The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XVII

[ 1 ] In occultism, we distinguish first of all between a person's actions, understanding actions to mean everything that results from any activity connected with their hands; secondly, their speech; and thirdly, their thoughts. Everything that humans accomplish with their hands in this sense has an effect on their karma in their next earthly existence. What we say does not only concern us, but also a group of people who speak the same language, and this has an effect on the karma of the group or race. Words carry greater responsibility than mere deeds, for with them we prepare the configuration of the next race. What we think even has an effect on the reshaping of our earth. Therefore, we distinguish between three levels: First, human actions are individual, except for those actions that arise in humans out of nothing. Second, humans cannot speak for themselves alone; words affect a group of people. Third, thoughts affect all of humanity.

[ 2 ] There is something else connected with this. When we act, we stand entirely alone behind our actions. When we speak, we are not entirely alone in our words. A spiritual entity works behind our words; it then stands behind us. As true as it is that the words we utter are reflected exactly in the Akasha, it is also true that with every word we utter, we intervene in the body of a spiritual being incarnated in this Akasha matter into which our words enter. We must take this into our consciousness; that is why we must be so careful with our words. When we think, we seem to be completely alone within ourselves, yet spiritual beings participate in our thoughts, beings of an even higher and more significant nature than those who participate in our speech.

[ 3 ] There is more to these things than a whole world history. This explains many things. Let us consider a thought within ourselves. Behind this thought stands a spiritual being. When we think of ourselves as enclosed on all sides by the body of a spiritual being, the thought is only an expression of the body of the spiritual being that is working within us. Every time a thought flashes through our soul, it is an imprint, a kind of footprint of a higher spiritual being, just as when we walk on wet ground, we leave footprints and say: A human being walked here. This spiritual being is made of the same substance as the thought. The thought within us can only become the imprint of a higher spiritual being because the higher being has a body made of the same substance as our thoughts.

[ 4 ] When our foot leaves an imprint in the damp earth, the imprint is a negative, a counter-image of our foot. It is the same with our thoughts. In the higher spiritual world, there is a counter-image for every thought. Image and counter-image are intertwined like a seal and a stamp. The substance is the higher spiritual being; in our image, it corresponds to the stamp. Now, the thought, insofar as it corresponds to the seal, is called intuition, and the imprint is called the abstract thought. One can say, when one thinks: I feel the traces of what is happening in the higher worlds. - In view of this fact, the term “seal” is used in religious writings, for example in the Revelation of John. It corresponds to reality. Also, because a higher being is involved in our words, every word is a seal impression. Mystics call the counterpart of the word “imagination.” Thus, we have three levels of thought: the intuitive, the imaginative, and the ordinary abstract. When a person develops further, when abstract thought itself develops to the level at which the beings who participate in speech are incarnated, then that person is a chela, a secret disciple. To be a master means to work in the substance in which the beings who participate in our thoughts are incarnated. Imagination provides the image. That is why the great religious teachers of earlier times spoke figuratively, because imagination provides the image, not abstract thought. All religions speak in images. For humans, the image is initially secondary, but when humans understand how to turn every thought into an image, they have reached a higher level. This is the prerequisite for a whole new kind of perception. In fact, it is important that humans develop to the point where they no longer think abstractly, but have their thoughts in images every time.

[ 5 ] Humans usually only form thoughts. The more highly developed human must think in images, that is, “imagine.” The expression itself already reveals what this is about: imprinting (imagining) something through a certain power of a thing. In the imagination of poets and artists, we find only a very weak reflection of imagination. When a person who is seeking to develop in this higher way speaks, they will try on special occasions to have the counter-image, the imago, in front of them as they speak. Hence the great, powerful images in religious writings. Those who rise to this level of image creation have reached the stage of spiritual beings who are race-creating. Those who develop not only images within themselves, but also intuitions, are not only race-creating, but also co-creating the next planetary existence. The images will echo what has then been realized on earth, but those who create from intuition create something that does not yet exist, that has not yet been realized anywhere, that is, they create out of nirvana. That is the concept of every apocalypse: what will only be real in the future can only be created out of intuition.

[ 6 ] Through abstract thinking, one creates an image of what is there. In imagination, the human being allows himself to be fertilized by the creative spirit within him. Imagination corresponds to hidden realities that have been created through the fertilization of higher spiritual beings; then one can see these higher spiritual beings on the astral plane. The prerequisite for this is to develop a language that is not the expression of abstract thoughts, but the expression of images. Mediums therefore also express themselves in imaginations, in images and symbols, but unconsciously. Behind them, the spirit shapes the symbols. The secret student does this in full consciousness, but not arbitrarily. In doing so, he allows himself to be inspired by the spirit.

