LECTURE XI
Berlin, 6th October 1905
Today we are going to explain how Karma works and make clear to
ourselves how it is connected with the so-called three worlds. All
other worlds, with the exception of these three, hardly come into
consideration when it is a question of human development; the relevant
three are the physical, astral and mental worlds. During the day
condition of consciousness, we are in the physical world; there, in a
certain sense, we have purely and simply the physical world before us.
We must only direct our senses outwards in order to have the physical
world as such before us. But the moment we look on the physical world
with interest, approach it with feeling, we are already partly in the
astral world and only partly in the physical world. Only the
beginnings of living purely in the physical world are present today in
human life; for example, when one simply contemplates a work of art
without experiencing any wish to possess it. Such a contemplation of a
work of art is an important act of the soul, when, forgetful of self,
one works as though on a spiritual task. This living purely in the
physical world, forgetting oneself, is very rare. It is only seldom
that nature is looked at in pure contemplation, for usually many other
feelings are involved. Nevertheless, this selfless living in physical
nature is of the very greatest importance; for only so can man have a
true consciousness of self. In all other worlds the ordinary man is
still immersed in a world of unconsciousness.
In the physical world man is not only aware of his self, he can also
become selfless. His day-consciousness is however not yet selfless if
he is unable to forget himself. Here the physical world is not the
hindrance, but the playing in of the astral and mental worlds. If,
however, he forgets himself, the separateness vanishes and he finds his
self spread out into what is outside. But it is only in physical
life that present day man can develop this consciousness of self
without separateness. Consciousness of self we call the ego. Man can
only become conscious of self within an environment. Only when he
gains senses adapted to a particular world can he become
self-conscious in that world. Now he only has senses for the physical
world but the other worlds continually play into the consciousness of
self and cloud it. When feelings play into it, it is the astral world;
when one thinks, the mental world plays into the consciousness.
Most people's thoughts are nothing more than reflections of the
environment. It is very rare to have thoughts which are not so
connected. Man only has such higher thoughts when senses awaken for
the mental world, so that he not only thinks the thoughts, but
perceives them around him as beings. He then has the same
consciousness of self in the mental world as that possessed by the
Chela, the Initiate. When someone tries to eliminate first the
physical world around him, then all impulses, passions, changes of
mood and so on, usually no thoughts are left. Let us only try to
picture everything that influences man inasmuch as he lives in space
and time. Let us try to call up before the soul everything connected
with the place where we live and the time in which we live. Everything
that the soul continually has within it as thoughts is dependent on
space and time. All this has a transient value. One must therefore
pass on from the reflected impressions of the senses and allow an
enduring thought content to live in one in order gradually to develop
devachanic senses. A sentence such as that from
‘Light on the Path,’
Before the eyes can see they must give up tears, [The
original English of Mabel Collins is Before the eyes can see
they must be incapable of tears.] holds good for all times and
all places. When we allow such a sentence to live within us, then
something lives in us which is beyond space and time. This is a means,
a force, which gradually allows devachanic senses to awaken in the
soul for the eternal in the world.
Thus man has his share in the three worlds. It is only gradually
however that he has come into this situation. He was not always in the
physical world; only by degrees did he become physical and acquire
physical senses. Previously he was on the higher planes. He descended
from the Astral Plane to the Physical and before this from the Mental
Plane. The latter we divide into two parts, the Lower Mental or Rupa
Plane, where everything is already differentiated, and the Upper
Mental or Arupa Plane, where everything's undifferentiated in a
germinal condition. Man has descended from the Arupa Plane through the
Rupa Plane and the Astral Plane to the Physical Plane. Only on the
Physical Plane did he become conscious of self. On the Astral Plane he
is not conscious of self and on the Rupa and Arupa Planes still less
so. On the Physical Plane man for the first time came into contact
with external objects in his immediate surroundings. Whenever a being
encounters external objects, this marks the beginning of
self-awareness. On the higher planes life was still completely
enclosed within itself. When man lived on the Astral Plane the only
reality he had arose out of his own inner life. This was in its very
nature a picture consciousness. Even though this was a vivid
experience it was nevertheless only a picture that arose within him.
