The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Karma and Details of Karmic Law

[ 1 ] Today we will talk about karma and details of karmic law. You know that karma is understood to be the great law of cause and effect in spiritual life, and that this law of karma is relevant to spiritual science insofar as it applies to repeated earthly lives. We speak of reincarnation and karma as two things that belong together. Now, as you well know, this law of karma is often understood in a somewhat superficial way, as if it were merely a kind of reward and punishment that extends from one incarnation to the next, so that when something bad or evil happens to a person in this life, they must necessarily say to themselves: I deserve this because of some debt I incurred in a previous life. — Or: If I do this or that, I will receive the corresponding reward or punishment in the next life. — But it is not that simple. Anyone who wants to understand this law of karma must delve deeper into the nature of human beings and their entire being.

[ 2 ] Opponents of spiritual science subject the law of karma and reincarnation, the law of repeated earthly lives, to the most vehement attacks, starting with the saying: I have had enough of one earthly life — one would not want to live this life so and so many times — to the assertion that it is a teaching that leads to inaction, to resignation in the face of a blind fate. We will deal with such opposition in detail and find a response to every objection when we engage with the whole process of karma. To do this, we must remember — although we have heard it many times before — what human beings are in a deeper sense.

[ 3 ] As we know, human beings consist first of all of the physical body, which can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands, which physical science investigates and searches, which anatomy dissects, which we know in ordinary life. Many materialistically minded people regard this physical body as the only thing that exists of the human being. As the second link in this being, we must consider the etheric or life body. This is the body that consists of a substance that is essentially different from the physical body. It is not enough to say that the matter, the substance of which this etheric body consists, is essentially thinner than the substance of the physical body. Rather, we are dealing with a completely different kind of “materiality.” It is an active, a force matter. This etheric matter, which has nothing to do with what is called ether in physics, has something creative about it; it is the actual building block. The best way to imagine the etheric body is that it has roughly the same shape as the physical body, but is completely translucent, though not entirely transparent — not even to clairvoyant people. It is permeable; if it were there alone, one could walk through it, but at the same time it is creative, so that the physical organs of the human being are built out of it. The heart, lungs, liver, and so on are created out of this etheric body. From a materialistic point of view, one could say that the etheric body must be very small in children. That is indeed the case. You should not be surprised by this, for we must regard it more as a force that can occupy less space than what it creates. So here we are dealing with creative life, with a creative body that underlies the physical body, which is tangible in space. This etheric body is the carrier of human habits. Above all, it is the carrier of memory and temperament, in fact of everything that constitutes the permanent soul characteristics of the human being. When we speak of the soul of the human being, we mean not least the temperament and the original character disposition. This is expressed in form in the etheric body.

[ 4 ] The third human constituent is the astral body. It fills us and surrounds the human body like a light aura in which the drives, desires, and passions become visible. This has often been described.

[ 5 ] A fourth element is that which appears in our actual self-consciousness, in the I. The other elements of the human being are only germinal and have their seat in this I.

[ 6 ] With regard to karmic development, we are primarily interested in the aforementioned elements of the human being. In this context, we must bear in mind one important fact of life above all else. If you look back on your past life and think back to your childhood, you will be able to say that you have learned a great deal. There was a time when you could not yet read or write and knew nothing about world events, history, literature, and many other things. Now you know all this; it has become part of your soul. But you know something else as well. You know that you can learn a great deal and yet not change your original character and temperament very much. There are people who have learned an enormous amount in the course of their lives and filled their souls with all kinds of knowledge, but who nevertheless have to say to themselves: I used to be quick-tempered — and I still am today. Or: I have always been a phlegmatic person and have remained so. I used to have this or that habit, and I still have it today. — However, there are also people who have changed a lot about themselves and their mental dispositions. Perhaps there is no one who has not changed anything about their disposition. If you look back on your childhood, you will ultimately have to admit that you have changed many things since then. But you will also realize that observation and learning are to the transformation of character traits as the minute hand of a clock is to the hour hand. The transformation of character and temperament progresses slowly, like the hour hand of a clock, while the absorption of observations of life proceeds more quickly, like the minute hand. This depends on the fact that everything one learns is quickly absorbed by the soul, that it is carried by the astral body and expressed in the astral body. When you hear something fundamentally new, you will be filled with a feeling that comes to you now and is forgotten tomorrow. Or when you experience pain that sinks back into consciousness over time — these are the things that you see flashing up in the astral body, but which then disappear again from the astral body. All of this is carried by the astral body.

