The day before
yesterday I tried to picture for you the cosmic drama wherein
human beings are shown in their relation to Beings of the
spiritual world, so that one can see how there stems from this
relationship not only the working out of karma, but also the
living out of karma during physical life on earth. To-day I
should like to turn to a thought touched upon in that lecture. I
said that the present period in human evolution confronts anyone
who has the knowledge of Initiation-Science with problems of
world-karma in the deepest sense of the words. And before
proceeding to consider how knowledge of karma is acquired, we
will study its world-historic aspects, which in the nature of
things must closely concern the whole of civilised humanity at
the present time.
Things are
happening in the world to-day which stir even the everyday
consciousness of man and the heart that is bound up with this
everyday consciousness. A heavy cloud looms over the civilisation
of Europe and from one point of view it is amazing to find what
little willingness there is on the part of mankind in general to
feel and realise what this cloud portends.
Think only of
what is emerging as the result of views of life and of the world
widely prevalent in humanity to-day. Look at what is being made
of Christianity in the East of Europe! Information — not
entirely to be discredited — has reached us that the works
of Tolstoy are to be banned by the present government of Soviet
Russia with the object of keeping them out of the reach of future
generations. Although such things do not always work out exactly
as they are announced, we must not blind ourselves to the gravity
of the present moment in world history; we do well to listen to
the warning which Initiation-Science would like to repeat day in
and day out — that now is the time when the many petty
concerns occupying people's minds ought to be silenced and the
attention of many be directed to the great concerns of life. But
in point of fact, interest in these great concerns is dwindling
rather than increasing.
We see views of
life and of the world arising today with a certain ‘creative’
force, although this actually takes effect in destruction; these
views are the offspring of human passions and emotions, of an
element in human nature working entirely in a Luciferic
direction. It may truly be said that reality is denied and
rejected by a large portion of humanity today. The essential
nature of matter is not understood by materialistic thinkers.
Matter can be understood only when the creative spirit within it
is apprehended. Therefore anyone who denies the reality of the
creative spirit within matter knows only a false image of matter
and the consequent idolatry is a far greater menace than that of
the primitive peoples who are said to represent civilisation in
the stage of infancy. Fantastic ideas and conceptions of what is,
after all, unreality, hold sway in mankind. This is one side of
the picture.
Such things have
of course occurred in various forms throughout human history. But
spiritual science teaches us to recognise their connections in
the whole World-Order, and to realise with what earnestness they
must be studied.
And so we must be
mindful of what is brought into existence when certain social
orders are created under the influence of materialistic,
fantastic ideas — ideas which have sprung entirely from
human aberrations, have nothing to do with reality and could
never have originated elsewhere than in man himself.
Having turned our
minds to a phenomenon of history which has, however, immediate
bearing upon our present age, let us consider occurrences in
elemental nature like those mentioned in the last lecture, when
groups of human beings are suddenly snatched away from earthly
existence as the result of an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or
the like. The news reaches us of a catastrophe of this kind and
we hear that a large number of people have met their death or
suffered grave disablement. Again, there are events for which the
devices of civilisation are responsible. We hear, for example, of
a railway accident, where again the karmic threads of life are
abruptly severed, but in this case as the result of man-made
institutions.
If we are earnest
in our study of karma, we must ask, on the one hand: What form
does karma take in the case of adherents of a social order
originating from sheer emotionalism, sheer fantasy in man himself
and devoid of objective reality? And on the other, we must ask:
What form does karma take when the thread of life is suddenly
severed by a catastrophe of nature or one that is the outcome of
civilisation?
Here is one of
the points where Initiation-Science enters deeply into man's life
of feeling and perception. Ordinary, everyday consciousness does
not ask about the consequences of such happenings in the
successive earthly lives of people. In the case of catastrophes
of civilisation particularly, the question of human destiny in
the wider sense is never asked. The destiny of a person who has
been the victim of such a catastrophe is regarded by ordinary
consciousness as finished and done with.
Initiation-Science
observes on the one side what takes place in the foreground of
earthly life and, in the background, the deeds of gods in
connection with the souls of men. And it is what proceeds in the
background that provides Initiation-Science with a criterion for
assessing earthly life. For as we shall see in our further
studies of karma, a great deal has to be moulded, recast in one
way or another in earthly existence in order that the divine
things behind it may take effect in the lives of men — in
accordance with the will of the gods.
