At the beginning of the chapter *Reincarnation and Karma* in the book ‘Theosophy’ by Rudolf Steiner, he posed for us the question whether it could not be that the great world also has a capacity for memory, just as we also have it in the small. When we perceive something or experience something, all the events of life, they imprint themselves on memory, and we are able, within certain limits, we are able to form these representations anew from memory. And Rudolf Steiner then poses the question whether the world does not also have a memory and that this world remembers what we have done to the world, whether that is positive or negative, everything we do to the world might perhaps be remembered by the world. That is, of course, immediately nonsense if one looks at the world only materially, then that is not possible at all. Such a question applies only to people who have the sense for occupying themselves with the soul-spiritual of the world. So, the question is put to us. And now, at the end of the chapter, this question returns. While reading the chapter, one often has the feeling: will this question still come to an answer? Yes, at the end of the chapter the answer comes. And then it is again said: does the world also have a memory? And how does that then work? And then Rudolf Steiner says: yes, the world remembers our deeds. We have, because we are acting persons, in one life continually thought, felt, done things, that are the occasion that the world changes. And the world knows that. And then a very interesting thought comes.

And that is that Rudolf Steiner then says: one could of course easily say, yes, if the world then remembers that, why should then not also in one life the consequences of the deeds appear? Just as it is customary in our thinking: cause and effect, they are not so far apart that one must imagine a next life in connection with them. But Rudolf Steiner then explains that in the case of these deeds that cannot be the case. For the human being is in his life within a totality of his deeds. So, it is not so that each deed exists for itself and then is finished and then after years can have a consequence. Yes, that can of course be in outer life, but in inner life that is not possible.

So he says, just as one also cannot remember something when an event is still ongoing. And that one can trace in oneself, that does not work. When one is inside something, then one does not remember it, that does not work, that is only possible afterwards. And so it is also with world memory, that that which we do in one life cannot in that same life already lead to consequences. For that the whole deed of the life must first be completed. And then, when this whole deed of the life has been completed, then it becomes possible that upon a re-entry onto the earth the consequences of these deeds, actually of this deed, come toward us. And just as we inwardly have a capacity of memory, so this world memory comes from outside toward us.

We return to the earth, and we may be born in a completely different region than where we lived in a previous life. So with the place that has nothing to do, but it has to do with the deeds. And from outside then comes the consequence of the deed and seizes more or less our I, and that is destiny. That is thus a series of consequences that we have to suffer or to enjoy, that do not come from inside, but that really come from the world from outside toward us. And if we would know that, really, if we could live so that we lead our life in such a way that we would know that everything that befalls me as a kind of accident, that that is something living, that that comes from the livingness of the consequences of my previous life deed.

If we would know that, then we could be quite different in our life and also for our fellow human beings, and for the community, for the world become quite different people. For now we are of course often quite annoyed or indignant about what all happens to us. But if we would really know, not only as a conception that may be true or not; if we would really know that from outside the consequence of our own life comes toward us, yes, then one would feel oneself quite differently. And if one then also knows – this is not stated here – that this shaping of the consequences, that this comes about entirely in harmony with ourselves, that we have therefore ourselves been co-active in the shaping of our next life, yes then it becomes still clearer that that which from outside comes toward us, that we indeed in the full sense and meaning are ourselves. So, if I want to get to know myself, then the looking at the events of my life, that come toward me from outside, is a very important activity. So, Rudolf Steiner actually ends this chapter – it goes a little further – but he ends this chapter with the fact that one gets an idea about what destiny actually is, and I was thus very moved by the sequence of thoughts that he writes there, namely that that which in this life is done by us, that that cannot possibly in this life also have its consequences. And if one lets that work meditatively upon oneself, then one already gets a presentiment of the true spiritual, for then the intellect must indeed cease to be active.

I can imagine, if I take a knife and I cut onions, for example, and I cut not properly, then I cut into my finger and then I have a wound and so on. That is, there one can cause and effect – although one could of course also look much deeper into it – but there one can see cause and effect immediately. I have not paid attention properly and I cut myself. So we think that the whole life hangs together in this way. And when then things occur that are not logical, where cause and effect are not understandable, yes, then we actually become annoyed and angry that such a thing befalls us. But precisely here one could get a presentiment of the spiritual, how something from outside more or less as a living effect comes toward us, that seizes our I, and then in that which befalls us in life, that we can learn to feel the effect of the spiritual from the past. And I rejoice so much in the manner in which Rudolf Steiner leads the thoughts, that are already in themselves so full of spirit, that it actually could not happen that one reads such a chapter and then afterwards has not come a little piece closer to the spirit.