Reincarnation and Karma
GA 34
II. How Karma Works
[ 1 ] Sleep has often been called the younger brother of death. This simile illustrates the paths of the human spirit more exactly than a superficial observation might feel inclined to assume. For it gives us an idea of the way in which the most manifold incarnations passed through by this human spirit are interrelated. In the first chapter of this book, Reincarnation and Karma, Concepts Compelled by the Modern Scientific Point of View, it has been shown that the present natural-scientific mode of thought, if it but understands itself properly, leads to the ancient teaching of the evolution of the eternal human spirit through many lives. This knowledge is necessarily followed by the question: how are these manifold lives interrelated? In what sense is the life of a human being the effect of his former incarnations, and how does it become the cause of the later incarnations? The picture of sleep presents an image of the relation of cause and effect in this field.1I can imagine that there are many people who consider themselves standing at the pinnacle of knowledge and who consider the present exposition “completely unscientific.” I can understand these people, for I know that this objection forces itself upon anyone who has no experience in the domain of the supersensible and who, at the same time, lacks the necessary restraint and modesty to admit that he still might learn something. Such people, however, should at least refrain from stating that the processes described here “contradict the intellect” and “cannot be proved by the intellect.” The intellect cannot do anything but combine and systematize facts. Facts can be experienced, but not be “proved by the intellect.” With the intellect, you cannot prove a whale. Either you must have seen it yourself, or you must let somebody describe it who has seen one. It is the same with the supersensible facts. If we have not yet attained to the point where we can see them ourselves, then we must permit them to be described to us. I can assure everyone that the supersensible facts which I describe in the subsequent pages are just as “factual” for the one whose higher senses are opened, as is the whale. I arise in the morning. My continuous activity was interrupted during the night. I cannot resume this activity arbitrarily if order and connection are to govern my life. What I have done yesterday constitutes the conditions for my actions of today. I must make a connection with the result of my activities of yesterday. It is true in the fullest sense of the word that my deeds of yesterday are my destiny of today. I myself have shaped the causes to which I must add the effects. And I encounter these causes after having withdrawn from them for a short time. They belong to me, although I was separated from them for some time.
[ 2 ] The effects of my experiences of yesterday belong to me in still another sense. I myself have been changed by them. Let us suppose that I have undertaken something in which I succeeded only partially. I have pondered on the reason for this partial failure. If I have again to carry out a similar task, I avoid the mistakes I have recognized. That is, I have acquired a new faculty. Thereby my experiences of yesterday have become the causes of my faculties of today. My past remains united with me; it lives on in my present; and it will follow me into my future. Through my past, I have created for myself the position in which I find myself at present. And the meaning of life demands that I remain united with this position. Would it not be senseless if, under normal conditions, I should not move into a house I had caused to be built for myself?
[ 3 ] If the effects of my deeds of yesterday were not to be my destiny of today, I should not have to wake up today, but I should have to be created anew, out of the nothing. And the human spirit would have to be newly created, out of the nothing, if the results of its former lives were not to remain linked to its later lives. Indeed, the human being cannot live in any other position but the one which has been created through his previous life. He can do this no more than can certain animals, which have lost their power of sight as a result of their migration to the caves of Kentucky, live anywhere else but in these caves. They have, through their deed, through migration, created for themselves the conditions for their later existence. A being which has once been active is henceforth no longer isolated in the world; it has inserted itself into its deeds. And its future development is connected with what arises from the deeds. This connection of a being with the results of its deeds is the law of karma which rules the whole world. Activity that has become destiny is karma.
[ 4 ] And sleep is a good picture of death for the reason that the human being, during sleep, is actually withdrawn from the field of action upon which destiny awaits him. While we sleep, the events on this field of action run their course. For a time, we have no influence upon this course. Nevertheless, we find again the effects of our actions, and we must link up with them. In reality, our personality every morning incarnates anew in our world of deeds. What was separated from us during the night, envelops us, as it were, during the day.
[ 5 ] It is the same with the deeds of our former incarnations. Their results are embodied in the world in which we were incarnated. Yet they belong to us just as the life in the caves belongs to the animals which, through this life, have lost the power of sight. Just as these animals can only live if they find again the surroundings to which they have adapted themselves, so the human spirit is only able to live in those surroundings which, through his deeds, he has created for himself and are suited to him.
[ 6 ] Every new morning the human body is ensouled anew, as it were. Natural science admits that this involves a process which it cannot grasp if it employs merely the laws it has gained in the physical world. Consider what the natural scientist Du Bois-Reymond says about this in his address, Die Grenze des Naturerkennens (The Limits of the Cognition of Nature): “If a brain, for some reason unconscious, as for instance in dreamless sleep, were to be viewed scientifically”—(Du Bois-Reymond says “astronomically”)—“it would hold no longer any secrets, and if we were to add to this the natural-scientific knowledge of the rest of the body, there would be a complete deciphering of the entire human machine with its breathing, its heartbeat, its metabolism, its warmth, and so forth, right up to the nature of matter and force. The dreamless sleeper is comprehensible to the same degree that the world is comprehensible before consciousness appeared. But just as the world became doubly incomprehensible with the first stirring of consciousness, so the sleeper becomes incomprehensible with the first dream picture that arises in him.” This cannot be otherwise. For, what the scientist describes here as the dreamless sleeper is that part of the human being which alone is subject to physical laws. The moment, however, it appears again permeated by the soul, it obeys the laws of the soul-life. During sleep, the human body obeys the physical laws: the moment the human being wakes up, the light of intelligent action flashes forth, like a spark, into purely physical existence. We speak entirely in the sense of the scientist Du Bois-Reymond when we state: the sleeping body may be investigated in all its aspects, yet we shall not be able to find the soul in it. But this soul continues the course of its rational deeds at the point where this was interrupted by sleep.—Thus the human being, also in this regard, belongs to two worlds. In one world he lives his bodily life which may be observed by means of physical laws;in the other he lives as a spiritual-rational being, and about this life we are able to learn nothing by means of physical laws. If we wish to study the bodily life, we have to hold to the physical laws of natural science; but if we wish to grasp the spiritual life, we have to acquaint ourselves with the laws of rational action, such, for instance, as logic, jurisprudence, economics, aesthetics, and so forth.
[ 7 ] The sleeping human body, subject only to physical laws, can never accomplish anything in the realm of the laws of reason. But the human spirit carries these laws of reason into the physical world. And just as much as he has carried into it will he find again when, after an interruption, he resumes the thread of his activity.
[ 8 ] Let us hold on to the picture of sleep. If life is not to be meaningless, the personality has to link up today with its deeds of yesterday. It could not do so did it not feel itself joined to these deeds. I should be unable to pick up today the result of my activity of yesterday, had there not remained within myself something of this activity. If I had today forgotten everything that I have experienced yesterday, I should be a new human being, unable to link up with anything. It is my memory which enables me to link up with my deeds of yesterday.—This memory binds me to the effects of my action. That which, in the real sense, belongs to my life of reason,—logic, for instance,—is today the same it was yesterday. This is applicable also to that which did not enter my field of vision yesterday, indeed, which never entered it. My memory connects my logical action of today with my logical action of yesterday. If matters depended merely upon logic, we certainly might start a new life every morning. But memory retains what binds us to our destiny.
[ 9 ] Thus I really find myself in the morning as a threefold being. I find my body again which during my sleep has obeyed its merely physical laws. I find again my own self, my human spirit, which is today the same it was yesterday, and which is today endowed with the gift of rational action with which it was endowed yesterday. And I find—preserved by memory—everything that my yesterday, that my entire past has made of me.—
[ 10 ] And this affords us at the same time a picture of the threefold being of man. In every new incarnation the human being finds himself in a physical organism which is subject to the laws of external nature. And in every incarnation he is the same human spirit. As such he is the Eternal within the manifold incarnations. Body and Spirit confront one another. Between these two there must lie something just as memory lies between my deeds of yesterday and those of today. And this something is the soul. It preserves the effects of my deeds from former lives and brings it about that the spirit, in a new incarnation, appears in the form which previous earth lives have given it. In this way, body, soul, and spirit are interrelated. The spirit is eternal; birth and death rule in the body according to the laws of the physical world; both are brought together again and again by the soul as it fashions our destiny out of our deeds. (Each of the above-mentioned principles: body, soul, and spirit, in turn consists of three members. Thus the human being appears to be formed of nine members. The body consists of: (1) the actual body, (2) the life-body, (3) the sentient-body. The soul consists of: (4) the sentient-soul, (5) the intellectual-soul, (6) the consciousness-soul. The spirit consists of: (7) spirit-self, (8) life-spirit, (9) spirit-man. In the incarnated human being, 3 and 4, and 6 and 7 unite, flowing into one another. Through this fact the nine members appear to have contracted into seven members.)
[ 11 ] In regard to the comparison of the soul with memory we are also in a position to refer to modern natural science. The scientist Ewald Hering published a treatise in 1870 which bears the title: Ueber das Gedaechtnis als eine allgemeine Funktion der organisierten Materie (Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter). Ernst Haeckel agrees with Hering's point of view. He states the following in his treatise: Ueber die Wellenzeugung der Lebensteilchen (The Wave Generation of Living Particles): “Profound reflection must bring the conviction that without the assumption of an unconscious memory of living matter the most important life functions are utterly inexplicable. The faculty of forming ideas and concepts, of thinking and consciousness, of practice and habit, of nutrition and reproduction rests upon the function of the unconscious memory, the activity of which is much more significant than that of conscious memory. Hering is right in stating that it is memory to which we owe nearly everything that we are and have.” And now Haeckel tries to trace back the processes of heredity within living creatures to this unconscious memory. The fact that the daughter-being resembles the mother-being, that the former inherits the qualities of the latter, is thus supposed to be due to the unconscious memory of the living, which in the course of reproduction retains the memory of the preceding forms.—It is not a question here of investigating how much of the presentations of Hering and Haeckel are scientifically tenable; for our purposes it suffices to draw attention to the fact that the natural scientist is compelled to assume an entity which he considers similar to memory; he is compelled to do so if he goes beyond birth and death, and presumes something that endures beyond death. He quite naturally seizes upon a supersensible force in the realm where the laws of physical nature do not suffice.
