Vital Questions in the Light of Reincarnation and Karma
GA 125
26 November 1910, Bremen
Translated by Catherine E. Creeger
Today in this branch meeting we will begin with several of life’s crucial issues that touch each of us daily. After that, we will rise to higher spiritual viewpoints for a while. I would like to start with two human qualities, two human errors or failings that are experienced as negative, as decreasing a person’s worth. We will speak about what we call envy and lying.
If you look around in life, you will easily notice that as a rule, there is a very natural antipathy to these two human qualities. Also, when we look up to other people as leaders among human beings, we see that they value the absence of these two failings. Goethe, for instance, was very concerned with self-knowledge and thinking about his own mistakes, and mentioned that while he had certain faults and certain assets, what seemed most important to him was that he could not count envy among his fadings. And the famous Benvenuto Cellini said that he was glad he didn’t need to accuse himself of lying. So we see that these great personalities sensed the importance of struggling against these two human qualities. And even the simplest, most unsophisticated individuals agree with leaders of humanity in their negative assessment of these failings.
If we ask ourselves why these two qualities are so instinctively condemned, we realize that almost nothing else is less compatible with one of the most important earthly qualities; envy and lying are incompatible with what we call empathy for other people. When we envy someone, we tend not to yield to the particular virtue devoted to the deepest, inmost kernel of that person’s being, to the divine in the other person. Actually, to empathize with someone is of value only when you are also able to appreciate the other person’s essence, his or her spiritual being. However, as a basis for empathy, appreciation for others includes recognition of their assets and the ability to take pleasure in their successes and level of development. All of this precludes envy. Envy shows itself to be a quality that is very closely related to an individual’s greatest egotism.
Something similar can be said about lying. If we tell an untruth, we break the law that applies to the truth—to create a bond that includes all individuals. What is true is the truth for all human beings. More than anything else, truth allows us to practice the development of a consciousness that includes all human beings. If we tell an untruth, we commit a heinous act against the bond meant to connect one human heart with another.
This is how things look when we consider them from the viewpoint of human beings. When we consider them from the viewpoint of spiritual science, we know that the effects of our earlier incarnations are being worked out in this lifetime, and that we are subject to many different influences. There are two great influences in particular that have to be worked through again and again—specifically, what we call the luciferic and the ahrimanic influences. We will not attempt to cover these from the cosmological point of view today, but will restrict ourselves to the life of human individuals. We will imagine that we have passed through many incarnations and that the power of Lucifer was already working on our astral body when we were going through our very first incarnation. Since then, this luciferic power has always been the power that tempts our astral body. Forces are present that proceed from Lucifer and exert an influence on our astral body. Basically, Lucifer’s efforts are directed toward gaining influence over the human astral body on Earth. We can find him in everything that pulls the astral body down, in all the qualities that live in our astral body as egotistical passions, desires, urges, and wishes. Thus, it must be clear that envy is one of Lucifer’s worst effects on us. Everything living in our soul that can be counted as envy falls into his territory, and each time we have an attack of envy, Lucifer takes hold of the urges in our astral body.
Ahriman, on the other hand, influences our ether body. Everything to do with disturbances of judgment derives from him—both the unintentional disturbance of arriving at a false judgment, and the deliberate one of lying. When we succumb to lying, Ahriman is at work in our ether body.
It is interesting that we feel these influences strongly enough to experience such great antipathy when they appear, and that people will do everything to combat these two qualities of envy and lying. You will not easily find people who consciously admit that they want to be envious. To be sure, “I envy you” has crept into our language as an idiom, but what it means is not so very bad; we do not mean actual envy when we say it. In any case, as soon as we notice envy or lying in ourselves, we do everything we can to combat it, and in doing so we take up the struggle against Lucifer and Ahriman in this particular area.
Often, however, something then happens that we should notice when applying ourselves to spiritual science. We can combat individual attacks of envy and lying, but when these qualities are stuck in our soul—when we have acquired them in earlier incarnations and are now combating them—they then appear as different qualities. When we try to combat a tendency to envy stemming from earlier incarnations, this envy puts on a mask. Lucifer says, “This person has noticed feelings of envy and is fighting me; I’ll turn this person over to my brother Ahriman.” And then a different influence takes effect, one that is a consequence of combating envy. Qualities that we are struggling against appear in disguise. Often the envy that we are fighting takes the form of an urge to seek out other people’s mistakes and to make them aware of them with a great deal of reproach. We encounter many people in our life who always discover the mistakes and negative aspects of others, as if with a certain clairvoyant strength. If we search for the basis of this phenomenon, we find that envy has been transformed into a compulsion to reproach, which the people in question take to be a very desirable quality. It is a good thing, so they say, to make people aware of the presence of their bad qualities. However, there is nothing more behind this compulsion to reproach than transformed envy in disguise. We should learn to recognize whether such qualities are the original ones or whether they are transformations of something else. In the process, we must consider whether such individuals were envious as children—perhaps we drove the envy out of them, and they have now become compulsive reproachers.
Lying also often transforms itself in our lifetime and shows itself in disguise. Lying can make us feel ashamed, but it’s not easily uprooted, and very often it metamorphoses into a certain superficiality with regard to the truth. It’s important for us to know these things so we can observe what we encounter in another person in life. People like this are satisfied with answers that make us ask, “How can they possibly be satisfied with an answer Eke that?” It is easy for them to say, “Yes, yes, of course, that’s the way it is.” Very often, this is the end product of the transformation of a personal tendency toward lying. We need to test the law of karma, particularly with regard to such qualities. People don’t pay attention to them, for among all the various beings at work on different planes, human beings are the most forgetful.
For instance, if we are acquainted with a person and remain close over the years, we can observe how some things in this person change. If we are still close after thirty years, we might find noteworthy connections within that person’s life when we look back over a lifetime together, while the person in question knows nothing about it, and has forgotten it all. We really should observe such things in life, however. Important connections become evident. For example, a certain person is envious as a child. Later, the envy is no longer evident, but at a later age it appears transformed as a lack of independence in the person in question, of wanting to be dependent on others. It appears in the form of ideas of being unable to stand on one’s own two feet, of always needing other people around to advise and help. A specific moral weaknesS appears as a consequence of the transformation of envy. When someone has this moral weakness, we will always find that this is the karmic consequence of transformed envy.
When transformed, lying creates a shyness later in life. In later life, someone who tended to lie as a child doesn’t dare to look people in the eye. Out in the country, people have an instinctive elemental knowledge of this, although it doesn’t function on the level of concepts. They say that you shouldn’t trust a person who can’t look you in the eye. Shyness and reserve that stem not from modesty but from fear of meeting other people are the karmic consequences of lying during the same incarnation.
What appears in this way as a moral weakness within an incarnation has an organizing influence on the next incarnation. The soul’s weakness resulting from envy cannot significantly destroy the body during this present incarnation, when the body has already been built up. But when we die and return in a new incarnation, the effect of these forces is such that they become organic weaknesses in building up the new body. We find that people who have possessed transformed envy in a previous incarnation form a weak body. We say without prejudice that a person is weak simply because people need to know what is weak and what is strong. When a person is easily susceptible to different influences and puts up no resistance, then we know that the person s body is weak, and that this weakness is the result of envy that was transformed earlier.
Now we must realize, however, that when a child is born into a particular environment as a weak child, we should not imagine that only this inner karma is active, but also that people are brought together in their surroundings for a reason, and not by chance. This aspect of karma—our adaptation to our environment—is extremely easy to see. A flower such as an edelweiss, for example, can only thrive in the environment to which it is adapted, and a human being also thrives only in the environment to which he or she is adapted. The simplest possible logic necessarily tells us this, for we can only understand life when we take this into account. Each being conforms to its environment; nothing is by chance. Therefore, we are born into the group of people we have envied or reproached; we find ourselves with our weak body among the people we have envied for their accomplishments in a previous incarnation, or something like this. It is infinitely important to know these things, because we understand fife only when we include them in our considerations. When a child with a weak body is born into our surroundings, we should ask ourselves how we are meant to relate to this. The right way to relate to it must be the most morally meaningful way—that is, to forgive. This will lead most surely to the goal in this case, and is also the best education for such a person. It has an incredibly educational effect when we can lovingly forgive a weak child who is born into our surroundings. The person through whom forgiveness occurs in a truly forceful way will see that the child becomes stronger and stronger because of it. Loving forgiveness must even affect thinking, because that makes it possible for the child to gather the forces needed to turn old karma around and get it moving in the right direction. Through this the child will also become physically strong. A child such as this often demonstrates unpleasant qualities. The healing effect is strongest when we love the child in the depths of our heart, and we soon find out just how effective the healing is.
Something comparable applies when we look at the other quality: lying. Within a single incarnation, the person who lies becomes shy in later life. This is a soul quality. But in the next incarnation, this quality takes effect as the body’s architect. In this case, the child appears not merely weak, but unable to acquire a proper relationship to its surroundings—that is, the child is mentally handicapped. In this case, we must think that we are the people to whom this person often lied, and we must repay the bad that happened to us with the best we can offer. We must try to communicate a great deal of the truths of spiritual life to such a person, and then we see how that person begins to blossom. We must always keep in mind that this individual lied to us a lot in earlier incarnations, and do everything possible to bring about a right relationship between this child and his or her surroundings.
