ON THE FORMING OF DESTINY
Berlin, 18th November, 1915.
My first sad and heavy duty is to acquaint you with the fact that our
dear friend, the leader of the Munich Lodge, Fraulein Stinde, now
belongs to those whom we have to reckon to-day as the
Sphere-Beings. She left this physical plane yesterday
evening. It is not possible just now to speak about this extremely
severe and significant loss to our society. As a beginning to our
consideration for to-day I will merely say these few words concerning
this event, which is so painful and important to us.
Fraulein Stinde belongs to those who are certainly known to the
greater number of our friends. She belongs to those who have grasped
our matters in the deepest depths of their hearts and have completely
identified themselves with them. In her house (and that of her friend
the Grafin Kalckreuth) I was able as early as 1903 to give the first
intimate lectures in our sphere, which I had to give in Munich. And
one may say that from this first occasion when Fraulein Stinde
approached us, she united with our aims not only her whole personality
but the whole power of her work, so valuable, so excellent and
influential. She forsook the artistic calling which was previously so
dear to her, in order to put herself and her powers entirely at the
service of our work, and since then she has worked intensely for this,
in a rare, objective, quite impersonal manner, both in narrower and
wider circles. She was the soul of our whole work in Munich. And she
was one of those souls, of whom one could say, that through the inner
qualities of her being she gave the very best guarantee that in Munich
itself, our aims would be able to develop in the best possible manner.
You know what an immense task was laid on all those persons helping in
Munich in those early years, through the performances of the Mystery
Plays and everything connected with them. Fraulein Stinde and her
friend Grafin Kalckreuth gave themselves up absolutely to this work,
and above all, it may be said, with the understanding created by the
profound nature of their studies, and by the will which may itself be
born of this. I may perhaps point out that the intense labour which
Fraulein Stinde accomplished, really very considerably exhausted her
life-strength in later years. It must be admitted that the valuable
life-force which was perhaps too rapidly used up of late, was devoted
to our cause in the most beautiful and deeply satisfactory manner.
Probably no one among those who knew her most intimately, could help
feeling that this personality was one of our very best workers. It is
true many of the activities of Fraulein Stinde have been
misunderstood, and it is to be hoped that the sun-like force that
proceeded from her personality will presently be recognised, even by
those of our friends and followers who through prejudice have
misunderstood her work. And those of our wider circle who could
observe all she did for our cause, will, in common with those more
closely connected with her, preserve the most faithful recollection of
her. We are sure that in her case we may quite specially emphasise the
mantram which must often be uttered during these days in connection
with the departure of many of our friends from the physical plane. It
may be especially emphasised with reference to Fraulein Stinde, that
amidst the many attacks and oppositions which our cause encounters in
the world, we reckon on the help of those in the spiritual-world
we reckon on those who have only changed the form of their
existence, and who, in spite of their passage through the gate of
death, are still truly united with us in soul, and are most
significant and important co-workers. The many veils which surround
those still incarnate in the physical body, gradually fall away, and
the souls of these dear departed friends of this we are sure
work in our midst, and we specially need their help. We need
the help of those no longer assailed from the physical plane, those
who have no longer to consider the limits of the physical plane. If we
have the deep and earnest belief in the success of our cause in the
civilisation of the world, it is because we have the full
consciousness that those who formerly belonged to us, are still our
best forces, that they work among us from the spiritual world with
spiritual means. The trust in our cause that we require, will often be
strengthened by the knowledge that we must thank our departed friends
for being in our midst in order that, by uniting our forces with
theirs, we can accomplish the labour which is laid upon us for the
spiritual civilisation of the world. I should now like to continue the
considerations which we began to develop in our last lecture. Such
times as our own, in which the enigma of death approaches the human
soul in so many different forms and on this we laid stress in
our last lecture urges us quite specially to investigate what
man is certainly able to acquire regarding the spiritual world. Times
like our own, in which humanity is exposed to such severe trials, are
destined for the very purpose of leading the human soul to inquire as
to the beings of the spiritual world. For who does not see at each
step in what is happening to-day and is happening in the