[ 2 ] We must, however, realize that we are dealing here merely with a comparison, with a picture, when we speak of memory. We must not believe that by soul we understand something that is equivalent to conscious memory. Even in ordinary life it is not always conscious memory that is active when we make use of the experiences of the past. We bear within us the fruits of these experiences even if we do not always consciously remember what we have experienced. Who can remember all the details of his learning to read and write? Moreover, who was ever conscious of all those details? Habit, for instance, is a kind of unconscious memory.—By means of this comparison with memory we merely wish to point to the soul which inserts itself between body and spirit and constitutes the mediator between the Eternal and that which, as the Physical, is inwoven into the course of birth and death.
[ 13 ] The spirit that reincarnates thus finds within the physical world the results of its deeds as its destiny; and the soul that is bound to it, mediates the spirit's linking up with this destiny. Now we may ask: how can the spirit find the results of its deeds, since, on reincarnating, it is certainly placed in a world completely different from the one in which it existed previously? This question is based upon a very externalized conception of the web of destiny. If I transfer my residence from Europe to America, I, too, find myself in completely new surroundings. Yet my life in America is completely dependent upon my previous life in Europe. If I have been a mechanic in Europe, my life in America will take on a form quite different from the one it would take on had I been a bank clerk. In the one case I shall probably be surrounded in America by machines, in the other by banking papers. In every case my previous life determines my surroundings, it attracts, as it were, out of the whole environment those things which are related to it. This is also the case with my spirit-soul. It surrounds itself quite necessarily with what it is related to out of its previous life. This cannot constitute a contradiction of the simile of sleep and death if we realize that we are dealing only with a simile, although a most striking one. That I find in the morning the situation which I myself have created on the previous day is brought about by the direct course of events. That I find on reincarnating an environment that corresponds to the result of my deeds of the previous life is brought about through the affinity of my reborn spirit-soul with the things of this environment.
[ 14 ] What leads me into this environment? Directly the qualities of my spirit-soul on reincarnating. But I possess these qualities merely through the fact that the deeds of my previous lives have implanted them into the spirit-soul. These deeds, therefore, are the real cause of my being born into certain circumstances. And what I do today will be one of the causes of my finding myself in a later life within certain definite circumstances.—Thus man indeed creates his destiny for himself. This remains incomprehensible only as long as one considers the separate life as such and does not regard it as a link in the chain of successive lives.
[ 15 ] Thus we may say that nothing can happen to the human being in life for which he has not himself created the conditions. Only through insight into the law of destiny—karma—does it become comprehensible why “the good man has often to suffer, while the evil one may experience happiness.” This seeming disharmony of the one life disappears when the view is extended upon many lives.—To be sure, the law of karma must not be conceived of as being so simple that we might compare it to an ordinary judge or to civil justice. This would be the same as if we were to imagine God as an old man with a white beard. Many people fall into this error. Especially the opponents of the idea of karma proceed from such erroneous premises. They fight against the conception which they impute to the believers in karma and not against the conception held by the true knowers.
[ 16 ] What is the relation of the human being to his physical surroundings when he enters a new incarnation? This relation is composed of two factors: first, in the time between two consecutive incarnations he has had no part in the physical world; second, he passed through a certain development during that period. It is self-evident that no influence from the physical world can affect this development, for the spirit-soul then exists outside this physical world. Everything that takes place in the spirit-soul, it can, therefore, only draw out of itself, that is to say, out of the super-physical world. During its incarnation it was interwoven with the physical world of facts; after its discarnation through death, it is deprived of the direct influence of this factual world. It has merely retained from the latter that which we have compared to memory.—This “memory remnant” consists of two parts. These parts become evident if we consider what has contributed to its formation.—The spirit has lived in the body and through the body, therefore, it entered into relation with the bodily surroundings. This relation has found its expression through the fact that, by means of the body, impulses, desires, and passions have developed and that, through them, outer actions have been performed. Because he has a corporeal existence, the human being acts under the influence of impulses, desires, and passions. And these have a significance in two directions. On the one hand, they impress themselves upon the outer actions which the human being performs. And on the other, they form his personal character. The action I perform is the result of my desire; and I myself, as a personality, am what is expressed by this desire. The action passes over into the outer world;the desire remains within my soul just as the thought remains within my memory. And just as the thought image in my memory is strengthened through every new impression of like nature, so is the desire strengthened through every new action which I perform under its influence. Thus within my soul, because of corporeal existence, there lives a certain sum of impulses, desires, and passions. The sum total of these is designated by the expression “body of desire.”—This body of desire is intimately connected with physical existence, for it comes into being under the influence of the physical corporeality. The moment the spirit is no longer incarnated it cannot continue the formation of this body of desire. The spirit must free itself from this desire-body in so far as it was connected, through it, with the single physical life. The physical life is followed by another in which this liberation occurs. We may ask: Does not death signify the destruction also of this body of desire? The answer is: No; for to the degree in which, at every moment of physical life, desire surpasses satisfaction, desire persists even when the possibility of satisfaction has ceased. Only a human being who does not desire anything of the physical world has no surplus of desire over satisfaction. Only a man of no desires dies without retaining in his spirit a certain amount of desire. And this amount must gradually diminish and fade away after death. The state of this fading away is called “the sojourn in the region of desire.” It can easily be seen that the more the human being has felt bound to the sense life, the longer must this state persist.
[ 17 ] The second part of the “memory remnant” is formed in a different way. Just as desire draws the spirit toward the past life, so this second part directs it toward the future. The spirit, through its activity in the body, has become acquainted with the world to which this body belongs. Each new exertion, each new experience enhances this acquaintance. As a rule the human being does a thing better the second time than he does it the first. Experience impresses itself upon the spirit, enhancing its capacities. Thus our experience acts upon our future, and if we have no longer the opportunity to have experiences, then the result of these experiences remains as memory remnant.—But no experience could affect us if we did not have the capacity to make use of it. The way in which we are able to absorb the experience, the use we are able to make of it, determines its significance for our future. For Goethe, an experience had a significance quite different from the significance it had for his valet; and it produced results for Goethe quite different from those it produced for his valet. What faculties we acquire through an experience depends, therefore, upon the spiritual work we perform in connection with the experience.—I always have within me, at any given moment of my life, a sum total of the results of my experience. And this sum total forms the potential of capacities which may appear in due course.—Such a sum total of experiences the human spirit possesses when it discarnates. This the human spirit takes with it into supersensible life. Now, when it is no longer bound to physical existence by bodily ties and when it has divested itself also of the desires which chain it to this physical existence, then the fruit of its experience has remained with the spirit. And this fruit is completely freed from the direct influence of the past life. The spirit can now devote itself entirely to what it is capable of fashioning out of this fruit for the future. Thus the spirit, after having left the region of desire, is in a state in which its experiences of former lives transform themselves into potentials—that is to say, talents, capacities—for the future. The life of the spirit in this state is designated as the sojourn in the “region of bliss.” (“Bliss” may, indeed, designate a state in which all worry about the past is relegated to oblivion and which permits the heart to beat solely for the concerns of the future.) It is self-evident that the greater the potentiality exists at death for the acquirement of new capacities, the longer will this state in general last.
Naturally, it cannot be a question here of developing the complete scope of knowledge relating to the human spirit. We merely intend to show how the law of karma operates in physical life. For this purpose it is sufficient to know what the spirit takes out of this physical life into supersensible states and what it brings back again for a new incarnation. It brings with it the results of the experiences undergone in previous lives, transformed into the capacities of its being.—In order to realize the far-reaching character of this fact we need only elucidate the process by a single example. The philosopher, Kant, says: “Two things fill the soul with ever increasing wonder: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” Every thinking human being must admit that the starry heavens have not sprung out of nothingness but have come gradually into existence. And it is Kant himself who in 1755, in a basic treatise, tried to explain the gradual formation of a cosmos. Likewise, however, we must not accept the fact of moral law without an explanation. This moral law, too, has not sprung from nothingness. In the first incarnations through which man passed the moral law did not speak in him in the way it spoke in Kant. Primitive man acts in accordance with his desires. And he carries the experiences which he has undergone through such action into the supersensible states. Here they become higher faculties. And in a subsequent incarnation, mere desire no longer acts in him, but it is now guided by the effect of the previous experiences. And many incarnations are needed before the human being, originally completely given over to desires, confronts the surrounding world with the purified moral law which Kant designates as something demanding the same admiration as is demanded by the starry heavens.
[ 18 ] The surrounding world into which the human being is born through a new incarnation confronts him with the results of his deeds, as his destiny. He himself enters this surrounding world with the capacities which he has fashioned for himself in the supersensible state out of his former experiences. Therefore his experiences in the physical world will, in general, be at a higher level the more often he has incarnated, or the greater his efforts were during his previous incarnations. Thus his pilgrimage through the incarnations will be an upward development. The treasure which his experiences accumulate in his spirit will become richer and richer. And he thereby confronts his surrounding world, his destiny, with greater and greater maturity. This makes him increasingly the master of his destiny. For what he gains through his experiences is the fact that he learns to grasp the laws of the world in which these experiences occur. At first the spirit does not find its way about in the surrounding world. It gropes in the dark. But with every new incarnation the world grows brighter. The spirit acquires a knowledge of the laws of its surrounding world; in other words, it accomplishes ever more consciously what it previously did in dullness of mind. The compulsion of the surrounding world decreases; the spirit becomes increasingly self-determinative. The spirit, however, which is self-determinative, is the free spirit. Action in the full clear light of consciousness is free action. (I have tried to present the nature of the free human spirit in my book, Philosophie der Freiheit, (Philosophy of Freedom—Spiritual Activity.) The full freedom of the human spirit is the ideal of its development. We cannot ask the question: is man free or unfree? The philosophers who put the question of freedom in this fashion can never acquire a clear thought about it. For the human being in his present state is neither free nor unfree; but he is on the way to freedom. He is partially free, partially unfree. He is free to the degree he has acquired knowledge and consciousness of world relations.—The fact that our destiny, our karma, meets us in the form of absolute necessity is no obstacle to our freedom. For when we act we approach this destiny with the measure of independence we have achieved. It is not destiny that acts, but it is we who act in accordance with the laws of this destiny.