For on looking
into the background we perceive the karma that is woven between
one human soul and another during the life between death and
rebirth; we perceive how human souls work together with the
Beings of the higher Hierarchies. We see, too, the activities of
the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers. Within the living organism of
gods behind the organism of the earth we perceive the
justification for this intervention by the Luciferic and
Ahrimanic powers; we realise that Lucifer and Ahriman play an
essential part in the deeper, spiritual ordering of the world.
But although this necessity becomes evident to us, we must
nevertheless often stand aghast at the way in which Luciferic and
Ahrimanic influences penetrate into the earthly world.
When our vision
extends beyond the earthly into the spiritual world, many things
must be viewed in the light of their inter-connections, which
need not necessarily be the case in ordinary consciousness. If in
times when Initiation Science was regarded with the reverence
that must prevail once again — if in those ancient times
the question arose whether a person was in truth an Initiate, men
knew the right attitude with which such a question must be
approached. And when a person who took life earnestly met another
like him and their opinions differed as to whether a third person
was an Initiate, the question was wont to be put to the one who
felt uncertain: “Have you looked into his eyes?” For
in those olden times, when clairvoyance was a natural gift in
civilisation all over the earth, Initiates were recognised by the
deep, earnest look in their eyes. And something similar will come
again. Without losing sight of the humour of life, people must
again be mindful of its gravity.
Many of these
lessons can be learned from what is happening in our present time
and has indeed happened in some form through all ages, but they
stand before humanity now as a great and mighty riddle ... And
now let us think of the facts connected with a certain kind of
event.
Numbers of human
beings have perished in some region where a terrible earthquake
has taken place. Contemplating the event in the light of
spiritual science, it cannot be said that the thread of karma
belonging to the present earthly lives of these people has in
every case come to an end. Think of the thread of karma in those
who have met their death: in the case of the aged, whose earthly
karma in this incarnation would soon have been completed, the
thread of life will be shortened possibly only by months or at
most by a few years. Younger people in the prime of life who have
thought a great deal about what they wanted to achieve in the
time ahead of them for themselves, for their family, or for a
wider circle of humanity, are robbed of many years of activity.
Children in the process of education as a prelude to adulthood
are torn away from earthly existence together with the elderly
and aged. Babies just weaned or still unweaned are snatched away,
together with the old and the young.
The great riddle
is this: How does karma work in an event of this kind?
And now think of
the difference between such an event in elemental nature and an
event that is due, fundamentally, to civilisation, for example, a
terrible railway accident. There is obviously a difference, a
difference that becomes significant and fundamental when studied
from the point of view of karma.
As a rule it will
be found that when human beings perish together, let us say in an
earthquake, there is some kind of karmic connection between them
all — just as people who live in a particular district are,
broadly speaking, karmically connected or at any rate have some
link with one another. These people have a certain common destiny
into which they have been impelled through having descended from
prenatal existence to a particular locality on the earth, and
with this common destiny they are led along their path to the
point where the threads of their lives are severed.
On the other
hand, in the case of a railway accident it will generally be
found that only a few of the victims are karmically connected
with one another. What, then, is their situation? As a rule they
are human beings between whom there is no definite link, who are
brought together without any such connection as invariably exists
between victims of a particular earthquake. The victims of a
railway accident may be said to have been brought together at a
certain spot by destiny. Do we not see karma working quite
differently in these two cases?
With the help of
Initiation-Science, let us think of a catastrophe like that of a
devastating earthquake. We are concerned there with human beings
whose karma at birth did not entail the severance of the thread
of earthly life by the time the catastrophe occurred. As the
result of this event they were torn as it were out of their
karma.
How could this
be? It is the decree of the gods that karma shall come to
fulfilment, shall be lived out to the full. Now upheavals in
nature — earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, great floods and
the like — are not an integral part of the ongoing
evolution of the earth; something extraneous — although
still under the sway of natural laws — intervenes here in
the evolutionary process, something that in times when man was
not subject to birth and death as we know them today was both
necessary and propitious for evolution. To form a clear
conception of what this means, we must turn our minds to the
epoch of the Old Moon.
In the epoch of
the Old Moon which preceded that of the Earth, man was not led
into physical existence by a transition as abrupt as birth or
conception, nor led out of physical existence by a transition as
abrupt as death. The transition in each case was much gentler; it
was a transformation, a metamorphosis, rather than a sudden
change. The Moon-man was not as densely material as the man of
to-day; nor in the spiritual world was he as bereft of spirit as
he is today.
The beings
inhabiting the Old Moon were subject to quite different natural
laws, laws under which this Moon-life was involved in constant
movement; it was inwardly mobile, in ceaseless, surging flow.
