Karma
GA 235
17 February 1924, Dornach
II. The Karma Question and the Hierarchies
When we advance from the study the aim of which was to prepare us for the explanation of human destiny, of karma, when we advance from abstractions, from the intellectual, to life itself, this advance then brings us, first of all, to the point of placing before our minds the various spheres of life into which the human being is inserted, in order to gain from these constituents of life a basis for a characterization of karma, of human destiny.
Indeed, the human being belongs to the whole cosmos in a much more comprehensive sense than is usually thought. He is, indeed, a member of the cosmos, and without the cosmos he is nothing. I have often employed the comparison of some human bodily member, for example, a finger: A finger is a finger by virtue of its being a part of the human organism. The moment it is severed from the human organism it is no longer a finger. Outwardly, physically, as finger it is the same as previously, but after it has been severed from the human organism it is, indeed, no longer a finger. In like manner is the human being no longer a human being when he is lifted out of the general cosmic existence. He belongs to the general cosmic existence, and without it he cannot at all be looked upon, not at all be comprehended as a human being.
As we have already seen from yesterday's lecture, the world surroundings of mankind consist of various domains. To begin with, we have the lifeless domain of the world which, in ordinary language, we call the domain of the mineral world. We become similar to this domain of the mineral world as the lifeless element only after we have laid aside our body, when we, as far as this body is concerned, have passed through the portal of death. In our real being we never become similar to this lifeless element. The discarded bodily form alone becomes similar to this element.
Thus, we have on the one hand what the human being leaves behind as a physical corpse in the realm of the lifeless, and, on the other, what exists as the widespread lifeless, crystalline and non-crystalline mineral nature and world. As human beings we are entirely dissimilar to this mineral world as long as we live upon the earth. To this I have already drawn attention. In regard to our form, we are immediately destroyed when we are consigned to the mineral world as a corpse. We disintegrate into the mineral; that is, the element which holds our form together has nothing in common with mineral nature. From this it follows that the human being as he lives in the physical world cannot be actually influenced at all by the mineral nature itself.
The chief and most comprehensive influences which act upon the human being from the mineral kingdom come in a roundabout way through the senses. We see the mineral kingdom, we hear it, we perceive its warmth, briefly, we perceive it by means of the senses. Our other relationships to the mineral nature are extremely slight. Just consider how very little of a mineral nature enters into relationship with us during earth life. The salt with which we flavor our food is mineral, and a few other things which we take in with our food are of a mineral nature, but by far the largest part of the food stuff which the human being consumes comes from the plant and animal kingdoms. And what we receive from the mineral kingdom relates itself in a very peculiar way to what we receive from the mineral world through our senses simply as soul impressions, as sense perceptions. And I beg you to consider seriously in this connection something very important. I have, indeed, frequently described this: The human brain weighs on the average about 1500 grams. This is quite a weight. The blood vessels at the base of this brain would be completely crushed by it if they were so heavily pressed upon by such a weight as this. But the brain does not press so heavily, for it is subject to a certain law. This law, which I have described here recently, says that an object immersed in a liquid loses some of its weight.
This can be shown by experiment, by taking a pair of scales—first disregarding the liquid-filled vessel—weighing this object and noting its weight. Then place the vessel containing the water underneath one of the scale pans so that the object in the scale pan sinks into the water. Immediately the scale pans are no longer in balance. The pan containing the weight drops lower, because the object in the other pan becomes lighter. If you then investigate how much lighter the object in question becomes, you will find that it is lighter by an amount equal to the weight of the fluid which the object displaces. If thus you take water as a fluid, then will the weight of the body immersed be reduced by an amount equal to the weight of the displaced water. This is the so-called principle of Archimedes. He discovered this—as I have told you on another occasion—when taking a bath. By simply sitting in the bath he found that his leg became lighter or heavier, according as he inserted it in the water or lifted it out again. And he then cried: I have found it! Eureka!
Indeed, my dear friends, what has just been said is an extremely important fact; important facts, however, are often forgotten. Had the engineering art not forgotten this Archimedean principle, then in Italy perhaps one of the greatest disasters of recent times would not have occurred. These are just the things which occur also in outer life from inability to survey clearly present-day knowledge.
In any case, the body loses in weight an amount equal to the weight of the displaced water. Now, the brain is completely immersed in the cerebral fluid. It swims within this brain water. Once in a while, at the present time, the human being comes to realize that in so far as he is solid, he is actually a fish. In reality he is, indeed, a fish, for 90% of his body consists of water and the solid element swims within it like the fish in water.
Thus, the brain by swimming in the cerebral fluid becomes so much lighter than formerly that it weighs only 20 grams. The brain which out of its fluid weighs some 1500 grams, in its fluid presses upon its base with a weight of only 20 grams. Now just consider how strong in us is the tendency in such an important organ—on account of this swimming of our brain in the cerebral fluid—the tendency to become free from the earth. We do not at all think with an organ which is subject to the influence of gravity, but rather we think in opposition to this force of gravity. The brain organ has first been relieved of the force of gravity.
If you consider the wide significance of the impressions which you receive through the senses, and which you confront with your free will, and compare this with the minute influences which come from salt and similar substances absorbed as food or seasoning, then the following will result from your observation: So great is the predominance of our mere sense impressions, which render us independent of the stimuli from the mineral kingdom, that what we receive into ourselves as direct influence from the mineral world is related to our sense perceptions in the ratio of 20 to 1500 grams. What we take into ourselves through the sense perceptions does not tear us apart, and the elements in us which actually are subject to the earth's gravity—such as the mineral seasonings in our food are, for the most part, things that conserve us inwardly; for salt has at the same time a conserving, a maintaining, a refreshing force. The human being is thus, on the whole, independent of what exists in the surrounding mineral kingdom. He takes into himself from the mineral kingdom only that which has no direct influence on his inner nature. He moves about freely and independently in the mineral world.
My dear friends, if this freedom and independence of movement in the mineral world did not exist, what we call human freedom would not exist at all. And it is very important that we must acknowledge that the mineral kingdom actually exists as the necessary counterpart of human freedom. Indeed, were there no mineral kingdom, we would not be free beings. For the moment we ascend into the plant kingdom, we are no longer independent of that kingdom. It only seems as if we directed our eyes toward the plant kingdom in just the same way we direct them toward the crystal, toward the widespread mineral kingdom. That is, however, not the case. Here, on the earth, the plant kingdom lies outspread. And we human beings are born into the world as breathing, living beings, as beings having a certain metabolism. All this is, indeed, much more dependent on the environment than our eyes, our ears, than everything that is a transmitter of sense impressions. What exists as plant world, the outspread plant world, draws its life out of the strength-giving ether pouring from all sides downward into the earth. The human being also is subject to this ether.
When we are born as a little child and begin to grow, when the forces of growth are evident in us, these are the ether forces. The same forces which cause the plants to grow live in us as ether forces. We carry within us the ether body. The physical body harbors our eyes, harbors our ears. As I have just explained, this body has nothing in common with the rest of the physical world, and what shows this to be true is the fact that, as a corpse, it decays in the physical world.
In the case of the ether body we have at once a different condition. Through this ether body we are related to the plant kingdom. But by our growing—just consider this, my dear friends—by virtue of our growing, something forms itself within us which has a deep connection, in a certain sense, with our destiny. To employ some rather grotesque, radical illustrations, we may grow and yet remain small and fat, or become tall and slim; we may grow and have this or that shape of nose. In brief, the way we grow has most decidedly a certain influence upon our external appearance. This, again, is connected—although in the first place only loosely—with our destiny. Growth does not express itself, however, only in these coarser things. Were the instruments we possess for purposes of research fine enough, we should discover that actually every human being has a different liver composition, a different spleen composition, a different brain composition. Liver is not merely liver. In every individual—naturally, in a very delicate way—it is something different. All this is connected with the same forces which cause the plants to grow. And in beholding the plant cover of the earth we must become conscious of the fact that what pours in out of the reaches of the ether, causing the plants to grow, works and acts also in us; it produces in us the original human potentiality which has a great deal to do with our destiny. For whether a person has received this or that liver, lung, or brain composition from the etheric universe is a matter profoundly connected with his destiny.
We see only the outer side, to be sure, of all these things. Certainly, if we look upon the mineral kingdom, we see about all that exists in that world. Human beings are so fond, scientifically, of this mineral world—if it is at all possible to speak of a “scientific fondness” at the present time—because it contains everything that people wish to find.
This is certainly not the case with what sustains, as forces, the plant kingdom. For the moment we attain imaginative knowledge—I have already spoken of this on other occasions—we begin immediately to see that the minerals are of such a nature that they are enclosed in the mineral kingdom. What sustains the plant kingdom does not appear externally at all to ordinary consciousness. Here we must penetrate deeper into the world.
Suppose we ask the question: What is it really that acts in the plant kingdom? What acts there so that there can come from the distant ether reaches the forces which make the plants sprout and spring forth from the earth, which also cause our growth, however, and the finer composition of our whole body,—what acts there? This question then brings us to the beings of the so-called third Hierarchy, the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. These beings are the realm of the invisible; but without them there would be no up and down surging of the ether forces which cause the plants to grow, and which act in us through our having within us the same forces that cause growth in plants. We can no longer stop at the mere visible—unless we wish to remain dull in regard to knowledge—if we approach the plant world and its forces. And we must, indeed, become conscious of the fact that in the body-free existence between death and a new birth we develop our relationships, our connections with these beings, the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. And according to the way we develop these connections and relationships with these beings of the third
Hierarchy, does the karma of our inner nature—if I may designate it thus—fashion itself, that very karma which depends upon the way our ether body combines the bodily fluids, how it causes us to be tall or short, and so forth.
But here the beings of the third Hierarchy have only limited power. The ability of plants to grow does not originate from their power alone, for in this respect, these beings of the third Hierarchy—the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—stand in the service of yet higher beings. What we live through, however, before we descend out of the spiritual world into our physical body, what is connected with our more delicate bodily structure, and all that I have just described, all this is caused by our conscious encounter with these beings of the third Hierarchy. And under this instruction which we can receive from them, in accordance with our preparation in our previous earth life, that is, as a result of the instruction we receive for fashioning our ether body out of the forces of the ether reaches, all this occurs during the last pre-birth period, just before we descend from the super-physical into physical existence.
From the foregoing it is evident that our glance must first fall upon what works into our destiny, into our karma out of our inner constitution. For this aspect of karma, I should like to employ the expressions “comfort and discomfort in life.” Well-being, comfort, and discomfort in life are connected with what is our inner quality by virtue of our ether body.
A second element which lives in our karma depends upon the fact that the earth is not only covered by the plant kingdom but is inhabited by the animal kingdom. Now just consider, my dear friends, that the different regions of the earth have the most varied animals. The animal atmosphere in the different regions of the earth varies greatly.
You will, however, admit that the human being also lives in this atmosphere in which the animals live. That sounds grotesque at the present time, because human beings are not accustomed to consider such matters. There are, for example, regions where the elephant lives. Indeed, in the regions where the elephant lives the cosmos affects the earth in such a way as to make it possible for the elephant to come into being. Indeed, do you believe, my dear friends, that, if there is a portion of the earth upon which the elephant lives, with the elephant-forming forces working down upon it from the cosmos, the same forces are not working, if right at this same spot a human being is present? Of course, these forces are there also when a human being is present. And this is likewise just as true for the whole animal kingdom. In exactly the same way that the plant-forming forces from the ether reaches are present right here where we live—the walls of wood, stone, and even concrete do not hold them back; here in Dornach, we live more or less in the midst of the very forces that fashion the plants in the Jura Alps—so likewise, if a human being lives on the very soil where the elephant can exist according to the earth's constitution, does he live under the elephant-forming forces.
I can, indeed, quite well imagine that you now have before your mind's eye many a large and small animal which inhabits the earth, and you now learn that the human being, indeed, lives in the same atmosphere as these animals. All this actually works upon the human being. Naturally, it acts upon the human being differently from the way it acts upon the animals, because the human being has yet other qualities, yet other members of his being than the animals. It acts differently upon the human being; otherwise he would also become an elephant in the elephant sphere. He does not, however, become an elephant. Moreover, the human being lifts himself continually out of what works upon him there. Yet he lives in this atmosphere.
