Outlook for 2022

Lecture by Heinz Grill given on 21.12.2021

A vision directly out of a Meditation.

All those that place a true and spiritual mental picture¹⁾ Translator’s note: The German world used here is Vorstellungen it means literally “to place before”. It describes placing an imagined representation of an object or concept before oneself. in the centre of their lives, in brave and wise consciousness and from this determine their decisions and actions, expand their psychological horizon, support their health and find success. It is the spiritual world that shines its joyful face towards those people that trust the effectiveness of a thought and start to bring it to life. The essential from true, spiritual mental pictures develops to deep soul content, to true feelings and wisdomful insights and these soon take over a sovereign guiding role and protect existential life from loss and difficulties.

It is different for all those who do not muster the courage to think an ideal thought that can grow to a future-orientated mental picture with connecting feelings and orientate their lives around purely existential safety concerns. It is as if they find themselves in a growing thicket surrounded by impenetrable plants and bushes and after they penetrate further, the way behind them continually grows with rampant vegetation so that they cannot find their way back. The existential concerns about safety and a strategy to “survive” suppresses the essential, in spirit awaiting, true, picturable content, and the resulting conscious and unconscious fears with their cavernous emptiness throw a big impenetrable, meshed, shading layer over the earth.

Part 1 – A mathematical Sketch of the karma of the Present Time.

What does karma mean?

The word karma stems from the root of the Sanskrit word kr and means to be active. It is one of the most important words in the Sanskrit language and it describes the work of mankind. To be active means to actually create karma, or rather, when put more simply, to establish threads of fate. At the same time it means the reverse, that not only negative or encumbering things come into the world but also something positive, uplifting, culturally edifying is created and with this people grow in their activity. Karma is in its origin a very neutral word.

Those who ask themselves the fascinating question how they can learn to read future karma²⁾ The term karma can refer to the past, present and future. So there is sañcita, that which accumulated in the past, then there is prārabdha, that which manifests in this life and lastly one speaks of āgāmi, that which will be newly created now and in a future life shows its effects. (Source: Yoga Wiki) , how they can receive a vision, for example of whether fate will appear in a positive or negative way in the next year, they would quite naturally arrive at the challenge that they must learn to see into the spiritual world and into the spiritual connections. In the spiritual world there live precise laws.

The challenge of predicting the future is very great if one doesn’t try to reach the result in a speculative and conclusive way. It would make a lot of sense though and from a practical point of view worth a try, if accurate facts are gathered and from this factual base calculations are started as to how the future could form. Like a meteorological calculation can be undertaken today by means of high and low pressure areas and the various wind and cloud movements, so can a calculation of karma be undertaken in a relatively favourable way. The question arises though as to which starting points, basis points one puts at the beginning and how one step by step starts a sort of calculation.

Ordering the Observation in order to comprehend the Future

For the basis it is important to differentiate between the different expressions of life that individuals come across. What role does religion play for an individual and for a collective whole? It is also important which dimension and basis law holds for the whole world. As a third one can, for example, count the economy and closely related to this, as a last or attached part is politics.

These three big limbs of society can be divided into three tiers. Religion corresponds to the will, the potential force. It is linked with the inner most of mankind and the most meaningful question of ‘being’. Whereas law, in general the legal jurisdiction and the written laws, which should order and unify people, corresponds to the middle of the human being and, although the interpretation of the law is very matter of fact, it still meets with the human heart. Lastly the economy correlates to general thinking, which perhaps does not include trained thinking, but rather a kind of willful, existential and socially competent perception. Politics, I would consider to be more to the end or generally as the outbreath, bringing-the-inside-out, it proceeds out of the first three. Politics is not at the beginning, it is actually the end limb. When these three parts are looked at in depth it can be seen that politicians have the least to say within world-movements. The view is however a spiritual one and from an outer perspective it seems at first that the politicians have the guiding hand. Religion has the deepest roots in mankind. It is like the quality of the nascent protein. Then jurisdiction follows, the laws, the law, the feeling for justice, the awareness of a legal status that must be granted to humankind and in general the consciousness that the whole societal life is based on law and order. It is like the healthy heart beat in the middle of the chest. The economic system is found more on the periphery and characterises a kind of expression of these first limbs. It is actually like the human skin which reveals many pathological phenomena. Politics shows up even further on the periphery and could be described as the hair that can be easily seen on people.