[ 7 ] Just as human beings rise to the creation of images and intuitions in this way, the outer world has had an effect on their existence, in such a way that in everything that is mineral essence around us, i.e., of a purely physical nature, intuitions act as creative forces. The crystal is external, as it appears to the senses; but it has been created through intuitions. Behind the entire physical world lies a cosmos of intuitions and, ultimately, a being, the planetary spirit, which produces the intuitions. Behind all language, beings of imagination and the spirit of the race are at work. The same level of spirit is at work in all living things. Imagination is at work behind all plants. The formed plant comes from the imagination, and behind it stands a spiritual being. And everything that is conscious and sentient has arisen from thought itself.

[ 8 ] And now look at the entire universe, first as a physical entity: the Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars, the Milky Way, and so on. But behind it all stands a great intuitive spirit. It is the same spirit that expresses itself in our actions; it also stands behind the entire universe. Christianity calls it the Father. Because it is so little known, it is also called the unknown God, and in theosophical literature, the first Logos.

[ 9 ] Behind all living things stands the spirit of imagination. It is the same spirit that also works in our language, which is why the Christian religion calls it the Word. This refers to something very precise and real. This spirit, which stands behind all living things, still works in our language today, in each of our words, and is therefore rightly called “the Word”; another name for it is the Son or Christ. It is the spirit that lives in all life as imagination.

[ 10 ] Then we come up to what is conscious, what has some degree of sensation, of consciousness, everything animal and what is animal in humans. This can already be grasped with thoughts. Everyone has this within themselves. What goes on in the animal first goes on within themselves: abstract consciousness. All consciousness in the world also lives in humans, in abstract thinking. Within themselves, humans call it “spirit”; insofar as it works outside in creative nature, they call it “Holy Spirit.” This is what underlies all feeling and consciousness. Illness exists only in special cases. The spirit cannot be sick in itself, but only when it is incarnated in the lower bodies. The word “holy” means “to be whole”; it expresses that the spirit that permeates the world outside is healthy. The Holy Spirit is nothing other than the thoroughly healthy spirit; therefore, those who truly unite with the Holy Spirit receive the power of healing. It must have to do with the Holy Spirit that floods the world. This is the spirit that works from person to person as a true healer.

[ 11 ] If we now look out onto the physical plane, we first have what we perceive with our senses. Behind this is the great intuitive spirit. Everything that exists physically has been made by this spirit. Behind everything that lives in pure form, that can be perceived with the senses, stands the Father Spirit, the first Logos. By looking at it, we do not change it. But a change takes place when we act. Then we change not only what is outside in the world, but also the forces that work outside in the world. The moment we act, we create a change on the physical plane. Behind these changes, however, lies also the change in the fundamental force that corresponds to the first Logos. We influence this with our actions, and it remains, is there, cannot pass away again, unless it is destroyed by the same force that brought it about. And the change that is brought about in the great world intuitions by our actions is what catches up with us again as karma. When we look at karma, we call that which draws human beings back into the physical world rupa. We call it rupa because it was accomplished in rupa, through the body, through its outer appearance. We create in the body, in rupa, when we act on the outer intuitions.

[ 12 ] The second thing in which humans are not yet so independent, but in which another spirit still plays a part, is speech. With it we make impressions in a world behind which stands not only the physical, but also life itself. In the world of life, the imaginations of what we speak of remain as formative forces that create the new races. Our present race is created from what stood behind the words of earlier races. This is formed into our race. In addition, everything that is imagination alone comes into consideration. This shows us that with our words we make impressions in the realm of the Son, in the realm of the second Logos. These come back as the collective karma of the whole race. For we do not create the word alone; the spirit of the race also plays a part. What is the basis for this form of karma? Where does the spirit of the race work? The spirit of the race works in the feelings of human beings, permeating the entire emotional world. What human beings share with their group resonates there.

[ 13 ] What affects karma in a much broader sense is feeling = Vedana. So first: Rupa, physicality; second: Vedana, feeling. - For those who have not yet become chelas, feeling is very important in the perception of the second Logos and in everything that is alive. Science wants to look at animals and plants without life. Even the greatest scholar today is still only able to comprehend life with his feelings. Only imaginative understanding enables him to look into life.