You see, everything that exists in the astral body of the human being is dependent upon this atmosphere in which he lives. And, if we may say that his well-being or discomfort is dependent upon the plant nature of the earth, so may we again say that the sympathies and antipathies which we, as man, develop within our earth existence, and which we bring with us from pre-earthly existence, depend on what constitutes, so to speak, the animal atmosphere.
The elephant has a trunk and thick, column-shaped legs. The stag has antlers, and so on. In these members live the animal-forming, the animal-shaping forces. In the human being these forces are manifest only in their effect upon his astral body. And in this effect upon his astral body they produce the sympathies and antipathies which the human individuality brings with him out of the spiritual world.
Just observe, my dear friends, these sympathies and antipathies. Observe what a strong dominant power these sympathies and antipathies have throughout the whole of life. Certainly, we human beings are taught, with justification in a certain respect, to rise above these strong sympathies and antipathies. Nevertheless, to begin with they still exist—these sympathies and antipathies; we still go through our lives living in sympathies and antipathies. One has sympathy for this and another for that. One has sympathy for sculpture, another for music; one has sympathy for blondes, another for brunettes. These are strong, radical sympathies. But our entire life is interwoven by such sympathies and antipathies. We live in dependence upon those forces which produce the manifold animal configurations.
And now, just ask yourselves, my dear friends, what then do we as human beings bear within us which corresponds within our own innermost being to the manifold animal shapes existing in outer nature? A hundredfold, a thousandfold are the animal shapes. A hundredfold, a thousandfold are the configurations of our sympathies and antipathies; only, most of them remain in the unconscious or in the subconscious.
This is an additional, a third, world.
The first world was the world upon which we really feel no dependence—the mineral world. The second world is the one in which Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai live, the one which causes the plant kingdom to sprout forth, which gives us our inner quality by means of which we carry well-being and discomfort into life, by means of which we feel desperately unhappy through ourselves or feel happy through ourselves. That which signifies our destiny through our inner composition, through our entire etheric humanness, is taken out of this second world. We now come to what further profoundly conditions our destiny,—that is, our sympathies and antipathies. And these sympathies and antipathies bring us, finally, what belongs to our destiny in a far wider scope than do merely these sympathies and antipathies themselves.
The one human being is carried by his sympathies and antipathies into far distances. He lives here and there, because his sympathies have borne him thither, and in these distant reaches the details of his destiny develop. Deeply linked to our whole human destiny are these sympathies and antipathies. They live in the world in which lives not the third Hierarchy, but the second Hierarchy—the Exusiai, the Dynamis, the Kyriotetes. That which is an earthly reflection of the sublime, glorious forms of this second Hierarchy lives in the animal kingdom. That, however, which these beings transplant into us during our intercourse with them between death and a new birth we bring with us out of the spiritual into the physical world as our inborn sympathies and antipathies.
If we fathom these matters, then such concepts as those of ordinary heredity become childish, really childish. For in order that I may possess some inherited trait from my father or mother, I must first develop the sympathy or antipathy for this trait of my father or mother. Thus, it does not depend merely upon the fact that I have inherited these qualities through some sort of lifeless nature-cause, but it depends upon whether I have had any sympathy for these qualities. The reason why I have had such sympathies for these qualities will be discussed in the subsequent lectures. Our discussions about karma will, indeed, occupy us for many hours to come. It is, however, really childish to speak about heredity in the way this usually occurs today in those scientific circles which consider themselves especially clever.
It is even asserted today that specifically soul-spirit characteristics are inherited. Genius is said to be inherited from the forebears, and when a genius appears in the world, we seek out the individual traits in the forebears which, when united in some personality, are supposed to produce this genius. Indeed, that is a strange kind of demonstration of the truth. A reasonable proof would be that, if a genius exists he would then, through heredity, again produce another genius. But, if we were to look for these proofs—well, Goethe also had a son, and other geniuses have had sons we would come upon curious things. That would be a proof! But the fact that a genius exists and that certain characteristics of his forebears are found in this genius has no more significance than that I am wet if I fall into the water and am pulled out. Through this event, I have very little to do in my own nature with the water which then drips from me. Naturally, since I am born into a certain hereditary stream, because of my sympathies with the qualities in question, I am vested with these inherited qualities just as, when I have fallen into the water, I carry some of this water on my body after having been pulled out of it. Grotesquely childish, however, are the ideas which people have in this regard. For the sympathies and antipathies have already appeared in the pre-earthly existence of the human being, and these give him his innermost structure. With these he enters into earth existence: with these he frames his destiny for himself out of his pre-earthly existence.
And we can now easily imagine the following: In a previous earth life, we were associated with a human being. Much has resulted from this association, which continues on in the life between death and a new birth. Under the influence of the forces of the higher Hierarchies, there is fashioned within the living thoughts, within the living cosmic impulses, all that which is then to pass over into the next earth life out of the experience of the previous one, in order to be lived further. For that purpose, we employ sympathies and antipathies, cultivating the impulses through which we find each other in life.
And these sympathies and antipathies are shaped under the influence of the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes in the life between death and a new birth. These sympathies and antipathies enable us then to find the human beings in life with whom we must continue to live, in accordance with the previous earth lives. This is fashioned out of our inner human structure.
Naturally, in this acquiring of sympathies and antipathies the most manifold errors occur. These, however, are equalized again in the course of destiny throughout many earth lives. Thus, we have here a second constituent of karma: the sympathies and antipathies.
We may say: First constituent of karma—inner comfort, or discomfort; second constituent—sympathies and antipathies (see tabulation pages 26, 27). By virtue of our having reached the sympathies and antipathies in human destiny we have ascended into the sphere in which lie the forces for the formation of the animal kingdom.
Now we ascend into the real kingdom of man. We live not only in association with the plant kingdom, with the animal kingdom, but we live quite determinatively for our fate in association with other human beings in the world. That is quite a different association from the association with plants and animals. It is an association through which the chief element of our destiny is fashioned. The impulses which cause the peopling of the earth also with human beings act only upon mankind. And now the question arises: Which are the impulses that act only upon mankind? Here we can permit a purely external consideration to speak which I have already frequently presented.
Our life is, indeed, directed from its yonder side—if I may so express myself—with a much greater wisdom than we direct it here from this side.
We often meet in our later years someone who is extraordinarily important for our life. If we think back and see how we have lived up to the time when we met this human being, our whole life then appears to us to be the path we have taken in order to encounter him. It is as if we had ordered every step so as to find this individual exactly at the right point of time, or at least to find him at a certain point of time.
We need only, for once, ponder upon the following: Just think what, with full human awareness, it signifies, to find in some year of one's life a certain person and henceforward to experience something in common with him, to work and collaborate with him. Just consider what this means. Let us consider in full awareness what it is that offers itself as the impulse which has led us to meet this person. If we ponder upon the matter and ask ourselves how it is that we have found this person, perhaps it will then occur to us that an event had first to be experienced by us which was connected with many other people; otherwise there would not have* been the least possibility of finding this human being during life. And in order that this event might occur, another had in turn to be experienced. We arrive at complicated relationships all of which had to take place and into which we had to enter in order to have some decisive experience. And then we ponder, perhaps, upon the following: If at a certain age—I will not say at the age of one, but of fourteen—we had been put to the task of solving consciously the problem how we should, in the fiftieth year of our life, bring about a decisive meeting with some person, if we imagine that at a certain age we should have had to solve this problem consciously like a problem in arithmetic, I beg you just to consider what all of that would require! We human beings are, indeed, consciously extremely stupid, and what happens with us in the world is, if we consider such things, extremely clever and wise!
If we consider such a thing, our attention is directed to the extreme intricacy and significance of our destiny's working, of the action of our karma. And all this occurs in the realm of the human being.
Now, I beg you to consider that what takes place here with us is actually living in the unconscious. Right up to the moment when a critical event confronts us, it lies in the unconscious. Everything takes place as though subject to the laws of nature. But where would the laws of nature ever have the power to effect such a thing? What occurs in this region can, indeed, contradict all nature laws and everything that we construct in accordance with the outer laws of nature. I have repeatedly drawn your attention also to this fact.
The externalities of human life may even be stretched into the frame of calculated laws. Let us take, for example, the business of life insurance. It can only prosper through our being able to calculate the probable life duration of any—let us say—nineteen or twenty-year-old individual. When someone wishes to insure his life, the policy is based upon the probable length of life. That is, as a person, nineteen years old today, we are expected to live according to these calculations a certain number of years. That can be determined. But just suppose that this period has elapsed. You would not feel in duty bound to die because of this fact. According to this probable life duration, two human beings should have been dead for a long time. But, after they have long been “dead,” according to this probable duration of life, they meet each other for the first time in the way I have described! All this occurs beyond what we calculate for human life out of the external facts of nature. And nevertheless, it occurs with as much inner necessity as do the laws of nature. It is not possible to say anything but the following: With the same necessity with which any natural phenomenon takes place, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, or whatever it may be, a minor or a major event in nature, with the same necessity two human beings meet each other during earth life according to the rules of life which they have made for themselves. Thus, we see actually here within the physical realm a new realm established, and within this realm we live not only in comfort or discomfort, in sympathies and antipathies, but we live within it as in our own occurrences, our own experiences. We are entirely molded into the realm of events, of experiences which determine our life in accordance with destiny.
In this realm the beings of the first Hierarchy are active, the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. For, in order that every human step, every movement of the soul, everything in us may be guided in the world in such a way that the destiny of man may grow from it, a greater power is needed than that which acts in the plant kingdom, than that possessed by the Hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, than that possessed by the Hierarchy of the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. To achieve this a power is needed which is inherent in the first Hierarchy, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones—the most exalted beings of the universe. Now, what comes to manifestation there lives in our real ego, in our ego organism, and extends its life from a previous earth existence into a later one.
Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi:
First Constituent of Karma—Comfort, Discomfort.
Dynamis, Exusiai, Kyriotetes:
Second Constituent of Karma—Sympathies, Antipathies.
Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones:
Third Constituent of Karma—Events, Experiences.
And now consider the following: You live a life on earth, causing this or that, out of instincts, passions, inclinations, let us say, or out of clever or foolish thoughts. All this is actually present within you as impulses. Consider that, when you live a life on earth, what you do through instincts leads to this or to that; it leads to the happiness or injury of another human being. Then you pass through the life between death and a new birth. In this life you have the strong consciousness: “If I have injured another human being, I am less perfect than I should have been had I not thus injured him. I must atone for it.” You feel in yourself the urge and the impulse to expiate this injury. If you have done something to a human being which advances him, then you behold what is advancing him in such a way that you say: “This must serve as the basis for general world advancement, this must lead to further results in the world.”
All this you are able to develop inwardly; all this may give well-being, ease, or discomfort, according to the way you fashion the inner nature of your body during life between death and a new birth. All this may lead you to sympathies and antipathies, in that you construct your astral body in the corresponding way with the help of the beings of the second Hierarchy, the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. But all of this does not yet give you the power to cause what in a past life were mere human deeds to become a cosmic act. You advanced or injured a human being. The effect of this must be that this human being will encounter you in the next life and that you will find through this encounter the impulse to expiate the effect. What has a merely moral significance must become an outer fact, must become an outer world event.
For this purpose, the beings are needed who transform, metamorphose, moral acts into world deeds. These are the beings of the first Hierarchy, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. These beings transform what proceeds from us in one earth life into our experiences of the next earth lives. They act in what constitutes event and experience in human life.
We have there the three basic elements in our karma; that which composes our inner constitution, our inner human existence, is under the control of the third Hierarchy; that which exists as our sympathies and antipathies, that which in a certain way becomes our environment, is the concern of the second Hierarchy; finally, that which confronts us as our outer life is the concern of the first, the most exalted Hierarchy of beings ranging above men.
Thus, we look into the relationship in which the human being stands to the universe, and come now to the important question: How do all the details of our destiny develop from these three elements of the human being?
The human being is born into a parental home. He is born on a certain spot of the earth. He is born within a folk. He is born into a certain complex of facts. Everything, however, that appears by virtue of his being born into a parental home, of his being entrusted to educators, of his being born into a folk, of his being placed upon a certain spot on the earth at his birth,—all of this which, in spite of all human freedom, intervenes so profoundly, so fatefully in the life of the human being, all of this is finally, in some way, dependent upon these three elements which compose human destiny.
