The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Karma and Details of Karmic Law

[ 1 ] Today we will discuss karma and the details of the law of karma. As you know, karma refers to the great law of cause and effect in spiritual life, and this law of karma is relevant to spiritual science primarily insofar as it applies to repeated earthly lives. We speak of reincarnation and karma as two interrelated concepts. Now, as you are well aware, this law of karma is often understood in a somewhat superficial way, as if it were merely a matter of reward and punishment that extends from one incarnation to the next, so that when something bad or terrible befalls a person in this life, they must necessarily say to themselves: “I have deserved this because of some debt from a previous life.” — Or: “If I do this or that, I will receive the corresponding reward or punishment in the next life.” — But the matter is not that simple. Anyone who wishes to understand this law of karma must delve more deeply into human nature and the whole of the human being.

[ 2 ] The law of karma and reincarnation—the law of repeated earthly lives—is subjected to the fiercest attacks by opponents of spiritual science, beginning with the saying: “I’ve had enough of one earthly life—I wouldn’t want to live this life over and over again”—all the way to the claim that it is a doctrine leading to inaction and resignation in the face of a blind fate. We will address such opposition in detail and, by delving into the entire process of karma, will be able to find a response to every objection. To do this, we must remember—even though we have heard it many times before—what a human being is in the deeper sense.

[ 3 ] As we know, the human being consists first and foremost of the physical body—the one that can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands, the one that physical science investigates and examines, the one that anatomy dissects, the one we know in everyday life. Many people with a materialistic outlook regard this physical body as the only aspect of the human being that actually exists. As the second aspect of this being, we must consider the etheric or life body. This is the body that consists of a substance fundamentally different from that of the physical body. It is not even sufficient to say that the matter—the substance—of which this etheric body is composed is significantly finer than that of the physical body. Rather, we are dealing with an entirely different kind of “materiality.” It is an active, force-filled substance. This etheric substance, which has nothing to do with what is called “ether” in physics, has a creative quality; it is the truly constructive force. The best way to imagine the etheric body is to picture it as having roughly the same shape as the physical body, but being completely translucent, though not entirely transparent—not even to clairvoyant people. It is permeable; if it were there alone, one could walk right through it, yet at the same time it is creative, so that the physical organs of the human being are built out of it. The heart, lungs, liver, and so on are formed from this etheric body. From a materialistic standpoint, one might say: In a child, the etheric body must be very small. That is indeed the case. You must not take offense at this, for we must regard it more as a force that, under certain circumstances, can occupy a smaller space than what it then creates. We are thus dealing here with the creative life, with a creative body that underlies the physical body, which can be perceived in space. This etheric body is the bearer of a person’s habits. Above all, it is the bearer of memory and temperament—indeed, of all that constitutes a person’s enduring soul qualities. When we speak of the human soul, we mean not least the temperament and the original character disposition. This is expressed, in terms of form, in the etheric body.

[ 4 ] The third component of the human being is the astral body. It fills us and surrounds the physical body like a luminous aura in which the drives, desires, and passions become visible. This has often been described.

[ 5 ] A fourth constituent element is that which comes to light in true self-consciousness, in the “I.” The other elements of the human being are initially present only in embryonic form and have their seat in this “I.”

