X
In the last
lecture we spoke of how the seed of karma is formed in the period
immediately following a man's death. And I tried to describe to
you with what living force and intensity the experiences undergone
during this period work upon him and also upon one who is able to
follow the life of a human being through this period — which,
as you know, lasts for about a third of the time of the earthly life.
We must, of course, bear in mind how the terrestrial world in which
the fulfilment and development of karma take place, works upon man,
and in what a different way he is influenced by the
extra-terrestrial world.
When we survey the
scene of our karma — the earth — it is obvious that
everything belonging to the earth, all the beings of the kingdoms of
nature, exercise a very real influence upon man. This influence makes
itself felt in his life even when his cognition is not directed to
his earthly surroundings. He must be nourished, he must grow; to this
end he must take into himself the substances of the earth. These
substances work upon him through their qualities and inner forces
quite independently of anything he may know about them. And
expressing it rather radically, we may say that no matter what
attitude a man adopts in his life of soul towards the kingdoms of
nature surrounding him in earthly existence, he is related in a very
definite way to the facts and realities of his physical
environment.
This can be
observed in many domains of life. How would it be, for instance, if
the quantity of foodstuffs we consume were determined by what we know
about the effects of the various foodstuffs upon the organism?
Obviously we cannot wait until we possess such knowledge; we are
obliged to eat. Our relationship to our earthly environment is
entirely independent of our knowledge, independent too, in a certain
sense, of our life of soul.
But now think of
the utterly different character of our relationship to the world of
stars. Influences of the world of stars cannot be said to have the
same instinctive basis as the influences of the kingdoms of nature.
The starry worlds fill man with wonder, he can be moved and inspired
by them. But just think to what an extent his life of soul is
involved in everything that concerns the world of stars, how his life
of soul is affected. Take the nearest heavenly body that is related
to man — the moon. That the moon has an influence upon
man's life of phantasy and imagination is common knowledge. And
even those people who repudiate everything else in respect of
influence of the celestial bodies upon the human being will not deny
that the ‘magic of moonlight’ — to use a romantic
phrase — has an effect upon phantasy.
But it is
impossible to imagine that even this crudest and most obvious
influence of the world of stars could take effect if man had no life
of soul. Without the life of soul there could be no such relationship
as exists between man and his earthly environment, where in truth
nothing essential depends upon whether he admires or does not admire,
shall we say, a cabbage — it is simply there to be eaten
— or upon what he knows of its effect upon his organs; what he
has to do is to eat it! In this case, knowledge is merely an
accessory. Knowledge does indeed, raise man's life of soul
above the life of nature; but man lives his life within the realm of
nature, and the spiritual life itself is an accessory. But if the
spiritual life is excluded we cannot conceive that any influence
could be exercised upon man by the world of the stars — let
alone by the world lying still further beyond: the world of the
Hierarchies, of the higher Spiritual Beings.
On the lowest
level, so to speak, of the Hierarchies are those Beings of whom I
said in the last lecture that inasmuch as they themselves live within
the experiences of man after death, they impart tremendous power and
intensity to these experiences. If these Moon Beings who were once
the great primeval Teachers of humanity on earth did not live, as it
were, within man's very being after death, his experiences
would be like dreams. But they are anything but dreamlike; they are
stronger, more full of reality than the so-called normal experiences
of earthly life. Karma is actually prepared by means of these
experiences, because we live with such intensity in others, not in
ourselves, and have to establish the balance for our deeds. We
experience things as the others experienced them, and with tremendous
intensity. In this way our karma is prepared. And then comes a
transition. Having shared these experiences with the Moon Beings, man
passes on to experiences shared with Beings who have never been on
the earth. The Moon Beings of whom I spoke in the last lecture were
at one time on the earth. But now, in a later period between death
and a new birth, man ascends to Beings who were never on earth. The
Beings belonging to the first group of the higher Hierarchies are
those we know by the name of the Angels. These Beings guide and
accompany us from one earthly life to another. Among the ranks of the
higher Beings they are the nearest to us and they are also very near
to us throughout our earthly life.