When we consider these things, we find that as human beings we are always called upon to help other people come to terms with their karma in the right way. People understand nothing of karma if they think others must be left to their own karma. If we were to meet individuals who had lied to us, and we were to believe these people must come to grips with their karma by themselves, this would show that we do not have a correct understanding of karma. The right idea would be to provide help wherever possible. When it is said that we should leave people to their karma, this could only apply in the esoteric realm, but never in actual life.
Let’s imagine that we would make an effort to help other people according to their individual karma. Take a person with a shy nature. We concern ourselves lovingly with that person, creating a connection between that person and ourselves. We will then see in later life that something comes back to us from this person. We must leave this to karma, however; we are not allowed to hope for it. We must regard it as our obligation to help the other person. At this point we come upon a subtle law: Everything we do to help another person bear and overcome karma not only helps that person, it also does something for us. As a rule, however, what we do for the sake of our own quick progress will not help much. The only thing that can bear fruit for an individual is what he or she does for others. We cannot send good things in our own direction. The best effects come from helping another person overcome his or her karma, since what we do for others is a gain for humanity. We can do nothing for ourselves; that must be done in turn by others. That’s why we must understand empathy for other people in the highest sense of the word. If we develop this empathy in the highest sense, then we also feel an obligation to empathize with another person with regard to envy and lying. In this way we develop a feeling of solidarity that extends to all human souls.
In fact, humanity possesses the potential for each human being to always feel a connection to humanity as a whole, and this feeling, in all its different manifestations in life, should also be present and active in the individual’s struggles against Lucifer and Ahriman. By helping people whose physical bodies have become weak through the influence of envy that has been overcome, by coming to understand how we should behave toward these people, it can become clear to us that the world is filled with the impulses of Lucifer and Ahriman. How they can be overcome in the course of the Earth’s evolution also becomes clear. Anyone who traces such connections in his or her feelings necessarily comes to an ever deepening feeling for all of humanity. The possibility exists, so to speak, for each of us to feel what connects him or her to all human beings. However, this feeling has changed greatly in the course of human evolution. If we go back three or four thousand years, the feeling of what human beings have in common was very pronounced in everyone.
If we go back still further—back through the post-Atlantean cultures, back to old Atlantis, and still further back—we come to an incarnation in which we came down into a physical body for the first time. Before that, we existed in a spiritual state—or so it was still said three or four thousand years ago. At that time, wisdom-filled feelings such as this were to be found in all people. The human soul asked, “What does it mean to be a human being?” And it answered itself, “Before I came down into my body for the first time, I existed in a sea of divine-spiritual interweaving life. I was within it, and all other human souls were within it. That was our common point of origin.” This basic feeling in the souls of human beings made it possible for them to feel kinship, to feel that they had something in common with all human beings, because they felt that all human souls had a common origin. And if we recall how all the ancient mystery schools worked on people to make them good people who would be receptive to the most profound, intimate, and moving feelings, we can see that this was always done by pointing to their common origin, to the fact that all human beings proceed from a common divine source. It was easy to sound this note in their souls then, but it became more and more difficult. For example, if this note had been sounded then in the number of people now sitting here, it would have made an overwhelming impression.
But human feeling for our common origin became ever colder. This was necessary because humanity had to pass through a certain point in evolution. And if I describe that point, we will also have to look toward our human future, toward the goal of Earth’s evolution.
Just as our origin is common to all of us, just as all human souls sprang from a common source, so too all human souls will come together in a common goal. And how can we reach this goal so that we can continue to evolve once Earth has achieved its own goal and the material sphere beneath us is dissipating and falling away? How can we have a common understanding of this goal so that we proceed into our future together? The awareness of what we have in common will need to extend into the deepest sinews of our soul. This is only possible if we develop a feeling for our future, similar to the feeling people in ancient times had for their human origin, a feeling that is growing ever colder among humanity. Now, the feeling and the certainty of a common goal held by all human beings must come to life more and more in our souls. Regardless of our individual degree of development or where we stand in life, the very fact that we are human beings must make possible a soul experience that allows us to say we are all striving for a single goal. In looking toward this goal, we must also be able to realize that this is something that can concern each and every human being.
In our most profound inner depths, we must be able to find something in which we can all come together in a single point. Esoteric teaching calls this “something” the Christ. People thousands of years ago felt, sensed, and knew that our souls are all born out of a common divine source. Similarly, we will increasingly learn that just as we can be united and come together in something we think in common, something that can live in all human heads, there is also something that can live as a common element in all human hearts, something that can flow through all human hearts like the blood of life. If this pervades us more and more warmly in incarnations to come, these incarnations will then run their course in such a way that Earth, having achieved its goal, will be able to proceed to the next planetary stage—the Jupiter state—and human souls will come together as one in the common element of the Christ.
For this to be a possibility, the Mystery of Golgotha had to take place. In Jesus, the Christ became human so that this common stream of warmth could flow from human heart to human heart. The feeling for our common human goal has its origin in the cross on Golgotha, which connects past and future. This is the goal of future human evolution. It is not important whether we retain the name “Christ” for what we have in common. What is important is that all human beings learn to grasp that the feeling people originally had for their common origin is being transformed into a feeling for our common earthly future.
Earth’s evolution is divided into halves—one lasting until the time of the cross on Golgotha, and the other from that time until the end of Earth. We human beings have a great deal to do to grasp the Christ and his evolution. Once these things have been grasped, we as human beings will come together in a common goal for the Jupiter evolution. All the knowledge we have as individuals culminates in finding this principle of the Christ-like.
Today we tried to recognize how karma works from one incarnation to another to shape the body. Having done so, we understand how human beings can become more and more perfect as they go through incarnation after incarnation. We are still speaking of the Christ, though without using that name, because we are turning away from the personal element. When we are confronted with a child who lies to us, we ask ourselves how we can help this child transform his or her karma. We do not ask whether being lied to hurts us. We turn to the very center of the child’s being, and in doing so we help karma move on. In this way, deep human compassion will increasingly take effect in the world.
Thus, what we call spiritual science—if we also include in it a real grasp of life’s processes related to reincarnation and karma—prepares us to truly grasp the Christ impulse in the world. How people formulate this in words is not important. Those who really understand this evolutionary law cannot help but be Christians, whether they are Hindus or Muslims or belong to some other religious tradition. What’s important is that they take this impulse into their souls, the impulse for a common goal for humanity, as in ancient times the impulse to look toward our common human origin was alive in people.
Thus, spiritual science always leads to the Christ impulse. It cannot do otherwise. It would also be possible to summarize spiritual science as it appears today by saying, “Even if those who meet spiritual science want to know nothing of Christianity, in truth they are already being led to the Christ.” In reality, that is where they are being led, even if they resist this in words.
Today we have shown our souls something that has a direct connection to life. We have seen how we should act when a child lies or is envious. It must be clear to us that the thread of karma runs through all of the incarnations of a human soul, that its karma is spun according to its destiny. Having looked back to our origin in God, we look to God again when we look ahead to our human goal.
When we look back on the culture of the ancient rishis, we see that they pointed to the human origins, to the world in which human beings existed before descending into incarnation. This teaching persisted for hundreds and thousands of years. The great Buddha taught it when he spoke of how everything that created a connection to the world of our origin has been lost to people because they cling to embodiment. He challenged people to leave the world of embodiment so that their souls could once again live in the spiritual worlds of their origin. The prophets, in announcing the coming of the Christ, also pointed to a future in which human beings would once again discover their proper earthly goal. And then there was the Christ himself, and the act of the Mystery of Golgotha. Through this Mystery of Golgotha, the individual human being can now be led toward our Earth s divine-spiritual future.
Perhaps there is nothing quite as shattering as two similar statements of the Buddha and the Christ, which present to our souls the contrast between the old times and the new. As the Buddha stands among his pupils, he draws their attention to the body and says, “I look back from incarnation to incarnation and see how I have again and again entered a human body such as the one I now wear. Again and again, the temple of this body has been built up for me by the gods. Again and again the soul attempts to enter this bodily temple in new incarnations. Now, however, I know that I no longer need to return to a bodily temple. I know its beams are broken, its pillars collapsed. Through my knowledge, I have freed my soul from this body. The wish and desire to return to such a body has been killed.” This was a great and powerful result of the old time of looking back on our human origin. The Buddha, with his pupils and successors, strove to become free of the body. How powerfully different this is from the Christ standing before his intimate pupils and saying, “Tear down the temple of My body, and I will build it up again in three days.” These are the words of the Christ, taken at face value, regardless of how we interpret them. The Christ does not long to be free of the temple of the body. He wants to build it up again.
