CHAPTER III
UR attention has been called to the fact that to human beings at a certain
stage of evolution, the external phenomena of warmth, air, water, etc.,
become living and permeated with spirit, and it has been said that this
stage may be designated as that of ‘penetration into the world
of Spirits of the Elements.’ I would ask those who have been
students of Spiritual Sciences for some time to note the words
carefully, and to realise that they are used, not in an approximate,
but in an exact sense. ‘Spirits of the Elements’ was the
expression I used, and not ‘Elementary Spirits.’
It
must be pointed out that when we ascend into super-sensible realms,
other worlds, two of which shall be named, are added to the ordinary
world experienced by means of the sense organs they are to be found
behind what is perceptible by the senses and comprehensible to the
intellect. There are certain striking characteristics which give an
idea of the difference between our world and the two higher ones
adjoining it. The first region hidden behind our ordinary world is
named, as everyone knows, the Astral or Soul world; the Spiritual
world is still more deeply hidden. In the physical world one of the
most comprehensive laws is that of growth and decay, of coming into
being and passing away. Look where we will in the physical world we
find that a characteristic of its highest beings is that they are
born and that they die within it; the inanimate kingdom of the
minerals, belonging to the lower realms of nature, may arouse an
illusion of permanence within the physical world, but if the mineral
kingdom be observed over long periods of time, the law of growth and
decay is found there.
Observation
of the astral world, however, reveals the fact that here the capacity
of transformation or metamorphosis is as predominant as is the law of
birth and decay in the physical world. In the astral world we have to
do with moving images changing one into the other, in a state of
perpetual metamorphosis. Even the astral body of man, which is of all
astral phenomena the most intimately bound up with us, visible to the
seer as a kind of aura or cloud-like formation around the physical
body, shares this characteristic of continual transformation. That
which envelopes and penetrates the human being in the form of an
astral auric cloud changes practically every moment as higher or
lower impulses develop in him, as he experiences wilder or calmer
passions, or cultivates thoughts of different nature according to the
character of the will impulses. Images and shapes arise in the astral
auric cloud, and as different thoughts rise and fade away, its colour
and form may continually change. There is, however, a certain
fundamental character and colour in the astral aura of every
individual, corresponding to his more or less permanent type of
character. Self-metamorphosis, then, is of the very nature of the
human astral body. We have seen that the beings visible to a man in
the astral world after he has reached the stage of illumination meet
him as good or as evil beings according to his own preparation. So
strong is the capacity of metamorphosis in those Beings which are
invisible upon the physical plane and only perceptible in the astral
and higher worlds, that they may change from good into evil, from
light into dark.
In
the real spiritual world there is permanence, even if it is relative.
For this reason the inner being of man, if it is to exist without a
break from one incarnation to another, must pass through the
spiritual worlds, because only there is to be found a certain —
not external — but relative permanence or continuity.
The
rhythm of growth and decay is the pre-dominant characteristic of the
physical world; metamorphosis from one form to another of the astral
world; permanence or continuity of the spiritual world. First we must
realise that the materials for the building up of the human being
have been obtained from these worlds; man has been constructed out of
them. The physical world lies before him the other worlds open up to
him through initiation — through preparation and development of
super-sensible faculties of perception. Man then first learns to know
what is hidden from him in the ordinary world, but what has just as
real an existence. When in ordinary life an outer sheath or
expression of some being is found, as for example, fire or air, the
being itself is to be sought in a higher world. In order to meet the
beings whose expression is physical fire, man must ascend to a region
higher than the physical world. That which is the cause and origin of
fire, for instance, can only be discovered by rising from the
physical plane to the world above it, because the Beings in question
send down an expression of themselves into the lower world, but
remain as to their essential nature in the higher region. This holds
good not only for external phenomena such as fire, air, water or
earth, but also for everything living within us in the physical
world. Our feelings, perceptions and thoughts exist in the physical
world along with phenomena of colour, sound, tastes, scent, etc. It
must be clear to us that everything which constitutes man in an
incarnation, every feeling experienced between birth and death, every
