1. The Nature and Significance of Karma in the Personal and Individual; and in Humanity, the Earth and the Universe

Thus the law of karma itself may be a source of consolation if we accustom ourselves to set an event not only at the end, but at the beginning of a series of events. This consolation exists only if we learn to study life methodically, and to place things in the right relationship to one another as cause and effect. If we carry out these observations thoroughly, we shall notice events in the life of a man which take place with a certain regularity; others, again, appear quite irregularly in the same life. He who observes human life carefully—not simply in a superficial way—may find remarkable connections in it. Unfortunately, the phenomena of human life are at present observed for only short periods of time, hardly even for a few years; people are not accustomed to connect what has happened after a long period of time, with what may have happened previously as the cause. There are very few at the present day who study the beginning and the end of a man's life in their relationship to each other; nevertheless this relationship is extraordinarily instructive.