20.11  The white arcs on the symbol that emanate from spiritual life to spiritual life symbolise the being's cosmic arcs of fate here. These arcs of fate consist exclusively of experiences of light or bliss. Here there are absolutely no dark arcs of fate at all. We will not go into more detail about these arcs of fate since the beings have no particular contact with them as long as they are in physical organisms and have to live on the physical or material plane of existence. Here we will, however, touch upon the physical arcs of fate that go from terrestrial life to terrestrial life as the being reincarnates. We find these arcs of fate on the symbol represented by the orange colour. We see on the symbol four of these arcs of fate emanating from the being's present physical life. We see that one of these arcs affects this present life. This means that the effects of the being's dark manifestations or actions, which have released the arc of fate, return in the same life as they are sent out in. After that we see an arc of fate that does not affect the being until the next life, and one that does not affect it until the third life, and again one that does not affect it until the fourth life.
      From left to right on the symbol, through the being's various terrestrial lives, there is a drawing of a yellow flame that increases in size. It symbolises the development of the being's faculty of humaneness. We see that this faculty expands more and more, and gets a greater and greater neutralising capacity for every life the being experiences. This faculty of humaneness is the same as the being's neighbourly love. This faculty can, in certain situations, dissolve or neutralise returning arcs of fate and thereby liberate the being from superfluous dark karma or misfortune. If, for example, a human being has committed a murder, it has in doing so created an arc of fate that sooner or later will strike itself. If this arc of fate is of such short duration that it strikes the being in the same life as that in which it is released, the being will experience the full effects of the murder it has committed, and which has given rise to the arc of fate. It will be murdered totally. If the arc of fate is of such a duration that it does not affect the being until its next life, it will have had its faculty of humaneness developed so that it is now less capable of murder than in its previous life. This change in the faculty of humaneness will then neutralise, to a corresponding extent, some of the returning karma, so that it becomes milder. If the arc of fate does not reach the being until its third life, the faculty of humaneness will have developed even further. And then the being gets correspondingly less karma than in its second life. If the arc of fate does not affect the being until its fourth life, the faculty of humaneness will have become so strong that the being can no longer find it in its heart to kill and is absolutely incapable of murder. It will then be able to neutralise totally the returning murder-karma, and the being will not experience any effect whatsoever of its previous misdeed. It has here attained the total forgiveness of sins. And it has attained this forgiveness of sins or liberation from the murder-karma because, before the karma returned, it had already outgrown the ability to murder or kill. The murder-karma was therefore totally superfluous. The beings have to experience the dark karma only in order through this to break the habit of creating dark actions. But when the being no longer can or will make dark actions, the returning karma is totally superfluous.
      The perpetual life of suffering, the experiencing of suffering upon suffering, gives rise, as mentioned, to the divine faculty of humaneness in the being, a faculty that gradually becomes the neighbourly love that causes the being to love its neighbour as itself and thereby God above all things. If this faculty is not developed through the being's sufferings, it would never ever be able to leave behind the manifestations of war, evil, hatred, persecution and mutilation. But as this faculty develops, the being becomes correspondingly free of its unhappy fate. Not only because of the fact that as this faculty develops, the being gradually becomes increasingly incapable of having the heart to do evil, but also because it becomes liberated from a great deal of the dark karma it has sown through many lives, and which would be enough to make a corresponding number of lives unhappy. The being would thus live in suffering and unhappiness for an immense period of time, if it were not liberated from this accumulated mass of fate or karma. How could it otherwise unfold the humaneness or neighbourly love that it has acquired? But as unhappy fates or sufferings exist only in order to change the being's way of thinking from hate to love, it would be quite against the law of Nature or all logic if it were still to experience suffering when it no longer could sow suffering or do evil to anyone. Suffering does not exist for its own sake. It exists precisely in order to change the being and to make it incapable of having the heart to do evil. What use could it make of suffering when it is already transformed and can no longer do evil? If it were to be overwhelmed by its dark mass of fate and experienced several lives of suffering after it had become perfect, it would be a hell for a human being who was incapable of having the heart to do any evil. How could the keynote of the universe then be the total all-penetrating love that facts show the mature or advanced student to be the case in all fields?
      As the keynote of the universe is love, everything in the living beings' way of being that creates darkness and suffering will be an infringement of the laws of this keynote, of the laws of love. But suffering, as we have seen, creates in turn the faculty of humaneness in the beings and they receive, proportionate to the development of this faculty, "the forgiveness of sins" or the real liberation from the dark effects of their manifestations of error. So the beings thereby become predestined to further development through the humane guidance of world redemption. And, as we will see in what follows, they are led by this right up to the great ultimate result – "the human being in God's image after his likeness".