4. Man’s Connection With The Earth

It is one of the most wonderful sights in the whole of life to observe how a child stops crawling and stands up in order to orientate himself in the world; to ‘come to himself’ as a human being. It is the backward-radiating forces of the metals that work inwardly in the forces which give the child the power of orientation. As the child learns to raise himself from his horizontal position in crawling, he is permeated by the backward-radiating force of the metals. This is the force that actually raises the child into the upright position. If this connection is recognised, another experience comes simultaneously. It is that in the deeds, in the essential nature of the human being living here on Earth, one recognises the connection with his earlier incarnation. The faculties for perceiving the workings of the metals in the Cosmos and the karmic connection between the successive lives on Earth, are the same. The one recognition comes with the other and neither is possible without the other. That is why I once said in an entirely different context that in this power of orientation, in the power which enables the child to rise from crawling to standing and walking, the faculty of learning to speak and think, lie the fruits coming from earlier lives on Earth. I said then that anyone with an eye for these things perceives in the way the child takes his first steps, whether in taking steps he tends to put toes or heels down first, whether he bends his knees sharply or only slightly—in all this, karmic disposition from an earlier incarnation can be perceived. It shows itself primarily in the gait. This is because together with the faculty which enables the backward-raying forces of the metals to be perceived comes the faculty to perceive the connection of a man’s present life with his earlier lives.