The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] In order to understand the law of karma even better, as it appears in human life, I will tell you about an occurrence that takes place immediately after a person's death. Think of the memory tableau that occurs when a person is freed from the physical body and lives for a short time only in the cover of the etheric and astral body before he continues his progress through the elemental world. For an intimate understanding of the workings of karma, let me describe a peculiar feeling that also occurs during this great tableau. It is a feeling of expansion, of growing out of oneself. This occurs more and more strongly, even while the person is still in their etheric body. The person comes to occupy a unique position in relation to this tableau. At first, they see images of their past life as if in a panorama. Then there comes a moment – it occurs not long after death and lasts for hours, even days, depending on the individuality of the person – when the person has the sensation: I am all these images myself. – He feels his etheric body growing, as if he is embracing the whole circumference of the earth up to the sun.

[ 2 ] Then, when the human being leaves his etheric body, another, most remarkable feeling arises, which is almost difficult to describe with words from the physical world. It is a feeling of expansion far out into space, but as if one no longer fills all the places in space. It can only be roughly described. One feels, for example, with one part of one's being in Munich, another in Mainz, a third in Basel and yet another far outside the world, perhaps on the moon. One feels, so to speak, dismembered and the intervening spaces as not belonging to oneself. That is the peculiar way of feeling astral: as if spread out in space, transported to different places, but not filling the intervening space. And this sensation lasts throughout the entire Kamaloka period, which a person experiences in reverse order up to the time of birth. It is always a reliving of such pieces that belong to one. This then integrates itself with the whole of the remaining Kamaloka life. It is important to know this in order to get an idea of how the law of karma actually works. One first feels inside the person with whom one was last connected, and then back into all people and other beings with whom one had contact during one's life.

[ 3 ] For example, if you ever beat a person in Mainz, you will experience the beating yourself after your death at the appropriate time, along with the pain you inflicted on him. If that person is still in Mainz, then a part of your astral body will feel itself in Mainz after your death and experience the matter there. If the person you beat to death has died in the meantime, you feel where he is now in Kamaloka. Of course, we are not only dealing with this one person, but also with many others who are scattered on earth and in Kamaloka. You are everywhere; this is made possible by the interrupted nature of physicality in Kamaloka. It makes it possible for you to experience in all the others what you have had to do with them, and in this way you form a lasting connection with all those with whom you have come into contact. You are now connected with this person whom you have beaten, because you have lived with him in Kamaloka. You later go up to Devachan and then back to Kamaloka. Now your astral body finds what brings it together with the person with whom you grew together. And since there are many such connections, you see that everything that has to do with you is linked to you by a kind of bond.

[ 4 ] A clear explanation will be given to you by the occultist-observed event I mentioned earlier, where five Fem judges sentenced a person to death and executed him. This latter personality was a kind of chief in his previous life and had the five executed; then he died and came to Kamaloka. During this time she was transferred to the place where the others were, and into the others, and had to experience the sensations the others had had when they were killed. This is the starting point of the forces of attraction that bring people together when they reappear on earth, so that the law of karma can be fulfilled.

[ 5 ] So we have the technique of how karma works. You can see from this that there are ways of being, connections in the world that begin on the astral plane. On the physical plane there is continuity of substance, but on the astral plane, parts of the physical body that belong together but are still separate can be felt. It is as if you felt inside you the head, between the head and heart nothing, and then the heart, and then the feet and nothing in between. A part of you can be in America and belong completely to your astral body, another on the moon and a third on yet another planet, and there need be no astral visible connection between these limbs.

[ 6 ] When we look at the law of karma in this way, it becomes clear to us that what occurs in a human life in one life cycle is the result of many causes that lie in past lives. How do we reconcile the law of karma with external inheritance? It is said that there are many contradictions between inheritance and this law. Many say that a morally upright person must be the offspring of a similarly upright family, that they must have inherited it from their fathers. If we look at physical processes from an occult point of view, we know that this is not the case. However, we can describe them as inheritance processes to a certain extent. Let us illustrate this with examples.