When we reflect
about the external circumstances of our earthly life, about things we
have seen or heard, about what we have gleaned from the world of
nature or from history, or about what other people have said to us
... when our thinking is occupied exclusively with what comes to us
from outside during earthly life, then that Being of the Hierarchy of
the Angels to whom we belong has little to do with our thoughts; for
the Angels never dwelt on the earth — unlike the primeval
Teachers who although they were present in etheric bodies only, did
nevertheless inhabit the earth. The Angels were never earth-dwellers.
Our relation to them is therefore different from our relation to the
Moon Beings of whom I have been speaking to you.
But for all that,
as we follow the paths which lead us after death in a certain sense
past the planets, and come, first of all, into the domain of the Moon
Beings, we are also in the realm of the Angels. Thus while we are
living together with the primeval Teachers of humanity who have now
become Moon-dwellers, we are living, too, with the
Angels.
Then, as our path
leads further, we enter the sphere which in all spiritual science
that has ever existed, is known as the sphere of Mercury. None of the
Beings in this region were ever on the earth. Here live only Beings
who were never earth-dwellers. When we pass into the sphere of
Mercury between death and a new birth, we come into the realm of the
Archangels. And when subsequently we pass into the sphere of Venus we
come into the realm of the Archai.
In passing through
these realms of the Third Hierarchy we approach what is in reality
the spiritual sphere of the Sun. And the spiritual Sun-sphere is
truly, in the most sublime sense, the dwelling-place of those Beings
who in the ranks of the higher Hierarchies are named Exusiai,
Dynamis, Kyriotetes. Thus it is the Second Hierarchy which, in
reality, is the soul, the spirit, of the Sun-existence. We enter this
sphere and spend in it the greater part of the time between death and
a new birth.
Now these Beings
can of a truth be understood only when we remember that their
existence is entirely remote from what makes us into earth-men and
holds us within the bounds of natural law. In the realm of true
Sun-existence there are no natural laws as we know them on earth. In
the realm of spiritual Sun-activity, spiritual laws —
including, for example, the laws of will — and natural laws,
are one. In that realm, natural laws do not in any way run counter to
spiritual laws, for natural law and spiritual law are completely at
one.
Let us be quite
clear as to the consequences of this. — We live here on earth
and have our various experiences. Perhaps we strive for goodness, we
endeavour not to deviate from a path we consider morally right. With
these intentions we perform certain deeds. We see someone else to
whom such intentions cannot possibly be ascribed, to whom we can
attribute only evil purposes. We wait a few years, continuing to
unfold side by side with the other man's evil purposes, what we
consider to be our own good intentions. But now we perceive that
nothing has been achieved; our good intentions have had no effect
and, in addition, ill-luck may have befallen us, whereas the other
man whose purposes we deemed evil is living by our side in what
appears to be good fortune.
This is something
that leads so many people who have eyes only for earthly life, to
rebel against it and to declare that in this earthly life there is no
evidence of a power that deals justly with good and evil. And indeed
no really unbiased observer will be able to say that a man who says
this is entirely in the wrong. For would any reasonable person be
prepared to insist that every occurrence in a man's life is
connected, in respect either of merit or guilt, with what has come
from his intentions in this earthly life? When we consider how
earthly life takes its course we can only say that it is impossible
to find any kind of balance there for the moral impulses issuing from
the soul. Why is this impossible?
It is because we
are not in a position, of ourselves, to translate our intentions,
those innermost forces which by freely willed assent hold sway in our
life of soul, into the reality wherein we live on earth. There, in
the outer world, natural laws prevail and events occur for which the
influences of many different human beings are responsible. We cannot
but realise that in earthly life there is an abyss between the
impulses of will in our souls and what we see taking effect in
external life as our destiny.
