Facing Karma
GA 130
8 February 1912, Vienna
Translator Unknown
At the end of the two public lectures I have given in this city, I emphasized that anthroposophy should not be considered a theory or mere science, nor as knowledge in the ordinary sense. It is rather something that grows in our souls from mere knowledge and theory into immediate life, into an elixir of life. In this way, anthroposophy not only provides us with knowledge, but we receive forces that help us in our ordinary lives during physical existence as well as in the total life that we spend during physical existence and the non-physical existence between death and a new birth. The more we experience anthroposophy as bringing to us strength, support and life renewing energies, the more do we understand it.
Upon hearing this, some may ask, “If anthroposophy is to bring us a strengthening of life, why do we have to acquire so much of what appears to be theoretical knowledge? Why are we virtually pestered at our branch meetings with descriptions about the preceding planetary evolutions of our earth? Why do we have to learn about things that took place long ago? Why do we have to acquaint ourselves with the intimate and subtle laws of reincarnation, karma and so on?”
Some people may believe that they are being offered just another science. This problem, which forces itself upon us, demands that we eliminate all easy and simplistic approaches toward answering it. We must carefully ask ourselves whether, in raising this question, we are not introducing into it some of the easy-going ways of life that become manifest when we are reluctant to learn and to acquire something in a spiritual way. This is an uncomfortable experience for us and we are forced to wonder whether something of this attitude of discomfort does not find expression in the question that is being asked. As it is, we are led to believe that the highest goal that anthroposophy may offer us can be attained on easier roads than on that taken by us through our own literature.
It is often said, almost nonchalantly, that man has only to know himself, that all he has to do in order to be an anthroposophist is to be good. Yes, it is profound wisdom to know that to be a good person is one of the most difficult tasks, and that nothing in life demands more in the way of preparation than the realization of this ideal to be good. The problem of self-knowledge, however, cannot be solved with a quick answer, as many are inclined to believe. Therefore, today, we will shed light on some of these questions that have been raised. We then will come to see how anthroposophy meets us, even if only by appearance, as a teaching or as a science, but that it also offers in an eminent sense a path toward self- knowledge and what may be called the pilgrimage toward becoming a good person. To accomplish this we must consider from different points of view how anthroposophy can be fruitful in life.
Let us take a specific question that does not concern scientific research, but everyday life—a question known to all of us. How can we find comfort in life when we have to suffer in one way or another, when we fail to find satisfaction in life? In other words, let us ask ourselves how anthroposophy can offer comfort and consolation when it is really needed. Obviously, what can be said here only in general terms must always be applied to one's own individual case. If one lectures to many people, one can only speak in generalities.
Why do we need comfort, consolation in life? Because we may be sad about a number of events, or because we suffer as a result of pains that afflict us. It is natural that, at first, man reacts to pain as though he is rebelling inwardly against it. He wonders why he has to stand pain. “Why am I afflicted by this pain? Why is life not arranged for me in such a way that I don't suffer pain, that I am content?” These questions can only be answered satisfactorily on the basis of true knowledge concerning the nature of human karma, of human destiny. Why do we suffer in the world? We refer here to outer as well as to inner sufferings that arise in our psychic organization and leave us unfulfilled. Why are we met by such experiences that leave us unsatisfied?
In pursuing the laws of karma, we shall discover that the underlying reasons for suffering are similar to what can be described by the following example relating to the ordinary life between birth and death. Let us assume that a youngster has lived until his eighteenth year at the expense of his father. Then the father loses all his wealth and goes into bankruptcy. The young man must now learn something worthwhile and make an effort to support himself. As a result, life hits him with pain and privation. It is quite understandable that he does not react sympathetically to the pain that he has to go through.
Let us now turn to the period when he has reached the age of fifty. Since, by the necessity of events, he had to educate himself at an early age, he has become a decent person. He has found a real foothold in life. He realizes why he reacted negatively to pain and suffering when it first hit him, but now he must think differently about it. He must say to himself that the suffering would not have come to him if he had already acquired a sense of maturity—at least, to the limited degree than an eighteen year old can attain one. If he had not been afflicted by pain, he would have remained a good-for-nothing. It was the pain that transformed his shortcomings into positive abilities. He must owe it to the pain that he has become a different man in the course of forty years. What was really brought together at that time? His shortcomings and his pain were brought together. His shortcomings actually sought pain in order that his immaturity might be removed by being transformed into maturity.
Even a simple consideration of life between birth and death can lead to this view. If we look at the totality of life, however, and if we face our karma as it has been explained in the lecture two days ago, we will come to the conclusion that all pain that hits us, that all suffering that comes our way, are of such a nature that they are being sought by our shortcomings. By far the greater part of our pain and suffering is sought by imperfections that we have brought over from previous incarnations. Since we have these imperfections within ourselves, there is a wiser man in us than we ourselves are who chooses the road to pain and suffering. It is, indeed, one of the golden rules of life that we all carry in us a wiser man than we ourselves are, a much wiser man. The one to whom we say, “I,” in ordinary life is less wise. If it was left to this less wise person in us to make a choice between pain and joy, he would undoubtedly choose the road toward joy. But the wiser man is the one who reigns in the depth of our unconscious and who remains inaccessible to ordinary consciousness. He directs our gaze away from easy enjoyment and kindles in us a magic power that seeks the road of pain without our really knowing it. But what is meant by the words: Without really knowing it? They mean that the wiser man in us prevails over the less wise one. He always acts in such a way that our shortcomings are guided to our pains and he makes us suffer because with every inner and outer suffering we eliminate one of our faults and become transformed into something better.
Little is accomplished if one tries to understand these words theoretically. Much more can be gained when one creates sacred moments in life during which one is willing to use all one's energy in an effort to fill one's soul with the living content of such words. Ordinary life, with all its work, pressure, commotion and duties provides little chance to do so. In this setting, it is not always possible to silence the less wise man in us. But when we create a sacred moment in life, short as it may be, then we can say, “I will put aside the transitory effects of life; I will view my sufferings in such a way that I feel how the wise man in me has been attracted by them with a magic power. I realize that I have imposed upon myself certain experiences of pain without which I would not have overcome some of my shortcomings.” A feeling of blissful wisdom will overcome us that makes us feel that even if the world appears to be filled with suffering, it is, nevertheless, radiating pure wisdom. Such an attitude is one of the fruits of anthroposophy for the benefit of life. What has been said may, of course, be forgotten, but if we do not forget it, but practice such thoughts regularly, we will become aware of the fact that we have planted a seed in our soul. What we used to experience as feelings of sadness and attitudes of depression will be transformed into positive attitudes toward life, into strength and energy. Out of these sacred moments in life will be born more harmonious souls and stronger personalities.
We may now move on to another step in our experience. The anthroposophist should be determined to take this other step only after he has comforted himself many times with regard to his sufferings in the way just described. The experience that may now be added consists of looking at one's joys and at everything that has occurred in life in the way of happiness. He who can face destiny without bias and as though he had himself wanted his sufferings, will find himself confronted by a strange reaction when he looks at his joy and happiness. He cannot face them in the same way that he faced his sufferings. It is easy to see how one can find comfort in suffering. He who does not believe this only has to expose himself to the experience.
It is difficult, however, to come to terms with joy and happiness. Much as we may accept the attitude that we have wanted our suffering, when we apply the same attitude to joy and happiness, we cannot but feel ashamed of ourselves. A deep feeling of shame will be experienced. The only way to overcome this feeling is to realize that we were not the ones who gave ourselves our joys and happiness through the law of karma. This is the only cure as, otherwise, the feeling of shame can become so intense that it virtually destroys us in our souls. Relief can only be found by not making the wiser man in us responsible for having driven us toward our joys. With this thought, one will feel that one hits the truth, because the feeling of shame will disappear. It is a fact that our joy and happiness come to us in life as something that is bestowed upon us, without our participation, by a wise divine guidance, as something we must accept as grace, as something that is to unite us with the universe. Happiness and joy shall have such an effect upon us in the sacred moments in our lives and in our intimate hours of introspection that we shall experience them as grace, as grace from the divine powers of the world who want to receive us and who, as it were, embed us in their being.
While our pain and suffering lead us to ourselves and make us more genuinely ourselves, we develop through joy and happiness, provided that we consider them as grace, a feeling that one can only describe as being blissfully embedded in the divine forces and powers of the world. Here the only justified attitude toward happiness and joy is one of gratitude. Nobody will understand joy and happiness in the intimate hours of self-knowledge when he ascribes them to his karma. If he involves karma, he commits an error that is liable to weaken and paralyze the spiritual in him. Every thought to the effect that joy and happiness are deserved actually weakens and paralyzes us. This may be a hard fact to understand because everyone who admits that his pain is inflicted upon himself by his own individuality would obviously expect to be his own master also with regard to joy and happiness. But a simple look at life can teach us that joy and happiness have an extinguishing power. Nowhere is this extinguishing effect of joy and happiness better described than in Goethe's Faust in the words, “And thus I stagger from desire to pleasure. And in pleasure I am parched with desire.” Simple reflection upon the influence of personal enjoyment shows that inherent in it is something that makes us stagger and blots out our true being.
No sermon is here being delivered against enjoyment, nor is an invitation extended to practice self-torture, or to pinch ourselves with red hot pliers, or the like. If one recognizes a situation in the right way, it does not mean that one should escape from it. No escape, therefore, is suggested, but a silent acceptance of joy and happiness whenever they appear. We must develop the inner attitude that we experience them as grace, and the more the better. Thus do we immerse ourselves the more in the divine. Therefore, these words are said not in order to preach asceticism, but in order to awaken the right mood toward joy and happiness.
If it is thought that joy and happiness have a paralyzing and extinguishing effect, and that therefore man should flee from them, then one would promote the ideal of false asceticism and self-torture. In this event, man, in reality, would be escaping from the grace that is given to him by the gods. Self-torture practiced by ascetics, monks and nuns is nothing but a continuous rebellion against the gods. It behooves us to feel pain as something that comes to us through our karma. In joy and happiness, we can feel that the divine is descending to us.
May joy and happiness be for us a sign as to how close the gods have attracted us, and may our pain and suffering be a sign as to how far removed we are from what we are to become as good human beings. This is the fundamental attitude toward karma without which we cannot really move ahead in life. In what the world bestows upon us as goodness and beauty, we must conceive the world powers of which it is said in the Bible, “And he looked at the world and he saw that it was good.” But inasmuch as we experience pain and suffering, we must recognize what man has made of the world during its evolution, which originally was a good world, and what he must contribute toward its betterment by educating himself to bear pain with purpose and energy.
