When men declare that great injustice lies in the unequal circumstances into which children are born, they
do not know what they are saying!
One person tenaciously insists: “How, if justice exists, can it happen that a child is born burdened
with a hereditary disease! The innocent child must be bearing the sins of its parents jointly with them.”
Another declares: “One child is born in rich circumstances, the other in misery and bitter poverty.
Under these circumstances no belief in Justice can arise.”
Or again: “Assuming that the parents deserve punishment, it is not right that this should happen
through the illness and death of a child. The child would be suffering innocently.”
These and similar assertions circulate among men by the thousand. Even serious seekers sometimes
rack their brains over it.
The simple statement that “the inscrutable ways of God are all for the best” does not provide a
satisfactory answer to the question of “why”. To find such an answer satisfactory requires either obtuse
acquiescence or the immediate suppression of any questioning thought as being wrong.
That is not what is intended! Through questioning one finds the right way. Apathy or forced
suppression are reminiscent only of slavery. God, however, does not want slaves! He does not want
apathetic acquiescence, but a free, conscious looking upwards. His wonderful and wise arrangements do
not require to be enveloped in mystic darkness, instead they gain in their sublime, inviolable greatness
and perfection when they lie before us open and clear! Immutable and incorruptible, with even calm and
certainty, they unceasingly carry on their eternal activity. They take no heed either of man’s grumbling or
of his acknowledgement, nor do they consider his ignorance, but they return to each individual the
ripened fruits of the seeds he has sown down to the finest nuances.
“The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine” is a common saying that so aptly
describes this weaving of the inexorable reciprocal action in the whole Creation, the immutable laws of
which bear and carry out Divine Justice. It trickles, flows, streams and pours over all mankind regardless
of whether they wish it or not, whether they submit to it or rebel against it, they must accept it as just
punishment and forgiveness or as a reward when they are uplifted.
If a grumbler or a doubter were to catch even a glimpse of the ethereal surging and weaving activity,
borne and permeated by a firm Spirit, penetrating and encompassing the entire Creation in which it rests,
and which itself is part of this Creation, alive as the eternally driving Divine loom, he would instantly fall
silent and be stunned by the realization of the presumptuousness of his words. The calm sublimity and
infallibility he perceives forces him into the dust begging for forgiveness. How small he imagined his
God to be! And what sublime greatness he finds in His works. He will then realize that his highest earthly
conceptions could be no more than an attempt to belittle God and depreciate the perfection of His great
work, in his futile efforts to compress it into the narrow confines brought about by the over-cultivation of
the intellect, which can never rise above time and space. Man must never forget that he stands in the work
of God, that he himself is part of this work, and thus unconditionally subject to its laws.
The work, however, not only embraces things visible to the physical eye but also the ethereal World,
in which the greatest part of man's actual existence and activity takes place. His respective lives on earth
are only small sections of it, nevertheless they are always great turning points.
Birth on earth only forms the beginning of a special phase in a man’s entire existence, but not the
beginning of man himself.
When man as such begins his journey in Creation, he stands free, unbound by any threads of fate
which proceed into the ethereal world and on their way are continually strengthened through the power of
attraction of similar species with which they cross and interweave with, and react upon their originator,
with whom they had remained connected, thus bringing about fate, or karma. When certain threads return
at the same time their effects intermingle, with the result that the originally sharp and distinct colors of the
threads take on other shades and produce new image combinations. *(Lecture No. 6: Fate) Each thread serves
as a channel for the reactions until the originator no longer provides an anchorage for similar species in
his inner being, i.e., when he himself no longer maintains this channel in good condition. Then these threads can no longer retain a foothold, cannot attach themselves to him, and must wither and fall away,
regardless of whether they are good or evil.
Thus every thread of fate is ethereally formed through the act of will in the decision to take an action,
which travels forth, yet remains anchored in the originator, thus forming a definite path to homogeneous
species, bringing them reinforcement while at the same time receiving from them added strength which
flows back to the starting point. In this process lies the help which has been promised to those who strive
towards the good, or it contains the condition that “evil must continue to give birth to evil”. *(Lecture No.
30: Man and his free will)
The retroactive effects of these existing threads, to which he adds new ones daily, constitute the fate
every man has created for himself and to which he is subject. Any arbitrariness, and therefore any
injustice, is thus precluded. A man’s karma which appears to be one-sided predestination is, in reality, the
inevitable result of his past, in so far as it has not yet been redeemed through reciprocal action.
The actual beginning of man’s existence is always good and so also is the end for many; with the
exception of those who have become lost of their own accord, when through their decisions they first
extended their hands to evil, which then completely dragged them down into perdition. The vicissitudes in
man’s existence occur only in the interim, in the period of inner growth and maturing.
Thus man always shapes his future life himself. He provides the threads and thereby decides the color
and design of the garment which is woven for him in the loom of God through the Law of Reciprocal
Action.
The causes working to determine the conditions as well as the period in time into which a soul is born
into the physical world often lie far back, so that these conditions and the time may continually influence
the earthly pilgrimage of this particular soul and achieve what it needs for releasing, polishing, casting
off, and for further development.
This, though, does not happen in a one-sided manner for the child alone, rather the threads are woven
automatically so that the reciprocal action is also felt in the earthly surroundings. The parents give the
child just what it needs for its further development, just as vice versa the child gives to its parents, be it
good or evil, for further development and advancement it is of course necessary in this connection to
become free from an evil by personally experiencing it, whereby it will be recognized for what it is and
will be cast off. It is the reciprocal action which always brings about the opportunity for this. Without the
operation of this law man could never become really free from his past. Thus the Laws of Reciprocal
Action hold as a great gift of mercy the road to freedom or ascent. Therefore there can be no question of
any punishment. Punishment is a wrong expression, for in these laws lies the greatest love, the hand of the
Creator stretched out for forgiveness and liberation.
The coming of man to earth comprises procreation, incarnation and birth. Incarnation is the actual
entrance of the human being into earthly existence. *(Lecture No. 7: The creation of man)
A thousand-fold are the threads that co-operate to determine an incarnation. But in these happenings,
as always in Creation, the most scrupulous and absolute justice prevails and contributes to the
advancement of all concerned.
Therefore the birth of a child is far more sacred, far more important and valuable than is generally
assumed. For its entrance into the physical world holds a new and special act of grace of the Creator, not
only for the child but at the same time for its parents, even for its brothers and sisters if it has any, and for
others who come in contact with it, in that they thereby all get a further opportunity to progress in some
way. The parents may be offered an opportunity for spiritual advancement through the necessary nursing
care during an illness, through heavy worries or grief, be it as a remedy, as the simple means to some end,
the actual discharge of an old debt, or perhaps even the pre-redemption of some impending karma. It very
often happens that with the onset of a good volition, a man’s own serious illness, which according to the
law of reciprocal action was to have afflicted him as karma, will be mercifully pre-redeemed as a
consequence of his good volition, and through his voluntary decision to devote himself to the nursing of
his child or that of another. A real redemption can, of course, only ensue in the intuitive perception, in the
full experience. Genuinely loving nursing care often brings an even deeper experience than that of one’s
own illness. The experience of anxiety and pain is more intense during the illness of a child or of one who
is truly considered a beloved fellow man. Equally intense is the joy at his recovery. The deep intensity of
this experience alone firmly imprints its traces onto the intuitive sense, onto man’s spirit, it thus reshapes ....to be continued

hope you enjoyed the lecture?