Just ask
yourselves how much of what is destiny in this external life and
therefore significant for you is a direct realisation of the
intentions you bear within your soul? The terrestrial world is not
the realm in which the spiritual laws in accordance with which man
allows himself to be governed, or governs himself, are at the same
time natural laws. In this earthly world, spiritual laws are not
identical with natural laws; spiritual laws hold sway in man's
inner being only. And if we face the world fairly and squarely, we
can only say: if someone misconstrues my good intentions, deeming
them evil, if he does not recognise my good intentions and judges
them by what my destiny may be after a few years ... if, therefore,
someone says that my good intentions are, in reality, bad, and when
ill-luck befalls me a few years later justifies himself by saying:
‘See what has happened now; I said all along that his
intentions were bad ...’ then this would be an impossible way
of living. The spiritual must work from soul to soul. But in the
external, earthly world, the spiritual does not yet work as a force
of destiny.
Thus we must keep
vividly in mind that in earthly life there is an abyss between the
moral and psychical on the one side and the natural and physical on
the other. This abyss is caused by the fact that spiritual laws are
not identical with natural laws.
Now if men leave
entirely out of account the world which leads on from terrestrial
existence — the world from B to C, from death to a new birth
— whether they simply disregard it or whether they think that
owing to the boundaries of cognition nothing can be known of it
— what will such men say? They will say: ‘Natural
laws and what the human being does and experiences because his life
is involved in them — that is actually, that is real. Our
knowledge, our science can encompass it. But the outcome of the
intentions which are present within us as experiences of
soul-and-spirit — that we cannot know.’ Nothing, indeed,
can be known, if the life from B to C is ignored. That these
things living within the soul will in some way find fulfilment can
only be a matter of belief. In the measure in which, since
ancient times, knowledge of the span from B to C has faded, in that
same measure has this separation arisen between knowledge and
belief.
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
But we cannot
speak of karma as we speak of knowledge and belief. For karma is the
expression, the manifestation, of law — not of something that
is mere belief — just as is the case with natural
law.
Returning now to
man's life between death and a new birth, after the earliest
period which I have already described to you, our study brings us to
a world where dwell the Beings of the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai,
Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and instead of earthly existence we have a
Sun-existence. For even when we pass beyond the region of the stars,
the sun still radiates, though not in the physical sense; and it
continues to radiate as we live through the time between death and a
new birth. Whereas here on earth the sun shines down upon us with its
physical influences, in the life between death and a new birth the
sun shines upwards to us; that is to say, we are borne and sustained
by the Beings of the sun, by Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. But in the
world wherein we are then living, the natural laws which obtain in
earthly life have no meaning at all, for everything is governed
by spiritual laws,
laws of soul-and-spirit. In that world there is no need for grass to
grow; no cow needs grass to eat; for neither cows nor grass exist.
Everything is spiritual. And within this Spirit-realm we can bring to
realisation the intentions in the soul which cannot be realised in
the earthly realm, so little realised that in extreme cases the good
can lead to unhappiness and the evil to happiness. Everything in the
realm of the sun finds fulfilment and expression according to its
inner worth, its intrinsic nature, and it is therefore impossible for
the good not to take effect in proportion to its power of goodness
and the evil in proportion to its power of evil. — There is a
very special reason why this is so. — From the Sun-existence
which enshrines the Second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis,
Kyriotetes, a kindly, gracious welcome is extended to all the good
intentions and purposes that were harboured in our life of soul on
earth. This could also be expressed by saying that whatever has lived
in a man's soul with any nuance of goodness is received in this
Sun-existence with graciousness, but the evil is utterly rejected; it
cannot enter.
In a series of
lectures
[
Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion.
Ten lectures, September, 1922.]