thought, every idea, is a phenomenon of the physical world. And
spiritual beings live behind our feelings and the whole of our soul
life just as they do behind the external phenomena of colour, sound,
scent, or as we say in Spiritual Science, behind fire, air, water and
so on. In the same way, the ego, the self within the physical world
is not our real being, is not what is called our Higher Self, for
that is to be found in a super-sensible world behind our feelings and
sensations. This Higher Self is experienced in a true sense only by
attaining to super-sensible worlds, where it manifests itself in quite
another form. I will show you by a definite example the relation of
the self of man living in the physical world to the Higher Self; this
example holds good for present conditions of life only since anyone
who has spiritual sight knows that the nature of these things changes
in the course of time. Let us suppose that a man has done an
injustice to another and experiences the pang of conscience. I refer
here to those special psychic experiences usually expressed by the
word conscience. In ordinary life, conscience is a term used of
certain inner voices demanding that we should set right any wrong we
may have committed. Most people hardly ever come to the point of
thinking about the nature of conscience; they recognise as a kind of
vague feeling that an injustice should be righted; the soul is uneasy
when this has not been done. For men in the physical world conscience
is an inner experience of the soul. The spiritual Seer, however,
observing from the astral world the man who has done the act of
injustice, sees the pang of conscience surrounding him in remarkable
astral shapes — shapes which are absent if no pang of
conscience has been felt. The origin of these forms may be explained
as follows: Suppose somebody has done an injustice: from thoughts
which have led to the unjust act other thought-forms develop as the
metamorphosis of the first. Everything that a man thinks and feels
exists in his astral aura as a form or shape of the nature of thought
or of feeling. A thought which is, let us say, distinct, definite,
can be seen in sharp outline hovering round a man, and wild thoughts
or passions in confused outlines. At the time when a man is doing an
injustice he has certain thoughts and feelings; these forms detach
themselves from him and live in his environment, but the essential
point is that they do not remain in this condition but draw
nourishment from certain worlds. Just as the wind rushes into empty
spaces, beings from definite regions (of which more later) rush into
the forms created by the pang of conscience and fill them with living
substance. Thus in his own thought-forms a man offers opportunity for
other beings to live in his environment, and these beings are really
the cause of the sting of conscience. If the beings were not present
the conscience would not sting. When a man begins to feel these
beings unconsciously, the first gnawing of an uneasy conscience is
experienced.
This
example shows us that spiritual sight reveals a reality very
different from that presented to physical sight. If a man is to
contact the spirits of conscience, who live upon the Astral plane, he
must look through his conscience into the higher worlds in the same
way as would be necessary in order to perceive the spiritual beings
who animate physical life.
From
different lectures we know that the human soul has changed in the
course of long periods of time; — human consciousness of today
is different from the consciousness, let us say, of the ancient
Indian people in the first Post Atlantean epoch, and it in its turn
was very different from the consciousness of the Atlantean age. The
clear waking consciousness of the physical world has developed from a
dim, primitive clairvoyance. The farther we go back in evolution, the
more traces do we find of this primitive clairvoyance.
We
need not go further than some thousands of years, and we shall find
that many people were then able not merely to perceive physical,
fire, but to look through it to the spirits of the element of fire.
Gradually it came about that the higher world withdrew from human
consciousness and the latter came to be limited to the physical
world. This holds good not merely for the external sense world, but
for the whole of the life of the soul in the physical world. So it is
stated that in a phenomenon like conscience a modern spiritual seer
perceives astral forms around human beings, and the ancestors of this
modern man, being endowed with clairvoyance, must have been able to
see these astral forms. Just as fire conceals, the spirits of the
fire, so does human conscience — the inner voice —
conceal the world of the spirits of conscience. The astral phenomena
must have been perceptible to men of ancient times; but they could at
that time have had no inner conscience, since it had not yet
developed. What we of today call the psychic phenomenon of conscience
was not present in our forefathers, but on the other hand they could
see in the Astral aura what is now only perceptible to the eye of the
seer; modern men feel the inner voice of conscience and the spirits
of conscience are hidden behind it.
