Karma and Reincarnation

Dedication to Faust

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

"Ye wavering forms draw near again as ever
When ye long since moved past my clouded eyes.
To hold you fast, shall I this time endeavor?
Still does my heart that strange illusion prize?
Ye crowd on me! Tis well! You might as ever
While ye from mist and murk around me rise.
As in my youth my heart again is bounding
Thrilled by the magic breath your train surrounding.

Ye bring with you glad days and happy faces.
Ah, many dear, dear shades arise with you
Like some old tale that Time but half erases,
First Love draws near to me and Friendship too.
The pain returns, the sad lament retraces,
Life’s labyrinth, erring course anew
And names the good souls who fortune cheated
Of lovely hours forth from my world have fleeted.

They do not hear the melodies I’m singing.
The souls to whom my earliest lays I sang
Dispersed that throng who once to me were clinging,
The echoes died away that one time rang.
Now midst an unknown crowd my grief is ringing,
Their praise but gives my heart a pang,
While those who once my song enjoyed and flattered
If they still they live, roam through the wide world scattered.

And I am seized with long-unwonted yearning
Toward yonder realms of spirits and still.
My plaintive song’s uncertain tones are turning
To harps aeolian murmuring at will.
Awe binds me fast, tear upon tear falls burning,
My stern heart feels a gentle, tender thrill;
What I possess, as far off I’m seeing
And what has vanished, new comes into Being.”
 

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Goethe was a prolific writer, poet, botanist, scientist, and literary artist who could see into the depths of the human heart and the world of the spirit. He was one of the inspirations for the Anthroposophical movement. Dr. Rudolf Steiner named the global headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland the “Goetheanum”.  Dr. Steiner, in at least one lecture, referred to him as an initiate.

The lines above reflect, in the author's opinion, the deep feeling and recognition of an individual who has perceived the memories and deep personal relationships of the past, which is accompanied by the yearning pang of rebirth. In that peculiar experience, the heart aches and looks into the past, the present, and the future.

In the above lines, Goethe recognized the transformed relationships with loved ones, friends, and acquaintances who were unable to remember their relationships from the past and therefore Goethe, or the seeker who has acquired knowledge of his or her past lives, must look on those around him with a sense of longing, love, and yearning.

"Dream no small dreams, for they have no power to move the hearts of men." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

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-“We do not dip twice into the same wave; we are and we are not.”  -Attributed to Heraclitus or Cratylus, Ephesus, 5-6th centuries BC.

-“We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.”  - Carl Jung 

- “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  - Carl Jung 

 "…to find that ye only lived, died and were buried under the cherry tree in Grandmother’s garden does not make thee one whit a better neighbor, citizen, mother or father! But to know that ye spoke unkindly and suffered for it and in the present may correct it by being righteous—that is worthwhile!” - Edgar Cayce reading 5753-2

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There is no free will without karma. There is no need for karma without free will.  Karma, through a succession of repeated earth lives for the individual soul, is the mechanism by which the gift of free will and the results issuing from our decisions, which have a spiritual and moral outcome that affects ourselves and others around us, can be reconciled and fulfilled in the future. The moment of that reconciliation is not immediate; it is is carried into the distant future.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Edgar Cayce, and countless spiritual leaders and seekers have observed and spoken about the law of karma and repeated lifetimes as a means of spiritual transformation and evolution of the human being. Since ancient times throughout the world (in both East and West), reincarnation was an accepted and living principle in the human soul and the human experience; even if one could not remember their prior lifetimes, the principles of karma lived within the consciousness of the average human being.

The idea of reincarnation was a living part of early Christian and spiritual thought including the areas of Europe such as Britain and Gaul who had inherited the living spirituality of the Druids, and the Gallic culture, in their religions which varied in expression from one region to the next (say from southern France to Germany). However, as Rome spread into Europe, and the Christian church with it, the ideas of reincarnation were gradually purged from the spiritual and religious ideologies of the West (which is to say European thought) over time. 