It is not as if the Christ himself would be there again in such a physical body in future incarnations. But what he teaches his pupils and all human beings is to return into this earthly temple again and again in order to make the Christ impulse greater and more intense in each successive incarnation, so that we human beings are able to take up more and more of earthly existence. In the end, we will be able to say that we spent these incarnations working to become more like the Christ. We become more like him by taking into this bodily temple what the Christ permitted to stream forth from his own being from the cross on Golgotha. We allow this to stream from human soul to human soul, for only through this can we understand each other now. This is what all human souls will have in common in our earthly future. And then the time will come when Earth as a planet will cease to exist, will fall into dust, and human beings in a spiritualized state will proceed to their next incarnation on a different planet.
The words of the great Buddha—“I feel how the columns of my bodily temple no longer bear weight, how its beams are breaking apart”—can stand before our souls as the endpoint of our common human origin. And when we turn to what the Christ says to his disciples—“I will build up the temple of this body in three days”—this can be for us like the beginning of the time that points to our earthly goal. We can expand upon this statement, saying: “In death, this temple falls apart, but we know that the best forces we have acquired in this incarnation are used for our next incarnation. We have received these forces by devoting our souls to the knowledge of Christ. In this way, we will always make progress from incarnation to incarnation.” When we human beings build up this bodily temple for the last time, we will have arrived at an understanding of our common earthly goal for the future.
It is the Mystery of Golgotha alone that can be the common impulse for humanity as a whole, for human and Earth evolution.
Lebensfragen Im Lichte Von Reinkarnation Und Karma
Wir wollen heute einmal in dieser Zweigversammlung den Ausgangspunkt von einigen Lebensfragen nehmen, die das unmittelbare Menschenleben berühren. Dann wollen wir ein wenig zu höheren spirituellen Gesichtspunkten aufsteigen. Ich möchte von zwei menschlichen Eigenschaften ausgehen, zwei menschlichen Fehlern oder Untugenden, die als etwas Unsympathisches empfunden werden, als etwas, was des Menschen Wert herabmindert. Wir wollen über das sprechen, was man den Neid und die Lügenhaftigkeit nennt.
Wenn Sie im Leben Umschau halten, werden Sie leicht finden, daß gegen diese beiden menschlichen Eigenschaften eine ganz natürliche Antipathie herrscht. Und auch wenn wir zu Menschen hinaufsehen, die führend für andere Menschen im Leben stehen, sehen wir, daß von ihnen Wert darauf gelegt wird, gerade diese beiden Untugenden nicht zu haben. Zum Beispiel Goethe, der sich viel damit beschäftigt hat, Seelenerkenntnis zu üben, über seine Fehler nachzudenken, erwähnt: Ich habe diesen oder jenen Fehler, diese oder jene Vorzüge, aber was mir das Wichtigste scheint, ist, daß ich den eigentlichen Neid nicht unter meine Untugenden rechnen kann. — Und der große Benvenuto Cellini sagt, er sei froh, daß er sich keiner Lüge zu zeihen brauche. — So sehen wir, daß diese großen Persönlichkeiten die Wichtigkeit, diese beiden menschlichen Eigenschaften zu bekämpfen, empfanden. Und der einfachste, naivste Mensch stimmt in der Wertung beziehungsweise in der Antipathie diesen Untugenden gegenüber mit den Führern der Menschheit überein.
Wenn wir uns fragen, warum diese beiden Eigenschaften ganz instinktiv verurteilt werden, so werden wir gewahr werden, daß kaum etwas so wenig einer der wichtigsten irdischen Eigenschaften entspricht wie Neid und Lüge. Wenig entsprechen sie dem, was wir das Mitfühlen mit anderen Menschen nennen. Denn wenn wir irgend jemanden beneiden, so sind wir nicht geneigt, uns jener Tugend hinzugeben, die auf den tiefsten, innersten Wesenskern, auf das Göttliche des anderen Menschen eingeht. Denn Mitfühlen hat erst dann Wert, wenn wir nicht nur Mitgefühl haben, sondern wenn wir den Kern, die geistige Wesenheit des anderen Menschen schätzen können. Menschenschätzung aber, als Grundlage des Mitgefühls, schließt in sich, daß wir die Vorzüge des anderen Menschen gelten lassen-und uns über die Erfolge, die Entwickelungsstufen anderer Menschen freuen können. Und das alles schließt den Neid aus. Neid zeigt sich als Eigenschaft, die mit dem allerstärksten Egoismus des Menschen nahe zusammenhängt.
Ein Gleiches können wir von der Lüge sagen. Wenn wir eine Unwahrheit sagen, so übertreten wir das Gesetz, hinsichtlich der Wahrheit, ein alle Menschen umfassendes Band zu begründen. Was Wahrheit ist, ist für alle Menschen Wahrheit, und in nichts können wir so üben, ein Bewußtsein zu entwickeln, das alle Menschen umfaßt, als in der Wahrheit. Sagen wir eine Unwahrheit, so begehen wir einen Frevel gegen das Band, das sich von Menschenbrust zu Menschenbrust schlingen sollte. So stellen sich die Dinge dar, wenn wir sie als Menschen betrachten. Und wenn wir sie geisteswissenschaftlich betrachten, so wissen wir, daß sich in diesem Leben unsere früheren Verkörperungen auswirken und daß wir mancherlei Einflüssen ausgesetzt sind. Zwei große Einflüsse müssen immer wieder durchgemacht werden: die beiden Einflüsse, die wir den luziferischen und den ahrimanischen Einfluß nennen. Wir wollen uns über diese heute nicht kosmologisch verbreiten, wir wollen beim Menschenleben bleiben und uns vorstellen, daß wir durch viele Inkarnationen durchgeschritten sind, und daß, als wir die erste Inkarnation durchmachten, die luziferische Macht auf unseren astralischen Leib gewirkt hat. Seit jener Zeit war diese luziferische Macht die versuchende Macht auf unseren astralischen Leib. Es gibt Kräfte, die von Luzifer auf unseren astralischen Leib ausgeübt werden. Es ist im Grunde genommen das Bestreben Luzifers, auf unserer Erde Einfluß auf den Astralleib des Menschen zu gewinnen. Wir haben ihn in alledem zu suchen, was diesen herabzieht. Wir müssen ihn in all den Eigenschaften suchen, die als egoistische Leidenschaften, Begierden, Triebe und Wünsche im Astralleib leben, und so uns darüber klar sein, daß Neid einer der schlimmsten Einflüsse Luzifers ist. Alles was in unserer Seele leben kann und unter Neid zu registrieren ist, gehört in sein Gebiet, und jedesmal, wenn wir eine Anwandlung von Neid haben, packt uns Luzifer an unseren 'Trieben in unserem Astralleib.
Ahriman dagegen hat Einfluß auf unseren Ätherleib, und alles, was mit Störungen des Urteils zusammenhängt, ist auf ihn zurückzuführen, sowohl das Unwillkürliche, wenn wir ein falsches Urteil fällen, als auch das Willkürliche, wenn wir eine Lüge sagen. Verfallen wir der Lügenhaftigkeit, so wirkt in unserem Ätherleib Ahriman.
Interessant ist es, daß wir Menschen diese Einwirkungen so stark fühlen, daß wir eine derart starke Antipathie haben, wenn sie auftreten, und daß die Menschen alles tun, um diese beiden Eigenschaften, Lüge und Neid, zu bekämpfen. Es wird nicht leicht Menschen geben, die bewußt gestehen: Ich will neidisch sein. - Zwar hat sich in der deutschen Sprache ein Sprachgebrauch eingeschlichen: Ich beneide dich. — Aber das ist nicht so schlimm gemeint. Der Mensch meint damit nicht den eigentlichen Neid. Sobald wir merken, daß wir neidisch sind, daß wir lügen, tun wir jedenfalls alles, es zu bekämpfen. Damit nehmen wir also auf diesem Gebiete den Kampf gegen Luzifer und Ahriman auf.
Nun tritt aber häufig etwas auf, was wir beachten sollen, wenn wir uns der Geisteswissenschaft widmen. Wir können die einzelnen Anwandlungen von Neid und Lüge bekämpfen, aber wenn diese Eigenschaften in unserer Seele sitzen, wenn wir sie in früheren Inkarnationen erworben haben und sie nun bekämpfen, dann treten sie als andere Eigenschaften auf. Wenn wir versuchen, eine aus früheren Inkarnationen herrührende Neigung zum Neid zu bekämpfen, so nimmt der Neid eine Maske an. Luzifer sagt: Der Mensch kämpft gegen mich, er ist auf sein Neidgefühl aufmerksam geworden. Ich übergebe diesen Menschen meinem Bruder Ahriman. — Und es tritt eine andere Wirkung ein, die eine Folge der Bekämpfung des Neides ist. Bekämpfte Eigenschaften treten in Masken auf. Und der Neid, den wir bekämpfen, tritt dann häufig im Leben so auf, daß wir die Begierde bekommen, die Fehler anderer Menschen aufzusuchen und recht viel zu tadeln. Wir begegnen im Leben manchem Menschen, der wie mit einer gewissen hellsichtigen Kraft immer die Fehler und Schattenseiten anderer Menschen herausfindet, und wenn wir dieser Erscheinung auf den Grund gehen, so liegt er darin, daß der Neid sich in Tadelsucht umgewandelt hat, und diese scheint dem betreffenden Menschen eine recht gute Eigenschaft zu sein. Es ist gut, so sagen sie, daß man auf das Vorhandensein dieser schlechten Eigenschaften aufmerksam macht. Hinter solcher Tadelsucht steckt aber nichts anderes als umgewandelter, maskierter Neid. Und wir sollten lernen zu erkennen, ob solche Eigenschaften ursprünglich sind, oder ob sie aus anderen umgewandelt sind. Da müssen wir überlegen, ob jemand in der Jugend neidisch war. Vielleicht haben wir ihm diesen Neid ausgetrieben, er ist jetzt ein tadelsüchtiger Mensch geworden.