[ 7 ] So what flashes up in us temporarily in life and then disappears again is attached to the astral body. However, everything that belongs to the permanent life stock of the human being, insofar as it is expressed in the soul, everything that becomes a habit, so that the human being notices it throughout a long period of life, perhaps forever, everything that has to do with temperament, is in the etheric body, which is denser than the astral body. When a person succeeds in changing a habit or a temperamental trait, for example, when they abandon habitual carelessness and become a mindful person, this is reflected in the etheric body and not just in the astral body. When a person learns a great deal and absorbs it in such a way that it gradually becomes part of their soul and an integral part of their inner being, so that they not only know it but possess it in a deeper sense, they thereby change the configuration of their etheric body. If someone takes up a moral principle and has to keep telling themselves: The principle exists, therefore I follow it — then it only adheres to the astral body. But if it becomes so ingrained that they can no longer do otherwise, then it adheres to the etheric body. The transition from the astral body to the etheric body takes place slowly and gradually in life.

[ 8 ] Now let us move on from considering these elements of the human being to an overview of what karma is in context. What takes place only slowly within the same earthly life, namely the transition from something that is initially only present in the astral body to the etheric body, takes place karmically from one incarnation to another in the following way: Those who have endeavored to judge morally correctly, and who may have been encouraged in this endeavor by others, will find the fruits of these efforts in their next life as an original disposition of their etheric body, as a kind of habit, as a character trait. What now lives in the astral body becomes the property of the etheric body in the next life. If you encounter a person with a praiseworthy habit, if this habit is repeatedly expressed in their life, then this indicates that they have absorbed corresponding ideas in their previous life or have brought them to their own attention. Inclinations and habits stem from ideas, thoughts, and concepts that one has formed in previous lives. If you keep this in mind, you can already make provisions for the next life, so that you can predispose a certain organization of the etheric body for the next life. You can say to yourself: In this life, I will try to tell myself over and over again that this or that is good and right. Then the etheric body will show you that it is naturally good and right to follow the corresponding principles.

[ 9 ] A concept that can be illuminated by karma is particularly important here. This is the concept of conscience. What arises from a person's conscience is also something that has been acquired. Human beings only have a treasure trove of conscience, an instinct for what is good, right, and true, because they have built up this conscience in their past lives, in their life experiences, and in their principles. You can strengthen and enhance this conscience if you resolve to deepen your moral views a little every day. Moral views become conscience in the next life and the life after that.

[ 10 ] So you see that what the minute hand of life shows us becomes what the hour hand shows us in the next life. There only needs to be a certain repetition of principles and views in one life, and then they become established for the next life. What occurs in the etheric body of one life bears fruit for the physical body of the next life. Good habits, good inclinations, good character traits prepare health, physical fitness, physical strength, in other words, a healthy physical body for the next life. A healthy physical body in one life indicates that the person in question has prepared this physical body in a previous life through self-acquired habits and character traits. In particular, there is a strong connection between a well-developed memory in one life and the physical body in the next life.

[ 11 ] Let us take as an example a person who immediately forgets everything and another who has a faithful memory. One only needs to consciously recall the things one has experienced and practice this consistently, then one will eventually notice that one has not only acquired a good memory for the things one has trained oneself to remember, but that this memory also becomes a completely different power. And this comes into play in spiritual development. An overview of the past develops in a very special way. Those who conscientiously train their memory will be reborn with physical strength and limbs that can truly serve them, in order to accomplish in the next life what they inwardly desire. A body that cannot carry out what the soul wants stems from a previous life in which no care was taken to train a healthy, good memory, but in which it was left to the sloppiness of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness.

[ 12 ] Today we are only citing individual phenomena, but you can imagine how extensive this whole area we are talking about is. The true occultist will never engage in speculation. What I am citing are not theories, but things that have been tested in specific cases. What has been said here is therefore based on specific research results. When it was just described that a solid physical organism that obeys the soul can be traced back to a good memory in a previous life, then so many cases have been investigated, and the corresponding information is based on the facts established in this investigation. Only facts should be recounted.

[ 13 ] Now, what develops in the etheric body pushes its way into the physical body in the next life, so that not only good inclinations and character traits and good habits of life have an effect in a healthy physical body in the next life, but also that bad habits, bad habits, and corrupt inclinations are expressed in the next incarnation in a sick organism. This should not be understood as if a specific illness stems from a specific trait, but rather that certain dispositions to illness, certain predispositions to illness, can always be traced back to very specific character and temperament traits in the previous life. A person who has lived a life with corrupt character traits will therefore have an organism in this life that is more susceptible to physical illness than that of another. A person who was endowed with healthy character traits and a capable temperament will be reborn with a body that can be exposed to all kinds of epidemics without becoming infected, and vice versa.