As the Roman Catholic Church established itself throughout Europe in the centuries following the Mystery of Golgotha, intonations and ideas relating to karma and reincarnation were carefully removed from writings and teachings thereabouts (at times aggressively). European spiritual thought - in general terms - became increasingly sterilized and the people - many of whom could not read or write - relied heavily on dogma. 

Reincarnation was once an accepted spiritual principle in the West before the modern era began. It is only in the modern world that this living, genuine, and operative law has gradually receded into the background of thinking and feeling of the human being. There are many viewpoints and perspectives on karma and a basic search on the internet will yield thousands of results. All kinds of ideas are in motion including an idea that karma has no moral or spiritual aspect that necessitates repeated lifetimes.

As Dr. Rudolf Steiner described through many of his lectures, there are reasons for one's forgetfulness of past lives including a heightened emphasis, in terms of how the average person perceives the world in modern times, on outer perception and thinking in concepts. This is a disposition that is rooted inside the human soul and is further taught, and exacerbated, by the conditions in which we live. This is due, at least in part, to an evolving process of evolution in the world that has impeded the average person's ability to recall our past lives at this moment in time. 

Reincarnation is not provable in a strict materialistic-scientific way. We can only observe its effects and experience it as an enhanced inner perspective.  This area of study is an inner one that arises out of the depths of our souls and awareness. Karma is a simple concept, yet it can also be complex as it manifests over time. There is a "dovetailing" effect at work that necessitates separations and fulfillments with people that is unique for each human being, families, groups, and nations. 

In light of Anthroposophy, Edgar Cayce, and other seekers/teachers who have "pierced the veil" of outer perception alone, or "Parsifal", the ongoing process of growth and evolution for humanity, which is linked to the world, is not the result of a natural or blind process of coincidence, natural selection, chance, or luck.  Rather, the slow and gradual process of change of the human being and the world is the result of an intelligent process, and individual decisions, that occurs gradually over time. It is a personal process that is overseen, and guided, by spiritual-angelic beings who do not incarnate in physical form. One's deeds, thoughts, and feelings are connected in a comprehensive web of destiny, or tapestry, that arises anew in each lifetime connected by a chain of prior causes; results of our decisions, thoughts, deeds, and relationships.

This ongoing process is overseen with the guidance of angelic higher beings, who preserve our free will, led by the mission of Christ-Jesus; the "Representative of Humanity" in Anthroposophical vernacular.  Through free will, we are the maker's of our own destiny, it is true, but we are also influenced by the conditions of world and the century in which we live. In individual karmic terms, each human is compelled to confront different events, forms, and obstacles as we make our way through life. Then, we can apply our free will to what occurs in front, or within, us. Karma is met, created, and carried forward from prior lifetimes. It is  an evolving process until one meets his or her karmic obligations and is no longer required to incarnate in the physical world by necessity.

 The conditions of one's soul, and the environment into which we are born, including our aptitudes and dispositions, are influenced by our deeds, thoughts, and feelings from prior lifetimes and define the environment into which we are born. This is the nature of one's karma which defines the circumstances, familial relationships, and the form of one's environment and the events, and relationships, that confront one on the path of life. These relationships are oftentimes very personal and ancient.

One’s name and form are temporary and while all human beings are inevitably destined to transition through the gate of death, the spiritual mission and relationships between people continues.  According to Anthroposophy, and laws of karma, repeated earth lives is a universal law that each human being is subject to. A lot of us, due to a variety of influences, have lost touch with this living and operative principle which guides humanity forward from one lifetime to the next. 

All beings, whether they are incarnate or not, exist in a state of growth, change, and movement. This process is overseen by divine beings who do not incarnate in the physical world including our guardian angels who oversee the destiny of each human being from one lifetime to the next. Our path is interwoven with the forward momentum of time, seeking, transformation, grace, compassion, and love. Love, and destiny, is the binding element that created, sustains, and transforms human beings and the world and is an underlying process at work in our lives. 