I was able to give in the Goetheanum
before its destruction by fire — the French Course as it is
called — I spoke of how a man must leave behind his bad karma
before a certain point of time is reached between death and a new
birth. Evil cannot enter the realm of Sun-existence. There is a
proverb which, to the modern mind, refers of course only to the
physical effects of the sun. This proverb says that the sun shines
equally upon the evil and the good. That is indeed so; but the sun
does not admit evil into its realm. If you can perceive spiritually
what is good in a man's soul, you will see it bright as
sunlight — bright in the spiritual sense. If you perceive what
is evil in him, it is dark, like a spot where no sunlight can
penetrate. Whatever is evil in a man must be left behind when he
enters the Sun-existence. It cannot go with him.
But think of it:
in his earthly life man is one whole. His physical existence and his
existence of soul-and-spirit are linked together, they form a unity.
Although it cannot be proved with crude instruments, it is a fact
that not only does the blood of a man who harbours only evil, flow
differently, but the very composition of the blood is different from
that of a man who has goodness in his soul!
Picture to
yourself that in the life between death and a new birth a really evil
man arrives at the threshold of the Sun-existence. He must leave
behind him all that is evil. Yes, but this means that a considerable
part of him remains behind, for the evil is bound up with him, is one
with him. In so far at least as the evil is one with him, he must
leave part of himself behind. But if at this threshold a man has to
leave behind something of his own being, what is the consequence? The
consequence is that he is maimed, stunted, and he passes into the
Sun-existence as a kind of spiritual cripple. The Sun-existence can
have an effect only upon what a man brings of himself into this
realm. And in this realm those Beings who can work together with him
between death and a new birth are led to him.
Let us take an
extreme case — the case of someone who was so evil, so utterly
inhuman that he wished ill to all men. Let us imagine him to have
been evil to a degree in which evil does not really exist ... but
hypothetically at any rate we will imagine him to have been an
unmitigated villain. What will become of such a man who has
identified his whole being with evil? What will become of him when he
arrives at the point where he must leave behind everything of himself
that is evil, or connected with evil? He will be obliged to leave the
whole of himself behind! He will have passed through the realm of the
Moon Beings, will have encountered the Being of the Hierarchy of the
Angels who is specially connected with him, and also other Beings of
that Hierarchy. But now, having reached the end of this realm, and
pursuing his way through the spheres of Mercury and Venus, he
approaches the realm of the Sun. Before entering this realm of
Sun-existence he must leave all of himself behind, because he was
wholly evil. — What is the consequence? The consequence is that
he does not pass into the Sun-existence at all. And if he is not to
disappear from the world altogether he must at once prepare to
reincarnate, to enter again into an earthly life.
In the case of a
hardened evil-doer, therefore, you will find that very soon after his
death he comes back again to earthly life.
There are, in
reality, no such unmitigated villains in existence, because in a
certain sense there is some good in every human being. All
of them, therefore, can enter a little way into the realm of
Sun-existence. Whether a man penetrates far or only a little way into
this realm depends upon the extent to which he has crippled himself
in soul-and-spirit. And this also determines what measure of power he
is able to draw from the Sun-existence for his next earthly life.
What a human being has within him can be founded only upon forces
gathered from the Sun-existence.
You know the scene
in the second part of Faust, where Wagner produces
Homunculus in the retort. — Now to be able actually to create a
being like Homunculus, Wagner would have needed the knowledge
possessed by the Sun Beings. But Goethe does not depict Wagner as
such a man; if Wagner had possessed that knowledge, Goethe would not
have used the words “soulless groveller” in connection
with him. Wagner is undoubtedly very clever but he lacks the
knowledge possessed by the Sun Beings. That is the reason why
Mephistopheles — a spirit-being who has this knowledge —
must come to his aid. Wagner could have achieved nothing without the
help of Mephistopheles. Goethe divined quite clearly that only so
could there be produced in the retort a being like Homunculus who can
then himself actually accomplish something.
We must be quite
clear that the human
cannot proceed from the earthly but only from the Sun-nature.
What is earthly in man is only an image. Man bears the Sun-nature
within him; the earthly is but an image, a picture, of his true
being.