[ 14 ] So you see that things in the world are intricately connected according to the law of cause and effect. To cite one example, let us mention a case that corresponds to certain spiritual research findings. It may seem shocking at first, but in a theosophical branch, one can say this. Someone had developed a very selfish sense of acquisitiveness in his life, a true greed for external wealth. This was not the healthy pursuit of wealth that can spring from the altruistic intention to help the world and develop selfless activity—that is something else—but rather the selfish pursuit of gain that conditions a certain constitution of the etheric body and develops the pursuit of gain beyond what is necessary. Such a person is very often born in the next life with a physical body that shows a predisposition to infectious diseases. In numerous cases, it has been occultly determined that people who are easily infected by certain epidemics in their present life were endowed with a pathologically heightened sense of acquisitiveness in their previous life.

[ 15 ] We can also cite other examples in detail. There are two characteristics that have a clearly recognizable influence on the karmic formation of the next life. First of all, there is the strong influence exerted by the lasting character trait of loving, benevolent encounters with fellow human beings. There are people who accept everything benevolently from their fellow human beings, who treat their surroundings lovingly and understand them with sympathy. For some, this love goes far beyond pure human love. They love nature and the whole world. The more this sense of embracing has developed and become a habit of the soul, i.e., attached to the etheric body, the more the person has the predisposition to be young in their next life: they remain young for a long time. So those who age late and remain young and agile for a long time can trace their lives back to a previous earthly life or even to several previous lives spent loving their surroundings. The more a person expresses love for their surroundings, the more they will remain physically young in a subsequent incarnation. Those who tend to dislike their fellow human beings will age early. A body that shows physical signs of aging early on can be traced back to a life of criticism, aversion, and ill will. Thus, we see that we can influence our lives by consciously intervening in karma. Those who can develop love in this life can be assured that in the next life they will have a body that shows youthful features. All those people who today write critical comments at an early age will be people who are almost born with wrinkles in their next life. This is a radical statement, but it is based on a powerful truth.

[ 16 ] Thus, the karmic laws show us the connection between health and spiritual life. No one will dispute that this connection cannot be achieved in two steps, but that one must go into detail. Nor can the statement be doubted that a moral, sincere, conscientious soul is the future builder of a healthy body. But one cannot expect this to happen overnight, nor believe that someone who is afflicted with spiritual flaws can be healed overnight. One should also realize that one must rise from selfishness to a selfless way of life that does not immediately reap the fruits of its actions. However, what becomes a habit can also have an effect on the physical body in this life. Proof of this is occult development, which can consciously influence not only the astral body but also the etheric body. Those who undergo occult development learn to influence not only their astral body but also their etheric body and their physical body. By transforming habitual behavior, a quick-tempered person can become gentle, and a person prone to emotional outbursts can become even-tempered and harmonious. The occultist must change his habits in a relatively short time. True development requires that what one learns does not remain mere doctrine, but enters into the etheric body. Then the occultist also achieves that it enters the physical body. He learns to control his heartbeat, pulse, and breath. In occult development, what is spread over many incarnations in ordinary life is shortened. Karma is thus shortened.

[ 17 ] Some of the things we will discuss this winter will become clearer and more transparent to us when we know certain more intimate karmic connections, for example, the difference between a beautiful and an ugly person. What is karmically present in a beautiful person? Something comes into consideration that seems unbelievable at first, but it is so. The beauty of the physical body is often, not always, but very often, a consequence of suffering endured in a previous life. Suffering in a previous life — physical suffering and also spiritual suffering — becomes beauty in the next life, the beauty of the outer physical body. In these cases, it is really true that one can use a comparison that I have often used before. How does the beautiful pearl come into being in the pearl oyster? Actually, through an illness; it is the result of a disease. In a similar way, there is also a process in the karmic context that represents the connection between illness, suffering, and beauty. This beauty is often bought with suffering and illness.

[ 18 ] Wisdom, too, is often bought at the price of pain. It is not uninteresting that today, external research confirms in many ways what occultists have been saying for thousands of years: that wisdom is connected with pain and suffering, with a life of renunciation and seriousness in a previous existence. It is certainly worthwhile to consult external scientific research from time to time. A book on the facial expressions of thought has recently been published. The book aims to show how a person's physiognomy reflects the nature of their thinking. The author, who clearly does not know much about occultism, has nevertheless discovered through external observation that the physiognomy of a thinker reveals traces of pain they have experienced. Contemporary science is in the process of confirming ancient occult wisdom piece by piece. This will be even more the case in the coming years than any scholar could dream of.