Auch die Lüge wandelt sich im Leben sehr häufig und zeigt sich in anderer Maske. Lügenhaftigkeit kann dazu führen, daß wir uns ihrer schämen. Aber wir rotten sie nicht leicht mit der Wurzel aus, sie wandelt sich sehr häufig in eine gewisse Oberflächlichkeit gegenüber der Wahrheit. Es ist wichtig, daß wir so etwas wissen, dann beachten wir, was uns an einem anderen Menschen im Leben gegenübertritt. Solche Menschen sind mit einer Antwort befriedigt, von der wir uns fragen: Wie kann er von einer solchen Antwort befriedigt sein? — Sie sagen leicht: Ja, ja, so ist es, so ist es! — Das ist sehr häufig das Umwandlungsprodukt der eigentlichen Lügenhaftigkeit. Wir müssen das Karmagesetz insbesondere auf solche Eigenschaften hin prüfen. Die Menschen achten nicht darauf, denn sie sind die vergeßlichste Rasse gegenüber allen anderen, die sich auf den verschiedenen Planen geltend machen.
Es zeigt sich zum Beispiel, daß jemand mit uns bekannt war. Wir bleiben ihm im Leben nahestehend und beobachten: mancherlei wandelt sich an ihm. Wir stehen ihm nach dreißig Jahren noch nahe, und wenn wir im Leben zurückschauen, würden wir in seinem Leben merkwürdige Zusammenhänge finden. Aber der Mensch selber weiß nichts davon, er hat alles vergessen. Aber man sollte im Leben wirklich so etwas beobachten. Es zeigen sich dann wesentliche Zusammenhänge. Ein Mensch ist zum Beispiel in seiner Jugend neidisch. Der Neid tritt nachher nicht mehr hervor, und es zeigt sich die Umwandlung desselben im Alter wieder dadurch, daß der Betreffende sich mit der Eigenschaft der Unselbständigkeit zeigt, des Abhängig-sein-Wollens von anderen Menschen oder von Vorstellungen des Nicht-vertragen-Könnens, auf eigenen Füßen zu stehen, immer andere Menschen haben zu müssen, die raten und helfen. Eine gewisse moralische Schwäche tritt als Folge des umgewandelten Neides auf, und wir werden immer sehen, wenn jemand diese moralische Schwäche hat, daß da die karmische Folge des umgewandelten Neides vorliegt.
Und umgewandelte Lügenhaftigkeit erzeugt im späteren Leben ein scheues Wesen. Wer in seiner Jugend lügenhaft war, getraut sich im Alter nicht, den Leuten in die Augen zu schauen. Auf dem Lande hat man ein instinktives, elementares Wissen davon, das sich zwar nicht in Begriffen auslebt. Man sagt, man solle dem Menschen nicht trauen, der einem nicht ins Auge schauen kann. Scheuheit, Zurückhaltung, nicht aus Bescheidenheit, sondern aus Furcht, anderen Menschen gegenüberzutreten, ist die karmische Folge der Lügenhaftigkeit schon in einer Inkarnation.
Was so als moralische Schwäche in einer Inkarnation auftritt, wirkt organisierend in der nächsten Inkarnation. Die seelische Schwäche, welche die Folge des Neides ist, kann in der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation, wo der Leib schon aufgebaut ist, diesen Leib nicht besonders zerstören. Aber wenn wir durch den Tod hindurchgehen und zu einer neuen Inkarnation zurückkehren, wirken diese Kräfte so, daß sie organisch-leibaufbauende Schwäche werden, und wir sehen, daß ein schwacher Leib von solchen Menschen aufgebaut wird, die den umgewandelten Neid in einer vorhergehenden Inkarnation gehabt haben. Wenn wir sagen, daß ein Mensch schwach ist — aber ohne Vorurteil, denn die Menschen müßten wissen, was schwach oder stark ist —, wenn ein Mensch leicht empfänglich ist für diese oder jene Einflüsse, keine Widerstandskraft hat, dann wissen wir, daß sein Leib schwach ist und, daß er diesen schwachen Leib als Folge früheren umgewandelten Neides hat.
Nun müssen wir uns aber sagen: Wenn ein Kind in eine gewisse Umgebung hineingeboren ist als schwaches Kind, haben wir uns nicht nur dieses innere Karma wirksam zu denken, sondern auch, daß wir mit Menschen unserer Umgebung aus Gründen zusammengeführt sind — nicht zufällig. Gerade diese Seite des Karma, daß wir unserer Umgebung angepaßt sind, ist ungeheuer leicht einzusehen. Ein Edelweiß zum Beispiel kann ja auch nur in der Umgebung gedeihen, der es angepaßt ist. Auch der Mensch kann nur in der Umgebung gedeihen, die ihm angepaßt ist. Die allereinfachste Logik müßte das sagen, denn man kann das Leben nur verstehen, wenn man dies in Betracht zieht. Jedes Wesen paßt zu seiner Umgebung, nichts ist zufällig.
So werden wir unter diejenigen Menschen hineingeboren, die wir beneidet haben, oder die wir getadelt haben. Und so stehen wir mit einem schwachen Leib unter denjenigen Menschen, die wir in der vorhergehenden Inkarnation beneidet haben um das, was sie erreicht haben, oder dergleichen. Es ist von unendlicher Bedeutung, so etwas zu wissen, denn nur wenn man dies erwägt, können wir das Leben verstehen. Wenn ein Kind mit einem schwachen Leib in eine Umgebung hineingeboren wird, sollten wir uns fragen: Wie haben wir uns da zu verhalten? — Das richtigste Verhalten muß dasjenige sein, was moralisch das hochsinnigste ist: zu verzeihen. Dies wird auch hier am besten zum Ziel führen, und dies ist auch die beste Erziehung für den betreffenden Menschen. Es wirkt ungeheuer erzieherisch, wenn wir einem schwachen Kinde, das in unsere Umgebung hineingeboren ist, liebend verzeihen können. Derjenige, durch den das wirklich kraftvoll geschieht, wird schon sehen, daß das Kind dadurch stärker und stärker wird. Bis auf das Denken hinein muß verzeihende Liebe wirken, denn dadurch kann das Kind Kräfte sammeln, um sein früheres Karma umzubiegen und in die richtige Richtung zu bringen. Das Kind wird auch leiblich stark werden. Ein solches Kind zeigt oftmals Eigenschaften, die unangenehm sind. Wenn wir es lieben — bis ins allertiefste Herz, so wirkt das als das intensivste Heilmittel, und wir werden bald finden, wie wirksam dieses Heilmittel ist.
Entsprechendes gilt, wenn wir die andere Eigenschaft nehmen, die Lügenhaftigkeit: In einer Inkarnation wird da der Mensch im Alter scheu. Das ist eine seelische Eigenschaft. Aber in der nächsten Inkarnation wirkt diese Eigenschaft sich als Architekt des Leibes aus. Da tritt das Kind nicht nur schwach auf, sondern so, daß es überhaupt kein rechtes Verhältnis zu seiner Umgebung gewinnen kann, daß es schwachsinnig ist. Da müssen wir uns denken, daß wir die Menschen sind, die von einem solchen Menschen oft belogen worden sind, und wir sollten dasjenige, was uns als Schlimmes zugekommen ist, mit dem Besten vergelten. Man muß versuchen, einem solchen Menschen recht viel von dem beizubringen, was Wahrheiten des geistigen Lebens sind, dann werden wir sehen, wie er aufblüht. Immer sollten wir da den Gedanken haben: Wir sind in früheren Inkarnationen von einem solchen Menschen viel belogen worden, und wir müssen alles tun, um ein wahres Verhältnis eines solchen Kindes zu seiner Umgebung herzustellen.
Da sehen wir, wenn wir diese Dinge ins Auge fassen, daß wir als Menschen immer berufen sind, den anderen Menschen zu helfen, ihr Karma in richtiger Weise auszutragen. Der versteht nichts von Karma, der meint, er müsse den Menschen seinem Karma überlassen. Wenn wir einen Menschen finden, der uns angelogen hat, und wir würden glauben, er müsse sein Karma austragen, so würden wir damit zeigen, daß wir nichts von Karma richtig verstehen. Denn die richtige Idee würde sein, daß wir zunächst möglichst Hilfe spenden. Wenn gesagt wird, wir sollten den Menschen seinem Karma überlassen, so könnte es höchstens auf esoterischem Gebiet gesagt werden, aber im Leben niemals.
