The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. The Technique of Karma

[ 1 ] One understands the ways of karma better when one considers the fate of the human soul between death and a new birth. Today, we will examine various aspects of the path that the soul must travel between death and a new birth. We will paint a picture of the fate of the soul after death. And since one can only gradually become familiar with and accustomed to these realms, it can only be beneficial to allow such thoughts to pass through the soul more often.

[ 2 ] If we want to consider the fate of the soul after death, we must first of all realize that a completely new relationship then arises between the inner human being and the surrounding worlds. It is always good to draw a parallel between death and sleep. As the human being stands before us, he is composed of various members. First of all, we have the physical body before us. It is based on the etheric body, which is like an archetype. In a certain sense, this etheric body is the creator of the physical body. It is relatively correct to say that the etheric body resembles the physical body. Particularly in its head region, the upper part, the etheric body is a kind of double image of the physical body. The etheric body is the bearer of temperament, but also the bearer of the ideas that become fixed in the soul. When an idea becomes a permanent part of a person, so that it is always available, it has been imprinted on the etheric body. The etheric body is the bearer of memory, and the densest part of the etheric body is the bearer of conscience. The third member of the human being is the astral body, the bearer of desires and passions, the wishes that arise in the human being through his needs. There is no fixed boundary between the etheric and astral bodies. The fourth member of the human being is the I. In it lies the potential for the immortal human being, the spiritual human being or Atma, the life spirit or Buddhi, and the spirit self or Manas.

[ 3 ] When a person lies asleep in bed, the etheric body and the physical body remain connected. The astral body is lifted out. At night, pain and pleasure, as well as all other sensations, sink away because the astral body is separated from the physical body and therefore cannot perceive them. It is different when a person passes through the gate of death. We are dealing here with the physical body that has just been left by the etheric body. While the etheric body does not leave the physical body during sleep, it does leave the physical body in death.

[ 4 ] After death, the physical body dissolves through decay or cremation, and its parts are returned to the physical world. Then the astral body and etheric body remain connected for a while. This is an important moment in life after death: at the moment when the etheric body detaches itself from the physical body but is still connected to the astral body, the whole of life appears before the soul of the human being like a tableau of memories. This is because the etheric body is the ‘bearer of memory’. As long as the etheric body remains connected to the physical body, memory is bound to the forces of the physical body. When the etheric body is lifted out of the physical body after death, everything appears simultaneously in the soul like a tableau of memories.

[ 5 ] At first, it is difficult to imagine in ordinary consciousness how such a long period of time can be surveyed by the soul in a single moment. But there is another essential factor. In the physical world, every experience is linked to pain and pleasure, to desire and aversion. And when people remember what they have experienced in ordinary physical life, desire and aversion reappear in their memories. After death, however, pain and suffering are extinguished. These are objective images that do not hurt us, images that do not evoke personal feelings in us. Such a tableau of memories can also occur exceptionally in other situations in life, for example, in people who are close to drowning or otherwise in mortal danger. The best witnesses for such things are those who want nothing to do with actual spiritual research, for example, the testimony of the Viennese criminal anthropologist Benedikt. In his memoirs, he recounts that he was once close to death during a mountain hike and that at that moment his entire life flashed before his eyes. This phenomenon occurs because something specific happens to the etheric body when a person experiences a tremendous shock in life.

[ 6 ] We are familiar with the feeling of a hand falling asleep. This is due to the etheric body loosening. The clairvoyant can then see how limp, like a glove, the fingers that have fallen asleep hang down from the hand. Something similar happens when a person is hypnotized. The clairvoyant sees the etheric head hanging out of the physical head on the right and left. When a person experiences a tremendous shock in life, such as drowning, their entire etheric body is lifted out of the physical body. This then causes such a tableau of memories to appear.

[ 7 ] When the soul has lived in this memory image for a while after death, a second death follows. The astral body with the ego detaches itself from the etheric body. Just as the physical body passes into the elements of the physical world, the etheric body passes into the world ether or the world of general world life. When the etheric body lifts itself out, it still has the form of the physical body for a while. The etheric body can be seen as a kind of ghost that lingers near the grave or elsewhere where the person in question has been. It tends to remain near the physical body.