I
have brought forward this example deliberately, because it affords
concrete evidence of these matters. It is possible to indicate
precisely the epoch in external history when the transition took
place from perception of the outer spirits of conscience, to the
awakening of conscience as an inner voice. Compare the Orestes of
Aeschylus with the same theme as treated by Euripides, who lived a
short while later. Between the age of Aeschylus and that of Euripides
— a few years only — occurred the transition which
confirms what I have just said. In the story of Orestes as related by
Aeschylus, Agamemnon returns home after the war and is murdered by
his unfaithful wife. His son, Orestes, who is absent, returns and
takes vengeance upon his mother for the death of his father, because
one of the gods demands that he shall do so; his act is in harmony
with the national feeling of those times that declares that his act
is righteous and that he has done his duty. But as the result of the
murder of his mother, Orestes sees the Erinyes, the avenging
goddesses, approaching. These avenging goddesses of Greek mythology
are simply a pictorial image of what has just been described as a
reality for spiritual perception. And now let us see whether in this
old drama there is any phenomenon which could be described by the
modern word conscience. There is not even a word for it in any
ancient language, as research would testify. In the poem of Euripides
who used the same story a few decades later, we find no Furies, no
avenging goddesses; there men hear instead the inner voice of
conscience. Concretely perceptible, in the interval between the lives
of these two poets, conscience arose. Clairvoyance was so vivid and
real in human evolution before this age, that the feeling experienced
by man, as the result of an unrighteous act, was entirely different
from what it became later. Man's clairvoyant vision was still open;
he saw in his environment what I have described in Greece as the
Erinyes. The inner feeling which he experienced in presence of this
vision was one in accordance with the character of the astral world
he wanted to change, to transform the images surrounding him. As soon
as an unrighteous or unjust deed has been wiped out by turning it
into a good one, the Erinyes change into the beneficent Eumenides.
Man felt that an evil deed brought about a terrible result in the
astral world, that it must be transformed, and that he must by a
positive act bring about the metamorphosis. His actions then were in
accordance with what he saw in his environment. The inner voice of
conscience was non-existent.
Everything
in the world and in the inner life of the soul as well has developed
or evolved, conscience among the rest. If anyone were to go back some
thousands of years in search of an instance of our modern soul life,
he would make a great mistake. For transitions such as this take
place with considerable suddenness. Just as in the plant there is a
sudden metamorphosis from leaf to flower, so does one occur in
spiritual evolution. The phrase ‘nature makes no jumps’
is untrue; Nature continually makes jumps at decisive moments. And
such sudden transitions are perceptible in spiritual life. For
centuries and millennia there is slow and gradual development; but
then there is a sudden change, as in the case of the conscience in
the fifth century BC where an earlier tragic poet makes no mention of
conscience in his dramas and only a few decades afterwards it is
introduced for the first time. With this is connected the fact that
clairvoyant perception of the spirits of conscience, the Erinyes, has
disappeared. The spiritual beings are of such a nature that our inner
experience of conscience comes between us and them in the same way as
the outer expression of fire hides the spirits of the element of
fire.
This
points to the fact that so far as the physical world is concerned,
limits of experience are set in two directions. The external
phenomena of external colour form, and so on, form the boundary line
at which the external spirits are to be found. But behind the inner
phenomena of conscience, memory, feeling, will and thought, a
spiritual element exists as it does behind fire, air, water or earth.
The spirit is hidden behind them. When conscience came to be a voice
speaking in the human soul, it interposed itself in front of the
world of the Furies and hid that from human sight. The historical
life of humanity becomes intelligible only when considered from this
inner point of View. Mankind can understand nothing of what has come
to pass in the world if it leaves spiritual facts out of sight in
considering evolution, or becoming.
We
may now ask, what is the relation of the inner and the outer
spiritual realms to each other? We know that Man as a fourfold being
is composed of Physical, Etheric, Astral bodies and ego, and that
this fourfold constitution is to be traced back to the very source
and origin of humanity. Man did not originate on the Earth, for the
Earth itself has passed through other incarnations, that of Saturn,
of Old Sun and Old Moon. The first germ of the physical body of man
arose on Old Saturn, on Old Sun the Etheric body was added, and on
Old Moon, the Astral body. The ego was first incorporated into this
threefold constitution on Earth. Evolution is by no means such a
simple matter as to involve merely a transition from the Saturn
period into the Sun period, thence to Old Moon and thence again to
Earth; the process is much more complicated than that. Even if we
speak of the transition from Saturn to Old Sun and of this to Old
Moon, we could not speak thus simply of the Old Moon evolution
itself. I have said that during the Old Moon evolution there was a
separation of Earth and Sun (the Earth was then Old Moon) or properly
speaking, of Moon and Sun. Saturn and Sun may perhaps be spoken of as
single bodies, but during the Old Moon period two bodies emerged from
the one; the Old Moon existed at the same time as the Old Sun. These
two bodies united again after a time, passed through an intermediate
condition and arose later as Earth. During the earliest period of
Earth evolution the substances and beings now to be found in the
present Sun and Moon were united with the Earth; the present Sun
beings separated from Earth, which remained in connection with what
later separated off as our Moon; after the separation of Moon, Earth
remained alone, between it and Sun. These three bodies were one in
the beginning; only later did the Sun and the Moon develop out of the
Earth.