greater part of the civilised world who does not see at almost
every stage the great riddle of Life confronting him? And who does not
feel that great connections lie concealed behind such events as those
occurring around us to-day and which, as they occur, convulse the
souls and hearts of men with pain and sorrow, though fill them also
with hope and confidence? Certainly, he who beholds the events of the
world with but a short-sighted vision, will judge such far-reaching
events by those which immediately precede and follow them. But one who
externally, without entering into esoteric considerations, regards the
course of cosmic events and compares earlier times with the present,
will become conscious of how very much may be connected first with
that, let us say, which in quite a different manner, runs its course
later on in the Cosmos, as effect. Consider there are now many people
who say: The present events of the war are merely the results of
external political opposition among the various nations and
peoples. Certainly, that is true, and there is no question of
bringing forward anything in objection to the truth of such a
conception in a limited sense; but, if we consider, for example, the
wars which were waged in the beginning of the Middle Ages between the
Central European peoples and those of South Europe and above all the
peoples belonging to the Roman Empire, we must say that the wars which
took place then in political strife also proceeded from the
opposition, the political opposition which then existed; they had
their causes in those oppositions in their immediate vicinity. These
battles have now run their course. They have evoked certain
configurations in the entire life of Europe. If we investigate but a
little into history and consider what happened at that time through
the battles of the Central European peoples with, let us say, the
peoples of the Roman Empire, we shall come to the conclusion that out
of the earlier configuration of the European World there has arisen a
later one. But if we wish to estimate correctly the real point at
issue, we must consider all the historical results. For these
historical results which have occurred in Europe could not have arisen
as they have, if those battles had ended the other way. And what was
the consequence of this European History? The whole manner in which
Christianity spread and grew in Europe is the result of it! And if we
consider these deep connections we can say: In all that happened in
the following centuries, the facts lie thus: the events of these
centuries are karmically connected with their causes, the battles of
those times. That means that the events to which we have alluded, are
connected with the whole later configuration of the European World
even in its spiritual relations. Just consider that in all its
gravity, and you will admit that Christianity then spread in Europe
and so fashioned itself, that through the youthful Germanic peoples
opposing the Roman peoples who had now grown old, and through the
uniting of their youthful forces with that which flowed into humanity
as the announcement of Christianity, a certain European atmosphere was
thereby created, into which the souls descending later were born. Thus
the souls lived and developed in the following centuries, in
accordance with these events. Thus we may say: If a man at that time
had asserted: How does that affect things? It is merely a
political opposition between the nations of South and Central
Europe, he would be right. But if another had said: Just
look, the configuration of the spiritual civilisation of all the
following centuries will result from what is happening he
also would be right, and in a much deeper sense. If we seek the
immediate causes of anything by pointing to the opposing forces
nearest at hand, we do not therewith touch on the entire gravity of
the occurrence. The affairs of this world are all very intimately
connected. And if we require inner strengthening in order, as it were,
to find the right forces for the support of our work, we need only
remind ourselves that in a still smaller circle than our present one,
were once seated together those who, when Christianity was first
announced represented its great Cosmic Truths. I have already often
used this comparison. But we shall apply it yet again to-day. There
was a time which we can describe as follows: We see the old Roman
Empire. We see it with its old philosophy. We see it living entirely
in the atmosphere of the old heathen philosophy. We see this Empire
with the people who in a sense formed the upper classes. And there
below, truly more underneath than our under signifies
to-day literally underneath, in the catacombs under the earth,
we see the first small handful of Christians, possessing something
quite foreign to the world-culture up above, but which they carried so
deeply in their hearts that its force became truly cosmically
creative. Let us picture to ourselves these catacombs. There,
underneath in the catacombs, with their thoughts directed to the
Christ-impulse, were the first Christians and above, over their
heads, the Romans, who behaved quite differently from the first
Christians. You know all that, I need not relate it further. But if
you picture two centuries later, how different everything appears!
