I
A MAN reflecting on
his own nature soon becomes conscious that there is within him a
second and more powerful self than the one bounded by his thoughts,
his feelings, and the fully-conscious impulses of his will. He
becomes aware that he subjects himself to that second self as a
higher power. It is true that at first he will feel it to be a lower
entity as compared with the one encompassed by his intelligent and
fully-conscious soul with its inclinations towards the Good and True.
And at first he will strive to overcome that lower entity.
But
closer self-examination may reveal something else about this second
self. If in the course of our lives we frequently survey our acts and
experiences in retrospect, we make a singular discovery about
ourselves. And the older we become, the more significant do we regard
that discovery. If we ask ourselves what we did or said at a
particular period of our lives, it turns out that we have done very
many things which we only really understand in later years. Seven or
eight, or perhaps twenty years ago, we did certain things, and we
know quite well that only now, long afterwards, is our intellect ripe
enough to understand what we did or said at that earlier period.
Many
people do not make such discoveries about themselves, because they do
not look for them. But it is extremely profitable frequently to hold
such communion with one's own soul. For directly a man becomes
aware that he has done things in former years which he is only now
beginning to understand, that formerly his intellect was not ripe
enough to understand them, — at that moment, something like
the following feeling arises in the soul: The man feels himself
protected by a good power, which rules in the depths of his own
being; he begins to have more and more confidence in the fact that
really, in the highest sense of the word, he is not alone in the
world, and that everything which he understands, and is consciously
able to do, is after all but a small part of what he has really
accomplished in the world.
If
this observation is often made, it is possible to carry out in
practical life something which is very easy to see theoretically. It
is easy to see that we should not make much progress in life if we
had to accomplish everything we have to do, in full
consciousness, with our intelligence taking note of every
circumstance affecting us. In order to see this theoretically, we
have only to reflect as follows: In what period of his life does a
human being perform those acts which are really most important as
regards his own existence? When does he act most wisely for himself?
He does this from about the time of his birth up to that period to
which his memory goes back when in later life he survey his earthly
existence. If he recalls what he did three, four or five years ago,
and then goes farther and farther back, he comes at last to a certain
point in childhood, beyond which memory cannot go. What lies beyond
it may be told by parents or others, but a man's own
recollection only extends to a certain point in the past. That point
is the moment at which the individual felt himself to be an ego. In
the lives of people whose memory is limited to the normal, there must
always be such a point. But previous to it, the human soul has worked
in the wisest possible manner on the individual, and never
afterwards, when the human being has gained consciousness, can he
accomplish such vast and magnificent work on himself as he does when
impelled by subconscious motives during the first years of childhood.
For
we know that at birth man carries into the physical world what he has
brought with him as the result of his former earthly lives. When he
is born, his physical brain, for instance, is but a very imperfect
instrument. The soul has to work a finer organization into that
instrument, in order to make it the agent of everything that the soul
is capable of performing. In point of fact, the human soul, before it
is fully conscious, works upon the brain so as to make it an
instrument for exercising all the abilities, aptitudes and qualities,
which appertain to the soul as the result of its former earthly lives.
This work on a man's own body is directed from points of view which are
wiser than anything he can subsequently do for himself when in possession
of full consciousness.
Moreover,
man during this period not only elaborates his brain plastically,
but has to learn three most important things for his earthly
existence. The first is the equilibrium of his own in space. The man
of the present day entirely overlooks the meaning of this statement
which touches upon one of the most essential differences between man
and animals. An animal is destined from the outset to develop its
equilibrium in space in a certain way; one animal is destined to be a
climber, another, a swimmer. An animal is organized from the
beginning in such a way as to be able to bear itself rightly in
space, and this is the case with all animals up to and including the
mammals most resembling man. If zoologists would ponder this fact,
they would lay less emphasis on the number of bones and. muscles
similar in men and animals, for this is of much less account than the
fact that the human being is not endowed at birth with the complete
equipment for his conditions of equilibrium. He has first to form
them out of the sum total of his being. It is significant that man
should have to work upon himself in order to make out of a being
unable to walk at all, one that can walk erect. It is man himself who
gives himself his vertical position, his equilibrium in space. He
brings himself into relation with the force of gravitation. It will
obviously be easy for anyone taking a superficial view of the matter
to question this statement, with apparently good reason. It may be
said that the human being is just as much organized for his erect
walk as, for instance, a climbing animal is for climbing. But more
accurate observation will show that it is the peculiarity of the
animal's organization that causes its position in space. In man
it is the soul which brings itself into relation with space and
controls the organization.
The
second thing which the human being teaches himself is speech. This is
by means of the entity which proceeds from one incarnation to another
as the same being. Through speech he comes into relation with his
fellowmen. This relation makes him the vehicle of that spiritual life
which interpenetrates the physical world primarily through man.
