| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Seventh Hour
11 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| And it must be an inner obligation to consider the Executive Committee, as it is presently constituted, as an esoteric entity. This is not generally understood. So something must be done to bring it to the members' attention. It is saying much that an Executive Committee has been esoterically formed. |
| But the human being is at first unconsciously asleep. Under normal circumstances he is not aware of what he could see when outside the physical body. And the reason for this is that he is protected from approaching the spiritual world unprepared. |
| In our thinking - which as earthly thinking is only capable of understanding the earthly - we must look downward to grasp what streams out from the earth to work in man. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Seventh Hour
11 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, Quite a large number of new members of this School are present, and I am therefore obliged to again say a few words about its principles. First if all, this School represents the impulse of the anthroposophical movement which was renewed here during the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum. Previously there were several esoteric circles. All these esoteric circles must be gradually absorbed into this School, because with the Christmas Conference a new spirit was introduced into the anthroposophical movement insofar as it streams through the Anthroposophical Society. I have repeatedly spoken - also outside [Dornach] - about what the difference is between the anthroposophical movement before the Christmas Conference and the one we now have since Christmas. Previously the Anthroposophical Society was a kind of administrative body for anthroposophical teaching and content. Within the Anthroposophical Society, Anthroposophy was, so to speak, cultivated. Since Christmas anthroposophy is not only cultivated, it is also carried out; meaning that everything which passes through the Anthroposophical Society as activity, as thought, is anthroposophy itself. The renewal which has taken place must be clearly grasped, my dear friends, and above all it must be grasped with deep earnestness. For a distinction exists between the Anthroposophical Society in general and this Esoteric School within the Anthroposophical Society. The Anthroposophical Society will, as a matter of course and according to the principle of openness, not be able to demand anything more from the members than that they honestly recognize what anthroposophy is and that they are in a certain sense listeners to what anthroposophy says; and that they receive from it what their hearts, their souls can make of it. It is different as far as the School is concerned. Those who become members of this School declare that they want to be true representatives of the anthroposophical movement. In this Esoteric School, which will gradually be expanded to include three classes, the same freedom must of course apply as it does to every member of the Anthroposophical Society; but freedom must also apply for the Executive Council at the Goetheanum which is responsible for this School. In this case, it means that only those who are recognized by the School as true members can be recipients of what the School teaches. Therefore, whatever a member of the School does should have the effect of reflecting on anthroposophy in the world; and it must belong to the competence of the Executive Council to remove a member if it considers that he cannot be a representative of the anthroposophical movement. The relationship must be mutual. Therefore, more and more a serious, in a certain sense strict spirit will have to be utilized in the management of the School. Otherwise the anthroposophical movement cannot advance if we do not feel that the School is like building a rock to support anthroposophy. It is going to be very difficult and the members of this School must know that they must adapt to those difficulties. They are not merely anthroposophists, they are members of an Esoteric School. And it must be an inner obligation to consider the Executive Committee, as it is presently constituted, as an esoteric entity. This is not generally understood. So something must be done to bring it to the members' attention. It is saying much that an Executive Committee has been esoterically formed. Furthermore, all those who consider themselves to be legitimate members of this School see the School as not having been founded by men, but in fact by the will of the world's presently reigning spiritual powers; something which has been instituted from the spiritual world and which intends to act accordingly; which feels responsible to the spiritual world alone. Therefore, anything which indicates that a member is not taking the School seriously must lead to the cancellation of that person's membership. It is a fact that negligence has entered into the Anthroposophical Society to a marked degree in recent years. That it ceases is one of the tasks for the members of this School. We want to feel responsible even for the words we speak. Above all we should feel responsible that every word we speak is tested to the extent that we know it is true. For untruthfulness, even when derived from what is called good intentions, is destructive in an occult movement. There must be no illusions about this; it must be completely clear. It is not a question of good intentions, which are often taken very lightly, but of objective truth. Among the first duties of an esoteric student is that he does not merely feel obliged to say what he thinks is true, but that he feels obliged to determine that what he says is really objectively true. For only when we serve the divine-spiritual powers - whose forces stream through this School - in the sense of objective truth, will we be able to steer through all the difficulties which will assail anthroposophy. What I will now say is within the circle of the School, and what is said within the circle of the School remains within the circle of the School. We may not forget that many people are saying something like the following. Certain influential persons are saying: Those who represent the principles of the Roman Church will do everything in their power to make the individual states of the former German Empire independent and out of them - I am only reporting - with the exception of the predominance of Prussia, to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire, which of course, when it is established by such prominence, will spread its power over the neighboring regions. Then - they say - we will need to completely destroy from the roots up the most dangerous, the worst movements. And, they add, if the reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire is not successful, and it will be successful, but if not, we will find other means to completely destroy from the roots up the most resisting, the most dangerous movements of the present, and they are the anthroposophical movement and the movement for Religious Renewal [Christian Community]. I quote almost verbatim. And you can see that the difficulties are not less, but every week greater, that what I say is well founded. I wish today to speak from the heart to those who consider their membership in this School with heartfelt seriousness. Only by such earnestness as members of the School can we construct the necessary foundation for navigating through the future difficulties. You can see from this that anthroposophy - the movement for religious renewal is only a branch of it - is taken more seriously by the opposition than by many of the members. Because when one can learn that the Holy Roman Empire, which fell in 1806, is to be reinstated in order to eliminate such a movement, that means that it is taken very seriously indeed. What is important is whether a movement is founded from the spirit and not, my dear friends, how many members it has, but which force is instilled in it directly from the spiritual world. The opponents see that it contains a strong inner force; therefore, they choose sharp, strong rather than weak means [to combat it]. * The considerations of these Class lessons, my dear friends, have been primarily concerned with what can be told about the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold, the encounter which is the first experience towards the attainment of real and true supersensible knowledge. Today I would like to add something to what has already been considered. It is not possible to claim that the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold has been successful until one has experienced what it means to be outside the physical body with the human I and the astral body. Because when the human being is enclosed within the physical body, the only things he can perceive in his surroundings are those which he perceives with the instruments of his physical body. And through the instruments of the physical body only the sensible world can be perceived - which is a reflection of a spiritual world, one which does not, however, reveal to the senses what it is a reflection of. Generally speaking, it is not difficult for a person to leave the physical body. He does so every time he falls asleep. He is then outside the physical body. But when he is asleep outside the physical body his consciousness is suppressed to the point of being unconscious. Only illusory - or perhaps even not illusory - dreams rise up from this unconsciousness. But through the attainment of higher knowledge leaving the physical body takes place in fully conscious deliberateness, so that when outside the physical body the person perceives his surroundings exactly as he perceives the physical world with his senses when within the physical body. He perceives the spiritual world while outside the physical body. But the human being is at first unconsciously asleep. Under normal circumstances he is not aware of what he could see when outside the physical body. And the reason for this is that he is protected from approaching the spiritual world unprepared. If he is sufficiently prepared, what happens then? When he is at the abyss between the sensory world and the spiritual world, the Guardian of the Threshold extracts his true human essence - assuming he is prepared as described in the previous lessons - which can then fly over the abyss with the means indicated in the mantric verses. And then from beyond the threshold he can behold his own sensory physical being. That is the first powerful impression of true knowledge, my dear friends, when the Guardian of the Threshold can say to the human being: See, that is how you are over there, as you appear in the physical world; here with me you are as your inner being really is. And now meaningful words sound out again from the Guardian of the Threshold - that the person is called upon, now that he is on the other side of the abyss, how differently he sees himself on the other, physical side. He sees himself differently. He sees himself as a tripartite being. He sees himself as a tripartite being which expresses itself psychically in thinking, feeling and willing. In reality they are three humans: the thinking one, the feeling one, the willing one, which exist in every person and are only held together in one by the physical body in the physical world. And what the person sees there resounds from the lips of the Guardian of the Threshold in the following way:
Or also “human imprint”; one must translate the words from the occult language.
[The mantra is written on the blackboard:]
The Guardian of the Threshold is indicating here how the Three - which separate from each other once the person leaves the physical body - how the Three look in relation to the physical body. Thevision is directed to the physical body, to the head, heart and limbs, and the Guardian of the Threshold says: If you observe the human head in its true cosmic significance, it is a mirror image of the heavenly universe. You must look into the distance, where the universe seems to reach its boundary. (In reality it is bounded by the spirit, not as it naively appears physically to be.) In looking up you must recall that your round head is a true image of the heavenly universe. And we add here, being conscious of the mantric words: “Experience the head's cosmic form” The sign is added here [in front of the above line]:
which encourages us to pause at this line of the mantric verse in order to envision the upward direction to the cosmic vastness, and of course that direction is always upward from anywhere on the earth. “Feel the heart's cosmic pulse” Through this cosmic-heavenly place the cosmic rhythm resounds as cosmic music. When we hear the human heart beating it seems as if this human heart were only beating as a result of the human organism's interior processes. In reality what beats in the heart is the counterpoint of the cosmic rhythm which has circulated not only for thousands but for millions of years. Therefore, pause again - the Guardian of the Threshold says - at the words “Feel the heart's cosmic pulse”, and feel what works in the heart upward as well as downward. [The corresponding sign is drawn:]
The triangle pointing downward combines with the one pointing upward. “Think the limbs' cosmic force” This cosmic force is the one concentrated from below by gravity and other earthly forces. In our thinking - which as earthly thinking is only capable of understanding the earthly - we must look downward to grasp what streams out from the earth to work in man. Now we pause again at “Think the limbs' cosmic force” in the triangle pointing downward:
And we will feel the Guardian's words as they should affect the human heart, the human soul today if one activates this mantric verse in the appropriate way.
Experience the head's cosmic form. The verse is spoken while making the sign before the head:
Feel the heart's cosmic pulse One speaks the verse while making the sign before the breast:
Think the limbs' cosmic force One speaks the verse while making the sign pointing downward:
And you should then try, after letting these mantric verses work on the soul, to make the senses subdued, close the eyes, hear nothing with the ears, perceive nothing and have darkness around you for a while, so that you are living totally in the atmosphere through which these words pass. And in this way you will transport yourself to the sphere in initiation which in all reality can be realized during the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold. This is one of the ways by which one can take the first step beyond the threshold. But we must let the Guardian's next words work upon us with great earnestness. These words indicate that once we have crossed the threshold everything is different from the sensory world. In the sensory world we think that the site of thinking and mental images is the human head. And so it is, for the sensory world. But this thinking in the head is always mixed a little bit with willing, something which is also perceptible for normal consciousness. Because when we move from one thought to another we must use the will just as we use it when moving an arm or a leg, or when willing in general. But it is a fine, delicate willing which transfers one thought to another. When we are in the sensory world the whole extent of thinking and a small amount of willing are bound together in the head. As soon as we cross over the Threshold and encounter the Guardian it is the reverse: a small amount of thinking and much widespread willing is bound to the head. And in this willing, which otherwise sleeps in man, we sense the spirit which forms the head from out of the cosmos, the heavens, as it's spherically-shaped mirror image in all its details. Therefore, once we have crossed beyond the threshold, the Guardian calls out the following words: [The new mantra is written on the blackboard.]
And now we see that willing is something quite different from what it previously was. Previously the senses were the transmitters of sense-impressions, and one was not aware that the will goes through the the eyes, through the ears, that the will goes through the sense of warmth, and through every other sense as well. Now we see that everything the eye experiences as multiple colors, what the ear hears as multiple sounds, what man perceives as warmth and cold, as rough and smooth, smells and tastes etc., is all will in the spiritual world. [writing continues:]
If on seeing the head from the other side of the threshold one recognizes how will goes through the head and how the senses represent will, then he will realize how the heart contains the soul and how one can feel the soul within the heart just as he can will the head's spirit when observing the head. And now we know that when thinking is not considered as a function of the head, but as a function of the heart, of the soul, we realize that thinking does not belong to an individual, but to the world; then one experiences cosmic-life, the music of the spheres. [The second verse is written on the blackboard.]
not in the unsubstantial shining, but the shining where the essence of the world appears.
summing up in the line: You weave in wisdom. Summing up what pertains to the heart's soul and feeling in the line: You live in the shining. Just as you recognize the senses as will, you also recognize thinking as feeling in respect to cosmic being, when you consider the Three, which only in the sensory world are One. And thirdly the Guardian of the Threshold adds: [The third verse is written on the blackboard.]
Now we have a complete reversal. Whereas normally we consider thinking to be concentrated in the head, here [in the first verse] it is the will, as I previously explained, that is concentrated in the head. Feeling stays in the heart, where it is also felt to be in the sensory world; for the inner force of the heart goes over to the spiritual world.
Now thinking is brought directly into connection with the limbs, the opposite of the sensory world. [Writing continues.]
thus, willing becomes thinking, You strive in virtue. Thus, we have the complete reversal in the spiritual world as revealed to us by the Guardian of the Threshold. Whereas we normally differentiate willing, feeling, thinking from below upward in man, on the other side [of the threshold] we differentiate man as a Three: will above in the head, feeling in the middle, thinking below at the limbs. We realize then how willing, concentrated in the head, is the weaving cosmic wisdom in which we live; how feeling is the cosmic shining in which all the spirit-beings glow; and how thinking, observed in the limbs, is human striving, which can be lived as human virtue. And the Three appear before spiritual vision thus:
The mantric verse is built thus. And we must be aware of this inner congruence, and also aware that if we let this mantric verse work on us the following will penetrate our being:
[These three lines are underlined in yellow.] These then are the Guardian of the Threshold's words which accompany our spiritual vision of the Three, which derive from the One, when we cross over into the world beyond the threshold:
These are the sensations which must flow through the soul if real knowledge is to be obtained; these are the admonitions which the Guardian of the Threshold lets resound at the moment when he also tells us:
[Written on the blackboard:]
Those are the words which for thousands and thousands of years have resounded at all the gates to the spiritual world, admonishing and yet encouraging:
Just imagine, my sisters and brothers, that you say to yourselves for the first time: I want to take the Guardian of the Threshold's words seriously; I recognize that I was not yet a human being; I recognize that I will become one through insight into the spiritual world. Imagine, my dear sisters and brothers, you say the second time: Oh, I didn't take the words seriously enough the first time; I must admit that I need not one, but two of the stages from where I am now in order to become a true human being. And imagine you say the third time: I recognize that I need three of the stages from the point where I now stand, at which I am not a true human, in order to become a true human being. The first admonition, which you give to yourself, is earnest. The second admonition is more earnest. But the third admonition must bear the most earnest impression of all. And if you can awaken this threefold admonition of earnestness from the depths of your souls, then you will have an inkling of what it means to become a true human being through knowledge. And then you will return to the first admonition - as we will also do now - as a transforming verse in our souls.
