32. Reincarnation – in the Helpless Child?

The following question is posed: “Can it be understood, according to the teachings of reincarnation and karma, that a highly developed human soul is reborn in a helpless, undeveloped child? For many, the thought of having to start over and over again at the childhood stage is something unbearable and illogical.”

How a person can act in the physical world depends entirely on the physical tools he has. For example, higher ideas can only be expressed in this world if a fully developed brain is present. Just as the piano player has to wait until the piano maker has finished the piano to the extent that he can play his musical ideas on it, so the soul has to wait with its abilities acquired in the previous life until the powers of the physical world have developed the bodily organs to the extent that they can become an expression of these abilities. The natural powers have to go their way, the soul also has to go its way. However, from the very beginning of human life, the soul and the physical forces work together. The soul works in the still pliable and flexible child's body in such a way that it can later become a carrier of the forces that have been acquired in earlier periods of life. It is absolutely necessary for the reborn human being to adapt to the new circumstances of life. If he were to simply appear in a new life with everything he had acquired earlier, he would not fit into the surrounding world. He has acquired his abilities and powers under completely different circumstances in a completely different environment. If he simply wanted to enter the world in his former state, he would be a stranger in it. The childhood period is there to bring about harmony between the old circumstances and the new ones. How would a person from ancient Rome, however clever, fare in our world if he were simply born into it with the powers he had acquired? A power can only be applied when it has harmonized with the environment. For example, when a genius is born, the genius is already present in the innermost core of the person, which is also called the causal body. The lower spirit body (kama manas, [the mind soul]) and the feeling and sensation body (astral body) are, however, adaptable and to a certain extent indeterminate. These two parts of the human being are now being developed. The causal body works from within, the environment from without. When this work is done, these two parts can be tools of the acquired powers. — It is therefore neither illogical nor unbearable to think of being born as a child. It would be unbearable to be born as a fully developed human being into a world in which one is a stranger.