Dr. Rudolf Steiner wrote and lectured extensively on the operative principle of karma and repeated lifetimes, which contains many mysteries and nuances, the reality of which is interwoven with the birth and life of the world. In other words, each human being is intimately connected to the birth and the evolution of the earth. He, and man others including Edgar Cayce, provided deep insights  -by using specific examples - into the nuances and misconceptions of karma. -Refer to Dr. Steiner's "Karmic Relationships" lecture series available for free here: https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/index.php?sort_order=title_sort&dir=ASC&letter=K

We can begin this journey into the past, the present, and the future by embracing a feeling, which resides in the soul, driven by the powers of the heart that seeks answers to the deeper questions of our lives and the world.  This is a pursuit of the heart, and love, which drives our thoughts and the quest of the riddle of individuality - not relying on egotism - but rather on the deeper mystery of how and why things are.

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Dr. Rudolf Steiner observed that there are certain principles that should be adopted when one is contemplating reincarnation and past lives in order to approach this simple, and yet complex, aspect of life in the right way. Basic judgment, for example, should be removed from one's perspective.  Each lifetime is a new experience built upon the trials, tribulations, successes, and failures of prior lifetimes and each of us is unique. Each of us has a unique spiritual biography that weaves with other human beings over time. Each of us has achieved transformations and created hindrances over the course of many lifetimes.

The deeper aspects of ourselves, connected to karmic missions, are grounded in our eternal nature. The lower ego, which has a name in the outer world, is destined to transform; we allow to manifest the lower or higher aspects of ourselves which is connected, at this moment in time, to one's nation, culture, bloodline, form, environment, and experiences. Reincarnation is the ultimate balancer of life - through rebirth - and no one is immune from it. Therefore, no one should devalue themselves, or others, in an egotistical sense based on what can be viewed as mistakes or errors that may have occurred in prior incarnations.  There is always a path to finding balance and reconciling the past.

This can be a challenging task if one feels a strong emotional connection to a certain time, place, or historical personality. One must rise above it, and yet immerse ourselves in it, to grasp the fundamental principles and truths of reincarnation which were discussed by Dr. Rudolf Steiner at length and also appear in Edgar Cayce's readings. Some of the principles are straightforward, but behind basic principles are nuances that are important to understand.  In that regard, Dr. Steiner, and others such as Edgar Cayce reviewed specific examples of karmic histories.

Dr. Steiner observed that certain attributes follow from one life to the next, in particular one's affectations, habits, and disposition. Our physical body, the beauty, grace, and joy that we carry as a disposition, our patience and fortitude, carries forward into future lifetimes in our current form and activity. Beauty in one's current incarnation, in light of Anthroposophy, is directly connected to suffering in a prior lifetime. These aspects were set in motion by thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and how handled certain challenges and moments of adversity in prior lifetimes.

For example:

(1) "No one who shudders at the unpleasantness of pain, who is unwilling to bear pain can create in himself the foundations for wisdom; indeed when we look deeper, we cannot really bemoan illnesses, for regarded from a higher standpoint, from the standpoint of Eternity, they take on a very different aspect. Illnesses calmly borne often appear in the next life as great physical beauty; great physical beauty in a human being is acquired at the cost of illnesses in the preceding life. Such is the connection between impairment of the body through illness, particularly also through external circumstances, and beauty." -Steiner, Rudolf. Theosophy and the Rosicrucian, GA 99, Lecture VI. The Law of Destiny, 30 May 1907, Munich. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA099/English/RSP1966/19070530p01.html