[ 19 ] Now you will find it even easier to understand that we cannot act out of blind faith or a sense of authority toward certain phenomena in intellectual history. When we face a phenomenon such as Schopenhauer, who poured a pessimistic mood over his entire worldview, with an understanding of the law of karma, then those who see more deeply must not believe that this pessimism represents the basic human mood [at all]. Rather, it is a fundamental mood of his soul, which has been prepared karmically in him and brought about by a certain constitution of his etheric body. This pessimistic mood of a thinker can only be understood if one traces it karmically. Such a personality did not have the opportunity to do much good in a previous life — that is a very concrete explanation. On the contrary, this person was condemned by his position in life and by his profession to do many evil things and to accomplish wrongdoing. And this evil and wrongdoing, to which he was condemned in his previous life not karmically but by his profession, comes back to him as a certain antipathy toward the world that now confronts him. This is the repetition of his own deeds. If you want to understand karma, you must not take the fatalistic view that everything is predetermined. People do not need to be condemned by their previous lives for what they do now. This is often only balanced out in the next life. Actions are therefore not always the fruits of previous lives, but may only find their balance in a future life. Such actions are meant when we speak of the cause of Schopenhauer's pessimistic mood.

[ 20 ] Let us strictly distinguish between everything that a person accomplishes as their own individual deeds, which arise entirely from their person – not those that they have to perform through their community, their family, and their profession. Two court councillors may do the same thing because they are court councillors, but we exclude that. However, they may also perform very different deeds because they are two different people. And that is what we are now considering. What flows from a person's personality, what they accomplish, will come back to them as their external fate in the next life. If a person finds themselves in a happy situation in life, if they have been granted a favorable destiny, this can be traced back to the right, wise, and good deeds they accomplished as a personality in a previous life. If a person is in a bad situation in life, if many things go wrong for them, if they live in unfavorable circumstances—meaning their external situation, not the condition of their physical body—then this can also be traced back to deeds they personally accomplished in their previous life. What a person has accomplished through their profession and family affiliation is stored in their temperament and character. A person's fate is therefore determined by their personal deeds in their previous life. Conversely, a person can bring about a favorable or unfavorable fate in their next life through good, wise, and right deeds.

[ 21 ] Those who are brought together with certain personalities have themselves created the conditions for this in a previous life. They have had something to do with these people and have now brought them into their own sphere. An example of this is a case from the time of the Femgerichte. A Femgericht was associated with an execution. The person concerned was brought before masked judges, who carried out the sentence immediately. Here is a case where a person was convicted and killed. Fate has been occultly investigated and traced back to previous incarnations. It turned out that the person killed by the five judges had once been a chieftain who had these five people killed. His former deed had, as if by magnetic force, brought these five people back into his life, and they took revenge on him. This is a radical case, but it is based on a general law. You cannot come together with a person who interferes in your life unless you yourself have brought them into your life on the basis of previous relationships. It may be the case, however, that general circumstances, profession, or family ties bring a person together with people with whom they have never been together before. But then, through mutual behavior, a meeting in the next life is established, which now has to do with the external fate and life of those involved. You see that such karmic ideas are often complicated and not so easy to explain. It is important to study these things in detail, because only then can we truly understand life.

[ 22 ] It must also be pointed out again and again that the correctly understood idea of karma must not be contrasted with the doctrine of salvation as found in Christianity. Although I have already explained to many of you the compatibility of the Christian doctrine of salvation with the idea of karma, there are also new listeners here. There are many misunderstandings. These often arise because many people talk about theosophy without understanding much about it. It is claimed, for example, that karma simply means that human beings must bear the consequences of all their actions. If they have committed a crime, they can only redeem themselves from their sins. From this point of view, many theosophists declare that the idea of redemption through Christ Jesus is meaningless. Theosophy cannot accept redemption through another being, because man must redeem himself. Christian theologians counter this by saying: We believe in redemption through Christ Jesus, but you believe in self-redemption. The two are not really compatible.

