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

This, again, is still rather an abstract consideration of such a question which we could study much more deeply if we could observe human life over long periods of time. Let us consider human life in the Egyptian-Chaldean age which preceded the Greco-Latin. If we examine the peculiarities of this age, especially with regard to what it has given to mankind, and what mankind then learnt in it, we shall see something curious. If we compare this epoch with our own, we shall perceive that what is happening in our own time is connected with what happened in the Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation. The Greco-Latin lies between the two. In our time certain things would not happen unless other things had happened in the Egyptian-Chaldean times. If present-day natural science has brought about certain results, it has certainly done so by means of powers which have unfolded and developed out of the souls of men. The human souls who worked in our time were also incarnated in man in the Egyptian-Chaldean age, and at that time they underwent certain experiences without which they would not be able to accomplish what they do to-day. If the pupils of the old Egyptian temple priests had not learned in Egyptian astrology about the relations existing between the heavenly bodies, they would not later on have been able to penetrate into the secrets of the world, nor would certain souls in the present age have possessed the abilities to explore the regions of the heavens. For instance, how did Kepler arrive at his discoveries? He did so because within him there was a soul who in the Egyptian-Chaldean times had acquired the forces necessary for the discoveries which he was to make in the fifth age. It fills us with inner satisfaction to see in certain souls a realisation arising out of the fact that the germs of what they are now doing were laid in the past. Kepler, one of the men who has played a most important part in the investigation of the laws of the universe says of himself, ‘Yes, it is I who have robbed the golden vessels of the Egyptians to make an offering to my God far removed from Egyptian bounds. If you will forgive me, I will rejoice, but if you blame me I must bear it; here I throw the dice and I write this book. What matter if it is read to-day or later—even if centuries must elapse before it is read! God himself had to wait six thousand years for the one who recognised his work.’