[ 19 ] If I light a match, fire arises according to necessary laws; but it was I who put these necessary laws into effect. Likewise, I can perform an action only in the sense of the necessary laws of my karma, but it is I who puts these necessary laws into effect. And new karma is created through the deed proceeding from me, just as the fire, according to necessary laws of nature, continues to be effective after I have kindled it.
[ 20 ] This also throws light upon another doubt which may assail a person in regard to the effectiveness of the law of karma. Somebody might say: “If karma is an unalterable law, then it is wrong to help a person. For what befalls him is the consequence of his karma, and it is absolutely necessary that it should befall him.” Certainly, I cannot eliminate the effects of the destiny which a human spirit has created for himself in former incarnations. But the matter of importance here is how he finds his way into this destiny, and what new destiny he may create for himself under the influence of the old one. If I help him, I may bring about the possibility of his giving his destiny a favorable turn through his deeds; if I refrain from helping him, the opposite may perhaps occur. Naturally, everything will depend upon whether my help is a wise or unwise one. [The fact that I am present to help may be a part of both his Karma and mine, or my presence and deed may be a free act. (Editor.)]
[ 21 ] His advance through ever new incarnations signifies a higher development of the human spirit. This higher development comes to expression in the fact that the world in which the incarnations of the spirit take place is comprehended in increasing measure by this spirit. This world, however, comprises the incarnations themselves. In regard to the latter, too, the spirit gradually passes from a state of unconsciousness to one of consciousness. On the path of evolution there lies the point from which the human being is able to look back upon his successive incarnations with full consciousness.—This is a thought at which it is easy to mock; and it is easy to criticise it negatively. But whoever does this has no idea of the nature of such truths. And derision as well as criticism place themselves like a dragon in front of the portal of the sanctuary within which we may attain knowledge of these truths. For it is self-evident that truths, the realization of which lies for the human being in the future, cannot be found as facts in the present. There is only one way of convincing oneself of their reality: namely, to make every effort possible to attain this reality.
Wie Karma Wirkt
[ 1 ] Der Schlaf ist oft der jüngere Bruder des Todes genannt worden. Mehr, als man bei oberflächlicher Betrachtung vielleicht anzunehmen geneigt ist, versinnlicht dieses Gleichnis die Wege des Menschengeistes. Denn es gibt eine Idee davon, in welchem Sinne die mannigfaltigen Verkörperungen, welche dieser Menschengeist durchmacht, zusammenhängen. In dem Aufsatz «Reinkarnation und Karma, vom Standpunkte der modernen Naturwissenschaft notwendige Vorstellungen » ist dargelegt worden, daß die gegenwärtige naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart, wenn sie sich nur wirklich selbst versteht, zu der uralten Lehre von der Entwickelung des ewigen Menschengeistes durch viele Leben hindurch führt. Notwendig schließt sich an diese Erkenntnis die Frage: wie hängen diese mannigfaltigen Leben miteinander zusammen? In welchem Sinne ist das Leben eines Menschen die Wirkung seiner früheren Verkörperungen, und wie wird es zur Ursache der späteren? Ein Bild des Zusammenhanges von Ursache und Wirkung auf diesem Felde gibt das Gleichnis vom Schlafe.1Ich kann mir denken, daß es viele gibt, die auf dem Gipfel der Wissenschaftlichkeit zu stehen glauben, und welche die folgenden Auseinandersetzungen «ganz unwissenschaftlich» finden. Ich kann diese verstehen, denn ich weiß, daß zu diesem Einwand notwendig derjenige gedrängt wird, der keine Erfahrung auf übersinnlichem Gebiete hat und der zugleich nicht die nötige Zurückhaltung und Selbstbescheidenheit hat, um zuzugeben, daß er noch etwas lernen könne. Nur wenigstens das eine sollten solche Menschen nicht sagen, daß die hier vorgebrachten Vorgänge dem «Verstande widersprechen», und daß man sie «mit dem Verstande nicht beweisen kann». Der Verstand kann gar nichts tun, als Tatsachen kombinieren und systematisieren. Tatsachen kann man erfahren, aber nicht «mit dem Verstande beweisen». Mit dem Verstande kann man auch einen Walfisch nicht beweisen. Den muß man entweder selbst sehen, oder sich von denen beschreiben lassen, die einen gesehen haben. So ist es auch mit übersinnlichen Tatsachen. Ist man noch nicht so weit, sie selbst zu sehen, so muß man sie sich beschreiben lassen. Ich kann jedermann die Versicherung geben, daß die übersinnlichen Tatsachen, die ich im folgenden beschreibe, für den, dessen höhere Sinne geöffnet sind, ebenso «tatsächlich » sind wie der Walfsch. Ich stehe des Morgens auf. Meine fortlaufende Tätigkeit war des Nachts unterbrochen. Ich kann diese Tätigkeit des Morgens nicht in beliebiger Weise wieder aufnehmen, wenn Regel und Zusammenhang in meinem Leben sein soll. Mit dem, was ich gestern getan habe, sind die Vorbedingungen geschaffen für das, was ich heute zu tun habe. Ich muß an das Ergebnis meines Wirkens von gestern anknüpfen. In vollem Sinne des Wortes gilt es: meine Taten von gestern sind mein Schicksal von heute. Ich habe mir selbst die Ursachen geformt, zu denen ich die Wirkungen hinzufügen muß. Und ich finde diese Ursachen vor, nachdem ich mich eine Weile von ihnen zurückgezogen habe. Sie gehören zu mir, auch wenn ich einige Zeit von ihnen getrennt war.
[ 2 ] Noch in einem anderen Sinne gehören die Wirkungen meiner Erlebnisse von gestern zu mir. Ich bin selbst wohl durch sie verändert worden. Man nehme an, ich habe etwas unternommen, das mir nur halb gelungen ist. Ich habe nachgedacht, warum dies teilweise Mißlingen mich getroffen hat. Wenn ich etwas Ähnliches wieder zu verrichten habe, so vermeide ich die erkannten Fehler. Also ich habe mir eine neue Fähigkeit angeeignet. Dadurch sind meine Erlebnisse von gestern die Ursachen meiner Fähigkeiten von heute. Meine Vergangenheit bleibt mit mir verbunden; sie lebt in meiner Gegenwart weiter; und sie wird mir in meine Zukunft hinein weiter folgen. Ich habe mir durch meine Vergangenheit die Lage geschaffen, in der ich gegenwärtig mich befinde. Und der Sinn des Lebens verlangt, daß ich mit dieser Lage verknüpft bleibe. Sinnlos wäre es doch, wenn ich unter regelmäßigen Verhältnissen ein Haus, das ich mir habe bauen lassen, nicht beziehen würde.
[ 3 ] Nicht erwachen müßte ich heute morgen, sondern neu, aus dem Nichts heraus, geschaffen werden, wenn die Wirkungen meiner Taten von gestern nicht mein Schicksal von heute sein sollen. Und neu geschaffen, aus dem Nichts heraus entstanden, müßte der Menschengeist sein, wenn nicht die Ergebnisse seiner früheren Leben verknüpft blieben mit seinen späteren. Ja, der Mensch kann in gar keiner anderen Lage leben als in derjenigen, die durch sein Vorleben geschaffen worden ist. Er kann es ebensowenig wie die Tiere, die nach ihrer Einwanderung in die Höhlen von Kentucky das Sehvermögen verloren haben, anderswo als in diesen Höhlen leben können. Sie haben sich durch ihre Tat, durch die Einwanderung, die Bedingungen ihres späteren Lebens geschaffen. Eine Wesenheit, die einmal tätig war, steht in der Folge eben nicht mehr isoliert da; sie hat ihr Selbst in ihre Taten gelegt. Und alles, was sie wird, ist fortan verknüpft mit dem, was aus den Taten wird. Diese Verknüpfung einer Wesenheit mit den Ergebnissen ihrer Taten ist das die ganze Welt beherrschende Gesetz vom Karma. Die Schicksal gewordene Tätigkeit ist Karma.
[ 4 ] Und deswegen ist der Schlaf ein gutes Bild für den Tod, weil der Mensch während des Schlafes in der Tat dem Schauplatz entzogen ist, auf dem sein Schicksal ihn erwartet. Während wir schlafen, laufen die Ereignisse auf diesem Schauplatz weiter. Wir haben eine Zeitlang auf diesen Lauf keinen Einfluß. Dennoch finden wir die Wirkungen unserer Taten wieder, und müssen an sie anknüpfen. Wirklich verkörpert sich unsere Persönlichkeit jeden Morgen aufs neue in unserer Tatenwelt. Was über die Nacht von uns getrennt war, ist tagsüber gleichsam um uns gelegt.
[ 5 ] So ist es mit den Taten unserer früheren Verkörperungen. Ihre Ergebnisse sind der Welt, in der wir verkörpert waren, einverleibt. Sie gehören aber zu uns, wie das Leben in den Höhlen zu den Tieren gehört, die durch dieses Leben das Sehvermögen verloren haben. Wie diese Tiere nur leben können, wenn sie die Umgebung wiederfinden, an die sie sich angepaßt haben, so kann der Menschengeist nur leben in der Umgebung, die er durch seine Taten, als die ihm entsprechende, sich geschaffen hat.