[ 6 ] With regard to karmic development, we are primarily interested in the aspects of the human being just mentioned. In this regard, we must keep in mind, above all else, one important fact of life. When you look back on your past life and transport yourself back to your childhood, you will be able to say to yourself that you have learned a great deal. There was a time when you could not yet read or write and knew nothing about world events, history, literature, and many other things. Now you know all of this; it has become part of your soul. But there is something else you know as well. You know that one can learn a great deal and yet not change much about one’s original disposition and temperament. There are people who have learned an immense amount over the course of their lives and filled their souls with all manner of knowledge, yet who must still admit: “Back then I was quick-tempered—and I still am today.” - Or: “I’ve always been a phlegmatic person, and I’ve remained so. I used to have this or that habit, and I still have it today.”—There are, however, also people who have changed a great deal about themselves and their spiritual character traits. Perhaps there is no one who has not changed anything at all about their disposition. If you look back on your childhood, you will ultimately have to admit that you have changed quite a few things since then. But you will also realize that observation and learning, in relation to the transformation of character traits, are like the minute hand of a clock in relation to the hour hand. The transformation of character and temperament progresses slowly, like the hour hand of a clock, while the assimilation of life’s observations proceeds more quickly, much like the minute hand. This is because everything one learns is quickly absorbed into the soul; it has the astral body as its vehicle and expresses itself through the astral body. When you hear something fundamentally new, you will be filled with a feeling that comes to you now but will be forgotten again tomorrow. Or when you experience a pain that eventually sinks back out of consciousness—these are the things that one sees light up in the astral body, but which then disappear from the astral body again. All of this has the astral body as its vehicle.

[ 7 ] Thus, whatever temporarily shines within us in life and then disappears again remains imprinted in the astral body. However, whatever belongs to the human being’s enduring life essence—insofar as it expresses itself in the soul; everything that becomes a habit, so that the person retains it over a long period of life, perhaps forever; everything related to temperament—is contained in the etheric body, which is denser than the astral body. When a person succeeds in changing a habit or a trait of their temperament—for example, when they shed a habitual carelessness and become a mindful person—this is manifested in the etheric body and not merely in the astral body. When a person learns a great deal and absorbs it in such a way that it gradually becomes entirely their own in the soul and an integral part of their inner being—so that they not only know it but possess it in a deeper sense—they thereby alter the configuration of their etheric body. If someone adopts a moral principle and has to keep telling themselves, “The principle exists, therefore I follow it”—then it remains anchored only in the astral body. But if it becomes so ingrained that they can no longer act otherwise, then it is anchored in the etheric body. The transition from the astral body to the etheric body takes place slowly and gradually throughout one’s life.

[ 8 ] Now, having considered these constitutional elements, let us move on to gaining an overview of what karma is in its broader context. What takes place only slowly within a single earthly life—that is, the transition of something that is initially present only in the astral body into the etheric body—unfolds karmically from one incarnation to the next in the following way: Anyone who has strived to judge morally correctly—and who may even have been encouraged in this endeavor by others—will find the fruits of these efforts in their next life as an innate disposition of their etheric body, as a kind of habit, as a character trait. What now lives in the astral body becomes part of the etheric body in the next life. When you encounter a person with a commendable habit—one that repeatedly manifests itself in their life—this indicates that in a previous life they absorbed corresponding ideas or brought them to mind. Inclinations and habits stem from ideas, thoughts, and concepts formed in previous lives. If you keep this in mind, you can already make preparations for your next life, so that you can lay the groundwork for a specific organization of the etheric body in that life. You can say to yourself: In this life, I will try to tell myself over and over again that this or that is good and right.—Then the etheric body will show you that it is, of course, good and right to follow the corresponding principles.

[ 9 ] One concept is particularly important here, one that can be viewed from a karmic perspective. That is the concept of conscience. What arises from a person’s conscience is also something that has been acquired. A person possesses a treasure of conscience—an instinct for what is good, right, and true—only because he has gradually built up this conscience through his past lives, his life experiences, and his principles. You can help strengthen and elevate this conscience by resolving to deepen your moral views a little each day. Moral views become the conscience in the next life and the one after that.

[ 10 ] So you see that what the minute hand of life shows us becomes what the hour hand is in the next life. There need only be a certain repetition of principles and views in one life, and then they become established for the next life. What occurs in the etheric body of one life bears fruit for the physical body of the next life. Good habits, good inclinations, and good character traits prepare the way for health, physical fitness, and physical strength—in other words, a healthy physical body for the next life. A healthy physical body in one life indicates that the person in question has prepared this physical body in a previous life through habits and character traits acquired by their own efforts. In particular, there is a strong connection between a well-developed memory in one life and the physical body in the next life.