All individual questions will disclose themselves to us in corresponding answers, if we focus our attention upon these fundamentals in the right way. If we ask why someone in his twenty-fifth year has small pox, thus passing through the most extreme danger of life, if we ask why some other sickness or event may intervene in his life, why his life may be benefited by this or that older person, by this or that nation, or why advancement occurs to him through this or that outer event,—in every case we shall have to return to that which, in a threefold manner, composes human destiny and places the human being in the totality of the cosmic Hierarchies. In the mineral kingdom alone does the human being move about freely. There lies the realm of his freedom.
By paying attention to this, the human being learns also to pose in the right way the question of freedom. Read in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity how much I have stressed the importance of not asking about the freedom of the will. The will resides deep down in the unconscious, and it is nonsense to ask about the freedom of the will; on the contrary, it is possible to speak only of the freedom of thinking, of thought. In my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I have clearly made this distinction. Free thoughts must activate the will, then is the human being free. But with his thoughts the human being lives in the mineral kingdom. With everything else, with his life in the world of the plant, of the animal, in the purely human world, he is subject to destiny. And freedom is something of which one may say the following: The human being steps out of the realms which are ruled by the higher Hierarchies into the realm which, in a certain way, is independent of the higher Hierarchies, into the mineral kingdom, in order to be free as far as he is concerned. This mineral kingdom is, indeed, the realm to which the human being becomes similar only as a corpse, when he has laid his body aside after having passed through the portal of death. The human being is independent in his earth life of that kingdom which can only act for his destruction. It is not to be wondered at that he is free in this kingdom, since this kingdom has no other part in him but to destroy him when it receives him. He must first die in order that he be, as a corpse, in the realm in which he is free also as a phenomenon of nature. Thus, things are related.
We grow older and older. If the other incidents do not occur which we shall also learn about in connection with karma, if the human being dies at an advanced age, he becomes similar, as a corpse, to the mineral kingdom. He enters the sphere of the lifeless by growing older. Then he detaches his corpse from himself. That is no longer human; naturally, it is no longer human. Let us contemplate the mineral kingdom: that is no longer God. Just as the corpse is no longer human, is the mineral kingdom no longer God. What is it, then? The Godhead is in the plant, animal, and human kingdoms; we have found it there in its three Hierarchies. The Godhead is in the mineral kingdom just as little as the human corpse is the human being. The mineral kingdom is the divine corpse. To be sure, we shall encounter in due course the peculiar fact, upon which today I desire only to touch, that the human being grows older in order to become a corpse and the Gods grow younger in order to become a corpse. That is to say, the Gods travel on that other path on which we travel after our death. The mineral kingdom is, therefore, the youngest kingdom. It is, nevertheless, the one that the Gods detach from themselves. And because it is detached from the Gods, the human being can live within it as in the realm of his freedom. Thus, are these things interrelated. And the human being learns actually to feel more and more at home in the world by his learning in this way to place his sensations, his thoughts, his feelings, his will impulses in the right relationship to the world. But only thus do we see also how, in accordance with the laws of destiny, we are placed in the world and in relationship to other human beings.
Zweiter Vortrag
Wenn wir fortschreiten von der Betrachtung, die vorbereiten sollte für die Auseinandersetzung des menschlichen Schicksals, des Karmas, wenn wir vom Abstrakten, Gedanklichen zum Leben fortschreiten, so kommen wir eben fortschreitend dazu, zunächst die verschiedenen Gebiete des Lebens, in die der Mensch hineingestellt ist, vor unsere Seele hinzustellen, um aus diesen Bestandstücken des Lebens dann Unterlagen für eine Charakteristik des Karmas, des menschlichen Schicksals zu gewinnen.
Der Mensch gehört ja in einem viel umfassenderen Sinne der ganzen Welt an, als man gewöhnlich denkt. Der Mensch ist eben ein Glied der Welt, und er ist eigentlich ohne die Welt nichts. Ich habe oftmals den Vergleich gebraucht mit irgendeinem menschlichen Gliede, zum Beispiel mit einem Finger: der Finger ist Finger, indem er am menschlichen Organismus ist. In dem Augenblicke ist er kein Finger mehr, wenn er vom menschlichen Organismus abgeschnitten ist. Äußerlich-physisch ist er als Finger derselbe, aber er ist eben kein Finger mehr, wenn er abgeschnitten ist vom menschlichen Organismus.
So ist der Mensch eigentlich nicht mehr Mensch, wenn er herausgehoben ist aus dem allgemeinen Weltendasein. Er gehört zum allgemeinen Weltendasein und kann ohne dasselbe eigentlich als Mensch gar nicht angeschaut, gar nicht verstanden werden.
Nun aber gliedert sich, wie wir schon gestern gesehen haben, die menschliche Weltumgebung in verschiedene Gebiete. Da haben wir zunächst das leblose Weltgebiet, das wir in der gewöhnlichen Sprache das mineralische Weltengebiet nennen. Diesem mineralischen Weltengebiet, wir werden ihm als leblosem erst ähnlich, hinsichtlich dieses Leibes, wenn wir unseren Leib abgelegt haben, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten sind. Mit unserem eigentlichen Wesen werden wir ja gar nicht diesem Leblosen jemals ähnlich. Die abgelegte Leibesform wird diesem Leblosen ähnlich. Und so steht auf der einen Seite dasjenige, was der Mensch als physischen Leichnam im Reiche an des Leblosen zurückläßt, und auf der anderen Seite das, was die weite, leblose, kristallisierte und unkristallisierte mineralische Natur und Welt ist. Dieser mineralischen Welt sind wir Menschen eigentlich, so lange wir auf Erden leben, ganz unähnlich, darauf habe ich ja schon aufmerksam gemacht. Wir werden sofort in unserer Form zerstört, wenn wir der mineralischen Welt übergeben werden als Leichnam. Wir lösen uns auf im Mineralischen, das heißt, dasjenige, was unsere Form zusammenhält, hat eben mit dem Mineralischen nichts Gemeinsames. Und daraus schon geht hervor, daß der Mensch, so wie er in der physischen Welt lebt, vom Mineralischen selbst aus eigentliche Einflüsse gar nicht haben kann.
Die hauptsächlichsten, die weitaus umfassendsten Einflüsse, die der Mensch vom Mineralischen hat, die kommen auf dem Umwege durch die Sinne her. Wir sehen das Mineralische, wir hören das Mineralische, wir nehmen seine Wärme wahr, kurz, wir nehmen durch die Sinne das Mineralische wahr. Unsere anderen Beziehungen zum Mineralischen sind ja außerordentlich gering. Bedenken Sie nur, wie wenig eigentlich Mineralisches zu uns im Erdenleben in eine Beziehung tritt. Das Salz, mit dem wir uns unsere Speisen salzen, das ist mineralisch, und einiges wenige noch, das wir mit den Nahrungsmitteln aufnehmen, ist mineralisch; aber der weitaus größte Teil der Nahrungsmittel, die die Menschen aufnehmen, ist aus dem pflanzlichen, ist aus dem tierischen Reiche. Und was der Mensch aus dem mineralischen Reiche aufnimmt, das verhält sich in einer ganz eigentümlichen Weise zu dem, was er durch seine Sinne bloß als seelische Eindrücke, als Sinneswahrnehmung vom Mineralischen empfängt. Und ich bitte Sie, dabei auf eines recht sehr zu achten, was wichtig ist — ich habe auch das schon öfters hier erwähnt: Das menschliche Gehirn ist ja durchschnittlich tausendfünfhundert Gramm schwer. Es ist ein ziemliches Gewicht. Das würde so stark drücken, daß die darunter befindlichen Gefäße durch dieses Gehirn ganz zerquetscht würden, wenn es so stark drücken würde, wie es schwer ist. Es drückt nicht so stark, sondern es unterliegt einem bestimmten Gesetze. Dieses Gesetz, ich habe es sogar vor kurzem hier einmal geschildert, dieses Gesetz besagt, daß, wenn wir einen Körper in eine Flüssigkeit hineingeben, er von seinem Gewichte verliert.
Man kann das dadurch untersuchen, daß, wenn man eine Waage hat, Sie zuerst sich das Gefäß mit Wasser wegdenken und diesen Körper wiegen: er hat ein gewisses Gewicht. Stellen Sie dann das Gefäß darunter, so daß der Körper auf der Waagschale im Wassergefäß eingetaucht ist: Sofort ist die Waage nicht mehr im Gleichgewicht, der Waagebalken sinkt herunter, der Körper wird leichter. Wenn Sie dann untersuchen, um wieviel der Körper leichter wird, so stellt sich heraus, daß er gerade um so viel leichter wird, als die Flüssigkeit schwer ist, die er verdrängt. Wenn Sie also als Flüssigkeit Wasser haben, so wird der Körper, ins Wasser eingesenkt, um so viel leichter, als das Gewicht des Wasserkörpers beträgt, den er verdrängt. Das ist das sogenannte Archimedische Prinzip. Archimedes hat es, ich habe das auch schon einmal gesagt, im Bade gefunden. Er hat einfach sich ins Bad gesetzt und fand sein Bein leichter oder schwerer werden, je nachdem er es herausstreckte oder hineinnahm, und er rief: Ich hab es gefunden, heureka!
Ja, meine lieben Freunde, es ist dies eine außerordentlich wichtige Sache, nur werden wichtige Sachen manchmal vergessen. Und hätte die Ingenieurkunst dieses Archimedische Prinzip nicht vergessen, so wäre wahrscheinlich eines der größten elementaren Unglücke der letzten Zeit in Italien nicht passiert. Das sind eben die Dinge, die auch im äußeren Leben aus einem Unübersichtlichen des heutigen Wissens kommen.
Aber jedenfalls, der Körper verliert so viel von seinem Gewichte, als das Gewicht der verdrängten Flüssigkeit beträgt. Nun ist das Gehirn ganz im Gehirnwasser drinnen. Es schwimmt im Gehirnwasser. Man findet heute ab und zu überhaupt schon diese Erkenntnis, daß der Mensch im wesentlichen, sofern er fest ist, eigentlich ein Fisch ist. In Wirklichkeit ist der Mensch schon ein Fisch, denn er besteht ja zu neunzig Prozent aus einem Wasserkörper, und das Feste schwimmt darinnen wie der Fisch im Wasser.
Nun also, das Gehirn schwimmt im Gehirnwasser, wird so viel leichter, daß es nur zwanzig Gramm wiegt. Das Gehirn, das eigentlich etwa tausendfünfhundert Gramm wiegt, drückt nur mit zwanzig Gramm auf seine Unterlage. Nun denken Sie sich einmal, wie stark wir Menschen, dadurch, daß unser Gehirn im Gehirnwasser schwimmt, in einem so wichtigen Organe die Tendenz haben, von der Erdenschwere frei zu werden. Wir denken ja mit einem Organ, das gar nicht der Erdenschwere unterliegt, sondern wir denken im Gegensatze zur Erdenschwere. Die Erdenschwere wird erst dem Organ abgenommen.
Wenn Sie die ungeheuer weite Bedeutung der Eindrücke nehmen, die Sie durch die Sinne bekommen und denen Sie gegenüberstehen mit Ihrer Willkür, und das vergleichen mit den geringen Einflüssen, die da kommen von Salz und ähnlichen als Nahrungsmittel oder als Zusatz von Nahrungsmitteln genommenen Stoffen, da bekommen Sie schon auch das Folgende heraus: Dasjenige, was aus dem Mineralreiche einen unmittelbaren Einfluß auf den Menschen hat, verhält sich auch wie zwanzig Gramm zu tausendfünfhundert Gramm. So sehr überwiegt das, was wir an bloßen Sinneseindrücken aufnehmen, wodurch wir unabhängig sind von den Reizen; denn das zerreißt uns nicht. Und dasjenige in uns, das schon wirklich der Erdenschwere unterliegt wie die mineralischen Zusätze zu unseren Nahrungsmitteln, das sind zumeist auch noch solche Dinge, die uns innerlich konservieren; denn das Salz hat zu gleicher Zeit eine konservierende, eine erhaltende, eine erfrischende Kraft. Der Mensch ist also im großen unabhängig von dem, was die umliegende mineralische Welt ist. Er nimmt aus der mineralischen Welt nur das in sich auf, was einen unmittelbaren Einfluß auf sein Wesen nicht hat. Er bewegt sich frei und unabhängig in der mineralischen Welt.