[ 14 ] Everything in the environment that has feeling and consciousness corresponds to thought. It has one thing in common with us: perception. The fact that we are able to perceive the world outside in physical space as a world of color and sound is possible because we can translate it into thoughts. We receive the perception and think about it. If there were no thoughts in the perceptions, it would be the greatest folly of human beings to want to form thoughts about them. Then thoughts would be mere illusions if perceptions had not come about through thoughts. What the combination of perceptions results in is that perceptions are first constructed through thoughts that we extract: the laws of nature. These are nothing other than thoughts; the creative, the Holy Spirit is it. Perception is the boundary between the two, where our thoughts touch the creative thoughts outside. So we cannot influence life with a thought we have, but we can influence everything conscious that is itself thought outside.

[ 15 ] In all the spiritual beings that consciousness has brought forth, we leave traces through our thoughts. What humans develop in terms of thoughts based on their perceptions, and what they turn into thoughts, in turn has an effect on everything that necessitates perceptions. We therefore make a third distinction: perception or sanjna, which is the third factor that affects karma.

[ 16 ] Through all our actions, we bring about counteractions in the form of karma, because we intervene in the intuitive world: rupa.

[ 17 ] Through all words, we intervene in the world of creative feelings in order to create counter-feelings around us: Vedana.

[ 18 ] With what we think about our perceptions, we intervene in the whole world of thoughts outside: Sanjna.

[ 19 ] What we perceive around us will no longer be there when we reappear on Earth. Therefore, everything we think about the world of perception will have no influence on our future incarnation; it will only have a karmic force in this incarnation. Thoughts affect our current character.

[ 20 ] What springs from feeling, what has to do with our environment, what enters the world of imagination, comes back to us in the next incarnation, so that it appears in us as inclinations and outside us as opportunities. Through inclinations, we therefore bring about the opportunities in the world that form our destiny, through inclinations that are karmically predisposed. Thoughts shape character, inclinations karmically bring about opportunities. Actions bring about external fate, the entire physical circumstances under which a person is born. What we actually do with rupa, our physicality, is our real fate, which comes back to us karmically.

[ 21 ] Human beings can only consciously create inclinations for future incarnations if they now rise to the level of imagination. This is the secret of how the great founders of religions have had an impact beyond their own time. The images they gave to people triggered inclinations for subsequent incarnations. Every image they sink into the soul emerges in the whole emotional world of the human being. Either the human being acquires such imaginations himself, or he receives them from a guide. We ourselves have them when we have taken control of our entire emotional life; this is the case with the secret disciple. He feels as he intends to feel; the rest of humanity is taken care of by the founders of religion. A religion is the emotional world of future races; it can therefore perish outwardly, for it lives on in inclinations. Today, the inclinations that were implanted in humanity in the 13th and 14th centuries are coming to the fore. It is important that the materialistic images of the present do not take root in human hearts, for they would endow people in future times with the most brutal inclinations, directed solely toward the sensory world, if this is not counterbalanced by spiritual ideas. Those desires and wishes that arise from the imagination live in human beings. That is their desire = samskara. Everything that is intuitive in human beings, the great impulses they receive from the highest initiates, are actually what overcomes factual karma. Those who rise to their true intuitions ascend through the physical world to the Father Spirit. Those who have intuitive knowledge can influence actual karma. They begin to consciously limit their karma.

[ 22 ] To ordinary human beings, only those beings that are also conscious appear to be understandable. When they reach the level of imagination, life also becomes understandable to them; when they reach the level of intuition, they can advance to the intuitive powers.

[ 23 ] As much as a person can influence their karma, they must have intuition themselves, or they must receive it from the great initiates as the great commandments. Vijnana is the name given to the consciousness that is necessary to overcome karma. And now imagine a person living, acting, and dying in the midst of the world. When he has died, something of him remains in this world, something he has woven into it. These are: rupa, vedana, sanjna, samskara, and vijnana. These five things are his account: his personal destiny as rupa; the destiny of the people into which he is born as vedana; the fact that he is born on this earth at all as sanjna. Furthermore, Samskara, desire, and Vijnana, consciousness, also have an effect. These are the five Skandhas.

[ 24 ] What one puts out into the world remains in the world as the five Skandhas. These are the foundation of the new existence. They gradually become less effective when the person has consciously developed one of the last ones. The more consciously they control Vijnana, the more they gain control over consciously embodying themselves in the physical body. The Skandhas are essentially identical to karma.

1. Rupa — physicality, actions
2. Vedana — feeling
3. Sanjna — perception
4. Samskara — desire
5. Vijnana — consciousness, which is necessary to overcome karma.