"The very details can be observed and it can be found that a passion for acquisition, an urge that makes a person hoard possessions and becomes a rooted disposition in him, produces, in the next life, a tendency to infectious diseases in the physical body. Absolute confirmation is possible of cases where a pronounced tendency to infectious diseases leads back to an earlier, very strong sense of acquisition, the bearer of this quality being the etheric body. On the other hand disinterested striving, free from any desire for self-profit and wishing only to work for the well-being of all mankind — this tendency in the etheric body gives rise, in the next life, to a strong power of resistance to infectious diseases."-Steiner, Rudolf. Theosophy and the Rosicrucian, GA 99, Lecture VI. The Law of Destiny, 30 May 1907, Munich. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA099/English/RSP1966/19070530p01.html

The area around the brow and the eyes is typically consistent, including the forehead. Other aspects can greatly change based on the nature of how we instill within ourselves accomplishments, traits, habits, and skills that we cultivate over our lives. 

This accounts for the prodigy phenomena and why certain people are born with dispositions for beauty, for example, or longevity. In the instance of prodigy, a skill is sought and mastered and it is retained in the human soul where it manifests in subsequent lifetimes in a number of ways; not always in the same form that it was mastered in the past. A musician, for example, may become a great artist in a future lifetime, and vice versa. A person of great beauty typically bore, with grace, illness and suffering.

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(2) "A stroke of destiny that befalls a person during life in the physical world may seem, from the point of view of that (physical) life, to contain something altogether opposed to the man’s own will. In the life between death and rebirth a force, resembling will, rules in the soul that gives to the person the tendency toward experiencing this very blow of fate. The soul sees, as it were, that an imperfection has clung to it from earlier earth-lives —  an imperfection that had its origin in an ugly deed or an ugly thought.  

Between death and re-birth, there arises in the soul a will-like impulse to make good this imperfection. The soul, therefore, becomes imbued with the tendency to plunge into a misfortune in the coming earth-life, in order, through enduring it, to bring about equilibrium. After its birth in the physical body, the soul, when met by some hard fate, has no glimmering of the fact that in the purely spiritual life before birth, the impulse that led to this hard fate has been voluntarily accepted by it. What, therefore, seems completely unwished for from the point of view of earth-life is willed by the soul itself in the supersensible." -Rudolf Steiner – GA 9 – Theosophy: Addenda No. 12, https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_addenda.html

(3) "Spiritual science recognizes the truth of repeated earth-lives out of its own sources, and it points us to our connection with the totality of human life through the ages. For the souls living in us have been here many times before, and will return again and again. Let us look back on early cultural epochs — for instance, to the time when people lifted their eyes to the pyramids. We know that our souls were already living at that time and that they will appear again in the future; they take part in every epoch."  -Rudolf Steiner,  Anthroposophy and Christianity, GA 155, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/AntChr_index.html 

(4) "The human astral body is in continual activity. Its life consists in this. In a narrower sense this activity is called human karma. What I do today has its expression in the astral body. If I give somebody a blow, that is activity and calls forth a counter blow. This is balance restoring justice — karma. Every action calls forth its counter action. With this must be considered the concept of cause and effect. In karma there is always something needing to be brought into balance; something further is always demanded.

...That part of the astral body which is formed by man himself becomes his karma. What he himself has worked into it must have a karmic effect. This is the undying, the non-transient in him. The physical body has come about through the karma of other beings; but that part of man's astral body in which he has worked since the Lemurian Age, that is his karma. Only when man through his work has transformed the whole of his astral body, has he reached the stage of freedom. Then the whole of his astral body is transmuted from within. He is then entirely the result of his own activity, of his karma. 

...What throughout long periods of time had its function as karma, passes over into wisdom. Wisdom is the daughter of karma. All karma finds its compensation in wisdom." -Rudolf Steiner, The Foundations of Esotericism, GA 93a, Lecture II, Berlin, 27th September 1905, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA093a/English/RSP1982/19050927p01.html  *This is an abridged quote.

(5) "Here we must look to the most striking new quality of man's soul, which is preparing. The question is often put: Well, if reincarnation exists, why does a person not remember the former incarnations? That is a question which I have often answered. Such a question appears as when one brings along a four-year-old child, and because it is a human being, and cannot reckon, one would say: Man cannot reckon. But let the child become ten years old, and then it will reckon. It is thus with the human soul.