Meine lieben Freunde, wenn diese Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit der Bewegung in der mineralischen Welt nicht da wäre, dann gäbe es überhaupt nicht das, was wir menschliche Freiheit nennen. Und sehr bedeutsam ist dieses, daß wir sagen müssen: Die mineralische Welt ist eigentlich da als das notwendige Gegenstück zu der menschlichen Freiheit. — Gäbe es keine mineralische Welt, wir wären eben nicht freie Wesen. Denn in dem Augenblicke, wo wir in die pflanzliche Welt heraufkommen, sind wir nicht mehr unabhängig von der Pflanzenwelt; es scheint nur so, als ob wir unsere Augen ebenso auf die Pflanzenwelt hinausrichteten, wie wir unsere Augen hinausrichten auf die Kristalle, auf das weite Mineralreich. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Da breitet sich die Pflanzenwelt aus. Und wir Menschen, wir werden in die Welt hereingeboren als Atmungswesen, als lebendige Wesen, als Wesen, die einen gewissen Stoffwechsel haben. Ja, das ist viel abhängiger von der Umgebung als unsere Augen, unsere Ohren, als alles das, was die Sinneseindrücke vermittelt. Dasjenige, was Pflanzenwelt ist, die Weite der Pflanzenwelt, sie lebt aus dem von allen Seiten in die Erde hereinkraftenden Äther. Der Mensch unterliegt auch diesem Äther.
Wenn wir als kleines Kind geboren werden und wachsen, wenn die Wachstumskräfte in uns geltend sind, so sind das die Ätherkräfte. Dieselben Kräfte, die die Pflanzen wachsen lassen, leben in uns als Ätherkräfte. Wir tragen in uns den Ätherleib; der physische Leib birgt unsere Augen, birgt unsere Ohren. Der physische Leib hat nichts gemeinschaftlich mit der übrigen physischen Welt, wie ich eben auseinandergesetzt habe, und das zeigt sich darin, daß er als Leichnam in der physischen Welt zerfällt.
Anders schon ist es mit unserem Ätherleib. Mit unserem Ätherleib ist es so, daß wir durch ihn verwandt sind der Pflanzenwelt. Aber indem wir wachsen — bedenken Sie nur, meine lieben Freunde -, bildet sich in uns etwas aus, was schon in einem gewissen Sinne recht tief mit unserem Schicksal zusammenhängt. Wir können wachsen, indem wir — um groteske, radikale Beispiele zu nehmen - klein und dick bleiben oder groß und schlank werden, wir können wachsen, indem wir diese oder jene Nasenform haben. Kurz, die Art und Weise, wie wir wachsen, hat schon auf unser Äußeres einen gewissen Einfluß. Das hängt ja doch wiederum, wenn auch zunächst nur lose, mit unserem Schicksal zusammen. Aber das Wachstum drückt sich ja nicht nur in diesen groben Dingen aus. Würden die Instrumente, welche die Menschen für ihre Untersuchungen haben, fein genug sein, so würde man finden, daß jeder Mensch eigentlich eine andere Leberzusammensetzung, eine andere Milzzusammensetzung, eine andere Gehirnzusammensetzung hat. Leber ist nicht einfach Leber. Bei jedem Menschen ist sie, natürlich in feinen Nuancen, etwas anderes. Das alles hängt zusammen mit denselben Kräften, welche die Pflanzen wachsen lassen. Und wir müssen immer hinschauen auf die Pflanzendecke der Erde, und indem wir auf die Pflanzendecke der Erde hinschauen, müssen wir uns bewußt werden: Dasjenige, was aus den Ätherweiten herein die Pflanzen wachsen läßt, das wirkt auch in uns, das bewirkt in uns die ursprüngliche Menschenanlage, die sehr viel mit unserem Schicksal zu tun hat. Denn ob einer diese oder jene Leber- oder Lungenzusammensetzung oder Gehirnzusammensetzung aus der ätherischen Welt heraus hat, das hängt tief mit seinem Schicksal zusammen.
Der Mensch sieht allerdings von allen diesen Dingen nur die Außenseite. Freilich, wenn wir auf die mineralische Welt hinausschauen, dann sehen wir in der mineralischen Welt ungefähr auch das, was da drinnen ist; deshalb haben heute die Menschen diese mineralische Welt wissenschaftlich so gern - wenn man überhaupt von einer wissenschaftlichen Liebhaberei heute sprechen kann -, weil sie alles enthält, was die Leute finden wollen.
Bei dem, was als Kräfte das Pflanzenreich unterhält, ist das schon nicht mehr der Fall. Denn in dem Augenblicke, wo man zu einer imaginativen Erkenntnis kommt - ich habe ja auch davon schon gesprochen —, sieht man sogleich: die Mineralien, die sind so, daß sie im mineralischen Reiche abgeschlossen sind. Dasjenige, was das Pflanzenreich unterhält, das erscheint äußerlich dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein gar nicht. Da muß man tiefer hineingehen in die Welt. Und wenn wir uns die Frage vorlegen: Was wirkt denn eigentlich im Pflanzenreiche, was wirkt da so, daß aus den Ätherweiten hereinkommen können die Kräfte, welche die Pflanzen heraussprießen und sprossen machen aus der Erde, welche aber auch in uns das Wachstum bewirken, die feinere Zusammensetzung unseres ganzen Leibes bewirken, was wirkt da? — Da kommen wir auf die Wesen der sogenannten dritten Hierarchie: Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai. Die sind zunächst das Unsichtbare, aber ohne sie gäbe es nicht jenes Auf- und Abwogen der ätherischen Kräfte, welche die Pflanzen wachsen lassen, und welche in uns wirken, indem wir dieselben Kräfte in uns tragen, welche das Pflanzenwachstum bewirken. Wir können nicht mehr, wenn wir eben nicht stumpf bleiben wollen für die Erkenntnis, bei dem bloß Sichtbaren stehenbleiben, wenn wir an die Pflanzenwelt und ihre Kräfte herantreten wollen. Und wir müssen uns schon bewußt werden: Zu diesen Wesenheiten, Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, entwickeln wir in leibfreiem Zustande zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt unsere Beziehungen, unsere Verhältnisse. Und je nachdem wir diese Beziehungen und Verhältnisse zu diesen Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie entwickeln, gestaltet sich unser inneres, ich möchte sagen, unser Wesenheitskarma, dasjenige Karma, welches abhängt davon, wie unser Ätherleib unsere Säfte zusammensetzt, wie er uns groß oder klein werden läßt und so weiter.
Aber die Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie haben nur diese Macht. Daß die Pflanzen wachsen können, das rührt nicht von ihrer Macht allein her. In bezug darauf stehen diese Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie, Angeloi, Archangeloi und Archai, in dem Dienst höherer Wesenheiten. Jenes Auf- und Abwogen der Pflanzen-Wachstumskräfte im Weltenäther, es wird zwar zunächst ausgeführt von diesen Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie. Aber in bezug darauf stehen diese Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie im Dienste höherer Wesenheiten. Aber das, was wir durchleben, bevor wir heruntersteigen aus der geistigen Welt in unseren physischen Leib hinein, das, was mit unserer feineren Zusammensetzung, mit allem dem zusammenhängt, was ich eben beschrieben habe, das wird bewirkt durch unsere wissentliche Begegnung mit diesen Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie. Und mit der Anleitung, die wir von ihnen bekommen können, je nachdem wir in unserem vorigen Erdenleben vorbereitet sind, mit dieser Anleitung, unseren Ätherleib aus den Ätherweiten zu bilden, geschieht dies in der letzten Zeit, bevor wir heruntersteigen von dem überphysischen Dasein in das physische Dasein.
So daß also unser Blick zuerst auf dasjenige fallen muß, was in unser Schicksal, in unser Karma hineinwirkt aus unserer inneren Beschaffenheit heraus. Ich möchte sagen, wir dürfen für diesen Teil des Karmas den Ausdruck Wohlbefinden gebrauchen, Wohlbefinden und Mißbehagen des Lebens. Wohlbehagen und Mißbehagen des Lebens hängen zusammen mit dem, was unsere innere Qualität ist vermöge unseres Ätherleibes.
Ein zweites, das in unserem Karma lebt, hängt davon ab, daß nicht nur das Pflanzenreich die Erde bevölkert, sondern auch das Tierreich. Nun bedenken Sie, meine lieben Freunde: die verschiedensten Gegenden der Erde haben die verschiedensten Tiere. Es ist sozusagen die Tieratmosphäre in den verschiedenen Gegenden der Erde verschieden.
Aber Sie werden doch zugeben: der Mensch lebt ja auch in dieser Atmosphäre, wo die Tiere leben. Das klingt heute grotesk, weil die Menschen eben nicht gewohnt sind, auf solche Dinge hinzuschauen. Aber es gibt zum Beispiel Gegenden, da lebt der Elefant. Ja, die Gegenden, in denen der Elefant lebt, die sind eben solche, wo das Weltenall auf die Erde so herunterwirkt, daß das Elefantendasein entstehen kann. Ja, glauben Sie, meine lieben Freunde, wenn hier ein Stück Erde ist, und hier auf diesem Stück Erde der Elefant lebt, und aus dem Weltenall herein wirken die elefantenbildenden Kräfte, daß diese selben Kräfte nicht da sind, wenn just an derselben Stelle ein Mensch ist? Die sind natürlich auch da, wenn an derselben Stelle ein Mensch ist. Und so ist es doch mit der ganzen Tierheit. Gerade so, wie die pflanzenbildenden Kräfte aus den Ätherfernen da sind, wo wir leben - die Holzwände und auch Mauerwände und auch Beton halten das ja nicht fern, wir leben ja dennoch hier in Dornach in den Kräften, die eben in den Juraalpen die Pflanzen bilden -, so lebt man, wenn man just auf dem Boden ist, wo ein Elefant sein kann nach der Erdenbeschaffenheit, so lebt man eben auch als Mensch unter den elefantenbildenden Kräften. Ja, ich kann mir schon denken, daß gar manches nun in den Seelen lebt von großen und kleinen Tieren, die die Erde bevölkern, und von denen Sie nun aufmerksam darauf werden, daß ja der Mensch in derselben Atmosphäre lebt!
Das alles wirkt aber wirklich auf den Menschen. Natürlich wirkt es anders auf den Menschen als auf die Tiere, weil der Mensch noch andere Qualitäten hat als die Tiere, noch andere Wesensglieder hat als die Tiere. Es wirkt anders auf die Menschen, sonst würde ja der Mensch in der Elefantensphäre eben auch ein Elefant. Das wird er aber nicht. Außerdem: der Mensch erhebt sich fortwährend aus dem, was da auf ihn wirkt, aber er lebt in dieser Atmosphäre.
Sehen Sie, von diesem, in dem da der Mensch lebt, ist alles das abhängig, was in seinem Astralleibe ist. Und können wir davon sprechen, daß sein Wohlbehagen oder Mißbehagen von dem Pflanzenwesen der Erde abhängt, so hängen die Sympathien und Antipathien, die wir als Menschen innerhalb des Erdendaseins entwickeln, und die wir uns mitbringen aus dem vorirdischen Dasein, ab von dem, was sozusagen die Tieratmosphäre ausmacht.
Der Elefant hat einen Rüssel und dicke, säulenförmige Beine, der Hirsch hat ein Geweih und so weiter; also da leben die tierbildenden, die tiergestaltenden Kräfte. Im Menschen zeigen sich diese Kräfte nur in der Wirkung auf seinen astralischen Leib. Und in dieser Wirkung auf seinen astralischen Leib erzeugen sie die Sympathien und Antipathien, die sich die einzelne menschliche Individualität mitbringt aus der geistigen Welt.
