Overcoming Differences – Meeting Karma The Sacrament of the Human Encounter

Let me begin this essay by paraphrasing some words from Rudolf Steiner:

“Wakeful day consciousness wakes up to a higher consciousness in the encounter with the soul and spirit of our fellow human beings. Human Beings must become more to their fellowman than they used to be: Each person must become an awakener. People must come closer to one another than they used to do, each becoming an awakener of everyone they meet. Modern human beings entering life today have stored up far too much karma not to feel a destined connection with every individual they encounter”. 

What is Karma? Mariam Webster defines it as “the force generated by a person’s actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and, in its ethical consequences, to determine the nature of the person’s next existence.” 

Is Karma an invisible force we bring from a past life?  How much of our conditioning in early life shapes this force of karma? 

If each of us is born with karma, then does it follow that there exists a residual impulse of will in all of us that we are trying to resolve?  Wouldn’t this shape how we approach our world and the people we meet?  How do we discuss something most of us cannot fully see or understand? In this short essay I will explore the question: Can we understand or solve the conflicts of our time without the recognition that karma and destiny are working through every human being?  Thus, we will all manifest diverse avenues of thinking and action which we need to follow to work out our karma. Is working out our differences connected to how we improve the world we live in? 

I could easily read the above paragraph by Rudolf Steiner and think it is my obligation to prove to everyone that my viewpoint on serious world issues is the correct one.  Further, that you are immoral or misguided if you disagree with my viewpoint on the recent pandemic, vaccination freedom, the purpose of the World Health Organization, racial and gender equality, economic justice, climate change or even buying an electric car.  Somewhere in my soul, I know that is the wrong attitude to finding social solutions to such enormous problems.  

I am sure there are people with ill intent in the world. However, I like to think that most people are inherently good at heart. How can so many of us come to different conclusions about what is right and what is wrong?  How does our destiny bring us to our individual opinion or mindset? Why are we all so attached to our own way of thinking about things? All of these questions can be answered differently depending on our individual perspectives. For instance, wouldn’t a person born in a communist country have a different response to the current situation in the US than people who were born here?  Is one more right than the other?  Do they experience something we don’t?  Can we become aware that our responses to the world situation are shaped by our background and what our karma demands for our own future development?  

In this age of individualism have we become too self-centered and opinionated?   I experience in my own local community that people feel they are drifting apart from their neighbors and even their closest relationships because of their perceived differences.  No wonder many people today feel despondent, loveless, hopeless, and therefore isolate themselves into smaller and smaller tribes (I can’t say community because that infers the interest to live together in a larger society). This once-inherent idea of Western democracy is clearly changing.  I may have more questions in this essay than answers, but I would ask all of us these questions. Will we ourselves or our future generations look back and say that it was more important to defend my opinions and create divisiveness than seek community with my fellow human beings?  Further to ask again: how can so many people seeking the good in their hearts come to such different conclusions about what is morally right or wrong? Can we answer these questions without considering Karma?  If each person carries ideals shaped by their karma, doesn’t it make sense we would approach problems from differing perspectives? Could recognizing this be part of how we begin to understand our differences and find new ways of communicating to solve problems?  We could find ways to help each other fulfill our destinies.

Let me dare to look at a recent divide in the anthroposophic medical community. Recently, Anthroposophic Medicine was recognized in the World Health Organization (WHO) training benchmarks (included in the Spring 2024 newsletter) alongside osteopathy, Chinese medicine, ayurvedic medicine, and more.  Many clear-thinking and caring doctors and patients were deeply concerned and offended that such a humanistic gift to the world as anthroposophic medicine would be associated with the WHO, which promotes some of the most ill-conceived and harmful medical polices of our times. Even further,  during the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO supported attacks on well-meaning doctors standing up for patients’ right to make informed choices.  On one hand, this view against associating with the WHO makes sense.  