If today it cannot remember, yet, the time will come in which it can remember — the time when it has the same powers as he possesses who is initiated today. But just today that transition is happening. There exist today a number of souls who are so far on in our time, who stand close to the moment where they will remember their former incarnations...  It is merely a question of how they remember. Anthroposophical development should give help and direction to remember in the right way." -Rudolf Steiner, The Ego: The God Within and the God of External Revelation, GA 117, Lecture I. Group-soulness and Ego-hood. 4 December 1909, Munich,  https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/The_Ego/19091204p01.html This is an abridged quote.

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One who was, say, a Mozart in a prior life has mastered this complex skill, through sacrifice, practice, and virtue, which he carried forward in his soul into the next lifetime. These experiences, down to the finest nuance, are imbued upon the skein of space and time. Spiritual studies, such as provided through Anthroposophy and Edgar Cayce's readings, sometimes refer to the total record of a soul’s experiences of repeated lifetimes as a “spiritual lineage”, the "Akashic Records", "Akasha Essence", and “karmic history”. 

Our spiritual lineage is an ongoing book for each of us. It is one’s comprehensive soul-history that includes all of the traceable line of cause-and-effect relationships that each of us has carried, and may still carry, within us every day of each of our lives. This information is accessible to he or she who can perceive them through the "Akashic Records" or "Akasha Essence".  These things are visible outwardly in the spiritual worlds and people who have lived through a near-death experience often speak of how prior agreements and relationships, long since forgotten, are brought before them as images and feelings having long forgotten agreements and promises made prior to being born.

The concept and idea of a Great Hall of Records is an axiom amongst those who take an active interest in reincarnation and has been taught by the initiates. It is a an evolving spiritual library that contains the comprehensive history of all actions, thoughts, and deeds of every soul in the universe. The revelation of this great hall is, in part, due to the testimonies of near-death experience testimonials from those who have returned from the other side of death to share their experiences. 

Various religious texts including the Book of Revelation make references to the "Book of Life". Information on the Hall of Records has been referenced to by individuals who possessed genuine and expanded spiritual vision such as such as Rudolf Steiner, and Edgar Cayce. George Ritchie, M.D., now deceased, in his book "Return from Tomorrow" provided details on a great Hall or Library of the Universe that he was escorted to, and through, by Christ-Jesus during his near death experience during World War 2.

Cayce referred to the universal repository as this spiritual library as the “Hall of Records” while Rudolf Steiner (and others) referred to this library as the “Akashic Records” or “Akasha-Essence”.  -Refer to Steiner, Rudolf, Occult Science - An Outline, Chapter 4, Man and the Evolution of the World, Part I. - https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/English/RSP1963/GA013_index.html

Understanding the law of Karma, and the reality of reincarnation, is an important task for people in the modern age when the illusion of materialism, which Dr. Steiner extensively lectured and wrote about, threatens to sever our inner sense and connection with the universe of which we are an integrated part; a cosmic field of activity that permeates all human beings in a myriad of ways. Understanding the Great Law of Destiny can enable us to make proper decisions and follow an informed path so that we can understand the past and the present, and prepare for the future in an informed way. 

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(6) "...it must be emphasized that life is not determined by previous incarnations alone but also, though in a small degree, by the present life. The law of how man's past, present and future are connected, is called in Spiritual-scientific literature, the Law of Karma. It is the true law of human destiny; an individual life is only a specific application of the great law of the Cosmos, for the law of Karma is a universal, cosmic law with a specific application in the life of a human being. Whenever we envisage a connection between preceding conditions and subsequent effects, we are thinking in line with this law."  -Steiner, Rudolf. Theosophy and the Rosicrucian, GA 99, Lecture VI. The Law of Destiny, 30 May 1907, Munich. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA099/English/RSP1966/19070530p01.html

(7) "It would certainly not be right if someone seeing another person suffer were to say to him: you yourself were the cause of this suffering — and then were to refuse to help him because Karma must take its course. This would be a misunderstanding of Karma. 