Achten Sie nur, meine lieben Freunde, auf diese Sympathien und Antipathien. Achten Sie darauf, wie stark führend durch das ganze Leben diese Sympathien und Antipathien sind. Gewiß, wir Menschen werden mit Recht in einer gewissen Beziehung dazu erzogen, über die starken Sympathien und Antipathien hinauszuwachsen. Aber zunächst sind sie doch da, diese Sympathien und Antipathien. Zunächst durchleben wir doch unser Leben in Sympathien und Antipathien. Der eine hat Sympathie für dieses, der andere hat Sympathie für jenes. Der eine hat Sympathie für Bildhauerei, der andere für Musik, der eine hat Sympathie für blonde Menschen, der andere hat Sympathie für schwarze Menschen. Das sind starke, radikale Sympathien. Aber das ganze Leben ist durchsetzt von solchen Sympathien und Antipathien. Sie leben in Abhängigkeit von dem, was die mannigfaltigen Tiergestaltungen macht.
Und fragen Sie einmal, meine lieben Freunde, was tragen wir als Menschen denn in uns, was in unserem eigenen Inneren den mannigfaltigen Tiergestalten entspricht, die draußen sind? Hundert-, tausendfach sind diese Tiergestalten! Hundert-, tausenfach sind die Gestaltungen unserer Sympathien und Antipathien, nur bleibt das meiste davon im Unbewußten oder Unterbewußten.
Das ist eine weitere, dritte Welt.
Die erste Welt war die Welt, wo wir eigentlich keine Abhängigkeit spüren: die mineralische Welt. Die zweite Welt ist diejenige, in der Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai leben, die die Pflanzenwelt aus sich hervorsprießen läßt, die uns unsere innere Qualität gibt, in der wir Wohlbehagen oder Mißbehagen ins Leben hineintragen, uns todunglücklich fühlen durch uns selber oder glücklich fühlen durch uns selber. Es ist dasjenige aus dieser Welt entnommen, was unser Schicksal durch unsere innere Zusammensetzung, durch unser ganzes ätherisches Menschtum bedeutet. Jetzt kommen wir zu dem, was weiter unser Schicksal tief bedingt, unsere Sympathien und Antipathien. Und diese Sympathien und Antipathien, sie bringen uns schließlich dasjenige, was in einem viel weiteren Umfange zu unserem Schicksal gehört als bloß die Wachstumskräfte.
Den einen tragen seine Sympathien und Antipathien in die weiten Fernen. Er lebt da und dort, weil ihn seine Sympathien dahin getragen haben, und in dieser weiten Ferne entwickeln sich dann die Einzelheiten seines Schicksals.
Tief verkettet mit unserem ganzen menschlichen Schicksal sind diese Sympathien und Antipathien. Sie leben in der Welt, in der jetzt nicht die dritte, sondern die zweite Hierarchie, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes leben. Dasjenige, was irdisches Abbild ist der hohen, herrlichen Gestaltungen dieser zweiten Hierarchie, das lebt im Tierreich. Das aber, was diese Wesenheiten, wenn wir mit ihnen verkehren zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, in uns verpflanzen, das lebt in dem, was wir als die uns eingeborenen Sympathien und Antipathien aus der geistigen Welt mit hereintragen in die physische Welt.
Wenn man diese Dinge durchschaut, dann werden wirklich solche Begriffe wie die der gewöhnlichen Vererbung kindisch, richtig kindisch. Denn damit ich irgendein vererbtes Merkmal von meinem Vater oder meiner Mutter an mir trage, muß ich ja erst die Sympathien oder Antipathien zu diesem Merkmal bei Vater und Mutter entwickeln. Es hängt also nicht davon ab, daß ich diese Eigenschaften ererbt habe bloß durch irgendeine leblose Naturkausalität, sondern es hängt davon ab, ob ich Sympathie mit diesen Eigenschaften gehabt habe.
Warum ich solche Sympathie zu diesen Eigenschaften gehabt habe, davon wird in den nächsten Stunden noch zu sprechen sein, die Ausführungen über das Karma werden uns ja viele Stunden in Anspruch nehmen. Aber wirklich, in der Weise von Vererbung zu sprechen, wie man gewöhnlich davon heute gerade in der Wissenschaft spricht, die sich besonders gescheit dünkt, das ist kindisch.
Es wird sogar heute behauptet, daß sich spezifisch geistig-seelische Eigenschaften vererben. Genies sollen sich vererben von den Vorfahren, und man sucht, wenn irgendein Genie in der Welt auftritt, bei den Vorfahren die einzelnen Stücke zusammen, die dann dieses Genie geben sollen. Ja, das ist eine sonderbare Art der Beweisführung. Eine Beweisführung, die vernünftig wäre, wäre die, daß wenn ein Genie da ist, es wiederum ein Genie durch Vererbung erzeugen würde. Aber wenn man nach diesen Beweisen suchen würde - nun ja, Goethe hat auch einen Sohn gehabt, und andere Genies haben auch Söhne gehabt -, da würde man auf sonderbare Dinge kommen. Das wäre aber ein Beweis! Aber das, daß ein Genie da ist und man gewisse Eigenschaften an diesem Genie von seinen Vorfahren findet, das steht auf keinem anderen Blatte, als daß, wenn ich ins Wasser falle und herausgezogen werde, ich naß bin. Deshalb habe ich mit dem Wasser, das dann von mir herunterpludert, in meiner Wesenheit nicht viel zu tun. Natürlich, da ich hereingeboren werde in die Vererbungsströmung durch meine Sympathien mit den betreffenden Eigenschaften, trage ich diese vererbten Eigenschaften an mir, so wie ich das Wasser an mir trage, wenn ich ins Wasser falle und naß herausgezogen werde. Aber grotesk kindisch sind die Vorstellungen, die man in dieser Beziehung hat. Denn schon im vorirdischen Dasein des Menschen treten die Sympathien und Antipathien auf, und die geben ihm sein innerstes Gefüge. Mit denen tritt er dann ins irdische Dasein herein, mit denen zimmert er sich aus dem vorirdischen Dasein heraus sein Schicksal.
Und wir können uns jetzt leicht vorstellen; Wir waren in einem früheren Erdenleben mit einem Menschen zusammen; da hat sich manches ergeben im Zusammenleben. Das findet seine Fortsetzung in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Da wird unter dem Einfluß der Kräfte der höheren Hierarchien dasjenige in den lebendigen Gedanken, in den lebendigen Weltenimpulsen ausgestaltet, was dann aus den Erlebnissen der früheren Erdenleben heraus in das nächste Erdenleben hinüberkommen soll, um weiter gelebt zu werden.
Dazu gebraucht man, indem man die Impulse ausbildet, durch welche man sich im Leben findet, die Sympathien und Antipathien.
Und diese Sympathien und Antipathien werden unter dem Einflusse von Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt gebildet. Diese Sympathien und Antipathien lassen uns dann die Menschen im Leben finden, mit denen wir weiter zu leben haben nach Maßgabe der früheren Erdenleben. Das gestaltet sich aus unserem inneren Menschengefüge heraus.
Natürlich kommen in diesem Erarbeiten der Sympathien und Antipathien die mannigfaltigsten Verirrungen vor; doch diese gleichen sich wiederum im Laufe des Schicksals durch die vielen Erdenleben hindurch aus. — Wir haben also hier ein zweites Bestandstück unseres Schicksals, ein zweites Bestandstück des Karmas: die Sympathien und Antipathien.
Wir können sagen, erstes Bestandstück des Karmas: Wohlbefinden, inneres Wohlbefinden oder Mißbehagen. Das zweite sind Sympathien und Antipathien (siehe Schema Seite 44). Wir sind heraufgestiegen in Tafel 4 die Sphäre, in der die Kräfte für die Bildung des tierischen Reiches liegen, indem wir zu den Sympathien und Antipathien im menschlichen Schicksal kommen.
Nun steigen wir ins eigentliche Menschenreich herauf. Wir leben nicht nur mit der Pflanzenwelt, mit der tierischen Welt zusammen, wir leben ja ganz besonders maßgeblich für unser Schicksal mit anderen Menschen zusammen in der Welt. Das ist ein anderes Zusammenleben als das Zusammenleben mit Pflanzen, mit Tieren. Das ist ein Zusammenleben, durch das eben gerade die Hauptsache unseres Schicksals gezimmert wird. Die Impulse, die da bewirken, daß die Erde auch bevölkert ist von Menschen, die wirken nur auf die Menschheit ein. Und es entsteht nun die Frage: Welche Impulse sind diese, die nur auf die Menschheit einwirken?
Wir können da eine rein äußerliche Betrachtung sprechen lassen, die ich schon öfter angestellt habe.
Unser Leben wird ja wirklich, ich möchte sagen, von seiner anderen Seite her mit einer viel größeren Weisheit geführt, als wir es hier führen von dieser Seite her. Wir treffen oftmals im späteren Leben einen Menschen, der für unser Leben außerordentlich wichtig ist. Wenn wir zurückdenken, wie wir bis dahin gelebt haben, wo wir diesen Menschen treffen, so erscheint uns — ich habe das schon öfters gesagt das ganze Leben wie der Weg, um diesen Menschen zu treffen. Es ist, als wenn wir jeden Schritt dazu veranlagt hätten, daß wir gerade im rechten Zeitpunkt diesen Menschen finden oder überhaupt ihn finden in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt.
Man braucht nur einmal über das Folgende nachzudenken. Denken Sie sich einmal, was es bei völliger Menschenbesinnung bedeutet, in irgendeinem Lebensjahre einen bestimmten Menschen zu finden, von da ab mit ihm irgendwie Gemeinsames zu erleben, zu arbeiten, zu wirken. Bedenken Sie nur, was das bedeutet. Bedenken Sie, was bei voller Besinnung sich als der Impuls darstellt, der uns dazu geführt hat. Vielleicht, wenn wir darüber nachdenken, wie es kommt, daß wir diesen Menschen gefunden haben, vielleicht fällt uns dann ein: Da mußte erst ein Ereignis von uns erlebt werden, das mit vielen anderen Menschen zusammenhängt, sonst hätte sich gar keine Möglichkeit ergeben, diesen Menschen zu finden im Leben. Und damit dieses Ereignis eintrat, mußte wiederum ein anderes erlebt werden. Man kommt in komplizierte Zusammenhänge hinein, die alle eintreten mußten, in die wir uns hineinbegeben mußten, um zu irgendeinem entscheidenden Erlebnis zu kommen. Und dann besinnt man sich vielleicht darauf: Wenn einem, ich will nicht sagen mit einem Jahre, aber nehmen wir an, mit vierzehn Jahren die Aufgabe gestellt worden wäre, dieses Rätsel nun bewußt zu lösen, wie man in seinem fünfzigsten LebensJahre eine entscheidende Begegnung mit einem Menschen anstellen soll, wenn man sich vorstellt, daß man das wie ein Rechenexempel bewußt hätte lösen sollen — ich bitte Sie, was erfordert das alles! Wir Menschen sind ja bewußt so furchtbar dumm, und das, was mit uns in der Welt geschieht, ist, wenn man solche Dinge in Betracht zieht, so unendlich gescheit und weise.
Da werden wir, wenn wir so etwas betrachten, eben hingewiesen auf das ungeheuer Verschlungene, Bedeutsame in unserem Schicksals wirken, in unserem Karmawirken. Und das alles spielt sich im Reiche des Menschlichen ab.
Nun bitte ich Sie zu bedenken: Es ist ja tatsächlich das, was sich da mit uns abspielt, im Unbewußten liegend. Bis zu dem Momente, wo eben ein entscheidendes Ereignis an uns herantritt, liegt es im Unbewußten. Es spielt sich alles ab wie unter Naturgesetzen stehend. Aber wo hätten Naturgesetze je eine Macht, so etwas zu bewirken? Was auf diesem Gebiete geschieht, das kann ja aller Naturgesetzlichkeit und allem dem widersprechen, allem dem spotten, was wir den äußeren Naturgesetzen nach bilden. Auch darauf habe ich schon wiederholt aufmerksam gemacht. Die Äußerlichkeiten des Menschenlebens können sogar in errechnete Gesetze eingespannt werden.
