|
|
|
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
|
|
Theosophy of the Rosicrucian
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
|
|
Theosophy of the Rosicrucian
The Law of Destiny
Schmidt Number: S-1539
On-line since: 4th July, 2002
WE come today to what man experiences in the physical world, in so far
as these experiences are determined by an earlier incarnation. At the
outset it must be emphasised that life is not determined by previous
incarnations alone but also, though in a small degree, by the present
life. The law of how man's past, present and future are connected, is
called in Spiritual-scientific literature, the Law of Karma. It is the
true law of human destiny; an individual life is only a specific
application of the great law of the Cosmos, for the law of Karma is a
universal, cosmic law with a specific application in the life of a
human being. Whenever we envisage a connection between preceding
conditions and subsequent effects, we are thinking in line with this
law. I want therefore to explain in detail the individual application
of this cosmic law in the life of the human being.
Suppose we have two vessels of water in front of us and put into one
of the vessels a red-hot iron ball. The water will hiss and become
warm. If we take the ball out and put it into the other vessel, the
water in this case neither hisses nor gets warm, because the ball is
no longer red hot; it has been cooled by immersion in the first vessel
of water. The effect of the behaviour of the iron ball in the first
vessel determines its behaviour in the second. Thus are cause and
effect always connected in physical life. Subsequent behaviour depends
upon what has happened previously.
Another example is afforded by certain animals whose organ of sight
has atrophied in consequence of having made their home in dark holes
and caves. In such animals, the substances which formerly nourished
the eyes were led to other parts of the body because as it was no
longer necessary for the eye to see, these substances were not
required. The eyes atrophied and remain atrophied in all subsequent
generations. Through their earlier wanderings these animals determined
the actual behaviour of their organs; the destiny of subsequent
generations was determined by what had happened in the past; these
animals prepared their destiny for the future. And it is the same in
human life.
Man determines his future by his past and because his innermost being
is not confined to one incarnation but passes through many, the causes
of what confronts him in a given life are to be sought in an earlier
life.
We will now consider the chain of happenings which can be understood
if we think of the consequences of human deeds, thoughts and feelings.
It is so often said in everyday life: Thoughts are duty-free!
meaning that we can think what we like and nobody in the external
world will be affected. This is one important point where a man who
has really grasped spiritual impulses is at variance with the
materialistic thinker.
The materialist agrees that injury is caused if he throws a stone at a
man, but he thinks that a thought of hatred which he may harbour
against a fellow-creature, does not hurt him. Those however who have
real knowledge of the world know that far, far stronger effects
proceed from a thought filled with hatred than can ever be caused by a
stone. Everything that a man thinks and feels has its effects in the
outer world and the seer can follow with great precision the effect of
a loving thought that goes out to another man, and the very different
effect that is produced by a thought filled with hatred. When you send
out a loving thought to someone the seer perceives a form of light
shaped like a sort of flower-calyx, playing around his etheric and
astral bodies, thereby contributing something to his vitality and
happiness. On the other hand a thought of hatred bores its way into
the etheric and astral bodies like a wounding arrow.
Very varied observations are to be made in this domain. There is a
tremendous difference in the astral world if one voices a thought that
is true or a thought that is untrue. A thought is related to a thing
and is true if it coincides with that thing. Every event that happens
causes an effect in the higher worlds. If someone relates this event
truly, an astral form rays out from the teller, unites with the form
emanating from the event itself, and both are strengthened. These
strengthened forms help to make our spiritual world richer and more
full of content which is necessary if humanity is to make
progress. But if the event is related untruthfully, in a way that does
not coincide with the facts, then the thought-form of the teller comes
up against the thought-form that has proceeded from the event; the two
thought-forms collide, causing mutual destruction. These destructive
explosions caused by lies work on the body like a tumour
which destroys the organism. Thus do lies kill the astral forms which
have arisen and must arise, and in this way they obstruct or paralyse
a part of evolution. Everyone who tells the truth actually promotes
the evolution of humanity and everyone who lies, obstructs it.
Therefore there is this occult law: Seen with the eyes of Spirit, a
lie is a murder. Not only does it kill an astral form, but it is also
self-murder. Everyone who lies places obstacles along his own path.
Such effects are to be observed everywhere in the spiritual world. The
clairvoyant sees that everything a man thinks, feels and experiences
has its effect in the astral world. A man's disposition, temperament,
enduring qualities of character, thoughts that are not merely
transient all this streams continually not only into the astral
world but into the world of Devachan as well. A man with a happy
disposition is a source, a centre, of certain processes in Devachan; a
man who is hypocritical has the effect of multiplying the essences and
substances associated with hypocrisy in human character. Thus
Spiritual Science shows us that we do not live as isolated beings but
that our thoughts continually produce forms which cast shadows in the
world of Devachan and permeate it with all kinds of substances and
essences. The four regions of Devachan-the Continental,
the Oceanic, the Atmospheric and the region of
original Inspirations are influenced all the time by the
thoughts, feelings and sensations of human beings.