[ 7 ] If we look at the Bach family, for example, we see that twenty-nine musicians were born there within two hundred and fifty years, including the great Bach. To be a good musician, you need not only inner musical ability, but also a physically well-trained ear, a certain form of it. Laymen cannot distinguish what is important; one has to look deeply with occult powers. Even if the differences are small and insignificant, a certain shape of the inner hearing organs is necessary for someone to become a musician, and these shapes are inherited. They are similar in a person to those of his father, grandfather and so on, just as the shape of the nose is inherited.

[ 8 ] Let us assume that an individuality is ready to incarnate on the astral plane and is looking for a physical body. It has acquired special musical abilities centuries or millennia ago. If it does not find a physical body with the right ears, it cannot become a musician. She therefore pushes towards a family that gives her the musical ear. Without one, her musical talent would not be able to develop, because even the greatest virtuoso cannot perform if no instrument is given to him.

[ 9 ] A mathematical talent also needs something very specific. A mathematician does not need a special brain structure, as many people believe. His thinking and logic are the same as those of others. What is important are the three so-called semi-circular canals in the ear, which are positioned in such a way that they take up the three directions of space. The mathematical talent is determined by the special formation of these canals. Therein lies the aptitude for mathematics. It is a physical organ and must be inherited. Thus we see that eight important mathematicians have been embodied in the Bernoulli family.

[ 10 ] The moral man also needs a pair of parents to inherit the appropriate physical body in order to exercise his moral nature. And he has these parents because he is such an individuality and no other. The individuality chooses its own parents, albeit under the guidance of higher beings. There are some people who have objections to this fact from the point of view of motherly love. They are afraid that they might lose something if the child does not inherit this or that quality from the mother. But correct knowledge deepens even the feeling of motherly love. It shows that it is a prenatal feeling of love that was already there before conception, which led the child to the mother. Even before birth, the child has love for the mother; the mother's love is the love in return. Thus, spiritually speaking, we find that motherly love extends even before birth. It is based on feelings of reciprocity.

[ 11 ] It is often believed that man is subject to the immutable law of karma, and that nothing can be done to change it. Let us cite a parable from ordinary life to illustrate the workings of this law of karma. A merchant has a book in which he records his debits and credits. When he adds them up and compares them, they express the state of his business. The merchant's business is subject to the inexorable law of the debit and credit. However, if he does new business, he can enter new items, and he would be a fool not to want to do new business once he has drawn up the balance sheet. In terms of karma, everything that a person has done that is good, clever, true, and right is on the credit side, and everything that he has done that is evil, foolish, is on the debit side. He is free to enter new items in the karmic book of life at any moment. Therefore, never believe that an unalterable law of fate reigns in life. Freedom is not restricted by the law of karma. And that is why you should think as much of the future as of the past when considering the law of karma. We carry within us the effects of past deeds, and we are the slaves of the past, but the masters of the future. If we want to shape the future well, we must enter the most favorable items into the book of life.

[ 12 ] It is a great and powerful thought to know that whatever one does, nothing is in vain, that everything has its effect in the future. Thus the law does not seem oppressive, but fills us with the most beautiful hope. It is the most beautiful gift of spiritual science. We become joyful through the law of karma, through the fact that we can see into the future. It gives us the task of being active in the sense of such a law; there is nothing that can make man sad, nothing that could give the world a pessimistic color. It inspires our activity to participate in the development of the earth. The knowledge of the law of karma must be transformed into such feelings.

[ 13 ] When a person suffers, it is often said that he deserves his suffering, that he must work off his karma; if I help him, I will interfere with his karma. This is foolishness. His poverty, his misery is caused by his past life, but if I help him, my help will bring a new item into his life. I am advancing him by doing so. It is also foolish to say to a merchant whom one could save from ruin with 1000 marks or 10,000 marks: No, then your balance sheet would be changed. — It is precisely that which must urge us to help the person. I help him because I know that in the karmic context nothing is without effect. That should be an incentive for us to take real action.

