The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture XVII

[ 1 ] In occultism, we distinguish, first, a person’s actions—understanding actions to mean everything that stems from any activity connected with their hands; second, their speech; and third, their thoughts. Everything a person accomplishes with their hands in this sense contributes to their karma in their next earthly existence. What we say does not concern only ourselves, but a group of people who share the same language, and this affects the karma of the group or race. Words carry a greater responsibility than mere deeds; for through them we prepare the configuration of a future race. What we think even has a lasting effect on the reshaping of our Earth. Therefore, we distinguish between three levels: First, human actions are individual, except for those that arise in a person out of nowhere. Second, a person cannot speak for themselves alone; their words concern a group of people. Third, thoughts concern all of humanity.

[ 2 ] This is connected to something else. When we act, we stand entirely alone behind our actions. When we speak, we are not entirely alone in our words. A spiritual being acts through our words; that being then stands behind us. Just as it is true that the words we speak are precisely reflected in the Akasha, so it is true that with every word we utter, we intervene in the body of a spiritual being incarnated in this Akashic matter, into which our words enter. We must take this to heart; that is why we must be so careful with our words. When we think, we are apparently entirely alone within ourselves, yet spiritual beings are at work in our thoughts—beings of an even higher and more significant nature than those that are at work in our speech.

[ 3 ] These things contain more than the entire history of the world. This makes certain things understandable. Let us consider a thought within us. Behind this thought stands a spiritual being. If we imagine ourselves enclosed on all sides by the body of a spiritual being, then the thought is merely an expression of the body of that spiritual being, which is working within us. Every time a thought flashes through our soul, it is an imprint, a kind of footprint of a higher spiritual being—just as when we walk across damp ground, leave footprints, and say: “A person walked here.” — This spiritual being is formed of the same substance of which the thought consists. The thought within us can only become the imprint of a higher spiritual being because the higher being has a body made of the same substance from which our thoughts are formed.

[ 4 ] When our foot leaves an impression in damp earth, that impression is a negative, a counter-image of our foot. The same is true of our thoughts. In the higher spiritual world, there is a counter-image for every thought. Image and counter-image are interlocked like, for example, a seal and its impression. The substance is the higher spiritual being; in our analogy, it corresponds to the seal. Now, the thought, insofar as it corresponds to the seal, is called intuition, and the imprint is called the abstract thought. One might say, when thinking: “I sense the traces of what is happening in the higher worlds.” - In light of this fact, the term “seal” is used in religious writings, for example in the Book of Revelation. It corresponds to reality. “Because a higher being also acts through our words, every word is a seal impression.” Mystics call the counter-image of the word “imagination.” Thus we have three levels of thought: the intuitive, the imaginative, and the ordinary abstract. When a person develops further—when abstract thought itself develops to the level at which the beings who cooperate when we speak are incarnated—then that person is a chela, a secret disciple. To be a Master means: to work within the substance in which the beings who participate in our thoughts are incarnated. — Imagination provides the image. That is why the great religious teachers of earlier times spoke in images, for imagination provides the image, not the abstract thought. In all religions, one speaks in images. At first, the image is secondary for human beings, but when a person learns to create an image from every thought, they have reached a higher level. This is the prerequisite for an entirely new kind of perception. In fact, it is essential that human beings develop the ability to think no longer merely in abstract terms, but to hold their thoughts as images each time.

[ 5 ] People generally merely form thoughts. Those who are developing to a higher level must think in images—that is, “imagine.” The term itself already reveals what is involved: imprinting something through a certain power of a thing (imagining). In the imagination—as seen in poets and artists—we find only a very faint reflection of true imagination. When a person who seeks to develop in this higher way speaks, they will, on special occasions, try to have the corresponding image—the imago—before them as they speak. Hence the grand, powerful images in religious scriptures. Whoever rises to this level of creating images has reached the stage of spiritual beings who are race-creating. The one who develops not only images within himself but also intuitions is not only race-creating but also co-creating the next planetary existence. The images will echo what is then realized on Earth, but whoever creates out of intuition creates something that does not yet exist at all, something that is not yet realized anywhere—that is, they create out of Nirvana. This is the concept behind every apocalypse: what will truly be in the future can only be created out of intuition.

[ 6 ] Through abstract thinking, one creates an image of what exists. In imagination, a person allows themselves to be inspired by the creative spirit within. Imagination corresponds to hidden realities that have arisen through inspiration from higher spiritual beings; then one can see these higher spiritual beings on the astral plane. The prerequisite for this is to develop a language that is not the expression of abstract thoughts, but rather the expression of images. Mediums therefore also express themselves through imaginations, images, and symbols—but unconsciously. Behind them, the spirit shapes the symbols. The initiate does this with full consciousness, yet not arbitrarily. In doing so, he allows himself to be inspired by the spirit.