The higher regions of Devachan, in which the Akasha Chronicle appears,
are influenced by deeds. What happens in the external world
plays into the very highest region of Devachan the world
of Reason. We shall understand in this way how on his descent to
a new incarnation the human being reconstitutes his astral body and
attaches it to himself All his thoughts and feelings and experiences
had become integral parts of the astral world, leaving many traces
there. If his thoughts had contained much truth, these traces gather
together to form a good astral body for him. What he had incorporated
into the lower Devachanic world as his temperament and so on, gathers
together the new etheric body, and from the highest regions of
Devachan where the Akasha Chronicle is to be found, his past deeds
play their part in establishing the station, the localisation of the
physical body. Here are the forces which bring a human being to a
definite locality. If a man has done evil to someone, this is an
external fact which reaches into the highest regions of Devachan; when
the time comes to enter a new physical body it works as forces which
the man has left in his trail, and impels him under the
guidance of higher Beings to the associations and to the place
where he will now be able to experience the effects of his past deeds
in the physical world.
Experiences in the external world which do not inwardly affect us very
strongly work upon our astral body in the next incarnation, drawing
into it corresponding feelings and a characteristic life of thought.
If a man has spent his life profitably, if he has been very observant
and has acquired wide knowledge, his astral body in the next
incarnation will be born with special gifts in these directions.
Experience and acquired knowledge thus express themselves, in the next
incarnation, in the astral body. Inner experience, all that a man
feels in the way of happiness, sorrow and so on this works down
to the etheric body in the next incarnation and imbues it with lasting
propensities. The etheric body of a man who experiences much happiness
will have a temperament disposed to joy. A man who tries to perform
many good deeds, will, as a result of the feelings evoked, have a
decided talent in the next life for good deeds; he will also possess a
thoroughly developed conscience and will be a person of high moral
principles.
That of which the etheric body is the bearer in the present life
the permanent character, talents etc. appears in the
next life in the physical body. For instance, a man who has developed
bad inclinations and passions in one life will be born in the next
with an unhealthy physical body. On the other hand, a man who enjoys
good health, who has great powers of endurance, unfolded good
qualities in the previous life. A person who is continually prone to
illness, has worked bad impulses into himself. Thus we have it in our
power to create for ourselves health or illness in so far as these
inhere in the natural constitution of the physical body. All that is
required is the elimination of bad tendencies for we then prepare a
healthy, vigorous physical body for the next life.
It is possible to observe, in all details, how the tendencies that
were present in one life, work, in the next, on the physical body. A
person who is disposed to love everything around him, who is loving to
all creatures, who pours out love, will have in the next incarnation a
physical body that remains young and fresh until late in life. Love
for all beings, the cultivation of sympathy, gives rise to a physical
body that preserves its youthful vigour. A man who is full of
antipathy against other human beings, who criticises and grumbles at
everything, trying to keep aloof from it all, produces, as the result
of these tendencies, a physical body that ages and becomes wrinkled
prematurely. Thus are the tendencies and passions of one life carried
over to the physical, bodily life of subsequent incarnations.
The very details can be observed and it can be found that a passion
for acquisition, an urge that makes a person hoard possessions and
becomes a rooted disposition in him, produces, in the next life, a
tendency to infectious diseases in the physical body. Absolute
confirmation is possible of cases where a pronounced tendency to
infectious diseases leads back to an earlier, very strong sense of
acquisition, the bearer of this quality being the etheric body. On the
other hand disinterested striving, free from any desire for
self-profit and wishing only to work for the well-being of all mankind
this tendency in the etheric body gives rise, in the next life,
to a strong power of resistance to infectious diseases.
Thus knowledge of the connection between the physical and the astral
world enables us to have a clear understanding of the world in its
inner process of development; things are often connected in quite a
different way from what people like to imagine. Many people deplore
pain and suffering, but from a higher point of view this is quite
unjustified, for if they are overcome and the person is ready for a
new incarnation, suffering and pain are the sources of wisdom,
prudence and comprehensiveness of vision. Even in writing emanating
from the modern, materialistic standpoint, we find it stated that there
is something like crystallised pain in the face of every
thinker. What this materialistically minded author says here has long
been known to the occultist, for the greatest wisdom of the world is
acquired by the quiet endurance of pain and suffering; this creates
wisdom in the next incarnation.