[ 11 ] Let’s take, for example, a person who forgets everything immediately and another who has a reliable memory. One need only consciously recall the things one has experienced and practice this consistently; then one will eventually notice that one has not only developed a good memory for the things one has specifically trained oneself to remember, but that this memory also becomes a power of a completely different kind. And this is relevant to spiritual development. The ability to survey the past develops in a very special way. Whoever conscientiously trains their memory will be reborn with physical strength and with limbs that can truly serve them, in order to accomplish in the next life what they inwardly desire with their soul. A body that cannot carry out what the soul desires stems from a previous life in which no care was taken to develop a healthy, good memory, but in which one left it to the sloppiness of forgetfulness and absent-mindedness.

[ 12 ] Today we are citing only a few examples, but you can imagine how vast the entire field we are discussing is. The true occultist will never indulge in speculation. What I have cited are not theories, but facts that have been verified in specific cases. What has been said here is therefore based on specific research findings. When it was just described that a solid physical organism, which obeys the soul, can be attributed to a good memory from a previous life, then a certain number of cases have been investigated, and the corresponding information is based on the facts established during this investigation. Only facts are to be recounted.

[ 13 ] Now, what develops in the etheric body makes its way into the physical body in the next life, so that not only do good inclinations, character traits, and wholesome habits of life manifest themselves in a healthy physical body in the next life, but also unwholesome traits, bad habits, and corrupt inclinations manifest themselves in a sick organism in the next incarnation. This should not be understood to mean that a specific illness stems from a specific trait, but rather that certain predispositions to illness always trace back to very specific character and temperamental traits in the previous life. A person who has lived a life marked by corrupt character traits therefore possesses, in this life, an organism that is more susceptible to physical illness than that of another. A person who was endowed with healthy character traits and a robust temperament is reborn with a body that can be exposed to all manner of epidemics without becoming infected—and vice versa.

[ 14 ] So you see that things in the world are intricately connected according to the law of cause and effect. To give one example, let me mention a case that corresponds to certain findings in spiritual research. It may seem shocking at first, but in a Theosophical circle, one can certainly say this. Someone had developed a thoroughly selfish drive for material gain in his life—a true greed for external wealth. This was not, however, that healthy pursuit of wealth that can spring from the altruistic intention to help the world and engage in selfless activity—that is something else—but rather we are speaking of the selfish drive for material gain, which determines a certain constitution of the etheric body and develops the pursuit of wealth beyond what is necessary. Such a person is very often born in the next life with a physical body that shows a predisposition to infectious diseases. It has been occultly established in numerous cases that people who are easily infected by certain epidemics in their present life were endowed with a pathologically heightened drive for gain in their previous life.

[ 15 ] We can also cite other examples in detail. For instance, there are two qualities that have a clearly discernible influence on the karmic shaping of the next life. First and foremost, we must mention the powerful influence exerted by the enduring trait of treating one’s fellow human beings with love and kindness. There are people who view everything in their fellow human beings with goodwill, who treat their surroundings with love, and who embrace them with compassion. For some, this love extends far beyond mere love for humanity. They love nature and the entire world. The more this sense of inclusiveness has developed and become a habit of the soul—that is, the more it is imprinted on the etheric body—the more a person will have the predisposition to youthfulness in their next life: they will remain young for a long time. Thus, whoever ages late and remains young and agile for a long time has a life that traces back to a previous earthly life—or even to several previous lives—spent in love for their surroundings. The more a person expresses love toward their surroundings, the more they will remain physically young in a subsequent incarnation. Those who tend toward antipathy toward their fellow human beings will age prematurely. A body that shows physical signs of aging early on points back to a life of constant criticism, a life of aversion and ill will. Thus, one can see that it is possible to influence one’s life by consciously intervening in karma. Those who can cultivate love in this life can be assured that in the next life they will have a body that displays youthful features. All those people who today write scathing reviews at a young age will be people in the next life who are almost born with wrinkles. This is a radical statement, but it is based on a powerful truth.