Thus, my sisters and brothers, has it resounded in the hearts of all who have striven for knowledge ever since there have been human beings on the earth. There has been a pause in the striving since the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. According to the will of the divine-spiritual entities who guide humanity, the pause has come to an end. Now it is up to you to make human hearts open again in a worthy way to what the wise guides of humanity raise up to the vision of what works in the world as spirit, what as spirit works in the world in humanity, as the crown of existence.  |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Eighth Hour
18 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| It is important that in future the Vorstand at the Goetheanum be understood as the center of the anthroposophical movement. Furthermore, the relation of this School to the Anthroposophical Society must be clearly understood by the membership. |
| Whoever wants to do esoteric work under conditions other than those just mentioned cannot be a member of this School. They must then do the esoteric work outside the confines of this School and unrecognized by it, but must clearly understand that it cannot include anything which originated in this School. |
| And only by seeing as magical the thoughts which pass through the arms and hands, through legs and toes is true magic understood. [The third strophe is written on the blackboard with the words “thinking”, “transform” and “magical being of will” underlined.] |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Eighth Hour
18 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, A large number of anthroposophical friends have appeared at the Class today who have not been here before, so I am obliged to say a few introductory words about the School's arrangements. It is to be remembered in all earnestness that with the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum a new element has entered into the anthroposophical movement. Especially the members of our Free School for Spiritual Science must be aware of this new element. I have often indicated this, but I know that many anthroposophical friends are here for the first time who have never heard it, so I must emphasize it once again. It is true that before the Christmas Conference it was always emphasized that the anthroposophical movement and the Anthroposophical Society must be held strictly separate. The anthroposophical movement represented the inflow of spiritual wisdom and life impulses into human civilization today which can and should be obtained for our present time directly from the spiritual world. This anthroposophical movement exists not because people like it to exist but because the spiritual powers which guide and lead the world and affect human history consider it right that spiritual light, which can come through anthroposophy, flow today into human civilization in the appropriate manner. The Anthroposophical Society was founded in order to act as an administrative society for the body of anthroposophical wisdom and life. And it had to be continually emphasized that anthroposophy as such is beyond and above any societal organization and the Anthroposophical Society is the exoteric administrator. That has changed since the Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum. Since the Christmas Conference the opposite is the case. And only because the opposite is the case was I able to declare myself willing, together with the Executive Committee (Vorstand) which was formed during the Christmas Conference and with whom the appropriate work to be done can be carried out, to take over the presidency of the Anthroposophical Society which was founded at Christmas. I can explain what this means in one sentence: Until then, anthroposophy was administered by the Anthroposophical Society; now whatever happens through the Anthroposophical Society must itself be anthroposophy. Since Christmas the Anthroposophical Society must occupy itself with anthroposophy. Every single act must have an esoteric character. The investment of the Vorstand was thus an esoteric measure, a measure which must be thought of as coming directly from the spiritual world. Only when our anthroposophical friends are conscious of this can the Anthroposophical Society thus founded thrive. So, the anthroposophical movement and the Anthroposophical Society have now become identical. Thus, the Vorstand at Dornach is an initiative-Vorstand, as was emphasized during the Christmas Conference. Of course, there must be an administration. But that is not what it considers to be its principal task, but rather to make anthroposophy flow through the Anthroposophical Society and to do everything possible to achieve this objective. The position of the Vorstand at Dornach within the Anthroposophical Society is therewith given. And it must be clear that from now on every relationship within the Anthroposophical Society will not be based on some bureaucratic measure or other, but it will be based on the strictly human. Therefore, at the Christmas Conference statutes that contain paragraphs which detail what members must believe or agree to were not presented; rather do the statutes describe what the Vorstand intends. And that is how the Anthroposophical Society is constituted. It is founded upon human relationships. It is a minor thing, but I must emphasize it: every member is issued a membership card, which is signed by me, so that even if it's an abstract thing, the personal relationship is at least present. It has been suggested that I have a rubber stamp made with my signature. I'm not going to do that - despite it not being exactly comfortable to sign twelve thousand membership cards, little by little. But I will not have the stamp made, first of all because, although very abstract, a relationship is at least established to each and every member when, if only for minutes the eye rests on the name of the person who carries the membership card. Obviously, all the other relationships will be even more human, but by this means a concrete beginning is made within our society. I must also stress that it must be clear to the members - I stress it because it has already been sinned against - that when the name “General Anthroposophical Society” is used, the agreement of the Vorstand at the Goetheanum is first obtained. In the same sense, when something comes from the Goetheanum and is then used as something esoteric, the use is based upon an understanding with the Vorstand at the Goetheanum. This means that nothing by way of formulations and teaching which appears in the name of the General Anthroposophical Society will be recognized by us here as valid unless an understanding with the Vorstand at the Goetheanum has taken place. In the future, no abstract relationship will be possible, only concrete ones. Anything said to come from the Goetheanum must really come from the Goetheanum. Therefore, the use of the title “General Anthroposophical Society” for lectures to be given somewhere or for the use of formulations and so forth which originate here and which an active member wishes to distribute, should write to the Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum, that is, to Mrs. Wegman, in order to obtain the Vorstand's agreement. It is important that in future the Vorstand at the Goetheanum be understood as the center of the anthroposophical movement. Furthermore, the relation of this School to the Anthroposophical Society must be clearly understood by the membership. One who becomes a member of the Anthroposophical Society feels the inner heartfelt need to learn and live what circulates in the world as anthroposophical knowledge and living impulse. One assumes no responsibilities other than those which come to the heart and soul from anthroposophy itself. Once one has been a general member of the General Anthroposophical society for a certain time - presently the minimum is two years - he can apply for membership in the Free School for Spiritual Science. In this Free School for Spiritual Science one assumes truly earnest responsibilities for the Society, for anthroposophy, that is, that as a member one wishes to be a true representative of anthroposophy to the world. That is necessary today. The leadership of the Free School for Spiritual Science cannot agree to work together with someone as a member under other conditions. Do not say, my friends, that this is a limitation of freedom. Freedom demands that everyone involved be free. And just as one can be a member of the School and be free in this relationship, the leadership of the School must also be free to determine with whom it wishes to work and with whom not. Therefore, if the leadership for any reason is of the opinion that a member cannot be a true representative of anthroposophy to the world, it must be possible for the leadership of the School to either not approve that person's application or, in the case where he is already a member, to say that his membership must be revoked. This must be strictly observed in this future, so that in fact a free cooperation exists between the School's leadership and the members. Step by step we will try to make arrangements so that those who cannot take part in the continuing work of the School in Dornach can partake in some manner. We can only take the fifth step after the fourth, not the seventh step after the first; we must take one step after the other and there has been much to do here since the Christmas Conference. But it will all be arranged to the extent possible. We will have a newsletter through which those who reside elsewhere can participate in the School's activities. We were able to make a beginning with a newsletter that Dr Wegman sent to the physicians who were thus able to participate in the work of the School. Things will develop as much as possible, and I ask that you be patient in this respect. Something else to be mentioned is that the School must be understood not as having been established by a human impulse, but from the spiritual world. A decision made from the spiritual world has been obtained with the means which are possible. So that this School is to be understood as an institution of the spiritual world for the present time - as has been the case with the Mysteries in all times. Therefore, we may say today: This School must develop into a true Mystery School for our times. Thus, it will be the soul of the anthroposophical movement. This makes clear how serious membership in this School should be understood to be. It is obvious that all the previous esoteric work achieved here will flow into the School's work. For this School is the esoteric foundation and source of all esoteric activity within the anthroposophical movement. Therefore, if anyone wishes to initiate any kind of esoteric work in the world without a connection to the Vorstand at the Goetheanum, they must either reach an understanding with the Vorstand or they cannot include things which originate in the Goetheanum in their teaching or impulse. Whoever wants to do esoteric work under conditions other than those just mentioned cannot be a member of this School. They must then do the esoteric work outside the confines of this School and unrecognized by it, but must clearly understand that it cannot include anything which originated in this School. Relations with the School must be clearly understood. So the members must understand that [the leadership of] the School must be able to consider that each member is a true representative of anthroposophy in the world, and that every member represents anthroposophy exoterically (sic) as a member of the School should. Before I was President of the Anthroposophical Society an attempt was made to organize the Goetheanum in the way other universities are organized. But that doesn't work under certain circumstances. Here esoteric studies will take place which are not found in other universities. And there is no intention to compete with other universities in the world, but to begin with questions about any field of life posed by honestly seeking people, which cannot be answered outside the esoteric. Therefore, in the future, especially for members of the School, nonsense which keeps being repeated must cease, because with the Christmas Conference something real has happened and for the Goetheanum to fulfill its mission all the members of the School must frankly and freely declare: I am a representative of the anthroposophy which comes given from the Goetheanum. Whoever will not do this, who thinks that one should be silent about anthroposophy, prepare people slowly, whoever wants to play politics and thinks that he can advance by denying us and then people will come to us - they generally don't - would be well advised to give up membership in the School right away. I can promise you that in the future membership in the School will be taken very seriously indeed. For those members of the School whose work is really about anthroposophy and not something else, this will be accepted readily and gladly. Those who continually claim that you can't confront people with anthroposophy immediately, that you must somehow talk them into it gradually, may choose to exercise their opinion outside the School. These are the conditions which must be adhered to, and I had to mention them today because so many anthroposophical friends are present who had not yet participated in the School. And this is the reason why you have had to wait so long for the lesson to begin, and listen to this introduction. So, we can consider the lesson today to be a kind of preparation. I will hold a second lesson, date to be announced, in which no new friends may participate. So, I ask those who wish to attend in the future to have patience, because if every time a lesson is held here new people come, we would never get anywhere. Of course, one can still become a member, but only members who have attended today will be admitted to the next lesson. It will be a continuation of today's lesson. I wish to begin today's lesson - without you taking notes, only listening at first - by speaking the mantric formula which points to what has resounded throughout the ages, first from the Mysteries, but previously for the Mysteries from the script written in the stars, in the whole cosmos, and which resounds in the human soul, in the human heart, as the great challenge to humanity to strive for a true knowledge of self. This challenge; “O man, know thyself!” rings forth from the whole cosmos. We look up at the stars, which reveal an especially clear writing in the zodiac, which through their composition in certain forms reveal the grand cosmic script. For one who understands the script the cosmic words will sound forth: “O man, know thyself!” When we look up at what the planets reveal by their movements, first the sun and moon, but also the planets which belong to the sun and moon, then just as the movements of the stars reveal the powerful, forceful cosmic word, so do these planetary movements reveal the heart and feeling content. And through what we experience from the elements which surround us on the earth and in which we partake through our skin, through our senses, through everything in us, that enters into us and acts in our bodies - earth, water, fire, air - through them the will element pours into these words. We can therefore let this cosmic word, which rings out to humanity, act on our souls through the mantric words:
My dear friends, my dear sisters and brothers, there exists no knowledge which is not closely tied to the spiritual world. Everything we call knowledge which is neither investigated in the spiritual world nor imparted by those who are able to investigate in the spiritual world, is not real knowledge. We must be clear about the fact that when we look around in the world, in the kingdoms of nature, see the colors and the radiance manifested, see what lives above in the shining stars, in the warming sun, what springs up from the depths of the earth - it is all sublime, grand, beautiful, full of wisdom. And we would be very mistaken to ignore this beauty, sublimity, this wisdom. If one wishes to become an esotericist, if he strives for real knowledge, then he must have a sense for the world around him - an open, free sense. For during the time between birth and death, during his earthly existence, he is obliged to absorb his strength from the forces of the earth, and to return the results of his work to the forces of the earth. But although it is true that man must really participate in all the colors on colors, sound on sound, warmth on warmth, star on star, cloud on cloud, creatures of the kingdoms of nature which surround him, it is also true that if when he looks out at all the grand, powerful, sublime, wise, beautiful things his senses convey, he still does not discover what he himself is. Rather is it just then, when he has a correct sense of the sublimity, beauty and grandeur of his surroundings in his life on earth, that he will realize: In this light-filled kingdom of earth the inmost source of my being is not present. It is elsewhere. Full recognition of this causes us to seek the state of consciousness which moves us on to what we call the threshold to the spiritual world. This threshold, which lies immediately before an abyss, we must approach and remember that in all that surrounds us in earthly existence the primal source of humanity is not found. Then we must know: at this threshold stands a spiritual figure called the Guardian of the Threshold. This Guardian takes care - beneficially to man - that one does not cross the threshold unprepared, without having experienced deeply in the soul those feelings I have spoken about. But then, when he really is prepared with inner earnestness for spiritual knowledge - whether by means of clairvoyant consciousness or through healthy human understanding of what he has been told, for both ways are valid, only then is it possible for the Guardian of the Threshold to reach out with a helping hand and allow him to look over the abyss. There, beyond the threshold where the human being's inmost being originated, utter darkness lies at first. My dear friends, my dear sisters and brothers, we seek light in order to see in the light the origin of our own being. At first darkness reigns. This light which we seek must radiate out from the darkness. And it only radiates out from the darkness when we become aware of how the three fundamental impulses of our soul-life, thinking, feeling and willing, here is this earth-life are held together by our physical bodies. Thinking, feeling and willing are conjoined in physical existence.
If I schematically draw how they are conjoined, it looks like this. Feeling (green) extends into thinking (yellow); willing (red) extends into feeling. So, in earthly existence the Three are conjoined. One must learn to feel that the Three separate from each other. And if more and more he uses the meditations suggested to him here by the School as the content of his soul life, he will note the following [drawing again]: thinking (yellow) is freed, detaching itself from feeling, feeling [green] is on its own as is willing [red]. For one learns to perceive without the physical body. The physical body had held thinking, feeling and willing together, had pressed them into each other. [Around the first drawing an oval is drawn.] Here [in the second drawing on the right] the physical body is not present. Through the meditations which he receives here at the School, one gradually comes to feel himself outside his body; and he comes to regard the world as self, and what self was, as world. We stand here on the earth in our earthly existence: we feel like human beings; we say, as we become inwardly aware: this is my heart, these are my lungs, this is my liver, this is my stomach. What we call our organs, what we call the physical human organization, we consider to be our own. And we point up: that is the sun, that is the moon, those are the stars, the clouds, that is a tree, a stream. We identify these things as being outside us. We are within our organs. We are outside of those things we indicated as: that is the sun, that is the moon, those are the stars, and so on. When we have prepared our souls enough so that they can perceive without the body, that is, outside the body in the spiritual universe, then the reverse consciousness comes about. Now we speak of the sun as we speak of our heart here in earthly existence: that is my heart. We speak of the moon: that is the creator of my form. We speak of the clouds more of less as we speak on earth of our hair. We call our own organism what people on the earth see as components of the universe. And we point out: look there, a human heart, human lungs, a human liver - that is objective, that is world. Just as when we are in our physical bodies we look out from here to the sun and moon and to the world, when from the universe we look at the sun and the moon and clouds and rivers and mountains and they are within us. And when we look at man he is our outer world. The difficulty is only in the spatial relationships. And the difficulty will be overcome. As soon as we leave our physical bodies with our thinking, we perceive this thinking as one with all that is manifested in the stars. Here on earth we call our brain our own, as the instrument of our thinking. But now we begin to feel the stars, especially the stars of the zodiac, as our brain when we are out in the universe and look down at man external to us. And we perceive the circling planets as our own feeling. Our feeling follows then the course of the sun, of the moon, and of the other planets. Between what we experience as thinking in the fixed stars and feeling, is the sun in ourselves [the sun sign is inserted between the yellow and green of the second drawing]; and the moon lies between feeling and willing - which we also feel within us. [The moon sign is inserted between green and red.] And by simply meditating on this figure, it has the force to bring us closer and closer to spiritual vision. It must be realized that what I am saying here can really be experienced: leaving the physical body, expanding throughout the cosmos, feeling the elements of the cosmos - sun and moon, stars and so on - as one's own organs, observation of humanity as our exterior world. What must be perfectly clear however, is that our thinking, our feeling and our willing which on earth is a unity held together by the physical body, now becomes threefold. And we learn to feel this threefold nature above all when we observe thinking. Dear friends, dear sisters and brothers, this thinking which man uses on earth between birth and death is a corpse. It does not live. Whatever he may think with his brain about the beautiful, sublime, grand earth in his surroundings: these thoughts do not live. They lived in pre-earthly existence. They lived, these thoughts, when we had not yet descended to the physical world, but still lived above in the soul-spiritual world as soul-spiritual beings. There the thoughts which we have on earth were alive, but our physical body is the grave in which the moribund thought-world is buried when we descend to the earth. And here we carry the corpses of thought within us. And we think about our sense-perceptible surroundings on earth not with living thoughts but with the corpses of thought. But before we descended to this physical world a living thinking existed within us. My dear friends, we only need to immerse ourselves in these truths again and again with inner strength and we come to the conscious conclusion that it really is so. One comes to know the human being in this way. One comes to know him and sees him so: This is the human head. [The outline of a head is sketched.] This human head is the bearer and support for earthly corpse-thinking. From it spring forth - but dead - the thoughts which spread over what is perceived by the eyes, by the ears, by the sense of warmth, by the other senses. We observe the thinking that corresponds to life on earth. But gradually we learn to see through this thinking. Within the spiritual cell of the human head is the lingering sound of the true, living thinking in which we lived before descending to the physical world. When one looks at man, one sees at first his dead thinking [sketch: red part of the head]. But behind this dead thinking in the head's spiritual cell is the living thinking [yellow part of the head]. And this living thinking has brought with it the force necessary to form our brain. The brain is not thinking's creator, but the product of pre-earthly living thinking. So when we look at the human being with the correct awareness, dead earthly thinking is manifested on the surface of the head; if we look within to the spiritual cell behind, we see the living thinking, which is like a will, such as the will we are otherwise aware of in the human motor system, which is really sleeping in us. For we don't know how thought descends to our muscles and so on - when it intends to will this or that. Then we observe what lives in us as will: we see it as thinking in the spiritual cell behind the sense oriented thinking. But then this will, which we become aware of as thinking, is creative for our thinking organ. For this thinking is no longer human thinking, it is cosmic thinking. If we can understand the human being so that we look through the earthly thinking to the thinking which made the brain the basis for thinking on earth, then sensory thinking flows out into the cosmic void, and eternal thinking arises as will. We become conscious of all this when we let the following mantric words act in us:
This imagination must gradually stand before you, my dear friends, this imagination of dead thinking directed toward the sensory world streaming out from the head. Behind it lurks - at first in darkness - the true thinking which glows through sensory thinking and which builds the brain as man descends from the spiritual to the physical world. It is, however, like will. And one sees then how from out of man the will arises [white lines from below to above], spreading in the head, to become cosmic thinking because what lives in the will as thinking is already cosmic thinking. We should therefore try to better understand and bring closer the mantric thoughts which we can imbue in the soul in the following way: [The first verse is written on the blackboard:]
- that is, one must look behind thinking - [“behind” is underlined] Willing arises from the body's depths; - one must become strong in the soul to let normal sensory thinking flow away -
These seven lines contain the secret of human thinking's connection to the universe. We must not pretend to understand these things with the intellect, but must let them live in feeling as meditation. And these words have force. They are constructed harmoniously. “Thinking”, “willing”, “cosmic void”, “will” and “cosmic thought creating” [these words are underlined] are arranged here in inner organization of thoughts so they can work on the imaginative consciousness. Just as we can look at the human head and it becomes a means for us to look into cosmic-thought-creating, we can also look at the human heart as the physical imaginative representative of the human soul. As thinking is the abstract representative of the human spirit, we can look upon the human heart as the representative of feeling. And we can look into feeling, as it applies to human earthly existence, but now no longer behind, but into it. [In the drawing a yellow oval.] For just as we perceive cosmic-thought-creating in the spiritual cell behind thinking, we can also perceive feeling, whose representative the heart is, streaming through something which from the cosmos goes in and out of man: we perceive cosmic life, cosmic life which becomes human soul-life. As here [in the first verse] must be: “behind thinking's sensory light”, now it must be: “in feeling's” in the second mantra, which must be harmonically interwoven with the first.
