ANSWERS TO SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING KARMA
THE following question has been asked: “According to the law of
reincarnation, we are required to think that the human individuality
possesses its talents, capacities, and so forth, as an effect of its
previous lives. Is this not contradicted by the fact that such talents
and capacities, for instance moral courage, musical gifts, and so
forth, are directly inherited by the children from their parents?”
Answer: If we rightly conceive of the laws of reincarnation and karma,
we cannot find a contradiction in what is stated above. Only those
qualities of the human being which belong to his physical and ether
body can be directly passed on by heredity. The ether body is the
bearer of all life phenomena (the forces of growth and reproduction).
Everything connected with this can be directly passed on by heredity.
What is bound to the so-called soul-body can be passed on by heredity
to a much lesser degree. This constitutes a certain disposition in the
sensations. Whether we possess a vivid sense of sight, a
well-developed sense of hearing, and so forth, may depend upon whether
our ancestors have acquired such faculties and have passed them on to
us by heredity. But nobody can pass on to his offsprings what is
connected with the actual spiritual being of man, that is, for
instance, the acuteness and accuracy of his life of thought, the
reliability of his memory, the moral sense, the acquired capacities of
knowledge and art.
These are qualities which remain enclosed within his individuality and
which appear in his next incarnation as capacities, talents,
character, and so forth. — The environment, however, into which the
reincarnating human being enters is not accidental, but it is
necessarily connected with his karma. Let us assume a human being has
acquired in his previous life the capacity for a morally strong
character. It is his karma that this capacity should unfold in his
next incarnation. This would not be possible if he did not incarnate
in a body which possesses a quite definite constitution. This bodily
constitution, however, must be inherited from the forebears. The
incarnating individuality strives, through a power of attraction
inherent in it, toward those parents who are capable of giving it the
suitable body. This is caused by the fact that, already before
reincarnating, this individuality connects itself with the forces of
the astral world which strive toward definite physical conditions.
Thus the human being is born into that family which is able to
transmit to him by heredity the bodily conditions which correspond to
his karmic potentialities. It then looks, if we go back to the example
of moral courage, as if the latter itself had been inherited from the
parents. The truth is that man, through his individual being, has
searched out that family which makes the unfoldment of moral courage
possible for him. In addition to this it may be possible that the
individualities of the children and the parents have already been
connected in previous lives and for that very reason have found one
another again. The karmic laws are so complicated that we may never
base a judgment upon outer appearances. Only a person to whose
spiritual sense-organs the higher worlds are at least partially
manifest may attempt to form such a judgment. Whoever is able to
observe the soul organism and the spirit, in addition to the physical
body, is in a position to discriminate between what has been passed on
to the human being by his forebears and what is his own possession,
acquired in previous lives. For ordinary vision these things are not
clearly distinguishable, and it may easily appear as if something were
merely inherited which in reality is karmicly determined. — It is a
thoroughly wise expression which states that children are “given”
to their parents. In respect of the spirit this is absolutely the case.
And children with certain spiritual qualities are given to them for
the very reason that they, the parents, are capable of giving the
children the opportunity to unfold these spiritual qualities.
Question: “Does Anthroposophy attribute no significance to
‘chance’? I cannot imagine that it can be predestined by
the karma of each individual person when five hundred persons are
killed at the same time in a theater fire.”
Answer: The laws of karma are so complicated that we should not be
surprised when to the human intellect some fact appears at first as
being contradictory to the general validity of this law. We must
realize that this intellect is schooled by our physical world, and
that, in general, it is accustomed to admit only what it has learned
in this world. The laws of karma, however, belong to higher worlds.