[ 6 ] An jedem neuen Morgen wird der menschliche Körper gleichsam von neuem durchseelt. Die Naturforschung gibt zu, daß damit etwas vorgeht, was sie nicht begreifen kann, wenn sie sich bloß der Gesetze bedient, die sie in der physischen Welt gewonnen hat. Man halte sich vor, was der Naturforscher Du Bois-Reymond darüber in seiner Rede «Die Grenzen des Naturerkennens» gesagt hat: «Ein aus irgendeinem Grunde bewußtloses, zum Beispiel ohne Traum schlafendes Gehirn enthielte, naturwissenschaftlich (Du Bois-Reymond sagt «astronomisch ») durchschaut, kein Geheimnis mehr, und bei naturwissenschaftlicher Kenntnis auch des übrigen Körpers wäre so die ganze menschliche Maschine, mit ihrem Atmen, ihrem Herzschlag, ihrem Stoffwechsel, ihrer Wärme, und so fort, bis auf das Wesen von Materie und Kraft, völlig entziffert. Der traumlos Schlafende ist begreiflich, wie die Welt, ehe es Bewußtsein gab. Wie aber mit der ersten Regung von Bewußtsein die Welt doppelt unbegreiflich ward, so wird es auch der Schläfer wieder mit dem ersten ihm dämmernden Traumbild.» Das kann nicht anders sein. Denn, was der Naturforscher hier als den traumlos Schlafenden beschreibt, das ist dasjenige vom Menschen, was allein den physischen Gesetzen unterworfen ist. Es folgt aber in dem Augenblicke, in dem es wieder durchseelt erscheint, den Gesetzen des seelischen Lebens. Schlafend folgt der menschliche Körper den physischen Gesetzen: der Mensch erwacht, und das Licht des vernünftigen Handelns schlägt wie ein Funke in das rein physische Dasein ein. Man drückt sich ganz im Sinne des Naturforschers Du Bois-Reymond aus, wenn man sagt: man kann den schlafenden Körper nach allen Seiten durchsuchen; das Seelische wird man nicht in ihm finden können. Aber dieses Seelische setzt den Lauf seiner vernünftigen Taten da fort, wo es ihn vor dem Einschlafen unterbrochen hat. — So gehört der Mensch — auch für diese Betrachtung — zwei Welten an. In der einen lebt er körperlich, und dieses körperliche Leben kann man am Faden physischer Gesetze verfolgen; in der anderen lebt er geistig-vernünftig, und über dieses Leben können wir durch physische Gesetze nichts erfahren. Wollen wir das eine Leben studieren, so müssen wir uns an die physischen Gesetze der Naturwissenschaft halten; wollen wir aber das andere Leben begreifen, so müssen wir die Gesetze des vernünftigen Handelns kennenlernen, zum Beispiel Logik, Rechtslehre, Wirtschaftslehre, Ästhetik usw.
[ 7 ] Der schlafende Menschenkörper, der nur den physischen Gesetzen unterliegt, kann niemals etwas vollbringen, was im Sinne der Vernunftgesetze liegt. Aber der Menschengeist trägt diese Vernunftgesetze in die physische Welt. Und soviel er in sie hineingetragen hat, soviel wird er von ihnen wiederfinden, wenn er, nach einer Unterbrechung, den Faden seiner Tätigkeit wieder aufnimmt.
[ 8 ] Bleiben wir noch eine Weile bei dem Bilde vom Schlaf. Die Persönlichkeit muß heute an ihre Taten von gestern anknüpfen, wenn das Leben nicht sinnlos sein soll. Sie könnte es nicht, wenn sie sich nicht mit diesen Taten verknüpft fühlte. Das Ergebnis meiner Wirksamkeit von gestern könnte ich heute nicht aufnehmen, wenn nicht in mir selbst etwas von dieser Wirksamkeit geblieben wäre. Hätte ich heute alles vergessen, was ich gestern erfahren habe, so wäre ich ein neuer Mensch und könnte an nichts anknüpfen. Es ist mein Gedächtnis, das mir die Anknüpfung an meine gestrigen Taten ermöglicht. — Dieses Gedächtnis bindet mich an die Wirkungen meines Tuns, Dasjenige, was im eigentlichen Sinne meinem vernünftigen Leben angehört, zum Beispiel die Logik, ist heute dasselbe wie gestern. Dies ist anwendbar auch auf dasjenige, was gestern durchaus nicht, was überhaupt niemals noch in meinen Gesichtskreis getreten ist. Mein Gedächtnis verbindet mein logisches Handeln von heute mit meinem logischen Handeln von gestern. Wenn es bloß auf die Logik ankäme, dann könnten wir in der Tat jeden Morgen ein neues Leben beginnen, Aber im Gedächtnisse bleibt aufbewahrt, was uns an unser Schicksal bindet.
[ 9 ] So finde ich mich wirklich am Morgen als eine dreifache Wesenheit. Ich finde meinen Körper wieder, der während meines Schlafes seinen bloß physischen Gesetzen gehorcht hat. Ich finde mich selbst, meinen Menschengeist, wieder, der heute derselbe ist wie gestern, und der heute die Gabe vernünftigen Handelns hat, wie gestern. Und ich finde alles dasjenige bewahrt im Gedächtnisse, was der gestrige Tag - was meine ganze Vergangenheit — aus mir gemacht hat.
[ 10 ] Und damit haben wir zugleich ein Bild der dreifachen Wesenheit des Menschen. In jeder neuen Verkörperung findet sich der Mensch in einem physischen Organismus, der den Gesetzen der äußeren Natur unterworfen ist. Und in jeder Verkörperung ist er derselbe Menschengeist. Als solcher ist er das Ewige in den mannigfaltigen Verkörperungen. Körper und Geist stehen einander gegenüber. Zwischen beiden muß etwas sein, wie das Gedächtnis zwischen meinen Taten von gestern und denen von heute ist. Und dies ist die Seele.2Für diejenigen, welche an die gangbaren theosophischen Ausdrücke gewöhnt sind, bemerke ich folgendes. (Ich entlehne meine Ausdrücke aus gewissen Gründen einer okkulten Sprache, die in den Bezeichnungen von der in den verbreiteten theosophischen Schriften üblichen etwas abweicht, in der Sache aber natürlich mit ihnen völlig übereinstimmt. Daher eben will ich hier die eine Ausdrucksweise mit der anderen zusammenstellen.) Jede der oben angegebenen Wesenheiten: Leib, Seele, Geist besteht wieder aus drei Gliedern. Dadurch erscheint der Mensch aus neun Gliedern gebildet. Der Leib besteht aus: 1. dem eigentlichen Leib, 2. dem Lebensleib, 3. dem Empfindungsleib. Die Seele besteht aus: 4. der Empfindungsseele, 5. der Verstandesseele und 6. der Bewußtseinsseele. Der Geist besteht aus: 7. Geistselbst, 8. Lebensgeist, 9. Geistesmensch. Im verkörperten Menschen verbinden sich (fließen ineinander) 3 und 4 und 6 und 7. Dadurch erscheinen für ihn die neun auf sieben Glieder zusammengezogen, und man erhält die übliche theosophische Einteilung des Menschen: ı. der eigentliche Leib (Sthula sharira), 2. der Lebensleib (Prana), 3. der von der Empfindungsseele durchsetzte Empfindungsleib (Astralkörper, Kama rupa), 4. die Verstandesseele (Kama manas), 5. die vom Geistselbst durchsetzte Bewußtseinsseele (Budhi manas), 6. der Lebensgeist (Budhi), 7. der Geistesmensch (Atma). Sie bewahrt die Wirkungen meiner Taten aus den früheren Leben. Sie bewirkt, daß der Geist in einer neuen Verkörperung als dasjenige erscheint, was vorhergehende Leben aus ihm gemacht haben. So hängen Leib, Seele und Geist zusammen. Ewig ist der Geist; Geburt und Tod walten nach den Gesetzen der physischen Welt in der Körperlichkeit; beide führt die Seele immer wieder zusammen, indem sie aus den Taten das Schicksal webt.
[ 11 ] Auch für den Vergleich der Seele mit dem Gedächtnis ist eine Berufung auf die gegenwärtige Naturwissenschaft möglich. Im Jahre 1870 hat der Naturforscher Ewald Hering eine Abhandlung veröffentlicht, die den Titel trägt: «Über das Gedächtnis als eine allgemeine Funktion der organisierten Materie». Und Ernst Haeckel stimmt mit den Ansichten Herings überein. Er sagt in seiner Arbeit «Über die Wellenzeugung der Lebensteilchen» das Folgende: «In der Tat überzeugt uns jedes tiefere Nachdenken, daß ohne die Annahme eines unbewußten Gedächtnisses der lebenden Materie die wichtigsten Lebensfunktionen überhaupt unerklärbar sind. Das Vermögen der Vorstellung und Begriftsbildung, des Denkens und Bewußtseins, der Übung und Gewöhnung, der Ernährung und Fortpflanzung beruht auf der Funktion des unbewußten Gedächtnisses, dessen Tätigkeit unendlich viel bedeutungsvoller ist, als diejenige des bewußten Gedächtnisses. Mit Recht sagt Hering, «daß es das Gedächtnis ist, dem wir fast alles verdanken, was wir sind und haben».» Und nun versucht Haeckel die Vorgänge der Vererbung innerhalb der Lebewesen auf dieses unbewußte Gedächtnis zurückzuführen. Daß das Tochterwesen dem Mutterwesen ähnlich ist, daß von dem letzteren die Eigenschaften auf das erstere vererbt werden, soll darnach auf dem unbewußten Gedächtnis des Lebendigen beruhen, das im Laufe der Fortpflanzung die Erinnerung an vorhergehende Formen bewahrt. — Es ist hier nicht zu untersuchen, was an den Darstellungen Herings und Haeckels naturwissenschaftlich haltbar ist; für die Ziele, die hier verfolgt werden, ist lediglich wichtig, daß der Naturforscher sich gezwungen sieht, da, wo er über Geburt und Tod hinausgeht, wo er etwas voraussetzen muß, was den Tod überdauert, daß er da eine Wesenheit annimmt, die er sich dem Gedächtnis ähnlich denkt. Er greift naturgemäß zu einer übersinnlichen Kraft, da, wo die Gesetze der physischen Natur nicht hinreichen.
[ 12 ] Man muß übrigens beachten, daß es sich hier zunächst nur um einen Vergleich, um ein Bild handelt, wenn von Gedächtnis gesprochen wird. Man darf nicht glauben, daß wir unter Seele etwas verstehen, was ohne weiteres dem bewußten Gedächtnis gleichkommt. Auch im gewöhnlichen Leben ist ja nicht immer bewußtes Gedächtnis im Spiele, wenn man sich die Erlebnisse der Vergangenheit zunutze macht. Die Früchte dieser Erlebnisse tragen wir in uns, auch wenn wir uns nicht bewußt an das Erlebte immer erinnern. Wer erinnert sich an alle Einzelheiten, durch die er lesen und schreiben gelernt hat? Ja, wem sind diese Einzelheiten überhaupt alle zum Bewußtsein gekommen? Die Gewohnheit zum Beispiel ist eine Art unbewußten Gedächtnisses. - Nur hingedeutet werden soll eben durch den Vergleich mit dem Gedächtnis auf das Seelische, das sich zwischen Körper und Geist einschiebt und den Vermittler bildet zwischen dem Ewigen und dem, was als Physisches in den Lauf von Geburt und Tod eingesponnen ist.