[See:
Man as Picture of the Living Spirit.
Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner, 2nd September, 1923, in London.]
So you see, the
World Order commits us into the care of the sublime Sun Beings during
our life between death and a new birth. And together with us, these
Sun Beings work upon as much of our being as we have been able to
bring into the realm of Sun-existence. The rest remains behind and
must be gathered in again when we return to earthly
life.
Man passes out
into cosmic existence — I shall describe the further stages in
the lecture the day after to-morrow — and then he returns to
the earth. On the path of return he passes once more through the Moon
region. There he finds the evil he left behind and he must receive it
into his being, it must again become part of himself. He receives it
in the form in which he experienced it immediately after having
passed through the gate of death; and now he makes it so truly a part
of himself that it comes to realisation in earthly
existence.
Let us think once
again of the rather unpleasant example I gave a little while ago.
— If during my life on earth I have given someone a box on the
ears, then after my death, in the course of the backward journey, I
live through the pain he felt. This experience too I find again on my
return and strive for its realisation. If, therefore, something
befalls me that is the consequence of what the other human being
experienced, I myself have striven to this end on departing from the
last life on earth. And when I return to the earth I bring with me
the impulse for its realisation. — But let us leave that for
the time being. — I shall speak in the next lecture about the
fulfilment of karma. What I want to impress upon you now is that what
I find again as I return, has not passed through the Sun-existence. I
have taken through the Sun-existence only that in me which was
related to the good.
Having built up in
the realm of the Sun a somewhat stunted human being, I now take into
myself once again what I left behind. What I now take into myself
forms the basis of my earthly-bodily organisation. As I brought into
the realm of Sun-existence only the part of myself that was able to
enter this realm, I can only bring back, quickened and spiritualised
by the Sun-existence, the part of my human being that was able to
accompany me through that realm.
Let us therefore
make this distinction:
-
A part
of man that has passed through the realm of Sun-existence appears on
earth.
-
A part
of man that has not passed through the realm of Sun-existence
appears on earth.
What I have been
saying hitherto concerns man's life between death and a new
birth and its after-effects in the earthly life. But the sun also
works upon the human being while he is on the earth. And the other
realms too, especially the realm of the Moon, work upon man in
earthly existence. There is, firstly the influence of the
Sun-existence between death and a new birth, and, secondly, the
influence of the Sun-existence during life on earth. Similarly, if we
take together the workings of Moon, Mercury and Venus, we have,
firstly, the influence of the Moon-existence between death and a new
birth, and, secondly, the influence of the Moon-existence upon the
human being while he is on earth.
During earthly
life we need the sun, in order that we may have a head-life.
What the sun sends to us in its rays calls forth the head-life from
our organisation. This is the part of man that is conditioned by the
Sun-existence, that is dependent upon the workings of the head. I say
“the head”, meaning the whole life of the senses and of
ideation. The other part of man, the part that is dependent upon the
influences of the spheres of Moon, Mercury, Venus, is connected, not
with the head-life, but with the life of procreation in the widest
sense.
There you have
something very remarkable. The Sun-existence works upon man between
death and a new birth, making him truly ‘man’,
elaborating in him what is connected with the good. During earthly
life, however, the sun can work only upon what is connected with the
head. Of a truth this head-life has not very much to do with the
good, for a man can also use his head to make himself into an
out-and-out scoundrel. He can let his very cleverness make him an
evil-doer.
Everything in
earthly existence that promotes continuity of evolution is based upon
the life of procreation. This life of procreation is under the
influence of the moon and during the period between death and a new
birth is connected with the part of man that does not share
his existence in the cosmic spheres.
If you keep this
in mind it will be easy for you to understand how what is connected
with it makes its appearance in the human being during his earthly
life.