Therefore, if we try to understand an event which meets the human
being as being brought about by karma in the same way in which justice
is applied in the purely earthly-physical life, then we must of
necessity run up against contradictions. We must realize that a common
experience which several people undergo in the physical world may, in
the higher world, mean something completely different for each
individual person among them. Naturally, the opposite may also be
true: common interrelations may become effective in common earthly
experiences. Only one gifted with clear vision in the higher worlds
can give information about particular cases. If the karmic
interrelations of five hundred people become effective in the common
death of these people in a theater fire, the following instances may
be possible:
First: Not a single one of the five hundred people need be karmicly
linked to the other victims. The common disaster is related in the
same way to the karmas of each single person as the shadow-image of
fifty people on a wall is related to the worlds of thought and feeling
of these persons. These people had nothing in common an hour ago; nor
will they have anything in common an hour hence. What they experienced
when they met at the same place will have a special effect for each
one of them. Their association is expressed in the above-mentioned
common shadow-image. Whoever were to attempt to conclude from this
shadow-image that a common bond united these people would be decidedly
in error.
Second: It is possible that the common experience of the five hundred
people has nothing whatsoever to do with their karmic past, but that,
just through this common experience, something is prepared which will
unite them karmicly in the future. Perhaps these five hundred people
will, in future ages, carry out a common undertaking, and through the
disaster have been united for the sake of higher worlds. The
experienced spiritual-scientist is thoroughly acquainted with the fact
that many societies, formed today, owe their origin to the
circumstance of a common disaster experienced in a more distant past
by the people who join together today.
Third: The case in question may actually be the effect of former
common guilt of the persons concerned. There are, however, still
countless other possibilities. For instance, a combination of all
three possibilities described might occur.
It is not unjustifiable to speak of “chance” in the physical
world. And however true it is to say: there is no “chance” if
we take into consideration all the worlds, yet it would be unjustifiable to
eradicate the word “chance” if we are merely speaking of the
interlinking of things in the physical world. Chance in the physical
world is brought about through the fact that things take place in this
world within sensible space. They must, in as far as they occur within
this space, also obey the laws of this space. Within this space,
things may outwardly meet which have inwardly nothing to do
with each other. The causes which let a brick fall from a roof, injuring me
as I pass by, do not necessarily have anything to do with my karma which
stems from my past. Many people commit here the error of imagining
karmic relations in too simple a fashion. They presume, for instance,
that if a brick has injured a person, he must have deserved this
injury karmicly. But this is not necessarily so. In the life of every
human being events constantly take place which have nothing at all to
do with his merits or his guilt in the past. Such events find their
karmic adjustment in the future. If something happens to me today
without being my fault, I shall be compensated for it in the future.
One thing is certain: nothing remains without karmic adjustment.
However, whether an experience of the human being is the effect of his
karmic past or the cause of his karmic future will have to be
determined in every individual instance. And this cannot be decided by
the intellect accustomed to dealing with the physical world, but
solely by occult experience and observation.
Question: “Is it possible to understand, according to the law of
reincarnation and karma, how a highly developed human soul can be
reborn in a helpless, undeveloped child? To many a person the thought
that we have to begin over and over again at the childhood stage is
unbearable and illogical.”
Answer: How the human being can act in the physical world depends
entirely upon the physical instrumentality of his body. Higher ideas,
for instance, can come to expression in this world only if there is a
fully developed brain. Just as the pianist must wait until the piano
builder has made a piano on which he can express his musical ideas, so
does the soul have to wait with its faculties acquired in the previous
life until the forces of the physical world have built up the bodily
organs to the point where they can express these faculties. The nature
forces have to go their way, the soul, also, has to go its way. To be
sure, from the very beginning of human life a cooperation exists
between soul and body forces. The soul works in the flexible and
supple body of the child until it is made ready to become a bearer of
the forces acquired in former life periods. For it is absolutely
necessary that the reborn human being adjust himself to the new life
conditions.