[ 13 ] Der Geist, der sich wiederverkörpert, findet also innerhalb der physischen Welt die Ergebnisse seiner Taten als sein Schicksal vor; und die Seele, die an ihn gebunden ist, vermittelt seine Anknüpfung an dieses Schicksal. Man kann nun fragen: wie kann der Geist die Ergebnisse seiner Taten vorfinden, da er doch wohl bei seiner Wiederverkörperung in eine völlig andere Welt versetzt wird gegenüber derjenigen, in der er vorher war? Dieser Frage liegt eine sehr äußerliche Vorstellung von Schicksalsverkettung zugrunde. Wenn ich meinen Wohnplatz von Europa nach Amerika verlege, so befinde ich mich auch in einer völlig neuen Umgebung. Und dennoch hängt mein Leben in Amerika von meinem vorhergehenden in Europa ganz ab. Bin ich in Europa Mechaniker geworden, so gestaltet sich mein Leben in Amerika ganz anders, als wenn ich Bankbeamter geworden bin. In dem einen Falle werde ich wahrscheinlich in Amerika von Maschinen, in dem andern von Bankpapieren umgeben sein. In jedem Falle bestimmt mein Vorleben meine Umgebung, es zieht gleichsam aus der ganzen Umwelt diejenigen Dinge an sich, die ihm verwandt sind. So ist es mit meiner Geist-Seele. Sie umgibt sich notwendig mit demjenigen, mit dem sie aus dem Vorleben verwandt ist. Für niemand kann das dem Gleichnis von Schlaf und Tod widersprechen, der sich bewußt ist, daß er es eben nur mit einem Gleichnis — wenn auch mit einem der treffendsten — zu tun hat. Daß ich am Morgen die Lage vorfinde, die ich am vorhergehenden Tage selbst geschaffen, dafür sorgt der unmittelbare Gang der Ereignisse. Daß ich, wenn ich mich wieder verkörpere, eine Umwelt vorfinde, die dem Ergebnis meiner Taten in dem vorhergehenden Leben entspricht: dafür sorgt die Verwandtschaft meiner wieder geborenen Geistseele mit den Dingen dieser Umwelt.
[ 14 ] Was führt mich in diese Umwelt hinein? Unmittelbar die Eigenschaften meiner Geistseele bei der neuen Verkörperung. Aber diese Eigenschaften habe ich doch nur, weil die Taten meiner früheren Leben sie der Geistseele eingeprägt haben. Diese Taten sind also die wirkliche Ursache, warum ich in bestimmte Verhältnisse hineingeboren werde. Und was ich heute tue, wird mit eine Ursache sein, warum ich in einem späteren Leben diese oder jene Verhältnisse antreflen werde. — So schafft sich der Mensch in der Tat sein Schicksal. Dieses erscheint nur so lange unbegreiflich, als man das einzelne Leben für sich betrachtet und es nicht als ein Glied der aufeinander folgenden Leben ansieht.
[ 15 ] So kann man sagen, daß den Menschen im Leben nichts treffen kann, wozu er nicht selbst die Bedingungen geschaffen hat. Durch die Einsicht in das Schicksalsgesetz — in Karma wird erst begreiflich, warum «der Gute oft leiden muß, und der Böse glücklich sein kann». Diese scheinbare Disharmonie des einen Lebens verschwindet, wenn der Blick erweitert wird auf die vielen Leben. - So einfach wie einen gewöhnlichen Richter, oder wie die staatliche Justizpflege darf man sich allerdings das Karmagesetz nicht vorstellen. Das wäre so, wie wenn man sich Gott als alten Mann mit weißem Bart vorstellte. Viele verfallen in diesen Fehler. Namentlich die Gegner der Karmaidee gehen von solch irrtümlichen Voraussetzungen aus. Sie kämpfen gegen die Vorstellung, die sie den Bekennern von Karma unterschieben, nicht gegen diejenige, welche die wahren Kenner haben.
[ 16 ] In welchem Verhältnisse befindet sich der Mensch zur physischen Umwelt, wenn er in eine neue Verkörperung eintritt? Dieses Verhältnis ergibt sich einerseits daraus, daß er in der Zwischenzeit zwischen den beiden Verkörperungen keinen Anteil gehabt hat an der physischen Welt; andererseits daraus, welches seine Entwickelung in dieser Zwischenzeit war. Klar ist von vornherein, daß in diese Entwickelung nichts aus der physischen Welt einfließen kann, denn die Geistseele befindet sich ja eben außerhalb dieser physischen Welt. Sie kann daher alles, was in ihr vorgeht, nunmehr bloß aus sich selbst, beziehungsweise aus der überphysischen Welt schöpfen. War sie innerhalb der Verkörperung in die physische Tatsachenwelt verstrickt, so ist nach der Entkörperung der unmittelbare Einfluß dieser Tatsachenwelt von ihr genommen. Und geblieben ist ihr lediglich aus derselben das, was wir mit dem Gedächtnisse verglichen haben. — Aus zwei Teilen besteht dieser «Gedächtnistest». Seine Teile ergeben sich, wenn man in Erwägung zieht, was zu seiner Bildung beigetragen hat. — Der Geist hat in dem Körper gelebt und ist daher durch den Körper in Beziehung zur körperlichen Umwelt gekommen. Diese Beziehung hat ihren Ausdruck darin gefunden, daß sich vermittelst des Körpers Triebe, Begierden, Leidenschaften entwickelt haben, und daß sich, durch diese, äußere Handlungen vollzogen haben. Weil er körperlich ist, handelt der Mensch unter dem Einflusse der Triebe, Begierden und Leidenschaften. Und diese haben nach zwei Seiten hin ihre Bedeutung. Sie drücken auf der einen Seite den äußeren Handlungen, die der Mensch begeht, den Stempel auf. Und sie formen auf der anderen Seite seinen persönlichen Charakter. Die Handlung, die ich begehe, ist die Folge meiner Begierde; und ich selbst bin als Persönlichkeit das, was diese Begierde zum Ausdruck bringt. Die Handlung geht in die Außenwelt über; die Begierde bleibt in meiner Seele wie die Vorstellung in meinem Gedächtnisse. Und wie zunächst das Vorstellungsbild in meinem Gedächtnisse durch jeden neuen gleichartigen Eindruck verstärkt wird, so die Begierde durch jede neue Handlung, die ich unter ihrem Einflusse vollziehe. So lebt in meiner Seele wegen des körperlichen Daseins eine Summe von Trieben, Begierden und Leidenschaften. Man bezeichnet diese Summe als den «Körper des Verlangens» (Kama rupa). — Dieser «Körper des Verlangens» hängt innig mit dem physischen Dasein zusammen. Denn er entsteht ja unter dem Einfluß der physischen Körperlichkeit. Von dem Augenblicke an, in dem der Geist nicht mehr verkörpert ist, kann er daher seine Bildung nicht mehr fortsetzen. Der Geist muß sich von ihm befreien, insofern er durch ihn mit dem einzelnen physischen Leben zusammengehangen hat. Auf das physische Leben folgt ein anderes, in dem diese Befreiung vor sich geht. Man kann fragen: Ist denn mit dem Tode nicht auch dieser «Körper des Verlangens» zerstört? Die Antwort darauf ist: Nein, in dem Maße, in dem in jedem Augenblicke des physischen Lebens das Verlangen die Befriedigung überwiegt, in dem Maße bleibt das Verlangen bestehen, wenn die Möglichkeit der Befriedigung aufgehört hat. Nur ein Mensch, der gar nichts wünscht von der sinnlichen Welt, hat keinen Überschuß des Verlangens über die Befriedigung. Nur der wunschlose Mensch stirbt, ohne in seinem Geiste eine Summe von Verlangen zurückzubehalten. Und diese Summe muß nach dem Tode gleichsam abklingen. Der Zustand dieses Abklingens wird « Aufenthalt im Orte des Verlangens» (in Kamaloka) genannt. Man sieht leicht ein, daß dieser Zustand um so länger dauern muß, je mehr der Mensch sich mit dem sinnlichen Leben verbunden gefühlt hat.