[This second strophe is written on the blackboard:]
Feeling is only a wakeful dreaming. Feelings are not as conscious as thinking is. They are as conscious as the pictures in dreams. Thus, feeling is a waking dream. Therefore:
Here [in the first verse] “willing” arises from the body's depths; whereas here “Life” streams in from cosmic distance. streams in from cosmic distance; [In the drawing 4 horizontal arrows are added.] As here [in the first verse] thinking is to flow into the cosmic void through strength of soul, now we let the dreams of feeling gust away, but in their place, we perceive in the psychic weaving of feeling what streams in as cosmic life. When feelings' dreams completely dissolve in sleep, when individual human feeling stops, then cosmic life weaves into man. Life streams in from cosmic distance [Writing continues:] Let in sleep through the tranquil heart Here [in the first verse] we need strength of soul; Here [in the second verse] we need complete tranquility, for the dreams of feeling dissolve in sleep, and the divine cosmic life streams into the human soul. Let in sleep through the tranquil heart [Writing continues, and the words “drift away”, “cosmic spirit life” and “Man's true force of being” are underlined.]
In these seven lines the whole secret of human feeling is contained, if it can become independent when the unity [of thinking, feeling, willing] becomes threefold. In this way we can also observe the human limbs, in which the will is revealed [Drawing: white arrow pointing downwards]; here we cannot say: “See behind”, “See into”. Here we must say “See above”, for thinking streams down to the will from the head, although man with normal consciousness cannot see it. But the thoughts stream from the head into the limbs in order for the will to be able to act in the limbs. When we observe the will acting in the limbs, when we see in every arm movement, in every leg movement how the will streams in, then we also realize how in this will there is a secret thinking, a thinking which directly grasps earthly existence. Actually, it is our being in earlier earthly lives, which grasps earthly existence through the limbs in order that in grasping it we can live our present life on earth. Thinking descends into the limbs. When we see how thinking descends, we are seeing thinking in the will [drawing: red descending from the head through the arm]. Then, because we are seeing with the soul, we see how thinking lives in the arms, in the hands, in the legs, in the feet, in the toes, a process otherwise hidden from us, then we must see how this thinking is light. Thinking as light streams through arms and hands, through legs and toes. And the will, which otherwise is sleeping in the limbs, transforms itself and thinking appears as a magical being of will that transplants the human being from earlier lives - after becoming spirit - into the present-earth life:
It conjures, that is, it acts magically on the invisible thinking in the will of the limbs. He understands the human being who knows that the thought which is not seen in the will - because we are sleeping in the will - acts magically in the limbs as will. And only by seeing as magical the thoughts which pass through the arms and hands, through legs and toes is true magic understood. [The third strophe is written on the blackboard with the words “thinking”, “transform” and “magical being of will” underlined.]
Therein is contained the secret of human will, which creates magically from out of the universe into man. Let us then, my dear friends, my dear sisters and brothers, consider this a foundation for building later on at a time to be announced, a foundation for again and again in meditation letting the mantric words flow through the soul.
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Ninth Hour
22 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| But spiritual is what we can read in the stars, what we can feel in the movements of the planets, what we can experience in the forces which hold us to the earth and make us people of the earth. Therefore whoever desires to understand in the right way must do so inwardly. With common sense we can understand all of anthroposophy, but to understand inwardly means to transfer more and more what is understood to inner life. Whoever wishes to do this must decide to undertake a really intimate exercise of these three sensations - or experiences, it doesn't matter what we call them. |
| But note how this strengthening, this measuring of the mere physical extends to the moral: Here we have the support of man, the physical support. [In the first mantra sentence “support” is underlined.] Here we have the formative forces. [In the second mantra sentence “formers” is underlined.] |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class I: Ninth Hour
22 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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First - without taking notes - let us be reminded of the admonition which directs human beings to the ancient holy words of knowledge:
* We can, my dear friends, look up to the distant stars and let our vision rest upon what radiates down to us from the universe in the forms the constellations possess. When we immerse ourselves in the sublimity of what the vast universe offers, we will gain enhanced inner strength. And especially for the strength to hold the soul separate from the body, we need to inwardly direct our gaze toward the heavenly bodies. By “inwardly” is meant the following: We have seen the stars so often and have stored the vision in our hearts and minds so that we no longer need to even look up at the heavenly bodies in order to make the powerful image of the star-embedded heaven's vault effective in our inner consciousness. If this picture arises from our own inner being, if the soul empowers itself to create it, then it will be able, through this empowered force, to liberate itself from its corporeality. And we can also observe all that radiates down and streams through us from the planets which circle the earth, and in their circling directly affect the earth's wind and weather. And when we again create a picture in our hearts of all this, the sensation of being integrated in the movement of the circling constitutes the second experience. And then when we are conscious of all that binds us to the earth, that we are heavy bodies among other heavy bodies. In other words what lives in us as a feeling of being bound to the earth becomes a facet of our soul, and it is the third aspect. And from these three inner experiences: what we have gained in luminous, radiant, living thought derived from the stars; and then when we merge with the path of our earth in the universe, merge with what the planets say to us meaningfully from space by their movements - so that having felt ourselves to be at rest in respect to the stars, now we feel ourselves to be set in movement through the cosmos itself. And thirdly, if we then feel ourselves bound to the earth by the force of the earth itself, then we will gradually and harmoniously be more and more able to make a beginning at entering into the spiritual world. And today everyone can make this beginning. This leads to the question: Why is it then that so few do so? The answer to this must be: most people don't want to experience things so intimately in order to enter into the spiritual world. They disdain experiencing so intimately. They prefer titillating experiences such as the spiritual world approaching them with all the characteristics of the sensory world. It would be easy to convince people about the spiritual world if for example a table from the spiritual world were to approach them. But there are no tables in the spiritual world, there are only spiritual beings in the spiritual world, and they must be perceived with what is spiritual in man. But spiritual is what we can read in the stars, what we can feel in the movements of the planets, what we can experience in the forces which hold us to the earth and make us people of the earth. Therefore whoever desires to understand in the right way must do so inwardly. With common sense we can understand all of anthroposophy, but to understand inwardly means to transfer more and more what is understood to inner life. Whoever wishes to do this must decide to undertake a really intimate exercise of these three sensations - or experiences, it doesn't matter what we call them. And now, my dear sisters and brothers, what is flowing to you from the spiritual world through this School wishes to speak to you about how by means of an intimate exercise you can become more aware of the connection of humanity with the world than you are accustomed to through normal consciousness. Firstly, we humans should in later life be more like we were to a great extent when we were children. As children we are almost all sensory organs: eyes, ears. The child experiences everything that happens in its environment as though its whole body were a sense organ. That's why he imitates everything, because everything continues to vibrate within him; and in the same way in which it vibrates within him, it seeks to emerge by means of the will. The child retains this characteristic only as long as we protect it from doing with its senses what we as adults do with them. The child develops this inner sensory capacity only as long as we carry it, protecting it so that it is not yet exposed to the forces of the earth. And it is really wonderful how the growing child's sensory-being is protected from the effects of the earth forces as long as this sensory-being is especially vital and alive. At the moment when the child stands on its feet and begins to move about is when its movements become susceptible to the earth's forces and it must find its own equilibrium, at that moment the intimate sensory-being ends. The human being of course does not remember back to this first stage of infancy, and therefore does not know what it means to feel his whole being as a sensory-organ. But we must, if we want to experience the human in us more and more, be able to feel and experience our whole human being as such a sensory organ. You grasp something, my dear sisters and brothers. It presses on you. You perceive the pressure. Or you perceive the texture of the surface you are touching. But in reality, you are continually touching in that you place your whole body from top to bottom on the earth and feel the earth under the soles of your feet. Only you are so used to it that you don't notice. When you begin to notice it, then you will first feel yourselves as human beings standing amidst the earth's forces. Therefore, the admonition at the threshold to the spiritual world. [written on the blackboard:]
[Certain essential words are underlined later, as described in the text. Trans.] Thus, we let the first stage of this inner experience work in us. Now we can feel ourselves as the ones touching, sensing. We can experience this touching, feel inwardly as the person doing the vibrant touching. When we advance enough to feel this touching itself, we are then not perceiving earth forces, but we begin to feel the vibrating water forces in us, the fluid forces which as blood and other liquids course through our bodies. And in these forces, we feel how all the fluids which course through our bodies are connected to the ether in the universe. [writing on the blackboard:]
If we only had earth forces to touch in our whole being, we would be constituted as something continually crumbling away. The water forces in us shape the form of the human body from the cosmic ether. Only the earth has influence over what is solid in us. But the whole wide world of ether has influence over the liquids in us . But then during the third stage we can immerse ourselves in what lives and weaves in the fluidity. We can feel it dimly, inwardly. When we feel our breathing, for example, we will realize how we are continually nurtured by the essence of breathing and of the air. We would be helpless children if we weren't continually nurtured by the forces of breathing flowing through us. [writing on the blackboard:]
And now if we have advanced to the third stage of inner experience, we can come to the fourth, if we feel inner warmth, and are attentive to our own fulfilling warmth which is in breath, which lives in everything air-forming within us. For only through what is air-forming in us is our warmth created. But what lives in us as warmth can be reached with thoughts. And here we have a most important secret of human nature. My dear sisters and brothers, you cannot reach with thought, but only with the sense of touch, how earth forces act on you and support you. You cannot reach with thought, but only with inner experience, how the water forces are your formative builders. You cannot reach with thought, but only with inner feeling, how the airy powers in you are your nurturers. You can be thankful for this nurturing, you can love these nurturers, but you cannot directly reach them with thought. But what man can reach by thought, by meditating on his warmth, is to experience himself as a being of warmth. The physician comes with a thermometer; he measures warmth from without. Just as warmth can differ on different places of the body, it is also different in the individual inner organs. You can direct your thoughts down to the individual organs and will find that the whole inner warmth-organism is differentiated. One can reach his own warmth organism with thought. But then, having done that, you have a specific feeling. This feeling, my dear sisters and brothers, will now be revealed to your souls. Imagine that you have achieved it, that in thought you have descended into your organism, reached the differentiating warmth - the warmth of the lungs, the warmth of the liver, the warmth of the heart, which are all God-spirit created entities within you. You achieve this with thought. Now for the first time you know what thought is. Before you didn't know what thought is. You know now that thought, by descending into what was before only warmth, turns the warmth into flame, into fire. For in ordinary life thought appears to you in its imperceptible inwardness as abstract thought. When you sink it down into your own body, the thought appears to you as luminous, radiantly penetrating into the lungs, into the heart, into the liver. Just as the light which goes out from your brow stretches downward, so does thought illumine the inner organs, differentiating itself into various nuances of color. One cannot merely say: I think through to the differentiations of my warmth; one must say: I enlighten myself by thinking through to the differentiations of my warmth. [writing on the blackboard:]
Everything in these eight lines can be summarized by letting what has been intimately worked through be summed up in your souls with the words: [On the blackboard each element is placed after the corresponding mantra-phrase.]
Thus, do you measure yourselves, radiate, strengthen yourselves in respect to the body. But note how this strengthening, this measuring of the mere physical extends to the moral: Here we have the support of man, the physical support. [In the first mantra sentence “support” is underlined.] Here we have the formative forces. [In the second mantra sentence “formers” is underlined.] Still somewhat physical, but permeated with the etheric. Here we have nurturer. [In the third mantra sentence “nurture” is underlined.] It already has a certain morality. Then as we ascend from water to air we feel that the beings who are in the air are permeated with morality. And in the fire, we have not only nurturer, but also helpers, [“helpers” in the fourth mantra sentence in underlined], comrades, beings similar to us. Just as we feel through to our bodies, we can also feel through to our souls. For this we must not concentrate on the elements, rather must we concentrate on what pulls the planets that circle the earth and pulls the air and sea currents along with it. We feel our physicality in our spirituality when we measure the body as has been explained; but we directly experience our soul-life. [written on the blackboard:]
It can also be summarized in the sentence:
We realize and experience the spiritual in us when we elevate the spirit to the stars, which reach us in their groupings and formations and become like a celestial script to us. If we preserve what is thus written in the starry heavens we will become aware of our own spirituality, that spirituality which doesn't speak about man personally, but about the entire universe. [written on the blackboard:]
Summarizing:
Not by vague generalities, not by vague sensations are we able to gradually extract our souls from our physical bodies and pass over to the universe, but rather by grasping the elements in the specified way, by the movement of the planets, by the meaning in the stars. We unite with the universe when we do this. And we will note that once the first part of the exercise is accomplished we feel a life in us, the life of the universe. [Alongside the first eight lines of the mantra is written:] Life Once we have finished the second part of the exercise we feel love towards the whole world. [Alongside the tenth and eleventh lines is written:] Love Once we have finished the third part we feel a sense of piety in us. [Alongside the thirteenth and fourteenth lines is written:] Piety And it really is an ascension from life through love to piety, to a truly religious cosmic sense which can be undergone through such mantric words. But if it is really undergone, if we really end up being pious through such an exercise, then the world ceases to be physical for us. Then we say to ourselves with total certainty: the physical in the world is only semblance, maya; the world is everywhere through and through spirit. As humans we belong to this spirit. And if we feel ourselves as spirit in the spirit-world, then we are beyond the threshold to the spiritual world. Then, however, once we are beyond the threshold to the spiritual world, we sense how here, on this side, our body holds thinking, feeling and willing together through its own bodily force; how at the moment we are body-free in our experiencing, thinking, feeling and willing are no longer one, but threefold. Then it is as though by binding ourselves to the earth-powers in water, air, fire, earth, that by sending our will to the earth we become one with the earth through our will. Furthermore, because we feel love in our souls for the movements of the planets, that is, for the spiritual beings who live therein, it is so that we experience the Powers circling cosmic space as feeling. And if we can say: the sun moves in the feeling of cosmic space, Mercury moves in the feeling of cosmic space, Mars moves in the feeling of cosmic space, then we have grasped feeling in its cosmic being separated from thinking and separated from willing. And if we are able to grasp thinking in such a way that thoughts are freed from physical existence, it is as though our thinking were to fly out to the [resting] stars and rest there themselves. [Translator's Note: in German the stars themselves can be referred to as “resting” stars, in contrast to the “wandering” or “moving” stars: the planets. In this lecture there is much play on words between the two concepts, which is necessarily lost in translation.] And we say to ourselves when we have arrived on the other side of the threshold: my thinking rests in the resting stars; my feeling moves in the wandering stars [planets]; my willing unites with the earth forces. So thinking, feeling, willing are separated in the cosmos. And they must be again joined together. Here on the earth man does not need to bind thinking, feeling and willing together, because they already are so due to the physical body being a unity. Thinking, feeling and willing would be constantly falling apart if they were not held together by the physical man, without his intention or awareness. Now though, on the other side of the threshold, they are divided so that thinking rests above with the stars, feeling circles with the planets, and willing unites with the forces of the earth. And with strong inner determination, with our own forces, we must bring them back together as a unity. In doing this we must experience thinking, feeling and willing in such a way that we can communicate to thinking, which has gone to the stars, something of feeling and willing; to feeling, which is circling with the planets, communicate something of thinking and willing; to willing, which is bound to the earth, something of thinking and feeling. This something we indeed can do using such a mantric formula. We must look up to the stars and with devotion say to ourselves: there is where your thinking lies. But I will bring the starry sky into movement; just as feeling likewise does for the planets, in spirit I will slowly move the starry sky. I feel myself attracted to the starry sky; I want to go up there and be at one with that star-filled heavens. Thus have I incorporated feeling and willing into thinking, which is bound to the stars. Then I look up to the planets and feel: In these planets [Ger. wandering stars] my own feeling wanders. But I will attempt to fix the moment as the stars [Ger. fixed stars] are fixed in place. And through my rhythmic system - to which heart and lungs belong - I will become as one with the entire planetary system. Then I have assigned thinking and willing to feeling. And when I become aware of how, through this mantric formula, I am bound to the earth as a human being, then I should add feeling and thinking to this being bound to the earth. In thought I should set the earth in motion so that like a planet I accompany it on its rounds without perceiving its weight: bound to it as if I were guiding the earth through cosmic space. Feeling is combined with willing. I add thinking to the mixture when I accompany the earth's movement in thought, but can bring it again to a standstill, thus making the earth itself a [fixed] star by my own meditating force of thought. When I carry out such a meditation again and again, I gradually come to feel myself as a human being outside my body in the cosmos. For this, my dear sisters and brothers, this mantric formula can work on the soul with special force. [written on the blackboard:]
(that is: as meditation, as contemplation)
Secondly:
Thirdly:
Only seen thus does the human body appear in its true form. What is gleaned from the spiritual world, what the initiate experiences in the spiritual world, if it is expressed in words, they are mantric words, and he who experiences them will be led into the spiritual world. Therefore, if you let the words work on your soul, they are a true guide to the spiritual world:
Then, my dear sisters and brothers, when what lies in these mantric words is clearer and clearer to you, then when you come again and again to these lessons it will be with greater understanding, that is, with ever greater cosmic experience that you will hear these words:
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Tenth Hour
25 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| You see my dear friends, as I have often stressed, human common sense can understand everything offered by anthroposophy, if it exerts itself sufficiently and is free of prejudice. |
| For if you honestly consider that you possess a common sense which understands anthroposophy, then at the moment it grasps anthroposophy honestly, it does so independently of corporeality. |
| And we should treasure the fact that healthy common sense which understands anthroposophy is the beginning of esoteric striving. It should not be overlooked. For when one starts with this understanding through healthy common sense and then follows the indications given in the appropriate schools, one proceeds farther and farther along the esoteric path. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Tenth Hour
25 Apr 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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For esoteric development—the true path to knowledge—the individual must find the way to understanding what it means to live in a world in which the senses, the whole physical organization, in not a facilitator; that is, to live with the psychic-spiritual, which is man's true identity, in a spiritual world. In order to do so there are many different more or less meditative exercises, mental exertions meant to affect the soul. And to give a picture of what a human soul can pass through on the way from experiencing the physical sensory world to experiencing the spiritual world is what will be provided in these class lessons by means of the various considerations and the summarizing of such considerations in individual verses, which may then be meditated upon according to each member's possibilities and needs. Once a certain time has passed the communications given in these class lessons, which, as I have often stressed, are real communications from the spiritual world, will coalesce in such a way that those who have participated—it is also karma for those who could be here—will have a complete picture of the first stage of esoteric development. As a result of the various indications which are given here we can gradually rise above our earthly existence to an experience of the cosmos, we can develop the feelings which carry us out into those distant reaches of the universe from which the spiritual comes to meet us. But as long as we confine ourselves to using our senses and reason only in connection with the sense-perceptible world which surrounds us, it will be impossible for us to grasp what the spiritual world reveals as the truth accessible to man. You see my dear friends, as I have often stressed, human common sense can understand everything offered by anthroposophy, if it exerts itself sufficiently and is free of prejudice. But it is just in reference to this common sense where a touchstone exists concerning whether or not someone is really destined by their karma nowadays to participate in anthroposophy. There are two possibilities. One is that the person hears about anthroposophical truths, lets them work on him and considers them to be self-evident. It is obvious that everyone sitting here today belongs to that group. For if someone who does not belong to that group wishes to participate in a lesson as a member, it would not be honest of them. And honesty is the most important aspect of esoteric life—complete truthfulness penetrating the human soul and spirit. There is another group of people who find what is presented by anthroposophy to be fantastic, somehow belonging only to visionaries. These people show by their behavior that they are not able, according to their karma, to sufficiently separate common sense from physicality and the senses to be able to grasp sense-free truth, sense-free knowledge. It is therefore the extent to which common sense is bound to corporeality or not which determines such a great divergence between people. For if you honestly consider that you possess a common sense which understands anthroposophy, then at the moment it grasps anthroposophy honestly, it does so independently of corporeality. And this healthy common sense which grasps anthroposophy honestly is the beginning of esoteric striving. And we should treasure the fact that healthy common sense which understands anthroposophy is the beginning of esoteric striving. It should not be overlooked. For when one starts with this understanding through healthy common sense and then follows the indications given in the appropriate schools, one proceeds farther and farther along the esoteric path. You can use whichever of the verses provided here which you consider appropriate for you. But you should apply them together with the indications as to how they relate to the inner life of man. Today I would like to again provide an indication of how you can leave the body—if only by means of so slight a jolt that you don't even realize it. We should develop the ability to observe and study the minerals and plants in our environment to the extent that we feel them within—if only by means of thinking—and become truly aware of how this earthly environment is related to us, that due to our wearing a physical body we are directly related to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms around us. And then we ask the question in all honesty: Why? Why did I absorb the physical substances of the earth just by being born? Why do I drag myself through life from birth till death in order to end physical life once my organism is no longer able to process its physical elements? We must deeply feel our relationship to our physical environment starting from such a personal enigma. Then, however, we will also feel more and more what the starting point for esoteric life can be. Then we feel that in physical earthly life we are blindly groping in the dark. And finally, my dear sisters and brothers, consider the people of today who have been placed in earthly life after birth and educated according to the usual methods and called to this or that work due to purely external circumstances. They do not understand the relationship of this work to the totality of human existence. Perhaps they do not know much more than that they work in order to eat. They do not realize that in the plants they eat cosmic forces from the distant boundaries of the universe are present which pass through the human organism and therefore in a certain sense undergo a cosmic evolution. Many people today cannot even begin to glimpse this process due to the materialism of the times. But to admit that by the mere consideration of earthly relationships one stands spiritually blind in life and lives in the dark—that is the starting point for true esoteric development. And then change the direction of your gaze from what surrounds you on the earth to the star-studded heaven—either in thought, or if you really want to be affected by it, in reality. Behold the planets, behold the stars, fill yourselves with the infinite transcendence of what shines back to you from the universe, and say to yourself: as human beings we are related just as much to what radiates down from the universe as we are to what surrounds us in the physical environment. Then by gazing up to the star-studded heaven, we really have the feeling that we do not live in darkness, but that we are freed from life in the darkness by rising with our soul-spiritual being to the stars, rise to what the stars represent as pictures in their constellations. And, you see, if we can really enter meditating into this vision of the star-filled sky it becomes a plenitude of imaginations. You know the old pictures in which not only the constellations have been painted, but in which they have been recapitulated symbolically as animals. Not only the star group that is in Aries, or in Taurus has been represented, but also the symbolic images of the ram and the bull are included. Today people think: Well, it was arbitrary on the part of those ancient inhabitants of the earth that just because the constellations were so named that the corresponding pictures were added. But that was not the case at all. In reality in ancient times the shepherds in the fields did not merely gaze up at the star-studded sky with physical eyes, but also in dream-consciousness or sleep-consciousness out there with their flocks they turned their souls with closed eyes towards outer space. They did not see the constellations which physical eyes see. But they actually perceived those pictures, those imaginations which fill universal space—albeit somewhat differently from what was later painted. We can no longer go back to what the simple shepherds experienced by instinctive clairvoyance. But we can do something else. With far greater thoughtfulness we can imagine ourselves into the star-filled sky. We can feel the depth and at the same time the awesome majesty of what radiates back to us. And gradually we can come to a sense of veneration for what is expanding out there in cosmic space. And the more ardent the veneration is the more clearly can the experience be that the outer sense-images of the stars disappear and the star-filled sky becomes an Imagination for us. But only then, when the star-filled sky becomes an Imagination for us, do we feel ourselves carried away by our soul's vision. You see, still in Plato's time one felt something special about the physical eye when it is observing. Plato himself described seeing as follows: When I look at a person something leaves my eye and encompasses him. People in ancient times sensed that something streams out of the eye and encompasses the object. The etheric streams out. Just as when I stretch out my hand and grasp something I know that I am connected to my hand until reaching the grasped object, so in the times of instinctive clairvoyance people knew that something etheric goes out from the eye and encompasses the thing looked at. Today people think, well,the eye is here, the object seen is there. So the object sends out ether-waves which drum against the eye and the drumming is perceived by some kind of soul—about which even the materialist talks about here, but without having any idea of what it is. But that is not true. It is not a mere impact on the person emanating from the object, but really also an emanation of the person's inner etheric substance. And we perceive our ether body as belonging to the universe when the star-filled sky becomes for us the grand open page of the universe on which the imaginative secrets of cosmic being are written—if we are able to read it. And then the feeling comes to us: When you are here on earth you are in the robust sense-perceptible reality. But you are blind, you live in darkness. When you rise up with your sensibility then you live in what otherwise only shines down to you from the distant universe, and you live in the illusion of the distant universe. But at the same time you take your own etheric being out into the distant flooding stream of this illusionary world. And the illusion ceases to be illusion. It cannot be a nothing if we immerse ourselves in it. When we have this feeling—I will draw it—.  We live as blind people in the darkness of earthly existence, (white arc); then we journey out into the distant universe (yellow rays), at the end of which we can feel the cosmic Imaginations by means of reverence for the brilliance of the stars (red waves). So now that we have journeyed out we are together with our etheric being within the imaginative cosmic web. If we can accomplish this, then we are no longer in the physical body. We have traveled through the etheric emptiness to experiencing the cosmic Imaginations. You see, it's like when in the physical world someone writes something down and, because we have learned to read, we read it. By being out in the cosmos—the gods have written the cosmic imaginations for us in the cosmos—when we arrive we see the imaginations from the other side (arrows). At first we live here on the earth (inner circle). Then we draw ourselves up to the cosmic imaginations (outer wave-circle). Yes, my dear friends, my sisters and brothers, the zodiac speaks a meaningful language when we do not observe it from the earth—Arias, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo—but rather when we encircle it from without. And it is a task of our consciousness to encircle it from without. Then we begin to read the cosmic secrets, which are the deeds of the spiritual beings. In a novel we read of the deeds of men. When we look at the zodiac from the other side and read what from the earth we see virtually from behind, as Moses was told that he always had to look at God from behind, that is, from the earth. Initiation consists of seeing from the other side—not a matter of gawking, but of reading. And what we read are the spiritual deeds of the spiritual beings who brought it all about. And when we have silently read long enough, when our souls have concentrated deeply on this reading, then we begin to hear in a spiritual way. Then the gods speak with us. When the gods speak with us we are within the spiritual world. Now you see, my dear sisters and brothers, the initiate can tell you: the soul can rise up to the cosmic heights, receive the cosmic imaginations, read them from the other side, the spiritual deeds, become capable of hearing in a spiritual way the language of the gods. But if you really immerse yourself in what the initiate relates with your whole heart, your whole feeling, if you don't just listen to it greedily and say: Well, if I also could do that I'd like it, it would be interesting—but I'm not going to bother. But you receive it as something which you can revere, which you can love, which you can repeatedly meditate on, then it is the path to enter esoteric life yourself. And you will find this path by meditating profoundly on the words:1
When experienced with the necessary deeply meditative feeling this works wonders in the human soul, transforms the human soul. It must rhythmically flow through the soul again and again, for it leads the human being through his own interior cosmic being. But it is necessary that such a thing be deeply interiorized. And even though it still speaks more to the head, the heart should also participate in the whole process of going out into the etheric universe, then into the spiritual universe, that is, on the other side of the universe. It is necessary in such a process that we take our hearts with us in the experience and that it stimulate in you the feelings which can come quite naturally by this excursion into the outer universe. But these feelings must be really stimulated. It is therefore good to look deeply into what the words say:
Then you try to imagine that someone is speaking to you from a spiritual depth, as though you were not thinking it, but as though you were hearing it, as if another being were speaking. You really imagine that another being is speaking to you from an unknown depth. Then you try to develop the right feelings for what you have heard. These feelings live in the second part of the verse:2
When I am aware that I live blindly in the darkness of the earth, I long to get out. Then the brilliance of the stars becomes the comforter which expands my being:
Now from the other side:
—when I read them—
Only you must use it correctly. Imagine yourself vividly in this meditating which you are doing. As though someone were speaking to you from spiritual depths is how you hear the lines of the first verse. You bring the corresponding feeling to each verse, so that you experience in the meditation: first listen, then bring feeling; listen, then bring feeling; and so on.3
It is a meditation in dialog in which you always objectify the first line, but the second you feel as though streaming out of your heart. Now you try again to visualize how one acts and weaves into the other, and then try to feel with your will what you can experience through the dialog.4 From depth of spirit resounds:
The heart replies:
The will senses the impulse in the dialog between lines 1 and 5:
After this dialog has taken place we recall the connection of lines 2 and 6:
Afterward we recall what resounds from spiritual depths and the heart's reply:
The will now senses:
into the spiritual world. And now the most sublime, where we feel ourselves in dialog with the gods themselves, where the gods not only let us read, but speak:
—brings me forth, engenders me. Now imagine the whole meditation. It runs as follows: dialog—line for line with a spiritual being present in the dim spiritual depths that always speaks the top line of the verse. And the heart always replies:
Now I recall each one and add the outpouring of will as a remembrance of what had just gone before:
Conviction results from the dialog in meditation, from recalling the dialog and in strengthening the recollection by means of the will. If, firstly, with inner devotional feeling, secondly with complete soul and interest we have done what I have just described, if we do it not as mechanical meditating but as a true experience of the soul, then this means of creating a relation to the spiritual world really does have an awakening effect on the soul. Also in the case of the last verse, which in the way I have described should really be experienced as remembrance of speech and answering speech—speech of the spirit and answering speech of the heart, we must correctly feel how, firstly, consciousness, which we wish to achieve, is extinguished by the earth's darkness. We must sense how a moment of extinguishing sleep overcomes consciousness, and how upon awakening, at the second line, we hear the spirits calling us to them, how afterward we feel: the spirits have called us so that they can bring us forth, engender us in the spiritual world by their own cosmic word. If these nuances of inner experience flow through the soul—and the representations of the spiritual being who speaks to us are included—and the heart reciprocates with its dedication to the spiritual being, then yes, then the stimulation exists in the soul which will gradually lead this soul onto the esoteric path. And we must be clear that as we experience these three verses in our souls in the way in which I have described as best we can, something powerful takes place in the subconscious mind. If we sincerely live in these three verses as I have described, then when the first line resounds, our soul unconsciously passes through the starting-point of earthly life when the etheric body was first formed. If we can vividly imagine what from the spirit resounds:
then we approach—in the unconscious—with this hearing in spirit, the moment in which our etheric body was formed; and from pre-earthly existence, from life between death and a new birth, acts the force with which we sincerely reply from the heart:
because we have the longing for the spiritual as a heritage from pre-earthly existence. And again we are transported to the beginning of earthly existence. And what acts from our hearts is inspired by the previous earthly existence.
We are transported to the beginning of our earthly life. The real comfort the brilliance of the stars can give when we are transported back is in our heart's reply:
And then:
We are transported back to the earth's beginning. Remember how we are taught by spiritual beings in pre-earthly existence.
Among whom I lived and wandered before I descended to the earth.
We heard them during the period between death and a new birth. We sense that what the gods say is not mere information as is what men say; we realize that the speech of the Gods is creative:
But then, if we can see it so, lines 9, 10, 11, 12 also acquire the correct meaning:5
—deletes me from my present earth life for I am led back, through the region between death and a new birth, to my earlier incarnation. I divine this; therefor my consciousness is extinguished, for my consciousness was, until now, that of my current incarnation. In this moment of sleep I am transported back so I can divine: I am wandering in my previous incarnation.6
I am brought back to what I was in the previous incarnation as though awakened in it. My karma arises before me, the connection of destiny arises before me, it arises before me from the other side.7
to fulfill my karma with the forces which derive from my previous earth-life.8
Everything I am becomes clear to me when my earlier earthly existence penetrates the present one and shines through it and wanders through it and pulses through it. For here I am. My present I is in a process, it is a seed which will have meaning once I have passed through the gates of death. What shines and works in me from the previous earthly existence into the present one makes me into a human being, engenders me as an existing human being. If we have the conviction that it is so, that—although we believe only to be in the ordinary world of physical existence—our soul really makes the journey back to the previous earth-life, then we will be aware of the gravity of what we are experiencing. And through this awareness a warmer, luminous current streams through our thinking, feeling and willing. And with that inner magical feeling, which is necessary for the meditation to work in the right way, our meditation will prevail. We may call it a magical feeling for it cannot be compared with any feeling we have on earth, because it is completely independent of all corporeality. If we cannot yet leave the physical body behind with our thinking, this magical thinking which we experience through the gravity of our soul's activity is present in the purely spiritual world. According to the way we experience these things, our esoteric striving is fulfilled. And that is what I was obliged to lay before your souls today, my dear sisters and brothers. In conclusion I would like to say one more thing. It should not happen that someone passes on the verses and the information given here without first asking permission. Only with permission may these things be passed on from one to another or to a group. It is especially frowned upon, my dear friends, that these verses or their interpretation be sent by post. They may not be sent by post, and I ask that this be strictly observed.