Were he simply to appear in a new life with all he has acquired
previously, he would not fit into the surrounding world. For he has
acquired his faculties and forces under quite different circumstances
in completely different surroundings. Were he simply to enter the
world in his former state he would be a stranger in it. The period of
childhood is gone through in order to bring about harmony between the
old and the new conditions. How would one of the cleverest ancient
Romans appear in our present world, were he simply born into our world
with his acquired powers? A power can only be employed when it is in
harmony with the surrounding world. For instance, if a genius is born,
the power of genius lies in the innermost being of this man which may
be called the causal-body. The lower spirit-body and the body of
feeling and sensation are adaptable, and in a certain sense not
completely determined. These two parts of the human being are now
elaborated. In this work the causal-body acts from within and the
surroundings from without. With the completion of this work, these two
parts may become the instruments of the acquired forces. — The
thought that we have to be born as a child is, therefore, neither
illogical nor unbearable. On the contrary, it would be unbearable were
we born as a fully developed man into a world in which we are a
stranger.
Question: “Are two successive incarnations of a human being
similar to one another? Will an architect, for instance, become again an
architect, a musician again a musician?”
Answer: This might be the case, but not necessarily so.
Such similarities occur, but are by no means the rule. It is easy in
this field to arrive at false conceptions because we form thoughts
concerning the laws of reincarnation which cling too much to
externalities. Someone loves the south, for instance, and therefore
believes he must have been a southerner in a former incarnation. Such
inclinations, however, do not reach up to the causal-body. They have a
direct significance only for the one life. Whatever sends its effects
over from one incarnation into another must be deeply seated in the
central being of man. Let us assume, for instance, that someone is a
musician in his present life. The spiritual harmonies and rhythms
which express themselves in tones reach into the causal-body. The
tones themselves belong to the outer physical life. They sit in the
parts of the human being which come into existence and pass away. The
lower ego or spirit-body, which is, at one time, the proper vehicle
for tones may, in a subsequent life, be the vehicle for the perception
of number and space relations. And the musician may now become a
mathematician. Just through this fact the human being develops, in the
course of his incarnations, into an all-comprehensive being by passing
through the most manifold life activities. As has been stated, there
are exceptions to this rule. And these are explicable by the great
laws of the spiritual world.
Question: “What are the karmic facts in the case of a human
being who is condemned to idiocy because of a defective brain?”
Answer: A case like this ought not to be dealt with by speculation and
hypotheses, but only by means of spiritual-scientific experience.
Therefore, the question here will be answered by quoting an example
which has really occurred.
In a previous life a certain person had been doomed to an existence of
mental torpor because of an undeveloped brain. During the time between
his death and a new birth he was able to work over in himself all the
depressing experiences of such a life, such as his having been pushed
around, subjected to the unkindness of people, and he was reborn as a
veritable genius of benevolence. Such a case shows clearly how wrong
we can be if we refer everything in life karmicly back to the past. We
cannot say in every instance: this destiny is the result of this or
that guilt in the past. It is very well possible that an event has no
relation whatsoever to the past but is only the cause for a karmic
compensation in the future. An idiot need not have deserved his
destiny through his deeds in the past. But the karmic consequence of
his destiny for the future will not fail to appear. Just as a
businessman's balance account is determined by the figures of his
ledger, while he is free to have new receipts and expenses, so new
deeds and blows of destiny may enter the life of a human being in
spite of his book of life showing a definite balance at every given
moment. Therefore, karma must not be conceived of as an immutable
fate: it is absolutely compatible with the freedom, the will of man.
Karma does not demand surrender to an unalterable fate; on the
contrary, it affords us the certainty that no deed, no experience of
the human being remains without effect or runs its course outside of
the laws of the world. It affords us the certainty that every deed or
experience is joined to just and compensating law. Moreover, if there
were no karma, arbitrariness would rule in the world. As it is, I may
know that every one of my actions, every one of my experiences is
inserted in a lawful interrelationship. My deed is free; its effect
follows definite laws. It is the free deed of a businessman when he
makes a good deal; its result, however, shows up in the balance sheet
of his ledger in accordance with definite laws.
|