What has now been described are two ways to confront karma. To a certain extent, our karma consists of suffering and joys. We relate ourselves to our karma with the right attitude when we can consider it as something we really wanted and when we can confront our sufferings and joys with the proper understanding. But a review of karma can be extended further, which we shall do today and tomorrow.
Karma not only shows us what is related to our lives in a joyful and painful manner. But as the result of the working of karma, we meet many people during the course of our lives with whom we only become slightly acquainted, and people with whom we are connected in various ways during long periods of our lives as relatives and friends. We meet people who either cause us pain directly, or as a result of some joint undertaking that runs into obstructions. We meet people who are helpful, or to whom we can be helpful. In short, many relationships are possible. If the effects of karma, as described.the day before yesterday, are to become fruitful, then we must accept the fact that the wiser man in us wants certain experiences. He seeks a person who seems accidentally to cross our paths. He is the one who leads us to other people with whom we get engaged in this or that way. What is really guiding this wiser man in us when he wants to meet this or that person? What is he basing himself on? In answer, we have to say to ourselves that we want to meet him because we have met him previously. It may not have happened in the last life; it could have happened much earlier. The wiser man in us leads us to this person because we had dealings with him in a previous life, or because we may have incurred a debt in one way or another. We are led to this person as though by magic.
We are now reaching a manifold and intricate realm that can be covered only by generalities. The indications here stem from clairvoyant investigation. They can be useful to anybody since they can be applied to many special situations.
A strange observation can be made. We all have experienced or observed how, toward the middle of our lives, the ascending growth-line gradually tilts over to become a descending line, and our youthful energies begin to decline. We move past a climax and from there on we move downward. This point of change is somewhere in our thirties. It is also the time in our lives when we are living most intensively on the physical plane. In this connection, we can fall prey to a delusion. The events that from childhood precede this climax were brought with us into this incarnation. They were, so to speak, drawn out of a previous existence. The forces that we have brought along with us from the spiritual world are now placed outside ourselves and used to fashion our lives. These forces are used up when we reach this middle point.
In considering the descending curve of our lives, we perceive the lessons that we have learned in the school of life, that we have accumulated and have worked over. They will be taken along into the next incarnation. This is something we carry into the spiritual world; previously, we took something out of it. This is the time when we are fully engaged on the physical plane. We are thoroughly enmeshed with everything that comes to us from the outside world. We have passed our training period; we are fully committed to life and we have to come to terms with it. We are involved with ourselves, but we are primarily occupied with arranging our environments for ourselves, and in finding a proper relationship to the world in which we live. The human capacities that are seeking a relationship to the world are our power of reasoning and that part of our volitional life that is controlled by reason. What is thus active in us is alien to the spiritual world, which withdraws from us and closes up. It is true that in the middle of our lives we are the farthest removed from the reality of the spirit.
Here occult investigation reveals a significant fact. The people with whom we meet, and the acquaintances we make in the middle period of our lives are curiously enough the very people with whom we were engaged during the period of early childhood in one of our previous incarnations. It is an established fact that, as a general rule, although not always, we meet in the middle period of our lives, as a result of karmic guidance, the very people who were once our parents. It is unlikely that we meet in early childhood the persons who were once our parents. This happens during the middle of life. This may appear as a strange fact, but this is the way it is. When we attempt to apply such rules to the experience of life, and when we direct our thoughts accordingly, then we can learn a great deal. When a person at about the age of thirty establishes a relationship to another, either through the bonds of love or of friendship, or when they get involved in conflict, or in any other experience, we will understand a great deal more about these relationships if we consider hypothetically that the person may have once been related to the other as a child is to his parents.
In reversing this relationship, we discover another remarkable fact. The very people with whom we have been associated in our early childhood, such as parents, sisters and brothers, playmates and other companions, as a rule are the very people whom we have met in the previous or one of our previous incarnations around our thirtieth year. These people frequently appear as our parents, sisters or brothers in the present incarnation.
Curious as this may appear to us at first, let us try to apply it to life. The experience of life becomes enlightened if we look at it in this way. We may, of course, err in our speculation. But if, in solitary hours, we look at life so that it is filled with meaning, we can gain a great deal. Obviously, we must not arrange karma to our liking; we must not choose the people we like and assume that they may have been our parents. Prejudices must not falsify the real facts. You realize the danger that we are exposed to and the many misconceptions that may creep in. We must educate ourselves to remain open-minded and unbiased.
You may now ask what the relation is to the people we meet during the declining curve of our lives. We have discovered that at the beginning of our lives, we meet people with whom we were acquainted during the middle period of a previous life, while now during the middle of our lives, we recognize those with whom we were involved at the beginning of previous existences. But how about the period of our descending life? The answer is that we may be led to people with whom we were involved in a previous life, or we may not yet have been involved with them. They will have been connected with us in a previous life if we are meeting under special circumstances that occur at decisive junctures of a life span, when, for example, a bitter disappointment confronts us with a serious probation. In such a situation, it is likely that we are meeting during the second period of our lives people with whom we were previously connected. Thereby conditions are dislodged and experiences that were caused in the past can be resolved.
Karma works in many ways and one cannot force it into definite patterns. But as a general rule, it can be stated that during the second half of our lives we encounter people with whom the karmic connections that are beginning to be woven cannot be resolved in one life. Let us assume that we have caused suffering to someone in a previous life. It is easy to assume that the wiser man in us will lead us back to this person in a subsequent life in order that we may equalize the harm that we have done. But life conditions cannot always permit that we can equalize everything, but perhaps only a part of it. Thereby matters are complicated, and it becomes possible that such a remainder of karma may be corrected in the second half of life. Looking at it this way, we are placing our connections and communications with other people in the light of this karma.
But there is something else that we can consider in the course of karma. This is what I have called in my two recent public lectures the process of maturing and the acquisition of life experiences. These terms may be used with utter modesty. We may take into account the process by which we become wiser. Our errors may render us wiser and it is really best for us when this happens because during one lifetime we do not often have the opportunity to practice wisdom. For this reason, we retain the lessons that we have learned from our errors as strength for a future life. But what really is this wisdom and the life experience that we can acquire?
Yesterday I referred to the fact that our ideas cannot be taken immediately from one life to another. I pointed to the fact that even a genius like Plato could not carry the ideas of his mind into a new incarnation. We carry with us our volitional and soul powers, but our ideas are given us anew in every life, just as is the faculty of speech. The greater part of our ideas live in speech. Most of our ideas are derived from our faculty to express ourselves in a language. The ideas we conceive during the time between birth and death are always related to this particular earthly existence. This being so, it is true that our ideas will always depend on the where and how of our incarnations, no matter how many we have to live through. Our wealth of ideas is always derived from the outer world, and depends on the way karma has placed us into race, family and speech relationships.
In our ideas and concepts we really know nothing of the world except what is dependent on karma. A great deal is said with this statement. This means that everything we can know in life and acquire in the form of knowledge is something quite personal. We never can transcend the personal level with regard to everything we may acquire in life. We never come quite as far as the wiser man in us, but we always remain with the less wise man. If someone believes that he can, by himself, know more about his higher self from observations in the outer world, he is being led by his laziness into an unreal world. Thereby we are saying nothing less than that we know nothing of our higher self as a result of what we acquire in life.
How can we gain an understanding of our higher self; how do we come to such knowledge? To find an answer, we must ask ourselves the simple question, “What do we really know?” First of all, we know what we have learned from experience. We know this and nothing else. Anyone who wants to know himself and does not realize that he carries in his soul nothing but a mirror of the outer world may delude himself into believing that he can find his higher self by introspection. What he finds within, however, is nothing else than what has come in from outside. Laziness of thinking has no place in this quest. So we must inquire about the other worlds into which our higher self is embedded, and thereby we learn about the various incarnations of the earth and the world picture described by spiritual science.
Just as we try to understand a child's soul with regard to its outer life conditions by examining the child's surroundings, so must we ask what the environment of the higher self is. Spiritual science gives us insight into the worlds in which our higher self lives by its accounts of the evolution of Saturn and all its secrets, of the Moon and Earth evolution, of reincarnation and karma, of devachan and kamaloka, and so on. This is the only way we can learn about our higher self, about that self that extends beyond the physical plane. He who refuses to accept these secrets is as playful as a little kitten in regard to himself. It is not by petting and caressing oneself that one can discover the divine man in oneself. Only what is experienced in the outer world is stored inside, but the divine man in us can only be found when we search in our soul for the mirrored world beyond the physical.
The very things that are uncomfortable to learn make up knowledge of self. In reality, true anthroposophy is true knowledge of self. Properly received, the science of the spirit enlightens us about our own self. Where is this self? Is it within our skin? No, it is poured into the entire world, and what is in the world is linked to the self; also, what once was in the world is connected with this self. Only if we get to know the world can we also get to know the self.
Anthroposophical knowledge, although it may appear first as mere theory, points to nothing less than a path to self-knowledge. He who wants to find himself by staring into his inner being may be motivated by the noble desire to be good and unselfish. But in reality, he becomes more and more selfish. In contrast to this, the struggle with the great secrets of existence, the attempt to emancipate oneself from the complacent personal self, the acceptance of the reality of the higher worlds and the knowledge that can be obtained from them, all lead to true self-knowledge.
While contemplating Saturn, Sun and Moon, we lose ourselves in cosmic thoughts. Thus, a soul thinking in anthroposophy exclaims, “In thy thinking cosmic thoughts are living.” He then adds to these words, “Lose thyself in cosmic thoughts.”
A soul creating out of anthroposophy says, “In thy feeling cosmic forces are weaving,” and adds in the same breath, “Feel thyself through cosmic forces.” These universal powers will not reveal themselves when we expect them to be flattering or when we close our eyes and pledge to be a good human being. Only when we open our spiritual eye and perceive how “cosmic forces” work and create, and when we realize that we are embedded in these forces, will we have an experience of our own self.
Thus, a soul that draws strength from anthroposophy will say, “In thy willing cosmic beings are working,” and he will quickly add, “Create thyself through beings of will.”
The meaning of these words can be realized if self-knowledge is practiced in the right way. If this is done, one recreates oneself out of the cosmic forces.
