untruths into truths. Thus one can observe
that human beings passing through the gate of death who out of
indolence or for similar reasons have slandered spiritual science,
and this is applicable to many other things, experience after death a
profound longing of which they were unaware during life. So it can be
observed that human beings pass through the gate of death who
apparently showed no wish for some particular thing, and in whom,
nevertheless, after death a most intense desire for it arises. During
our trials in the kamaloca period it is therefore immaterial whether
our wishes, desires and passions are present in our upper
ego-consciousness or whether they dwell in our astral
subconsciousness. Both work as burning factors after death, but those
wishes and desires we have concealed during life are even more active
after death.
It should be borne in mind that by the very nature of the soul
everything connected with it will, under all circumstances, make an
impression on it. The following has been carefully investigated and
it is good if we take an example in connection with anthroposophy.
Suppose two people are living together on earth. One of them is a
zealous anthroposophist, the other does not wish to hear anything
about spiritual science. Now because spiritual science is in his
environment, the latter does not remain uninfluenced by it in his
astral body. Things of considerable significance and of which we are
not aware are constantly happening to our souls. They work in a
spiritual way and there are influences that transform our soul life.
So we find hardly anyone who has lived in the environment of an
anthroposophist, however obstinate his opposition, who in his
subconscious does not show a leaning towards spiritual science. It is
precisely among the opponents of anthroposophy that one finds after
death a sphere of wishes in which a passionate longing for spiritual
science is manifest. This is why a practice that has become customary
among us has proved to be so beneficial for the dead, that is, to
read to those who during their lives were unwilling to receive much
anthroposophy. This proves to be extraordinarily beneficial for the
souls concerned. This should be done by vividly picturing the face of
the person who has died as he was during the last period of his life
on earth. Then one takes a book and quietly goes through it sentence
by sentence with one's thoughts directed towards the dead
person as if he were sitting in front of one. He will receive this
eagerly and gain much from it.
Here we reach a point where anthroposophy enters into life in a
practical way. Here materialism and spirituality do not merely
confront one another as theories but as actual forces. In fact, by
means of spirituality bridges of communication are created between
people irrespective of whether they are living or dead. Out of an
active spiritual life we can help the dead in this and many other
ways of which we shall speak when the opportunity arises.
If we do not stand within the spiritual life, however, the result is
not only a lack of knowledge. It also means that we dwell within a
limited space of existence encompassed only by the physical world. A
materialistically minded person at once loses the connection with one
who has passed through the gate of death. This shows how very
important it is for the one world to work into the other. If, for
instance, the dead person, who has an intense longing to learn
something of spiritual wisdom, must forego this wish, it will remain
a burden to him. At most, it might be possible, although even in
kamaloca this is hardly likely, that he would encounter another soul
who has died and with whom he has had such a connection on earth that
by the mere nature of the relationship he would find some limited
satisfaction. In fact it hardly comes into the picture as compared
with the considerable service and the acts of charity that the living
can perform for the dead.
Consider the situation of the dead one. He has some intense wish. In
the period after death this wish cannot be satisfied because what we
bear in our soul is unchangeably rigidified, but from the earth a
stream can flow into this otherwise fixed longing. That is actually
the only way in which the things that play into our soul can be
altered. Therefore, during the first period after death, for the
experience of the dead person much depends on the kind of spiritual
understanding that is unfolding by the living who were closely
related to him.
By acting in accordance with what may be learned through spiritual
science, relationships of quite a different kind can be formed in
life, relationships that work over from the one world into the other.
In this connection there has not yet been much progress, particularly
in making anthroposophy into a life force. So much has to be done
still in developing anthroposophy so that real powers arise. It is
therefore good to make oneself familiar with the truths of spiritual
science and then to direct one's whole way of life in
accordance with them. If anthroposophy were understood in this deeper
sense, it would pulsate like life blood and there would be less
discussion and strife in the world about spiritual theories. We
should remember that not only our existence on earth but the whole
life of mankind is transformed through spiritual science. Once
anthroposophy becomes, by way of an understanding of the ideas, more
a matter of the heart, men will act and behave in the
anthroposophical spirit, to use trivial words. Then such
interrelationships will arise more and more often.
We must now broach a matter that is not so easily acceptable,
although it can be grasped if one gives thought to it. Man's
knowledge on the physical plane is extraordinarily misleading. It is
really most deceptive because on the physical plane he knows no more
than the facts and connections that he observes. Whereas for the
ordinary scientists of the materialistically minded this is the
be-all and end-all of what he terms reality, it constitutes the
merest trifle of soul life.