No one who shudders at the unpleasantness of pain, who is unwilling to
bear pain can create in himself the foundations for wisdom; indeed
when we look deeper, we cannot really bemoan illnesses, for regarded
from a higher standpoint, from the standpoint of Eternity, they take
on a very different aspect. Illnesses calmly borne often appear in the
next life as great physical beauty; great physical beauty in a human
being is acquired at the cost of illnesses in the preceding life. Such
is the connection between impairment of the body through illness,
particularly also through external circumstances, and beauty.
The following words of the French writer, Fabre d'Olivet can be
applied to this very remarkable connection: When we observe the
life of the human being, it often seems to be like the formation of
the pearl in the oyster-shell the pearl can only come into
being through disease. And so it is actually in human life:
Beauty is karmically connected with illnesses and is their result.
When I said, however, that a man who unfolds reprehensible passions
creates in himself the disposition to illness, it must be fully
realised that in this case it is a matter of inherent tendency to
illnesses. It is a different matter if a man falls ill through working
in a poisonous atmosphere; this too may be a cause of illness but is
not connected with the inherent constitution of the physical body.
Everything that is a fact on the physical plane, everything that
constitutes a deed, expressing itself in such a way that it has a
definite effect in the physical world, from a footstep and movement of
the hand to the most complicated processes, for instance the building
of a house, comes to the human being in a later incarnation from
outside as an actual physical effect. As you see, we live our life
from within-outwards. What lives as joy, pain, happiness, sorrow in
the astral body appears again in the etheric body; the lasting
impulses and passions that are rooted in the etheric body appear in
the physical body as constitutional tendencies; deeds that require the
agency of the physical body appear as outer destiny in the next
incarnation. What the astral body does becomes the destiny of the
etheric body; what the etheric body does becomes the destiny of the
physical body; and what the physical body does comes back from outside
in the next incarnation as a physical reality.
Here you have the actual point where external destiny intervenes in
human life. This working of destiny may be postponed for a long time
but must inevitably approach the human being sooner or later. If a
man's life is followed through the different incarnations it can
always be seen that his life in a subsequent incarnation is prepared
by Beings who work at his physical embodiment in such a way that he is
led to a particular place in order that his destiny may overtake him.
Here again is an example drawn from life. At a Vehmic Court in the
Middle Ages a number of judges condemned a man to death and executed
the sentence themselves. Earlier incarnations of the judges and of the
dead man were investigated and it was found that they had all been
contemporaries; the prisoner who had been put to death had been the
Chief of a tribe who had ordered the death of those who were now the
Vehmic judges. The deed of the former physical life had created the
connection between the persons, and the forces had inscribed
themselves in the Akasha Chronicle. When a man again comes down to
incarnation, these forces cause him to be born at the same time and
place as those to whom he is tied in this way, and they work out his
destiny. The Akasha Chronicle is a veritable source of power in which
everything that is due to be expiated between one human being and
another, is inscribed. Some people can sense these processes, but
very, very few are really conscious of them.
Suppose a man has a profession in which he is apparently happy and
contented; for some reason or other he is forced to leave it and
finding no other occupation in the same place is driven far away
into another country, where he has to strike out on an entirely
new line of work. Here he finds a person with whom he has in some way
to be associated. What has happened in such a case? He had once lived
with the person whom he has now met and remained in his debt for some
reason or other. This is inscribed in the Akasha Chronicle and the
forces have led him to this place in order that he may meet the man
and discharge his debt.
Between birth and death the human being is perpetually within a
network of these forces of soul which weave around him on all sides;
they are the directing powers of his life. You bear within you all the
time the workings of earlier lives; and all the time you are
experiencing the outcome of former incarnations.
You will realise, therefore, that your lives are guided by Powers of
which you yourselves are not aware. The etheric body is worked upon by
forms which you yourselves previously called into existence on the
astral plane; beings and forces in the higher regions of Devachan,
inscribed by you yourselves in the Akasha Chronicle, work upon your
destiny. These forces or beings are not unknown to the occultist; they
have their own place in the ranks of similar beings. You must realise
that in the astral body and in the etheric body, as well as in the
physical body, you feel the workings of other beings; all that you do
involuntarily, everything to which you are impelled, is due to the
working of other beings; it is not born from nothingness. The various
members of man's nature are all the time actually permeated and filled
by other beings, and many of the exercises given by an initiated
teacher are for the purpose of driving out these beings in order that
a man may become more and more free.
The beings who permeate the astral body and make it unfree are known
as Demons. Your astral body is always interpenetrated by
demons and the beings you yourselves generate through your true or
false thoughts are of such a nature that they gradually grow into
demons. There are good demons, generated by good thoughts; but bad
thoughts, above all those that are untruthful, generate demoniacal
forms of the most terrible and frightful kind and these interlard the
astral body if I may so express it. The etheric body is also
permeated by beings from which man must free himself; these beings are
called Spectres, ghosts. And finally,
permeating the physical body there are beings known as
Phantoms. Besides these three classes there are yet other
beings, the Spirits, who drive the Ego hither and thither
the Ego itself also being a Spirit. In actual fact the human
being generates such creatures who then determine his inner and outer
destiny when he descends to incarnation. These beings work in your
life in such a way that you can feel the demons created by
your astral body, the ghosts or spectres
created by your etheric body and the phantoms created by
your physical body. All these beings are related to you and approach
you when the time comes for reincarnation.