These thoughts may appear to be dry and abstract, but they are not mere theory. They have the inherent power of a seed planted in the earth. It sprouts and grows; life shoots in all directions and the plant becomes a tree. Thus it is with the experiences we receive through the science of the spirit that we become capable of transforming ourselves. “Create thyself through beings of will.” Thus, anthroposophy becomes an elixir of life. Our view of spirit worlds opens up, we draw strength from these worlds and once we can fully absorb them, they will help us to know ourselves in all our depth. Only when we imbue ourselves with world knowledge can we take hold of ourselves and gradually move from the less wise man in us, who is split off by the guardian of the threshold, to the wise man in us. This, which remains hidden to the weak, can be gained by the strong through anthroposophy.
In thy thinking cosmic thoughts are living;
Lose thyself in cosmic thoughts.
In thy feeling cosmic forces are weaving;
Feel thyself through cosmic forces.
In thy willing cosmic beings are working;
Create thyself through beings of will.
Grundstimmung dem Menschlichen Karma Gegenüber
Meine lieben theosophischen Freunde!
Nicht ohne Bedeutung ist am Schlusse der beiden öffentlichen Vorträge immer schärfer von mir betont worden, dass Theosophie dem Menschen nicht eine Theorie sein soll, nicht eine bloße Wissenschaft, nicht irgendetwas, was man im gewöhnlichen Sinne eine Erkenntnis nennt, sondern etwas, was sich in unserer Seele verwandeln kann aus einer bloßen Erkenntnis, einer bloßen Theorie in unmittelbares Leben, in ein Lebenselixier. Sodass wir durch Theosophie nicht nur etwas wissen, sondern dass vor allen Dingen uns Kräfte durch sie zufließen, die nicht nur in dem gewöhnlichen Leben, das wir hier im physischen Dasein führen, uns helfen, sondern im Gesamtleben, das wir sowohl im physischen Dasein wie auch im entkörperten Zustande zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt führen. Je mehr wir Theosophie so empfinden, dass sie uns stärkende Kräfte, lebenfördernde Elemente zuführt, desto besser verstehen wir Theosophie. Nun wird ja vielleicht manchem bei einem solchen Ausspruch die Frage sich auf die Lippen drängen: Wenn Theosophie also etwas sein soll, das uns Lebensstärkung gibt, Kräfte verleiht, warum müssen wir dann doch wiederum in der Theosophie uns alle möglichen theoretisch aussehenden Erkenntnisse aneignen, warum werden wir dann sozusagen in unserem Zweigleben geplagt mit allerlei Erkenntnissen über die unserer Erde vorangehenden planetarischen Verkörperungen? Warum müssen wir Dinge erfahren, die sich in fernen Zeiten zugetragen haben? Warum müssen wir uns bekannt machen auch mit den intimeren, feineren Gesetzen von Reinkarnation, Karma und so weiter? - Mancher könnte glauben, das sei auch nur wiederum etwas wie eine Wissenschaft, wie uns Wissenschaften ja auch im äußeren Leben in der physischen Welt heute geboten werden.
Nun muss man, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, bei dieser Frage, die eben hier berührt worden ist als eine Frage, die sich sozusagen auf die Lippen drängen kann, alle Lebensbequemlichkeit ausschalten. Man muss sich sorgfältig prüfen, ob man denn nicht schon, wenn man diese Frage tut, in dieselbe etwas hineinmischt vom gewöhnlichen Schlendrian des Lebens, der sich - verzeihen Sie, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde - doch gar zu sehr mit den Worten ausdrücken lässt: Der Mensch will eigentlich ungern etwas lernen, sich geistig aneignen. Das ist ihm unbequem. Wir müssen uns fragen, ob nicht etwas von dieser Stimmung der Unbequemlichkeit in diese Frage sich hineinmischt. Denn eigentlich gehen wir davon aus, so ein bisschen zu glauben, dass das Höchste, was uns Theosophie geben soll, zu erreichen sei auf einem bequemeren Wege als demjenigen, der uns zum Beispiel in unserer von uns gepflegten Literatur gezeigt wird. Es wird auch oftmals in einer etwas leichtfertigen Weise betont, der Mensch brauche sich ja nur selbst zu erkennen, brauche zu versuchen, ein guter Mensch zu werden, dann sei er eigentlich schon Theosoph genug. Ja, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, das gerade gibt uns eine tiefere Erkenntnis, dass es zu den allerschwierigsten Dingen der Welt gehört, ein guter Mensch zu sein, und dass nichts so sehr Vorbereitung braucht, als eben dieses Ideal, ein guter Mensch zu sein.
Und was gar die Frage nach der Selbsterkenntnis betrifft, so ist sie in Wahrheit keine solche, die sich im Handumdrehen beantworten lässt, wie so mancher Mensch glauben möchte. Wir wollen deshalb heute einmal gerade einigen Fragen näher rücken, welche in diesen eben gesprochenen Worten oftmals zum Ausdruck gebracht werden. Wir wollen betrachten, inwiefern uns Theosophie, wenn auch nur scheinbar, als eine Lehre, eine Wissenschaft entgegentritt, obgleich sie dennoch im eminentesten Sinne gerade dasjenige ergibt, was man Selbsterkenntnis nennen kann und dasjenige ergeben muss, was man bezeichnet als ein Hinstreben zum guten Menschen. Da handelt es sich allerdings vor allem darum, dass wir von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten aus betrachten, wie Theosophic in das Leben einfließen kann.
Nehmen Sie aus den großen Lebensfragen einen bestimmten Fall heraus. Ich meine nicht aus denjenigen, die die wissenschaftliche Forschung betreffen, sondern die das Leben jeden Tag bringt, Fragen, die ganz gewiss jeder von uns kennt: die Frage nach dem Troste, den wir im Leben gewinnen können, wenn wir in irgendeiner Weise an dem oder jenem zu leiden haben, wenn wir in dieser oder jener Weise an dem Leben nicht volle Befriedigung haben können. Mit anderen Worten, fragen wir uns: Inwiefern kann zum Beispiel Theosophie dem betrübten Menschen Trost gewähren, wenn er Trost braucht? Allerdings muss ja der Einzelne dasjenige, was über eine solche Frage gesagt werden kann, auf seinen besonderen Fall anwenden. Wenn man zu vielen Menschen spricht, kann man nur im Allgemeinen sprechen.
Warum brauchen wir Trost im Leben? Weil wir eben betrübt sein können über dieses oder jenes, weil wir leiden können, weil uns Schmerzen treffen können. Nun ist es natürlich, dass der Mensch dem Schmerze gegenüber sich fühlt, als ob sich irgendetwas in seinem Innern gegen diesen Schmerz so ablehnend verhalten müsste, dass er sich sagt: Warum muss ich Schmerzen ausstehen, warum trifft mich dieser Schmerz? Könnte denn das Leben für mich nicht auch so verrinnen, dass mich keine Schmerzen treffen, dass ich zufrieden bin? - Derjenige, der diese Frage so stellt, kann zu einer Antwort nur kommen, wenn er sich eine wirkliche Erkenntnis von der Natur unseres menschlichen Karma, des menschlichen Schicksals, verschafft. Warum leiden wir denn in der Welt? Und es sind damit die äußerlichen Leiden wie auch die innerlichen gemeint, die aus der inneren Organisation aufsteigen, dass wir uns nicht immer genug sind, dass wir nicht immer klar uns zurechtfinden können. Das ist jetzt gemeint. Warum treffen uns solche, uns unbefriedigt lassende Dinge im Leben?
Wenn wir uns einlassen auf die Gesetze des Karma, so werden wir sehen, dass unseren Leiden etwas Ähnliches zugrunde liegt, wie dasjenige ist, was im gewöhnlichen Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod etwa mit folgendem Beispiele sich verdeutlichen lässt, es ist von mir oft schon erwähnt worden: Nehmen wir an, jemand hat bis zum achtzehnten Jahre gelebt aus der Tasche seines Vaters, er hat in Lust und Freude gelebt, er hat sich nichts entgehen lassen. Dann verliert der Vater das Vermögen, er macht Bankerott. Der Junge muss etwas Rechtes lernen, er muss sich anstrengen. Mit Schmerzen und Entbehrungen trifft ihn das Leben. Wir werden es begreiflich finden, dass dieser junge Mensch recht wenig sympathisch berührt ist von den Schmerzen, die er durchzumachen hat. Nehmen wir an, der betreffende Mensch erreicht sein fünfzigstes Lebensjahr. Dadurch, dass er damals etwas hat lernen müssen, ist er ein ordentlicher Mensch geworden. Er steht nun fest im Leben und kann sich sagen: So wie ich meine Leiden und Schmerzen damals beurteilt habe, war es im damaligen Zeitpunkte begreiflich; jetzt muss ich aber anders darüber denken, jetzt muss ich sagen, dass mich die Schmerzen nicht hätten treffen können, wenn ich dazumal schon alle Vollkommenheiten, wenn auch nur die beschränkten Vollkommenheiten eines achtzehnjährigen Menschen, gehabt hätte. Hätten mich aber die Schmerzen nicht getroffen, wäre ich ein Taugenichts geblieben. Der Schmerz war cs, der die Unvollkommenheiten verwandelt hat in eine Vollkommenheit. Diesem Schmerz muss ich es verdanken, dass ich jetzt ein anderer Mensch bin als vor vierzig Jahren. Was hat sich denn dazumal eigentlich bei mir zusammengefunden? Es hat sich zusammengefunden meine Unvollkommenheit, in der ich damals war, und mein Schmerz. Und meine Unvollkommenheit hat gleichsam meinen Schmerz gesucht, damit sie vertrieben werden könne, damit sie sich in Vollkommenheit verwandeln könne.