This surging, flowing life has become rigid — but only
partially so — in the present moon, our companion in the
universe. The solidification in the Moon — it has a kind of
hornlike quality — points to the past inner mobility of the
Moon which takes effect in the earth when elemental catastrophes
of nature occur of the kind of which I have been speaking. The
ordinary natural laws of the earth are not operating, but the Old
Moon is beginning to stir, to rumble in the earth. The Moon
revolving out yonder in the universe has the constitution that is
proper for it today, but after its separation from the earth,
forces were left behind; and it is these Moon-forces that rumble
and stir in the earth when nature-catastrophes occur.
As you will
remember, I told you that the beings who were once the great
primeval Teachers of humanity are connected with humanity's
karma; it was they who brought the ancient wisdom to mankind.
They did not live on the earth in physical bodies but in etheric
bodies, and at a certain point of time they departed from the
earth to establish their abode in the moon; and there we
encounter them during the first phase of our life between death
and a new birth. These are the beings who engrave a record of
men's karma into the cosmic ether, in an unerring script of
soul-and-spirit.
But in the cosmos
a pledge has been taken — if I may put it so — a
pledge that use shall be made not only of the relations between
the present moon and the earth but also of the moon-forces that
were left behind and are still astir within the earth. And it is
here that the Ahrimanic powers can step in and take hold of the
threads of human life. It can actually be seen how from the
depths of the earth the Ahrimanic powers present a countenance of
gloating satisfaction when such catastrophes of nature occur.
With the help of
Initiation-Science we can perceive how up to the moment when the
thread of life is abruptly severed, part of the karma of one who
perishes in a catastrophe of this kind has been absolved.
According to whether death occurred in old age, adult life or
childhood, a longer or shorter portion of life would have
remained to him; life might have continued until the completion
of its course, but as things are, the events that would otherwise
have been spread across this whole span lay their grip in a
single, sudden moment upon the physical organisation.
Think of this
situation, my dear friends. Suppose such a catastrophe befalls a
person at the age of thirty. If he had not been a victim of the
catastrophe he might, in accordance with his karma, have reached
the age of sixty-five, living through countless experiences which
now are no more than possibilities. But everything is contained
in his karma, in the make-up of his etheric and astral bodies and
of his I-organisation. And what would have been happening up to
the sixty-fifth year of life? After the culmination of the
upbuilding process, the organism would have been involved in a
process of slow and steady decline; a subtle, gradual decline
would have been taking place until the sixty-fifth year of life.
This steady decline which, in the slow tempo corresponding to
such a lengthy period, would have lasted for at least thirty-five
years, is fulfilled in a single moment, concentrated as it were
into a single moment. Such a thing can happen to the physical
body but not to the etheric body, the astral body or the
ego-organisation.
When the
circumstances are as described here, the person enters the
spiritual world in quite another way than would have been the
case had his karma been lived out to the full. Something is
brought into the spiritual world that would otherwise not have
been there: an etheric body, an astral body and an I-organisation
which might still have been living on earth. Instead of remaining
in earthly existence they are taken into the spiritual world.
What was destined for earthly existence is carried into the
spiritual world.
And so we see an
earthly element streaming into the spiritual world from all such
natural catastrophes.
Such is the
situation of human beings who have been turned aside in this way
from the karmic course of their life by the working of the
Ahrimanic powers; such is their situation when they arrive in the
spiritual world.
And now we must
ask ourselves a question — for if we take spiritual science
earnestly we must learn to put questions from the standpoint of
the spiritual world and of the spiritual beings in that world,
just as with our ordinary consciousness we put questions relating
to the physical world and its beings. We must ask the question:
How do the beings of the three Hierarchies respond when human
beings ascend to their realm bearing with them an earthly
element, bearing this earthly element into the spiritual world?
It then becomes
the task of these spiritual beings to re-integrate into the
world-order what seems to have been turned to evil, to run
counter to the world-order. The gods have now to reckon with what
confronts them in these circumstances, in order that they may
transmute the Ahrimanic evil into a higher good.
This leads to the
question: What is the situation within the world-order of those
human beings who are destined after their death to pass into the
spiritual world in this way? The beings of the higher Hierarchies
are confronted with a particular state of affairs and have to say
to themselves: In the previous incarnation of this human being
and through the whole sequence of preceding lives, a world of
facts was prepared, a world of experiences belonging, properly
speaking, to the incarnation that has just ended. But only the
first part of what was thus prepared has been able to come to
expression; the second part has remained without fulfilment.