You will remember that religious documents express these truths. When
the Bible speaks of the driving-out of demons, this is not an
abstraction but is to be taken literally. Christ Jesus healed those
who were possessed of demons; He drove the demons out of the astral
body. This is an actual process and, the passage is to be taken
literally. The wise man Socrates also speaks of his Daimon
which worked in his astral body. This was a good demon; such beings
are not always evil.
There are, however, terrible and corrupt demonic beings. All demons
that are born of lying work in such a way as to throw man back in his
development; and because owing to the lies of eminent figures in
world-history demons who grow into very powerful beings are all the
time being created, we hear of the Spirits of Hindrance,
Spirits of obstruction. In this sense Faust says to
Mephistopheles: Thou art the Father of all hindrances!
The individual human being, membered as he is within mankind as a
whole, has an effect upon the whole world according to whether he
speaks the truth or lies; for beings created by truth or by lies
produce quite different effects. Imagine a people which was composed
entirely of liars, the astral plane would be populated solely by the
corresponding demons and these demons would be able to express
themselves in constitutional tendency to epidemics. Thus there is a
certain species of bacilli who are the carriers of infectious
diseases; these beings are the progeny of the lies told by human
beings; they are nothing else than physically embodied demons
generated by lies.
You see therefore that lies and untruths of earlier ages appear in
world-karma as a definite host of beings. A passage in Faust
indicates how much deep truth is contained in myths and sagas. You
will find there a connection between vermin and lies in the role
played by rats and mice in connection with Mephistopheles, the Spirit
of Lies. Legends have often preserved wonderful indications of the
connection between the spiritual world and the physical world.
In order to understand the Law of Karma we shall have to speak about
many other things. The Movement of Spiritual Science itself is the
outcome of an intimate knowledge of the Law of Karma.
You have just heard that forces which lie in the etheric body work upon
the physical body in the next incarnation. Thus the attitude of mind,
the tendency to think along particular lines, works upon the physical
body. A spiritual or a materialistic attitude of mind is by no means
without importance for the next incarnation. A man who has some
knowledge of the higher worlds he need only believe in their
existence has in his next life a well centred physical body and
tranquil nervous system, a body which he has well in hand, including
the very nerves. On the other hand, a man who believes in nothing
except what is to be found in the world of the senses, communicates
this kind of thinking to his physical body and in the next incarnation
has a body prone to nervous diseases, a frail, fidgety body in which
there is no steadfast centre of will. The materialist scatters himself
in pure details; the Spirit binds together, for Spirit is Unity!
The tendency or disposition comes to light, in the case of the
individual, through destiny in his next incarnation, but it continues
through the generations, so that the sons and grand-children of
materialistic fathers have to pay for this by badly constituted
nervous systems and nervous disorders. An epoch of nerves
is the outcome of the materialistic attitude of the last century. And
as a counteraction, the Great Teachers of mankind have recognised the
necessity of allowing the inflow of spiritual ways of thinking.
Materialism has also found its way into religion. There are people who
believe in the spiritual worlds but have not the will to
acquire real knowledge of them. Can it be said that such people are
not materialists? It is materialism in religion which makes people
want to have the mystery of the Six Day of Creation as the
Bible describes the evolution of the worlds displayed before
their very eyes; it is materialism which speaks of Christ Jesus as an
historical personality and ignores the Mystery of
Golgotha. Materialism in natural science is primarily a consequence of
materialism in religion, and would not exist if the religious life
were not saturated with materialism. Men who have been too lazy to
deepen their religious life it is they who have introduced
materialism into science. And the derangement of the nerves caused by
this materialism works itself out among racial stocks and among whole
peoples, as well as in the individual.
If the stream of spirituality is not powerful enough to influence lazy
and easy-going people as well, the karmic consequence of nervous
derangement will gain greater and greater hold over humanity, and just
as in the Middle Ages there were epidemics of leprosy, so, in future,
materialistic thinking will give rise to grave nervous diseases; there
will be epidemics of insanity besetting whole peoples.
Insight into this domain of the Law of Karma reveals that Spiritual
Science should never be a matter of strife but a healing power in
humanity. The more spiritual men become, the more will troubles
connected with diseases of the nervous system and derangement in the
life of soul, be expunged.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
|
The Rudolf Steiner e.Lib is maintained by:
The e.Librarian:
elibrarian@elib.com
|
|
|
|
|