[ 16 ] Thus, the laws of karma reveal to us the connection between health and spiritual life. No one would dispute, however, that this connection cannot be grasped in just a few steps, but rather that one must delve into the details. Nor can there be any doubt about the statement that a moral, sincere, and conscientious soul is the future builder of a healthy body. But one must not expect this to happen overnight, nor believe that someone afflicted with spiritual flaws can be healed overnight. One should also realize that one must rise from selfishness to a selfless way of life that does not seek to reap the fruits of one’s actions immediately. However, what becomes a habit can also have an effect on the physical body even in this life. Proof of this is occult development, which can exert influence not only on the astral body but also on the etheric body in a conscious manner. Those who undergo occult development learn to influence not only their astral body but also their etheric body and their physical body. By transforming habitual behavior, a quick-tempered person can become gentle, and a person prone to emotional outbursts can become even-tempered and harmonious. The occultist must change his habits in a relatively short time. True development requires that what one learns does not remain merely a doctrine, but enters the etheric body. Then the occultist also ensures that it enters the physical body. He learns to control his heartbeat, pulse, and breath. In occult development, what is spread out over many incarnations in ordinary life is condensed. Karma is thus condensed.

[ 17 ] Some of the things we will discuss this winter will become clearer and more transparent to us once we understand certain deeper karmic connections—for example, the difference between a beautiful person and an ugly one. What is the karmic reality behind a beautiful person? There is something to consider here that may seem unbelievable at first, but it is true. The beauty of the physical body is often—not always, but very often—a consequence of suffering endured in a previous life. Suffering in a previous life—both physical suffering and emotional suffering—becomes beauty in the next life, the beauty of the outer physical body. In these cases, it is indeed true that one may use a comparison I have employed on several occasions. How does a beautiful pearl form inside an oyster? Actually, through an illness; it is the result of a disease. In a similar way, within the karmic context, there is a process that illustrates the connection between illness, suffering, and beauty. This beauty is often bought at the price of suffering and illness.

[ 18 ] Wisdom, too, is often bought at the price of pain. It is not without interest that external research today confirms in many ways what occultists have been saying for millennia: that wisdom is connected to pain and suffering, to a life of serious self-denial in a previous existence. It is certainly worthwhile, from time to time, to consult external scientific research. A book on the facial expressions of thought has recently been published. The book aims to show how the nature of a person’s thought patterns is reflected in their physiognomy. The author, who—as is clearly evident—knows little about the occult, has nevertheless discovered through external observation that one can discern in the physiognomy of a thinker an imprint of the pain they have endured. Modern science is in the process of confirming, bit by bit, the ancient occult wisdom. This will be the case to an even greater extent in the coming years than any scholar could ever imagine.

[ 19 ] Now you will find it even easier to see that we cannot approach certain phenomena of intellectual history with blind faith or a sense of authority. When, for example, we approach a figure such as Schopenhauer—who imbued his entire worldview with a pessimistic mood—with an understanding of the law of karma, then those who see more deeply need not believe that this pessimism represents the fundamental human mood [at all]. Rather, it is a fundamental mood of his soul that was karmically prepared within him and brought about by a certain constitution of his etheric body. This pessimistic mood of a thinker can only be understood by tracing it karmically. A personality of this nature—and this is a very concrete explanation—did not have the opportunity to do much good in a previous life. On the contrary, this person was condemned, by his social position and profession, to commit various acts of evil and to do wrong. And this evil and wrongdoing—to which he was condemned in his previous life not karmically, but by virtue of his profession—returns to him as a certain antipathy toward the world that now confronts him. This is the repetition of his own deeds that he has committed. If you wish to understand karma, you must not merely adopt the fatalistic standpoint that everything is predestined. A person need not be condemned by his past lives for what he does now. This is often only balanced out in the next life. Thus, deeds are not always the fruits of past lives, but may only find their balance in a future life. It is such deeds that are meant when speaking of the cause of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic outlook.

