Lecture II

Please do not imagine that such a reconciliation with one's karma necessitates the forming of a comprehensive theory about karma what is meant is much more a particular kind of culture and education of the life of feeling. Think how it is with a man who is beginning on a path of occult development Before the moment of time when he makes this beginning, he has lived in the world as a man among men. He has acquired a certain standing in life, he has made himself master of certain thoughts which enable him to carry out satisfactorily the external actions that his calling demands. He has also come to recognise certain duties or obligations that custom and society have laid upon him. It can at the very outset be assumed that any man who has not responded to what the world demanded of him, any man, that is, who does not want loyally to fulfil his obligations to the world around, would never have the urge to undergo occult development In fact, as a general rule, those who could be called to occult development were men who showed great ability in the positions in which life had placed them and who were also desirous of being in every respect equal to the obligations laid upon them by custom and society. The capacities and faculties a man shows in his position in life, the round of duties also that he recognises as incumbent upon him,—these are the very things that constitute karma in the positive sense. Here a man's karma comes to expression. And the first demand made upon a man who was preparing to step outside the bounds of his position in life as such and enter upon an investigation of the spiritual world, was that he should not in any way deviate from the karma of his life, but maintain it untouched. This meant that he made a promise, to himself and to those who were assisting him to penetrate into the occult world, not to make use in his outer standing in life of whatever should be acquired in the field of occult research. His will and action had to be so directed that others who were observing him would not be aware of any marked difference in the whole behaviour of his life since he had begun to take steps on the path of occult research. The power given him in occult research must never be allowed to interfere in the external life of the physical plane. This is what is meant by “reconciliation with karma.” The pupil forgoes all advantages that might be gained by occult means for his position in life.