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Karma as Retributions

Ideas from Rudolf Steiner's Manifestations of Karma. 11 lectures . . . (1910). Book data is in the end part of the page.

Preface

"We can form ideas to win back (regain) certain things that have been lost, including marred perfection.

"If someone looks into the wrong done against him, that may be a help to him. He may then more accurately or easily find ways and means to neutralise the harm which has been done to him."

"When we have to admit, 'This experience which has come to us stands in a certain relationship to a previous event in which we took part, and which we ourselves caused,' it has to do with retributions (karma)," asserts Rudolf Steiner. It depends.

What is called karma reveals itself in so many different ways, in entirely different spheres.

Aspects of Karma

It is good to evaluate what is worth striving for.

1. Ideas from talks on what is told to be intersecting principles.

We look out over a man's life from a higher standpoint. Then we can see that certain fateful events are the effects of causes perceived in another state of consciousness, namely, the consciousness we had before rebirth. It may be called the individualist mind.

Retributive principles of that individual will intersect the laws which we may call "karmic laws of humanity." Sometimes this intersection is only slightly perceptible.

If we consider impartially what the world thinks it "knows", and what leads men to this or that feeling or action, we might say all this is so very different from mastermind ideas and ideals that the beginner is quite unable to influence life directly by what he has acquired from masterly sighting - at least for a jolly good time.

2. Extraordinary beginnings can bring about remarkable connections later.

He who observes human life carefully – not simply in a superficial way – may find remarkable connections in it.

Unfortunately, in observing many forms and facets of human life phenomena, people are not useed to connect what has happened after a long period of time with what may have happened previously as the cause. Much study is "short-sighted" in this way. Moreover, there are very few in our days who study the beginning and the end of a man's life in their relationship to each other; nevertheless this relationship can be extraordinarily instructive.

We must go more deeply into retributive (ie, karmic) principles and their various actions in man's universe. – And in order to be understandable, we must give, if not exactly a definition, at least some description of the conception.

Our will can intervene and bring about something which takes the place of karmic effects which would otherwise have followed.

3. Looking into animal ways can and should be developed.

Steiner talks, "We look upon the animals and say: 'All that the animals manifest in the way of cruelty, voracity, and all animal vices, besides the skill which they have we should have had within us, if we had not been able to eject them.' . . . We may, indeed, say that it is well for us that we no longer have the cruelty of the lion, the slyness of the fox, etc., but that these are withdrawn from us and lead an independent existence outside us." [Lecture 2]

"The higher we advance in the animal creation the more do we have to consider." [Lecture 3] ✪ 

So

Intersections considered, what meets us in life is a blend of harvest and failures - Good, sustainable ways need to be developed, or the planet refuses humans to live here any longer.

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Rudolf Steiner, karma teachings, Steiner thought on karma and retributions, Literature  

Steiner, Rudolf. 1947. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. Herndon, VA: Anthroposophic Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1957. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 4. Ten Lectures Given at Dornach. Switzerland, between 5th and 23rd September, 1924. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1962. Reincarnation and Karma: How Karma Works. Two Essays. Tr. Lisa D. Monges. Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1966. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol.5. Seven Lectures Given in Prague and Paris between 29th March and 25th May, 1924. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1969. Manifestations of Karma: Eleven Lectures Given in Hamburg, 16th to 28th May, 1910. GA 120. London: The Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1971. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 6. Nine Lectures Given in Berne, Zurich, Stuttgart and Arnhem, between 25th January and 20th July, 1924. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1972. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1972b. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 2. Sixteen Lectures Given at Dornach, Switzerland, between 6th April and 29th June, 1924. 2nd ed. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1973. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 7. Nine Lectures Given in Breslau from June 7th to June 15th. 1924. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1975. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 8. Six Lectures Given in Torquay and London to members of the Anthroposophical Society between 12th and 27th August, during Rudolf Steiner's last visit to England in 1924. With an Appendix. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1977. Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies. Vol. 3. Eleven Lectures Given at Dornach, Switzerland, between 1st July and 8th August, 1924. Reprint ed. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1977b. Reincarnation and Karma. Five Lectures Given during January to March 1912 in Berlin and Stuttgart. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1977c. Reincarnation and Karma: Their Significance in Modern Culture. (Bn 135, GA 135) Tr. D. S. Osmond, C. Davy and S. and E. F. Derry. North Vancouver, Steiner Book Centre.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1984. The Karma of Vocation. Ten Lectures Given in Dornach, Switzerland, November 4 through 27,1916. 2nd ed. Spring Valley, NY: The Anthroposophic Press.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1988. The Karma of Untruthfulness. (GA 173) Vol. 1. Tr. Johanna Collis. London: The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.

Steiner, Rudolf. 1992. The Karma of Untruthfulness. (GA 174) Vol. 2. Tr. Johanna Collis. London: The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.

Steiner, Rudolf. nd. Reincarnation and Karma from the Point of View of Modern Scientific Thought: A Lecture Given in Berlin, March 26th, 1903. Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung.

Harvesting the hay

Symbols, brackets, signs and text icons explained: (1) Text markers(2) Digesting.

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