Hence there is part of a life which ought, in reality, to
correspond in respect of karma, to all that went before. There
ought to be complete correspondence, but there is not ... there
is only a part which corresponds to some extent with the previous
incarnation, but not with the whole of it.
As they survey
this previous earthly life the gods must say: There is something
that has not taken effect as it should have done. Causes are
there which have not been utilised or turned to account. —
And now the gods can take hold of these unused causes, guide them
to the human being and so strengthen him inwardly for his next
earthly life. The power of what existed as a cause in a previous
incarnation can manifest all the more forcefully in the
incarnation following the present one. If such a catastrophe had
not befallen the person in question, he might have appeared again
in the world in his next incarnation with inferior faculties or
very possibly with faculties of quite a different kind. A change
has been wrought in him to the end that karma may be adjusted.
But he also comes into the world endowed with special qualities;
his astral body is reinforced, as it were, because unused
causative forces are membered into it.
Will you then
still be astonished by the legend of a philosopher who threw
himself deliberately into the crater of a volcano? What can have
been the motive of such a resolve on the part of one who was
initiated into the secrets of world-existence? The motive could
only have been a conscious intention to achieve through the
agency of human will something that could otherwise have been
achieved only through the agency of elemental nature: the sudden
sweeping away of a process that would otherwise have worked
itself to an end by slow degrees.
What is thus told
of a philosopher may be due to a resolve to appear in the world
in the next incarnation endowed with special powers. The world
takes on a very different aspect when we enter into the deep
problems of karma!
In principle,
therefore, this is how things are in the case of natural
catastrophes. Let us think now of a catastrophe due to the
institutions of civilisation, where human beings between whom
there are no strong karmic links are massed together by the
Ahrimanic powers to suffer common destruction.
The situation
here is altogether different. Again the Ahrimanic powers are in
action; now, however, the human beings concerned are not, to
begin with, grouped together by karmic ties, but despite that are
led together. The consequences here are essentially different
from those of natural catastrophes.
A natural
catastrophe evokes in a person whom it befalls a vivid,
intensified remembrance of what lies in his karma as causation.
For when the human being passes through the gate of death he is
made mindful of everything that is contained in his karma. And
remembrance of karma is intensified, made more vivid in the soul
as the result of a fatal natural catastrophe.
On the other hand
a railway accident, any catastrophe due to the institution of
civilisation, brings about oblivion of karma. But because of this
oblivion a person becomes highly sensitive to the new
impressions coming to him in the spiritual world after death. And
the result is that such a one is impelled to ask himself: What is
to become of the karma I bear within me that has not been played
out?
Whereas in the
case of a natural catastrophe the intellectual qualities
especially are intensified in the astral body of the victim, a
catastrophe of civilisation leads to a strengthening, an
enhancement of the will.
But now we will
turn from these catastrophes and think of a state of affairs
arising from fanatical emotionalism in a group of human beings,
where the sole source of the impulses is man himself, where he
lives in sheer unreality and works, moreover, as a destructive
force. Let us think of a structure of civilisation as
fantastically distorted as that presented to us today in the East
of Europe, and ask ourselves what happens when the men who help
to produce such conditions pass through the gate of death.
Here too, as in
the case of the other catastrophes, something is carried into the
spiritual world, namely a Luciferic element which begets darkness
and devastation.
From catastrophes
of nature and of civilisation it is, in the last resort, light
that is carried from the physical into the spiritual world. But
from aberrations and misguided impulses in cultural life,
darkness is brought into the spiritual world. When men pass into
that world through the gate of death they must make their way as
it were through a dark, dense cloud. For the light which Lucifer
kindled in human emotions on earth becomes dense darkness in the
spiritual world when man enters it after death. And in this case,
forces and passions engendered entirely by man himself and are
concerns of his subjective life, are carried into the spiritual
world.
These are forces
which through Ahriman's power can be changed in the spiritual
world in a way that enables use to be made of the Moon-elements
still present in the earth. Lucifer is here stretching out a
helping hand to Ahriman.
What is carried
up into the spiritual world through impulses in civilisation
arising from sheer emotionalism, from blind, misguided earthly
consciousness — this, in different guise, is what bursts
from the earth's interior in the form of volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes and the like.
With this
knowledge as a background we are led to the question of the karma
of the earth and its peoples, the karma of individuals too,
inasmuch as the karma of individuals is bound up with that of the
peoples and of the earth itself. In putting the question we shall
seek for the seeds in Luciferic activities at work in some region
where ancient culture is cast on the rubbish-heap by the working
of human emotions, where wild, misguided instincts set out to
create something new but succeed in spreading only destruction.
