Esoteric Lessons I
GA 266
Number 13
Berlin, 12-18-'06
Today we'll try to get a little closer to the nature of the three Logoi. Many Theosophists speak about these things before they know much theosophy. This can only bring confusion and harm. If the higher consciousness isn't awakened in a man, he can't really form an idea about the three Logoi. And yet one can prepare the soul for right vision in the future by making the right pictures. All spiritual things make an imprint on the physical world also. So we'll look at the things in the physical world that correspond to these high forces.
People usually say that a man has five senses. Occultism only names three, namely smell, sight and hearing. Taste and the warmth sense lie between these. When I smell something I take very fine particles of the particular substance into my nose. Therefore in smell I perceive matter itself. But when I see with my eyes I only perceive an image of the object that's produced by a chemical process in the eye. Taste is a sense in between smell and sight. Although I take parts of the object into myself when I taste it, I don't perceive these parts directly as in smell, for I must first subject them to a chemical process to taste them. In hearing I perceive air vibrations and no objects. I also perceive particular oscillations when I feel warmth, but then my whole body perceives, whereas in hearing the perception of oscillations takes place in an organ that's especially developed for this.
The three Logoi are related to these three senses. The third Logos is so selfless that he lets his being resound through the world. The second streams himself out in pictures. The first Logos lets his own body stream out. That is the highest grade of selflessness, when one can let one's own essence flow out.
At the beginning of the world the first Logos began to let his being stream out; a fragrance filled world space. Let the world aroma be the first Logos. All material things originated from his body. He is the aroma of the world. Then the second Logos began to stream out and he wove pictures and forms into the world aroma. The world began to take on form; light and colors lit up. Then the third Logos sounded through the developing world. World aroma flowed in space, wonderful forms lit up, and the sounds of the third Logos surged through this shimmering, fragrant world.
Thus we can look upon the whole world around us as an outflow of the three Logoi and thereby gradually press forward to their true nature. Now a Logos does not work by himself—the three live and weave completely in each other so that each of the three also expresses himself in the other two. But we can't perceive the effects of the three equally well, because they stream out at different times.
When our chain of planets first saw the light the streaming out of the third Logos began. And his sound will only die out when our planet chain will have reached the end of its development. But the waves of the two other Logoi didn't first stream out at the beginning of our world chain, they came over to us from previous world evolutions. The flow waves of these two have a longer duration than those of the third Logos. But before our planetary chain reached its goal on the Sun, the streaming of the second had ended, and a new outstreaming began. This new outstreaming is what really belongs to our planetary system at which we too are working. Long before the new radiation of the second Logos had fully streamed out it prepared itself. It was such preparatory streams that brought Buddha, Zoroaster, Hermes and other founders of religion into the world. When the light of the second Logos shone in a preparatory way for the last time, it shone the brightest, and that was in Christ Jesus. When it shines again now it's the second Logos himself who radiates out his being anew.
The flow wave of the first Logos is even longer than that of the second one. When the second Logos has already been flowing along for some time, the first one's radiation is just dying away and begins his new outraying, that then only really belongs to our planetary chain. Thus the third Logos becomes the most clearly perceptible to us. He sounds loud and clear, and if we want to characterize his nature we say that he has a clear, vocalic sound: A.
The first and second Logoi also sound along in the third one, the first and third radiate as pictures in the second Logos, and the second and third Logoi stream out their aroma in the first Logos. But to begin with only the interactions of the first and second are discernable in the third Logos for us. Now if we can hear the clear, loud A of the third Logos, the sound of the second Logos can also be heard in there.
Since our second Logos is still developing, his tone still sounds dull and yet vocalically full, like U. Our first Logos who only arises in the future sounds along like a quiet, humming undertone as a dully consonantic M. Thus we have the sound of the most sublime powers expressed in AUM. That's the goal towards which we are all striving: to participate in the essence of these very sacred world forces. A human soul only has value for world evolution to the extent that it participates in these powers: AUM
| 1st Logos | 2nd Logos | 3rd Logos |
|---|---|---|
| aroma | sight | hearing |
| substance | image | movement |
| Old Moon | Old Sun | Old Saturn |
The third Logos, sound, is entirely on the physical plane. We can generate sounds and take them in. Later on a man will be able to place the pictures of the outer world he receives via his eyes outside again as forms via his pineal gland and blood that he'll then have under control. He'll generate oxygen himself and convert the blue blood that goes to the heart into red blood without the use of outside air. And he'll give it for the creation of pictures and forms. When he's become still more selfless he'll be able to give out his own substances and create beings out of it by means of the pituitary gland and place them outside.