That which was above is swept away, and that which was venerated
underground in secret has found its way to the surface! Certainly, the
times and the forms in which such doings occur change; but the
essential remains. Concerning those who to-day advocate the external
scientific and spiritual culture it may be said though this is
not to be taken literally they feel themselves above, and call
that which is striven for in our circles, the philosophy of a few
sectarians, derived from a few abnormal minds. But he who really
penetrates the nature of these conceptions of ours and who above all
permeates himself with them, may have the assurance that here too some
day what is kept under will be on the top. Here then our thoughts may
dwell on the transformed world which will arise out of these difficult
times of ours, on the spiritual which mankind must learn to grasp. For
there hardly exists a greater similarity in historical evolution, than
that between our own times and that which played its part in the epoch
when the old Roman culture was still above, and Christianity, tended
by a few faithful souls, was still below.
I should like to point out if I may do so without seeming
narrow-minded through a too exact and pedantic reference to these
things, for in these days we should be very broad indeed that
it is especially good to hold before the soul as imaginative pictures
our own epoch and that of the Rome at the first appearance of
Christianity.
Now, many who to-day oppose what we call Spiritual Science, cannot
fail to feel the entirely different nature of that which Spiritual
Science must advocate, in contradistinction to that which is otherwise
upheld among the so-called normal people of to-day. And
here we need only observe, if we wish to understand this correctly,
how the first announcement of Christianity was completely opposed to
that which was upheld among the Romans, the normal men of those times:
with such a thought we must make ourselves acquainted, for it is again
and again leveled against us that with the accepted means of cognition
man cannot reach worlds such as those with which we are concerned. We
must really so grasp the more intimate work in our groups as to be
able to say: This life in our groups is not useless. It is not without
significance to this cause of ours, that we should meet together in
such groups, and again and again renew, not only acquaintance with the
theoretical results of our doctrine, which is not of importance, but
also renew our warm feelings and sensations for the actual things and
beings of the spiritual world. Thereby we accustom ourselves to that
manner of psychic sensing and feeling which above all makes it
possible for us to take up spiritual truths in a different way from
those who are unprepared. In our group meetings there must
occasionally be imparted to you something from the higher and later
parts of spiritual knowledge. We cannot always start afresh from the
beginning. But this intimacy within the life of the groups must make
it possible for a number of our friends to take into themselves, into
their souls, such things as I pointed out in the last lecture, namely,
the special manner of verifying our spiritual knowledge, and of taking
it into oneself. We cannot verify these things in the same manner as
man does in the external world when he contacts things with his eyes:
but he who has a feeling for such facts as I pointed out last time,
will, even if he does not himself see into the spiritual world, feel
that through the mutual support of spiritual truths the value of these
truths is intensified. Therefore I shall yet again draw attention to
the very significant fact that on the one side, through many years of
study, the definite point of view is reached, that a third of our life
between birth and death in time is again lived through
after death; while now on the other side a quite different point of
view is discovered namely, that in reality we experience our
sleep life in a special form during the time we call Kamaloka, and
that this time also occupies a third of the life on the physical
plane. These two points of view are quite independent of each other
and have been discovered from different starting points. We have also
shown on other occasions how, from three or four different points of
view, one always comes to the same conclusion. Thus do the truths
support each other. But for this, we must ourselves acquire the right
feeling. This will produce something like a natural elemental feeling
for the truth of this spiritual knowledge. I must often appeal to
this, otherwise I could not give out the later and higher truths in
the various group-meetings.
Last time we drew attention to the fact that the right connection of
our Ego-consciousness between death and rebirth is, as it were,
kindled through that panoramic review of our last earth-life which
takes place after death. We go over our life again in a kind of
tableau. You must quite clearly understand what a man there really
beholds. We are here accustomed to stand on the physical plane,
forming, in a sense, a kind of central point of our cosmic horizon,
and we see the world around us which makes an impression on our
senses. In normal life on the physical plane, we do not look into
ourselves, we turn our gaze outwards. Now, if we want to form an idea
of the life immediately following death, it is important to keep in
mind that this gaze on the panorama of life is absolutely different
from the perception we are accustomed to use on the physical plane. On
the physical plane we look out of ourselves and regard the world as
our environment. We are here, we look outwards, and not into
ourselves. Immediately after death we have a few days in which
our field of vision is filled with that which we have undergone
between birth and death. We then look within from the circumference to
the centre. We regard our own life in its chronological course.