Diese Betrachtung kann sich schon ergeben aus einer trivialen Anschauung des Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod. Wenn wir auf das Gesamtleben eingehen und uns wirklich in einer solchen Weise unserem Karma gegenüberstellen, wie es namentlich im vorgestrigen Vortrag gezeigt worden ist, werden wir immer zur Überzeugung kommen, dass alle Schmerzen, die uns treffen, alle Leiden, die uns in den Weg gestellt werden, von der Art sind, dass sie gesucht werden von unserer Unvollkommenheit. Und zwar die weitaus meisten Schmerzen und Leiden werden gesucht von jenen Unvollkommenheiten, die wir herübergebracht haben aus früheren Inkarnationen. Und weil diese Unvollkommenheiten in uns sind, sucht ein Gescheiterer in uns, als wir sind, den Weg zu den Schmerzen, zu den Leiden. Denn das ist eine goldene Regel des Lebens, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, dass wir alle als Menschen stets einen Gescheiteren in uns tragen, als wir selber sind, einen viel Weiseren. Denn weniger weise ist der, zu dem wir im gewöhnlichen Leben «ich» sagen. Dieser «Weniger-Weise» würde, wenn es ihm überlassen wäre, entweder einen Schmerz aufzusuchen oder eine Lust, den Weg zur Lust gehen. Der «Gescheitere» ist derjenige, der in den Tiefen unseres Unterbewusstseins ruht, zu dem sich unser gewöhnliches Bewusstsein nicht hinab erstreckt. Er verhüllt uns den Blick zu einer leichten Lust und entzündet in uns eine magische Kraft, die den Weg geht zu den Schmerzen hin, ohne dass wir es wissen. Aber was heißt denn: ohne dass wir es wissen? Das heißt, dass der Gescheitere die größere Macht bekommt über den weniger Gescheiten, und der Gescheitere handelt stets so in uns, dass er unsere Unvollkommenheiten zu unseren Schmerzen hinleitet und uns leiden lässt, weil wir mit jedem inneren und äußeren Leide eine Unvollkommenheit ausmerzen und uns vollkommener machen.
Solche Sätze kann man theoretisch einsehen, aber es ist nicht viel damit getan. Aber viel ist getan, wenn man sich gewisse Feieraugenblicke des Lebens sucht, in denen man gewillt ist, so etwas wie diesen Satz nun wirklich mit aller Energie zu einem Lebensinhalt der Seele zu machen. Im gewöhnlichen Leben mit seiner Arbeit, seinem Hasten und Treiben, mit seinen Pflichten, da geht es nicht immer, da können wir uns unseres weniger gescheiten Menschen, den wir nun einmal haben, sozusagen nicht immer entschlagen. Aber wenn wir einen gewissen Feieraugenblick des Lebens uns auswählen - und mögen solche Feieraugenblicke auch noch so kurz sein —, können wir uns sagen: Ich will einmal absehen von allem, was da draußen rumort und wo ich mitrumort habe, ich will auf meine Leiden so blicken, dass ich empfinde, wie der Gescheitere in mir mit magischer Kraft zu ihnen hingezogen worden ist, und dass ich gewisse Schmerzen mir selbst auferlegt habe, ohne die ich gewisse Unvollkommenheiten nicht überwunden hätte. Dann wird uns ein Gefühl überkommen von seliger Weisheit, welches sozusagen ergibt: Auch da, wo die Welt erfüllt scheint von Leid, da ist sie voller Weisheit! So etwas ist dann eine Errungenschaft der Theosophie für das Leben. Wir mögen so etwas für das äußere Leben wieder vergessen. Wenn wir es aber nicht vergessen und oft und oft es wieder üben, dann werden wir sehen, dass wir etwas wie einen Keim in unsere Seele gelegt haben und dass sich dann mancherlei, was in uns trübes Gefühl, mancherlei, was schwache Stimmung ist, verwandelt in heitere Lebensstimmung, in Kraft, in Stärkegefühl. Und dann werden wir von solchen Feieraugenblicken des Lebens das haben, dass wir als harmonischere Seelen und stärkere Menschen aus ihnen hervorgehen.
Und dann mögen wir wohl - aber der Theosoph sollte sich zur Regel machen, dass er diese anderen Augenblicke sich erst dann verschaffen soll, wenn er die ersten, die Augenblicke des Trostes bei den Leiden in seiner Seele wirksam macht -, dann mögen wir wohl auch anderes hinzufügen: Blicke auf unsere Freuden, Blicke auf das, was wir als Lust im Leben erfahren können. Wer sich mit unbefangenem Gefühle dem Schicksal so gegenüberstellt, als ob er seine Schmerzen gewollt hätte, für den ergibt sich etwas ganz Eigentümliches, wenn er seine Lust und Freude betrachtet. Er kommt damit nicht so zurecht, wie er mit seinen Leiden zurande kommt. Leicht wird es uns nämlich — und wer es nicht glaubt, mag versuchen, sich hineinzuversetzen - Trost im Leide zu finden. Aber es wird schwer, mit Lust und Freude zurechtzukommen. Man mag sich noch so sehr in die Stimmung versetzen, man habe sein Leid gewollt: Wenn man das auf Lust und Freude anwendet, dann wird man gar nicht anders können, als beschämt zu sein. Richtiges Schamgefühl wird man empfinden, und über dieses Schamgefühl wird man nicht anders hinwegkommen als nur durch das eine, dass man sich sagt: Nein, meine Lust und Freude habe ich mir wirklich nicht durch mein Karma selbst gegeben! - Das ist die einzige Heilung, denn sonst kann die Scham so stark werden, dass sie einen schier in der Seele vernichtet. Die einzige Heilung ist, nicht dem Gescheiteren in sich zuzumuten, dass man zur Freude hingetrieben worden ist. An diesem Gedanken merkt man, dass man recht hat, weil das Schamgefühl verschwindet. Es ist so, dass uns Lust und Freude im Leben zufallen als etwas, was uns von der weisen Weltenlenkung ohne unser Zutun gegeben ist, was wir als Gnade hinnehmen müssen und von dem wir immer erkennen, dass es bestimmt ist, uns einzufügen in das Gesamtall. Lust und Freude sollen so auf uns wirken in den Feieraugenblicken des Lebens, in den einsamen Stunden, dass wir sie als Gnade empfinden, als Gnade der Allgewalten der Welt, die uns aufnehmen wollen, die uns gleichsam in sich einbetten wollen.
Während wir also durch unsere Schmerzen und Leiden zu uns selber kommen, uns selbst vollkommener machen, entwickeln wir durch unsere Lust und Freude - aber nur wenn wir sie als Gnade betrachten - dasjenige Gefühl, das man nur nennen kann ein Gefühl des beseligenden Ruhens in den göttlichen Mächten und Kräften der Welt. Und da gibt es als einzig berechtigte Stimmung nur Dankbarkeit gegenüber Lust und Freude. Und niemand kommt zurecht mit Lust und Freude, der in einsamen Stunden der Selbsterkenntnis Lust und Freude auf sein Karma hinschreibt. Schreibt er es seinem Karma zu, dann gibt er sich jenem Irrtum hin, der das Geistige in uns schwächt, lähmt. Jeder Gedanke, dass eine Lust, eine Freude verdient sei, schwächt und lähmt uns. Das scheint hart zu sein, denn mancher möchte wohl, wenn er sich schon seinen Schmerz zuschreibt als selbstgewollt und ihm zukommend durch seine Individualität, dass er der eigene Herr auch über seine Lust und Freude sei. Aber schon der gewöhnliche Blick in das Leben kann uns belehren, dass Lust und Freude etwas Auslöschendes hat. Man findet ja dieses Auslöschende von Lust und Freude wohl kaum irgendwo anschaulicher geschildert als im «Faust», wo das Lähmende von Lust und Freude im menschlichen Leben anschaulich gemacht wird mit den Worten: «So tauml’ ich von Begierde zu Genuss. Und im Genuss verschmacht’ ich nach Begierde.» Und wer nur ein wenig nachdenkt über den Einfluss der Lust, wenn sie persönlich genommen wird, der wird sehen, dass die Lust etwas hat, was uns wie in einen Lebenstaumel führt und unser Selbst auslöscht.
Dies soll nicht etwa eine Predigt sein gegen die Lust, nicht die Aufforderung, dass wir uns Selbstpeinigungen hingeben sollen, uns vielleicht mit glühenden Zangen zwicken sollen und dergleichen. Das soll es nicht sein. Wenn man eine Sache in der richtigen Weise erkennt, bedeutet das nicht, dass man sie fliehen soll. Nicht «Fliehen» ist gesagt, sondern wir sollen sie ruhig hinnehmen, wo sie uns entgegentritt. Aber wir sollen die Stimmung entwickeln, dass wir sie als Gnade erfahren, und je mehr, desto besser, denn um so mehr tauchen wir ein in das Göttliche. Also nicht um Askese zu predigen, sondern um die richtige Stimmung gegenüber Lust und Freude zu erwecken, sind diese Worte gesagt.
Wer aber sagen würde: Lust und Freude haben etwas Lähmendes und Auslöschendes, deshalb fliehe ich die Lust, die Freude - das Ideal der falschen Askese, der Selbstpeinigung —, der würde fliehen vor der Gnade, die ihm geschenkt wird von den Göttern. Und im Grunde genommen sind fortwährende Auflehnungen gegen die Götter die Selbstpeinigungen der Asketen, Mönche und Nonnen. Es geziemt uns, dass wir die Schmerzen als etwas fühlen, was uns durch unser Karma zukommt, und dass wir die Freude als Gnade fühlen, dass das Göttliche sich zu uns herablassen kann. Als Zeichen, wie nahe uns der Gott zu sich hingezogen hat, sei uns Lust und Freude, und als Zeichen, wie weit wir von dem entfernt sind, was wir als vernünftige Menschen erreichen müssen, sei uns Leid und Schmerz. Das gibt die Grundstimmung gegenüber Karma, und ohne diese Grundstimmung können wir im Leben nicht wahrhaft vorwärtsschreiten. Wir müssen empfinden an dem, was uns die Welt als Gutes, Schönes zukommen lässt, dass hinter dieser Welt die Mächte stehen, von denen in der Bibel gesagt ist: sie sahen, dass sie schön und gut war, die Welt. Insoweit wir aber Leid und Schmerz empfinden können, müssen wir anerkennen dasjenige, was der Mensch im Laufe der Inkarnationen aus der Welt, die anfänglich gut war, gemacht hat und was er verbessern muss, indem er sich zum energischen Ertragen dieser Schmerzen erzieht.
Dasjenige, was geschildert worden ist, das ist nur eine zweifache Art des Hinnehmens unseres Karma. Unser Karma besteht ja in gewisser Beziehung aus Leiden und Freuden. Wir stellen uns zu unserem Karma mit dem richtigen Willen, als ob wir es richtig wollten, wenn wir uns den Leiden und Freuden in der richtigen Weise entgegenzustellen vermögen. Aber wir können das noch weiter ausdehnen. Und gerade wie wir uns dem Karma gegenüberstellen können, das soll die heutige und morgige Betrachtung zeigen.