[ 20 ] Let us draw a strict distinction between everything a person accomplishes as his own individual deeds—those that arise entirely from his own person—and those he is required to perform through his community, his family, and his profession. Two court councilors may do the same thing simply because they are court councilors; we set that aside. But they may also perform actions that are vastly different because they are two different people. And that is what we will now consider. Whatever action flows from a person’s individuality—whatever they accomplish in this way—will come back to them as their external destiny in the next life. If a person finds himself in a fortunate life situation—if he has been granted a favorable destiny—this can be traced back to the right, wise, and good deeds he accomplished as a personality in a previous life. If a person is in a difficult life situation, if many things go wrong for them, if they live in unfavorable circumstances—meaning their external situation, not the nature of their physical body—this, too, stems from the personal deeds they performed in their previous life. What a person has accomplished through their profession and family ties is imprinted in their temperament and character. A person’s fate is thus determined by their personal deeds in the previous life. Conversely, a person can bring about a favorable or unfavorable fate in the next life through good, wise, and righteous deeds.

[ 21 ] Anyone who is brought together with certain individuals has created the conditions for this themselves in a previous life. They have had some connection with these people and have now drawn them into their own circle. Here is an example from the time of the “fem courts.” A Fem court was associated with an execution. The person in question was brought before masked judges, who immediately carried out the sentence. Here is a case in which a person was sentenced and killed. Fate has been occultly investigated and traced back to earlier incarnations. It turned out that the man killed by the five judges had once, as a chieftain, ordered the killing of these five people. His past deed had, as if by magnetic force, brought these five people back into his life, and they took their revenge on him. This is a radical case, but it is based on a general law. You cannot come into contact with a person who interferes in your life unless you yourself have brought that person into your life on the basis of earlier relationships. It may, however, be the case that a person is brought together with others—through general circumstances, profession, or family ties—with whom they have never been associated before. In such cases, however, mutual behavior lays the foundation for a reunion in the next life, which is now connected to the external fate and lives of those involved. You can see that such karmic concepts are often complex and not so easy to explain. It is important to study these matters in detail, because only through this can we truly understand life.

[ 22 ] It must be emphasized time and again that a correctly understood concept of karma must not be set in opposition to the doctrine of salvation as found in Christianity. Although I have already explained this compatibility between the Christian doctrine of salvation and the concept of karma to many of you, there are, of course, new listeners here as well. There are many misunderstandings. These often stem from the fact that many people speak of Theosophy without understanding much about it. For example, it is claimed that karma simply means that a person must bear all the consequences of his actions. If a person has committed a sin, it is claimed, they can only redeem themselves from their sins. From this perspective, many Theosophists argue that the idea of redemption through Christ Jesus is without merit. Theosophy, they argue, cannot accept salvation through another being, since human beings must, after all, redeem themselves. Christian theologians, in turn, counter this by saying: “We believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, but you believe in self-redemption. These two views are not really compatible.”

[ 23 ] However, karma is a kind of life account that can be compared quite well to a business account. On one side are the debit entries, and on the other, the credit entries. They are added up, and the balance sheet is drawn up. It would be a strange businessman who said, “I don’t want to do any more business so that my balance sheet isn’t affected.”—Just as a new transaction can be carried out at any moment in business life, so too can new karma be brought about at any moment through a new action. If someone thinks, “A person has brought suffering upon themselves; they have earned it themselves, so I must not help them”—that is folly. It is just as if one were to say to a merchant who is bankrupt, “Twenty thousand marks would help you, but if I gave them to you, I would be interfering with your ledger.”—That would certainly not be the case. The borrowed sum would simply be recorded in the ledger. So it is with life. It merely needs to be balanced, but it does not always have to be balanced by oneself. Karma does not mean self-balancing, but only being balanced through an action. Now suppose you are a rich, powerful man who can help not just one, but two people. Then you can intervene in the karma of two people. Precisely because karma exists, you can intervene in the life accounts of these two. Thus, there are people who can help three, four, five, or even hundreds. Such people will not say: “I must not help others because I am interfering with their karma.” — Rather, they will help them.

