Causal body

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Causal body (Sanskrit: कारणशरीर karana sharira, via कारण kāraṇa "cause, reason, motive", derived from the Sanskrit root कृ kṛ (kri) "to do, make, act, effect" and शारीर sharira "body") is called in Indian theosophical terminology that extract of the etheric and astral body which the human being carries on from incarnation to incarnation as his eternal (→ entelechy) and thereby enriches it more and more. Rudolf Steiner hardly ever used this term in later writings and lectures.

The causal body is, in the first approximation, the permanent extract of the after-death memory-tableau which man experiences in the first days after death.

„After the expiration of the time during which the etheric body in connection with the astral body has detached itself from the physical body, there comes the moment when the astral body with all that is the higher members again detaches itself from the etheric body. The latter separates, the memory tableau fades away. But something of it remains for the human being, it is not completely lost. It is true that what one might call etheric or life substance is dispersed throughout the ether of the world, but a kind of essence remains of it, which can never again be lost to man on the farther wanderings of his life. He takes it with him like a kind of extract from the life tableau into all his future incarnations, even if he cannot remember it. That which is formed from this memory extract is called concrete-real the causal body. After each life, a new leaf is added to the book of life. This increases the life essence and, if the past lives were fruitful, causes the next to unfold in the corresponding way. Therein lies the cause why a life is rich or poor in talents, endowments, and so on.“ (Lit.:GA 99, p. 38f)

„The first destiny of man after death is therefore this review of the life that has passed, which varies in length and lasts on the average about three and a half days. Then comes a kind of second dying, in which the etheric also completely detaches itself from the astral body, and then a kind of etheric corpse remains. This etheric corpse dissolves very soon, although at a different rate in each human being, in the general world ether, but not completely; a kind of essence from the past life remains, which the I takes with it and which is an imperishable good that remains with the human being for all subsequent embodiments. After each embodiment, a new leaf, as it were, is added to the previous ones. In Theosophy this is called the causal body, and in the quality of this causal body lies the cause of how the later embodiments take shape.“ (Lit.:GA 100, p. 45)

After the human being has passed after death through the Kamaloka backwards up to the last birth and has stripped off all earthly-sensual desires of the past life on earth, the remaining astral body joins the causal body:

„One begins the reliving at the last experience before death and goes back with threefold rapidity to birth. At the moment when man has reached his birth in his recollection, that part of the astral body which has been worked on and transformed by the I joins the causal body, while that which man has not yet worked on falls away like a shadow and shade. These are the astral corpses of man. Then man has laid aside the physical, the etheric and now also the astral corpse.“ (Lit.:GA 99, p. 40)

The causal body joins the four fundamental members of man - physical body, etheric body, astral body and I (Kama-Manas according to Indian theosophical designation) - at the top as the fifth member, which encloses the eternal of the human being and to which the pentagram symbolically points. The causal body includes the three spiritual members of the human being, as far as they are already developed, namely the spirit self, the life spirit and the spirit man, although the latter is hardly developed today.

„We have seen how in death man leaves behind as corpses first the physical, then the etheric and finally the lower astral body. What remains for the human being after these three bodies have been cast off? The memory-image which comes before the soul after death disappears the moment the etheric body is lifted out of the astral body; there it sinks, so to speak, into the unconscious, it disappears as an immediate impression on the soul. But something important remains: the image disappears, but the fruit remains. Like a kind of power-extract, the whole experience of the last life remains in the higher astral body and rests there.