Denken wir uns, wir bemühten uns, anderen Menschen je nach ihrem Karma zu helfen. Nehmen wir einen Menschen, der ein scheues Wesen hat. Wir bemühen uns liebevoll um ihn. Da stellen wir einen Zusammenhang zwischen diesem Menschen und uns her. Wir werden dann sehen, daß bei diesem Menschen im Alter wiederum irgend etwas zu uns zurückkommt. Aber wir müssen das dem Karma überlassen, wir dürfen nicht darauf spekulieren. Wir müssen es als Pflicht ansehen, einem anderen Menschen zu helfen. Und hier komme ich auf ein subtiles Gesetz. Alles, was wir dem anderen tun zum Ertragen und Überwinden seines Karma, wird immer dazu führen, daß nicht nur dem anderen geholfen wird, sondern auch dazu, daß wir etwas für uns selber tun. Aber was wir uns selber tun, zum Beispiel um recht schnell vorwärtszukommen, wird uns in der Regel nicht viel helfen. Fruchtbar werden kann für den Menschen nur das, was er für andere tut. Uns selber können wir nichts Gutes erweisen. Wenn wir einem Menschen sein Karma zu überwinden helfen, ergeben sich die besten Wirkungen, denn was wir für andere tun, ist Gewinn für die Menschheit. Für uns selber können wir nichts tun, das müssen wiederum die anderen tun. Darum müssen wir im höchsten Sinne auffassen: Mitgefühl für andere Menschen. — Entwickeln wir dieses Mitgefühl im höchsten Sinn, dann fühlen wir auch in bezug auf Neid und Lüge diese Pflicht des Mitgefühls anderen Menschen gegenüber. Wir entwickeln auf diese Weise ein Solidaritätsgefühl, das sich auf alle Menschenseelen erstreckt.
Die Menschheit ist überhaupt daraufhin veranlagt, daß jeder einzelne Mensch seinen Zusammenhang mit dem ganzen Menschentum immer fühlt. Und dieses Gefühl in seinen verschiedenen Lebensäußerungen sollte auch in seinen Kämpfen gegen Luzifer und Ahriman leben. Indem wir versuchen, schwächlichen Menschen, die einen physischen Leib haben, der unter dem Einfluß des überwundenen Neides schwach geworden ist, zu helfen, indem wir uns klar werden, wie wir uns gegen diese Menschen verhalten sollen, kann uns deutlich werden, daß die Welt erfüllt ist von diesen Impulsen von Luzifer und Ahriman, und wie sie überwunden werden können im Laufe der Erdenentwickelung. Da kommt nun jeder Mensch, wenn er solche Zusammenhänge im Gefühl verfolgt, notwendig dazu, ein immer tieferes Gefühl von dem Menschentum überhaupt zu haben. Gewissermaßen gibt es für jeden Menschen die Möglichkeit, etwas zu fühlen, was ihn mit allen Menschen verbinden kann. Dieses Gefühl hat sich im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung gar sehr verändert.
Gehen wir drei bis vier Jahrtausende zurück, da war das Gefühl von dem, was die Menschen als Allgemeinmenschliches haben, deutlich bei allen Menschen ausgeprägt. Gehen wir immer weiter zurück, zurück durch die nachatlantischen Kulturen, zurück zur alten Atlantis immer waren wir da verkörpert —, und wenn wir noch weiter zurückgehen, so kommen wir zu einer Inkarnation, in der wir zum ersten Mal in einen physischen Leib herabgestiegen sind. Vorher waren wir in einem Geistigen, so sagten sich die Menschen noch vor drei bis vier Jahrtausenden. Solche weisheitsvollen Gefühle finden wir um diese Zeit bei allen Menschen. Und die Seele fragte sich: Was bist du dadurch, daß du ein Mensch bist? — Und sie antwortete sich: Ich war, ehe ich zum ersten Mal in meinen Leib herabstieg, vorher in einem Meer göttlich-geistigen Lebens und Webens. Da war ich darin, und darin waren auch alle anderen Menschenseelen. Das war unser gemeinsamer Ursprungspunkt. — Ein solches Grundgefühl in den Menschenseelen gab die Möglichkeit, brüderlich, allgemein menschlich zu fühlen, da der Ursprung aller Menschenseelen als ein gemeinsamer gefühlt wurde. Und wenn wir uns daran erinnern, wie in allen alten Mysterienschulen auf die Menschen gewirkt wurde, um sie zu guten Menschen zu machen, so war es überall so, daß man, um die Menschen zu guten Menschen zu machen und sie für die tiefsten, intimsten, ergreifendsten Gefühle empfänglich zu machen, auf den gemeinsamen Ursprung hinwies, auf das Hervorgehen aller Menschen aus der gemeinsamen göttlichen Quelle. Und es war leicht, dies in der Seele anzuschlagen. Aber es wurde immer schwieriger und schwieriger. Wenn man zum Beispiel bei einer so großen Anzahl von Menschen, wie sie hier sitzen, dies angeschlagen hätte, würde das damals einen überwältigenden Eindruck erzeugt haben.
Aber immer kälter wurden die Gefühle der Menschheit gegenüber diesem gemeinsamen Ursprung. Das mußte geschehen, da die Menschheit durch einen gewissen Punkt der Entwickelung durchgehen mußte. Wenn ich diesen charakterisieren will, so müssen wir auf die menschliche Zukunft, auf das Ziel der Erdenentwickelung schauen.
Geradeso wie der Ursprung ein gemeinsamer ist und alle Menschenseelen aus einem gemeinsamen Urgrund entstanden sind, werden sich alle Menschenseelen in einem gemeinsamen Ziel zusammenfinden. Und wie können wir Menschen dies Ziel finden, damit wir uns weiter entwickeln, wenn die Erde an ihrem Ziel angelangt sein wird und als materielle Kugel unter uns Menschen versinkt und zerstiebt? Wie können wir uns über dieses Ziel so verstehen, daß wir gemeinsam in eine Zukunft hineingehen? Bis in die tiefsten Fasern der Seele muß das Bewußtsein dieser Gemeinsamkeit gehen. Das ist nur möglich dadurch, daß wir als Menschen gegenüber der Zukunft so fühlen lernen, wie die alten Menschen gegenüber dem Menschenursprung gefühlt haben. Dies Gefühl ist in der Menschheit immer mehr erkaltet. Aber immer mehr muß in den Seelen das Leben, das Gefühl, die Gewißheit erwarmen, daß etwas für alle Menschen gemeinsam sein kann als Menschenziel. Ob wir diesen oder jenen Entwickelungsgrad haben, wo wir auch stehen im Leben, dadurch, daß wir Menschen sind, muß etwas in unserer Seele stattfinden können, daß wir uns sagen: Wir streben alle einem Ziel zu. Und auf dieses Ziel hinschauend, müssen wir uns sagen können: Das ist etwas, was jeden Menschen angehen kann. — Wir müssen in unserem tiefsten Inneren etwas finden können, in dem wir uns in einem Punkte gemeinsam zusammenfinden.
Im Okkultismus ist dieses mit dem Namen Christus gegeben. Denn gerade so, wie man vor Jahrtausenden fühlen, empfinden, wissen konnte, unsere Seelen sind alle aus dem gemeinsamen Gottesurgrunde und -ursprung herausgeboren, so werden die Menschen immer mehr lernen, sich zu sagen: Wie wir, wenn wir denken, uns in einem Gemeinsamen zusammenfinden, wie wir uns einig sein können in einem gemeinsamen Denken, wie das in allen Menschenhäuptern leben kann, so gibt es etwas, was wie ein Gemeinsames in allen Herzen leben kann. Es gibt etwas, was wie ein Lebensblut gemeinsam in allen Menschenherzen fluten kann. - Wenn uns das immer mehr durchglüht in den folgenden Inkarnationen, dann werden diese so verlaufen, daß, wenn die Erde ihr Ziel erreicht haben wird, so daß sie in den künftigen planetarischen Zustand, den Jupiter, übergehen wird, die Menschenseelen sich in dem Gemeinsamen, dem Christus, zusammenfinden werden, eins sein werden. Darum, damit dies geschehen kann, mußte das Mysterium von Golgatha stattfinden. Dazu ist der Christus im Jesus Mensch geworden, daß dieser gemeinsame Strom der Wärme von Menschenherz zu Menschenherz fließen kann. Das Gefühl für das gemeinsame Menschenziel geht aus von dem Kreuz auf Golgatha. So verbinden sich Vergangenheit und Zukunft. Das ist das Ziel der Zukunftsentwickelung der Menschheit. Ob die Menschen diesen gemeinsamen Namen des Christus beibehalten werden, darauf kommt es nicht an, sondern darauf, daß alle Menschen begreifen lernen, daß dasselbe Gefühl, welches die Menschen ursprünglich von ihrem gemeinsamen Ursprung hatten, in ein Gefühl einer gemeinsamen Erdenzukunft umgewandelt werde.