Whereas we usually say: Here are we and everything else is
outside us ... immediately after death we have the consciousness
that this distinction between us and the world does not exist. For we
look from the circumference on to our own life, which for these few
days is our world. In ordinary perception on the physical plane we
behold hills, houses, rivers, trees, etc., so, in the same way, we see
that which we have undergone in life from a certain personal
standpoint, as our own immediate world. And because we see it, that
gives the starting point for the maintenance of the Ego through the
entire life between death and rebirth. It is that which strengthens
and invigorates the soul, so that between death and rebirth it always
knows: I am an Ego! Here in physical life we realise our
Ego through the fact which I have often pointed out that
we stand in a certain relation to our body. Consider: if you reflect
closely on a dream you will say: In the dream you have no clear
feeling of the Ego, but often a feeling of separation. That is because
man here on the physical plane only really feels his Ego through
contact with his body. You can represent it very crudely thus: If you
move your finger through the air there is nothing there! Move
it further there is still nothing. When you touch something,
however, in coming against something, you know of yourself, you become
aware of yourself. We are thereby made aware of our Ego. Not the Ego
itself is aroused the Ego is a Being but the
consciousness of the Ego. The opposition makes us aware of our Self.
Thus we are Ego-conscious in the physical body because of our living
in it. For this reason we have received the physical body. In the life
between death and rebirth we have an Ego-consciousness, because we
have received the forces which proceed from the vision of the previous
life. We come to a certain extent in contact with that which the world
of space gives us and thereby win our Ego-consciousness for the life
between birth and death. We come in contact with that which we
ourselves have experienced between birth and death in the last life,
and thereby have our Ego-consciousness for the life between death and
rebirth.
There now follows the quite different life which occupies a third of
the time of the life between birth and death, and which is usually
called the Kamaloka life. This life follows. It is of such a nature
that we may say a widening of our vision appears. While during the
first few days our vision is really directed only to our self, to our
past life, not to the personality this, as time goes on,
becomes quite different. Certainly the power of knowing oneself as an
Ego remains. But there now appears, and you can gather for yourselves,
from the lectures and books, what I am about to say there now
appears something quite peculiar, to which man has first to accustom
himself, because the whole method of perceiving in that world is quite
different from what it is here on the physical plane. A great part of
that which man has to undergo after death consists in inwardly
accommodating himself to a different mode of perception. Here we have
nature around us. What we here regard in the physical world as nature
is absolutely nonexistent in that world which is ours between death
and rebirth. To see nature here we have our physical eyes, ears, and
the whole physical apparatus of perception. And this nature as it
exists with its fullness of colour and other characteristics could not
be perceived by other, different organs of perception. Therefore we
are endowed with a physical body, that we may be able to perceive
nature. After death, in the place of what is here around us as nature,
we have around us the spiritual world which we describe as the world
of the hierarchies and world of pure being, of pure soul. Not matter
or substance or objects which have colour, but pure being. That is the
essential point. Therefore naturally the astonishment is greatest for
those souls who denied the spirit while here in physical life. For
those, who deny the spirit and believe nothing of the spiritual, are
placed in a world which they have denied, and which is completely
unknown to them. They have compulsorily to live in a world whose
existence they actually refused to admit.