[ 8 ] We must now follow the fate of the astral body with the self-consciousness of the human being. A certain kind of consciousness arises soon after the etheric body has separated from the astral body. This consciousness is much stronger than vivid dreaming. It experiences the reality of the astral world. This state is called Kamaloka, which literally means “place of desires.” However, this does not refer to a place beyond the physical world. The astral world is within our physical world. The worlds differ only in that one world is recognizable through a different kind of organ than the other. The human being now lives in the astral world, surrounded by his astral body. It is a peculiar life that they now go through. We can best understand this if we consider how the human being has lived up to that point.

[ 9 ] Let us assume that an average person of today has a favorite food, that they enjoy this food. They do not enjoy the food in their physical body. He merely ingests the food; these are physical processes. These physical processes can take place as chemical processes. But that is not the enjoyment of the food. The enjoyment is contained in the soul of the gourmet. This is the case with all the joys and pains that the soul experiences. In order to enjoy food, the human being naturally needs the physical instrument to ingest it. When the soul is refreshed by beautiful colors or other things, it is necessary to have a physical eye so that the joy of color can enter the soul. That which demands to be satisfied in the soul through the senses is kama. In Kamaloka, the soul still craves enjoyment, but after death it lacks the organs to satisfy its desires. A special kind of feeling then arises in the soul. It can be compared to what happens in the soul when one walks through a desert where there is no spring, while one is burning with thirst. The state after death is therefore caused by the lack of organs to satisfy desires. There, the person experiences a burning thirst until all desire has disappeared. The more he has freed himself in this life from being satisfied by the senses, the more he has appropriated the beautiful, the good of the world, the pure, the incorporeal ideas, the faster the kamaloka period passes. If they have even settled into the spiritual world, if they have imbued their soul with the ideas and thoughts that lie behind the sensory world, then their kamaloka period is short.

[ 10 ] On the astral plane, everything runs backwards, and things are reversed, that is, they appear as mirror images. For example, the number 641 must be read as 146. A passion that one generates comes to the person in the form of an image, such as a wild animal. In reality, however, such an image emanates from the person themselves.

[ 11 ] In this way, the person relives their past physical life in reverse. They relive the things that happened before their death. This reverse experience takes them back to childhood. This ultimately frees them from everything that bound them to physical existence. The words are fulfilled: “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” They have arrived at the point where they were before they incarnated. They become again as they were as a child. With that, they are ready to return to devachan.

[ 12 ] We must familiarize ourselves with two concepts. We must consider a sensation that occurs with great intensity at the moment of death. Simultaneously with the memory image, the person feels that he is becoming larger and larger. The images that surround him, which are the images of his past life, also enlarge. While still in the etheric body, the human being grows, so to speak, into his surroundings. If the human being in the etheric body has experienced an event that took place fifty miles away, it is as if he has expanded to the scene of the event. Once they have been to America, they feel themselves growing out to America. In the etheric body, the human being feels themselves becoming ever larger. In the astral body, on the other hand, they feel themselves fragmented into different individual parts. They do not perceive the astral body as a spatial unity at all. There are, for example, gall wasps whose front and rear bodies are connected only by a very thin stalk. This is an example of how, even in the physical world, two parts that belong together are held together only by a connection of very small extent. In the astral world, it can happen that there is no connection at all between two parts, and yet one part belongs to the other and this belonging is felt quite clearly. In the astral body, the human being can be in many different places at the same time. If a person passing through Kamaloka has once caused physical or mental pain to another in their earthly life and reaches this point in their backward experience, they feel themselves in the other and experience their pain in their own astral body. All the experiences and deeds of the previous earthly life are found a second time in this mirror of feelings. This is also part of Kamaloka life.

[ 13 ] Let us summarize once again what has been said about post-death experiences. The first thing is that everything experienced in earthly existence passes by without the person feeling pleasure or pain. Secondly, in a retrograde course of life, the person experiences the suffering that they themselves have caused. Two things remain with the person. The substance of the etheric body leaves them, but the forces of the etheric body remain; the extract of all experiences remains, as it were, as a residue. This extract is saturated with the deeds they have committed. They take the experiences from Kamaloka with them and carry them up into Devachan. The substance that human beings must rid themselves of before entering higher life now dissolves. The astral plane around them is riddled with astral corpses. This is what human beings cannot take with them to Devachan. The astral corpse dissolves in the astral world.