Let me give you an apparently paradoxical example. No doubt we
remember Schopenhauer's words that truth must blush because it
is paradoxical. Man is aware of facts and combines them
intellectually. He knows, for example that it is half past seven. He
goes out of his house and crosses the street. At eight o'clock
he has arrived somewhere. He knows this by means of sense perception,
through intellectual combination, but in most cases he does not
realize why he did not leave his house two or three minutes later
than intended. Few people will bother to consider such a fact as
leaving a few minutes earlier or later. Nevertheless, this may be of
significance.
I will take the grotesque example, but examples of this kind in
miniature are constantly happening in life, of a man being three
minutes late. Had he left his house punctually he would have been run
over and killed, and he was not killed because he was three minutes
late. It is unlikely that events will happen in this grotesque
manner, and yet they are occurring all the time in such a way more or
less, but people are not aware of them. The man started out three
minutes late, and just as it is true that he would be dead had he
left his house punctually at eight o'clock, it is true that he
is now alive. His karma saved him from death because he started three
minutes late. Now this may appear unimportant, but it is not so. In
fact, a person is only indifferent to such an event to the extent
that he is unaware of the true reality. If he knew, he would no
longer be indifferent.
If you were aware of the fact that had you left punctually you would
be dead then it would not be a matter of indifference to you. It
would actually make a deep impression on you and a profound influence
would radiate into your soul as a result of this awareness. You need
only recall the significance of such an event for our soul life when
such an event actually happens. But is this not tantamount to saying
we are constantly going through life with firmly closed eyes? This is
in fact true.
A man knows what is occurring externally but he is not aware of what
would have happened to him had things gone just a little differently.
That means that knowledge of the different possibilities is withheld
from his soul. The soul lives indifferently, whereas the knowledge of
the various possibilities would shatter or uplift our inner
consciousness. Man knows the merest trifle about existing
connections. He only knows what emerges from the circumstances. As a
result, the life of soul is poor, and what would otherwise be
expressed fails to be so. One perhaps would not make such a seemingly
paradoxical statement if it were not for the fact that one runs one's
head up against it in investigating life after death. Among the many
things that arise in the soul we must include what has just been
described. After death many things appear vividly before the soul of
which it had no inkling that at such a moment you were in danger of
your life ... at such and such a time you threw away your happiness
... here you were lazy, and had you not been so easy-going you might
have been able to do some good. A host of things that one has not
experienced confronts one after death. What appears ludicrous
actually becomes reality after death. A whole world of which one is
not aware in life then comes to expression.
Are not the things of which we have been speaking really there? Let
us again take the example in which we started out three minutes later
than intended, and that we thereby have avoided death. We are unaware
of this. To the materialist the fact of not knowing something is
regarded as unimportant. An intelligent person does not attach undue
importance to the fact that he knows or does not know something
because he realizes that things are simply there whether he be aware of
them or not. The play and opposition of forces was there and so were
we. All the preparatory conditions for our death were present. Forces
were working towards one another. They passed on another by, and yet
they approached one another. There are many such cases in life.
Something is actually there. We do not perceive it, but it is around
us nevertheless.
If in our present cycle of evolution people continually acquire an
understanding for the spiritual world, things that cannot exist for
sense perception but are nevertheless in our environment will work
upon us in a definite way. This leads us to an extraordinarily
interesting fact. Suppose that events happen as they have been
described, and that we avoid death because we left three minutes
late. This will make no impression whatsoever on the materialist. But
in the man who gradually unfolds an understanding in his heart for
such connections there will be a change. Remember that the
development of anthroposophy is only just beginning. If he has
understood and lived in anthroposophy, not merely acquired an
external understanding of it but really lived in it with his heart
and mind, then his experience will be different. He may start three
minutes late, thereby avoiding death, but at the moment when death
would have struck had the circumstances been different, he will sense
something within him that will manifest as a feeling for the various
possibilities. This will be the result as anthroposophy becomes the
life blood of the soul.
What will happen when we gradually unfold such feelings, when human
nature directs itself according to spiritual-scientific
understanding? Moments in which something might have happened to us
lift us for a short time into a kind of temporary mediumistic
condition during which we are able to let the spiritual world shine
into our consciousness. Such moments may be exceedingly fruitful when
a person is to know consciously something of the working of the dead
on him. Moments when events that have not happened are experienced in
the way described awaken impressions out of the spiritual world. The
whole strange realm of a world of subtle sensing will unfold in those
who draw near to anthroposophy.
Humanity is evolving, and only an obtuse person would maintain that
the human race has always been endowed with the same soul forces.
