The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit

GA 68b — 25 February 1910, Cologne

14. The Human Being's Journey Through the World of the Senses, Soul and Spirit

A burning fire of unquenched longing will consume the human being during the period of purification after death; pleasures are experienced as longing, satisfaction as burning longing. Living back with triple speed. The period of purification is not just like some kind of hell. Not only will beating be experienced, but one will also see how that act was damaging, how it affected perfection. Like tied stones, one will drag them along. This instills the urge to balance these things, to do something good for people. An enormous willpower then drives one back into the world to remove those millstones. After this third of the lifetime has passed, the astral body is discarded, then an extract of the astral and etheric bodies is taken along. Only then do you enter devachan or the realm of heaven. This is like a repetition of childhood, the moment of birth. Then you enter the purely spiritual world. Here there is a confluence of experiences into abilities, into qualities of mind. This is the individual development between death and a new birth.

For some, the experiences of the French Revolution are transformed into wisdom; others have passed by. Think of Penelope and her unravelling of the fabric. Her experiences with the suitors are not transformed into qualities of mind.

The plastic development of the ear belongs to music, the specific development of a part of the brain to calculating. A new archetype is built up in this way. This is linked to a certain sensation; this is the bliss that is experienced in producing, this spiritual life and weaving in the spiritual archetype, weaving into the essence of the substance of the etheric body, like the feeling of warmth in the hen when it lays an egg and in the artist when he is ready to bring a painting onto the canvas. There is bliss in this. Then the urge to overcome obstacles is also woven into it. These are two things: the new abilities and this urge are woven into the new incarnation. Reincarnations only make sense if there is something new on earth to absorb. How different it was what the child learned in Greek and Roman times than today. Just as when an artist has been carrying an image around with him and is urged to put it on canvas, the soul feels the urge to work out its new archetype and to balance.

So two forces determine the soul and guide it to the family and place where the soul can make amends. Perhaps it is not possible to balance everything right away. Eventually the archetype becomes the image of perfect humanity. Then karma has been fulfilled when everything is balanced.

Other people live with us and sooner or later pass through the gate of death. They only reincarnate after centuries, when circumstances have radically changed. Those who live together will be together in the spiritual world. The love for mother and child is at first animalistic, but then a soul bond develops. Insofar as it reaches the spiritual core, there is a continuation in the spiritual world. Longing for love and friendship becomes more intimate and conscious in the spiritual world. Thought is not the son of desire. The spiritual researcher gets used to the desire for what he thinks is the best form in the spiritual world. Then an objective picture emerges; truth is what makes people happy.