Of this, present daydreams are only a weak reminder. When for
instance an astral human being approached salt, this affected him
unconsciously and a picture of it would have arisen within him. If he
approached someone who was sympathetic to him he would not have seen
him externally, but a feeling of sympathy would have arisen within
him. This life in the astral was one of absolute selfhood and
separateness. Only on the physical plane can man relinquish his
separateness, in that through the medium of his senses he perceives
objects, merges himself with his surroundings, with the Not-I. Therein
lies the importance of the physical plane. If man had not set foot on
the physical plane, he would never have been able to relinquish his
separateness and turn his senses outwards. This is actually where work
on the development of selflessness begins. Everything except pure
contemplation of physical things belongs more to the Ego. One must
accustom oneself to live on higher planes just as selflessly as man
has begun to do on the physical plane, albeit up to now but rarely.
The objects of the physical plane compel man to become selfless and to
give something to the object, which is Not-I. In regard to wishes, to
that which lives in the soul, man still orders his life in accordance
with his desires. On the physical plane he must learn to renounce, to
free his wishes from self. That is the first step.
The next step is to order himself not according to his own wishes but
according to those coming to him from outside. Further, when man
consciously and out of his own will does not act in accordance with
the thoughts that arise within him, but surrenders himself to thoughts
which are not his own, then he soars upwards to the Devachanic Plane.
We must therefore seek in the higher worlds for something lying
outside us in order to relate ourselves to it as we do to objects in
the physical world. Hence, we must consider the wishes of the
Initiates. The occult student learns to know the wishes which are
right for humanity and he orders himself in accordance with them, just
as through external compulsion one orders oneself according to sense
objects. Culture and the education of wishes lead us to the Astral
Plane.
When one becomes selfless in thoughts, allowing the eternal thoughts
of the Masters of Wisdom to pass through our souls through
concentration and meditation on the thoughts of the Masters
then one also perceives the thoughts of the surrounding world. The
occult student can already become a Master on the Astral Plane, but on
the Mental Plane this is only possible for the higher Masters.
In the first place man stands before us in his physical nature. He
lives at the same time in the Astral and Mental Worlds, but has
self-awareness only in the physical world. He must traverse the entire
physical world until his awareness of self has absorbed everything
that the physical world can teach him. Here man says to himself: I.
He connects his I with the things around him, learns to expand his
I through contemplation; it flows outwards and becomes one with the
objects which he has completely comprehended. If we had already
comprehended the entire physical world we should no longer need it,
for then we should have it within us. At present however man has
within him only a part of the physical world. The human being who is
born as a Lemurian in his first incarnation, who is just at the point
of directing his ego towards the physical world, knows as yet but
little of it. When however he comes to his last incarnation, he must
have united the entire physical world with his I.
In the physical world man is left to himself, here nobody leads him,
he is in very truth god-forsaken. When he came forth from the astral
world the Gods forsook him. In the physical world he had to learn to
become his own master. Here therefore he can only live, as he actually
does live, swinging pendulum-wise between truth and error. He must
grope about and seek his way for himself. Now for the most part he is
groping in the dark. His gaze is turned outwards; he has freedom of
choice, but he is also exposed to error. On the Astral Plane man had
no such freedom; there he was subject to compulsion from the powers
standing behind him. Like a kind of marionette he still dangled on the
strings of the Gods; they still had to guide him. In so far as man
today is still a soul being, the Gods still live in him. Here freedom
and unfreedom are strongly mixed. His wishes are continually changing.
This ebb and flow of wishes proceeds from within. Here it is the Gods
who are working in man.
Man is still less free on the Rupa Plane of the Mental World, and even
less free on the Arupa Plane of the Higher Mental World. Man gradually
becomes free on the Physical Plane the more, through knowledge, he has
become incapable of error.
To the same degree that he works on the Physical Plane and learns to
know it, he gains the faculty of carrying up into the Arupa Plane what
he has learned to know in the physical world. The Arupa Plane is in
itself formless, but gains form through human life. Man gathers the
results of the lessons he has learned on the Physical Plane and
carries these, as firmly established forms in the soul, up into the
Arupa Plane. This is why in the Greek Mysteries the soul was called a
bee, the Arupa Plane a beehive and the physical earth a field of
flowers. This was taught in the Greek Mysteries.