What Karma says is this: help the one who is suffering for you are actually there in order to help him. You do not violate karmic necessity by helping your fellow man. On the contrary, you are helping him to bear his Karma. You are then yourself a redeemer of suffering.

When a Being as all-powerful as Christ Jesus comes to the help of the human race, His sacrificial death becomes a factor in the collective Karma of mankind. He could bear and help this Karma, and we may be sure that the redemption through Him plays an essential role in its fulfillment." -Rudolf Steiner, Easter and the Awakening to Cosmic Thought, GA Unknown, 12 April 1907, Berlin, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GAUNK/19070412p01.html 

(8) "...I look upon that which was before my birth, which placed me in this incarnation, because this, my destiny, is necessary for my further development. Who sent me hither? Who will continue to place me on this earth, into my destiny, until I have discharged my Karma? I shall owe this to the Christ that men can ever more be called to suffer their destinies, until they have discharged their Karma on earth.” 

Therefore Jesus of Nazareth, out of whom Christ spoke, could not say to men; “Try to escape as fast as possible out of the physical body”...but he had to say to men: “I will place you into your destinies on this earth so long as you have not discharged your Karma. You must discharge your Karma.” Men will learn as we approach the future that they were united with Christ before birth, that they have received from him the grace of discharging their old Karma in the incarnations." -Steiner, Rudolf.  

The Three Paths of the Soul to Christ, GA 143, II. The Path of Initiation, 17 April 1912, Stockholmhttps://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA143/English/AP1942/19120417p01.html  

(9) "The course of a man's life can be very little gauged by the way he thinks; but very much by the way he feels. And when you observe such a life, let us say, as Goethe's, and ask yourself: How did Goethe feel in the year 1790? — then, through the peculiar stamp and character of Goethe's feeling in the year 1790 you get the entire later colouring of his life; it is all present as a nucleus in the feeling of 1790. As soon as we descend into the depths of the human soul we really perceive the peculiar colouring — not of course the details — of the subsequent life. A man might gain a great deal of illumination on his own life if he paid more attention to the inexplicable shades of feeling which are not caused from without but from the depths within."   -Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Vol. II Lecture VI https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA236/English/RSP1974/19240504p01.html

On the Reincarnation and Karma of Humanity with Animals

(10) "...if we examine occultly the connections between man and the next lower kingdom, the animal kingdom. We know that in the course of evolution man has always inflicted pain on the animals, that he has killed the animals. One who learns to know the Karma of human life often finds it highly unjust that the animal, which does not reincarnate, should suffer, should bear pain, and even, in the case of the higher animals, should go through death with a certain consciousness. Should no Karmic compensation take place here? Naturally, the human being has to make a Karmic compensation in Kamaloka for the pain which he inflicts on animals...

...study shows us that every pain which is inflicted on a pain-feeling being other than man, every death, is a seed for the future. Animals, as they are willed by the progressive divine evolution, are not destined to have incarnations like man. But, if a change comes into this wisdom-filled world-plan, if man intervenes and does not leave the evolution of the animals to be as it would have been without man, what happens then? Now, you see, occult research teaches us that every pain, every death, inflicted by man on the animals, will return and arise again, not through reincarnation, but because pain and death have been inflicted on the animals. 

This pain and suffering call up animality again. These animals on which pain has been inflicted will arise again, though not in the same form; but that which feels pain in them, that comes again. It comes again in such a way that the sufferings of the animals are compensated, so that to every pain its complementary feeling is added. These pains, these sufferings, this death, these are the seed which man has sown..."  -Steiner, Rudolf.  The Three Paths of the Soul to Christ, GA 143, II. The Path of Initiation, 17 April 1912, Stockholmhttps://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA143/English/AP1942/19120417p01.html  

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