Soul powers change, and although it is true to say that today man is
primarily equipped for external perception upon which he works with
his thinking, it is equally true that through experiences of the kind
that have been described he will evolve into a period when
soul-spiritual forces will develop. In this respect, too, we have the
prospect of spiritual science becoming a real force intervening
creatively in life. Earlier we considered how influences from the
physical plane can be exerted on the life after death, and now we
have seen where doors or windows can be created so that the
experiences of the dead can be perceived here in earthly life. I also
wanted to give you an idea of how opportunities arise to establish
communication between the two worlds.
Among the many things that can be said about the life between death
and rebirth, and we shall get to know them as time goes on, let me
just mention this one today. During the life between death and a new
birth we find that essentially three forces — of thinking, of
feeling and of will or wish — come to expression in the soul.
The forces of thinking or of the intellect express themselves in such
a way that our consciousness is either clear or vague; for forces of
feeling in that we are more or less compassionate or hardhearted,
more or less religious or irreligious in our attitude; the forces of
volition and wish in that our deeds are more or less egotistical.
Thus these three kinds of forces assert themselves. These soul forces
each have a different significance for the life after death.
Let us first consider the intellectual forces. How do they assist us
after death? They help to render our conscious experience of the
period between death and a new birth particularly clear. In fact, the
more we endeavor to think clearly and truly during our physical
existence, the greater our efforts to acquire a true knowledge of
spiritual realities, the brighter and clearer will be our
consciousness between death and a new birth. I will speak quite
concretely here. A man, for example, who is untrue in his
intellectual qualities, who lacks interest in acquiring real
knowledge of the conditions obtaining in the spiritual world, will
find that, although a consciousness develops, slowly it will become
dim. Strange as it may seem, this dimming of consciousness after
death causes us to pass through a certain period more rapidly. We
pass the more quickly through the spiritual world the more asleep we
are. If, therefore, a man is obtuse in his intellect, although he
will retain his consciousness for a time, he will not be able to
maintain it beyond a certain point. His obtuseness will bring about a
twilight condition, and from then onward his life in the spiritual
world will pass rapidly and he will return comparatively soon to a
physical body.
It is different with the forces of will and wish. They help us to
draw forth from the macrocosmic environment between death and rebirth
strong or weak forces that are needed for building up our next
earthly existence. A man who enters into these macrocosmic conditions
with an immoral attitude of soul will not be able to attract the
forces essential to a proper building up of the astral and etheric
bodies, which will then be stultified. This produces weaklings or the
like. Thus it is morality that makes us capable of drawing the forces
from the higher worlds that we need for the following incarnation.
Intellectuality and morality are closely connected with what the
human becomes as a result of his sojourn in the super-sensible world
between death and rebirth.
The forces of the heart and of feeling, the innermost forces in the
human soul, come before us objectively in the corresponding period
between death and a new birth. They are outside us. This is
significant. One who is capable of love and compassion lives through
his life between death and a new birth surrounded by pictures that
promote life and happiness corresponding to the measure of his
compassion. These come before the soul as his environment. Pictures
of hatred appear to the one who has hated.
At a certain stage of the period between death and a new birth we
behold as an outer cosmic painting what we are in our innermost
being. There is no better painter than these forces, and the
firmament after death is filled with what we truly are in heart and
mind. We behold this innermost tableau just as here on earth we
behold the firmament of the heavens. Thus we have a firmament between
death and a new birth, and it remains with us. It is conditioned by
whether we have received the Mystery of Golgotha into the innermost
depths of our soul in the sense referred to previously as expressed
in the words of St. Paul, “Not I but the Christ in me.”
If we experience the Christ within us, then we have the possibility
during our Sun existence to experience in the surrounding Akasha
picture-world the Christ in His most wondrous form, in His manifested
glory, as the element in which we live and dwell. This thought need
not merely have an egotistical significance. It may also be of
objective significance because in our further existence this
outspread picture is again taken into the soul and is brought down
into our next incarnation. As a result, we do not only make ourselves
into better human beings, but also into a better force in the
evolution of the earth.
So the efforts we make to transform our heart forces are intimately
connected with our faculties in the next life, and we see the
technique that is at work in transforming our heart forces into a
great cosmic panorama, a cosmic firmament between death and a new
birth that is then again incorporated into our being, giving us
stronger forces than previously. Thus an all-around strengthening
process is the result of the fact that we behold in the period
between death and a new birth what has been experienced inwardly in
life.
We have once again considered matters of considerable importance in
relating to the conditions of existence between death and a new
birth. They are significant because on earth we are in fact nothing
else than what life between death and a new birth has made of us.
Furthermore, if we ignore them, we shall be less and less able to
gain a true knowledge of our own being. If we ignore the conditions
of existence between death and a new birth, we shall be incapable of
true action and thinking in times to come. These studies are part of
wider matters that can be mentioned in relation to the life between
death and a new birth. I wished to make a beginning with a content
that is to become more and more the substance of spiritual
science.
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