Die Erdenentwickelung ist geteilt in diese zwei Hälften: Die eine geht bis zu dem Kreuz auf Golgatha und die andere von dem Kreuz auf Golgatha bis zum Erdenende. Und die Menschen haben viel, viel zu tun, um den Christus und seine Entwickelung zu begreifen. Und wenn diese begriffen sein wird, dann werden sich die Menschen in gemeinsamem Ziel für die Jupiterentwickelung finden. Und alle unsere einzelnen Erkenntnisse laufen darauf hinaus, dieses Prinzip des Christlichen zu finden.
Wenn wir heute versucht haben zu erkennen, wie Karma von einer Inkarnation zur anderen leibgestaltend wirkt, dann verstehen wir, wie die Menschen immer vollkommener werden können im Durchgang durch die Inkarnationen. Ohne daß wir ihn Christus nennen, sprechen wir noch von dem Christus. Wir sehen ab von dem Persönlichen. Wenn wir ein Kind vor uns haben, ‘das uns anlügt, sagen wir uns: Dies Kind hat uns belogen. Wie können wir ihm helfen, daß es sein Karma umwandelt? — Wir fragen nicht danach, daß es uns schadet. Wir sehen auf den Wesenskern des Kindes, und damit bringen wir das Karma vorwärts. Tief menschliches Zusammenfühlen wird sich in solcher Art in der Welt immer mehr geltend machen.
So ist dasjenige, was wir Geisteswissenschaft nennen, wenn wir darunter wirklich Verständnis der Lebensvorgänge im Sinne von Reinkarnation und Karma begreifen, die Vorbereitung zu einem wahren Erfassen des Christus-Impulses in der Welt. Es kommt nicht darauf an, wie der Mensch seine Worte setzt, sondern wer wirklich das Entwickelungsgesetz begreift, der kann gar nicht anders als Christ sein, sei er Hindu oder Mohammedaner oder Angehöriger eines anderen Religionssystems. Es kommt darauf an, daß man den Impuls aufnimmt in die Seele, welcher der Impuls zu dem gemeinsamen Ziel der Menschheit ist, wie einst in den alten Menschen der Impuls lebte, hinzuschauen auf den gemeinsamen Ursprung der Menschen.
Daher führt Geisteswissenschaft immer zu dem Christus-Impuls. Sie kann gar nicht anders. Man könnte also einfach Geisteswissenschaft, wie sie heute auftritt, auch so auffassen, daß man sagt: Wenn auch derjenige, der sie kennenlernt, vielleicht nichts wissen wollte vom Christentum, wenn er Anthroposoph wird, so wird er schon in Wahrheit zu Christus geführt. In der Realität würde er schon dahin geführt werden, selbst wenn er mit Worten dagegen kämpfen wollte.
So haben wir heute an unsere Seelen herangebracht, was unmittelbar mit dem Leben zusammenhängt. Wir haben gesehen, wie wir uns zu verhalten haben, wenn ein Kind lügt oder Neid fühlt. Wir müssen uns klar sein darüber, daß der karmische Faden durch alle Inkarnationen der Menschenseele verläuft, daß Karma schicksalsgemäß für sie gesponnen wird, und daß wir, wenn wir zurückschauen auf den Ursprung in Gott und dann hinschauen zum Menschenziel, wiederum hinschauen zu Gott.
Wir schauen zurück auf die Kultur der alten Rishis. Sie haben auf den Menschenursprung verwiesen. Hingewiesen haben sie in jene Welt, in welcher der Mensch war, bevor er zu seinen Inkarnationen herabgestiegen ist. Diese Lehre drang durch die Jahrhunderte und Jahrtausende. Der große Buddha hat sie gelehrt, indem er sagte: Alles dies ist den Menschen durch den Hang zur Verkörperung verlorengegangen, was den Zusammenhang mit der Welt des Ursprungs schuf. — Er forderte auf, die Welt der Verkörperungen zu verlassen, damit die Seele wiederum in den geistigen Welten des Ursprungs leben kann. Und hingewiesen haben die Propheten, indem sie den Christus vorherverkündeten, auf eine Zukunft, in welcher die Menschen wiederum ihr rechtes Erdenziel finden werden. Und dann steht der Christus selber da, dann vollzieht er das Mysterium von Golgatha. Und dann kann der Mensch durch dieses Mysterium von Golgatha entgegengeführt werden der göttlich-geistigen Erdenzukunft. Es gibt vielleicht kaum etwas so Erschütterndes als zwei Aussprüche, die ähnlich bei Buddha wie bei Christus sind und die den Gegensatz zwischen alter und neuer Zeit uns vor die Seele stellen können. Buddha steht unter seinen Schülern, er weist sieh in auf den Leib und sagt: Ich schaue zurück von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation, wie ich immer wieder hineingegangen bin in einen solchen menschlichen Leib, wie ich ihn jetzt trage. Und dieser Leibestempel ist mir immer von neuem aufgebaut von den Göttern. Und immer wieder suchte die Seele in neuen Inkarnationen in diesen Leibestempel hineinzukommen. Jetzt aber weiß ich, daß ich nicht mehr nötig habe, in einen Leibestempel zurückzukehren. Ich weiß, es sind zerbrochen die Balken, verfallen die Pfosten. Ich habe durch meine Erkenntnis meine Seele von diesem Leib frei gemacht. Getötet ist Wunsch und Begierde, in einen solchen Leib zurückzukehren. - Das war ein großes, ein gewaltiges Ergebnis der alten Zeit des Zurückschauens auf den Menschenursprung. Buddha und mit ihm seine Schüler und Nachfolger streben an, frei zu werden von dem Leibe. Welch ein gewaltiger Unterschied, wenn der Christus vor seinen intimen Schülern steht und also spricht — ganz gleichgültig, wie wir es auffassen; wir nehmen es als Worte des Christus, wie sie sind —, Christus sagt: Reißet nieder den Tempel meines Leibes, und ich will ihn in drei Tagen wiederum aufbauen. - Er, der Christus, sehnt sich nicht danach, frei zu werden von diesem Leibestempel. Er will ihn wieder aufbauen.
Nicht als ob der Christus selber wiederum in folgenden Inkarnationen in einem solchen physischen Leibe da sein würde. — Aber was er seine Schüler und alle Menschen lehrt, das ist: wiederum zurückzukehren in diesen Erdentempel von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation, um in einer jeden den Christus-Impuls größer, intensiver zu machen, damit wir Menschen immer mehr von dem Erdendasein werden aufnehmen können, um zuletzt so dazustehen, daß wir sagen: Wir haben in diesen Inkarnationen gearbeitet, um ähnlicher dem Christus zu werden. Und wir werden ihm ähnlicher, indem wir in diesen Leibestempel aufnehmen, was der Christus vom Kreuz auf Golgatha hat ausströmen lassen als sein eigenes Wesen. Das lassen wir strömen von Menschenseele zu Menschenseele, denn nur dadurch verstehen wir uns jetzt. Das ist das Gemeinsame für alle Menschenseelen der Erdenzukunft. Und dann wird der Zeitpunkt kommen, wo die Erde als Planet vergehen wird, wo sie zerschellt, zerstäubt, und wo die Menschen in vergeistigtem Zustand zur nächsten Verkörperung auf einen anderen Planeten übergehen werden.
Das Wort des großen Buddha: Ich fühle, wie die Pfosten meines Leibestempels nicht mehr tragen, wie die Balken zusammenbrechen — das kann uns vor der Seele stehen wie ein Schlußpunkt des gemeinsamen Menschenursprungs. Und wenn wir hinschauen auf dasjenige, was der Christus zu seinen Jüngern spricht: Ich will aufbauen diesen Leibestempel in dreien Tagen — das kann uns sein wie der Beginn der Zeit, die auf das Erdenziel hinweist. Und wir dürfen diesen Ausspruch erweitern, denn wir können sagen: Es breche ab dieser Tempel im Tode, aber wir wissen, daß wir die besten Kräfte, die wir uns in dieser Inkarnation angeeignet haben, für unsere nächste Inkarnation verwenden werden. Wir haben diese Kräfte empfangen, indem wir unsere Seelen der Christus-Erkenntnis hingaben. Wir werden auf diese Weise von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation immer weiterkommen. — Wenn die Menschen diesen Leibestempel zum letzten Mal aufbauen, werden sie zum Verständnis des zukünftigen, gemeinsamen Erdenziels gekommen sein.
Allein das Mysterium von Golgatha ist es, was der ganzen Menschheit der gemeinsame Impuls der Menschheits- und der Erdenentwickelung sein kann.
Life Questions in the Light of Reincarnation and Karma
Today, in this branch meeting, we want to take as our starting point some questions of life that touch on immediate human existence. Then we want to rise a little to higher spiritual points of view. I would like to start with two human characteristics, two human faults or vices that are perceived as something unpleasant, as something that diminishes human value. Let us talk about what are called envy and dishonesty.