Nehmen Sie das Lebensversicherungswesen. Das Lebensversicherungswesen kann nur dadurch gedeihen, daß man die wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer irgendeines, sagen wir, neunzehn- oder fünfundzwanzigjährigen Menschen berechnen kann. Wenn jemand sein Leben versichern will, so wird die Police danach ausgestellt, wie groß seine wahrscheinliche Lebensdauer ist. Also man lebt nach diesen Berechnungen als heute neunzehnjähriger Mensch noch so und so lange. Das läßt sich bestimmen. Aber denken Sie sich, das sei abgelaufen: Sie werden sich dadurch nicht verpflichtet fühlen, zu sterben! Zwei Menschen können nach dieser wahrscheinlichen Lebensdauer längst gestorben sein. Aber nachdem sie nach dieser wahrscheinlichen Lebensdauer längst «gestorben» sind, finden sie sich erst in einer solchen Weise zusammen, wie ich es geschildert habe! Das alles geschieht ja jenseits dessen, was wir aus den äußerlichen Naturtatsachen heraus berechnen für das Menschenleben. Und dennoch geschieht es mit innerer Notwendigkeit wie die Naturtatsachen. Man kann nicht anders sagen, als: Mit derselben Notwendigkeit, mit der irgendein Naturereignis, ein Erdbeben oder ein Vulkanausbruch, oder was immer es ist, ein kleineres oder größeres Naturereignis, eintritt, mit derselben Notwendigkeit begegnen sich zwei Menschen im Erdenleben nach den Lebenswegen, die sie eben genommen haben.
So daß wir hier wirklich innerhalb des physischen Reiches ein neues Reich aufgerichtet sehen, und dieses Reich, wir leben darinnen, nicht nur in dem Wohlbehagen oder Mißbehagen, in den Sympathien und Antipathien, sondern wir leben darinnen als in unseren Ereignissen, Erlebnissen. Wir sind ganz einergossen in das Reich der Ereignisse, der Erlebnisse, die unser Leben schicksalsmäßig bestimmen.
Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi
1. Bestandstück des Karmas: Wohlbefinden, Wohlbehagen, Mißbehagen.
Dynamis, Exusiai, Kyriotetes
2. Bestandstück des Karmas: Sympathien, Antipathien.
Seraphim, Cherubim, Throne
3. Bestandstück des Karmas: Ereignisse, Erlebnisse.
In diesem Reiche, da wirken die Wesenheiten der ersten Hierarchie, Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne. Denn um das, was da wirkt, um jeden menschlichen Schritt, jede Seelenregung, alles das, was in uns ist, soin der Welt zu führen, daß die Schicksale der Menschen erwachsen, dazu gehört eine größere Macht als diejenige, die da wirkt im Pflanzenreich, als diejenige, die da hat die Hierarchie der Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, und die da hat die Hierarchie der Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. Dazu gehört eine Macht, die der ersten Hierarchie — Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne -, die den erhabensten Wesenheiten zukommt. Denn was sich da auslebt, das lebt in unserem eigentlichen Ich, in unserer Ich-Organisation, und lebt sich herüber in ein Erdenleben von einem früheren Erdenleben.
Und nun bedenken Sie: Sie leben in einem Erdenleben, dies oder jenes bewirken Sie, meinetwillen aus Instinkten, Leidenschaften, Trieben oder aus gescheiten und dummen Gedanken heraus; das ist ja wirklich alles als Impulse vorhanden. Bedenken Sie, wenn Sie in einem Erdenleben leben, so führt das, was Sie aus den Trieben heraus tun, zu dem oder jenem: es führt zur Beglückung, zum Schaden eines anderen Menschen. Sie gehen dann durch das Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, Sie haben in diesem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt das starke Bewußtsein: Habe ich einem Menschen Schaden zugefügt, so bin ich unvollkommener, als wenn ich ihm diesen Schaden nicht zugefügt hätte; ich muß diesen Schaden ausgleichen. Es entsteht der Drang und der Trieb in Ihnen, diesen Schaden auszugleichen. Haben Sie einem Menschen irgend etwas zugefügt, was zu seiner Förderung ist, dann schauen Sie das, was zur Förderung des Menschen ist, so an, daß Sie sagen: Das muß die Grundlage abgeben für die allgemeine Weltenförderung, das muß zu weiteren Konsequenzen in der Welt führen.
Das alles können Sie innerlich entwickeln. Das alles kann Wohlbefinden oder Mißbehagen geben, je nachdem Sie die innere Wesenheit Ihres Leibes darnach gestalten in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Das alles kann Sie zu Sympathien und Antipathien führen, indem Sie Ihren astralischen Leib in der entsprechenden Weise mit Hilfe der Wesenheiten, der Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes ausbilden. Aber alles das gibt Ihnen noch nicht die Macht, das, was in einem vorhergehenden Leben bloß menschliche Tatsache war, zur Weltenhandlung werden zu lassen. Sie haben einen Menschen gefördert oder Sie haben einem Menschen geschadet. Das muß die Wirkung haben, daß der Mensch Ihnen in einem nächsten Leben entgegentritt und Sie in seinem Entgegentreten den Impuls finden, das Ausgleichende zu haben. Dasjenige, was bloß moralische Bedeutung hat, muß eine äußere Tatsache werden, muß äußeres Weltereignis werden.
Dazu sind diejenigen Wesenheiten notwendig, die moralische Taten in Welttaten umwandeln, metamorphosieren. Das sind die Wesenheiten der ersten Hierarchie, Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne. Die wandeln dasjenige, was von uns ausgeht in einem Erdenleben, in unsere Erlebnisse der nächsten Erdenleben um. Die wirken in dem, was im Menschenleben Ereignis, Erlebnis ist.
Da haben wir die drei Grundelemente unseres Karmas: Dasjenige, was unsere innere Zusammensetzung ist, unser inneres Menschensein, das unterliegt der dritten Hierarchie; was unsere Sympathien und Antipathien sind, was schon in einer gewissen Beziehung zu unserer Umgebung ist, das ist Angelegenheit der zweiten Hierarchie; dasjenige endlich, was uns als unser äußeres Leben entgegentritt, ist Angelegenheit der ersten, der erhabensten Hierarchie Menschen übergeordneter Wesen.
So schauen wir hinein in den Zusammenhang, in dem der Mensch mit der Welt steht, und kommen nun zu den großen Fragen: Wie entwickelt sich aus diesen drei Elementen des Menschen heraus alles das, was nun die Einzelheiten seines Schicksals sind?
Der Mensch wird in ein Elternhaus hineingeboren. Der Mensch wird an einem gewissen Ort der Erde geboren. Er wird in ein Volk hineingeboren. Er wird hineingeboren in einen Tatsachenzusammenhang. Aber alles das, was auftritt, indem der Mensch in ein Elternhaus hineingeboren wird, indem der Mensch den Erziehern übergeben wird, indem der Mensch in ein Volk hineingeboren wird, auf einen gewissen Fleck Erde versetzt wird bei seiner Geburt, alles das, was so tief schicksalsmäßig, trotz aller menschlichen Freiheit, in das menschliche Leben eingreift, alles das ist zuletzt in irgendeiner Weise abhängig von diesen drei Elementen, die das menschliche Schicksal zusammensetzen.
Alle einzelnen Fragen werden sich uns in ihren Antworten entsprechend enthüllen, wenn wir diese Grundlage in rechter Weise ins Auge fassen. Fragen wir warum ein Mensch in seinem fünfundzwanzigsten Jahre die schwarzen Pocken bekommt, um vielleicht durch die äußerste Lebensgefahr hindurchzuschreiten, fragen wir, wie sonst irgendeine Krankheit oder sonst ein Ereignis in sein Leben eingreifen kann, wie eingreifen kann in sein Leben die Förderung durch diese oder jene ältere Persönlichkeit, die Förderung durch dieses oder jenes Volk, die Förderung, daß ihm dies oder jenes durch äußere Ereignisse geschieht — überall werden wir zurückgehen müssen auf das, was in dreifacher Weise das menschliche Schicksal zusammensetzt und was den Menschen hineinstellt in die Gesamtheit der Weltenhierarchien. Nur im Reiche der mineralischen Welt bewegt sich der Mensch frei. Da ist das Gebiet seiner Freiheit.
Indem der Mensch darauf aufmerksam wird, lernt er auch in der richtigen Weise die Freiheitsfrage stellen. Lesen Sie nach in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit», was für einen großen Wert ich darauf gelegt habe, daß nicht gefragt werde nach der Freiheit des Willens. Der sitzt unten, tief unten im Unbewußten, und es ist ein Unsinn, nach der Freiheit des Willens zu fragen; sondern man kann nur von der Freiheit der Gedanken sprechen. Ich habe das in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» wohl auseinandergehalten. Die freien Gedanken müssen dann den Willen impulsieren, dann ist der Mensch frei. Aber mit seinen Gedanken lebt der Mensch eben in der mineralischen Welt. Und mit allem übrigen, mit dem er lebt in der pflanzlichen, in der tierischen, in der rein menschlichen Welt, unterliegt er dem Schicksal. Und die Freiheit ist etwas, wovon man eigentlich sagen kann: Der Mensch tritt aus den Reichen, die von den höheren Hierarchien beherrscht werden, heraus in das Reich, das von den höheren Hierarchien in einer gewissen Weise frei ist, in das mineralische Reich, um seinerseits frei zu werden. Es ist ja dasselbe Reich, dieses mineralische, dem der Mensch nur seinem Leichnam nach ähnlich wird, wenn er diesen Leichnam abgelegt hat, nachdem er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Der Mensch ist unabhängig in seinem Erdenleben von demjenigen Reiche, das nur zu seiner Zerstörung wirken kann. Kein Wunder, daß er in diesem Reiche frei ist, da ja dieses Reich an ihm keinen anderen Anteil hat, als ihn zu zerstören, wenn es ihn bekommt. Er gehört diesem Reiche gar nicht an. Der Mensch muß erst sterben, damit er als Leichnam in dem Reiche ist, in dem er frei ist auch seiner Naturerscheinung nach. So hängen die Dinge zusammen.
Man wird immer älter, älter. Wenn nicht die anderen Zwischenfälle, die wir auch aus dem Karma heraus kennenlernen werden, eintreten, wenn der Mensch als alter Mensch stirbt, wird er dem mineralischen Reich als Leichnam ähnlich. Man kommt in die Sphäre des Leblosen, indem man älter wird. Da sondert man seinen Leichnam ab. Der ist nicht mehr Mensch, ist natürlich nicht mehr Mensch. Schauen wir uns das mineralische Reich an: das ist nicht mehr Gott. Geradeso wie der Leichnam nicht mehr Mensch ist, so ist das Mineralreich nicht mehr Gott. Was ist es denn? Die Gottheit ist im pflanzlichen, im tierischen, im menschlichen Reiche, Da haben wir sie gefunden in ihren drei Hierarchien. Im Mineralreich ist sie so wenig, wie der menschliche Leichnam Mensch ist. Das mineralische Reich ist der göttliche Leichnam. Allerdings, wir werden im weiteren Fortschritte der merkwürdigen Tatsache begegnen, auf die ich heute nur hinweisen will, daß der Mensch älter wird, um Leichnam zu werden, und die Götter werden jünger, um Leichnam zu werden. Die Götter machen nämlich den anderen Weg durch, den wir nach unserem Tode durchmachen. Und das Mineralreich ist deshalb das jüngste Reich. Aber es ist dennoch dasjenige, was von den Göttern abgesondert wird. Und weil es von den Göttern abgesondert wird, kann der Mensch darinnen als in dem Reiche seiner Freiheit leben. So hängen diese Dinge zusammen. Und eigentlich lernt der Mensch sich immer heimischer und heimischer in der Welt fühlen, indem er in dieser Weise seine Empfindungen, seine Gedanken, seine Gefühle, seine Willensimpulse in das rechte Verhältnis zur Welt setzen lernt. Aber nur so sieht man auch, wie man schicksalsmäßig hineingestellt wird in die Welt und in das Verhältnis zu den anderen Menschen.
Second Lecture
When we progress from the contemplation that should prepare us for the examination of human destiny, of karma, when we progress from the abstract, the intellectual to life, we come progressively to first place before our souls the various areas of life in which man is placed, in order to then gain from these components of life a basis for a characterization of karma, of human destiny.
Man belongs to the whole world in a much broader sense than is usually thought. Man is a member of the world, and without the world he is actually nothing. I have often used the comparison with some human limb, for example with a finger: the finger is a finger in that it is part of the human organism. The moment it is cut off from the human organism, it is no longer a finger. Outwardly-physically it is the same as a finger, but it is no longer a finger when it is cut off from the human organism.
