Thought, Feeling, Will: Karma and Inner Transformation

GA 266I — 27 February 1906, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Rosicrucianism. The philosopher's stone. Alchemy. Humans breathe out carbon dioxide and in oxygen, plants do the opposite, breathing out oxygen and in carbon dioxide. We are therefore dependent on plants and should be humble towards lower realms. The right and left sides of humans are different. The right ventricle contains blue blood, which goes to the lungs, and the left ventricle contains red blood, which is pumped into the body. The right side is older than the left and must decline. Humans will become plants again. The right side of the brain is associated with pride and arrogance; a protruding chin indicates avarice. The lungs and rapid breathing are connected to envy, the liver to anger. We can change our thoughts most easily, our feelings more difficult, and our will most difficult of all. The latter is connected to our external karma, our actions in previous incarnations, while feelings are connected to our internal karma, our previous emotional life. Thinking lies between birth and death. In this life, a person can comprehend the whole world with their mind, but after death they will have forgotten everything. We must work with our thoughts in our feelings. When we change this, we work for our individuality, which passes through incarnations. Personality lies between birth and death. Everything, the whole world, is built up through thoughts; our feelings correspond to the movement in nature, our will to the force in the movement. For example, the force that pulls a stone that has been let go toward the earth is also in my will, with which I carry something out. Lightning and thunder are in nature what anger is in humans. When we change our feelings and our will, we thereby change the earth. Our external karma determines into which people, into which family we are born. We have something to repay these people, something we owe them, and it is therefore good that we cannot change our external karma so easily. Through our inner life, we have not become indebted to anyone, so we can change our inner karma, our emotional life, more easily. We reshape our world of thoughts several times. It was different when we were children, before we went to school. It was changed by school. Then by life, then by theosophy. We change our feelings by working through our thoughts until they become feelings. This happens through meditation. We must grow fond of the sentences; they must become a habit. Through concentration, we influence our body and our blood circulation. In this way, we change the world. Triad: thought, feeling, will.