[ 14 ] From the point of view of Christianity, the law of karma is disputed by many people. Theologians say: Christianity cannot recognize the law of karma, because if it were right, it could never admit the principle of vicarious death. But there are also Theosophists who say that the law of karma is in contradiction to the principle of redemption. They say they cannot recognize the help that a single being gives to many people. They are both wrong, they have both failed to understand the law of karma.

[ 15 ] Take a miserable person. You are in a happier position and can help him. By helping him, you inscribe a new item in his life. A more powerful person can help two people and influence the karma of two people. An even more powerful person can help ten or a hundred people, and the most powerful can help countless people. This is not at all contrary to the principle of karmic relationships. It is precisely because of the reliability of the law of karma that we know that this help really does intervene in a person's destiny.

[ 16 ] It is known that humanity was indeed in need of help when the Christ Individuality was sent down to this planet. The crucifixion of the Savior, the one Being at the center, was the help that intervened in the karma of countless individuals. There is no conflict between correctly understood Christian esotericism and correctly understood spiritual science. We find a deep harmony between the laws of both and are by no means forced to give up the principle of redemption.

[ 17 ] We are led still more deeply into the law of karma when we pass over to the evolution of humanity as well as to the evolution of the earth. We have adduced several facts which should lead us to an understanding of the law of karma. We will understand some other things even better when we move on to the evolution of humanity itself, and not only during the Earth's evolution, but also through the other planets, which are other embodiments of our Earth. In doing so, we will be able to find some additions to the law of karma by being led back to ancient times and at the same time being pointed to the distant future.

[ 18 ] To begin with, we still want to familiarize ourselves with one important fact. Today we have realized that what we can see with our physical eyes in a person, their outer physical body, is built up by the higher members of human nature, that their ego, astral and etheric bodies and so on up to the highest member, Atma, work on our body. The parts of it, as they are in man today, are not of equal value, but have different values in human nature. One only needs to make a fairly trivial observation to realize that our physical body is basically the most perfect part of our nature. Take, for example, a part of the thigh bone. This is not a compact, solid bone, but an artfully constructed part, as if made of alternating beams. If you look at this part not only with your mind but also with feeling, you will be filled with admiration at the wisdom that created it, that did not use more material than necessary to support the upper body according to the principle of the smallest possible force. No engineering skill that wants to build a bridge is as advanced as the wisdom that has achieved something like this in nature.

[ 19 ] If we examine the human heart not only with the eyes of the anatomist and physiologist, we shall find in it an expression of great wisdom. Do not imagine that the astral body of man in its kind is today as far advanced as the physical human heart. The heart is artfully and wisely constructed; the astral body in its greed causes people to pour nothing but heart poison into themselves for decades, and the heart withstands this for decades. Only at a future stage of development will the astral body be as far as the physical body is today, and indeed it will then be much, much higher than the physical body. Today, the physical body is the most perfect, the etheric body is less perfect, and the astral body even less so. The baby among the bodies is the I.

[ 20 ] The physical body, as it stands before us today, is the oldest link in human nature. It is the product of the longest labour. Only after it had reached a certain stage in the course of evolution was it permeated by the etheric body. After these two had interacted for some time, the astral body was added, and only at the last stage the I, which, however, will attain undreamt-of heights in evolution in the future.

[ 21 ] Just as the human being repeatedly embodies himself, so has our earth undergone embodiments and will undergo further ones. The process of reincarnation takes place throughout the cosmos. Our earth in its present form is the re-embodiment of earlier planets, and we can look at three of them.

[ 22 ] Before it became Earth, our Earth was what is called in occultism – not in astronomy – the Moon. Today's moon is, as it were, a slag that has been thrown out as useless. If we could stir together the earth and the moon with all their substances and entities, we would get what we call the predecessor of the earth, the occult moon, and what is left today as the earth is what remained of the moon after the slag was thrown off.