Now what was it that drove the soul down on to the Physical Plane? It
was desire, craving: in no other way does one descend to a lower plane
except through desire. Previously the soul was in the Astral World;
this is the world of wishes. Everything which the Gods in the Astral
World have implanted into human beings was purely a world of wishes.
The most outstanding attribute of these Pre-Lemurian beings was the
wish for the physical. Man at that time had a real craving for the
physical: he had within him an unconscious, blind craving for the
physical. This craving is only to be appeased through its
satisfaction. Through the ideas, through the aspects of knowledge
which he gains, this craving for the physical disappears.
After death the soul goes to the Astral Plane and thence to the Rupa
and Arupa Planes. What the soul has gained it deposits there. What it
has not yet brought with it, what is still unknown, drives it down
again; this engenders the longing for new incarnations. How long the
soul remains on the Arupa Plane depends upon how much the human being
has gained on the Physical Plane. In the case of the savage this is
very little and so in his case there is only a weak flashing up on to
the Arupa Plane. Then he descends again to the physical world. One who
has learned everything in the physical world no longer needs to leave
the Arupa Plane, no longer needs to return to the Physical Plane, for
he has fulfilled his duty in the physical world.
In regard to his astral being, man today still half belongs to the
astral world. The astral sheath has been half broken through and he
perceives the world of the physical through his senses. When he
succeeds in living on the Astral Plane as he now lives on the Physical
Plane, when he learns to make observations there in a similar way,
then he also carries the perceptions of the Astral Plane up to the
Arupa Plane. What he then bears upwards from the Astral Plane streams
however still higher from the Arupa Plane up to the next higher, the
Buddhi Plane. That too which he achieves on the Rupa Plane through
meditation and concentration he takes with him up to the Arupa Plane
and there gives it over to still higher Planes.
That part of man which is astral is opened half towards the physical
world and half towards higher worlds. When it is opened to the
physical world he allows himself to be directed by the perceptions of
the sense world. From the other side he is subject to direction from
above. The same is the case with his mental body. The latter is also
partly directed from outside and partly directed from the inner world
by the Gods, the Devas. Because this is so man must dream and sleep.
Now we can also understand the nature of sleeping and dreaming. To
dream means to turn towards the inner Deva-forces. Man dreams almost
the whole night only he does not remember it. During sleep the mental
body is continually guided by the Devas. Man has as yet no
consciousness of self on the higher planes, hence in dream he is not
self-conscious. He begins to be so on the Astral Plane. In deep sleep
he is on the Mental Plane. There he has absolutely no
self-consciousness. It is only on the Physical Plane that man is
awake. Here his ego is present and finds its full expression. The
astral ego cannot yet fully express itself on the Physical Plane and
must therefore at times leave the body. Man must sleep in order that
this can take place. The conditions of dreaming and sleeping are only
a repetition of earlier development. On the Astral Plane he was in a
state of dream, on the Mental Plane he slept. He repeats these
conditions every night. Only when he has acquired senses for the other
planes does he no longer dream and no longer sleep, but he then
perceives realities. The occult pupil learns to perceive such
realities on the Astral Plane. He then has a reality around him.
Whoever carries his development to a still higher stage is surrounded
by a reality even in deep sleep. Then begins continuity of
consciousness.
One must understand this sequence of delicate concepts; then one
comprehends why man, when he has been on the higher planes again
descends. What he does not yet know, what he has not yet recognised,
what the Buddhists call Avidja, not-knowing, drives him back into
physical existence. Avidja is the first of the forces of karma.
According to Buddhistic teaching there are twelve Karmic forces which
drive man down. These together are called Nidanas. As man gradually
descends, the way in which Karma takes hold becomes apparent. Avidja
is the first effect. It is the opposite pole to what meets man on the
physical plane. Because he treads the physical plane and there unites
himself with something, a reaction is called forth. Action always
calls forth reaction. Everything that man does in the physical world
also produces a reaction and works back as Karma. Action and reaction
is the technique, the mechanism of Karma.
|