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Eleventh Hour
02 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| And only, my dear sisters and brothers, if we are permeated with the will to understand this School as representing, through us, a renewal of the Mysteries, can we participate in the Mysteries and in the School in the right way. |
| Creates in the body's limbs “speaks”, “resounds”, “creates”—[creates is underlined.] —“height”, “center”, “limbs”, what strives from the center outwards—[“limbs” is underlined.] Human-action-streams The “I will”: —“I am”, “live”, “ will”—[“will” is underlined.] Thus do you strive in earthly works —“earthly-body”, Earthly-path, earthly-works” [the three words are underlined.] |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Eleventh Hour
02 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, You have all probably been deeply affected this morning by the news that Miss Maryon* has departed from the physical plane—although it is something long expected and which follows difficult suffering which lasted more than a year. Tomorrow when the members of the Anthroposophical Society are all gathered here, I will say what I have to say about Miss Maryon's departure from the physical plane. For now it is sufficient to say that the First Class has lost a truly dedicated student, for among those who have devoted themselves to the School with great diligence, Miss Maryon was the best. Despite the serious illness which afflicted her she not only participated in what is being esoterically developed here, but she also let the exercises given here work on her and lived with them in an extraordinarily intimate way. This was the result of her having been familiar with esotericism before coming to us. She belonged to an esoteric school of a completely different nature before she discovered the Anthroposophical Society and through this esoteric school made the complete transition to anthroposophy quickly. The esoteric was essential to her and she experienced it intensely during the years with us on the physical plane. She has departed from the physical plane but certainly not from anthroposophy. It would be unseemly to say more now as she has just left the physical plane. Tomorrow, though, when the members, the friends are here, it will be my task to say what is to be said. My dear friends, in esoteric striving it is necessary to at least envision, to the extent possible, the path upon which real knowledge of spiritual things can be realized. Of course how far one or the other comes along this path depends on his karma, on what conditions he brings along from previous earth lives. But not only that, it also depends on which physical and environmental conditions the person's destiny places him. Much old karmic residue may exist to be worked out which hinders achieving everything which is otherwise within one's capabilities. Thus much which perhaps could be quickly achieved without these karmic residues takes longer. My dear sisters and brothers, we should never give up hope, never lose patience or energy, but continue on our way. When the right time has come, we will surely find what has been predestined. For certain lines of every human being's life path are uniquely predestined despite or perhaps because of freedom. Every individual is called to his life's task and can accomplish it with sufficient good will. Here in this Free School for Spiritual Science everything that existed in the Mysteries in the past when they especially flowered is to be reenacted in the correct form according to our time and to the future. The flowering time of the Mysteries had already passed when the greatest Mystery of all, the one most hidden to world history, took place: the Mystery of Golgotha. After their flowering time, the Mysteries declined, a process in which, just because the Mysteries had declined, humanity could be taken into the stream of world evolution where freedom is possible. Nevertheless, the time has now come when the Mysteries are to be renewed, in the fullest sense of the word and in the appropriate form. And once these things have been thought about correctly in the future the Goetheanum's work will be appreciated in the world, because the task of this Goetheanum is to renew the Mysteries. And only, my dear sisters and brothers, if we are permeated with the will to understand this School as representing, through us, a renewal of the Mysteries, can we participate in the Mysteries and in the School in the right way. If you will remember what was presented here in the last Lesson, then what I have just said can live in your hearts. For the transition is made for meditation to really enter directly into the individual's experience so that he frees himself from the narrow limits of his personality. In the triple-versed structure of the last meditation we saw how we place ourselves in the world process and how in the meditation we confront not only what resounds from our soul but also what resounds to our soul, which in a certain way incorporates itself into a general universal language, a general universal Word. But only when the individual gradually frees himself from the limits of his personality, when he finds himself meditating in an ever more objective way, then will he be able to follow that intimate, subtle path, which is the true path to human knowledge. But for this to happen the objective truths which apply to humanity must become objectively present in him in the most varied ways. You all know, my dear sisters and brothers, what has often been described as the threefold human nature: the nerve-sensory man, mostly represented by the human head; the rhythmic man, mostly represented by the breast, in which the respiratory and circulatory organs are concentrated. All these organs are everywhere in the organism, are located in other parts of the body as well, but more in certain areas than in others. Then we have the limbs-metabolism-organization, localized downward and outward. That which can be known theoretically can also be meditatively objective. And when it is meditatively objective it becomes esoteric. Therefore in meditation we must intensively and intimately keep this threefold man in view. So we have the head-organization, a real replica of the entire cosmos. We have the breast or rhythmic organization, which does not directly show in its form the cosmic image. And least of all does the limbs-metabolism-organization show the image of the cosmos. But man must be intimately conscious of how he places himself in the cosmos through each of these organizations. He must be clear about what takes place in his head. We can feel this directly: when we think, our head is active. We notice that when the head is ailing, thinking is impaired. We sense the head's association to this clearest human earthly activity in both normal and abnormal circumstances. This doesn't mean that the head is really the bearer of the clearest human earthly activity, but it seems so to us. What is actually going on? When do we see ourselves—in our heads—in the right way? Only, my dear sisters and brothers, when we are aware that this human head would not exist if the star-filled sky did not arch above us. For the moment we will not dispute what the astronomers say about this; we are only taking into account what is visible to the eyes: the sublime starry heavens. In the previous lesson much was said about this. The stars are there above; their rays of light approach us when we look up at them. But they don't only approach us, we also receive them. And what we receive of the rays of light we enclose in our heads. And out of it sprouts our human activity on earth: our thinking. And so we must imagine: Outside are the stars; our heads receive the effects of the stars' rays. From without it looks as though the stars were sending their rays down to us. Our heads receive these rays; so what has been received is within our heads. From here is looks quite different than from without, but it is the same, the whole starry sky rolled together, so to speak, within our heads. But only the starry sky? No, not only the starry sky. For—what are the stars? What is in the individual stars which rays toward us? It is the domicile of the gods. They are the places where the gods reside. It is where the gods were sought in the times when instinctive clairvoyance knew where the gods reside, which are the places worthy of the gods. During the times when such clairvoyance existed, people did not look up at burning points in the cosmos, but at the dwelling places of the gods. And in doing so had a truer idea of what exists in the far reaches of space than do the astronomers of today who observe the points of light and calculate their positions and angles to each other. But in that man is a threefold being, he speaks and acts through what holds him together: his I—through all three elements of his being, through the nerve-sensory-system, the head; through the rhythmic system, the breast; and through the metabolic-limbs-system. It is held together only because the physical body is a unity. But man always sends his I into the three individual elements and we will learn today the different ways he sends this I into the individual elements.
At first man speaks the I through his thoughts into his head from his innermost being. Truly, it is thus: [draws on the blackboard]: What unfolds without as the shining element of the stars [blue arc, yellow stars], acts in the human head [yellow arc and rays from the stars]. It is also here within [red dots]. Man speaks his I from out of his center of his being into this rolled together cosmic space which is the interior of his head [arrow with the word “Ich”, yellow]. And he should become aware that when he speaks his I into the part of his humanity which is an image of the dwellings of the gods, then the gods themselves who live in these dwellings will act in him. We meditate correctly when we are aware that when we say “I” through the force of our heads, the gods of cosmic space and cosmic time speak in us. And this is not a teaching given to us on the earth; it is a teaching, my dear sisters and brothers, given to us by the beings of the higher hierarchies themselves, at first from those beings who are with us humans: the angeloi, and in the background the directing archangeloi. This element of human nature—this I—has a relation to the dwelling places of the gods in the radiant stars, from out of which the godly beings themselves speak, and should let itself be taught by the beings we have always referred to as angeloi in our descriptions of the hierarchies. We correctly accomplish a meditation thus: We look up, allowing ourselves to be impressed by the radiance of the stars, sense that cosmic space itself is sending us words. And these words should be: Starry-cosmic-spaces, It resounds in the periphery. Thus we imagine that we hear it from cosmic space. Starry-cosmic-spaces, It becomes an echo in us. We treat it as a call, but a call that excites us, because all heaven resounds in this call. This is how we meditate. And then we will be conscious of what we have to say from the depths of our souls, from whence in the stillness we answer the cosmic trumpet-call: When human-spirit-radiance That is what we say. Then the angel who belongs to us answers in our meditation: Thus you live —the gods— in the earth-body That is the sense of this meditation. We hear it as a world-spanning trumpet call from all sides: Starry-cosmic-spaces, We answer in stillness intimately praying: When human-spirit-radiance The angel answers, looking upward to the source of the trumpet call: Thus you live in the earth-body And we accept these last two lines which the angel speaks in our meditation as teaching. [The first verse is written on the blackboard.] Starry-cosmic-spaces, —the scrolled together starry radiance, the human radiance— The "I am" : The spiritual teacher Angelos: Thus you live in the earth-body —Starry-cosmic-spaces, Dwellings-of-the-gods!— That is the first dialog with the cosmos and with the third hierarchy. Seen this way it is a deeply penetrating meditation on the human spirit, human soul and human body. Now we go further to the rhythmic organization of man. We think of the lungs and the heart, the wonderful pulsation, the rhythm of breathing which by its very nature reveals that it is the expression of the deepest cosmic laws, the movement of which we sense in us. When we concentrate in meditation on our head, we sense rest. When we meditate on our breast, we feel movement. And this movement is an image of the movement of the planets, of the moon, the sun, of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. But a representative of this movement is the sun. It is closest to us. Every day it circles around our earth—in appearance. It can therefore stand as representative. But just as we carry within us the starry-cosmic-spaces, dwellings-of-the-gods, rolled together, so also the movements of the whole planetary system—represented by the sun—in our breathing, in our blood circulation, in everything which is movement in our organism. Therefore we must imagine that just as the sublimity of the dwellings-of-the-gods was announced by the trumpet calls from all sides of the cosmos, also what the movements of the planets, represented by the sun, have to say through melodious sound courses through our bodies: Cosmic sun circling That is the second thing: stillness in comparison to the loud trumpet-call of the cosmic surroundings. Starry-cosmic- spaces, It resounds majestically from all sides. That is what we must meditate on. But following on the path of the sun and the other planets in our breathing and in our blood circulation it resounds joyfully within us: Cosmic sun circling Now we say intimately from within us, if we take as inducement what resounds melodiously from the star-circles into our own bodies: Resound in heart's center The Angelos replies, speaking to the gods in the circling planets: So you stride in earth's course Just as the human being lives on the earth by means of what radiates into him from the dwellings of the gods, so does the human creative evolutionary force live by means of the activity of the gods in the planets' movements, which is also received into man's rhythmic system. Thus we have again the threefold verse: objective murmur through our body in the sense of the planets' course; our own intimate speech; the Angelos' reply: Cosmic sun circling [These lines are now written on the blackboard.] Cosmic sun circling, —above “speaks”, here “resounds”; above “head-held-high”; here “heart's center”— Human-soul-weaving —above “I am”; here “I live”— Thus you stride in earth's course Each of these verses must be felt as being threefold in their coming into being: The objective resounding; our own intimate speech as the echo within us; the speech of the Angelos. Then it works correctly in us. However, when we come to the third element of man—what lives in the arms and legs and continues inward in metabolism—then we do not hear the trumpet calls from the cosmos, then we do not hear the melodiousness of the planets, then we hear the dull rumbling of the world-foundation itself. It is what makes us earth-people. The limbs do not participate in our spiritual being. They are completely shaped according to the earthly forces: the arms and hands are only partly shaped by the air forces, but otherwise all is shaped by the forces that arise from out of the cosmic foundations and flow up through human beings. We must be conscious of this. Just as we hear in the first verse the language of the cosmos itself in the majestic tones coming from the cosmic periphery, as we hear the speech of the periphery in the second verse, we hear the rumbling speech of cosmic foundation from the depths of the earth in the third verse: Cosmic-foundation-powers, It is not a luster of light, it is a luster of love. For in those places where otherwise what is in the periphery is gathered in the center is where the source of the love-forces also lie. Therefore we cannot answer in echo “speaks” and also not “resounds”, here we must answer with the deed, with what flows from the will. We must not “speak”, not “resound”, here we must “create”. Therefore we answer from within pouring will into our words: Create in the body's limbs Then the angel answers in that he lowers his eyes to what is rumbling from the cosmic-foundations—“rumbling” not in an antipathetic sense, but only in the dullness of the tone—the active forces answer which resound in the cosmic-foundation's depths: Thus do you strive in earthly works Again the threefold verse: Cosmic-foundation-powers, [This third verse is written on the blackboard.] Cosmic-foundation-powers, “speaks”, “resounds”, “creates”—[creates is underlined.] —“height”, “center”, “limbs”, what strives from the center outwards—[“limbs” is underlined.] Human-action-streams —“I am”, “live”, “ will”—[“will” is underlined.] Thus do you strive in earthly works —“earthly-body”, Earthly-path, earthly-works” [the three words are underlined.] as human sensory deeds. —“being”, “creative force”, “sensory deeds”, which means: deeds visible to the senses—[the three words in quotation marks are underlined.] True meditation, true exercise of the soul is not found in the theoretical, intellectual content of a meditation verse, but in its mantric character. The mantric character is present when the meaning dissolves into situation and happening and when we free ourselves from the theoretical, from the intellectual content, go out from ourselves, so that we do not merely have something vague in our thoughts, but have the idea that the sky, that the periphery, that the earthly depths resound; that we reply to these sounds from our own intimate inner self; that the angel interprets and teaches. We should try to attain such an ideal setting, that is, to make meditation something in which we don't merely think, feel or will, but which also streams and weaves and radiates around us, and from all this something steps back into the life of the heart and in the heart it is streaming, weaving, striving and vibrantly radiating so that we feel ourselves integrated in the life of the world, of the cosmos, so that our meditation is not something that only lives in us, in our feeling, but which lives in us and the world; it extinguishes the world, extinguishes us, and in extinguishing unites us and the world, so that we can just as easily say: “The world is speaking” as we can say “We are speaking”. This gradually enhances the character of the meditation. If the meditation is practiced in this way,—by extinguishing what has always seemed to be one's ordinary self—it is possible to perceive oneself as spirit. When, however, we start along this path of knowledge, when we honestly approach such paths of knowledge, we learn that we are not alone in the world, that we are in a dialog with the spiritual world, and through this we approach closer and closer to a renewal of the Mysteries. Of course physical, outer temples stood in places on the earth which today are considered to be uncivilized. Outer temples stood there, and early peoples needed outer temples. But these temples were not the only ones, not even the most important ones. For the most important temples have no place, have no time. One comes to them if one exercises the soul in the way that has been indicated here and in the Mysteries of all times. In order to be clear, my dear sisters and brothers, if we live in such a mantric formula, it is thus: Here I stand—each of us says rightly—and all around me is the everyday world. Bourgeois walls and chairs are around me, or perhaps a natural forest, visible trees, or houses. It is all there. I am fully aware that this is my environment; it is there and I see and touch it. But the meditation arises in my soul while I am in the external, sensory world. The meditation arises in me: Starry-cosmic-spaces, Welten-Sternen-Stätten, What do I sense moving? What do I sense arching over me? It is something; it is nothing. I sense walls, I don't see them. The meditation continues: Cosmic sun circles Welten-Sonnen-Kreise, What I sensed—the moving, the temple dome which arches above, the temple walls. It is all becoming clear for the soul's senses, making the normal world invisible, the world of visible trees, clouds, everything which before was visible. A new visibility appears. The temple, which I only sensed at first, becomes real in the second verse. And I hear the murmuring, the hissing and rumbling from below: Cosmic-foundation-powers, Welten-Grundes-Mächte, The temple is complete. It has acquired its foundation. And in it are those spiritual beings with whom we wish to be in communion. The temple is there, visible to the soul's senses. It has been found. Our meditation does not contain visions. It leads us into the spiritual world. The spiritual world exists. I am describing, my dear sisters and brothers, how the meditation can proceed: the moving temple dome is sensed after the first verse; see the temple around us with the soul's senses. The temple is complete, and the beings with whom we wish to be in communion as humanity's teachers—the godly teachers—are there. We are within the temple, accomplished by the first, second and third verses of a true mantric meditation. When we become aware that we are finding the temple, then we correctly understand what the content of this esoteric school is meant to be.
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| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Twelfth Hour
11 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| And now you proceed, my dear sisters and brothers, to make a thought active, a remembrance-thought, one which you had days, weeks or months ago and which you can activate just as well now, and try to sense, to feel such a remembrance-thought. And you will have the sensation: I feel this under the region of speech, I feel it here below, under the region of speech [yellow]. And you will then say to yourselves: When I speak, I experience it in the region of my speech organs; when I think, I experience it above in the head, when I remember, I experience it under the region of speech. |
| That is how the mantra which is presented to your souls today is to be understood. Thus, coming from all sides of the distant universe: Listen to the field of thinking. |
| [Mantra II is written on the blackboard. In the first line “feeling” is underlined, and the last lines of Parts 1,2 and 3 are also underlined.] II.) |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Twelfth Hour
11 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, First let us recite the verse which reminds us of what comes from the cosmos itself as an invitation to knowledge: O man, know thyself! Self-knowledge, my dear sisters and brothers, is what, in a spiritual sense, can lead to cosmic knowledge. And it has often been said that understanding must exist for true spiritual cosmic knowledge to stream out of the spiritual world itself; that we must understand that the person who is able to transmit such knowledge from the spiritual world must approach the threshold; that the Guardian of the Threshold stands at the threshold, the Guardian who protects the person in normal consciousness from entering the spiritual world unprepared. But it is just when one gets to know this Guardian – at first by means of healthy human understanding – then later in its true form, in its real essence, then the Guardian makes known to us the admonishments if we wish to enter the spiritual world in the right way, and then to stand within the experiences of the spiritual world. It has also often been said that this living in the spiritual world is mostly mistakenly imagined, because one wants something different than really standing within the spiritual world. One wants something which is similar to the sense perceptible world. It is super-sensible though, and can therefor not lead to envisioning something similar to what is seen through the senses. This imaginative-super-sensible envisioning is only an image. It must lead to a real experience of the spiritual world. And many of you, my dear sisters and brothers, have this experience of the spiritual more so than you think. You are only not aware of it. You do not pay attention to how the spirit acts and weaves within psychic experience. It works and weaves. And it is a matter of mustering the intimate mindfulness necessary for perceiving this working and weaving. Therefore more and more real indications should be given to enable you to feel how the human soul lives in the spiritual world – for knowledge is meant to flow to you directly from the spiritual world through these class lessons, my sisters and brothers. And the following can be such an indication. Take any of the mantras or other verses and recite it. It doesn't matter much which one it is, it can be any mantra you are familiar with. For your meditation select any mantra and recite it in the fairest way you can. Do it therefor not loudly, but in a soft, gentle manner:
And then, once you have recited such a mantra to yourself, try to sense how the reciting reacts within you. Try to come to the point where you can sense the speaking, that you sense the difference in your bodies between when you are silent and when you are speaking. Try to sense the speaking in your organism, how it passes through. You will sense it as all kinds of pressure and wave currents in the speech organs. And when you have sensed this, ask yourselves: When I think something, due to someone talking to me or some other event that makes an impression on me relative to the present: Can I also sense that? Well, if you have learned to sense speaking, then you will easily be able to sense the thinking which is directly induced by the immediate present. It is lighter and more delicate to sense than speaking, but it can be sensed. And you can learn to sense, to feel thinking by sensing speech. Then, just as you can sense speech, you can also sense thinking. Then you will be able to touch, touch internally that is, perceive internally, thus: [draws: white outline of a profile]. When speaking is sensed so that it must be moved here [red], you will sense thinking here above [green]. That is, the sense of thinking is moved somewhat up against the back of the head.