[ 17 ] Der zweite Teil des «Gedächtnisrestes» wird auf andere Art gebildet. Wie das Verlangen den Geist nach dem vergangenen Leben zieht, so weist ihn dieser andere Teil nach der Zukunft. Der Geist hat sich durch seine Tätigkeit im Körper mit der Welt bekannt gemacht, der dieser Körper angehört. Jede neue Anstrengung, jedes neue Erlebnis erhöht diese seine Bekanntschaft. In der Regel macht der Mensch zum zweitenmal ein jedes Ding besser als beim ersten Versuch. Die Erfahrung, das Erlebnis prägt sich dem Geiste als eine Erhöhung seiner Fähigkeiten ein. So wirkt unsere Erfahrung auf unsere Zukunft, und wenn wir nicht mehr Gelegenheit haben, Erfahrungen zu machen, dann bleibt das Ergebnis dieser Erfahrungen als «Gedächtnisrest». — Aber keine Erfahrung könnte auf uns wirken, wenn wir nicht die Fähigkeiten hätten, den Nutzen aus ihr zu ziehen. Wie wir die Erfahrung aufnehmen können, was wir aus ihr zu machen vermögen, davon hängt es ab, was sie für unsere Zukunft bedeutet. Für Goethe war ein Erlebnis etwas anderes als für seinen Kammerdiener; und es hatte durch den ersteren ganz andere Folgen als durch den letzteren. Welche Fähigkeiten wir uns durch ein Erlebnis erwerben, hängt somit von der geistigen Arbeit ab, die wir in Verbindung mit dem Erlebnisse vollbringen. — Ich habe in einem gewissen Augenblicke meines Lebens immer eine Summe von Ergebnissen meiner Erfahrung in mir. Und diese Summe bildet die Anwartschaft auf Fähigkeiten, die in der Folge zutage treten können. — Eine solche Summe von Erfahrungen besitzt der Menschengeist bei seiner Entkörperung. Sie nimmt er ins übersinnliche Leben hinüber. Verknüpft ihn nun kein körperliches Band mehr mit dem physischen Dasein, und hat er auch die Wünsche abgestreift, die ihn an dieses.physische Dasein ketten, dann ist ihm die Frucht seiner Erfahrung geblieben. Und diese Frucht ist ganz von der unmittelbaren Einwirkung des vergangenen Lebens befreit. Der Geist kann nun lediglich darauf sehen, was sich für die Zukunft daraus formen läßt. So ist der Geist, nachdem er den «Ort des Verlangens» verlassen hat, in einem Zustande, in dem sich seine Erlebnisse der früheren Leben in Keime — Anlagen, Fähigkeiten usw. - für die Zukunft umsetzen. Man bezeichnet das Leben des Geistes in diesem Zustande als den Aufenthalt in dem «Orte der Wonne» (Devachan). («Wonne» kann ja einen Zustand bezeichnen, der alle Sorge um das Vergangene vergessen macht, und das Herz lediglich für die Zukunft schlagen läßt.) Es erhellt von selbst, daß dieser Zustand im allgemeinen um so länger dauern wird, eine je größere Anwartschaft beim Tode auf die Aneignung neuer Fähigkeiten vorhanden ist. — Hier kann es sich natürlich nicht darum handeln, alle Erkenntnisse zu entwickeln, die sich auf den Menschengeist beziehen. Es soll nur gezeigt werden, wie das Karmagesetz im physischen Leben wirkt. Dazu ist zunächst hinreichend zu wissen, was der Geist aus diesem physischen Leben in übersinnliche Zustände mit hinübernimmt, und was er davon zu einer neuen Verkörperung wieder mit zurückbringt. Er bringt die zu Eigenschaften seines Wesens gewordenen Ergebnisse der in früheren Leben gemachten Erlebnisse mit. - Um die Tragweite davon einzusehen, braucht man sich den Vorgang nur an einem einzelnen Beispiele klar zu machen. Kant sagt: «Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüt mit immer zunehmender Bewunderung: der gestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir.» Jeder Denkende gibt nun zu, daß der gestirnte Himmel nicht aus dem Nichts heraus entsprungen ist, sondern sich allmählich gebildet hat. Und Kant selbst ist es, der 1755 in einer grundlegenden Schrift die allmähliche Bildung eines Kosmos zu erklären suchte. Aber ebensowenig darf man die Tatsache des moralischen Gesetzes ohne eine Erklärung hinnehmen. Auch dieses moralische Gesetz ist nicht aus dem Nichts heraus entsprungen. In den anfänglichen Verkörperungen, die der Mensch durchgemacht hat, sprach in ihm das moralische Gesetz nicht so, wie es in Kant gesprochen hat. Der primitive Mensch handelt ganz so, wie es seinen Begierden entspricht. Und er nimmt die Erlebnisse, die er mit solchem Handeln gemacht hat, hinüber in die übersinnlichen Zustände. Hier werden sie zu höherer Fähigkeit. Und in einer weiteren Verkörperung wirkt in ihm nicht mehr die bloße Begierde, sondern sie wird bereits mitgelenkt durch die Wirkungen der vorher gemachten Erfahrungen. Und viele Verkörperungen sind notwendig, bis der ursprünglich ganz den Begierden hingegebene Mensch seiner Umwelt das geläuterte moralische Gesetz gegenüberstellt, das Kant als etwas bezeichnet, zu dem man mit ebensolcher Bewunderung wie zu dem Sternenhimmel aufblickt.
[ 18 ] Die Umwelt, in die der Mensch durch eine neue Verkörperung hineingeboren wird, bringt ihm die Ergebnisse seiner Taten, als sein Schicksal, entgegen. Er selbst tritt in diese Umwelt mit den Fähigkeiten, die er in den übersinnlichen Zuständen sich aus seinen früheren Erlebnissen heraus gebildet hat. Deshalb werden auch seine Erlebnisse in der physischen Welt im allgemeinen auf einer um so höheren Stufe stehen, je öfter er sich verkörpert hat, oder je größer seine Anstrengungen innerhalb seiner früheren Verkörperungen gewesen sind. Dadurch wird die Pilgerfahrt durch die Verkörperungen hindurch eine Aufwärtsentwickelung sein. Immer reicher wird der Schatz, den seine Erfahrungen in seinem Geiste ansammeln. Und damit tritt er immer reifer seiner Umwelt, seinem Schicksal entgegen. Das macht ihn immer mehr zum Herrn des Schicksals. Denn das ist es ja gerade, was er aus seinen Erlebnissen gewinnt, daß er die Gesetze der Welt durchschauen lernt, in welcher sich diese Erlebnisse abspielen. Erst findet sich der Geist in der Umwelt nicht zurecht. Er tappt im dunkeln. Aber mit jeder neuen Verkörperung wird es heller um ihn. Er erwirbt sich das Wissen, die Kenntnis der Gesetze seiner Umwelt; mit anderen Worten: er vollbringt immer mehr mit Bewußtsein, was er vorher in Dumpfheit vollbracht hat. Immer geringer wird der Zwang der Umwelt; immer mehr vermag der Geist sich selbst zu bestimmen. Der Geist aber, der sich aus sich selbst bestimmt, das ist der freie Geist. Ein Handeln im vollen hellen Lichte des Bewußtseins ist ein freies Handeln. (Das Wesen des freien Menschengeistes habe ich in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit», Berlin 1893, darzulegen versucht.) Die volle Freiheit des Menschengeistes ist das Ideal seiner Entwickelung. Man kann nicht fragen: ist der Mensch frei oder unfrei? Die Philosophen, welche die Frage nach der Freiheit so stellen, können niemals zu einem klaren Gedanken darüber kommen. Denn der Mensch ist im gegenwärtigen Zustande weder frei noch unfrei; sondern er befindet sich auf dem Wege zur Freiheit. Er ist teilweise frei, teilweise unfrei. Er ist in dem Maße frei, als er sich Erkenntnis, Bewußtsein des Weltzusammenhanges, erworben hat. — Daß unser Schicksal, unser Karma in Form einer unbedingten Notwendigkeit an uns herantritt, ist kein Hindernis unserer Freiheit. Denn wenn wir handeln, treten wir ja mit dem Maße unserer Selbständigkeit, die wir uns erworben haben, an dieses Schicksal heran. Nicht das Schicksal handelt, sondern wir handeln in Gemäßheit der Gesetze dieses Schicksals,
[ 19 ] Wenn ich ein Streichholz anzünde, so entsteht das Feuer nach notwendigen Gesetzen ; aber ich habe erst diese notwendigen Gesetze in Wirksamkeit versetzt. Ebenso kann ich eine Handlung nur vollziehen im Sinne der notwendigen Gesetze meines Karma; aber ich bin es, der diese notwendigen Gesetze in Wirksamkeit versetzt. Und durch die von mir ausgehende Tat wird neues Karma geschaffen, wie das Feuer nach notwendigen Naturgesetzen weiter wirkt, nachdem ich es angezündet habe.
[ 20 ] Damit ist zugleich Licht geworfen auf einen andern Zweifel, der in bezug auf die Wirksamkeit des Karmagesetzes jemand befallen kann. Man könnte nämlich vielleicht sagen: wenn Karma ein unabänderliches Gesetz ist, dann sei es ein Unding, jemand zu helfen. Denn was ihn trifft, sei die Folge seines Karma, und es sei schlechterdings notwendig, daß ihn dies oder jenes treffe. Gewiß, die Wirkungen des Schicksals, das sich ein Menschengeist in früheren Verkörperungen geschaffen hat, kann ich nicht aufheben. Aber es handelt sich darum, wie er sich mit diesem Schicksal zurechtfindet, und welches neue Schicksal er sich unter dem Einflusse des alten schafft. Helfe ich ihm, so kann ich bewirken, daß er durch seine "Taten seinem Schicksal eine günstige Wendung gibt; unterlasse ich die Hilfe, so tritt vielleicht das Gegenteil ein. Allerdings wird es darauf ankommen, ob meine Hilfe eine weise oder unweise ist.
[ 21 ] Eine Höherentwickelung des Menschengeistes bedeutet sein Fortschreiten durch immer neue Verkörperungen. Diese Höherentwickelung kommt dadurch zum Ausdrucke, daß die Welt, in der des Geistes Verkörperungen stattfinden, von diesem immer mehr durchschaut wird. Zu dieser Welt gehören aber die Verkörperungen selbst. Auch in bezug auf sie tritt der Geist aus dem Zustande der Unbewußtheit in den der Bewußtheit. Auf dem Wege der Entwickelung liegt der Punkt, in dem der Mensch mit voller Bewußtheit auf seine Verkörperungen zurückzuschauen vermag. — Dies ist eine Vorstellung, über die man leicht spotten kann; und es ist natürlich kinderleicht, sie abfällig zu kritisieren. Wer das aber tut, hat von der Art solcher Wahrheiten keinen Begriff. Und Spott sowohl wie Kritik legen sich wie ein Drache vor das Tor des Heiligtums, innerhalb dessen man sie erkennen kann. Denn von Wahrheiten, deren Verwirklichung für den Menschen erst in der Zukunft liegt, ist es wohl selbstverständlich, daß er sie in der Gegenwart nicht als Tatsache auffinden kann. Es gibt nur einen Weg, um sich von ihrer Wirklichkeit zu überzeugen; und der ist, sich anzustrengen, um diese Wirklichkeit zu erreichen.