We have, firstly,
the part of man that has passed through the Sun-existence. In earthly
life the Sun-existence works upon the head only; nevertheless what is
connected with the Sun-existence remains in the being of man as a
whole; it remains as his predisposition to health. That is why
the predisposition to health is also connected with the head. The
head becomes ill only when the illness is projected into it from
below, by the metabolic process or by the workings of the rhythmic
system.
On the other hand,
the part of man that does not pass through the Sun-existence is
connected with his predisposition to illness.
And so it will be
clear to you that illness is woven into man's destiny
below the realm of Sun-existence and is connected with the
effects of the evil which are experienced as soon as he has passed
into the life between death and a new birth. The realm of the Sun is
connected with the predisposition to health. And only when influences
from the Moon-sphere penetrate into the Sun-sphere in man's
organism can that part of him which in earthly life is connected with
the Sun-sphere — namely, the head — suffer any condition
of illness. You see now that real insight into those great karmic
connections is possible only when we follow the human being into the
realm where spiritual laws are natural laws, and natural laws are
spiritual laws.
(1)
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A part of man that has
passed through the realm of Sun-existence appears on earth.
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It is the part of man
that is dependent upon the workings of the head.
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Predisposition to health
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(2)
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A part of man that has
not passed through the Sun-existence appears on earth.
|
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It is the part of man
that is connected with the life of procreation.
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Predisposition to illness
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You must forgive
me for using trivial words in describing matters that are anything
but trivial, and for speaking the language of ordinary life. To do so
is not unnatural for one who stands within the spiritual world. When
we talk with human beings here on earth, we recognise by the way in
which they speak that they stand within the realm of nature. Their
very language betrays it. But when one comes into the realm I
described in the last lecture — the realm into which man passes
directly after death — and has converse there with the Beings
who were once the primeval Teachers of mankind, or with the Beings of
the Hierarchy of the Angels, then there is something strange in this
converse. For in that realm — how shall I put it? — folk
talk as though they were speaking of natural laws, but these are
natural laws in which magic is operating and which are governed by
the spirit. These Beings understand magic; but of natural laws they
know only that men have such laws on earth. They themselves are not
concerned with these natural laws. Nevertheless the processes and
happenings in yonder realm appear in pictures which resemble the
processes taking place on the earth. Hence the spiritual workings
resemble the workings of nature, but are stronger, of greater
intensity, as I have described.
When man leaves
this sphere and enters the realm of Sun-existence, then no more at
all is heard of the natural laws belonging to the earth. The language
of the Beings in this realm has reference to spiritual workings,
spiritual causes only. In that world nothing is heard of natural
laws.
After all, my dear
friends, these things must be made known some time or other. For when
on earth it is constantly insisted that natural laws are absolute,
universal — or even, foolishly enough, eternal — one
would fain reply: But there are realms in the universe through which
man has to pass in the life between death and rebirth where these
natural laws are passed over with a smile because they have no
significance there; they exist at most as tidings from the earth, not
as any real factor in life. And when man passes through this realm
between death and a new birth, and has lived long enough in a world
where there are no natural laws but only spiritual laws, he ceases to
think of natural laws as something to be taken seriously. Natural
laws are not taken seriously between death and rebirth. Man lives in
a realm where his spiritual intentions can be realised, where
realisation is insight.
But if in the
realm of Sun-existence there were only the Second Hierarchy, if we
were to experience in that realm only the kind of realisation that is
possible there, then, having passed through this state of existence
and desiring to enter earthly life again, we should stand at this
point (see diagram) burdened with our karma, knowing that no progress
is possible unless what has been brought, spiritually, to
realisation, can be led over into the physical. Spiritually, our
karma has been brought to realisation when we descend to earth; but
the moment we enter earthly existence, the spiritual laws and
spiritual aspects must be transformed into the physical. Here is the
region where the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones transform the
spiritual into the physical.
| Diagram 2 Click image for large view | |
And so in the next
earthly life, what has already been brought to spiritual realisation
comes also to physical realisation in karma. Such is the onward
course of karma.
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