Unser Karma zeigt uns nicht bloß dasjenige, was leidvoll und freudvoll in Beziehung steht zu unserem Leben, sondern wir treffen im Verlaufe des Lebens, sodass wir darin sehen müssen karmische Wirkungen, zum Beispiel viele Menschen, mit denen wir flüchtige Bekanntschaft machen, Menschen, die uns mehr oder weniger in diesem oder jenem Verhältnis der Verwandtschaft, Freundschaft eine lange Zeit unseres Lebens nahestehen. Wir treffen Menschen, denen wir so gegenüberstehen, dass sie uns Leid zufügen oder dass durch das Zusammenwirken mit ihnen uns Leid, also Hemmnisse entstehen, oder wir treffen Menschen, die uns selber fördern oder die wir fördern können, kurz, mannigfaltige Beziehungen ergeben sich. Auch solch einer Tatsache des Lebens gegenüber müssen wir, wenn fruchtbar werden soll im theosophischen Sinne dasjenige, was vorgestern über das Hinnehmen des Karma gesagt worden ist, dass wir es mit dem gescheiteren Teile in uns in einer gewissen Weise gewollt haben, gewollt haben also einen Menschen, der uns scheinbar in den Weg gelaufen ist, gewollt haben gerade den, mit dem wir dies oder jenes ausmachen. Was kann denn dann dieser Gescheitere in uns nur wollen, wenn er diesen oder jenen Menschen treffen will, worauf kann er sich denn stützen? Nicht wahr, es gibt keinen anderen vernünftigen Gedanken, als dass wir uns sagen: Wir wollen ihn treffen, weil wir ihn schon früher getroffen haben und weil sich das früher schon angebahnt hat. Es muss nicht im letzten Leben, sondern es kann viel früher gewesen sein. Weil wir in den verflossenen Leben mit diesem Menschen dieses oder jenes zu tun gehabt haben, weil wir in dieser oder jener Weise eine Schuld gehabt haben, so führt uns dieser Gescheitere mit ihm zusammen. Es ist ein mit magischer Kraft Hingeleitetwerden zu dem betreffenden Menschen.
Nun kommen wir da allerdings, meine lieben theosophischen Freunde, in ein Gebiet hinein, das außerordentlich mannigfaltig und verzweigt ist und demgegenüber eigentlich nur allgemeine Gesichtspunkte angegeben werden können. Aber es soll hier nur solches angegeben werden, was wirklich durch hellsichtige Forschung erfahren worden ist. Das kann jedermann nützlich sein, weil er es in gewisser Weise spezialisieren und auf sein eigenes Leben anwenden kann.
Es stellt sich eine merkwürdige Tatsache heraus. Wir alle erleben so um die eigentliche Mitte unseres Lebens herum diejenige Epoche, wo sozusagen die aufsteigende Linie in die absteigende Linie übergeht, wo wir alle Jugendkraft aus uns herausgesetzt haben, einen Höhepunkt überschreiten, und dann geht es wieder in die absteigende Linie über. Dieser Punkt, der so in die Dreißigerjahre hineinfällt, kann nicht als allgemeine Regel angegeben werden, aber es gilt dennoch für jeden von uns. Es ist diejenige Epoche unseres Lebens, in der wir in unserer Welt am meisten auf dem physischen Plane leben. In dieser Beziehung kann man sich einer Täuschung hingeben. Sie werden schon sehen. Ja, was vorhergegangen ist, das waren eigentlich seit der Kindheit immer, wenn es auch schwächer und schwächer geworden ist, Herausholungen von Dingen, die wir in die gegenwärtige Inkarnation mitgebracht haben. Das haben wir herausgesetzt, haben damit unser Leben gezimmert, sodass wir immer noch gezehrt haben von Kräften, die wir mitgebracht haben aus der geistigen Welt heraus. Die sind aufgebraucht, wenn der genannte Zeitpunkt eintritt. Und wenn wir dann wiederum die absteigende Lebenslinie betrachten, dann stellt sich die Sache so, dass wir das, was wir in der Lebensschule gelernt haben, anhäufen und verarbeiten, um das mitzunehmen in die nächste Inkarnation. Das leiten wir hinein in die geistige Welt; früher nahmen wir heraus. Da leben wir am allermeisten in der Welt des physischen Planes, da sind wir am meisten verstrickt in alles dasjenige, was uns von außen beschäftigt. Da haben wir unsere Lehrzeit ja sozusagen durch, da treten wir an das Leben unmittelbar heran, da müssen wir mit unserem Leben fertig werden. Da sind wir sozusagen mit uns selbst beschäftigt, am meisten beschäftigt mit dem Arrangieren der Außenwelt-Umstände für uns und mit dem Sich-in-ein-Verhältnis-Setzen zur Außenwelt. Dasjenige aber, was sich mit der Welt in ein Verhältnis setzt, das [sind] der Verstand und die Willensimpulse, die aus dem Verstande kommen. Was am meisten da aus uns herausquillt, das ist das Fremdeste, dem sich die geistigen Welten verschließen. Wir sind sozusagen am fernsten dem Geistigen in der Mitte des Lebens.
Nun stellt sich für die okkulte Forschung eine merkwürdige Tatsache ein. Wenn man untersucht, wie man da in der mittleren Lebenszeit mit anderen Menschen zusammentritt, Bekanntschaften sucht im Leben, sind es kurioserweise diejenigen Menschen, mit denen man in der vorhergehenden Inkarnation oder einer früheren am Anfang seines Lebens zusammen war, in der allerersten Kindheit. Denn es hat sich herausgestellt, dass man in der Regel, nicht immer, in der Mitte seines Lebens durch irgendwelche äußeren Umstände des Karma diejenigen Menschen trifft, die früher einmal gerade die Eltern waren. Das sind die allerwenigsten Fälle, wo wir etwa mit den Menschen, die früher unsere Eltern waren, in der allerersten Kindheit zusammenkommen, sondern gerade in der Mitte des Lebens. So erscheint das gewiss als eine kuriose Tatsache, aber es ist so. Und erst wenn wir versuchen, nun eine solche Regel am Leben zu probieren, wenn wir unsere Gedanken so einrichten, können wir ungeheuer viel für das Leben gewinnen. Wenn ein Mensch, sagen wir um das dreißigste Jahr herum, in irgendein Verhältnis tritt zu einem anderen Menschen - cs mag sein, dass er sich in ihn verliebt, Freundschaft schließt, in irgendeinen Kampf kommt oder irgendwie in etwas anderes —, so wird uns vieles lichtvoll und erklärlich, wenn wir zunächst probeweise daran denken, dass wir mit diesem Menschen einmal im Verhältnis von Kind und Eltern waren. Umgekehrt stellt sich eine höchst merkwürdige Tatsache heraus. Diejenigen Menschen, mit denen wir gerade in der allerersten Kindheit zusammentrafen, Eltern, Geschwister, Spielkameraden oder sonstige Umgebung der Kindheit, sind in der Regel solche Persönlichkeiten, mit denen wir in der vorhergehenden oder irgendeiner früheren Inkarnation die Beziehungen so entwickelt haben, dass wir damals um das dreißigste Jahr diese oder jene Bekanntschaft geschlossen haben. Es stellt sich sehr häufig heraus, dass diese Menschen als unsere Eltern oder Geschwister auftreten in der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation. Wenn uns so etwas auch kurios vorkommen mag, man versuche es nur einmal auf sein Leben anzuwenden. Man wird sehen, wie lichtvoller das Leben wird, wenn wir die Sache so betrachten. Wenn das einmal nicht stimmt, so macht eine fehlerhafte Probe nicht viel aus. Aber in einsamen Stunden das Leben so betrachten, dass es einen Sinn bekommt, das gibt ungeheuer viel. Nur soll man das Leben nicht so oder so arrangieren wollen, man soll nicht aussuchen diejenigen, die einem gerade gefallen, die man einmal als Eltern gerne gehabt haben würde. Man darf sich nicht durch irgendein Vorurteil die Sache in ein falsches Licht rücken. Sie merken, dass hier eine Gefahr liegt und unzählige Vorurteile auf uns lauern. Aber es ist schon ganz gut, wenn wir uns erziehen, in diesen schwierigen Dingen vorurteilsfrei zu sein.
Sie können die Frage an mich richten: Wie ist es denn nun aber mit dem Leben in der absteigenden Linie? In einer merkwürdigen Weise hat sich herausgestellt, dass wir am Beginne des Lebens bekannt werden mit Menschen, mit denen wir früher bekannt waren in der Mitte des Lebens, während wir jetzt, in der Mitte des Lebens, unsere Bekanntschaft mit ihnen am Anfange des damaligen Lebens wieder erkennen. Wie ist es denn im absteigenden Leben? — Da ist es so, dass wir dann mit Persönlichkeiten zusammengeführt werden, die vielleicht auch mit uns im früheren Leben etwas zu tun gehabt haben, vielleicht aber auch noch nicht. Sie haben dann etwas mit uns zu tun gehabt im früheren Leben, wenn besonders charakteristische Ereignisse vorkommen, wie sie so sehr häufig im Menschenleben auftreten, wenn irgendein entscheidender Lebenspunkt - sagen wir, starke Lebensprüfung durch bittere Enttäuschung - eintritt. Dann kommt das so, dass wir in der zweiten Hälfte des Lebens wieder mit Personen zusammengeführt werden, welche in der einen oder anderen Weise mit uns schon verbunden waren. Dadurch verschieben sich die Verhältnisse, und dadurch wird manches abgetragen, was früher verursacht war.
Das macht die Dinge mannigfaltig und lässt uns erkennen, dass wir nicht allzu schablonenhaft vorgehen sollen. Namentlich aber werden in der zweiten Hälfte des Lebens solche Personen uns in den Weg geführt, bei denen das Karma, das angesponnen ist, in einem Leben sich nicht erledigen lässt. Nehmen wir an, wir haben einem Menschen in einem Leben ein Leid zugefügt. Man könnte sich nun leicht denken, wir werden in einem folgenden Leben mit diesem Menschen wieder zusammengeführt, und der Gescheitere in uns führt uns so zusammen, dass wir ausgleichen können, was wir ihm getan haben. Aber die Lebensverhältnisse müssen nicht immer so sein, dass wir alles ausgleichen können, sondern oft nur einen Teil. Dadurch werden Dinge notwendig, welche die Sache komplizieren und welche es möglich machen, dass solche zurückgebliebenen Reste des Karma in der zweiten Hälfte des Lebens ausgeglichen werden. Da haben wir unser Karma so aufgefasst, dass wir sozusagen unseren Verkehr und unser Zusammensein mit anderen Menschen in das Licht dieses Karma gerückt haben.