So man is actually no longer man when he is lifted out of the general world existence. He belongs to the general world existence and without it he cannot actually be seen as a human being, cannot be understood at all.
But now, as we saw yesterday, the human world environment is divided into different areas. First we have the inanimate world realm, which in ordinary language we call the mineral world realm. We only become similar to this mineral world realm as an inanimate realm with regard to this body when we have laid down our body, when we have passed through the gate of death. With our actual being we do not ever become similar to this inanimate being. The discarded body form becomes similar to this lifeless one. And so on the one hand there is that which the human being leaves behind as a physical corpse in the realm of the lifeless, and on the other hand there is that which is the vast, lifeless, crystallized and uncrystallized mineral nature and world. We humans are actually quite unlike this mineral world as long as we live on earth, as I have already pointed out. We are immediately destroyed in our form when we are handed over to the mineral world as a corpse. We dissolve into the mineral world, that is, that which holds our form together has nothing in common with the mineral world. And from this it is clear that man, as he lives in the physical world, cannot have any real influences from the mineral world itself.
The main, by far the most comprehensive influences that man has from the mineral come indirectly through the senses. We see the mineral, we hear the mineral, we perceive its warmth, in short, we perceive the mineral through the senses. Our other relationships with the mineral are extraordinarily slight. Just consider how little the mineral actually relates to us in earthly life. The salt with which we salt our food is mineral, and a few other things that we take in with our food are mineral; but by far the greater part of the food that people take in is from the vegetable, is from the animal kingdom. And what man takes in from the mineral kingdom relates in a quite peculiar way to what he receives through his senses merely as spiritual impressions, as sensory perception of the mineral. And I would ask you to pay close attention to one thing that is very important - I have already mentioned this here several times: the human brain weighs an average of one thousand five hundred grams. It is quite a weight. It would press so hard that the vessels underneath would be completely crushed by this brain if it pressed as hard as it weighs. It does not press so hard, but is subject to a certain law. This law, I even described it here recently, this law states that if we put a body into a liquid, it loses its weight.
You can investigate this by, if you have a balance, first take away the container of water and weigh this body: it has a certain weight. Then place the container underneath so that the body on the weighing pan is immersed in the container of water: immediately the balance is no longer in equilibrium, the balance beam sinks, the body becomes lighter. If you then examine by how much the body becomes lighter, it turns out that it becomes just as much lighter as the liquid it displaces is heavy. So if you have water as the liquid, the body, sunk into the water, becomes lighter by as much as the weight of the body of water that it displaces. This is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes found it, as I have already said, in the bath. He simply sat down in the bath and found his leg getting lighter or heavier depending on whether he stuck it out or put it in, and he called out: I've found it, eureka!
Yes, my dear friends, this is an extremely important thing, only important things are sometimes forgotten. And if the art of engineering had not forgotten this Archimedes' principle, one of the greatest elementary disasters of recent times in Italy would probably not have happened. These are just the things that come from the confusion of today's knowledge, even in external life.
But in any case, the body loses as much of its weight as the weight of the displaced fluid. Now the brain is completely inside the brain water. It swims in brain water. Today one occasionally comes to the realization that man is essentially a fish, insofar as he is solid. In reality, man is already a fish, because ninety percent of him consists of a body of water, and what is solid swims in it like a fish in water.
Now, then, the brain swims in brain water, becoming so much lighter that it weighs only twenty grams. The brain, which actually weighs about one thousand five hundred grams, presses against its base with only twenty grams. Now think how strongly we humans, because our brain floats in cerebral water, have the tendency in such an important organ to become free from the weight of the earth. We think with an organ that is not subject to earthly gravity at all, but we think in opposition to earthly gravity. The gravity of the earth is first removed from the organ.
If you take the enormously wide significance of the impressions that you receive through the senses and which you face with your arbitrariness, and compare this with the small influences that come from salt and similar substances taken as food or as an addition to food, then you also get the following: That which has a direct influence on the human being from the mineral kingdom also behaves like twenty grams to one thousand five hundred grams. That is how much we are outweighed by what we take in as mere sensory impressions, whereby we are independent of the stimuli; for that does not tear us apart. And those things in us that are already really subject to the earth's gravity, such as the mineral additives to our food, are mostly also things that preserve us inwardly; for salt has at the same time a preserving, a sustaining, a refreshing power. Man is therefore largely independent of the surrounding mineral world. He only absorbs from the mineral world that which does not have a direct influence on his being. He moves freely and independently in the mineral world.
My dear friends, if this freedom and independence of movement in the mineral world were not there, then there would be no such thing as what we call human freedom. And it is very significant that we have to say this: The mineral world is actually there as the necessary counterpart to human freedom. - If there were no mineral world, we would not be free beings. For the moment we come up into the vegetable world we are no longer independent of the vegetable world; it only seems as if we were directing our eyes towards the vegetable world just as we direct our eyes towards the crystals, towards the vast mineral kingdom. But that is not the case. The plant world is spreading out. And we humans are born into the world as breathing beings, as living beings, as beings who have a certain metabolism. Yes, this is much more dependent on the environment than our eyes, our ears, than everything that conveys sensory impressions. That which is the plant world, the expanse of the plant world, lives from the ether that forces its way into the earth from all sides. The human being is also subject to this ether.
When we are born as a small child and grow, when the forces of growth are active in us, these are the etheric forces. The same forces that make plants grow live in us as etheric forces. We carry the etheric body within us; the physical body contains our eyes, contains our ears. The physical body has nothing in common with the rest of the physical world, as I have just explained, and this is shown by the fact that it decays as a corpse in the physical world.
It is different with our etheric body. With our etheric body it is so that through it we are related to the plant world. But as we grow - just think of it, my dear friends - something develops in us which in a certain sense is already quite deeply connected with our destiny. We can grow by - to take grotesque, radical examples - remaining short and fat or becoming tall and slim, we can grow by having this or that nose shape. In short, the way we grow has a certain influence on our appearance. This, in turn, is connected to our destiny, even if only loosely at first. But growth does not only express itself in these gross things. If the instruments that people have for their examinations were fine enough, one would find that every person actually has a different liver composition, a different spleen composition, a different brain composition. Liver is not simply liver. It is something different in every person, of course in subtle nuances. This is all connected to the same forces that make plants grow. And we must always look at the plant cover of the earth, and by looking at the plant cover of the earth, we must become aware of it: That which allows the plants to grow from the etheric expanses also works in us, it brings about in us the original human disposition, which has a great deal to do with our destiny. For whether a person has this or that liver or lung composition or brain composition from the etheric world is deeply connected with his destiny.
Humans, however, only see the outside of all these things. Of course, when we look out at the mineral world, we also see in the mineral world approximately what is inside; that is why people today are so fond of this mineral world scientifically - if one can speak of a scientific fondness today - because it contains everything that people want to find.
This is no longer the case with the forces that sustain the plant kingdom. For the moment one comes to an imaginative realization - I have already spoken of this - one immediately sees that the minerals are such that they are closed off in the mineral kingdom. That which sustains the plant kingdom does not appear outwardly to the ordinary consciousness. One must go deeper into the world. And if we ask ourselves the question: What actually works in the plant kingdom, what works there in such a way that the forces can come in from the etheric expanses, which make the plants sprout and shoot out of the earth, but which also bring about growth in us, bring about the finer composition of our whole body, what works there? - Here we come to the beings of the so-called third hierarchy: Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai. They are at first the invisible, but without them there would not be that weighing up and weighing down of the etheric forces which make the plants grow, and which work in us by carrying within us the same forces which bring about plant growth. We can no longer, if we do not want to remain blunt for knowledge, stop at the merely visible, if we want to approach the plant world and its forces. And we must become aware of this: We develop our relationships, our relations with these beings, Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, in a body-free state between death and a new birth. And depending on how we develop these relationships and relations with these beings of the third hierarchy, our inner, I would like to say, our being karma is formed, that karma which depends on how our etheric body composes our humors, how it makes us big or small and so on.
But the beings of the third hierarchy have only this power. The fact that plants can grow is not due to their power alone. In this respect these Beings of the Third Hierarchy, Angeloi, Archangeloi and Archai, are in the service of higher Beings. This weighing up and weighing down of the plant-growth forces in the world ether is first of all carried out by these beings of the third hierarchy. But in relation to this, these beings of the third hierarchy are at the service of higher beings. But that which we experience before we descend from the spiritual world into our physical body, that which is connected with our finer composition, with all that which I have just described, is brought about by our conscious encounter with these Beings of the Third Hierarchy. And with the guidance that we can receive from them, depending on how we are prepared in our previous life on earth, with this guidance to form our etheric body from the etheric expanses, this happens in the last time before we descend from the superphysical existence into the physical existence.
So that our gaze must first fall on that which works into our destiny, into our karma out of our inner constitution. I would like to say that for this part of karma we may use the expression well-being, well-being and discomfort of life. The well-being and discomfort of life are connected with what our inner quality is through our etheric body.
A second one, which lives in our karma, depends on the fact that not only the plant kingdom populates the earth, but also the animal kingdom. Now consider, my dear friends: the most diverse regions of the earth have the most diverse animals. The animal atmosphere, so to speak, is different in the different parts of the earth.
But you will admit: man also lives in this atmosphere where the animals live. That sounds grotesque today because people are not used to looking at such things. But there are areas, for example, where elephants live. Yes, the areas where the elephant lives are precisely those where the universe acts down on the earth in such a way that the elephant existence can come into being. Yes, do you believe, my dear friends, if there is a piece of earth here, and the elephant lives here on this piece of earth, and the elephant-forming forces work in from the universe, that these same forces are not there when there is a human being in the same place? Of course they are also there when there is a human being in the same place. And so it is with the whole animal kingdom. Just as the plant-forming forces from the etheric distances are there where we live - the wooden walls and also masonry walls and also concrete do not keep them away, we nevertheless live here in Dornach in the forces that form the plants in the Jura Alps - so when you are just on the ground where an elephant can be according to the nature of the earth, you also live as a human being under the elephant-forming forces. Yes, I can already imagine that many things now live in the souls of large and small animals that populate the earth, and of which you now become aware that man lives in the same atmosphere!
But all this really has an effect on man. Of course it has a different effect on man than on the animals, because man has still other qualities than the animals, still other essential elements than the animals. It has a different effect on humans, otherwise the human being in the elephant sphere would also be an elephant. But he is not. In addition, man constantly rises out of what affects him, but he lives in this atmosphere.
You see, everything that is in his astral body depends on this atmosphere in which man lives. And if we can say that his comfort or discomfort depends on the plant being of the earth, then the sympathies and antipathies that we develop as human beings within our earthly existence, and which we bring with us from our pre-earthly existence, depend on what makes up the animal atmosphere, so to speak.
The elephant has a trunk and thick, columnar legs, the stag has antlers and so on; so there live the animal-forming, the animal-shaping forces. In man these forces only manifest themselves in the effect on his astral body. And in this effect on his astral body they produce the sympathies and antipathies which the individual human individuality brings with it from the spiritual world.
Just pay attention, my dear friends, to these sympathies and antipathies. Pay attention to how strongly these sympathies and antipathies run through the whole of life. Certainly, we human beings are rightly educated to a certain extent to outgrow our strong sympathies and antipathies. But at first they are there, these sympathies and antipathies. At first we live our lives in sympathies and antipathies. One person has sympathy for this, another has sympathy for that. One person has sympathy for sculpture, another for music, one person has sympathy for blond people, another for black people. These are strong, radical sympathies. But the whole of life is interspersed with such sympathies and antipathies. They live in dependence on what makes the manifold animal forms.
And ask yourself, my dear friends, what do we as human beings carry within us that corresponds to the manifold animal forms that are outside? These animal forms are hundreds, thousands of times over! The forms of our sympathies and antipathies are hundreds, thousands of times over, but most of them remain in the unconscious or subconscious.
This is another, third world.
The first world was the world where we actually feel no dependence: the mineral world. The second world is the one in which Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai live, which lets the plant world sprout forth from itself, which gives us our inner quality, in which we bring well-being or discomfort into life, feel deadly unhappy through ourselves or feel happy through ourselves. It is that which is taken from this world which signifies our destiny through our inner composition, through our whole etheric humanity. Now we come to that which deeply determines our destiny, our sympathies and antipathies. And these sympathies and antipathies ultimately bring us that which belongs to our destiny in a much broader scope than merely the forces of growth.