Correlation between Consciousness and Cosmos.

To evaluate karma one definitely needs to bring the human consciousness into connection with the cosmos. The concept of the astral body is well suited for this with its broader meaning. In the astral body the three limbs of thinking, feeling and willing can be distinguished. The word astral body means that it includes the conscious as well as the unconscious and it is actually a great body that in its moving nature contains both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic at the same time. Humans are not only imprisoned in themselves but they are a part of the whole. In the astral body we find the workings of the stars right into the depths of the human and we find equally the most varied influences reflecting out of the macrocosmos through the societal system in certain aspects of the various forms, colours, characteristics and phenomenon.

The astral body is a part of humans and the astral body can be differentiated: the deepest limb is the limb of the will, then there is the limb connected with feeling, that is essentially feeling in the sense of being socially aware and righteous, then naturally also the thinking and this is usually measured very strongly by material factors, that means strongly on economic principles. Essentially the will is connected with force. The feeling life is between force and vision that means between thinking and willing, thus between force and the possibility of ideas.

The lacking Force in the Future

It is interesting if religion is taken as the starting point, because karma measures itself the most after the configuration of the will, in which the whole of humanity moves. According to how happy, how good, how well-founded the religious basis of a society is, the more a favourable condition naturally arises. In Indian when referring to religion one speaks of dharma, and there is a difference between svadharma, the individual dharma and the sanatana dharma, the law of the collective whole. The more confused, the more this life-law, the whole religion, has got muddled or lost the more the so-called ajnana develops, the not-knowing and on this basis the whole life of decay in steadily descending chains, that gradually drives forward, one thing after another in a negative determination.

Religion though is not to be mixed up with a creed or belonging to a group. If the term faith is taken, it is this that is the most misunderstood. What faith is generally understood to mean is belief in God. A simple theism is meant, a kind of creed with word formulas like, “I believe in God”, “I believe in a greater power”, “I believe in a master or in a holy person”. However, the inner meaning of the concept of faith is very sparse, almost lost and this lacking has arisen directly through the common creed forms. Materialism has moved into the concept of faith like a sex offender into someone’s apartment. The actual creative concept of faith would have to be based on the fact that one can create a thought from the idea to an ideal and thus integrate it into life and realise it. The ability to believe ought to actually be directly oriented to the spiritual entity and this is the thought itself and not oriented to a very, one could say, effusive or ideological picture. Humans have the ability to bring a thought into a mental picture, to think an idea, to form this to a vision for life and ultimately guide it into an ideal realisation. Faith is usually a religious term and means, that humankind can lead the best and conceivably most valid ideal from the idea to active implementation and ultimately valid realisation.

Now people can have more trust when practicing religious content and more or less believe in this ability of realisation. The force of believing can have a great effect, Rudolf Steiner took up this term in “The Knowledge of the higher Worlds”, in the way he described how people can face the phenomena of the world. People can think and proceed from the force³⁾ Translator’s note: The German word used here is Kraft. It has the meaning somewhere in between force, strength and power combined. of thought. Faith can move mountains and have a great affect, because people can form an idea to an ideal and can realise it. The single individual consciousness leads the yet unmanifest reality to a better manifestation. A prerequisite is, however, that the person has the strength (Kraft) to lead their will on to the path and, as one says, to muster the trust that a thought, once properly thought, properly retained, creates its effectiveness.

What was the past Year like?

In calculating the cosmic situation for the future one can quiet simply conclude that last year was full of suggestion and full of dissolution. Today almost nothing seems to be the same as it was before. The psyche of humanity has drastically changed and to a certain extent is released out of a previously given solidity. We were literally in a year of pralaya, of dissolution, and will remain in these further processes of progressive coagulation. Those who have had Corona noticed with the illness that they were thrown out of everything customary and now once again have to build up thought after thought forming their life perspectives. In a way, they have to learn to think their lives perspectively from a somewhat uncertain vantage point, whirled back and forth like in a whirlpool, and plan and implement their work situation again with completely new preconditions. Out of the observations of the last year it is not possible to imagine a hopeful future for the year 2022. When last year was so full of suggestion and people’s basis has dissolved both psychologically and partly physically, if one wants to move forward into the next year, it is now necessary to reshape all given conditions. The suggestion and the lies, the whole craziness, if you put it that way, will continue in a purposeful way. A big chain of determination has been opened. Carrying on from this observation, a simple speculation can be made, at least a speculation of probabilities. That next year, one must say, on the basis of these observations will definitely bring stronger crises, existential losses and processes of separation and a feeling that people will lose their hope for good prospects. This speculation is relatively unprecise though and not valuable for spiritual research.