Wir können aber auch noch etwas anderes betrachten in unserem Karmaverlaufe, dasjenige, was wir in den zwei öffentlichen Vorträgen genannt haben: das Reifwerden, das Aneignen unserer Lebenserfahrung. Wenn das Wort nicht Unbescheidenheit erweckt, kann es ja gebraucht werden. Wir können in Betracht ziehen, wie wir weiser werden. Wir können an unseren Fehlern weiser werden, und am besten ist es für uns, wenn wir an unseren Fehlern weiser werden, denn wir haben in ein und demselben Leben nicht oft Gelegenheit, die Weisheit anzuwenden: Daher bleibt uns das, was wir an den Fehlern gelernt haben, als Kraft für ein späteres Leben. Aber was wir uns an Weisheit, an Lebenserfahrung aneignen können, was ist denn das eigentlich?
Ich habe gestern schon darauf aufmerksam gemacht: Unsere Vorstellungen können wir nicht aus einem Leben in das andere unmittelbar mitnehmen. Ich habe aufmerksam gemacht, dass selbst Plato die Vorstellungen seiner Seele nicht unmittelbar mitnehmen konnte in die andere Inkarnation. Wir nehmen das mit hinüber, was wie unser Wille, unser Gemüt aussieht, sodass wir eigentlich unsere Vorstellungen geradeso wie unsere Sprache mit jedem Leben neu bekommen. Denn der größte Teil der Vorstellungen lebt ja in der Sprache, sodass wir den größten Teil der Vorstellungen aus der Sprache uns aneignen. Dieses Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod gibt uns Vorstellungen, die eigentlich immer aus dem Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod sind.
Wenn das aber nun so ist, dann müssen wir uns ja sagen, also hängt es eigentlich immer von unserem Karma ab, immer hängt es von den jeweiligen Inkarnationen ab, wie viele Inkarnationen wir auch durchmachen, welche Vorstellungen wir aufnehmen. Dasjenige, was Sie als Vorstellungsweisheit erleben können, nehmen Sie immer von außen auf. Das hängt nun davon ab, wie Sie das Karma hineingestellt hat in Sprache, Volk, Familie. Wir wissen im Grunde genommen von der Welt in unseren Vorstellungen und Gedanken nichts anderes, als was abhängig ist von unserem Karma. Damit ist recht viel gesagt. Damit ist gesagt, dass all das, was wir im Leben wissen können, was wir als Erkenntnis uns aneignen können, etwas ganz Persönliches ist, dass wir nie über die Persönlichkeit hinauskommen durch das, was wir uns im Leben aneignen können. Wir kommen im Leben nie bis zum Gescheiteren, sondern bleiben immer beim Weniger-Gescheiten stehen. Wenn jemand sich einbildet, dass er mehr wissen kann von seinem höheren Selbst aus sich selbst, aus dem, was er sich in der Welt aneignet, dann stellt er sich nach seiner Bequemlichkeit etwas Unrichtiges vor. Es ist nichts Geringeres damit gesagt, als dass wir von unserem höheren Selbst gar nichts wissen durch das, was wir uns im Leben aneignen.
Ja, wie können wir denn überhaupt etwas über unser höheres Selbst wissen, wie kommen wir zu solchem Wissen? Nun, einfach in folgender Weise müssen wir fragen: Was wissen wir denn eigentlich überhaupt? Zunächst das, was wir uns durch Erfahrung angeeignet haben. Das wissen wir, weiter nichts! Und der Mensch, der sich selbst erkennen will und nicht weiß, dass in seiner Seele nur ein Spiegel der äußeren Welt drinnen liegt, kann sich vordeklamieren, dass er durch das Hineingehen in sich sein höheres Selbst finden kann. Wohl wird er etwas finden, aber nichts anderes ist es, als was von außen hereingekommen ist. Auf diesem billigen Wege der Bequemlichkeit geht es nicht. Wir müssen uns fragen über dasjenige, was in den anderen Welten vorkommt, in denen unser höheres Selbst auch ist, und da gibt es nichts anderes, als was uns erzählt wird, was uns gesagt wird über die verschiedenen Verkörperungen der Erde, über dasjenige überhaupt, worüber Theosophie spricht. Wie man eine Kindesseele in Bezug auf das äußere Leben durchforscht, wenn man frägt, was hat das Kind um sich herum, so müssen wir fragen, was hat das höhere Selbst um sich? Von den Welten aber, in denen unser höheres Selbst ist, erfahren wir durch Theosophie, durch das, was uns erzählt wurde vom Saturn und von allen seinen Geheimnissen, vom Monde, von der Entwicklung der Erde, von Reinkarnation und Karma, vom Devachan und Kamaloka und so weiter. Dadurch erfahren wir einzig und allein etwas über unser höheres Selbst, über dasjenige Selbst, das wir über den physischen Plan hinaus haben. Und wer diesen Geheimnissen nicht folgen will, dem muss gesagt werden: Du bist eigentlich ein rechtes Schmeichelkätzchen zu dir selbst. - Denn es ist so, dass es sich so recht sehr dieser Seele einschmeichelt: Schau nur in dich, da findest du den Gottmenschen. - Jawohl, nichts weiter als was er von außen erlebt und was er innen abgelagert hat! Den Gottmenschen finden wir nur, wenn wir das in uns aufsuchen, was sich von außerhalb dieser Welt in ihr spiegelt, sodass alles, was unter Umständen uns unbequem zu lernen sein kann, nichts anderes ist als Selbsterkenntnis. Und wahre Theosophie ist in Wirklichkeit wahre Selbsterkenntnis! Sodass wir, wenn wir Theosophie empfangen, sagen können, wir nehmen sie hin als dasjenige, was uns aufklärt gerade über unser Selbst. Denn wo ist eigentlich dieses Selbst? Ist es innerhalb unserer Haut? Nein, es ist ausgegossen in der ganzen Welt, und was in der Welt ist, ist mit unserem Selbst verbunden, und auch was in der Welt war, ist mit unserem Selbst verbunden, und nur wenn wir die Welt kennenlernen, lernen wir das Selbst kennen.
So ist es mit diesen scheinbaren Theorien, dass sie nichts anderes sind als Wege zur Selbsterkenntnis. Derjenige, der durch das Hineinstarren in sein Inneres das Selbst finden will, der sagt sich: Du musst gut sein, selbstlos sein! Ja, schön. Nur kann man bemerken, dass der immer egoistischer wird. Dagegen führt das Sich-Abplagen mit den großen Geheimnissen des Daseins, das Sich-Herausreißen aus diesem sich selbst so sehr schmeichelnden, persönlichen Selbst, das Aufgehen in dem, was in den höheren Welten ist und aus ihnen erkannt werden kann, zur wahren Selbsterkenntnis. Indem wir über Saturn, Sonne, Mond nachdenken, verlieren wir uns in Weltgedanken. «In deinem Denken leben Weltgedanken», sagt sich die theosophisch denkende Seele, aber sie fügt hinzu: «Verliere dich in Weltgedanken.» Die aus der Theosophie schöpfende Seele sagt sich: «In deinem Fühlen weben Weltenkräfte.» Aber sie sagt gleich: «Erlebe dich durch Weltenkräfte!» Nicht in den schmeichelnden Weltenkräften, nicht der, der das Auge zumacht und sich vorsagt: Ich will ein guter Mensch sein - sondern derjenige, der das Auge aufmacht, der auch das Geistesauge aufmacht und sieht, wie draußen Weltenkräfte wirken und walten, und gewahr wird, wie er in diesen Weltenkräften eingebettet ist, der erlebt sie! Ebenso sagt sich die Seele, die Stärke schöpft aus der Theosophie: «In deinem Willen wirken Weltenwesen», und gleich fügt sie hinzu: «Erschaffe dich aus Willenswesen!» Und das gelingt, wenn man Selbsterkenntnis so auffasst. Dann gelingt es, dass man sich umschafft aus Weltenwesen. Scheinbar ist es trocken und abstrakt, in Wahrheit ist es aber nicht bloß Theorie, sondern etwas, was wie ein Samenkorn, das wir in die Erde stecken, lebt und wächst, Kräfte schießt nach allen Seiten und zur Pflanze, zum Baume wird. So ist es. Mit den Gefühlen, die wir aufnehmen in der Geheimwissenschaft, machen wir uns fähig, uns umzuschaffen: «Erschaffe dich aus Willenswesen!» So wird Theosophie zum Lebenselixier. Dann erweitern wir unseren Blick über Geisteswelten, dann werden wir die Kräfte saugen aus Geisteswelten, dann werden wir die Kräfte, die wir gewinnen, in uns hineinführen, und dann erkennen wir uns in unseren Tiefen. Erst wenn wir die Welterkenntnis hineintragen in uns, erfassen wir uns und dringen allmählich vor von dem Weniger-Gescheiten, dem, der abgetrennt ist vom Hüter der Schwelle, zum Gescheiteren und durch all das hindurch, was dem Menschen, der noch nicht stark sein will, sich verbirgt, was er aber gerade gewinnt durch die Theosophic.
Basic attitude toward human karma
My dear Theosophical friends!
It is not without significance that at the end of the two public lectures I emphasized more and more strongly that Theosophy should not be a theory for human beings, not a mere science, not something that is called knowledge in the ordinary sense, but something that can be transformed in our soul from mere knowledge, from mere theory, into immediate life, into an elixir of life. So that through Theosophy we not only know something, but above all, forces flow to us through it that help us not only in the ordinary life we lead here in physical existence, but in the whole life we lead both in physical existence and in the disembodied state between death and a new birth. The more we feel that theosophy provides us with strengthening forces and life-promoting elements, the better we understand theosophy. Now, such a statement may prompt some people to ask: If theosophy is supposed to be something that strengthens our life and gives us power, why do we have to acquire all kinds of theoretical knowledge in theosophy? Why are we plagued, so to speak, in our branch life with all kinds of knowledge about the planetary incarnations that preceded our Earth? Why do we have to learn about things that happened in distant times? Why must we familiarize ourselves with the more intimate, subtle laws of reincarnation, karma, and so on? Some might believe that this is just another kind of science, like the sciences offered to us in our outer life in the physical world today.