[ 14 ] If one wants to understand what human beings do in Devachan, one must first consider how life here on earth unfolds. The way in which experiences here on earth are processed is such that only the smallest part is extracted from these experiences; much more could be extracted from each event. This becomes clearest when we look at the matter from the opposite perspective. Remember, for example, how you learned to write. This was connected with a wide variety of experiences. These experiences all converge into a single one: the ability to write. What initially took place externally in the world is transformed into an ability. All experiences contain such a possibility, such an opportunity: they can later be transformed into abilities. After death, such a transformation takes place. When a person is reborn, many things appear as abilities, as predispositions. They return with ever richer predispositions. This is the basic feeling in Devachan: that all experiences are transformed into abilities. This gives a feeling of bliss. A stream of bliss then flows through the person. This feeling can be compared to that which flows through a chicken's soul when it hatches an egg. Every being experiences every creation as bliss. The higher the production, the higher the bliss that is felt. This feeling of Devachan is not an illusion. The relationships that have been spun in this world are much more intense in Devachan than here. The barriers of space and time fall away. In this world, one can actually merge with another person. The relationship between mother and child evolves from an animalistic feeling to a moral relationship. Everything that is animalistic falls away like scales during the Kamaloka period, and everything spiritual permeates both beings in Devachan. All relationships formed here are transformed with greater intensity in Devachan. When a person has developed everything necessary in Devachan, they are ready for a new birth.

[ 15 ] The astral world contains a wide variety of formations. One gets to know the manifold inhabitants of the astral plane. There are formations that rush through astral space at tremendous speed; like bell formations, they whiz through the astral world. These are the people returning to birth. When a person has transformed all their experiences into abilities in Devachan, they descend again into the astral world. Just as a magnet attracts iron filings, when a person returns to astral space, they attach the etheric body for their new earthly life. This happens with the help of other spiritual beings. Then the human being is simultaneously guided to the parents who are most suitable for their new incarnation. Only the best possible body can be attached to them. Now, the integration into the physical body does not take place solely according to this one aspect, but the place and environment from which the human being develops are also determined. All this is determined by the actions that people have performed in their previous lives. What attaches itself from the astral substance are the abilities that they have acquired. The ideas that have become an integral part of their soul have an effect on the formation of the etheric body. The etheric body, in turn, determines the nature of the physical body.

[ 16 ] How is it that human beings encounter precisely the situation into which they are led in their new incarnation? Here we must speak of mysterious influences that surround human beings. When a person has a thought, a wish, or a feeling, these are initially experiences in the astral body. His feelings and thoughts, which are expressed in the aura, also take shape on the astral plane. What a person experiences in their soul during physical life has a corresponding form in the astral realm. Physical experiences are not only present on the physical plane, but also continue on the astral plane. Everything that a person experiences in their deepest soul is reflected on the astral plane. But what is a characteristic of the etheric body continues on the devachanic plane. Just as every thought creates a form on the astral plane, every characteristic of the etheric body evokes its counterpart on the devachanic plane. Actions also have their counterpart in higher worlds, namely on the buddhic plane. Thoughts therefore have a counterpart on the astral plane, habits on the devachanic plane, and actions on the buddhic plane.

Thoughts: Astral plane
Inclinations: Devachan plane
Actions: Budhi plane

[ 17 ] Human beings constantly populate the astral plane with thought forms, the Devachan plane with forms of their inclinations, and the Budhi plane with imprints of their actions. All of this constantly surrounds us on the higher planes. That is one side of the coin. Now there is another side to it. Imagine that you have done something to someone, an action that has harmed them. During the Kamaloka period, you experience this yourself. What you then take with you as the pain you experienced in the other person becomes a force that is inscribed on the Budhi plane. The unfolding of this force is prepared by its being entered on the Budhi plane. The human being is led to everything that is inscribed on the budhi plane. Through the experiences he has had in Kamaloka, he reconnects with the consequences of his actions on the budhi plane. Because the human being cannot yet live on the budhi plane, he is unable to do this himself. He must have guides. These are the Lipikas, the gods of destiny. They guide human beings into their destiny because they are not yet able to grasp it themselves.