Let
us now enquire as to the spiritual meaning of this separation. We
will leave-out of consideration the first separation occurring during
the Old Moon period and look at what happened in this connection
during the Earth period. — Certain beings pass through their
evolution on Earth, and Sun and Moon afford evolutionary
opportunities to others. Beings at a different stage of development
from that of man separated from the Earth with the Sun, because their
evolution could not proceed otherwise. At the time, therefore, of the
separation of Sun from Earth, we are faced with the fact that man was
left behind, since the nature of his evolution demanded the
conditions afforded by Earth. The other beings, whose evolution could
not proceed upon Earth, separated from it the substances necessary
for them, and built their Sun abode. Thence they influence and work
upon the Earth. In the physical sunbeams as they lighten and warm the
Earth, we see streaming the activities of the sun spirits; the
sunbeams are the outer, corporal manifestation of sun beings. That is
the meaning of the separation of Sun from Earth.
What
was the meaning of the separation of Moon? Man could not have kept
pace with the evolutionary tempo of the sun-beings if they had
remained in union with Earth. The evolutionary tempo of Earth was
slackened by the separation of Sun, but still it was not suitable for
human beings — it was too slow. Man would have become hardened
or mummified, if Moon had remained in connection with Earth. Earth
would gradually have become a planetary body from which the men would
have developed with forms like dead bodies that lack inner spiritual
and psychic life. Moon had to withdraw from Earth in order that the
right evolutionary tempo for the being of man might be set up. If Sun
had remained with Earth, man would have been forced into an outer
life and activity which he could not have endured; if Moon had
remained he would have become impervious to stimulus, he would have
dried up, lacking vital force. The stimulus received by man from Sun
was an external one which would have produced too rapid a tempo. In
the same way as Sun stimulates the life of the flowers in the fields,
would man's thoughts, feelings and will have been stimulated
from without, but at such a rate that he would have been burnt up by
physical and spiritual sun fire. The source of this stimulus left
Earth and in this way its influence was weakened. At first, because
of the hardening tendency inherent in Earth, the Sun's influence had
too little effect, and a portion of these hardening factors had to
leave with Moon. Therewith came into the evolution of Earth and of
man a new vitalising principle, the stimulating influence of which
was exactly contrary to that of Sun from without. The new stimulus
came from within. The life of the soul in the physical world could
develop only because man was saved from this hardening and
mummification by the withdrawal of Moon.
Ask
of one whose spiritual sight is able to penetrate into the Cosmos as
to the origin of man's perception of the external world, and
his answer will be that it is to be found in the physical or
spiritual sun elements. Ask what lies at the basis of inner
experience, of thought, of feeling, of conscience, for example, and
it will be found that all this is due to the moon, to those beings
who separated their substance from the earth with the moon. The
presence of moon substances in the earth would have prevented the
inner mobility of soul life.
We
must remember that it was not merely for the sake of man that the
separation of the sun and moon from the earth came to pass, but also
for the sake of those beings whose evolution was at first bound to
that of humanity. In the sun dwell beings who need the sun for their
evolution, just as the evolution of man needs the earth. To remain
with the earth would have been death to their existence; but the
separation resulted in their becoming able by degrees to reach a
stage where their beneficent influences could flow down to the earth
from without. When the seer observes the light, when her perceives
external objects, he realises at a certain stage of his evolution
that it is the sun beings which live behind the physical phenomena of
colour, sound, and so on, but that these beings themselves had to
develop to their present stage. These sun spirits are the upper
spiritual beings contacted through the phenomena of the sense world.
Let
us now ask how the inner stimulus was given to save mankind from
hardening, from ossification. Certain beings were needed which at the
appropriate time, withdrew the moon substances from the earth. These
beings realised that the act of the sun beings was not sufficient,
and that they must protect the earth from ossification by withdrawing
the moon from the earth. They were in a certain respect higher than
the sun spirits. These latter, when the sun was still united with the
earth, felt themselves obliged for the sake of their development to
find another dwelling place, but the other spirits were able to
remain with the Earth even after the sun spirits had gone out. And
this made it possible for them to save human evolution at a certain
point of time by separating the moon from the earth. Thus they were
in a certain respect higher than the sun beings ... they were able to
separate a substance from the earth relatively coarser than that
connected with the sun spirits and by becoming rulers of this coarse
substance to prove their greater power. For those who are able to
transform evil into good are more powerful than those who rule over
the good and make it, possibly, a little better.