How Karma Works
[ 1 ] Sleep has often been called the younger brother of death. This simile illustrates the ways of the human spirit more than one might be inclined to assume at a superficial glance. For it gives an idea of the sense in which the manifold embodiments that this human spirit undergoes are connected. In the essay “Reincarnation and Karma, Necessary Concepts from the Perspective of Modern Natural Science” it has been shown that the current scientific way of thinking, if it really understands itself, leads to the ancient doctrine of the development of the eternal human spirit through many lives. This realization necessarily leads to the question: how are these diverse lives connected? In what sense is a person's life the effect of his previous incarnations, and how does it become the cause of later ones? The parable of sleep gives a picture of the connection between cause and effect in this field.1I can imagine that there are many who believe themselves to be at the summit of scientific knowledge and who find the following arguments “completely unscientific”. I can understand them, for I know that this objection is necessarily urged by those who have no experience in the supersensible sphere and who at the same time have not the necessary reserve and self-modesty to admit that they can still learn something. At least such people should not say that the processes here presented contradict the “understanding” and that they cannot be “proved by the understanding”. The intellect can do nothing but combine and systematize facts. Facts can be experienced, but not “proved by the intellect”. You cannot prove a whale by the intellect either. You either have to see it yourself or have it described to you by those who have seen it. The same applies to transcendental facts. If we are not yet in a position to see them for ourselves, we must have them described to us. I can assure everyone that the transcendental facts I describe below are just as “factual” for those whose higher senses are open as the whale is. I get up in the morning. My continuous activity was interrupted during the night. I cannot resume this activity in the morning in any way I like if there is to be a rule and a connection in my life. What I did yesterday creates the preconditions for what I have to do today. I have to take up the result of my activity yesterday. In the full sense of the word, it is true that my deeds of yesterday are my fate today. I have shaped the causes myself, to which I must add the effects. And I find these causes after I have withdrawn from them for a while. They belong to me, even if I was separated from them for some time.
[ 2 ] In yet another sense, the effects of my experiences from yesterday belong to me. I myself have probably been changed by them. Let us assume that I have undertaken something that I have only partially succeeded in. I have thought about why this partial failure has affected me. If I have to do something similar again, I will avoid the recognized mistakes. So I have acquired a new skill. As a result, my experiences of yesterday are the causes of my abilities today. My past remains connected to me; it lives on in my present; and it will continue to follow me into my future. Through my past, I have created the situation in which I currently find myself. And the meaning of life demands that I remain connected to this situation. It would be pointless if I were to move into a house that I had built under regular circumstances, but not live in it.
[ 3 ] I should not have to wake up this morning, but rather be created anew, out of nothing, if the effects of my actions from yesterday are not to be my fate today. And the human spirit would have to be created anew, out of nothing, if the results of its previous lives were not to remain linked to its later ones. Yes, man can live in no other situation than that which has been created by his previous life. He can no more live anywhere else than in these caves, just as the animals that lost their eyesight after immigrating to the caves of Kentucky. They created the conditions of their later life through their actions, through their immigration. A being that has once been active is no longer isolated as a result; it has placed its self in its deeds. And everything that it becomes is henceforth linked to what becomes of the deeds. This linking of a being with the results of its deeds is the law of karma that governs the whole world. The activity that has become fate is karma.
[ 4 ] And that is why sleep is a good image for death, because during sleep, a person is indeed removed from the scene where his fate awaits him. While we are asleep, events continue to unfold on this stage. For a time, we have no influence on this course of events. Nevertheless, we find the effects of our deeds again and have to pick up where we left off. Every morning, our personality truly incarnates itself anew in our world of deeds. What was separated from us during the night is, as it were, laid around us during the day.
[ 5 ] It is the same with the deeds of our former embodiments. Their results are incorporated into the world in which we were embodied. However, they belong to us, just as life in the caves belongs to the animals that have lost their sight as a result of this life. Just as these animals can only live if they find the environment to which they have adapted, so can the human spirit only live in the environment that it has created for itself through its deeds, as the one that corresponds to it.
[ 6 ] Every morning the human body is, as it were, infused with a new soul. Natural science admits that something is going on here that it cannot understand, if it merely applies the laws that it has discovered in the physical world. Consider what the natural scientist Du Bois-Reymond said about this in his speech “The Limits of Natural Knowledge”: “A brain that is unconscious for some reason, for example, sleeping without dreaming, would contain no secrets if it were scientifically (Du Bois-Reymond says ” astronomically»), no longer contain any secrets, and if the rest of the body were also scientifically understood, the entire human machine, with its breathing, its heartbeat, its metabolism, its warmth, and so on, would be completely deciphered, down to the essence of matter and force. The dreamless sleeper is comprehensible, like the world before consciousness existed. But just as the world became doubly incomprehensible with the first stirrings of consciousness, so too the sleeper will become comprehensible again with the first dawning dream image.” This cannot be otherwise. For what the natural scientist describes here as the dreamless sleeper is that part of man which is subject only to the laws of physics. But the moment it appears ensouled again, it follows the laws of the life of the soul. While asleep, the human body follows the laws of physics: the person awakes, and the light of rational action strikes like a spark into the purely physical existence. One expresses oneself entirely in the sense of the natural scientist Du Bois-Reymond when one says: one can search the sleeping body in all directions; one will not be able to find the soul in it. But this soul continues the course of its rational acts where it interrupted it before falling asleep. — Thus man belongs to two worlds, also for this consideration. In one, he lives physically, and this physical life can be traced by the thread of physical laws; in the other, he lives spiritually and rationally, and we can learn nothing about this life through physical laws. If we want to study the one life, we must adhere to the physical laws of natural science; but if we want to understand the other life, we must get to know the laws of rational behavior, for example logic, jurisprudence, economics, aesthetics, etc.
[ 7 ] The sleeping human body, which is subject only to the laws of physics, can never accomplish anything that is in accordance with the laws of reason. But the human spirit carries these laws of reason into the physical world. And as much as it has brought into it, as much will it find again when, after an interruption, it resumes its activity.
[ 8 ] Let us dwell for a while longer on the image of sleep. The personality must today take up the thread of its deeds of yesterday if life is not to be senseless. It could not do so if it did not feel connected to these deeds. I could not take up the result of my activity of yesterday today if something of this activity had not remained in me. If I had forgotten everything I experienced yesterday, I would be a new person and could not build on anything. It is my memory that enables me to build on my actions of yesterday. This memory binds me to the effects of my actions. What belongs to my rational life in the true sense, for example logic, is the same today as it was yesterday. This is also true of things that did not enter my field of vision yesterday, or that have never entered it. My memory connects my logical actions of today with my logical actions of yesterday. If it were only a matter of logic, then we could indeed begin a new life every morning, but what binds us to our fate is stored in our memory.
[ 9 ] In this way, I find myself in the morning as a threefold being. I find my body again, which during my sleep obeyed its purely physical laws. I find myself again, my human spirit, which is the same today as it was yesterday, and which today has the gift of rational action, as it did yesterday. And I find everything that yesterday – my entire past – made of me preserved in my memory.
[ 10 ] And with that we have at the same time a picture of the threefold nature of man. In each new embodiment, man finds himself in a physical organism that is subject to the laws of external nature. And in each embodiment, he is the same human spirit. As such, he is the eternal in the manifold embodiments. Body and spirit are opposed to each other. Between the two there must be something like the memory between my deeds of yesterday and those of today. And this is the soul.2For those who are accustomed to the usual theosophical terms, I would like to make the following observation. (I borrow my terms for a number of reasons from an occult language that differs somewhat from the terms used in the more common theosophical writings, but which of course corresponds fully with them in terms of content. This is why I want to juxtapose the one way of expressing things with the other here.) Each of the above-mentioned entities: body, soul, spirit consists of three members. Thus, the human being appears to be made up of nine members. The body consists of: 1. the actual body, 2. the life body, 3. the feeling body. The soul consists of: 4. the sentient soul, 5. the rational soul and 6. the conscious soul. The spirit consists of: 7. spirit self, 8. life spirit, 9. spirit man. In the embodied human being, 3 and 4 and 6 and 7 combine (flow into each other). This means that for him, the nine appear to be contracted into seven limbs, and we obtain the usual theosophical division of the human being: ı. the actual body (Sthula sharira), 2. the life body (Prana), 3. the astral body (Kama rupa), 4. the mind soul (Kama manas), 5. the consciousness soul (Budhi manas) permeated by the spirit self, 6. the life spirit (Budhi), 7. the spirit man (Atma). It preserves the effects of my deeds from previous lives. It causes the spirit to appear in a new embodiment as that which previous lives have made of it. Thus body, soul and spirit are connected. Eternal is the spirit; birth and death prevail according to the laws of the physical world in corporeality; the soul brings both together again and again by weaving fate from deeds.
[ 11 ] A comparison of the soul with memory is also possible by referring to contemporary natural science. In 1870, the natural scientist Ewald Hering published a treatise entitled: “On Memory as a General Function of Organized Matter”. And Ernst Haeckel agrees with Hering's views. In his work “On the Wave Generation of Living Particles” he says the following: “In fact, any deeper reflection convinces us that without the assumption of an unconscious memory of living matter, the most important life functions are completely inexplicable. The ability to form concepts and ideas, to think and be conscious, to exercise and become accustomed, to nourish and reproduce, is based on the function of unconscious memory, whose activity is infinitely more significant than that of conscious memory. Hering rightly says that “it is memory that we owe almost everything we are and have.” And now Haeckel attempts to trace the processes of heredity within living beings back to this unconscious memory. The fact that the daughter being is similar to the mother being, that the latter passes on its characteristics to the former, is said to be based on the unconscious memory of the living being, which preserves the memory of previous forms in the course of reproduction. It is not our purpose here to examine what is scientifically tenable in the views of Hering and Haeckel; for the purposes of the present discussion it is only important that the naturalist, when he goes beyond birth and death, when he has to presuppose something that outlives death, should assume an entity that he thinks of as similar to memory. He naturally resorts to a supernatural power where the laws of physical nature do not suffice.
[ 12 ] It should be noted, incidentally, that when we speak of memory, we are initially dealing only with a comparison, with an image. We should not think that we understand the soul to be something that is equivalent to conscious memory. Even in everyday life, conscious memory is not always involved when we make use of past experiences. We carry the fruits of these experiences within us, even if we do not always consciously remember what we have experienced. Who remembers all the details through which they learned to read and write? Yes, who has ever become aware of all these details? Habit, for example, is a kind of unconscious memory. - The comparison with memory is intended only to point to the soul, which intervenes between body and spirit and forms the mediator between the eternal and that which is woven into the course of birth and death as physical matter.