If you look around in life, you will easily find that there is a very natural antipathy toward these two human characteristics. And even when we look up to people who are leaders in life, we see that they attach great importance to not having these two vices. For example, Goethe, who spent a great deal of time practicing self-knowledge and reflecting on his faults, said: “I have this or that fault, this or that virtue, but what seems most important to me is that I cannot count actual envy among my vices.” And the great Benvenuto Cellini says he is glad that he does not have to accuse himself of lying. So we see that these great personalities felt it was important to fight against these two human characteristics. And even the simplest, most naive person agrees with the leaders of humanity in their assessment or antipathy toward these vices.
If we ask ourselves why these two characteristics are instinctively condemned, we will realize that there is hardly anything that corresponds less to one of the most important earthly characteristics than envy and lying. They correspond little to what we call empathy with other people. For when we envy anyone, we are not inclined to devote ourselves to that virtue which touches the deepest, innermost core of our being, the divine in the other person. For compassion only has value when we not only feel sympathy, but when we can appreciate the core, the spiritual essence of the other person. But esteem for others, as the basis of compassion, implies that we acknowledge the merits of other people and can rejoice in their successes and stages of development. And all this excludes envy. Envy is a trait that is closely related to the strongest form of human egoism.
We can say the same thing about lying. When we tell an untruth, we violate the law that establishes a bond between all human beings with regard to truth. What is true is true for all human beings, and there is no better way to develop a consciousness that encompasses all human beings than through truth. When we tell an untruth, we commit a crime against the bond that should entwine the hearts of human beings. This is how things appear when we view them as human beings. And when we view them from a spiritual scientific perspective, we know that our previous incarnations have an effect in this life and that we are exposed to various influences. Two major influences must be experienced again and again: the two influences we call the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic influences. We do not want to discuss these cosmologically today; we want to remain with human life and imagine that we have passed through many incarnations and that, when we went through our first incarnation, the Luciferic power acted upon our astral body. Since that time, this Luciferic power has been the tempting power upon our astral body. There are forces exerted by Lucifer upon our astral body. It is basically Lucifer's endeavor to gain influence on the astral body of human beings on our earth. We must seek him in everything that pulls us down. We must seek him in all the qualities that live in the astral body as selfish passions, desires, instincts, and wishes, and thus be clear that envy is one of Lucifer's worst influences. Everything that can live in our soul and is registered as envy belongs to his domain, and every time we have a fit of envy, Lucifer grabs us by our “instincts” in our astral body.
Ahriman, on the other hand, has influence over our etheric body, and everything related to disturbances of judgment can be traced back to him, both the involuntary, when we make a wrong judgment, and the voluntary, when we tell a lie. If we fall prey to mendacity, Ahriman is at work in our etheric body.
It is interesting that we humans feel these influences so strongly that we have such a strong antipathy when they occur, and that people do everything they can to combat these two qualities, lying and envy. It will not be easy to find people who consciously admit: I want to be envious. Admittedly, a phrase has crept into the German language: “I envy you.” But this is not meant so badly. People do not mean actual envy. As soon as we realize that we are envious, that we are lying, we do everything we can to combat it. In this way, we take up the fight against Lucifer and Ahriman in this area.
However, something often occurs that we should pay attention to when we devote ourselves to spiritual science. We can fight the individual impulses of envy and lying, but if these qualities are rooted in our soul, if we acquired them in previous incarnations and are now fighting them, they will reappear as other qualities. When we try to combat a tendency toward envy that stems from previous incarnations, envy takes on a mask. Lucifer says: The human being is fighting against me; he has become aware of his feeling of envy. I hand this person over to my brother Ahriman. — And another effect occurs, which is a consequence of fighting envy. Traits that are fought against appear in masks. And the envy we fight then often appears in life in such a way that we become eager to seek out other people's faults and find much to criticize. We encounter many people in life who, as if with a certain clairvoyant power, always find the faults and dark sides of other people, and when we get to the bottom of this phenomenon, we find that envy has been transformed into a desire to find fault, and this seems to be a very good quality in the person concerned. It is good, they say, to draw attention to the existence of these bad qualities. However, behind such fault-finding lies nothing more than transformed, masked envy. And we should learn to recognize whether such qualities are original or whether they have been transformed from others. We must consider whether someone was envious in their youth. Perhaps we drove this envy out of them, and now they have become a fault-finding person.
Lying also changes very frequently in life and shows itself in different guises. Dishonesty can cause us to be ashamed of it. But we do not easily root it out; it very often transforms into a certain superficiality toward the truth. It is important that we know this, so that we pay attention to what we encounter in other people in life. Such people are satisfied with an answer that makes us wonder: How can he be satisfied with such an answer? — They say easily: Yes, yes, that's how it is, that's how it is! — This is very often the result of actual dishonesty. We must examine the law of karma particularly with regard to such characteristics. People do not pay attention to this because they are the most forgetful race of all those who assert themselves on the various planes.
For example, it turns out that someone was acquainted with us. We remain close to him in life and observe that many things change in him. We are still close to him after thirty years, and when we look back on his life, we find strange connections. But the person himself knows nothing about this; he has forgotten everything. But one should really observe such things in life. Essential connections then become apparent. For example, a person is envious in his youth. The envy no longer appears later, and its transformation in old age is revealed by the fact that the person concerned shows the characteristic of dependence, of wanting to be dependent on other people or on ideas of not being able to cope, of always having to have other people around to advise and help them. A certain moral weakness arises as a result of transformed envy, and we will always see that when someone has this moral weakness, it is the karmic consequence of transformed envy.
And transformed deceitfulness produces a shy nature in later life. Those who were deceitful in their youth do not dare to look people in the eye when they are old. In rural areas, people have an instinctive, elementary knowledge of this, which is not expressed in words. It is said that one should not trust people who cannot look you in the eye. Shyness and reserve, not out of modesty but out of fear of facing other people, are the karmic consequences of lying in one incarnation.
What appears as moral weakness in one incarnation has an organizing effect in the next incarnation. The spiritual weakness that is the result of envy cannot particularly destroy the body in the present incarnation, where the body is already built up. But when we pass through death and return to a new incarnation, these forces work in such a way that they become organic, body-building weakness, and we see that a weak body is built up by people who had transformed envy in a previous incarnation. When we say that a person is weak — but without prejudice, for people should know what weak or strong means — when a person is easily susceptible to this or that influence, has no resistance, then we know that his body is weak and that he has this weak body as a result of previous transformed envy.
Now, however, we must say to ourselves: if a child is born into a certain environment as a weak child, we must not only think of this inner karma as effective, but also that we are brought together with people in our environment for reasons — not by chance. It is precisely this aspect of karma, that we are adapted to our environment, that is extremely easy to understand. A edelweiss, for example, can only thrive in the environment to which it is adapted. Human beings, too, can only thrive in the environment to which they are adapted. The simplest logic would have to say this, because one can only understand life if one takes this into account. Every being fits into its environment; nothing is accidental.
Thus, we are born among those people whom we have envied or whom we have reproached. And so, with a weak body, we find ourselves among those people whom we envied in our previous incarnation for what they achieved or something similar. It is of infinite importance to know this, because only when we consider this can we understand life. When a child is born into an environment with a weak body, we should ask ourselves: How should we behave? — The most appropriate behavior must be that which is morally the most meaningful: to forgive. This will also lead to the best result here, and it is also the best education for the person concerned. It has an enormously educational effect when we can lovingly forgive a weak child who has been born into our environment. Those who do this with real power will see that the child becomes stronger and stronger as a result. Forgiving love must work right down to the level of thinking, because this enables the child to gather strength to transform its former karma and steer it in the right direction. The child will also become physically strong. Such a child often displays unpleasant characteristics. If we love them with all our heart, this acts as the most intense remedy, and we will soon discover how effective this remedy is.
The same applies if we take the other characteristic, dishonesty: in one incarnation, the person becomes shy in old age. This is a soul characteristic. But in the next incarnation, this characteristic acts as the architect of the body. The child not only appears weak, but in such a way that it cannot establish any proper relationship with its environment, that it is mentally deficient. We must think that we are the people who have often been lied to by such a person, and we should repay what has come to us as evil with the best. We must try to teach such a person as much as possible about the truths of spiritual life, and then we will see how he blossoms. We should always keep in mind that in previous incarnations we were lied to a lot by such a person, and we must do everything we can to establish a true relationship between such a child and his environment.
When we consider these things, we see that as human beings we are always called upon to help others to work out their karma in the right way. Anyone who thinks that we must leave people to their karma understands nothing about karma. If we find someone who has lied to us and we believe that they must carry out their karma, we would be showing that we do not understand karma correctly. The right idea would be to first offer help as much as possible. If it is said that we should leave people to their karma, this could at most be said in the esoteric realm, but never in life.
Let us imagine that we are trying to help other people according to their karma. Let us take a person who is shy. We try to help them lovingly. In doing so, we establish a connection between this person and ourselves. We will then see that something will come back to us from this person in their old age. But we must leave that to karma; we must not speculate about it. We must see it as our duty to help another person. And here I come to a subtle law. Everything we do for another person to help them endure and overcome their karma will always lead not only to helping the other person, but also to doing something for ourselves. But what we do for ourselves, for example to get ahead quickly, will not usually help us much. Only what we do for others can be fruitful for us. We cannot do anything good for ourselves. When we help someone overcome their karma, the best results are achieved, because what we do for others is a gain for humanity. We cannot do anything for ourselves; others must do that for us. That is why we must understand compassion for other people in the highest sense. If we develop this compassion in the highest sense, then we also feel this duty of compassion toward other people in relation to envy and lies. In this way, we develop a feeling of solidarity that extends to all human souls.