Yet on the other hand, very dedicated doctors volunteering their time and sacrificing to achieve these WHO benchmarks feel they are helping to preserve a future for anthroposophic medicine by helping to preserve specialized production of unique medicines, holistic hospitals, insurance reimbursements, academic research, and freedom of doctors and patients to determine what is health.  For them, stepping into the belly of the beast as it were is justified for their higher moral cause. They try to keep anthroposophic medicine as a viable example to the world with the hope this medicine can indeed be incorporated into the modern healthcare systems around the world. Here we have a clear contrast of destinies. We have those whose conscience tells them to fight for medical freedom by jumping inside the belly of the beast and seeking to change things from within the current system.  This simply stands in stark contrast to those whose conscience tells them the only way to bring about healthy change is to reject the current system and existing institutions clearly. Is this connected to our conditioning as children and education or is this a karmic phenomenon? Maybe both! 

Doctors with both points of view are risking their reputations and medical licenses. Both groups feel strongly they are serving the ideal of a more humanistic medicine for the future.  Both of these points of view make sense to me, and yet many doctors and patients remain divided on this issue.  Perhaps in different ways every one of these individuals is fulfilling a mission they feel they are born to shed light on in this world. Hence another question: is the world better off if these two groups find some kind of resolution and community together or remain divided in soul and spirit? What does karma demand of us here? I think this question demands serious thought. Let us explore another aspect of this question. 

Many enlightened thinkers around the world are coming to a similar conclusion about healthcare problems, climate change, socio-economic change, and so many other social issues of our day. Their common conclusion is no less than a spiritual awakening (see the video on climate change included in the Spring 2024 newsletter). They call out by name a deep inner illness humanity is suffering from; a disconnection of the human being from how the problems of the world around them are intertwined with their own inner disposition. Their own soul condition if I dare say being modern people we all suffer from this disease to varying degrees. It is our very thinking that has betrayed our fellow human beings and lies at the very heart of so many problems and tragedies facing us all. Our world is increasingly in crisis because we see our destiny as somehow separate from the current existence of injustice, poverty, mental health decline, suicides, socio-economic disparities, climate change, pollution and so much more.  Most of us do not truly feel that all of these problems are related to each other as a reflection of our own inner disconnection and disharmony with them. However, in truth, I think they are!

Then when we go out into the world with the intention to fix things we can’t. This is because we cannot solve the problems with the same mindset that created them in the first place. It is “us” human beings that need to change and adapt. It is too bad that Gandhi’s quote “We need to become the change we want to see in the world” has become somewhat cliché. I think that if we felt the true force of that statement, many challenges we face could begin a healing process.  This statement also silently infers that we must find a way to listen, accommodate, and negotiate world change according to the destiny and multiple points of view each one of us experiences and wants to change for the better.

However, many people around the world are now waking up to the reality that it is by changing ourselves that we change the world.  It is our own inner struggles that are reflected in the world at large.  We might be disappointed that big companies don’t respect nature, but how connected to nature are we?  We avoid the sun for fear of skin cancer, flowers for fear of allergies, and so on.  If enough single individuals improved their connection with nature, this would have large-scale ramifications in the world that could change whole economies.  Maybe this is already starting to happen with the growing regenerative agriculture movement (see the documentary in the Spring 2024 newsletter). 

If we do not grow and transform our own karma, maybe the world can’t either!  A difficult question to say the least. Perhaps some of the most powerful words of the mystery temples of old needs to resound loudly in hearts, …’Oh man know thyself and understand the world – Know the world and thus know thyself”. 

In reality, the crisis we see before us is like an iceberg. The 10 percent we see above the water does not reveal the 90 percent of the iceberg that is below the water. The iceberg below the water symbolizes an inner crisis of the human being. What is hidden are our patterns of behavior void of virtue, mindsets, and materialistic views of the world which need to change now! Not just for the sake of the problems we face but to prevent that more and more human beings don’t just become a higher version of a sentient animal instead of a free human being attaining their highest potential of virtue and creative moral will. The more we recognize the source of our own drives and motivations, criticisms, and fears, the better we will be at bringing about meaningful change in the world and perhaps even resolving karma.  

Allow me to summarize in my own words some further reading from Rudolf Steiner from his lectures on the Mystery Centers in 1924 and talks on karma:  

“Mankind today is not inclined to detach from their own self and give themselves to some other person, being or higher moral objective. Even when we are striving towards the spirit we are so often inclined to dive deeper into our own self, in a manner that is egotistical. This can be a great danger in spiritual and religious life. Even when we want to do something we see as meaningful for someone or a greater perceived good; we want to do it on behalf of that person(s) or perceived good rather than alongside them. In other words, we want to do something for perceived good rather than with other people or even a consciousness of the higher spiritual beings we might recognize as our helpers. This remains a type of egotism that does not work out karma”. 