Those
are the beings behind the phenomena of the life of the soul, who by
separating the moon from the earth, made thinking, feeling, willing,
and conscience possible. They come from the moon region, a spiritual
kingdom which in a certain respect is higher, more powerful than that
of the sun spirits, which are to be found behind external Maya. Maya
is twofold; there is the external Maya of the sense world, and the
inner Maya of soul life. Behind the first stand those spiritual
beings who have their centre in the Sun; behind the Maya of the inner
life stand the other beings who belong to a more powerful kingdom.
Just here we can see the truth of Greek mythology as portrayed in the
story of Orestes. Orestes is told by the ruling gods that he has
performed a good deed, but the Erinyes approach him, and they are
felt to be older beings than those belonging to the kingdom of Zeus.
Goddesses who take vengeance even though the external goddesses of
the sun kingdom (the kingdom of Zeus) had given their consent to the
act. Man is here confronted by beings of an older spiritual race, who
intervene as a corrective in what he undertakes under the guidance
and leadership of the beings who withdrew from the earth with the
sun. This remarkable example clearly shows how the conceptions of
ancient peoples, expressed in their mythology, confirm what spiritual
investigations of today teach in another way.
At
this point I ask you to bear in mind the fact that at a certain point
of time during the Earth evolution, a spiritual being, Whom we name
the Christ, a being previously united to the Sun, descended from the
Sun, and at the time of the life of Jesus of Nazareth united Himself
to the earth. The Christ being entered into the body of Jesus of
Nazareth. This is an absolutely unique phenomenon and cannot be
thought of in the same connection as other occurrences here
mentioned. It has been said that after the separation of the sun, the
earth would have hardened if the moon had not also been ejected;
human beings would have mummified. This is perfectly true for a very
large part of earth life, but not for the whole of it. In spite of
the withdrawal of sun and moon, something in the earth would have
fallen a prey to death if the Christ event had not come to pass.
Though the withdrawal of the moon made an inner soul life possible,
yet it was the Christ's descent from the sun which gave this inner
life a new stimulus.
When
a spiritual seer looks back to the time preceding the Christ event, a
striking vision comes before him. The external form of the earth,
confronting the physical senses as Maya, vanishes and something
comparable to the human form appears, but only a form, a figure. To
spiritual vision the outer Mayavic earth (and I say the earth
deliberately) changed into the form of man with arms outstretched in
the shape of a cross, a male-female form. This reminds us of the
wonderful words of Plato, words that he drew from the Mysteries, that
the world soul is crucified on the cross of the world's body. This is
exactly the image which presents itself to the eye of the spiritual
seer: the Christ died on the cross, and thereupon the earth, which
had been mere form and figure, became filled with life. The coming of
the Christ principle into the earth had something in common with the
withdrawal of the moon; life poured into what otherwise would have
remained mere form. To understand ancient times aright is to realise
that they all lead up to the Christ event. Just as men of today look
back to the Christ as a being Who at a certain point of time entered
into human evolution, so pre-Christian initiates all pointed to the
coming of the Christ as fore-shown by events. Nothing could have been
a surer herald of the Christ than the mighty phenomenon, visible
under certain conditions to spiritual sight, of the disappearance of
the physical form of the earth and the vision of the world soul
crucified on the world's body. In dim Indian antiquity it was said by
the sages that when their spiritual vision arose, they saw, deep down
under the mountains of the earth, near its central point, a cross,
and upon it a male-female human being, having on its right side the
symbol of the sun and upon its left side the symbol of the moon, and
over the rest of the body the various land and sea formations of the
earth. That was the clairvoyant vision which the sages of ancient
India had of the form waiting until our earth could be brought to
life by the Christ principle. And inasmuch as those ancient sages
pointed to the most important prophecy of the Christ event, they were
justified, when they looked still more deeply into existence, in
saying: the Christ will come because that which points to Him is in
existence. Ancient wisdom at its highest level becomes prophetic; it
looks towards that which will come to pass in the future. What the
future holds is entirely the result of the present and so present
spiritual vision can receive intimations of a spiritual event, which
is to take place in the future. Indications of the Christ event were
not given in any outwardly abstract way, but were revealed to
spiritual sight by the phenomenon of the world soul crucified on the
cross of the world's body, waiting to receive the life of the Christ
when He should unite Himself with the earth. The wisdom of all egos
is a harmonious unity if considered in its fundamentals. Starting
from this point let us look at the wisdom of different epochs in a
light that will reveal it in its true aspect.
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