[ 7 ] Just as human beings rise in this way to create images and intuitions, so too has the external world influenced their existence—in such a way that in everything around us that is of a mineral nature, that is, of a purely physical nature, intuitions act as creative forces. The crystal is external in the way it appears to the senses; yet it has been created through intuitions. Behind the entire physical world lies a cosmos of intuitions and, ultimately, a being—the planetary spirit—who brings forth these intuitions. Behind all language, beings of the imagination are at work, and the racial spirit is also at work. In all living things, the same level of spirit is at work. Behind all plants, the imagination is at work. The formed plant arises from the imagination, and behind it stands a spiritual being. And everything that is conscious and sentient has arisen from thought itself.

[ 8 ] And now look at the entire universe, first as a physical reality: the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, the Milky Way, and so on. Behind all of this, however, lies a great intuitive Spirit. It is the same Spirit that expresses itself through our actions; it also lies behind the entire universe. Christianity calls him the Father. Because he is so little known, he is also called the Unknown God, and in Theosophical literature, the First Logos.

[ 9 ] Behind all living things lies the spirit of imagination. It is the same spirit that is also at work in our language; that is why the Christian religion calls it “the Word.” This refers to something very specific and real. This spirit, which underlies all living things, is still at work today in our language, in each of our words; it is therefore rightly called “the Word”; another name for it is “the Son” or “Christ.” It is the spirit that lives as imagination in all life.

[ 10 ] Then we come to that which is conscious, that which possesses some degree of sensation or consciousness—all that is animal, and that which is animal in human beings. This can already be grasped through thought. Everyone has this within themselves. What takes place within the animal first takes place within the animal itself: abstract consciousness. All consciousness in the world also lives within human beings, in abstract thought. Within themselves, human beings call it “spirit”; insofar as it acts outside in creative nature, they call it “Holy Spirit.” This is what underlies all feeling and consciousness. Illness exists only in separate existence. The spirit cannot be ill in and of itself, but only when it is incarnated in the lower bodies. The word “holy” means “to be whole”; it expresses that the spirit, which permeates the world outside, is healthy. The Holy Spirit is nothing other than the thoroughly healthy Spirit; therefore, the one who truly unites with the Holy Spirit receives the power of healing. This power must be connected to the Holy Spirit that permeates the world. This is the Spirit that acts from person to person as the true healer.

[ 11 ] If we now look out onto the physical plane, we first encounter what we perceive with our senses. Behind this lies the great intuitive Spirit. Everything that exists physically has been created by this Spirit. Behind everything that exists in pure form—everything that can be perceived by the senses—stands the Father Spirit, the First Logos. Simply by observing it, we do not change it. But a change takes place when we act. In doing so, we change not only what is out there in the world, but also the forces at work in the world. The moment we act, we bring about a change on the physical plane. Behind these changes, however, lies also a change in the fundamental force corresponding to the First Logos. We influence this through our actions, and it remains; it is there and cannot pass away again, unless it is destroyed by the very same force that brought it about. And the change brought about in the great world intuitions through our actions is what comes back to us as karma. What draws a person back into the physical world is called, when viewed from the perspective of karma, “rupa.” It is called “rupa” for the reason that it was accomplished in the rupa—through the body, through one’s outward form. We create within the body, within the rupa, when we act upon the outer intuitions.

[ 12 ] The second area in which human beings today are not yet fully independent—but in which another spirit still plays a role—is speech. Through speech, we make an impression on a world behind which lies not only the physical but also life itself. In the world of life, the images of what we speak of remain as formative forces that create the new races. Our present race is formed from what lay behind the words of earlier races. This is imprinted within our race. Furthermore, everything that is merely imagination comes into play. This shows us that with our words we evoke impressions in the realm of the Son, in the realm of the Second Logos. These return as the collective karma of the entire race. For we do not create the word alone; the spirit of the race is at work. What is the basis for this form of karma? Where does the race spirit act? The race spirit acts within human emotion, permeating the entire emotional world. There, what a person shares in common with his or her group resonates.

[ 13 ] What affects karma in a much broader sense is sensation = vedana. So, first: rupa, the physical body; second: vedana, sensation. - For those who have not yet become chelas, sensation is something very important in the perception of the second Logos and in everything that is alive. Science seeks to view animals and plants as devoid of life. Even the greatest scholar today has not progressed beyond being able to comprehend life through his own sensation. Only imaginative understanding enables him to look into life.