Maybe the best example of this is how sometimes in our attempt to “save” humanity, we think we know what is best for everyone.  This becomes even more dangerous when one is in a position of power.  Can we instead see each other and work together towards the greater good?  And maybe the greater good is actually just “working together” rather than the goal of “saving” the world.  Imagine if part of our social mindset was to help each other fulfill their individual karma. How would this impact the social and individual health terrain?

Will the generations of the future look back upon us with gratitude? Did we at least wake up and set humanity on a better path? Will the earth be healed or the many creatures that live in the sea, air, or on the firmament be saved and cared for?  Do they have a right to be protected and respected too?  What kind of future “being” are we ensouling and birthing for future generations to deal with?  Are we helping our children or helping to destroy their future potential as free, individual, and creative human beings?  Will governments or organizations like the WHO feel compelled to exert more control in the future because we the people can’t come together to solve the crucial problems of our times,  or will a new picture of health permeate society based on a new form of cooperation and moral warmth that is actually strong enough to wake us up and melt the bottom 90% of that iceberg and lead to the changes we need in this world!  What would the world be like if we realized that every thought, feeling and action we put out into the world is shaping world karma and creating an ensouled “being” of the future? Maybe the burdens of future karma would be less. 

This is just an essay meant to get us all thinking together. Chief Ochwiay of the Pueblo Indians supposedly told the famous psychologist Carl Jung that the “whites were an uneasy, restless and mad people, always wanting things…this is because they thought with their heads, a sign of mental illness amongst the pueblos”. When Jung asked the Chief how he thought, he pointed to his heart. Many ancient Chinese traditions and Rudolf Steiner pointed out that the heart chakra is the key to discerning “truth” and ultimately the doorway to healing. Further, that heart thinking is not brain-bound and intellectual but artistic, imaginative, inspirational, and intuitive. This change from thinking to achieving wisdom also lies behind Rudolf Steiner’s book, “How to Know Higher Worlds” and the meditative exercises contained within. 

Even modern science has revealed that when the heart and mind are in “coherence,” the autonomic nervous system (which is key to the regulation of our physical body) comes closer to homeostasis. Depression and anxiety are lessened. Strong sympathies and antipathies are moderated and empathy is more possible. Empathy means we have removed our own sympathies, antipathies, and strong emotions from the equation.  Otto Sharmer, a famous sociologist for MIT and author of the book “U-theory,” found that when we can achieve empathetic listening, then generative listening is possible. Generative listening is when we become inspired to novel ideas and solutions in our encounters as human beings.  Is achieving generative listening key to working out karma? 

Perhaps none of us has every answer. But perhaps as Rudolf Steiner suggested, each one of us can work to become an awakener of the other: a true brother, sister, or friend. If the greater cosmic universe is truly reflected within the microcosm of the human, then our work must begin within ourselves. The truth, beauty, goodness, and miracles of the world manifest around us in myriads of examples every day.  How can this not inspire our sense of wonder and open our hearts and minds?  It is becoming increasingly obvious to so many people that we have to find our connection to the divine once again, to understand our connection to the universe and the laws of karma which are playing out both in the crisis and solutions of the world stage. 

In the current world, where all is open to scientific inquiry and information flows into us with the push of a button on our phone, why would we not open our minds to what spiritual wisdom might teach us?  Or what we might teach each other through our differences and karmic journeys? Rudolf Steiner suggested that the highest sacrament of the future would be that of the “human encounter.” Maybe we could all take a closer look at this in our own unique way.  I think the world will become a better place if we do, maybe even worthy of my grandchildren’s gratitude and devotion.  Almost all virtue stems from these two qualities of gratitude and devotion. Rudolf Steiner suggested that Waldorf education needed to instill these virtues from the start or it would be challenging to grow up healthy and develop good moral character and other necessary virtues.  Truth, beauty, goodness, faith, love, and hope are all virtues this world sincerely needs. 

We must find a new social path forward and allow our own inner potential and virtue to emerge, so we may truly understand what ails this world and how to heal it.  Even more importantly, we must awaken each other and help heal the burdens of karma so humanity can move to a higher level of existence.