Now, my dear theosophical friends, when it comes to this question, which has just been touched upon here as a question that, so to speak, is on everyone's lips, we must switch off all comforts of life. We must carefully examine ourselves to see whether, in asking this question, we are not already mixing into it something of the ordinary routine of life, which — forgive me, my dear theosophical friends — can be expressed all too well in the words: Man is actually reluctant to learn anything, to acquire anything spiritually. It is inconvenient for him. We must ask ourselves whether some of this feeling of inconvenience is not creeping into this question. For we actually assume, or at least believe to some extent, that the highest thing that theosophy has to offer us can be attained by a more comfortable path than the one shown to us, for example, in the literature we cultivate. It is also often emphasized in a somewhat frivolous manner that human beings only need to know themselves, need to try to become good people, and then they are already sufficiently theosophical. Yes, my dear theosophical friends, this gives us a deeper insight that being a good person is one of the most difficult things in the world, and that nothing requires as much preparation as this ideal of being a good person.
And as for the question of self-knowledge, it is not really one that can be answered in a flash, as many people would like to believe. Today, therefore, we want to take a closer look at some of the questions that are often expressed in the words just spoken. We want to consider to what extent theosophy, even if only apparently, presents itself to us as a teaching, a science, even though it nevertheless yields, in the most eminent sense, precisely what can be called self-knowledge and what must be called striving to become a good person. However, it is above all a matter of considering from different points of view how theosophy can flow into life.
Take a specific case from the great questions of life. I do not mean those that concern scientific research, but those that life brings every day, questions that each of us certainly knows: the question of the comfort we can gain in life when we suffer in some way, when we cannot find complete satisfaction in life in this or that way. In other words, let us ask ourselves: to what extent can theosophy, for example, offer comfort to people who are sad when they need comfort? Of course, each individual must apply what can be said about such a question to their own particular case. When speaking to many people, one can only speak in general terms.
Why do we need comfort in life? Because we can be sad about this or that, because we can suffer, because we can experience pain. Now it is natural that human beings feel toward pain as if something within them must be so opposed to this pain that they say to themselves: Why must I endure pain, why does this pain afflict me? Couldn't life pass me by without any pain, so that I could be content? Anyone who asks this question can only find an answer if they gain a real understanding of the nature of our human karma, of human destiny. Why do we suffer in the world? This refers to both external suffering and internal suffering, which arises from our inner organization, from the fact that we are not always enough for ourselves, that we cannot always find our way clearly. That is what is meant here. Why do things that leave us unsatisfied happen to us in life?
If we accept the laws of karma, we will see that our suffering is based on something similar to what can be illustrated in ordinary life between birth and death with the following example, which I have often mentioned before: Let us assume that someone has lived off his father's money until the age of eighteen, living a life of pleasure and joy, never missing out on anything. Then his father loses his fortune and goes bankrupt. The boy has to learn a trade, he has to work hard. Life treats him with pain and deprivation. We will find it understandable that this young person is not very sympathetic to the pain he has to go through. Let us assume that the person in question reaches the age of fifty. Because he had to learn something back then, he has become a decent person. He is now firmly established in life and can say to himself: The way I judged my suffering and pain at the time was understandable at that moment; but now I have to think differently about it, now I have to say that the pain could not have affected me if I had already possessed all the perfections, even if only the limited perfections of an eighteen-year-old. But if the pain had not affected me, I would have remained a good-for-nothing. The pain was what transformed the imperfections into perfection. It is thanks to this pain that I am now a different person than I was forty years ago. What actually came together in me at that time? My imperfection at that time and my pain came together. And my imperfection sought out my pain, as it were, so that it could be dispelled, so that it could be transformed into perfection.
This observation can already be made from a trivial view of life between birth and death. If we look at life as a whole and truly face our karma in the way shown in yesterday's lecture, we will always come to the conclusion that all the pain that befalls us, all the suffering that is placed in our path, is of such a nature that it is sought by our imperfections. And indeed, the vast majority of pain and suffering are sought by those imperfections that we have brought with us from previous incarnations. And because these imperfections are within us, someone more intelligent than we are seeks the path to pain and suffering. For it is a golden rule of life, my dear theosophical friends, that we all, as human beings, always carry within us someone wiser than ourselves, someone much wiser. For the one to whom we say “I” in ordinary life is less wise. This “less wise” one, if left to his own devices, would either seek pain or, if pleasure, would follow the path to pleasure. The “wiser” is the one who rests in the depths of our subconscious, to whom our ordinary consciousness does not extend. He veils our view of easy pleasure and ignites in us a magical power that leads us to pain without our knowing it. But what does it mean, without our knowing it? It means that the wiser gains greater power over the less wise, and the wiser always acts within us in such a way that he leads our imperfections to our pain and makes us suffer, because with every inner and outer suffering we eradicate an imperfection and make ourselves more perfect.
Such statements can be understood in theory, but they do not accomplish much. However, much is accomplished when one seeks out certain moments of celebration in life in which one is willing to make something like this statement a true purpose in life with all one's energy. In everyday life, with its work, its hustle and bustle, its duties, this is not always possible; we cannot always renounce the less intelligent person that we happen to be. But if we choose a certain moment of celebration in our lives—and such moments of celebration may be brief—we can say to ourselves: I will disregard everything that is going on outside and where I have been involved, I will look at my sufferings in such a way that I feel how the wiser part of me has been drawn to them with magical power, and that I have imposed certain pains on myself without which I would not have overcome certain imperfections. Then we will be overcome by a feeling of blissful wisdom, which says, so to speak: Even where the world seems filled with suffering, it is full of wisdom! Something like this is then an achievement of theosophy for life. We may forget something like this for our outer life. But if we do not forget it and practice it often and often, then we will see that we have planted something like a seed in our soul, and that then many things that are cloudy feelings within us, many things that are weak moods, will be transformed into a cheerful attitude toward life, into strength, into a feeling of power. And then we will have such festive moments in life that we will emerge from them as more harmonious souls and stronger human beings.
And then we may well – but the theosophist should make it a rule that he should only seek these other moments after he has made the first moments of consolation effective in his soul during times of suffering – then we may well add something else: glances at our joys, glances at what we can experience as pleasure in life. Those who face fate with an open mind, as if they had wanted their pain, will experience something very peculiar when they consider their pleasure and joy. They cannot cope with it as well as they can with their suffering. For it is easy for us—and those who do not believe this may try to put themselves in our place—to find consolation in suffering. But it is difficult to come to terms with pleasure and joy. No matter how much one tries to put oneself in the mood of having wanted one's suffering, when one applies this to pleasure and joy, one cannot help but feel ashamed. One will feel a genuine sense of shame, and the only way to overcome this sense of shame is to say to oneself: No, I did not really give myself my pleasure and joy through my karma! This is the only cure, because otherwise the shame can become so strong that it destroys you in your soul. The only cure is not to blame the more foolish part of yourself for being driven to pleasure. This thought shows that you are right, because the feeling of shame disappears. The fact is that pleasure and joy in life come to us as something that is given to us by the wise guidance of the world without any effort on our part, something we must accept as a gift and always recognize as being destined to integrate us into the whole. Pleasure and joy should affect us in the festive moments of life, in the lonely hours, in such a way that we experience them as grace, as the grace of the universal forces of the world that want to accept us, that want to embed us in themselves, as it were.
So while we come to ourselves through our pain and suffering, making ourselves more complete, we develop through our pleasure and joy—but only if we regard them as grace—that feeling which can only be called a feeling of blissful rest in the divine powers and forces of the world. And there is only one justified mood: gratitude toward pleasure and joy. And no one can cope with pleasure and joy who, in lonely hours of self-knowledge, attributes pleasure and joy to their karma. If they attribute it to their karma, they surrender to the error that weakens and paralyzes the spiritual in us. Every thought that a pleasure or joy is deserved weakens and paralyzes us. This seems harsh, because many people, if they attribute their pain to themselves as self-inflicted and due to their individuality, would like to be their own masters of their pleasure and joy as well. But even a casual glance at life can teach us that pleasure and joy have something destructive about them. This destructive power of pleasure and joy is hardly described more vividly than in Faust, where the paralysing effect of pleasure and joy in human life is illustrated with the words: “So I stagger from desire to pleasure. And in pleasure I languish for desire.” And anyone who thinks just a little about the influence of pleasure when taken personally will see that pleasure has something that leads us into a kind of frenzy of life and destroys our self.
This is not meant to be a sermon against lust, nor is it a call for us to indulge in self-torture, perhaps pinching ourselves with red-hot tongs or the like. That is not what it is. Recognizing something in the right way does not mean that one should flee from it. It is not “flee” that is said, but rather that we should calmly accept it where it comes to us. But we should develop the attitude that we experience it as a blessing, and the more, the better, because the more we immerse ourselves in the divine. So these words are not meant to preach asceticism, but to awaken the right attitude toward pleasure and joy.
But anyone who would say: Pleasure and joy have something paralyzing and destructive about them, therefore I flee from pleasure and joy—the ideal of false asceticism, of self-torment—would flee from the grace bestowed upon him by the gods. And basically, the constant rebellion against the gods is the self-torment of ascetics, monks, and nuns. It is fitting that we feel pain as something that comes to us through our karma, and that we feel joy as a grace that the divine can condescend to us. Let pleasure and joy be a sign of how close God has drawn us to himself, and let suffering and pain be a sign of how far we are from what we must achieve as rational human beings. This is the basic attitude toward karma, and without this basic attitude we cannot truly progress in life. We must feel that behind the good and beautiful things that the world gives us, there are the powers that are spoken of in the Bible: they saw that the world was beautiful and good. But insofar as we can feel suffering and pain, we must acknowledge what human beings have made of the world, which was initially good, in the course of incarnations, and what they must improve by training themselves to endure these pains energetically.
What has been described is only a twofold way of accepting our karma. Our karma consists, in a certain sense, of suffering and joy. We approach our karma with the right will, as if we wanted it to be so, if we are able to face suffering and joy in the right way. But we can take this even further. And today's and tomorrow's reflections will show us how we can face karma.