[ 13 ] The spirit that reincarnates finds the results of its actions as its fate within the physical world; and the soul that is bound to it mediates its connection to this fate. One may ask: how can the spirit find the results of its deeds, since it is surely transferred to a completely different world from the one in which it was before? This question is based on a very superficial idea of the chain of fate. If I move from Europe to America, I find myself in a completely new environment. And yet my life in America depends entirely on my previous life in Europe. If I became a mechanic in Europe, my life in America would be quite different from if I had become a bank clerk. In the one case I would probably be surrounded by machines in America, in the other by bank papers. In either case, my past life determines my environment; it attracts to itself, as it were, those things from the whole environment that are related to it. This is the case with my spirit-soul. It necessarily surrounds itself with that with which it is related from its previous life. For no one can contradict the parable of sleep and death, who is aware that he is dealing with a parable – albeit one of the most apt. The immediate course of events ensures that I find myself in the same situation in the morning as I created for myself the previous day. The relationship of my reborn spiritual soul to the things in this environment ensures that when I reincarnate I find myself in an environment that corresponds to the result of my deeds in the previous life.
[ 14 ] What leads me into this environment? Immediately the qualities of my spiritual soul at the new embodiment. But I have these qualities only because the deeds of my earlier lives have imprinted them on the spiritual soul. These deeds are therefore the real cause why I am born into certain circumstances. And what I do today will be one of the reasons why I will encounter these or those circumstances in a later life. — In this way, a person creates his own destiny. This only seems incomprehensible as long as one views the individual life in isolation and does not see it as a link in a chain of successive lives.
[ 15 ] Thus it may be said that nothing can happen to a man in life for which he has not himself created the conditions. It is only through insight into the law of fate – into karma – that we can understand why “the good often have to suffer, while the bad can be happy”. This apparent disharmony of one life disappears when we broaden our view to include many lives. However, we should not imagine the law of karma to be as simple as an ordinary judge or the state justice system. That would be like imagining God as an old man with a white beard. Many people fall into this error. In particular, the opponents of the idea of karma start from such erroneous assumptions. They fight against the idea that they attribute to the adherents of karma, not against the one that the true connoisseurs have.
[ 16 ] What is the relationship of man to the physical environment when he enters a new embodiment? This relationship arises, on the one hand, from the fact that he has had no part in the physical world in the interval between the two embodiments; on the other hand, from the nature of his development in this interval. It is clear from the outset that nothing from the physical world can flow into this development, because the spiritual soul is precisely outside this physical world. It can therefore now draw everything that takes place in it only from itself, or from the superphysical world. If, during embodiment, it was involved in the physical world of facts, then after disembodiment the direct influence of this world of facts is removed from it. And what remains of it is merely that which we have compared with memory. — This “memory test” consists of two parts. Its parts can be seen if we consider what has contributed to its formation. The spirit has lived in the body and has therefore come into contact with the physical environment through the body. This relationship has found expression in the fact that instincts, desires and passions have developed through the body, and that external actions have been carried out through these. Because he is physical, man acts under the influence of instincts, desires and passions. And these have their significance on two sides. On the one hand, they stamp the outer actions that man commits. And on the other hand, they shape his personal character. The action that I commit is the consequence of my desire; and I myself, as a personality, am that which expresses this desire. The action passes into the outside world; the desire remains in my soul, like the idea in my memory. And just as the mental image in my memory is strengthened by every new similar impression, so is the desire strengthened by every new action that I perform under its influence. Thus, because of physical existence, a sum of drives, desires and passions lives in my soul. This sum is called the “body of desire” (kama rupa). This “body of desire” is intimately connected with physical existence, for it arises under the influence of physical corporeality. From the moment when the spirit is no longer embodied, it can no longer continue its formation. The spirit must free itself from it, insofar as it has been connected with the individual physical life through it. Another physical life follows, in which this liberation takes place. One may ask: Is not this “body of desire” destroyed with death? The answer is: No, to the extent that in every moment of physical life desire outweighs satisfaction, to that extent desire remains, when the possibility of satisfaction has ceased. Only a person who desires nothing at all from the sensual world has no excess of desire over satisfaction. Only the desireless person dies without retaining a sum of desires in his mind. And this sum must, as it were, subside after death. The state of this subsiding is called “abiding in the place of desire” (in Kamaloka). It is easy to see that this state must last all the longer, the more the person has felt connected with the sensual life.
[ 17 ] The second part of the “remnant of memory” is formed in a different way. Just as desire draws the mind to the past life, so this other part points it to the future. The mind has become acquainted with the world to which this body belongs through its activity in the body. Every new effort, every new experience increases this acquaintance. As a rule, a person does each thing better the second time than the first. Experience, the experience, is impressed on the mind as an increase in its abilities. In this way, our experience has an effect on our future, and if we no longer have the opportunity to gain experience, the result of this experience remains as a “memory residue.” But no experience could have an effect on us if we did not have the ability to benefit from it. How we can absorb the experience, what we can make of it, depends on what it means for our future. For Goethe, an experience was something different from that of his valet; and it had quite different consequences for the former than for the latter. The abilities we acquire through an experience thus depend on the mental work we accomplish in connection with the experience. — At a certain moment in my life, I always have a sum of results of my experience within me. And this sum forms the eligibility for abilities that can subsequently come to light. The human spirit possesses such a sum of experiences when it is disembodied. It takes it with it into the supersensible life. If it is no longer bound to physical existence by any physical ties, and if it has also cast off the desires that chain it to this physical existence, then the fruit of its experience remains with it. And this fruit is completely freed from the direct influence of the past life. The spirit can now only look at what can be formed from it for the future. Thus, after leaving the “place of desire”, the spirit is in a state in which its experiences from previous lives are transformed into seeds – dispositions, abilities, etc. – for the future. The life of the spirit in this state is called the sojourn in the “Place of Bliss” (Devachan). (“Bliss” can indeed denote a state that makes one forget all worries about the past and allows the heart to beat only for the future.) It is self-evident that this state will generally last longer, the greater the expectation at death of acquiring new abilities. Of course, it is not a question here of developing all the knowledge that relates to the human spirit. It is only intended to show how the law of karma works in physical life. To do this, it is first necessary to know what the spirit takes with it from this physical life into supersensible states, and what it brings back with it for a new embodiment. He brings with him the results of the experiences of earlier lives, which have become the characteristics of his being. In order to understand the significance of this, one need only consider the process in a single example. Kant says: “Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing admiration: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” Every thinking person will admit that the starry heavens did not come from nothing, but were gradually formed. And it was Kant himself who, in 1755, attempted to explain the gradual formation of a cosmos in a fundamental work. But the fact of the moral law cannot be accepted without an explanation either. This moral law did not arise from nothing either. In the initial incarnations that man has undergone, the moral law did not speak to him as it did to Kant. Primitive man acts entirely according to his desires. And he takes the experiences that he has had with such actions over into the supersensible states. Here they become higher abilities. And in a further incarnation, it is no longer mere desire that is at work in him, but it is already being guided by the effects of the experiences he has had previously. And many incarnations are necessary before the person who was originally completely given over to his desires confronts his environment with the purified moral law, which Kant describes as something to which one looks up with just as much admiration as to the starry sky.
[ 18 ] The environment into which a person is born through a new incarnation brings him the results of his deeds as his fate. He himself enters this environment with the abilities that he has developed in the supersensible states from his earlier experiences. Therefore, the more often he has incarnated, or the greater his efforts have been within his earlier incarnations, the higher the level of his experiences in the physical world will generally be. Thus, the pilgrimage through the incarnations will be an upward development. The treasure that his experiences accumulate in his mind becomes ever richer. And with it he confronts his environment and his fate ever more maturely. This makes him more and more the master of his fate. For that is precisely what he gains from his experiences, that he learns to see through the laws of the world in which these experiences take place. At first the spirit does not find its way in the environment. He gropes in the dark. But with each new embodiment it becomes lighter around him. He acquires the knowledge, the knowledge of the laws of his environment; in other words, he accomplishes more and more with consciousness what he had previously accomplished in dullness. The compulsion of the environment becomes less and less; the spirit is able to determine itself more and more. But the spirit that determines itself from within is the free spirit. An action in the full light of consciousness is a free action. (I have attempted to explain the nature of the free human spirit in my “Philosophy of Freedom”, Berlin 1893.) The full freedom of the human spirit is the ideal of its development. One cannot ask: is man free or unfree? The philosophers who pose the question of freedom in this way can never arrive at a clear thought about it. For man in his present state is neither free nor unfree; but he is on the way to freedom. He is partly free, partly unfree. He is free to the extent that he has acquired knowledge, consciousness of the world's interrelationships. The fact that our fate, our karma, approaches us in the form of an absolute necessity is no obstacle to our freedom. For when we act, we approach this fate with the measure of independence that we have acquired. It is not fate that acts, but we act in accordance with the laws of this fate,
[ 19 ] When I light a match, the fire arises according to necessary laws ; but I have first set these necessary laws in motion. Likewise, I can only perform an action in accordance with the necessary laws of my karma; but it is I who put these necessary laws into effect. And through the action that I take, new karma is created, just as the fire continues to work according to the necessary laws of nature after I have lit it.
[ 20 ] This also throws light on another doubt that may arise in relation to the effectiveness of the law of karma. One might perhaps say that if karma is an immutable law, then it is absurd to help someone. For what befalls him is the consequence of his karma, and it is absolutely necessary that this or that befall him. Of course, I cannot reverse the effects of the fate that a human spirit has created for himself in previous incarnations. But the question is how he comes to terms with this fate, and what new fate he creates for himself under the influence of the old one. If I help him, I can cause him to “give his fate a favorable turn through his deeds; if I refrain from helping him, the opposite may occur. However, it will depend on whether my help is wise or unwise.
[ 21 ] The higher development of the human spirit means its progress through ever new embodiments. This higher development is expressed by the fact that the world in which the spirit's embodiments take place is increasingly seen through by it. But the embodiments themselves belong to this world. In relation to them too, the spirit passes from the state of unconsciousness into that of consciousness. On the path of development lies the point at which man is able to look back on his embodiments with full consciousness. This is an idea that is easy to ridicule, and it is of course child's play to criticize it disparagingly. But anyone who does so has no conception of the nature of such truths. And ridicule as well as criticism lie like a dragon before the gate of the sanctuary within which they can be recognized. For it is only natural that a person cannot recognize as a fact truths whose realization lies in the future. There is only one way to convince oneself of their reality, and that is to make an effort to achieve this reality.