A somewhat more exact calculating of the karma, can follow out of a clear, properly ordered mental picture, when a religious attitude with the right concept of belief is placed in the centre, so with a concept of belief that is practical and not in the form of a creed. Faith is actually people’s strength (Kraft). The nature of religion is not measured by outwardly belonging to a group, not by being baptised in the sense of the understanding of the church and not by following daily rituals. The strength must actually be an intrinsic strength in people and only in people does it have a great strength, through its own foundation, that can act transfiguringly and is, so to say, able to move mountains. According to spiritual vision, in the future institutions, groups and new religious movements will not have any say. The important question is, what deep dimension is rooted in people and what strength can unfold out of this. Do they have the ability to perceive and the trust to realise a great thought, to form an idea to an ideal and from this to master their own life and to open perspectives for others.

The lacking Realisation of Strength in various Areas of Life.

This general but exemplary concept of faith can now be schematically subdivided and calculated in a simple way.

There are people in a spiritual school, that have especially developed the ability to lead an idea to practical realisation. They have learnt to comprehend an idea, to form it, to make it practical and with time and clear mental pictures, with logical initiative, bring it into life. This general philosophical and thought-full ability to form is a prerequisite for a meditation school. If someone with this ability does not develop it into sufficient, logical consciousness work, they can succumb to the danger that so often enters, of interpreting their lives from esoteric practices and nevertheless only invigorate a cheap alternative scene, doing more harm than good.

Alongside these people who have actually really learned religion are also other very meaningful professions, where people must also possess some aspect of faith. Faith itself must by no means be limited to religion alone. Life itself often requires trust in a thought and proper knowledge, that it is beneficial, to act according to venerable ideals.

A very good jurist once said, “If I didn’t have any faith in the law and the laws, I must give up my job. I must firmly believe that the laws are written correctly and that there is at least a fairly reasonable interpretation of them. Otherwise if this is not the case, I must give up my profession permanently.” The simple portrayal of faith is very clear. Should doctors not also have this faith and guide themselves with knowledge as to the possibilities of health. Maybe though the faith in the banknote is greater than the awareness of the ideal for human values. Doctors must actually have faith in people being able to become healthy. It is a form of faith, which should also establish itself in the sum total of life. If people compensate with economics and become fixated on their own survival they lose, in a way, their professional status.

Then there are people that have very naturally acquired a certain basis in their inner feeling life, in their life experience. These people also need a certain strength of faith (Glaubenskraft), that they trust in that, which they feel and that, which they can think. Because when they can no longer do this, they enter a kind of whirl, like a storm, which distorts their senses.

Let us come to a final form of faith, to a very simple and natural person, that maybe doesn’t have very much life experience and is still very young or maybe has lived relatively naively. The most simple person must today work out what they believe and what they can’t believe any more. Actually, they cannot say, “I believe and obey blindly and I can’t tell if something is good or bad, if something is a lie or the truth.” They have to work it out for the sake of their existence, and gain a trust in their own ability to judge. Can they trust their perceptions, yes, they must be able to trust their perceptions because otherwise they will become a victim of the collective suggestion. If we come to the most simple person, that pursues a normal career in life, then we can ascertain, that today they also have to deal with a simple concept of faith. Spiritually seen, this simple faith in trusting one’s own ability to perceive, is bigger than any passively chosen creed. “What can I actually believe in the news and from what I hear from others”.

When we build this subdivision, release the term religion from its high ideological throne and all institutional understanding and learn to decline the term in life, practically bring it into life, to the simplest of people, who also have to develop a certain strength in trust, then it becomes clear that we can make a calculation. This shall be done with a visual comparison:

The Status of the Sun is replaced by the Moon

For this purpose the course of the sun can serve as a very practical image in comparison to the being of the moon. The sun possesses a comprehensive sphere of influence and forms the centre of the universe. It is force (Kraft). The moon receives the light of the sun but remains an accompanying satellite. It possesses an underlying but not primary force. It is responsible more for the growth of plants and for matter. It’s light is cooling and casts shadows.