[ 24 ] Such help can be bestowed upon those who count themselves among his followers by a being who is powerful in the highest sense and who once appeared in the world. That being is Christ Jesus. Because salvation is brought about through a certain kind of evil, it does not contradict the law of karma. Salvation through Christ Jesus is fully compatible with the law of karma, just as the help of the rich man to the bankrupt merchant is. The misunderstandings stem from the fact that theosophists have not thoroughly understood karma and theologians have not concerned themselves with it. It is precisely the essence and significance of the act of a single exalted being that guarantees the existence of the law of karma. Once these matters are properly understood in the future, it will become clear just how little Theosophy is opposed to any creed built on a true foundation, and how much it actually leads to a true understanding of such a creed. Once you have thus surveyed the law of karma in a few cases, you will sense that you are glimpsing a very profound necessity within spiritual life. Of course, the law of karma is truly grasped only by those who do not merely treat it as a theoretical concept, but who incorporate it into the entire realm of sensation and feeling of their being. Then inner security and harmony flow over one’s entire life. And those who claim time and again that the law of karma leads to inaction and lethargy, that it causes one to resign oneself to one’s fate, that it does not lead to a zest for life and the like—they have not yet tried to live by the law of karma. To live by the law of karma means to infuse the soul with courage and hope.

[ 25 ] Above all, the law of karma must shed light on our future. We need to think less about the past and more about the future. We have often pointed out that human beings can exert a profound influence far into the future by preparing, in accordance with the Law of Karma, the future configuration of the etheric body in their astral body and, consequently, the future form of the physical body. If you take a broad view of this, you will see the immense importance of this connection; you will appreciate the depth to which the concept of education—particularly the concept of public education—will be enriched by the Law of Karma. If efforts are made today to ensure that people live in accordance with the Law of Karma and prepare their future lives, then they are simultaneously preparing the future communities. After all, those who will live in the future are the reincarnated human beings of the present. Healthy races in the future—and especially healthy leaders of future races—will emerge if people live sensibly toward the future in accordance with the law of karma. For when the individual human being perfects himself, he thereby exerts an influence on the national and racial organisms of the future.

[ 26 ] First, we must examine the actual mechanism of this karma. This refers to the question of which forces are at work when the astral characteristics of the present life are carried over into the next life and into the etheric body, and which forces cause the characteristics of the present life—habits and inclinations—that are imprinted in the etheric body to be carried over into the physical constitution of the next life. Even more difficult to answer is the question: What forces are at work when, on the basis of his present deeds, a person surrounds himself with external circumstances in his next life—when he not only gathers around himself the people with whom he has or has had dealings, but also places himself within the natural environment, the plant and animal world, and the social and cultural order that he himself has brought about? What are these forces that bring all of this back to the human being? How is it that two people who had a connection in a previous life—one of whom is reborn in America and the other in Europe—are nevertheless brought together? These are the great questions we will endeavor to answer next time. In short, how do the circumstances of one life shape the circumstances of the next? Since we will have many guests, this question will also be suitable for discussion at the General Assembly. Of course, those who attended these lectures will have an advantage next time. “The Technique of Karma” will be the title of the next lecture.

[ 27 ] This brings us to an important question of life, which we will divide between today and our next session. Please keep in mind that what has been said refers to specific cases based on real, positive occult facts. Everything that has been revealed today as a karmic connection thus stems from the actual study of the karma of specific people, of individual human beings. Karma and its examination also teach us the basis for how we are to assess, even in this life, the connection between illness and specific soul characteristics—namely, the awakening of certain soul forces. Thus, for those who take in the lectures on karma here, many things will come into sharper focus—things that have been presented in general terms at the Architektenhaus regarding the connection between illness and death, suffering and evil. In particular, this winter we should consider here and there how the spiritual-scientific worldview relates to life. In this way, we will gain a greater sense of the impulse and insight that spiritual science is not something that can be dismissed as impractical, but rather that it intervenes directly in practical life.