Yes, there are reactions to the fact that I speak the anthroposophical videos in German. And of course, it would be quite simple for me to also speak this in my mother tongue. But you must imagine that for years we have given many, many seminars and lectures in the German-speaking area. And that, of course, there are also many people who were there. And yes, actually, in the first place, I speak for these people. And back then, of course, I was never able to speak in Dutch, because they would not have understood it. Because when one is live somewhere, there are no subtitles. So I persist. I continue with the German language, although it may not always be perfect or not perfect at all. That should not matter. I try to do it as well as possible.

And to that is added, of course, that Anthroposophy was originally given in the German language. So that also makes it quite pleasant to continue speaking in this language. Last time I began with karma and reincarnation. And at the end there remained a question whether it could perhaps be that the world is also a living being that has a memory. And that it could perhaps be that, through certain conditions, specific events from the past are again, more or less, remembered. That was the question. And in the book Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner then continues with his train of thought, does not answer this question directly, but goes back again—to human memory. And that is very fruitful, also for us in our time, because we really have quite wrong, peculiar experiences regarding what memory actually is.

And actually, the computer today is for us the model. We work with it, and we store that which we want to retain—we store that in the memory, and we can retrieve it later. And that causes us to believe more and more in modern psychology and science, that it is the same with human memory. That we therefore have stored many images within us, with all kinds of experiences, and that if we want to remember them, that we, in a certain sense, dive into a file system and somehow cleverly know where we must be and then retrieve the correct card from the file. That is then the memory. That is what we have imprinted with memory. That is also how we feel it.

We think that what an idea is, and then becomes a memory idea, that this lies somewhere in us like a kind of photograph. We are still in the old time, when there were no computers yet, and we were doctors and still had such files with a patient dossier on paper—not on a screen, but on paper—and everything was noted there. And when the patient came back, and naturally one could not remember everything oneself, then one took the card or had the card brought. And then one could see what the case was again. That is how one thinks human memory functions. And it is really wonderful to undertake a journey in self-observation with Rudolf Steiner, who then points out to us that we should first become aware that an idea is only there as long as the sensory impression is there.

If I have a sensory impression, then I have it only when I am at the thing that gives me the impression. If I turn around, I no longer have it. And the idea I have of the impression, at the moment I have the impression, is also only there as long as I am with the sensory object. If I go away from it, then the idea is also gone. And now there is something so wonderful—that we as humans have the ability to recall such ideas later. And Rudolf Steiner says that, when one is practiced in self-observation, then one can trace that there is no preservation of the ideas, but that the soul does something with the idea, through which it can be newly formed later.

So we do not have in us a file with photos, from which we can retrieve one again, but we look inward, just as we look outward—only this looking inward is not with the senses but with the soul. We look inward, and we know where the impression remained. And there, where the impression remained, we then newly form the idea. So what a wonderful something it is, if one imagines this liveliness with which we engage in remembering. So we do not have dossiers in us; we do not have all life content fully stored within us. But we have a possibility to go back to a point in time and do something there through which we are able to newly form the ideas.

It is always the soul that is involved, for the soul is the bearer of consciousness. And so, when we perceive consciously, the soul is involved. When we consciously remember, the soul is also involved. Now the soul has a relationship to the spirit. The soul is therefore actually the preserver of the past. It knows where it must be in order to call this past back into consciousness by letting it be formed again. And the soul has a relationship to the spirit. In the book Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner describes the spirit as the instance that manages truth, beauty, and goodness—that knows the truth, can form the beautiful, and can do the good through the spirit. But the spirit also has another side, and there this relationship with the soul arises—for the soul, as the preserver of the past, actually delivers all the fruits of the past to the spirit. The spirit receives the fruits of the past through the mediation of the soul. And we naturally know that we cannot recall from memory everything life has brought us. There is, of course, a great deal that has more or less disappeared from consciousness. And then there comes again such a point that becomes clear in self-observation, and which gives a kind of bliss when one becomes aware of it—namely, that actually everything the soul experiences in life and preserves for eternity, although we forget it, provides abilities. And the closest example is of course learning to write.

If we consider everything we did in school to learn to write—what all happened in terms of events and experiences when first writing an A and then experiencing that it is possible to write a sound, that then words can be written and read, and then sentences and then whole books—learning this ability is the fruit. And everything that had to happen in order to harvest this fruit can be forgotten. But the soul gives to the spirit in this way countless fruits.

And if one takes that meditatively and delves into it for a while, then one cannot help but recognize that it is so. The example of writing is clear enough—that we forget the circumstances, but the ability we retain. There, one could still say, yes, but whether that has something to do with the spirit, whether this ability goes into eternity—if one really takes reincarnation seriously. Then one would have to say, if one comes back to earth, one would have to be able to write again without learning it—but of course it is not like that. This learning to write is again a partial ability, which leads to the spirit acquiring a much greater ability than just writing. So it is also with music.

So it is with everything we learn—it does not always have to be very big, important things. If one learns to cook—that is of course actually also a big, important thing—but if one learns that, then one may also observe oneself there, and what is not made from all the small experiences one has there, the small abilities one learns, into a greater ability—that one can prepare a meal. And so the whole life interlocks. And if one meditatively considers that, yes, then the human being becomes already something other than a file of memory pictures that one can or cannot bring to light. So this is the second section in these considerations regarding karma and reincarnation. The first section led to the question: could it not be that the world is also a living being with memory and remembrance? The second section leads us deeper into the processes of memory, remembrance, and, one could say, the learning of abilities. And we are then of course very curious how it continues.