It is good to practice such an exercise, for it acts as a guide to intimate self-observation. And now you proceed, my dear sisters and brothers, to make a thought active, a remembrance-thought, one which you had days, weeks or months ago and which you can activate just as well now, and try to sense, to feel such a remembrance-thought. And you will have the sensation: I feel this under the region of speech, I feel it here below, under the region of speech [yellow]. And you will then say to yourselves: When I speak, I experience it in the region of my speech organs; when I think, I experience it above in the head, when I remember, I experience it under the region of speech. When this becomes an intimate experience for you, when you really feel it, then you have grasped something spiritual, which can be the beginning of a progressively increasing spiritual understanding. But a substantial seclusion from the outer events of the day is necessary in order to sense this. It is not good to say: Yes, but in order to achieve such seclusion I'll have to take a few weeks off and go to where there are no people, where nothing can bother me, where I will have absolute peace and quiet, for example in a hut on Mont Blanc. It is not good to think like that, because you will never progress that way. It is better to stand within the tumult of life, exposed to what life brings from morning to night and nevertheless dedicate by strength of soul a period of time, be it ever so short, when you are completely outside of the world's tumult, but at the same time within it, purely by means of your inner force. That is best. To withdraw in solitude in order to have peace is not what works best, but rather to create solitude through one's own forces. That is what definitely and securely can lead to the goal. This is a good foundation for meditating in the right way. You have learned mantras, my dear sisters and brothers, which are spoken quietly from the soul. The first mantras in these lessons were like that. We have however advanced to mantras which partly ring out to us from the soul and also partly must be imagined as resounding to us from out of the distant universe; where we therefor do not inwardly meditate speaking, but where we inwardly meditate hearing. We imagine ourselves as being transferred to where we hear what is being spoken to us whether it is by the cosmos or by the spirit-beings. And it is just this transferring to a condition in which other beings speak to us that creates the condition which is conducive to feeling that we are in the spiritual world. Today's mantras will be given with this objective. The mind, the soul should imagine itself as being perfectly silent. But the soul should also imagine itself to already be on the other side of the threshold standing before the Guardian in the spiritual world. And, although being perfectly silent itself, it hears three sounds. The first sound comes from the distant universe; the second from the Guardian. And the third comes from the beings who will be identified later in the mantra. That is how the mantra which is presented to your souls today is to be understood. Thus, coming from all sides of the distant universe: Listen to the field of thinking. It's a question of becoming enlightened concerning the true nature of thinking through a spiritually cosmic experience. Then the Guardian speaks. After the resounding to us from the distant universe – we must experience this situation spiritually – the Guardian speaks the next three lines: The one who wants to shows to you The paths from life on earth to life On earth in spirit light does speak. That is the Guardian speaking. Then the angel who shows us the path from earthly life to earthly life speaks: Behold your senses' shining radiance. This is the being who as an angel-being, as angelos, guides us from incarnation to incarnation. It speaks of these goals. We hear them in inner contemplation. Again the Guardian speaks: The one who wants to carry you, Your soul conveyed to souls in regions matter-free, speaks. And the next lines are spoken by the being who watches over us from the hierarchy of Archangels: Behold the forces working in your thinking. That goes above, to where the Archangels are. First we had “Behold your senses' shining radiance.” This means that for the senses the sun shines and the senses do not; in reality, though, our senses also shine, except that while our senses are shining we are not aware of it. So the being who belongs to us from the ranks of angels admonishes us: “Behold your senses' shining radiance.” In general we think in normal consciousness; but we do not apprehend thinking; we do not sense it, we do not feel it. The being who belongs to us from the ranks of the archangels admonishes us: “Behold the forces working in your thinking.” Now we ascend to where the Archai are. The Guardian advises us that we should listen to the admonishment of the being from the ranks of the Archai. The next three lines are those of the Guardian: The one speaks who among spirits in earth-distant fields of creation Desires to give you the ground of being. I could also say the “throne of being”, but “ground of being” is better, for it is what is to be given to you by the one who wants a spiritual ground in the spiritual field for you, just as here in the sensory field you are standing on physical ground. After the Guardian of the Threshold has thus spoken, the being from the ranks of the Archai speaks: Behold the imagery of remembrance. That is third. First we should see the radiance of the senses, then the forces of thinking working in us, then what lies deep down, below speech, in the memory images: “Behold” the imagery of remembrance. Thus have we listened with quiet souls to the threefold voice speaking to us: speaking from the cosmos in the very first lines: “Listen to the field of thinking”. Then to the intervening three lines by the Guardian of the Threshold, and then to the beings who belong to us from the ranks of the hierarchies, always using paradigmatic lines which are meant to speak to the deepest levels of our being. Together it is like this: Listen to the field of thinking: The one who wants to shows to you The paths from life on earth to life On earth in spirit light does speak. Behold your senses' shining radiance. The one who wants to carry you, Your soul conveyed to souls in regions matter-free, speaks. Behold the forces working in your thinking. The one speaks who among spirits in earth-distant fields of creation Desires to give you the ground of being. Behold the imagery of remembrance. [The first mantra is written on the blackboard. The word “thinking” in the first line is underlined as well as the last lines of 1,2,3.] I. Listen to the field of thinking: 1.) The one who wants to show to you The paths from life on earth to life On earth in spirit light does speak. Behold your senses' shining radiance. 2.) The one who wants to carry you, Your soul conveyed to souls in regions matter-free, speaks. Behold the forces working in your thinking. 3.) The one speaks who among spirits in earth-distant fields of creation Desires to give you the ground of being. Behold the imagery of remembrance. Therewith we have inwardly experienced the admonishments resounding from the three lower hierarchies for our self-knowledge: the first from the hierarchy of the Angeloi the second from the hierarchy of the Archangeloi the third from the hierarchy of the Archai. [“Angeloi” is written beside part 1, “Archangeloi” beside part 2, “Archai” beside part 3.] Before the exercise begins, concentration in the soul [mind] can be achieved by imagining a definite image, this image [drawing begins on the image above]: an eye looking upward [eye] and perceiving the higher hierarchies [arc], from which the cosmic forces stream into the eye [upper rays], which then perceives the circle of the lower hierarchies [wavy line], which reach up to the higher hierarchies and send the rays on the human beings [lower rays]. We call this image to mind and hold it there: the eye looking upward, the two lines – the circular one, the wavy one – the descending rays. And while doing the exercise, without thinking about it, the image remains before our soul: the image of the upward looking eye. Then we hear again, resounding from all sides of the cosmos: Perceive the field of feeling. The Guardian then speaks the next three lines: The one who speaks as thought From the sun-rays of the spirit Recalls you to cosmic existence. It is now a higher language, the language that resounds from higher hierarchies. Whereas there [indicates the first mantra] we are made more attentive to what is already within us, in this mantra we are spoken to by the Guardian in a manner which does not only call us to observe our senses, our thinking and our memories, but we are now meant to hear how we are being called into cosmic being itself. This resounds from the hierarchy of the Exusiai. Then the one who belongs to us from the hierarchy of the Exusiai speaks: Feel in your breath life awakening. Again the Guardian speaks the next three lines: The one speaks who gives to you From the stars' living forces Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms. Then the being from the hierarchy of the Dynamis speaks: Feel in your blood's weaving waves. We must feel the world's weaving movement continued in the weaving waves of our blood. And the Guardian speaks once more, now advising us that we should listen to what the being from the rank of Kyriotetes says: The one speaks who wants to create In the light of the divine heights The sense of spirit from earthly will. Then this being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes speaks: Feel the earth's mighty resistance. For only if we feel this mighty resistance of the earth's forces can we enter correctly into the world of pure spirit. Therefore the experience of this mantra must be felt: Perceive the field of feeling: The one who speaks as thought from the sun-rays of the spirit calls you to cosmic existence: Feel in your breath life awakening. The one speaks who gives to you From the stars' living forces Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms: Feel in your blood's weaving waves. The one speaks who wants to create In the light of the divine heights The sense of spirit from earthly will. Feel the earth's mighty resistance. It is the ascent to the rank of the second hierarchy where self-knowledge asserts itself in us, where the Guardian advises us that a being from the ranks of the Exusiai will speak to us. Well, my dear sisters and brothers, we think in earthly life; our thoughts are almost nullities. But when a being from the ranks of the Exusiai thinks, he is thinking us. Our I is being thought. And it, our I, exists as a thought by a being from the ranks of the Exusiai. When on earth we speak “I” to ourselves, where are we looking? Yes, this I: when we say “I” [drawing: circle with the word “Ich”, yellow], we are looking back at this Ich [red arrows], and say the word “I” [Ich]. But for a being from the ranks of the Exusiai [green line] this I-thought is a real thought. We exist in that we are thought by beings from the ranks of the Exusiai. And when we say “I” to ourselves we are confirming that we are being thought by divine beings. And it is in this being thought by divine beings that our higher being consists. Then: A being from the ranks of the Dynamis reminds us that the spiritual existence we receive from him as a gift comes from the life-forces taken from the stars. And a being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes reminds us that what exists in us on earth as will is taken out to the heavenly heights and after the transformation which it undergoes there it is returned to us so that we can then also use it as spirit-will. Earthly will is only a transformation of spirit-will. Earthly will is constantly being taken up and brought down again. Above it is heavenly will; below it is earthly will. Finally the Guardian reminds us that a being from the ranks of the Kyriotetes is saying: “Feel the earth's mighty resistance.” When we feel the earth's resistance, we feel the benefit, the grace inherent in the bestowing of forces from the heavenly heights. [Mantra II is written on the blackboard. In the first line “feeling” is underlined, and the last lines of Parts 1,2 and 3 are also underlined.] II.) Perceive the field of feeling: 1.) The one who speaks as thought from the sun-rays of the spirit calls you to cosmic existence: Feel in your breath life awakening. 2.) The one speaks who gives to you From the stars' living forces Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms: Feel in your blood's weaving waves. 3.) The one speaks who wants to create In the light of the divine heights The sense of spirit from earthly will. Feel the earth's mighty resistance. This, then, is the second mantra (recites it): Perceive the field of feeling: The one who speaks as thought from the sun-rays of the spirit calls you to cosmic existence: Feel in your breath life awakening. The one speaks who gives to you From the stars' living forces Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms: Feel in your blood's weaving waves. The one speaks who wants to create In the light of the divine heights The sense of spirit from earthly will. Feel the earth's mighty resistance. The first resounds from the ranks of the Exusiai The second from the ranks of the Dynamis The third from the ranks of the Kyriotetes [Exusiai is written alongside part1; Dynamis alongside part 2, Kyriotetes alongside part 3.] And finally, in order to remember the image we have placed before us after all this has taken place within us, and in order to have a clear experience of it, we recall the image – although we realize that it has been before us during the whole exercise – but we want to place it once more before our souls. [In the image already drawn on the blackboard, the eye, arc, upper rays, wavy lines, lower rays are drawn again.]  The ascent to the ranks of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones will be added to these in the next class lesson. But now it is appropriate to clarify the meaning of the whole. My dear sisters and brothers, at the beginning of today's lesson the words from cosmic-being instructed us to practice self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, it was said, leads to world-knowledge; but only if the Self can be in connection with the world. But the Self does not exist in relation to an external natural entity or process, but alone in relation to the spiritual world. That is where the beings of the hierarchies are. So if we really wish to penetrate into our Self, into our I, then we must experience it together with the beings from the hierarchies and not with external nature. For what we can call our I in external nature is only the distant echo of the I. The true I exists in the same realms as these beings of the higher hierarchies. Therefore in entering the realm of self-knowledge we must also enter the realm of the higher hierarchies. Then we must hear the speech of the higher hierarchies. The admonishments of the Guardian of the threshold always intervene in order that we do this with all our strength, that we do not make it into a mere bloodless theory. In order that the whole content in the meditation appear before us in all its majesty, we hear the two – and as we will soon hear, three – forceful admonishments from the cosmos: “Behold the field of thinking”, “Behold the field of feeling”. Only if we feel the language in such a living, threefold way, and if we experience ourselves within the spiritual world as described in the mantras, then these things will be able to help us advance. For only then will we feel them with the right attitude. We must seek this mental attitude above all. For inner consecration must be there if the meditation is to contribute to initiation. And this inner consecration comes only from the attitude through which we are displaced from the outer world for a while and live exclusively within the content and elements of the meditation. If we can do this so that self-knowledge is not merely an inner brooding, but is an explicit conversation with the universe, the Guardian and the Hierarchies, then we will find ourselves in possession of true self-knowledge. Basically, we should even avoid thinking about such things if we cannot simultaneously evoke the appropriate mental attitude. We should only think about what has been presented today if we can really evoke this inner attitude in the soul, which consists in simply feeling that the sublime majesty from the universe, from the cosmic distances, comes to us like cosmic thunder; that a softly admonishing voice intervenes which comes from the Guardian of the Threshold; and that then one of the beings of the Hierarchies urgently speaks. Only when we remember this and when we evoke the feeling related to this remembering, should we even think of these mantras or create an inner connection with them, so that we do not desecrate them inwardly, desecrate their force – that we do not think of them with the usual, dry, common way of thinking, which we would think if we did not first evoke the appropriate attitude, the inner mood. And we therefore should achieve the inner mental attitude to feel that human self-knowledge is something solemn, earnest and holy and that these things should only be spoken internally by the soul – let alone externally – when they are felt to be earnest, solemn, consecrated. It is a great hindrance to progress on the esoteric path that so much is spoken about these things in a cliquish manner, even with a whiff of vanity and gossip, when this earnest, solemn attitude of consecration has not been developed. We don't realize then that in esoteric life everything depends on the pure, absolute truth prevailing. Whoever does not recognize this – that in esoteric life truth, absolute truth must prevail – can do nothing in esoteric life; that one cannot merely speak of the truth and then regard things as one does as usual in profane life. That happens when we make these things the object of idle gossip. And this idle gossip which is so much practiced is what throws so many hindrances and obstructions on the esoteric path. And we must necessarily bring together everything related to self-knowledge with an earnest, solemn consecrated attitude. Then we will have allowed the words to correctly work on our souls which were spoken at the beginning of the Class lesson and will be repeated now at the end: O man, know thyself! Yes, that is a guide to self-knowledge: O man, know thyself! Essentially it is a question. The answer is found in the mantras given today. Translators' note: Indeed it is a question. However, all the German originals (see below) here and in future lessons end the last line with a period instead of a question mark. Why, I don't know. Nevertheless, I am using a question mark in English, which seems the correct thing to do. O Mensch, erkenne dich selbst!  |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Thirteenth Hour
17 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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| The word “will” and the last lines of all three parts are underlined.] III. Behold the field of will. 1.) |
| [The following is written, with “being” underlined.] clouds – Thrones – being We look up to the lightning bolts. |
| And it is always necessary that we be able to undertake them earnestly. Something else is necessary which must be taken into account. The meditator will often fall back into the humdrum routine of everyday life. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Thirteenth Hour
17 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
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My dear friends, First of all we shall speak the imperative words from the spirit of the cosmos which urge us to self-observation for knowledge of our being: O man, know thyself! Well, my dear sisters and brothers, in the previous lesson we tried to find the inner psychic words which can bring our humanity into contact with what is revealed by the spiritual hierarchies – with which the human spirit is closely related. We placed before our souls how by concentrating on the field of thinking we could rise up to the region where the beings of the third hierarchy reside, so to speak: the Angels, Archangels and Archai. Not meant is our everyday thinking, but the thinking which acts behind that everyday thinking, which we can only achieve from our whole being by meditating deeply on the words which begin with: “Perceive the field of thinking.” And I also pointed out last time how this thinking can be perceived in the human organism itself above the region of speech; whereas the field of memory-thought can be felt under the region of speech. In respect to the region of speech itself: when we say something innerly and intensely in a low voice, or even out loud, we feel the speaking within and we can designate the place where we feel the speaking within us. Then we have a starting point, for it is more or less easy to experience this speech. And over the speaking, more toward the rear of the head, we can find the inner thinking through which we can discover the Angeloi; in the speaking itself the Archangeloi; and in remembrance, under the speaking, the Archai can be felt. And the mantric verse which leads us to this point was described in the previous class lesson. By means of this verse we imagine how at first cosmic space speaks, the universe itself resounds to us, so to speak, and therewith the Guardian of the Threshold tells us to be attentive to what the beings related to us from the ranks of the third hierarchy, the Angeloi, have to say. Then, secondly, how the Guardian of the Threshold again admonishes us to be attentive to the beings related to us from the ranks of the Archangeloi. And thirdly, the Guardian again admonishes us to listen attentively to the beings related to us from the ranks of the Archai. So we should imagine this mantric verse so that we hear the universe from the distant cosmos resounding to us, and hear the Guardian and the hierarchies speaking: Perceive the field of thinking: The one who wants to show to you paths from life on earth to life earth in spirit light does speak. Behold your senses' shining radiance. The one who wants to carry you, Your soul conveyed to souls regions matter-free, speaks. Behold the forces working in your thinking. The one speaks who among spirits earth-distant fields of creation Desires to give you the ground of being. Behold the imagery of remembrance. So if we can always feel ourselves in this situation – the cosmic distances speaking to us, the Guardian of the Threshold speaking to us, the ranks of the hierarchies speaking to us, if we can vividly imagine it as though it were around us, then in relation to the schematic picture I drew on the blackboard the last time, we gradually come to sense the thinking above the place of speech in the back of the head, through which we approach the movement and the life of the third hierarchy. And so, my dear sisters and brothers, we can say that by means of this mantric verse we come in contact with the beings of the third hierarchy. Likewise do we come into contact with the beings of the second hierarchy through the second mantric verse, which was also set forth and which should also be felt and spiritually perceived. We should ignore the fact that we are saying it; we should transpose ourselves into the situation I described. Perceive the field of feeling: The one who speaks as thought from the sun-rays of the spirit calls you to cosmic existence: Feel in your breath life awakening. The one speaks who gives to you From the stars' living forces Cosmic being in spirit kingdoms: Feel in your blood's weaving waves. The one speaks who wants to create the light of the divine heights sense of spirit from earthly will. Feel the earth's mighty resistance. Thus we come into contact with the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, An inner connection is created between the feeling sphere – breathing and blood circulation – and where the will arises, but which is only felt as will – and through which a connection is created between everything in our humanity and the beings of the second hierarchy. What remains for us to consider today, my dear sisters and brothers, is the field of volition, of will. The field of the will is the one which most dominates the human being, which acts most strongly in him, but is also the one which is least experienced with real attention. For man usually knows little of how the will acts. Let us take first where the will is most evident in the human organism, that is, when the human organism is set in motion. You must, my dear sisters and brothers, adopt these intimate concepts if you want to penetrate into what the spirit which speaks through this esoteric school wishes to indicate as the path. Imagine yourself walking, and perhaps moving your arms. Normally we think that we move our legs and the legs carry us forward. This is the most convenient idea one can have. We think that an unknown force – it is of course an unknown force, for nobody with normal consciousness can know anything about this force – streams into the legs. Each leg is placed before the other. Thus we carry ourselves through the world. But such is not the case. In no way do the legs have the primary task of carrying us through the world. It is simply not true. Here we come to a subject where normal consciousness immediately shows its maya; for it is maya when we believe that we walk with the legs, with the physical legs, that the physical legs exist for walking. Of course this does not mean, my dear sisters and brothers, that you should go out into the world of triviality and cry out-loud: “It is not true that man has his legs in order to walk.” For that would of course not be understood at first. Because the profound sense in which it is true is unknown – that almost everything normal consciousness offers us at first is maya, the great illusion. The great illusion does not only include what we observe around us, but also how we experience ourselves in the world.