[ 23 ] Just as the present moon is an ejected remnant of the old moon embodiment, so the sun that stands in the sky is something that emerged from an even earlier state of the earth. Before the Earth became a moon, it was, as we say in occultism, itself the Sun, and this Sun consisted of all the substances and entities that today form the Sun, Moon and Earth. This Sun got rid of the limbs that it could not retain as a higher body, of the substances and entities that today form the Earth and the Moon, and thus it became a fixed star. For the occultist, a fixed star is not something that has always been a fixed star. The Sun only became a fixed star after it had been a planet.

[ 24 ] The Sun that is seen today, which was once united with the Earth, has taken in many beings that were higher than the Earth beings, just as the Moon that is seen has taken in the worst parts and is therefore a cast-out slag. The moon is a degenerated planet, the sun an ascended one.

[ 25 ] Before its existence as the sun, there was another existence, that of Saturn. Thus we have four successive embodiments of the earth: Saturn, Sun, Moon, and the Earth as the fourth. When the human ancestor developed on Saturn, only the principle of the physical body was within him. On the Sun, the etheric body was added, on the Moon the astral body, and here on Earth the I.

[ 26 ] From the lecture “Blood is a very special Juice” you will know how the I is intimately connected to the blood. This blood was not in a human body before an I embodied itself, so that this red human blood is connected with the evolution of the earth itself. It could not have been formed at all if the earth had not collided with another planet in the course of its development: with Mars. Before that, the earth had no iron, there was no iron in the blood; there was no such blood at all, on which man depends today. In the first half of the earth's existence, the determining factor for the earth's development is the influence of the planet Mars, just as it is the influence of the planet Mercury for the second half. Mars gave the earth iron, and the influence of Mercury is manifested on earth in that it makes the human soul ever freer, so that it can become ever more independent. In occultism, the evolution of the earth is therefore understood in such a way that one speaks of two halves, the Martian half and the Mercury half. While the other names denote a whole planet, the evolution of the earth is pronounced as “Mars-Mercury”. These Mars and Mercury do not refer to the present stars, but to that which exercises the influences they denote in the first and second halves.

[ 27 ] In the future, the earth will embody itself in a new planet called Jupiter. Then the astral body will have developed to the point where it no longer opposes the physical body as an enemy, as is the case today, but it will not yet have reached the highest level. The etheric body will then be as developed as the physical body is now. It will then have three planetary evolutions behind it, as the physical body has today.

[ 28 ] On the following embodiment, the astral body will have reached the same stage as the physical body has today; it will then have passed through the moon, earth and Jupiter development and will have arrived at the Venus development. On the last embodiment, Vulcan, the I will have reached its highest development. The future embodiments of the Earth will be as follows: Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan.

[ 29 ] These designations are reflected in the days of the week. There was a time when the naming of the facts that surround us came from the initiates. Today, we no longer have an inner sense of the connection between names and things. The names of the days of the week should remind people of their development through the stages of the earth's evolution.

[ 30 ] Let us begin with Saturday: Saturntag, English Saturday. Then Sunday: Sonnentag. Monday: Mondtag. Then Mars and Mercury, the two states of our earth: Mars-Tag – Tuesday, in old Germanic Ziu- or Dinstag, and French Mardi, Italian Martedi. Wednesday: Mercury's day, Italian Mercoledi, French Mercredi. Mercury is the same as Wotan. Tacitus speaks of Wotan's day; in English still Wednesday. Then Jupiter's day: Jupiter is the German Donar, hence Donnerstag in German, French Jeudi, Italian Giovedi. Then Venus Day; Venus, the German Freia: Freitag, French Vendredi and Italian Venerdi.

[ 31 ] Thus, in the succession of the days of the week, we have a reminder of the development of the earth through its various embodiments.