Humanity is fundamentally predisposed to feel that each individual is connected to the whole of humanity. And this feeling, in its various expressions in life, should also live in our struggles against Lucifer and Ahriman. By trying to help weak people who have a physical body that has become weak under the influence of overcome envy, by becoming clear about how we should behave toward these people, we can see clearly that the world is filled with these impulses from Lucifer and Ahriman and how they can be overcome in the course of Earth's development. When we follow such connections in our feelings, we inevitably come to have an ever deeper feeling for humanity as a whole. In a sense, every human being has the possibility of feeling something that can connect them with all other human beings. This feeling has changed greatly in the course of human evolution.
If we go back three or four millennia, the feeling of what humans have in common was clearly pronounced in all people. If we go back further, back through the post-Atlantean cultures, back to ancient Atlantis, we were always embodied there — and if we go back even further, we come to an incarnation in which we descended into a physical body for the first time. Before that, we were in a spiritual realm, as people believed three to four thousand years ago. We find such wise feelings in all people at that time. And the soul asked itself: What are you by virtue of being a human being? — And it answered itself: Before I descended into my body for the first time, I was in a sea of divine-spiritual life and activity. I was there, and all other human souls were there too. That was our common point of origin. Such a fundamental feeling in human souls made it possible to feel brotherly, universally human, since the origin of all human souls was felt to be common. And if we remember how people were influenced in all the ancient mystery schools to become good human beings, it was everywhere the case that in order to make people good and receptive to the deepest, most intimate, and most moving feelings, reference was made to the common origin, to the emergence of all human beings from the common divine source. And it was easy to strike this chord in the soul. But it became more and more difficult. If, for example, you had struck this chord with such a large number of people as are sitting here, it would have made an overwhelming impression at that time.
But humanity's feelings toward this common origin grew colder and colder. This had to happen, because humanity had to go through a certain point in its development. If I want to characterize this, we must look to the future of humanity, to the goal of Earth's development.
Just as the origin is a common one and all human souls arose from a common source, all human souls will come together in a common goal. And how can we humans find this goal so that we can continue to develop when the Earth has reached its goal and sinks and shatters as a material sphere beneath us humans? How can we understand this goal in such a way that we can enter into the future together? The awareness of this commonality must penetrate to the deepest fibers of the soul. This is only possible if we as human beings learn to feel toward the future as the ancient people felt toward the origin of humanity. This feeling has become increasingly cold in humanity. But life, feeling, and the certainty that something can be common to all human beings as a human goal must warm the souls more and more. Regardless of our level of development or where we stand in life, because we are human beings, something must be able to take place in our souls that allows us to say: We are all striving toward one goal. And looking at this goal, we must be able to say: This is something that concerns every human being. We must be able to find something deep within ourselves that unites us on one point.
In occultism, this is given the name Christ. For just as thousands of years ago it was possible to feel, sense, and know that our souls are all born from the common divine source and origin, so will human beings increasingly learn to say to themselves: Just as we, when we think, come together in a common bond, just as we can be united in a common way of thinking, just as this can live in all human minds, so there is something that can live as a common bond in all hearts. There is something that can flow like lifeblood in all human hearts. If this increasingly permeates us in our subsequent incarnations, then these will proceed in such a way that when the earth has reached its goal and passes into the future planetary state, Jupiter, the human souls will come together in the common, the Christ, and will be one. Therefore, in order for this to happen, the mystery of Golgotha had to take place. For this purpose, Christ became human in Jesus, so that this common stream of warmth could flow from human heart to human heart. The feeling for the common goal of humanity emanates from the cross on Golgotha. In this way, the past and the future are connected. This is the goal of humanity's future development. Whether people will retain this common name of Christ is not important, but rather that all people learn to understand that the same feeling that people originally had from their common origin will be transformed into a feeling of a common future on Earth.
Earth's development is divided into two halves: one goes up to the cross on Golgotha, and the other from the cross on Golgotha to the end of the earth. And human beings have much, much to do in order to understand Christ and his development. And when this is understood, human beings will find themselves united in a common goal for the development of Jupiter. And all our individual insights lead to finding this principle of Christianity.
If we have tried today to understand how karma works from one incarnation to another in shaping the body, then we understand how human beings can become more and more perfect as they pass through incarnations. Without calling him Christ, we still speak of the Christ. We refrain from referring to the personal. When we have a child in front of us who lies to us, we say to ourselves: This child has lied to us. How can we help him to transform his karma? — We do not ask whether he has harmed us. We look at the core of the child's being, and in doing so we bring the karma forward. Deep human empathy will assert itself more and more in this way in the world.
Thus, what we call spiritual science, if we really understand it as the understanding of life processes in the sense of reincarnation and karma, is the preparation for a true grasp of the Christ impulse in the world. It does not matter how a person puts their words, but whoever truly understands the law of evolution cannot help but be a Christian, whether they are Hindu, Muslim, or belong to another religious system. What matters is that we take into our souls the impulse that is the impulse toward the common goal of humanity, just as the impulse once lived in the ancient people to look toward the common origin of humankind.
Therefore, spiritual science always leads to the Christ impulse. It cannot do otherwise. One could therefore simply understand spiritual science as it appears today by saying that even if someone who becomes an anthroposophist perhaps wanted to know nothing about Christianity, he would in truth be led to Christ. In reality, they would be led there even if they tried to fight against it with words.
In this way, we have brought to our souls what is directly connected with life. We have seen how we should behave when a child lies or feels envy. We must be clear that the karmic thread runs through all incarnations of the human soul, that karma is woven for them according to their destiny, and that when we look back to the origin in God and then look at the goal of human beings, we look back to God again.
We look back to the culture of the ancient Rishis. They pointed to the origin of human beings. They pointed to the world in which human beings existed before they descended into their incarnations. This teaching penetrated through the centuries and millennia. The great Buddha taught it when he said: All that created the connection with the world of origin has been lost to human beings through their tendency toward embodiment. He called upon people to leave the world of incarnations so that the soul could once again live in the spiritual worlds of origin. And the prophets, in foretelling Christ, pointed to a future in which human beings would once again find their true purpose on earth. And then Christ himself stands there, and then he accomplishes the mystery of Golgotha. And then, through this mystery of Golgotha, human beings can be led toward the divine-spiritual future of the earth. There is perhaps nothing so shocking as two statements, similar in Buddha and Christ, which can bring the contrast between the old and the new times before our souls. Buddha stands among his disciples, points to his body and says: I look back from incarnation to incarnation, how I have entered again and again into such a human body as I now wear. And this temple of the body is always rebuilt for me by the gods. And again and again the soul sought to enter this temple of the body in new incarnations. But now I know that I no longer need to return to a body temple. I know that the beams are broken and the posts are decayed. Through my knowledge, I have freed my soul from this body. The desire and longing to return to such a body are dead. This was a great, a tremendous result of the ancient time of looking back on the origin of man. Buddha and his disciples and followers strive to become free from the body. What an enormous difference it makes when Christ stands before his intimate disciples and says — quite regardless of how we understand it; we take it as the words of Christ as they are — Christ says: Tear down the temple of my body, and I will rebuild it in three days. He, the Christ, does not long to be free from this temple of the body. He wants to rebuild it.
Not as if Christ himself would be present again in subsequent incarnations in such a physical body. But what he teaches his disciples and all human beings is to return again and again to this earthly temple from incarnation to incarnation in order to make the Christ impulse greater and more intense in each one, so that we human beings may be able to take more and more of earthly existence into ourselves, until we finally stand there and say: We have worked in these incarnations to become more like Christ. And we become more like him by taking into this temple of the body what Christ poured out from the cross on Golgotha as his own being. We let this flow from human soul to human soul, for only in this way can we understand each other now. This is what all human souls on Earth have in common in the future. And then the time will come when the Earth as a planet will pass away, when it will be shattered, pulverized, and when human beings in a spiritualized state will pass on to the next incarnation on another planet.
The words of the great Buddha: I feel how the pillars of my body temple are no longer supporting me, how the beams are collapsing — this can stand before our souls like a full stop on the common origin of humanity. And when we look at what Christ said to his disciples: “I will build this temple of the body in three days” — this can be for us like the beginning of the time that points to the goal of life on Earth. And we can expand on this statement, for we can say: This temple will break down in death, but we know that we will use the best forces we have acquired in this incarnation for our next incarnation. We have received these forces by surrendering our souls to the knowledge of Christ. In this way, we will continue to progress from incarnation to incarnation. When human beings build this temple of the body for the last time, they will have come to understand the future, common goal of life on earth.
Only the mystery of Golgotha can be the common impulse for the development of humanity and the earth for all of humanity.