Imagine the following [drawing]: these are human legs – where each one strides before the other [white legs]. But within these physical human legs is the human etheric body [red]—the part of the human etheric body that corresponds to the legs; here is the astral body [yellow]—the part which corresponds to the legs, and then the I-organization [violet]. We don't walk with the physical legs, we don't walk with the etheric legs, not even with the astral legs, but we walk with the forces that correspond to the I-organization. We live with these forces, which correspond to the I-organization, in the gravitational forces of the earth, which are of course invisible. [drawing: arc with arrows]. These gravitational forces of the earth we experience with our I-organization forces [short strokes on the arrows] – and the will which governs movement – which acts between the invisible I-organization and the invisible gravitational forces of the earth. Now the I-organization is so constituted that it needs to feel something like resistance when it comes into contact with the earth's gravitational forces. The legs' astral body serves this purpose, also the etheric body and, especially, the physical body, in order that the I-organization can feel itself, can perceive itself. And without this perception it could not have a connection with the earth-organization – because it must be conscious of this connection. In order that in walking the I-organization may be conscious of itself and come into contact with the earth-organization, the physical and the other organizations are present. Therefore, walking is a super-sensible process. The sensible organization is only present in order that the walking be perceived, because it can be accomplished only when it is perceived. You no more walk with your legs, my dear sisters and brothers, than you do with your stockings. You walk with what corresponds to your I-organization in your legs. And just as you have stockings to provide warmth, so do you have physical legs in order to provide consciousness for walking. What I have just said must be felt. We must learn to feel when walking that walking is a super-sensible process, and that the sensible is only there in order to provide consciousness of the process. During waking earth-life this consciousness is created in a less than perfect way, because our legs are also heavy, so we not only come into contact with the gravitational pull of the earth, but also with the gravitational force that acts in our legs. Therefore, when we are not using our physical legs, as in sleep, we speed around the universe in the I and astral body in a much more agile way than when we move about in physical life. We do move about during sleep, only we have no consciousness of doing so, because the physical legs provide that consciousness. Who is it then who provides us with the capacity for movement during sleep – and then also during clairvoyance? We are able to move, I said, in physical life because the movement becomes conscious through the physical legs. Who, my dear friends, does that instead when we are sleeping? Those beings who connect with us for the purpose of movement when we are sleeping. They are the Thrones, beings of the First Hierarchy. However, with normal consciousness, with normal sleeping consciousness, man cannot perceive the Thrones; therefore, it doesn't help. But when through intuition he is capable of perceiving what happens during sleep, he becomes aware that during sleep he is in contact with a higher world through the Thrones, just as in physical life he is in contact with normal earth life through his physical legs. All this we must translate into feeling. We must learn to sense it. And then we will sense the interweaving, undulating spiritual world in which we always are. And we can again rise to such an inner feeling and experience if we let it work upon us in this situation as we did in respect to the other mantras which I described for the field of thinking and the field of feeling: from out of the cosmos comes an urgent voice like thunder, then the Guardian of the Threshold tells us to listen to the Thrones speaking to us. The Thrones speak to us about the drives – as they are called – the instinctual drives which are transfered to our volition when we carry out an act of will. Therefore, we will let the third part of this mantra work on us, as it resounds again from the cosmos: Perceive the field of will Then Guardian of the threshold: The one who guides the cosmic forces from the dull dark earth-foundations into your limbs' movements, speaks: Behold your fiery instinctual drives. That is the first. The second leads us more into the soul [psychological] aspect. If we continue to investigate the human will's actions in this deep meditative practice we make a great discovery. And at some point humanity must make this discovery if it wishes to advance in the field of evolution. Now I must indicate something to you, my dear sisters and brothers, something you all know, for normal consciousness is already aware of it. It is what we call the voice of conscience in us. The voice of conscience! But the voice of conscience calls out in an indeterminate way to human consciousness. Usually we do not rightly know what it is – in respect to our moral-psychological comportment – that comes from the mysterious depths of our souls and which we call the voice of conscience. With normal consciousness one does not penetrate so deeply into one's own being as to reach the voice of conscience. It ascends, but man does not reach it, so he does not look at it face to face. And when man penetrates meditatively to the distant world of the Cherubim, the wisdom filled beings who live and act throughout the universe, he makes the great discovery that from the world of the cherubim an impulse enters into him within which the voice of conscience lives. Oh, the voice of conscience is of high origin, high being. It actually lives in the world of the Cherubim. From that world of the Cherubim it weaves itself into humanity and at first resounds from the depths of this humanity in an indeterminate way. But it is a great, mighty encounter when man, through intuition, can come into contact with the field of the Cherubim and encounter the world where his conscience lives and works. It is the greatest personal discovery anyone can make. Therefore, the Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us with the following words: The one speaks who with grace lets the clear spirit-rays from God's fields of action, circulate in your blood: Behold the soul-guide of your conscience. In truth it is the spirit from the field of the Cherubim that circulates in the blood that constitutes the voice of conscience. The blood is physical in all the parts of our bodies; but in that it is physical in all the parts of our bodies, it carries the voice of conscience, along with other things. And the waves of Cherubim life interweave in our blood. We will gain an important place for this meditation if we imagine the situation thus: First speaks what originates in the universal distance: Behold the field of will. Guardian of the Threshold admonishes us: The one who guides the cosmic forces from the dull, dark earth-foundations into your limbs' movements, speaks: Then we imagine [drawing] interweaving clouds [blue] symbolizing the Thrones. And in that we imagine these interweaving clouds, we hear the Thrones, the voices from the first hierarchy: Behold your fiery instinctual drives. Then the Guardian of the Threshold continues: The one speaks who with grace lets the clear spirit-rays from God's fields of action, circulate in your blood. Now we imagine lightning [red] flashing through the clouds, for lightning is the tool of the Cherubim, the fiery swords of the Cherubim. As the lightning flashes through the clouds, we feel these flashes in the words: Behold conscience's soul-guidance. Then the Guardian of the Threshold speaks: The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man That is, the previous earth lives Sensibly through death and birth, breathe again in contemporary times. Now we imagine the entire sky above the lightning with interweaving warmth [drawing: yellow], sending the lightning down with heat. And in this interweaving heat from the cosmos we sense the Seraphim's speech: Behold your destiny's spiritual trial how destiny extends from earth-life to earth-life to the present earth-life. This mantra is especially effective when it is felt combined in this way with the image. And we can prepare ourselves for this mantra by using the good German word “Sitze” – after denuding it of all triviality – instead of Thrones say “Sitze” (seats). So imagine, my dear sisters and brothers, that you feel the word “Sitze”, [it is written on the blackboard:] Sitze (seats) Flashes in the clouds; form the idea of clouds in your minds – the word “Blitze” (lightning bolts) [“Blitze” is written over “Sitze”] Blitze (lightning bolts) again with the idea of “flashing through”: the lightning flashing in the clouds. You form the word “Hitze”. [“Hitze” is written over “Blitze”] Hitze (heat) Universal heat; and feel in this threefold “i” [pronounced “ee”] the ascending from the cloud flashes to the lightning bolts and to the universal heat, from which the lightning bolts derive. You feel prepared for the mantra: Sitze, Blitze, Hitze. And then, after this scene is before you, feel with the image the force of the mantra: [Mantra III is written on the blackboard. The word “will” and the last lines of all three parts are underlined.] III. Behold the field of will. 1.) The one who guides the cosmic forces from the dull dark earth-foundations into your limbs' movements, speaks: Behold your fiery instinctual drives. 2.) The one speaks who with grace lets the clear spirit-rays from God's fields of action, circulate in your blood. Behold conscience's soul-guidance. 3.) The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man sensibly through death and birth, to breathe again in contemporary times. Behold your destiny's spiritual trial. Nothing in such verses is mere empty phrase: rather is it about the limbs' active movement. I described it as a working together of the I-organization with the forces of the earth – a super-sensible process. We must be aware of that in the first part of the mantra. In the second part of the mantra we must be aware of the blood circulating throughout the whole organism, containing everything pertaining to the conscience. However, our destiny basically lives in our breathing – the uppermost part of our rhythmic system – insofar as it is streamed through not only with what today enlivens us in breathing, but because breathing has been formed by earlier stages of earthly existence. Here [in part 1] the Guardian of the Threshold refers us to the Thrones here [in part 2] to the Cherubim here [in part 3] to the Seraphim [“Thrones” is written beside part 1, “Cherubim” beside part 2, “Seraphim” beside part 3.] The symbol we choose to give the mantra the necessary strength and spiritual consolidation and which expresses the first Hierarchy's revelation in a beautiful way: clouds , but at the same time what the Thrones derive their substance from – when we observe the spiritual in the clouds: their own being or essence. [The following is written, with “being” underlined.] clouds – Thrones – being We look up to the lightning bolts. Oh, the Cherubim are already more hidden. We can sense how the Thrones are acting and moving in the clouds. The looming clouds provide the Thrones with substance. The Cherubim do not make it easy for us to see them. They are more hidden than the Thrones. They do not show themselves in the formations. They show us their tools in the lightning bolts. They do not show us their being in the lightning bolts, only their tools. [The following is written on the blackboard, with “tools” underlined.] Lightning bolts – Cherubim – tools And if we ascend to the cosmic heat, the Seraphim are hidden deeply therein, much deeper than the Cherubim are hidden behind their tools, the lightning bolts. The heat is only the shining of the Seraphim. The Thrones reveal themselves by their being; the Cherubim reveal themselves by their tools; the Seraphim reveal themselves by their shining. [The following is written on the blackboard, with “shining” underlined.] Cosmic heat – Seraphim – shining Thus we establish the connection between man and the first Hierarchy in the field of will: Perceive the field of will: The one who guides the cosmic forces from the dull dark earth-foundations into your limbs' movements, speaks: Behold your fiery instinctual drives. The one speaks who with grace lets the clear spirit-rays from God's fields of action, circulate in your blood. Behold conscience's soul-guidance. The one speaks who brings the accomplished in man sensibly through death and birth, breathe again in contemporary times. Behold your destiny's spiritual trial. In this situation, it is necessary that we feel as though we are not ourselves speaking, thinking, feeling and willing; rather that we completely forget ourselves and feel spoken to in a resounding threefold way. Yes, my dear sisters and brothers, it is certainly necessary that such mantric procedures be taken most seriously. Then they are effective, as they are meant to be. Then they bring us forward, forward on the threefold fields of the spiritual worlds, on the fields of thinking, feeling and willing. And it is always necessary that we be able to undertake them earnestly. Something else is necessary which must be taken into account. The meditator will often fall back into the humdrum routine of everyday life. He must do so because between birth and death he is an earthly being. He must always return to his normal consciousness. For example when we have some kind of ache which becomes chronic, we will always feel it. We can sometimes overlook it, but we feel that it is there. We can feel something similar when we have been embraced by the power of meditation. We should always be able to say to ourselves: this normal consciousness has meditated. It has been embraced by the prevailing power of meditation. We should feel that the meditation is present, that we were once in it. By feeling that meditation makes us into something different, we should have become a different person. Having once begun, we can never in life forget, not even for a moment, my dear sisters and brothers, that we are meditants. That is the right attitude. We should live into meditative life in such a way – naturally for short enough intervals that it does not disturb our normal lives – that we always feel ourselves to be meditants, and when there are moments when we forget that we are meditants, then we should feel as ashamed as if we were walking completely naked along a street crowded with people. We should experience the transition from non-meditant to meditant in such a way that if we forget that we are meditants and then realize that we have forgotten, we are ashamed. And then we will really advance in what is said to us by the cosmic words with which we began: O man, know thyself! But we must always remember that knowledge is a serious thing, and that the world of great illusions, the world of maya, will not deliver it to us, that we must first arrive at the threshold where the Guardian stands, and that on the threshold all the deceptive forms with which normal sense-perception and normal consciousness is full will disappear. Then we can perceive additional words from the same cosmic depths from which the words just spoken to us came: Know first the earnest Guardian, When we have heard such words, the answering words can reverently issue from the depths of our souls: I entered this world of sense-perception,  |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Fourteenth Hour
31 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
| Of course it must be emphasized: When the journey to the higher worlds is undertaken as it is carefully described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, in many shorter works which have appeared in anthroposophical circles, and in the second part of my An Outline Of Occult Science, then aberration from the normal condition of the mind cannot occur, not even in the slightest degree. The person will cross into the spiritual world in the full consciousness of normal human understanding, first in knowledge and also through initiation. But he must know how, in two ways, he may lose the everyday capacity for understanding, which holds him securely to life, if he does not adhere to the right guidelines into the spiritual world. |
| In the spirit-realm all that is spoken must be precise and exact. You must understand, my dear friends, the reality that this Esoteric School is not established by human will, but by the spiritual world, as I said at the beginning. |
| 270. Esoteric Lessons for the First Class II: Fourteenth Hour
31 May 1924, Dornach Translated by Frank Thomas Smith Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
My dear friends, We have been considering the human being's relation to the Guardian of the Threshold and have led our souls step by step to see what our relation is to the Guardian of the Threshold on the path of knowledge. Today we intend to enliven the situation of standing before the Guardian in order to advance a step further in this esoteric consideration. I will repeat what has been considered in the previous lessons regarding this situation. Man leaves the physical world in which he develops his normal consciousness. He realizes that although this sensible-physical world can be wonderful, joyful as well as painful and full of suffering, it can also be majestic—and that he has every reason to consciously be a part of it. But he also realizes that he can never know himself if he merely directs his attention and his feelings to this physical world. He must say to himself: As wonderful as it is, with all its amazing variety of colors and forms, what I myself am, what my origin and being are, cannot be found in the scope of this environment. Nevertheless, from all sides the words resound as the most important task in the life of the human being: O man, know thyself! And it also becomes clear that in normal life we are protected from entering unprepared into the world which is the world of his real being. And the Guardian of the Threshold is the one who protects us from consciously perceiving his environment when we are sleeping at night, for what we would then perceive, unprepared, would be such a terrible shock that we would not be able to lead a normal human waking life. The Guardian of the Threshold also makes it clear to us that he—the Guardian of the Threshold—is the true, the real gateway to the spiritual world. Thus the person realizes that before he enters the kingdom of knowledge, he comes to an abyss, which at first seems bottomless. The support of the physical world ends here. He cannot cross it. One can only cross this abyss by freeing oneself from the physical, when one—symbolically speaking—“grows wings”, in order to cross the abyss as a psychic-spiritual being. But the Guardian of the Threshold calls forth to him how to beware of the abyss, especially to be aware of the beasts which rise up as spiritual figures from this abyss, that one should realize that these beasts are the outer reflections of impure willing, feeling and thinking—that they first must be overcome. And in a graphic image one sees how his willing, feeling and thinking appear in three animals—one ghastly, one horrid to look at, and so forth. Then the Guardian of the Threshold shows us how thinking, feeling and willing can strengthen themselves after having consciously determined to overcome the beasts. To enter the spiritual world, to visualize the spiritual world, we need to develop situation-meditations, in order to feel how the cosmos speaks to us, how the hierarchies speak to us, how at first everything foretells what awaits us there in the spiritual world. And from what has entered our souls through the mantras, we will realize ever more that the human being must become different when he crosses the abyss, when he wishes to live into what is beyond the abyss. We will realize ever more: Here on earth we associate with the beings of the three nature kingdoms and with men; beyond we associate with disembodied souls and with the spirits of the higher hierarchies. It is a different kind of relating, which requires a different state of mind. [original: Seelenverfassung = soul-constitution]. It is again the task of the Guardian of the Threshold to strongly indicate how the human being must comport himself when faced with the fact that when he crosses the abyss and experiences something of the reality of the spiritual world, he must do so with a completely different state of mind. The person will realize that two states of mind can be a reality within him: the one on this side of the abyss with normal consciousness; and the one beyond the abyss, outside the physical and etheric bodies—the state of mind in the purely spiritual world. When the difference between these states of mind appears, great dangers await him, dangers which appear at