[ 23 ] Meanwhile, karma is a kind of life account that can be compared to a commercial account. On one side are the debit items and on the other the credit items. They are added up and the balance is calculated. It would be a strange businessman who said: I don't want to do any more business so that my balance sheet is not affected. — Just as a new transaction can be carried out at any moment in commercial life, so a new karma can be brought about at any moment by a new action. If someone thinks: A person has brought suffering upon themselves, they deserve it, so I must not help them — that is foolishness. It is like saying to a businessman who is bankrupt: Twenty thousand marks would help you, but if I gave them to you, I would be interfering with your account book. — That would certainly not be the case. The borrowed sum would only be entered in the account book. It is the same with life. It only has to be balanced, but it does not always have to be balanced by oneself. Karma does not mean self-balancing, but only being balanced by an action. Now suppose you are a rich, powerful man who can help not just one, but two people. Then you can intervene in the karma of two people. Precisely because karma exists, you can intervene in the life account of these two people. There are people who can help three, four, five, even hundreds. Such people will not say: I must not help others because I am interfering with their karma. — Rather, they will help them.

[ 24 ] Such help can now be given by a being of the highest order, who once appeared in the world, to those people who consider themselves part of his circle. That is Christ Jesus. Because salvation is brought about by a certain kind of evil, it does not contradict the law of karma. Salvation through Christ Jesus is completely compatible with the law of karma, just as the rich man's help to the bankrupt merchant is. The misunderstandings arise from the fact that theosophists have not thoroughly understood karma and theologians have not concerned themselves with it. It is precisely through the essential and important nature of the act of a single high being that the law of karma is guaranteed to exist. Once these things are properly understood in the future, it will become clear how little theosophy is opposed to any creed that is based on a true foundation, and how much it leads to a true understanding of such a creed. Once you have understood the law of karma in a few cases, you will feel that you are looking into a very deep necessity within spiritual life. Of course, only those who do not merely make it a theoretical knowledge, but absorb it into the whole world of sensations and feelings of their being, have truly grasped the law of karma. Then inner security and harmony pour out over the whole of life. And those who claim again and again that the law of karma leads to inactivity and lethargy, that it causes one to surrender to one's fate, that it does not lead to joy in life and the like, have not yet tried to live with the law of karma. To live with the law of karma means to pour courage and hope into the soul.

[ 25 ] Above all, the law of karma must shed light on our future. We need to think less about the past and more about the future. We have often pointed out that human beings can influence the distant future by preparing, in accordance with the law of karma, the future configuration of the etheric body in their astral body and, in the further course of events, the future form of the physical body. If you understand this, you will see the tremendous importance of this connection; you will appreciate the depth of the idea of education, especially the idea of national education, under the law of karma. If efforts are made today to enable people to live in accordance with the law of karma and prepare for their future lives, then at the same time they are preparing the future communities of the people. What will live in the future are the reincarnated people of the present. Healthy races in the future, and especially healthy leaders of future races, will emerge if people live sensibly in the future in accordance with the law of karma. For when the individual human being perfects himself, he thereby influences the national and racial organisms of the future.

[ 26 ] The actual mechanism of this karma must first be examined. This refers to the question of which forces are effective when the astral characteristics of the present life are transferred to the etheric body in the next life, and which forces cause the characteristics of the present life that are predisposed in the etheric body — habits and inclinations — to be transferred to the physical disposition of the next life. Even more difficult to answer is the question: What forces are at work when, on the basis of their present deeds, people surround themselves with external circumstances in their next life; when they not only gather around themselves the people with whom they have something to do and have had something to do, but also place themselves in the natural environment, in the plant and animal world, in the social order that they themselves have prepared? What are these forces that bring all this back to the person? How is it that two people who had something to do with each other in a previous life, one of whom is reborn in America and the other in Europe, are nevertheless brought together? These are the big questions that we will try to answer next time. In short, how do the circumstances of one life shape the circumstances of the next? Since we will have many guests, this question will also be suitable for consideration at the general meeting. Of course, those who were present at these lectures will have an advantage next time. “The Technique of Karma” will be the title of the next lecture.

[ 27 ] We have thus distributed an important question of life between today and next time. Please bear in mind that what has been said were selected cases based on real, positive occult facts. Everything that has been revealed today as a karmic connection can therefore be traced back to the actual investigation of the karma of specific people, of individual human beings. Karma and its consideration also teach us the basis on which we must evaluate the connection between illness and individual soul characteristics, namely the awakening of certain soul forces, already in this life. Thus, for those who take in the lectures on karma here, many things will come into sharper focus that are given in general outline in the Architect's House about the connection between illness and death, suffering and evil. Namely, this winter, consideration should be given here and there to how the spiritual scientific worldview fits into life. In this way, we will gain more insight and understanding that spiritual science is not something that can be dismissed as impractical, but that it intervenes in immediate practical life.