Thus we are encompassed by a spiritual environment of pure being, of
pure soul. And now gradually emerge souls, fashioning themselves out
of this universal soul-world, for at first there are souls everywhere
souls whom we do not recognise. We know they are all souls, but
we do not recognise them individually; and gradually the individual
souls appear more distinctly and concretely. And especially at this
time appear those souls with whom we have lived here on the physical
plane, the souls of men with whom we have lived here. While we face
this fullness of souls we learn to know among whom we are: this soul
is so and so, that soul is someone else, and so on. We make
acquaintance with these souls. First of all we must recognise the fact
that the whole relation in which we stand to the world then, between
death and rebirth, is essentially different, in yet other respects to
the relation in which we stand here on the physical plane. Here we say
that the world is outside us; after death we have really the
consciousness that the world is within us. Just imagine that for a
moment here, on the earth, you were to dissolve entirely, that you
were to vanish into vapour. The vaporous cloud which is you spreads
out more and more and only ceases to spread further when it reaches
the firmament. It expands, but it can get no further. Let us consider
for a moment the firmament as a being. You then feel yourself as this
firmament and now see everything within it; thus you stand outside
with your consciousness and see the world inside. You feel yourself in
such a way that everything that appears is within you. Just as here a
pain is inside us, in like manner after death beings appear in us as
inner experience. That brings about the infinite intimacy of the
experiences between death and rebirth, the fact of being so bound
together with them that we actually have them as our own inner
experiences. And here there is a certain distinction. Consider such a
soul as I have instanced, which one begins to recognise and of which
all one can know at first is: Yes, it is there, but it has no
form. It is not yet perceptible, but it is there. To make it
perceptible one has to accomplish an inner activity, an activity
somewhat like the following: Let us suppose ourselves placed in the
spiritual. If I feel behind me something which I do not see, the
following idea arises in me: It is there, but I must accomplish an
activity in order to get some conception of it. I may say it is
comparable to touching a thing so as to get an idea of it. This inner
activity is necessary if the imagination is to appear. I know the
being is there, but I have first to create the imagination by uniting
myself inwardly with the being. That is the one way in which man can
perceive souls. The other manner is this: that one does not oneself
accomplish this inner activity with such intensity, but it arises of
its own accord. It appears without one's having very much to do with
it. It is somewhat like our perception of something here, only of
course it is transferred into the spiritual. And this distinction can
exist between two souls. Of the one, man receives a perception through
being very active himself; of the other, through an imagination
arising out of itself. You only need be attentive to recognise this
distinction. For if you become acquainted with a soul that requires
more activity to be perceived; that is the soul of one who has
died. But a soul that appears more of its own accord is a soul which
is incarnate here on the earth in a physical body. These distinctions
are really there. Man stands with a few exceptions, which we
can mention at the proper time man stands in union after death
both with the souls who have died and those who are still here on
earth. And the distinction lies in a man's knowing which kind of soul
he has to deal with; he knows he must be active or passive, according
to the way in which there arises the imagination of the soul which he
faces.
Now, there is one idea, one characteristic, which has indeed been
expressed many times already, but which we will once more bring
forward in connection with the life which occupies a third of the
earth-life just elapsed, and which we are accustomed to call the life
in Kamaloka. If you are living here on the earth and somebody strikes
you, you are aware of it. You perceive it, and say: he has struck me.
And as a rule it makes a difference whether somebody hits you, or
whether you hit him, and if you hear something said by someone, you
have not the same experience as when you yourself say something. All
this is quite reversed in Kamaloka life, in which we live our life
backwards between death and rebirth. To use this rough illustration it
is then as follows. If you have given anybody a blow in life, you feel
what the other person felt through the blow. If you have injured
another through a word, you experience the feeling you caused him.
Thus you feel the experience of the other soul. In other words, you
experience the results brought about by your own deeds. We experience
in this journey backwards everything which other people have
experienced through us during our life here, between birth and death.