[ 14 ] Everything in the external world that possesses sensation and consciousness corresponds to thought. It shares one thing with us: perception. The fact that we are at all capable of perceiving the outside world in physical space as a world of color and sound is possible because we can translate it into thought. We receive perceptions and reflect on them. If there were no thoughts within these perceptions, it would be the greatest folly for a human being to attempt to form thoughts about them. Then thoughts would be mere illusions, were it not for the fact that perceptions came into being through thoughts. What emerges from the combination of perceptions is that these perceptions are first constructed by thoughts that we distill: the laws of nature. These are nothing other than thoughts; it is the creative, the Holy Spirit. Perception is the boundary between the two, where our thoughts come into contact with the creative thoughts outside. Thus, with a thought that we have, we cannot act upon life itself, but upon everything conscious that is itself thought outside.

[ 15 ] In all the spiritual entities that have given rise to consciousness, we leave traces through our thoughts. What humans form as thoughts based on their perceptions—and what they transform into thoughts—in turn has an effect on everything that gives rise to those perceptions. We therefore make a third distinction: perception, or sanjna, which is the third factor influencing karma.

[ 16 ] Through all our actions, we bring about counteractions as karma because we intervene in the intuitive world: Rupa.

[ 17 ] Through all words, we intervene in the world of creative feelings in order to create counter-feelings around us: Vedana.

[ 18 ] Through what we think about our perceptions, we engage with the entire world of thoughts out there: Sanjna.

[ 19 ] What we perceive around us will no longer exist when we return to Earth. Therefore, everything we think about the world of perception will have absolutely no influence on our future incarnation; it will have a karmic effect only in this incarnation. Thoughts shape our present character.

[ 20 ] What springs from feeling—that which is fundamentally connected to our surroundings, that which enters the world of the imagination—returns to us in the next incarnation, so that it appears within us as inclinations and outside of us as opportunities. Through these inclinations, we thus bring about the opportunities of the world that constitute destiny—through inclinations that are karmically determined. Thoughts shape character; inclinations karmically bring about opportunities. Actions bring about external fate—the entire physical circumstances under which a person is born. What we actually do with rupa, our physicality, is our true fate; that returns to us karmically.

[ 21 ] A person can consciously create inclinations for future incarnations only if he or she now rises to the level of imagination. Therein lies the secret of how the great founders of religions have had an impact beyond their own time. The images they gave to people have triggered inclinations for subsequent incarnations. Every image they implant in the soul emerges throughout the entire emotional world of the human being. Either a person acquires such imaginations on their own, or they receive them from a guide. We possess them ourselves once we have taken our entire emotional life into our own hands; this is the case with the secret student. He feels exactly as he intends to; the rest of humanity is cared for by the founders of religions. A religion is the emotional world of future races; it can therefore perish outwardly, for it lives on in the inclinations it has instilled. Today, the inclinations that were implanted in humanity during the 13th and 14th centuries are coming to the fore. It is important that the materialistic images of the present do not take root in people’s hearts, for they would endow people in future times with the most brutal inclinations, directed solely toward the sensory world, unless this is counterbalanced by spiritual ideas. The desires and longings that arise from the imagination live within the human being. This is his desire = samskara. Everything that is intuitive within human beings—the great impulses they receive from the highest initiates—is actually what overcomes factual karma. Whoever rises to the level of true intuition ascends through the physical world to the Father Spirit. Whoever possesses intuitive knowledge can influence actual karma. He begins to consciously limit his karma.

[ 22 ] To the ordinary person, only those beings that are also conscious appear to be comprehensible. When he reaches the level of imagination, life also becomes comprehensible to him; when he reaches the level of intuition, he can penetrate as far as the intuitive powers.

[ 23 ] To the extent that a person can influence his karma, he must possess that degree of intuition himself, or he must receive it from the great Initiates as the great commandments. Vijnana is the name given to the consciousness necessary for overcoming karma. And now imagine a person living, acting, and dying in the midst of the world. When he has died, however, something of him remains in this world—that which he has woven into it. These are: rupa, vedana, sanjna, samskara, and vijnana. These five things make up his “account”: personal destiny as rupa; the destiny of the people into whom he is born as vedana; the fact that he is born on this earth at all as sanjna. Furthermore, samskara—desire—and vijnana—consciousness—are at work. These are the five skandhas.

[ 24 ] What one projects out into the world remains in the world as the five skandhas. These are the foundation of a new existence. Their influence gradually diminishes as a person consciously develops one of the latter ones. The more one consciously masters vijnana, the more one gains the ability to consciously incarnate in the physical body. The skandhas are, in essence, essentially identical to karma.

1. Rupa — Physicality, Actions
2. Vedana — Feeling
3. Sanjna — Perception
4. Samskara — Desire
5. Vijnana — Consciousness, which is necessary for overcoming karma.