How does heredity relate to karma and the plan, and the origin of talents?
The Guide: Heredity can only work in coordination with the plan, with karma, with the qualities of the spirit who is destined to be born with certain parents, to find the conditions needed according to his or her qualities. It all works as one. For instance, a child apparently inherits certain qualities from the parents – let us say a talent. That spirit had that talent, and did not inherit it. But the spirit was sent to parents with the same talent because in all other respects circumstances fit perfectly, so that this spirit can best fulfill his or her life.
The karma influences the plan and the plan determines the parents, the country and circumstances into which the spirit is born, and which qualities should come out, and which ones remain hidden for a future life. Some may be in accordance with the parents – then one speaks of inheritance as the origin of talents – others may not. So heritage is not something that works arbitrarily. It is part of the whole scheme.
Physical resemblance works in the same way. The genes work in such a way that certain physical resemblances will occur, others will not. There is a good reason and purpose for every detail. The purpose may be a symbol, yet there is a significance.
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When artists have really reached a very high level of artistic expression, have they attained that because they have also attained a high level of spiritual development and awareness? Do these things go together?
The Guide: The answer is neither Yes nor No, because individuals are not uniform in their development. In other words, a person can be very highly developed spiritually in one aspect of his total soul-substance, and another aspect may not be developed at all or only very little developed.
One of the purposes of incarnation is to create a balance. It is up to the individual free will to find this balance and to reject the line of least resistance. So it is very possible, for example, that a soul enters an incarnation and he has a very open channel to an artistic field, and he can give all his energies to the cultivation of this. Indeed, he can bring great joy to people and open up to the spiritual world through the music or the art or the literature or whatever field it may be.
However, he may use this channel that is already open in order to neglect that which is not yet open. That is very often the case. Now, the same happens even with people who have taken on spiritual tasks and spiritual teachings themselves. They can be very open in certain spiritual unfoldment, but if their path strives more toward a greater union with the already perfect state and does not emphasize that which is not yet perfect, then that aspect that limps behind in the development stays backward, and an integration and a balancing does not take place.
This particular Path emphasizes extremely – to a very strong degree – that balancing, and will always shed the light most particularly on what is not yet developed. Because that which is developed does not need furthering as much as that which is not yet developed – although, of course, man wants exactly that. He wants to further that which is already developed in order to avoid the pain and the humiliation and the difficulties of that which is not yet developed.
Suppose a soul comes to incarnation and whether his already-developed, open channel is a spiritual teaching or he’s a musician or he may be a painter, or whatever the field may be where he is already a genius, he cultivates that open channel. Even though he may spread a lot of good into the world with that, if he uses that open channel in order to neglect that which is not yet developed, then in his following incarnation – or following incarnations – he himself may decide that that great talent should remain dormant in that lifetime so as to enable him to concentrate with his waking awareness more fully on that which had lagged behind.
So incarnations must create balance, and you cannot say because someone is a genius in a certain field that that necessarily indicates a total development like that. It may just indicate a partial development.
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