7. From Buddha to Christ

It is believed that a person's inner disposition is inherited only from their father and mother. Of course, anyone who does not believe in spiritual beings cannot go further, but anyone who recognizes the realities of the spiritual world will find it self-evident that a person's spiritual soul comes from a previous spiritual soul and that this spiritual soul draws on the predispositions of the ancestors, that there is therefore an essential core. And that is the teaching of reincarnation. Just as the animal is the repetition of its species, so the human being is the repetition of his individuality. What we see growing within us here in the way of inner gifts is nothing other than what we have acquired in previous lives on earth. Just as every plant can flourish only in soil that is suitable for it, such as the edelweiss that can take root only in the high mountains, so every human being seeks out his environment, which forms the basis for his destiny, because the environment that is beneficial and appropriate for him exerts an attraction on him. So this person is born in this country and this language area, in this family, that person in that country in that family - because his or her individual character determines this. That is the law of karma: we ourselves forge our destiny. To many, this seems fantastic, and it can easily be refuted from a scientific point of view. But just as Francesco Redi was pushed by scientific facts to express his assertion that “living things come only from living things”, so we are pushed to express the sentence: “spiritual things come only from spiritual things”. Just as Francesco Redi's sentence was misunderstood, so will our sentence be misunderstood. But every new truth evokes resistance - and from the experiences of the past we may draw courage.