If you have lived here between birth and death with many hundreds of
men, these men have experienced something through you. But here in
physical life you cannot feel that which those others felt and
experienced through you, you only experience what they make you go
through. After death this is reversed, and it is essential that we
should experience everything in this review which others have suffered
through us. Thus we undergo the effects of the last earth existence,
and the task of these years really lies in our experiencing them. Now,
while we are undergoing these effects, the experience is transformed
in us into forces, and it happens in the following manner: Suppose I
have offended a man, who has thereby suffered bitterly. During
Kamaloka I now experience this bitterness myself. I go through it as
my own experience. And while I now experience it, it makes good in me
the force which must work as opposition; that is, while I undergo this
bitterness, I create in myself the force to wipe away from the world
this bitterness. I thus realise all the effects of my deeds and
thereby absorb the force to wipe them away. And during this time in
Kamaloka which lasts a third of the earth-life I absorb
all the forces which may be expressed as an intense longing in the now
disembodied soul, to remove everything which destroys perfection by
retarding the soul's evolution. If you ponder over this you will see
that man himself makes his own Karma, that is, that he has in himself
the wish to become such that everything undesirable may be wiped out.
Thus is Karma prepared, during this particular time. We incorporate
into our souls the force which we must take up between death and
rebirth, in order to bring about in the next incarnation that
configuration of our life which we are able to regard as the right
one. This is how Karma is created. In order to understand these things
aright not only theoretically but so to grasp them that they
may penetrate deeply into our forces of feeling and willing we
must be clear that the whole mode of feeling common to the dead is
absolutely different from that of the living. The living may very
easily say, I pity this or that dead man because he has to
suffer something from which he cannot escape! But suppose he has
terribly wronged another and can do nothing to put it right, you may
perhaps feel sorry for the dead man, but that is quite uncalled for;
for he desires nothing more than to be able to evolve the forces
whereby he can balance the wrong. That is the very thing which he
regards as precious. You would thus be wishing that he should not
reach what he himself most longs for. To attain this he must undergo
all the aforesaid suffering, for the positive develops out of the
negative. Through insight into that which we have done, we develop the
power of making compensation.
Thus we may say that at the end of this Kamaloka period a man has
already determined, in accordance with his last life and its
recapitulation, how he will enter the next incarnation in his
existence; and in what relation he will stand to this or that person
in order to compensate this or that. There we actually determine our
Karma for the life we are to enter.
The first part of our time is spent in assimilating from the spiritual
world the forces through which we can build up humanity in general,
and through which we can form for ourselves a body suitable for our
own individuality. First we have the plan of our Karma. Then we must
fashion the human body to this end. That requires a much longer time,
and takes place later on. Now, you can see from this that the
essential of the time in Kamaloka lies in the fact that it gives us
the possibility of ethically preparing our next incarnation in the
right manner. We must be quite clear that each following incarnation
depends on the earlier ones. We see how our following incarnations are
prepared. And we see that the entire mode of a man's life depends on
the way in which he went through his former life. The objection is
raised by persons who have not yet fully considered the matter, that
this contradicts a man's freedom. I will return to this later
it does not contradict freedom.
If we thus observe individual persons in life we find that they are
very, very different; no matter how many men there are on the earth,
they are all different. Yet one may distinguish categories. There are,
for instance, men who so behave that from their earliest youth we can
see that as individuals they are specially suited for this, or that.
As you know, there are such people. Even in childhood we can predict
that they will accomplish some definite purpose. They thrust
themselves into it, as it were. They possess activity. They have a
special task, because they develop force for this end. Others we find
who are interested in many things but have no definite inclination to
any one thing. They take up many things. Perhaps later in life they
may come to a definite task which is not specially suited to them;
they might perhaps have been able to do something else quite as well.
In short, people are quite different one from another in reference to
the way in which they act in life. And this really makes life
possible. There are men, for example, who enter life, and who do not
seem to have much to do, externally. But they need only speak a word
or two to have an influence on people. Such men work more through
their inner being. Others work more externally. That is intimately
connected with the manner in which they have lived through their
previous incarnation. There are persons who die in early youth
before the age of thirty-five in order to have these very
limitations. Such men with regard to their death in this incarnation
are in a quite different position from those who die after the age of
thirty-five. One who dies before the age of thirty-five still stands
nearer to the world from which he descended at birth. This
thirty-fifth year is an important boundary. One then crosses a bridge,
as it were. The world out of which a man has descended then withdraws,
and he produces a new spiritual world from his inner being. It is
important that we should distinguish this. And now suppose a man dies
before the age of thirty-five. On reincarnating, those forces develop
in him which he did not use in the years which would have followed his
thirty-fifth year. Such men, who before the thirty-fifth year go
through death in this way in one incarnation, thereby economise for
the next incarnation certain forces, which would have been exhausted
if they had lived till fifty, sixty or seventy years of age. The
forces which they thus saved are added to those with which they
incarnate in the next life. Thereby such souls are born into bodies
through which they are in a position, especially in their youth, to
confront life with strong impressions. In other words: when such
souls, who in their last incarnation died before the thirty-fifth
year, reincarnate again, everything makes a strong impression on them.