Not the priest, not the theologian but in reality those who have attained a spiritual schooling and who know that thought in its existence-being (Seinsexistenz) possess a sun force, take on a great responsibility for their lives and for the lives of others. They know the difference between suggestion and real, freeing thought processes and between deceptive emotions and clear feelings of truth. Their faith must be literally oriented in the spirit, in the thoughts and its sovereign reality and they must not steer their lives from their mood, cravings or egotistical needs.

The spiritual students take on a great responsibility and pictorially seen they comparatively take part in the course of the sun for twenty four hours of the day. They take part in the course of the sun night and day, because that which they develop during the day, in the way of their building of thoughts, in the way they trust the thoughts, that which is transfigured from an idea to and ideal, actually takes a creative part in the sun’s forces all day long. When they sleep at night, when they rest for six, seven or eight hours, then in this night phase, in a still way, creative forces also cross over to the sun. It can therefore be said that those that have acquired spirit, that carry spiritual understanding in them, actively work on the sun and at increasing the forces of the sun for twenty four hours. The moon forces, which are the opposite, in principle, should not only be spoken of badly, but they do not produce any light themselves. Spiritual students must produce light themselves. They cannot just imitate and hide themselves behind their master. The moon forces do not produce any light themselves, while the sun produces light; this difference must definitely be observed. The sun brings the light and shines it onto the moon and the moon reflects it. Those who are creatively active, those in service to the sun, grounded in a sun activity, constantly foster forces, that are full of light, bring warmth, are creatively realisable and with this edifying for humanity. The moon forces don’t have any place in this organism. They should not also gain any place because they are, compared to the sun, that directly shines, inappropriate and out of place, for they would only be pale and shadowy. Religion brings the biggest force. It is the basis of the will for humanity. Today though the collective religion has become unusable and consequently humanity needs religiously, true feelings. The biggest force is therefore given by those that do a spiritual training. A quick look at spiritual training shows that there are hardly any spiritual schools and hardly any people that implement an idea in it’s pure form, in an ideal. There are very few people that are really based in faith and there are even less who enter into a lengthy realisation out of faith. Those who have learned in this school are like the buffalo herds that were once in America, very shrunk or practically extinct. The school was once had a figure of about ten times as much. Most saw this way simply as too difficult, although they themselves have earned the experience of sun status in their soul. Practically this means that in world creation sun forces are missing. That, which was once learnt, is lacking in implementation and there is neglect which is grave. One must observe the question in the sense of karma in relation to the failed possibilities. When only a tenth of the whole is existent then nine tenths are missing. When the whole is looked at again deeply, the one tenth that is left is caught up it egotism and don’t really see the responsibility in the world.

When I look to other schools, like for example anthroposophy, that have a responsibility, then I can conclude that it is precisely there that spirituality and a responsible approach to it have become karst. There is a lot of talk and many people who have something to say today are attacked and marginalised and in many respects are no longer effective. Looking at other spiritual schools they show the same tendency. The real capacity, which, if you put it that way, should emanate from the actual basic forces of religiously shaping something, is little. It’s best not to even mention the church any more. There is little faith in the sense of trusting in a thought, that can become an ideal. There is hardly any force that shines out from individuals. If one starts from the twenty four hours, that a spiritual student should effectively produce, then it has frequently reverted to be moon-like, that means the thought building is missing, in the sense of an inner force-movement in the world creation.

The next part, which addresses professions and those with professional responsibility, for example legal scholars and doctors, but not only at these, also therapists and educators and business owners. This is a very wide zone. If one observes doctors, one will ascertain, how the ideal of health has been lost and how external determination and suggestion has taken over the profession. How little are the consequences actually contemplated and how a sense of honour is lacking in these professions towards the actual ethos.

