27. Is there Such a Thing as Chance?

Question: A reader has asked the following question: “Does theosophical teaching not recognize the concept of ‘chance’ at all? For example, I cannot imagine that it could be the karma of each individual if five hundred people perish in a ‘theatrical fire’.”

Answer: The laws of karma are so complex that no one should be surprised if some fact seems to contradict the general validity of this law. One must realize that this mind is initially trained in our physical world and that it is generally only accustomed to admitting what it has learned in this world. However, the karmic laws belong to higher worlds – in Germany it is customary to say “higher planes”. If, therefore, we wish to think of any event that befalls a human being as having a karmic effect, as we might think of the operation of a justice purely in earthly-physical life, we must necessarily encounter contradiction upon contradiction. We must realize that a common experience that befalls several people in the physical world can mean something quite different for each of them in the higher worlds. Of course, the opposite is also possible, that common karmic chains of events in common earthly experiences can have an effect. Only those who can see clearly in the higher worlds can say in detail what is at hand. If the karmic chains of five hundred people are realized in such a way that these people perish in a theater fire, then the following cases are possible, among others:

Firstly, the karmic chains of one of the five hundred people need have nothing to do with those of another of the victims. The common misfortune then relates to the karma of the individual persons in the same way as the shadow of fifty people on a wall relates to the thoughts and feelings of these persons. An hour ago, these fifty people may have had nothing in common; in an hour they may have many things in common again. What they experienced when they met in the same room will have a special effect on each of them. But their being together is expressed in the shadow image mentioned. However, anyone who wanted to draw any conclusions from this shadow image about a commonality of the people would be quite wrong.

Secondly, it is possible that the shared experience of the five hundred people has nothing to do with their karmic past, but that precisely through this shared experience something is being prepared that will bring them together karmically in the future. Perhaps these five hundred people will undertake a joint enterprise in the distant future, and the misfortune has brought them together for higher worlds. The experienced mystic is well aware that, for example, associations that are currently being formed owe their origin to the fact that the people who join together have experienced a common misfortune in the distant past.

Thirdly, such a case can really be the effect of previous joint guilt of the persons in question. But there are still countless other possibilities. For example, all three possibilities mentioned can be combined with each other, etc.

To speak of “chance” in the physical world is certainly not unjustified. And just as the sentence “There is no such thing as chance” is absolutely true when all the worlds are taken into consideration, so it would be unjustified to eliminate the word “chance” when we are merely talking about the concatenation of things in the physical world. Chance in the physical world is brought about by the fact that in this world things happen in sensory space. In so far as they take place in this space, they must also obey the laws of this space. In this space, however, externally things can come together that initially internally have nothing to do with each other. Just as my face is not really distorted because it appears distorted in an uneven mirror, so the causes that make a brick fall from the roof and damage me, as I happen to be passing by, have nothing to do with my karma, which comes from my past. The mistake that is made here is that many people imagine the karmic connections to be too simple. They assume, for example, that if a brick has damaged this person, he must have earned this damage karmically. But this is by no means necessary. In the life of every person, events occur continually that have absolutely nothing to do with his merit or guilt in the past. Such events find their karmic compensation in the future. What happens to me today through no fault of my own, I will be compensated for in the future. One thing is certain: nothing remains without karmic compensation. But whether an experience of a person is the effect of his karmic past or the cause of a karmic future: this must first be determined in detail. And this cannot be decided by the mind accustomed to the physical world, but only by occult experience and observation.