first to be slight deviations from the normal state of mind which are always present within the psyche, but which are pathological deformities when carried to an extreme. Of course it must be emphasized: When the journey to the higher worlds is undertaken as it is carefully described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, in many shorter works which have appeared in anthroposophical circles, and in the second part of my An Outline Of Occult Science, then aberration from the normal condition of the mind cannot occur, not even in the slightest degree. The person will cross into the spiritual world in the full consciousness of normal human understanding, first in knowledge and also through initiation. But he must know how, in two ways, he may lose the everyday capacity for understanding, which holds him securely to life, if he does not adhere to the right guidelines into the spiritual world. Here on this side of the threshold we are standing on the earth, on the solid earthly elements. The ground is beneath our feet, it is our support. Around us is the watery element, which also participates in the formation of our own bodies. In ordinary life this watery element cannot support us, but it interpenetrates us, transforms itself into our blood. It is contained in our growth, in our forces of nutrition. We breathe the air. The airy or gaseous element is all around us. Warmth is all around us: the warmth ether, the fourth element. In ordinary life they are separate from each other. Where there is solid earth there is not water; where there is water there is not air; where there is air there is not water. Only fire—warmth—interpenetrates all. It is the only thing which interpenetrates everything. The moment we leave the physical body—also with the first push, my dear friends—this separation of the elements ceases. We enlarge ourselves, we expand, and at the same time we are in earth, water, fire, air. We can no longer distinguish them from each other and the individual attributes of these four elements have ceased to exist. The earth is no longer our support, for it is no longer solid. The water no longer forms us, for its formative force has ended. Once in the spiritual world it is as though we were dissolving, as ice melts in warm water, for we have become one with the water. We could not float in it, for that would mean that we were still separate from it. The blood is no longer a separate element in the blood vessels, but our blood becomes one with the all-pervading watery element of the universe. And air: it ceases being the formative breathing force in us. Warmth ceases to enkindle us to an I, and make us feel that we are a Self within the warmth. It all ends. We must meet this ending of the differentiation between earth, water, air and fire in the right frame of mind. Imagine that we have already flown over the abyss. We have arrived on the other side, my dear sisters and brothers. The Guardian of the Threshold calls out to us, we should turn around again and face him. Imagine it vividly, my dear sisters and brothers. The person has arrived on the other side, where the truths and knowledge of the spirit will be revealed to him. He stands on the other side. The Guardian of the Threshold invokes him to turn around in order to receive the advice he needs now that he has been touched by the state of mind which is on the other side of the threshold, where one lives within the four elements: in earth, water, air, fire. He encounters there—pardon the trivial expression, my dear sisters and brothers—the illusion of being in love with release from the solid earth, from the formative water force, from the creative force of air, from the selfhood awakening force of warmth; he feels delight in spiritual beatitude, dedicated to it and wishes to remain in this state of spiritual beatitude. It overcomes him because the Luciferic temptation is approachng him. Depending on his karma, he can be more or less susceptible to this temptation. If he is so susceptible that he is utterly in love with the experience of dissolving into earth, water, air and fire, the luciferic forces will apprehend him and he will no longer leave this state of mind. He succumbs to the danger of continuing in this state of mind when he returns to everyday life. The Guardian of the Threshold must call out to him: You may not do that. You may not succumb to Lucifer. You may not merely feel the delight of bliss in dissolving in earth, water, fire, air. When you return to the physical world you must again take on the state of mind of ordinary consciousness; otherwise in the future you will be an unstable person in the physical world. That is the luciferic danger, that upon return from the spiritual world, from beyond the threshold, one becomes an unstable, confused person, no longer versed in the ways of the world, a dreamer who confuses dreaming for idealism and who is contemptuous of ordinary consciousness. That you must not do. And the Guardian of the Threshold urgently admonishes us that we must resolve to live in the world, be it the earthly, be it the spiritual, in the way which corresponds to each. But the Guardian of the Threshold adds a second admonishment: that when we cross over with separated thinking, feeling and willing, we must pay attention to what extent earthly inclinations are still present in this thinking, feeling and willing. The person may be inclined to fixate on his experiences on this side of the threshold because of having the earth's support, and cross the threshold in a materialistic state of mind, cross with the congealed formative forces of water. If so, he can be plagued by earthly arrogance and say to himself: In life on earth I breathed, inhaled that breath from which the Father-God once created the human soul, human life. I can also do that if only I am freed from earthly limitations. But if the person wants to bring over into the spiritual world what he has of creative divine force through his breath, he will succumb to the Ahrimanic temptation. Then he will not be able to return, because before he does so he will become faint. He will be more or less unconscious. His consciousness will be paralyzed. Because his consciousness has been paralyzed, he more or less becomes an instrument of the Ahrimanic powers in the spiritual world. Although today humanity is crudely hardened by materialism, since the beginning of the Michael age it is almost being dragged over into the spiritual world by spiritual life itself. And what it means when the ahrimanic powers seize humanity when its consciousness is paralyzed, though otherwise in a fully waking state, has been amply demonstrated, my dear friends, by the outbreak of the great [first] World War. When this World War broke out, I said to many people: The history of this war can not be written from the physical plane alone. Documents alone do not speak the truth, because of the thirty or forty men in Europe who directly participated in the outbreak of the war, many of them had dimmed consciousness at the decisive moments. They became instruments for the ahrimanic powers on this side. So that much of what happened during this war was instigated by the ahrimanic powers. The war can only be written about in an occult way. What is seen—in many respects modified on this side of the threshold—in many leading personalities at the outbreak of this World War, can be observed in those who preserved the habits of the mind and carried them over beyond the threshold and whose consciousness became paralyzed, muted, and they became instruments of the ahrimanic powers. It must be perfectly clear that the human being may not carry over to this side the state of mind applicable to beyond the threshold, and that he may not carry over to the other side the state of mind applicable to this side. Rather must he develop a strong inner human consciousness for each domain—for this side and for beyond the threshold. That applies to all four elements in the Guardian of the Threshold's admonition. We shall now work on these admonitions in meditation. So let us imagine, my dear sisters and brothers, that you are standing on the other side of the threshold. The Guardian beckons. You look at his face. At first he calls out to you, admonishing: Where is the earth's solidity which supported you? We no longer have it. But the inner heart is motivated to give an answer. But this heart can be innerly motivated in a threefold way to an answer from the cosmos. It can be motivated from the Christ and his power. Then it answers: I abandon its foundation—the earth's solidity, that is—as long as the spirit supports me. That is the correct attitude, that I abandon the earth's support as long as the spirit carries me in the spirit-domain, as long as I am out of the body. But the heart can also be motivated by Lucifer. Then it answers: I feel rapture, for from now on I do not need its support. That is how one speaks with arrogance, with pride, as though he also does not need the support when he returns to the physical world. Or the heart can be motivated by Ahriman. Then it answers: I will hammer it down even harder—the support—with the spirit's power, and bring it over with me. No one should recoil from meditatively calling to mind again and again all three answers in order to freely choose the first one. For he must feel: the inner self tends to waver to Lucifer, and to Ahriman. One must keep this in mind during meditation. For the earth element the meditation must therefore contain: [The first part of the mantra is written on the blackboard. (Writing is always shown in italics).]
1) The Guardian—speaks—Where is the earth's solidity, which supported you?
The Human heart must answer. If it is motivated by Christ, it answers:
Christ: I leave its foundation as long as the spirit supports me.
If the soul is motivated by Lucifer, it answers:
Lucifer: I feel rapture, for from now on I do not need its support.
Now the heart omits “as long as” if it wants to replace the temporal with the eternal, which transforms the sentence. If the heart is motivated by Ahriman, it answers:
Ahriman: I will hammer it down even harder—the support—with the spirit's power. In order that the soul fully dedicate itself to what is coming, we have the Guardian of the Threshold's second admonition, which is related to water's formative force. This formative force of water forms the solid organs in us from the liquid elements. All that we consume for nourishment must first become liquid, from which the organs are formed. All our sharply contoured organs are formed out of the liquid element. This formative force terminates once we tread the realm beyond the threshold. The Guardian warns us that this is the case. He calls to us once we stand on the other side of the Threshold facing his stern countenance: [The second part of the mantra is written on the blackboard.] Guardian: Where is the water's formative force which pervaded you? The person answers if he is motivated in his heart by Christ: My life extinguishes it, as long as the spirit forms me. Christ: My life extinguishes it (“it” is the formative force), as long as the spirit forms me. Again, modestly, “as long as” is used. Now, when one is over there, out of the body, the spirit is beginning to form. If the soul is motivated by Lucifer, it leaves out “as long as” and forms the sentence in a prideful, arrogant way: Lucifer: My life melts it away—what is extinguished can be re-kindled; what melts remains melted—so I am released from it. If the soul is motivated by Ahriman, it answers: Ahriman: My life solidifies it, so I transfer it to the spirit-realm. Observe, my dear sisters and brothers, how everything in mantric verses is innerly certain and meaningfully formed. Here [in the first verse] is: “I leave”, “I feel”, “I will”. The “I” speaks in the answer. In the second verse the I no longer speaks egocentrically, but it says: “My life”: “my life dissolves”, “my life melts”, “my life solidifies”. It is all appropriate to reality if correctly spoken in the spirit. The carelessness in formulating sentences, which is common in the physical realm, may not be brought over into the spirit-realm. In the spirit-realm all that is spoken must be precise and exact. You must understand, my dear friends, the reality that this Esoteric School is not established by human will, but by the spiritual world, as I said at the beginning. Everything given here in the Esoteric School of the Goetheanum is only spoken through my lips, but is dictated by the spiritual world. It must be that way in every legitimately existing esoteric school—also in the present and in the immediate future, as it was in the ancient holy Mysteries. And this Esoteric School is the true Michael- School, the institution of those spiritual beings who possess the inspiration of Michael's cosmic will. In respect to air, the Guardian of the Threshold speaks again, warningly: Where is the air's stimulating force which awakened you?—awakened you to existence. Just as Jehovah formed a feeling being from a merely living being by means of living breath and the stimulating power of air, so can a human being become a feeling being through the stimulation exercised on his senses by the outer world. What, though, are the senses? My dear sisters and brothers, the senses are nothing other than differentiated breathing organs. Eye, ear—all are refined breathing organs. Breathing expands to all the senses. As it lives in the lung, it lives in the eye. Except that in the lungs it combines with carbon, and in the ears with highly rarefied silica. Carbon dioxide is formed in the organism. [He draws on the blackboard: “Kohlensäure” = carbon dioxide (red)] In the senses, very fine silicic acid is formed [“Kieselsäure” = silicic acid, yellow.]
Man lives downward by converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. He lives upward into the zone of his sense-nervous system by combining oxygen with silica, forming very fine silicic acid. [green]. So we live in a way that when breath turns to blood, it generates carbon dioxide; when breath passes around the senses it generates silicic acid—downward and outward through breath: carbon dioxide; toward the senses and back from the senses to the breathing process in very fine doses of silicic acid. The Guardian of the Threshold calls to us about all that is in the air: Where is the air's stimulating force, which awakened you? He who is motivated in his heart by Christ answers: My soul breathes the air of heaven—no longer the air of earth, the air of heaven—as long as the spirit surrounds me. The heart motivated by Lucifer answers: My soul regards it not in the spirit's rapture. The heart motivated by Ahriman answers: My soul absorbs it, that I may learn divine creation. As Jehovah once created with air, the ahrimanically-minded absorbs the air in order to carry it over to the spiritual world. The Guardian speaks to the human being: [The third part of the mantra is written on the blackboard:] Guardian: Where is the air's stimulating force, which awakened you? The heart motivated by Christ speaks: Christ: My soul breathes the air of heaven, as long as the spirit surrounds me. The heart motivated by Lucifer speaks: Lucifer: My soul regards it not in the spirit's rapture. The heart motivated by Ahriman speaks: Ahriman: My soul absorbs it, that I may learn divine creation. About fire, the warmth element, the Guardian now speaks the last of his element-words, warning the human not to lose himself in the warmth element as it is experienced in physical earthly existence, but also not to carry it over to the spiritual world. Beforehand, my dear sisters and brothers, I want to draw your attention to the ascending direction: “I” the human being says at first. “My life” the human being says. “My soul” says the human being. Now the Guardian speaks warningly about the fire element: [The fourth part of the mantra is written on the blackboard:] Guardian: Where is fire's cleansing—or purification—which ignited your I? Our I lives in what pervades us as warmth, as fire. In these esoteric classes, my dear sisters and brothers, I have already indicated once that his solid element remains in man's unconscious, the liquid element also, although one does feels pleasure at being in the liquid element; when sated or hungry, he also feels the liquid element's attributes. Man already feels the air element in his soul: he finds breathing difficult when the air's composition is not right and with breathing difficulty, angst. Warmth is something in which the human being feels completely immersed. He accompanies his cold and warm states with his whole I. Fire ignites the I. The heart motivated by Christ answers: Christ: My I blazes in God's fire, as long as the spirit ignites me. Man does not need earthly-material warmth when the spirit enflames or ignites: the I blazes in divine fire, not in earthly warmth, not in earthly fire. But the heart motivated by Lucifer answers: My I has the force of flame through the spirit's solar power. In immense pride the I—ensnared by Lucifer—wants to usurp for itself the fire element that comes from the sun, instead of only for the time the spirit sets it ablaze—keep it forever, never give it away. Lucifer: My I has the force of flame through the spirit's solar power. The heart motivated by Ahriman answers as though it wants to keep for itself the fire it had captured on earth and carry it over to the spiritual world—to master the spiritual world with the I-fire of the physical world. Ahriman: My I has its own fire, which ignites through self-enfoldment. The I wills not to blaze in the spirit, but to develop its own fire. There is again an ascending direction in the formulation: The person first says “I”: I leave I feel I will He then becomes more objective in that what is in him refers to “My”: My life extinguishes My life melts My life solidifies. He goes more within, what is within makes him objective: My soul breathes My soul cares not My soul absorbs it. Now he delves deeper into himself. And—note the difference, my dear sisters and brothers—before only “I” was said. Now the “I” becomes objective: “My I”, as though it were another, as if one were to speak of the other as a possession. One is more outside of the physical body—which disposes one to speak so egoistically of the “I”—and speaks: My I as of an object. That is the correct speech here. One gets to know this way of speaking in all its intensity, my dear sisters and brothers, when one speaks with souls who have passed through the gates of death and have been a while in the spiritual world. They never say “I”, but they say “my I”. I have not yet heard a dead person say “I” after death, at most only shortly after death. But after a certain time after death they always say “my I”, for they see the I with the eyes of the gods. They become completely objective. It is characteristic. Therefore, an enunciation from a dead person who has been dead a long time can never be true if he says “I” and not “my I”. So the soul speaks this “my I” here in the fourth place when standing before the Guardian of the Threshold. That, my dear friends, is the wonderful conversation at the threshold between the Guardian of the Threshold and the human being. It is distinctive. And this distinctiveness is really present when one stands before the Guardian of the Threshold in this situation. When one practices the meditation of this dialog in the right way, as has been described here, one must be able to intuitively hear it. Therefore, we meditate these words correctly, which have come to you here today as mantric words, my dear sisters and brothers, when in a sense we hear ourselves speaking the words after the Guardian has been heard in our souls. Thus we meditate first hearing the Guardian of the Threshold four times as I, II, III and IV, as earth, water, air and fire; then as when we let our own soul answer, but in such a way that first we hear the answer innerly ensouled by Christ, the second answer as the voice of the tempter, the third answer as the voice of the inflated materialistic Ahriman-spirit, which approaches the human being with the desire to carry the mineralized human being into the spiritual world. Therefore, to end this esoteric lesson today, the way this is to be meditated resounds in us: Where is the earth's solidity, which supported you? I leave its foundation, as long as the spirit supports me. I feel rapture, for from now on I do not need its support. I will hammer it down even harder with the spirit's power. Where is the water's formative force which pervaded you? My life extinguishes it, as long as the spirit forms me. My life melts it away, so I am released from it. My life solidifies it, so I transfer it to the spirit-realm. Where is the air's stimulating force, which awakened you? My soul breathes the air of heaven, as long as the spirit surrounds me. My soul regards it not in the spirit's rapture. My soul absorbs it, that I may learn divine creation. Where is fire's cleansing, which ignited your I? My I blazes in God's fire, as long as the spirit ignites me. My I has the force of flame through the spirit's solar power. My I has its own fire, which ignites through self-enfolding.  |