We can now do further calculations and name the professions and their effectiveness. Alongside those who have, or should have direct spiritual effectiveness, they have a great responsibility. The professions take part, for example, with their motives for the good, in twelve hours of the course of the sun and not twenty four hours. This number is naturally in a kind of probability calculation and relatively schematically chosen. If twelve hours of charge would go to the sun through professional ethos, professional honour, professional wisdom then a great force would be given and as there are a lot of people in good professions, the sun should be purer and livelier to move the souls of people with its creative powers. There would definitely be a completely different equilibrium in the world creation. Twelve hours of participation happen more or less naturally, (it is an abstract term that is introduced here) that could surely awake a new health ethos. But if we just take twelve units, then twelve units remain for the moon and twelve units for the sun. Still, something great would have been achieved in terms of man’s ascending nature.

Now we will proceed to those who have had several good experiences in life and have developed a meaningful true feeling (Empfindung) and also carry faith in their soul. These people become unsettled or allow themselves to be unsettled. Faith in their own experiences flow away due to external influences. If they would now hold for good their experiences and their own strength and their own acquired wisdom, then there would definitely be a strengthening of substance that, for example, could be calculated with six hours in the course of the sun. It is the faith in what once occurred, in the sense of a truth, which was once experienced in life. After all, six hours out of twenty four would be quite a good quantity, at a time when materialism is torturing human life with madness. How much stays in the experience and how great is the belief really? How many people with their wisdomful true feelings(Empfindung) suddenly fall apart, don’t have faith in them anymore, loose their trust in their own reality and with this can’t radiate a healthy sun force anymore, but succumb to the overcoming suggestions more belonging to the moon. The moon takes over the lead of that, which was once experienced sun-like in the human being. So, if one assesses the amount of trust one has as the basis of one’s own potential, there are few people who can be perceived in this area.

Now let’s go further and ask ourselves: What is it like for normal citizens, that do not have a lot of experience and are not grounded in a solid work ethos. How does the question of faith develop for them? Do they believe blindly, without questioning at all the objects of the world and do they take on, out of convenience, the authoritative guidelines, do they only seek compensation in their own quick survival and they thus forget the distinguishing question of what is true or what is untrue? How little exists in the separate individuals and how much neglect characterises current events? The religious basis of knowledge, of trust and of the independently acquired consciousness contains great flaws. It is significantly lacking.

When an orderly examination of truth and lies follows or when this study is at least done properly in the sense of founded information which one acquires about the circumstances and thus examines the situation independently, before passively taking on beliefs, then the question of faith would be initially addressed with good research and a strengthening of humankind would be given, that would in a sense do the will good. The real working out requires a trust in one’s own strength and an elementary aspect of religiousness would be fulfilled. The human being asks the question about their own “being”, and about the responsibility that they win through differentiating between truth and lies. With this working out they would take part in three hours of the sun’s course and then only the other part would be assigned to the moon. When we calculate three and twenty one hours then it is of course predominantly the moon but it is still three hours that they take part and another force that they apply so there is hope of a sun ray entering the pale moon light. Any single individual can generate all of those forces that are creative and sunnily enrich the creation of the world. If this examination is missing, the neglect gains a negative karmic determination.

The world-force itself, that originates out of religion, but not out of the established religion, not out of an eastern or western orientation, not out of Islam, not out of a Christian, not out of a free church, not out of an evangelical or a catholic, not out of a yoga group, not out of being a member of any particular religious organisation but that actually originates from individually brave people, builds the situation in the world. It decides between light and dark. What do people cause, what is the state of their faith really like? If this state of faith, that is based on the force of the will and the whole soul, that portrays an innermost substance in the astral realm, is soundly considered one would notice, how in all areas it is very strongly reduced. The faith of the normal citizen that they can distinguish between truth and lies is mostly no longer given. Trust in the inherent strength that people actually possess experiences is lost. People prefer to ask their teacher or someone else who can explain it to them. The potential strength in the whole of humanity today is extremely weakened. Religion as a solid inner substance in humanity lives too little, much too little. The situation can therefore be calculated from the sums. The moon-forces predominate, the pale veils, that give people all sorts of fantasies and convey impressions of a seductive character. Indulgence in life is peculiar to the moon, while the sun forces demonstrate their joy in creating.

It is as if people are distant from the sun. In the next year people will move purely, according to this method of calculation, in the shadow house of the earth. The calculation is only a hypothetical portrayal. In the next lectures we will not stay with the arithmetic with its probabilities but advance into the seeing, spiritual perception.