The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Awareness - Life - Form
GA 89

Part II: 2. The Godhead Reveals Itself as All Soul and All Life

Notes Rudolf Steiner made for Jan Peelen on 27 April 1905.
The original has been lost, a transcript of a copy made by Peelen follows.

The godhead reveals itself as: All Soul and All Life.

1. The All Soul penetrates All Life from above and gives universal matter its origin. Then the All Soul penetrates this universal matter once more, which leads to a denser degree of matter. This goes on down to the densest matter known to humanity, which is physical matter.
2. The polar opposite process is that All Life penetrates the All Soul; this gives rise to form, which in this original form makes up the manasic sphere. This kind of All Form may thus also be called All Spirit. If All Spirit descends into universal matter to fructify it, forms arise that are one degree lower, and so on, down to the forming of physical matter. Those are the transient forms.
3. When this forming has progressed through the three elemental worlds as far as the mineral world, All Life will descend to them, directly now, without first going through matter as in 1). This gives rise to the living forms of the plant world.
4. If this life in Form has advanced to a specific level, the All Soul pours in, making enlivened forms into ensouled forms. This gives rise to the animal world. All these forms are still transient, they become eternal when
5. the All Form penetrates the ensouled forms as All Spirit. The forms themselves become eternal. This is the case in the human world.

When All Form manifests, the individual form passes away completely

mineral

When All Life manifests, the individual form passes away with the genus:

plant

When All Soul manifests, the individual form passes away with the hereditary traits:

animal

When All Spirit manifests, the individual form finally no longer passes away:

human being

We may thus say that

• The human being has his spirit initially on the physical plane
• The animal its spirit initially on the astral plane
• The plant its spirit initially on the rupic manasic plane
• The mineral its spirit initially on the arupic manasic plane

When the spirit progresses to the budhi plane, we have the 3^rd elemental world.

When the spirit moves to the nirvana plane, we have the 2^nd elemental world.

and

If the spirit moves to the para nirvana plane, we have the 1^st elemental world

Finally the foundation for everything is the all-encompassing spirit on the mahapara nirvana plane.

Here the reflection of the 1st Logos is transformed into reality, i.e. the divine human being is born out of the threefold maya (life, soul, form), initially on the physical plane, then he becomes ensouled from within on the astral plane, that is, he makes the 2nd Logos into reality as well, and finally, on the manasic plane, the soul awakens to life, with the reflection of the 3rd Logos also transformed into reality.

human being	transformer of maya of the 1st Logos
chela	transformer of maya of the 2nd Logos
master	transformer of maya of the 3rd Logos

Next comes the transition to a planetary godhead of the next order, which again becomes involved in three illusions (mayas)—life, soul, form, then to evolve all three of them.