But man has already gone through this process very often. At each death after his various incarnations, the memory-image came before his soul and left behind this so-called power-extract. Thus one life after another has added an image. A human being who incarnated for the first time had the first memory image after death, the second image after the second incarnation, and this image was already richer than the first, and so on. In these combined images we have a kind of new element of the human being. Before the first death, man consisted of the four bodies; when he dies for the first time, he takes the first image with him. After his re-embodiment he has not only the four members of his being, but also the experience of his former life. This is the causal body. Man now consists of five bodies: the physical, the etheric, the astral, the I and the causal body. Once this causal body is there, it remains; but it has only been composed of the experiences of the lives. Now one understands the difference between the individual human beings. Those who have lived often, that is, who have already passed through many incarnations, have added many leaves to their book of life, are highly developed and have a rich causal body; the others have only passed through a few lives, have therefore gathered less fruit and therefore possess a less developed causal body.“ (Lit.:GA 95, p. 38f)

On another occasion Rudolf Steiner refers to the material of the Arupa world, the higher spiritual world, as the causal body. It is the materiality of that region in which our spirit self (Manas) and the germinal shells of the life spirit (Budhi) and the spirit man (Atma) are at home. The latter two have their home in still higher worlds.

„There are also such beings on the astral plane as are higher than human beings. Religions that know something of esotericism speak of such higher beings; the Indian religion, for example, speaks of devas. The Christian religion also spoke of such beings. Gradually this knowledge has been lost in Christianity, but there are still circles that know of these beings. The devas take on a certain "physicality". Just as man takes his physical body from the elements of nature, and just as our physical body is the lowest element possible for us, so the lowest body of the Kama-Devas is the astral; it is composed of astral matter - according to their stage of development. Other devas we call Rupa Devas. They live in the devachan, through which we pass between death and a new birth. The materiality of the rupa devas is the mental body, that of the arupa devas the causal body. The causal body has to do with what draws us from embodiment to embodiment. That which is physical materiality passes away; the corpse is given back to the earth, to the chemical and physical forces. The astral body and the lower mental body also dissolve after death. Only the one soul remains in us, which returns again and again in a new embodiment when the one development has reached its goal, in order to then enter into a new development. This one soul is woven out of the material of the causal body, in which we can have the recollection of previous lives and recognise the whole development in it. Whoever knows these facts knows that Buddha did not give a picture when he spoke: I remember past lives, I remember how I was born there and there, how I helped there, had children there and there, I remember world-beginnings, world-falls through which I passed, and so on. - This was spoken by this highly developed individuality, which has anticipated the development to which human beings will only come in the sixth round, in which man will have a purely spiritual existence. Buddha has already developed that; he attained the ability to see the higher states. Ordinary people will only attain this later. Everyone will one day see all his past states of development passing by. This is because something always remains, namely the finest materiality of the causal body. And out of this materiality are formed the higher kinds of Devas, the Arupa-Devas. These are the three kinds of Devas that we can meet in the astral: Kama Devas, Rupa Devas, Arupa Devas. First we meet those who are of astral matter; but the other Devas also have the ability to entwine themselves with astral matter, so that they can be seen by astral seers.“ (Lit.:GA 88, p. 74f)

In a narrower sense, however, the causal body (cause-body, cause-bearer) is the same as the spirit-self (Manas) of the human being, as it shows itself in the 5th region of the spiritual world:

„The spiritual self is in the spirit-land, and by moving into the human body, into the human soul, it can only realise a faint image of what it actually is in its essence. When man returns home to the real self, to his primordial originality, when he becomes acquainted with the fifth region, his view of his own incarnations widens, he is able to survey his past and his future. He experiences a flash of memory about his past incarnations and can relate them to what he can accomplish in the future. He surveys the past and the future with prophetic vision. Everything he accomplishes appears to him as flowing out of the eternal self. This is what the self acquires in the fifth region of the spirit land. That is why we call this self, in so far as it lives itself out in the fifth region and becomes conscious of its own beingness, the cause-bearer of the human beingness, which carries over all the results of the past life into the future. That which reappears in the various embodiments, that is the cause-body, and this until the human being passes on to higher states, where higher laws than those of re-embodiment apply. Since the beginning of planetary life we have been subject to the law of re-embodiment. The causal body is that which carries over the result of an earlier life into the coming lives, which enjoys as fruits that which was worked out in the preceding lives.“ (Lit.:GA 88, p. 128f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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