And we must ask ourselves: Where shall we see the forces seething
in the wild passions of men burst forth one day on the earth, in
flames or convulsive upheavals of the ground beneath us?
In respect of
many an event of elemental nature, Initiation-Science may, nay
must, put the question: When and where was this event set in
motion? And the answer is that it derives from the horrors and
atrocities of hostility and warfare through the course of the
development of civilisation. There you have the connection. —
These happenings lie in the background of existence. In the light
of such knowledge, events do not appear in isolation but are seen
in their great cosmic setting. How do they find their place in
the destinies of men? As I said already, of a truth the gods are
there, gods who are linked with the evolution of humanity, and it
is their unceasing task to transform these happenings into what
is propitious and beneficial for human destiny.
In the
interworking between the earthly and spiritual worlds the
destinies of men are continually being wrenched from the pinions
of Lucifer and the claws of Ahriman, for verily the gods are
good! The unrighteousness originating from the activities of
Lucifer and Ahriman behind the scenes of existence is led by the
good gods into the path of righteousness again and the karmic
connection is finally lawful and good.
Our gaze, which
must of course be full of understanding for human karma, is now
deflected from the destiny of men to the destiny of gods. For
when we contemplate the horrors of war, the guilt and ugliness of
war in their connection with death-dealing elemental
catastrophes, we are watching the battle waged by the good gods
against the evil gods — in two directions evil. We gaze
beyond the life of men into the life of gods, beholding the life
of gods as the background of human life. We watch this life of
gods, not with dry, theoretical thoughts, but with our hearts,
with deep, inner participation; we watch it in its connection
with the individual karma of men on earth because we see human
destiny interwoven with the destiny of gods.
When we
contemplate these things, the world lying behind human life has
for the first time drawn really near to us. For something is then
revealed which cannot but stir the very fibres of our hearts. It
becomes clear to us that the destiny of humanity lies embedded in
the destiny of the gods, and that in a certain sense the gods
yearn for what they have to take in hand for humanity while their
own battle is being waged. And in making such conceptions our own
we are led again to what is brought into the world through the
Mysteries — as it was brought, too, in the days of the old
clairvoyance.
One who had
attained Initiation in the ancient Mysteries told how he was led,
to begin with, into the world of the elements; there he beheld
his inmost being, with its moral attributes, turn outwards. But
then — and he spoke of this experience in words of power
and solemnity — he came to know the nether gods and the
upper gods, the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic gods. The good gods
move in the field of equilibrium. And as the pupil of the
ancient Mysteries came to know what must be known again by the
pupil in our modern age, he was initiated, stage by stage, into
the very depths of existence. When this is understood and its
implications realised, the strange, yet all-illuminating
conception is reached: To what end does calamity exist in the
world? To the end that the gods may transmute it into well-being.
Ordinary well-being does not lead into the life of worlds.
Well-being that springs from calamities befalling man along his
path through the physical sensory world — this alone can
lead into the depths of existence.
In the study of
karma we must never call theoretical concepts alone to our aid;
we must call upon the whole man. For knowledge of karma can be
acquired only when the heart, the feelings and the will
participate. If, however, knowledge of karma is acquired in this,
the right way, human life will be deepened and due importance
attached to the relationships and circumstances by which human
beings are brought together.
There will, of
course, be moments when karma weighs heavily upon a person who
does not lead a superficial life. But all such moments are
balanced out by others when karma lends him wings on which his
soul can soar out of the earthly realm into the realm of the
gods. In our inmost being we must feel the reality of the
connection between the divine world and the human world if we are
to speak of karma in the right and true way.
What we are in
ourselves, what is in us in a single earthly life passes away
along the path from death to a new birth. What remains is that
wherein the gods, that is to say the Beings of the Hierarchies,
hold us by the hand. And no one will be able to cultivate the
right attitude to the knowledge of karma who does not perceive in
karma the helping hand of the gods.
Thus you must
try, my dear friends, to grasp the knowledge of karma in such a
way that it calls up the feeling: If I am to approach the holy
ground of the spirit where something concerning karma can reveal
itself to me, I must take the hand of the gods.
So real, so
immediate our experiences must become, if we are to win our way
to true knowledge of the spiritual world — which is at the
same time knowledge of karma.
Thanks to the
Rudolf Steiner Archive
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