4. Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution, Part 1

In present-day literature and science the tendency is to base everything on qualities that have been inherited from the parents. If we once realize how the child, in a karmic sense, gathers from previous earth-lives whatever his wisdom urges him to select, we shall comprehend the correct relation between that which is determined by destiny and that which represents external inheritance and garb. For this inheritance is nothing but an external garb. That the latter exists will not seem strange to those comprehending in the right way how the human beings connect themselves, at a certain point between death and a new birth, with the sequence of generations. Turning their glance from the Beyond to the earthly realm, they are able to foresee who their parents are going to be. From the Beyond, we help to determine the qualities that our parents will have. Hence it is no wonder that we inherit these qualities. Yet—as was previously described—we make our choice concerning the qualities that we inherit.