They are deeply stirred by things, they enjoy things deeply, they have
living feelings and are easily urged to impulses of will. They are
those who take a strong position in life, and who receive a mission. A
man does not die without cause before his thirty-fifth year; he will
thereby receive a quite definite mission in his next life. These
things are complex, and death before the age of thirty-five may also
bring about other things it is not absolute law, for these are
only examples. But when a man dies after thirty-five it happens that
in his next life he does not receive such strong impressions from the
things in his surroundings. He cannot easily be stirred or roused. He
becomes acquainted more slowly but more intimately with things, and he
thus prepares himself for a life in his next incarnation in which he
will work more through his inner nature, without being so definitely
guided to a special task in life. He will so stand in life, that he
would perhaps have preferred some other task, and is diverted from it
in order to accomplish something perhaps absolutely against his will.
Because through the previous earth incarnation he had accustomed
himself to work more delicately, he can now be used in a wider sphere.
And if a man I have already mentioned this case earlier
if a man is led in very early youth through the gate of death, let us
say in his eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth year of life, he then has
but a short time in Kamaloka. But he remains very, very near the world
which he forsook at physical birth. Everything appears different.
After a life ending with the twelfth year, there follows the usual
retrospect during the first days after death, but it takes place in
such a manner that it appears more from outside. Whereas if a man dies
at the age of fifty, sixty or seventy, he himself must do much more to
bring about this retrospect. It must be brought about by his own
activity. And because they have to experience this life after death in
so many various ways, men are thereby differently prepared for their
next life. It may be that in one life a man is especially active. Now,
if an especially active man is summoned from life at an early age, it
would then occur that in his next life his Karma would appoint him to
a quite definite task in life, which he would certainly accomplish. He
would be as if predestined. If, however, a man is especially active in
one life and lives to a good old age, these forces are then
intensified inwardly. He has then in his next life a more complicated
task. Outer activity withdraws, and there appears in the soul the
necessity to evolve inner activity.
Thus the life of man is complex as it develops from incarnation to
incarnation. We shall continue these considerations in the next
lecture. Now, I should like to conclude by saying one thing: When you
face a whole epoch such as ours, in which in a relatively short time
an exceptional number of men are led in abnormal fashion through the
gates of death, then through this something quite exceptional is being
prepared. And it was necessary that this should be prepared. You see
each year how the time of blossoming comes to the world in intervals.
If you look back in history you can also say that even there the
blossoms appear at intervals. A great time of blossoming was the epoch
of Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Fichte, Goethe. It is as if there was
then a gathering of geniuses for a time, and it then ceased. And thus
the world progresses in leaps. Such intervals of genius are recorded,
and then these things change again. In the spiritual realms too, we
have a blossoming, a special sprouting, at intervals. Now, in our days
we have an interval of decay in the physical realm. Here you have
again two things which you can place as pictures, side by side, and
which as pictures are tremendously significant. Great physical decay
which is the seed for a later significant spiritual blossoming.
Things have always two sides. From this standpoint, ever seeking again
and again force and consolation but also gaining confidence in
our hopes let us once more repeat in reference to our times,
and from the consciousness of our spiritual science:
From the fighters' courage,
From the blood of battles,
From the mourners' suffering,
From the people's sacrifice,
There will ripen fruits of Spirit
If with consciousness the soul
Turns her thought to Spirit Realms.
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