Karma and Reincarnation, Page 4

Contrary to a somewhat prevalent perception, the journey between death and rebirth, while in some parts a joyful, rewarding, and reassuring experience, is by no means a time of rest—unless one construes truly constructive work as rest—but is rather one of intense activity and, within limits, perception. A primary purpose of the journey is to reveal to the soul the purpose of its last life in the light of the soul’s accumulated karma, the extent to which it succeeded or failed, and then, compelled by necessity, the urge to return to Earth to work in a new personality toward the overcoming of remaining karma.

While the soul works assiduously during its journey between death and rebirth, the only place where its accumulated karma can be balanced is on Earth during mineral-physical incarnation. We may aptly analogize the complete cycle by saying that the Earth is the soul’s workshop, and the period between lives is spent in the planning or drawing room. Nothing worthwhile can be accomplished in the workshop without a proper plan, but no plan is worth anything unless and until it is consummated in the workshop. In order to become the “first born” or “first fruit” of humanity, humanity’s pattern, so to speak, the very Son of God, the Christ Spirit, had to go into the workshop. This is the substance of such Biblical passages as Phil 2,5-7 and Heb 2 wherein Christ gave up that high spiritual state to which he was entitled, took upon himself the human form, and was sacrificially obedient to the point of the Cross itself. The Bible becomes especially radiant when read in this light, and nothing in the Bible is inconsistent with this understanding. Presumed inconsistencies arise only from placing a far too limited, parochial or temporal interpretation upon its exalted passages.

Upon death the higher human elements, the etheric and astral bodies and Ego, are liberated from the physical body. This results in an instantincrease in consciousness, but as yet a consciousness that is far from complete. Immediately upon death the soul is aware of an expansion. Initially, and during the brief “memory tableau” in the etheric body, the expansion remains within close proximity of the physical world and especially in the locale of the mineral corpse. Depending upon the soul’s prior advancement, this can be a difficult time of separation. While Steiner anticipated developments of the kind, we have seen in recent decades numerous instances of return from clinical death in which we are told that one floated above the body perceiving everything that was going on. This seems totally consistent with what Steiner indicated decades earlier.

After this brief tableau period in the etheric world near the Earth, the departing soul is conscious of a gradual expanding, reaching out into the Moon sphere, that spheroidal volume defined by the orbit of the Moon. This is the domain of the astral world. It is here that the untamed “Wild Animals” of the astral body fearsomely confront and torment, the “burning thirst” afflicts, and the purifying flames sear, the soul.

At the end of this astral-world period, the expansion of the soul continues into lower devachan, the lower domain of the spirit world, so that its spheroidal shape reaches out progressively from the Earth to the orbits of its nearest planetary neighbors (as though the planets and Sun orbited the Earth). Thus, the soul enters, successively, in lower devachan, the regions of Venus (esoterically called Mercury), Mercury (esoterically called Venus), the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The time needed for each region varies according to the needs of the soul in that region. The Mercury sphere, astronomically Venus, is where the soul’s “moral qualities are expressed” (ORL, Lect. 1), qualities such as benevolence, conscientiousness and sympathy. One who lacks these in life will find loneliness here, but the moral soul will find companionship with others. The Venus sphere, astronomically Mercury, involves one’s religious qualities, particularly those associated with a given religion or confession during earthly life. One given to this quality on Earth will be a social being here.