Our karma does not merely show us what is painful and joyful in relation to our life, but in the course of life we encounter many things that we must see as karmic effects, for example, many people with whom we make fleeting acquaintances, people who are close to us for a long time in our life in one relationship or another, whether as relatives or friends. We meet people who cause us suffering or who, through their interaction with us, create obstacles for us, or we meet people who help us or whom we can help. In short, manifold relationships arise. We must also face this fact of life if what was said the day before yesterday about accepting karma is to bear fruit in the theosophical sense, namely that we have in a certain way willed the more unsuccessful parts of ourselves, that we have willed a person who has apparently crossed our path, that we have willed precisely the person with whom we are dealing with this or that. What can this more intelligent part of us want when it wants to meet this or that person? What can it base this on? There is no other reasonable explanation than to say: we want to meet them because we have met them before and because this was already in the making. It does not have to have been in a previous life; it could have been much earlier. Because we had this or that to do with this person in past lives, because we were guilty in this or that way, this wiser part of us brings us together with him. It is a magical force that leads us to the person in question.
Now, however, my dear theosophical friends, we are entering a field that is extremely diverse and ramified, and in which only general points of view can really be indicated. But we will only mention here what has actually been learned through clairvoyant research. This can be useful to everyone, because in a certain way it can be specialized and applied to one's own life.
A curious fact emerges. Around the middle of our lives, we all experience a period when, so to speak, the ascending line turns into a descending line, when we have exhausted all our youthful energy, passed a peak, and then begin to descend again. This point, which falls around the age of thirty, cannot be stated as a general rule, but it nevertheless applies to each of us. It is the period of our lives when we live most on the physical plane in our world. In this respect, one can succumb to a delusion. You will see. Yes, what preceded this, since childhood, even if it became weaker and weaker, was actually the extraction of things that we brought with us into our present incarnation. We brought these things out and used them to build our lives so that we could continue to draw on the forces we brought with us from the spiritual world. These are used up when the appointed time comes. And when we then look at the descending lifeline, we see that we accumulate and process what we have learned in the school of life in order to take it with us into the next incarnation. We transfer this into the spiritual world; in the past, we took it out. There we live most of our lives in the physical plane, where we are most entangled in everything that concerns us from the outside. There we have completed our apprenticeship, so to speak, we approach life directly, we have to cope with our lives. There we are, so to speak, preoccupied with ourselves, mostly busy arranging the circumstances of the outer world for ourselves and relating ourselves to the outer world. But what relates itself to the world is the intellect and the impulses of the will that come from the intellect. What springs forth most from us is the most foreign thing to the spiritual worlds. We are, so to speak, furthest from the spiritual in the middle of life.
Now a curious fact arises for occult research. When one investigates how one encounters other people in middle life, how one seeks acquaintances in life, it is curiously those people with whom one was together in the previous incarnation or in an earlier one at the beginning of one's life, in early childhood. For it has been found that, as a rule, though not always, in the middle of life, through some external circumstances of karma, we meet those people who were once our parents. These are the very few cases where we meet the people who were our parents in our earliest childhood, but rather in the middle of our lives. This certainly seems like a curious fact, but it is so. And only when we try to apply such a rule in life, when we arrange our thoughts in this way, can we gain an enormous amount for our lives. When a person, say around the age of thirty, enters into a relationship with another person—it may be that they fall in love, become friends, get into a fight, or something else—many things become clear and understandable if we first try to think of ourselves as having once been in a child-parent relationship with that person. Conversely, a highly curious fact emerges. The people we meet in our earliest childhood—parents, siblings, playmates, or other childhood influences—are usually personalities with whom we developed relationships in a previous or earlier incarnation, so that we made this or that acquaintance around the age of thirty. It very often turns out that these people appear as our parents or siblings in our present incarnation. If this seems strange to us, just try applying it to your own life. You will see how much more light-filled life becomes when we look at it this way. If this is not true, one false trial does not matter much. But to view life in this way during lonely hours, so that it makes sense, is immensely valuable. However, one should not try to arrange life in this way, one should not choose those who happen to please us, whom we would have liked to have as parents. We must not allow any prejudices to cast things in a false light. You realize that there is a danger here and that countless prejudices lie in wait for us. But it is quite good if we educate ourselves to be free of prejudice in these difficult matters.
You may ask me: But what about life in the descending line? In a strange way, it turns out that at the beginning of life we become acquainted with people we knew earlier in the middle of life, while now, in the middle of life, we recognize our acquaintance with them at the beginning of that life. How is it in the descending life? — It is such that we are then brought together with personalities who may have had something to do with us in a previous life, but perhaps not yet. They had something to do with us in a previous life if particularly characteristic events occur, as so often happen in human life when some decisive point in life occurs — let us say, a severe test of life through bitter disappointment. Then it happens that in the second half of life we are brought together again with people who were already connected to us in one way or another. This shifts the relationships, and as a result, some of what was caused in the past is removed.
This makes things varied and allows us to recognize that we should not proceed in a overly formulaic manner. In particular, however, in the second half of life, we are led to encounter people with whom we have karma that cannot be resolved in one lifetime. Let us assume that we have caused suffering to a person in one life. One might easily think that we will be reunited with this person in a subsequent life, and that the wiser part of ourselves will bring us together so that we can make up for what we have done to them. But life circumstances are not always such that we can make up for everything, but often only for part of it. This makes things necessary that complicate matters and make it possible for such remnants of karma to be balanced out in the second half of life. We have understood our karma in such a way that we have, so to speak, placed our interactions and our togetherness with other people in the light of this karma.
However, we can also consider something else in the course of our karma, something we mentioned in the two public lectures: maturing, acquiring life experience. If the word does not sound immodest, it can be used. We can consider how we become wiser. We can become wiser through our mistakes, and it is best for us to become wiser through our mistakes, because we do not often have the opportunity to apply wisdom in one and the same life. Therefore, what we have learned from our mistakes remains with us as strength for a later life. But what is it that we can acquire in terms of wisdom and life experience?
I already pointed this out yesterday: we cannot take our ideas directly from one life to another. I pointed out that even Plato could not take the ideas of his soul directly with him into another incarnation. We take with us what appears to be our will, our mind, so that we actually acquire our ideas anew with each life, just like our language. For the greater part of our ideas lives in language, so that we acquire most of our ideas from language. This life between birth and death gives us ideas that are actually always from the life between birth and death.
But if that is the case, then we must say to ourselves that it always depends on our karma, it always depends on the respective incarnations, no matter how many incarnations we go through, which ideas we take in. What you can experience as conceptual wisdom, you always take in from outside. That now depends on how karma has placed it in language, people, family. Basically, we know nothing about the world in our ideas and thoughts other than what depends on our karma. That says quite a lot. It means that everything we can know in life, everything we can acquire as knowledge, is something entirely personal, that we can never transcend our personality through what we acquire in life. We never reach the point of being more intelligent in life, but always remain less intelligent. If someone imagines that they can know more about their higher self from within themselves, from what they acquire in the world, then they are imagining something incorrect for their own convenience. This means nothing less than that we know nothing about our higher self through what we acquire in life.
Yes, how can we know anything at all about our higher self, how do we come to such knowledge? Well, we simply have to ask ourselves: What do we actually know? First of all, what we have acquired through experience. That is what we know, nothing more! And the person who wants to know himself and does not know that his soul is only a mirror of the external world can declare that he can find his higher self by going within himself. He will certainly find something, but it will be nothing other than what has come in from outside. This cheap path of convenience will not work. We must ask ourselves about what happens in the other worlds where our higher self also exists, and there is nothing else than what we are told, what we are told about the various incarnations of the Earth, about everything that theosophy speaks of. Just as one explores a child's soul in relation to its outer life by asking what the child has around it, so we must ask what the higher self has around it. But we learn about the worlds in which our higher self is through theosophy, through what we have been told about Saturn and all its secrets, about the moon, about the development of the earth, about reincarnation and karma, about Devachan and Kamaloka, and so on. Through this we learn something about our higher self, about the self that we have beyond the physical plane. And to those who do not want to follow these secrets, it must be said: You are actually flattering yourself. For it is true that this flatters the soul very much: Look only within yourself, there you will find the God-man. Yes, nothing more than what he experiences from outside and what he has stored inside! We can only find the God-man when we seek within ourselves that which is reflected in us from outside this world, so that everything that may be uncomfortable for us to learn is nothing other than self-knowledge. And true theosophy is, in reality, true self-knowledge! So that when we receive theosophy, we can say that we accept it as that which enlightens us about our very self. For where is this self? Is it within our skin? No, it is poured out into the whole world, and what is in the world is connected with our self, and also what was in the world is connected with our self, and only when we get to know the world do we get to know the self.
So it is with these apparent theories, that they are nothing more than paths to self-knowledge. The person who wants to find the self by staring into his inner self says to himself: You must be good, be selfless! Yes, fine. But one notices that they become increasingly selfish. On the other hand, struggling with the great mysteries of existence, tearing oneself away from this self that flatters oneself so much, losing oneself in what is in the higher worlds and can be recognized from them, leads to true self-knowledge. By thinking about Saturn, the sun, and the moon, we lose ourselves in world thoughts. “World thoughts live in your thinking,” says the theosophically minded soul, but it adds: “Lose yourself in world thoughts.” The soul that draws from theosophy says to itself: “World forces weave in your feelings.” But it immediately adds: “Experience yourself through world forces!” Not in the flattering world forces, not the one who closes his eyes and tells himself: I want to be a good person — but the one who opens his eyes, who also opens his spiritual eyes and sees how world forces work and reign outside, and becomes aware of how he is embedded in these world forces, he experiences them! Likewise, the soul that draws strength from theosophy says to itself: “World beings are at work in your will,” and immediately adds: “Create yourself out of will beings!” And this succeeds if one understands self-knowledge in this way. Then it is possible to transform oneself out of world beings. It seems dry and abstract, but in reality it is not mere theory, but something that, like a seed we plant in the earth, lives and grows, shoots forth forces in all directions and becomes a plant, a tree. That is how it is. With the feelings we absorb in the occult science, we enable ourselves to transform ourselves: “Create yourself out of will beings!” In this way, theosophy becomes the elixir of life. Then we expand our view beyond the spiritual worlds, then we draw the forces from the spiritual worlds, then we bring the forces we gain into ourselves, and then we recognize ourselves in our depths. Only when we carry the knowledge of the world within us do we comprehend ourselves and gradually advance from the less intelligent, that which is separated from the guardian of the threshold, to the more intelligent, and through all that is hidden from the human being who does not yet want to be strong, but which he is gaining through theosophy.