One person's sympathies and antipathies carry him into the far distance. He lives here and there because his sympathies have carried him there, and the details of his destiny then develop in this far distance.
These sympathies and antipathies are deeply intertwined with our entire human destiny. They live in the world in which not the third, but the second Hierarchy, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes now live. That which is the earthly image of the high, glorious forms of this second Hierarchy lives in the animal kingdom. But that which these entities, when we associate with them between death and a new birth, transplant into us, lives in that which we carry into the physical world as our innate sympathies and antipathies from the spiritual world.
When you see through these things, then such concepts as ordinary heredity become childish, really childish. For in order for me to carry some inherited characteristic from my father or mother, I must first develop sympathies or antipathies for this characteristic in my father and mother. So it does not depend on the fact that I have inherited these characteristics merely through some lifeless natural causality, but it depends on whether I have had sympathy with these characteristics.
Why I have had such sympathy with these qualities will be discussed in the next few hours, as the explanations about karma will take us many hours. But really, to speak of heredity in the way it is usually spoken of today, especially in science, which considers itself particularly clever, is childish.
It is even claimed today that specific mental and spiritual characteristics are inherited. Geniuses are supposed to be inherited from their ancestors, and when some genius appears in the world, one looks for the individual pieces in the ancestors that are then supposed to give this genius. Yes, that is a strange kind of reasoning. A reasonable line of reasoning would be that if there is a genius, it would in turn produce a genius through heredity. But if one were to look for this evidence - well, Goethe also had a son, and other geniuses also had sons - one would come up with strange things. But that would be proof! But the fact that there is a genius and that one finds certain qualities in this genius from his ancestors is not written on any other paper than that if I fall into the water and am pulled out, I am wet. That's why I don't have much to do in my being with the water that then splashes off me. Of course, since I am born into the hereditary current through my sympathies with the characteristics in question, I carry these inherited characteristics with me, just as I carry the water with me when I fall into the water and am pulled out wet. But the ideas we have in this respect are grotesquely childish. For man's sympathies and antipathies already appear in his pre-earthly existence, and these give him his innermost structure. With these he then enters earthly existence, with these he carves out his destiny from his pre-earthly existence.
And we can now easily imagine; we were together with a person in a previous earthly life; there were many things that resulted from living together. This continues in the life between death and a new birth. There, under the influence of the forces of the higher hierarchies, that which is then to come over from the experiences of the previous earth life into the next earth life is formed in the living thoughts, in the living world impulses, in order to be lived on.
For this one uses the sympathies and antipathies by forming the impulses through which one finds oneself in life.
And these sympathies and antipathies are formed under the influence of Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes in the life between death and a new birth. These sympathies and antipathies then allow us to find the people in life with whom we have to continue to live in accordance with our previous lives on earth. This is formed out of our inner human structure.
Of course, the most diverse aberrations occur in this working out of sympathies and antipathies; but these in turn balance themselves out in the course of destiny through the many lives on earth. - So here we have a second component of our destiny, a second component of karma: the sympathies and antipathies.
We can say that the first component of karma is well-being, inner well-being or discomfort. The second are sympathies and antipathies (see diagram on page 44). We have ascended to Table 4, the sphere in which the forces for the formation of the animal kingdom lie, by coming to the sympathies and antipathies in human destiny.
Now we ascend to the actual human realm. We not only live together with the plant world, with the animal world, we live together with other human beings in the world in a way that is particularly decisive for our destiny. This is a different way of living together than living together with plants and animals. It is a coexistence through which the main thing of our destiny is built. The impulses that cause the earth to be populated by people only have an effect on humanity. And now the question arises: What are these impulses that only affect humanity?
We can let a purely external observation speak here, which I have often made.
Our life is really, I would like to say, led from its other side with much greater wisdom than we lead it here from this side. We often meet a person in later life who is extremely important for our lives. If we think back to how we have lived up to the point where we meet this person, then - as I have often said - our whole life seems like the path to meeting this person. It is as if we had planned every step so that we would find this person at just the right moment or find him at all at a certain moment.
Just think about the following. Just think what it means to find a certain person in a certain year of life, to experience, work and work together with him in some way. Just think what that means. Consider what, on full reflection, presents itself as the impulse that led us to this. Perhaps when we think about how it is that we have found this person, we might then remember: We first had to experience an event that was connected to many other people, otherwise there would have been no possibility of finding this person in our lives. And for this event to occur, another one had to be experienced. One enters into complicated connections, all of which had to occur, into which we had to enter in order to come to some decisive experience. And then perhaps one reflects on this: if one had been given the task, I don't want to say at the age of one, but let's assume at the age of fourteen, of consciously solving this riddle, how one should have a decisive encounter with a person in one's fiftieth year of life, if one imagines that one should have consciously solved this like an arithmetical example - please, what does all this require! We humans are consciously so terribly stupid, and what happens to us in the world is so infinitely clever and wise when you consider such things.
When we consider such things, we are reminded of the tremendously intricate and significant workings of our destiny, of our karma. And all of this takes place in the realm of the human.
Now I ask you to consider that what is taking place with us is actually in the unconscious. Until the moment when a decisive event approaches us, it lies in the unconscious. Everything takes place as if under the laws of nature. But where would the laws of nature ever have the power to bring about such a thing? What happens in this field can contradict all natural laws and everything that we form according to the external laws of nature. I have also repeatedly drawn attention to this. The externalities of human life can even be incorporated into calculated laws.
Take life insurance, for example. The life insurance business can only flourish by being able to calculate the probable life span of some, say, nineteen or twenty-five year old person. If someone wants to insure his life, the policy is issued according to how long he is likely to live. So, according to these calculations, a person aged nineteen today will live for such and such a long time. That can be determined. But think of it as having expired: you won't feel obliged to die as a result! Two people may have died long ago after this probable lifespan. But after they have “died” long after this probable lifespan, they only come together in the way I have described! All this happens beyond what we calculate for human life from the external facts of nature. And yet it happens with inner necessity like the facts of nature. One cannot say otherwise than: With the same necessity with which any natural event, an earthquake or a volcanic eruption, or whatever it is, a smaller or larger natural event, occurs, with the same necessity two people meet in earthly life according to the paths of life they have just taken.
So that we really see a new realm set up here within the physical realm, and this realm, we live in it, not only in the pleasure or displeasure, in the sympathies and antipathies, but we live in it as in our events, experiences. We are completely immersed in the realm of events, of experiences that fatefully determine our lives.
Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi
1st component of karma: well-being, well-being, discomfort.
Dynamis, Exusiai, Kyriotetes
2nd component of karma: sympathies, antipathies
Seraphim, cherubim, thrones
3rd component of karma: events, experiences.
In this realm, the entities of the first hierarchy, seraphim, cherubim and thrones are at work. For in order to guide that which works there, in order to guide every human step, every emotion of the soul, everything that is in us, in the world in such a way that the destinies of men arise, a greater power is needed than that which works there in the plant kingdom, than that which has there the Hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, and that which has there the Hierarchy of the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. To this belongs a power, that of the first Hierarchy - Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones - which belongs to the most exalted Beings. For what lives itself out there lives in our actual ego, in our ego organization, and lives itself over into an earth life from a previous earth life.
And now consider: You live in an earth life, you bring about this or that, for my sake, out of instincts, passions, drives or out of clever and stupid thoughts; all this is really present as impulses. Remember, when you live an earthly life, what you do out of your instincts leads to this or that: it leads to the happiness or harm of another person. You then go through the life between death and a new birth; in this life between death and a new birth you have a strong awareness: If I have caused harm to a person, I am more imperfect than if I had not caused him this harm; I must make up for this harm. The urge and impulse arises in you to compensate for this damage. If you have done something to a person that is for his advancement, then you look at what is for the advancement of the person in such a way that you say: This must provide the basis for the general advancement of the world, this must lead to further consequences in the world.
You can develop all this inwardly. All this can give you well-being or discomfort, depending on how you shape the inner being of your body in the life between death and a new birth. All this can lead you to sympathies and antipathies by forming your astral body in the appropriate way with the help of the entities, the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. But all this does not yet give you the power to turn what was merely a human fact in a previous life into a world action. You have promoted a human being or you have harmed a human being. This must have the effect that the person confronts you in a next life and you find in his confrontation the impulse to have the balancing effect. That which has merely moral significance must become an external fact, must become an external world event.
To this end, those beings are necessary who transform moral deeds into world deeds, metamorphose them. These are the Beings of the first Hierarchy, Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. They transform that which emanates from us in one earth life into our experiences in the next earth life. They work in that which is an event, an experience in human life.
There we have the three basic elements of our karma: that which is our inner composition, our inner humanity, is subject to the third hierarchy; that which is our sympathies and antipathies, which is already in a certain relationship to our surroundings, is a matter for the second hierarchy; finally, that which confronts us as our outer life is a matter for the first, the most sublime hierarchy of beings superior to human beings.
So we look into the connection in which man stands with the world, and now come to the great questions: How does everything develop out of these three elements of man, which are now the details of his destiny?
Man is born into a parental home. Man is born in a certain place on earth. He is born into a people. He is born into a factual context. But everything that occurs when a person is born into a parental home, when a person is handed over to educators, when a person is born into a nation, when a person is transferred to a certain place on earth at birth, everything that intervenes so deeply in human life in terms of destiny, despite all human freedom, everything is ultimately dependent in some way on these three elements that make up human destiny.
All individual questions will reveal themselves to us in their answers if we consider this foundation in the right way. Let us ask why a man gets the black pox in his twenty-fifth year, in order perhaps to pass through the extreme danger of life, let us ask how else any illness or any other event can intervene in his life, how the support of this or that older personality, the support of this or that people, the support that this or that happens to him through external events can intervene in his life - everywhere we will have to go back to what composes human destiny in a threefold way and what places man in the totality of the world hierarchies. Only in the realm of the mineral world does man move freely. There is the area of his freedom.
By becoming aware of this, man also learns to ask the question of freedom in the right way. Read in my “Philosophy of Freedom” what great importance I have attached to the fact that the question of the freedom of the will is not asked. It sits at the bottom, deep down in the unconscious, and it is nonsense to ask about the freedom of the will; one can only speak of the freedom of thought. In my “Philosophy of Freedom” I have well distinguished between the two. Free thoughts must impulse the will, then man is free. But with his thoughts, man lives in the mineral world. And with everything else with which he lives in the vegetable, animal and purely human world, he is subject to fate. And freedom is something of which one can actually say: Man steps out of the realms that are ruled by the higher hierarchies into the realm that is in a certain way free from the higher hierarchies, into the mineral realm, in order to become free in his turn. It is the same kingdom, this mineral kingdom, to which man only becomes like his corpse when he has laid down this corpse after he has passed through the gate of death. Man is independent in his earthly life of that kingdom which can only work for his destruction. No wonder he is free in this kingdom, since this kingdom has no other share in him than to destroy him when it gets him. He does not belong to this kingdom at all. Man must first die in order to be a corpse in the kingdom in which he is free, even according to his natural appearance. This is how things are connected.
One gets older and older, older. If the other incidents, which we will also get to know from karma, do not occur, when man dies as an old man, he becomes similar to the mineral kingdom as a corpse. One enters the sphere of the lifeless by growing older. Then you separate your corpse. He is no longer human, is of course no longer human. Let's take a look at the mineral kingdom: it is no longer God. Just as the corpse is no longer human, the mineral kingdom is no longer God. What is it then? The Godhead is in the vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, where we have found it in its three hierarchies. It is as little in the mineral kingdom as the human corpse is human. The mineral kingdom is the divine corpse. However, as we progress further we will encounter the strange fact, which I only want to point out today, that man grows older in order to become a corpse, and the gods grow younger in order to become a corpse. The gods go through the other process that we go through after our death. And the mineral kingdom is therefore the youngest kingdom. But it is nevertheless that which is separated from the gods. And because it is separated from the gods, man can live in it as in the realm of his freedom. This is how these things are connected. And actually man learns to feel more and more at home in the world by learning in this way to place his sensations, his thoughts, his feelings, his impulses of will in the right relationship to the world. But this is the only way to see how one is fated to be placed in the world and in relation to other people.