Emphasis has often been laid, with good reason, on the fact that a
human being removed, before he could speak, to a desert island, and
kept apart from his fellows, would not learn to talk. On the other
hand, what we receive by inheritance, what is implanted in us for use
in later years and is subject to the principles of heredity,
does not depend on a man's dwelling with his fellows. For
instance, his inherited conditions oblige him to change his teeth in
the seventh year. If it were possible for him to grow up on a desert
island, he would still change his teeth. But he only learns to talk
when his soul's inner being, which is carried on from one life
to another, is stimulated. The germ, however, for the development of
the larynx must be formed during the period in which the human being
has not yet acquired his ego-consciousness. Before the time to which
his memory goes back, he must plant the germ for developing his
larynx, in order that this may become the organ of speech.
And
then there is a third thing, the life within the world of thought. It
is not so well known that the human being acquires this of himself,
from that part of his inner nature which be carries on from one
incarnation to another. The elaboration of the brain is undertaken
because the brain is the instrument of thought. At the beginning of
life, this organ is still plastic, because the individual has to form
it for himself as an instrument of thought, in accordance with the
intention of the entity which proceeds from one incarnation to
another. The brain immediately after birth is, as it was bound to be,
in consonance with the forces inherited from parents and other
ancestors. But the individual has to express in his thought what he
is as an individual being in conformity with his former earthly
lives. Therefore he must re-model the inherited peculiarities of his
brain, after birth, when he has become physically independent of his
parents and other ancestors.
We
thus see that man accomplishes momentous things during the first
years of his life. He is working on himself in the spirit of the
highest wisdom. In point of fact, if it were a question of his own
cleverness, he would not be able to accomplish what he must
accomplish without that cleverness during the first period of his
life. Why is all this accomplished in those depths of the soul which
lie outside consciousness? This happens because the human soul and
entire being are, during the first years of earthly life, in much
closer connection with the spiritual worlds of the higher hierarchies
than they are later. A clairvoyant who has gone through sufficient
spiritual development to be able to witness actual spiritual events,
sees something exceedingly significant at the moment when the ego
acquires consciousness, i.e., at the earliest point to which
the memory of later years goes back. Whereas what we call the child's
aura hovers around it during its earliest years like a wonderful
human and superhuman power and, being really the higher part of the
child, is continued on into the spiritual world, at the moment to
which memory goes back, this aura sinks more into the inner being of
the child. A human being is able to feel himself a continuous ego as
far back as that point of time, because that which was previously in
close connection with the higher worlds, then passed into his ego.
Henceforward the consciousness is at every point brought into
connection with the external world. This is not the case with a very
young child, to whom things appear only as a surrounding world -of
dreams.
Man
works on himself by means of a wisdom which is not within him. That
wisdom is mightier and more comprehensive than any conscious wisdom
of later years. The higher wisdom becomes obscured in the human soul
which, in exchange, receives consciousness.
The
higher wisdom works out of the spiritual world deep into the bodily
part of man, so that man is able by its means to form his brain out
of spirit. It is rightly said that even the wisest may learn from a
child, for in the child is working the wisdom which does not pass
later into consciousness. Through that wisdom man has something like
telephonic connection with the spiritual beings in whose world he
lives between death and rebirth. From that world there is something
still streaming into the aura of the child, which is, as an
individual being, immediately under the guidance of the entire
spiritual world to which it belongs. Spiritual forces from that
world continue to flow into the child. They cease so to flow at the
point of time to which memory goes back. It is these forces which
enable the child to bring itself into a definite relation to
gravitation. They form the larynx, and so mold the brain that it
becomes a living instrument for the expression of thought, feeling,
and will.
What
is present in childhood to a supreme degree, so that the individual
is then working out of a self which is still in direct connection
with higher worlds, continues to some extent even in later years,
although the conditions change in the manner indicated above. If at a
later stage of life we feel that we did something years before which
we are only now able to understand, it is just because we previously
let ourselves be guided by higher wisdom, and only after the lapse of
years have we attained to an understanding of the reasons for our
conduct.
From
all this we can feel that, immediately after birth, we had not
escaped so very far from the world in which we were before entering
upon physical existence, and that we can never really escape from it
wholly. Our share in higher spirituality enters our physical life and
accompanies us throughout. We often feel that what is within us is
not only a higher self which is gradually being evolved, but is
something higher which is there already, and is the motive cause of
our so often developing beyond ourselves.
All
ideals and artistic creations which man is able to produce, as
well as all the natural healing forces in his own body, by means of
which he is continually able to adjust the injuries that befall him
in life — all these powers do not proceed from ordinary
intellect, but from those deeper forces which in our earliest years
are at work on our equilibrium in space, on the formation of our
larynx, and on the brain. For these same forces are still at
work in man in later years. When sickness attacks us, it is often
said that external forces cannot help us, but that our organism must
develop the healing powers latent within it; by this is meant that
there is a profoundly wise activity present in us. Moreover, it is
from this same source that proceed the best forces whereby knowledge
of the spiritual world, true clairvoyance; is attained.
The
question now suggests itself: why do the higher forces which have
been described work upon human nature only during early childhood?
One-half of the answer may be easily given as follows: If those
higher forces went on working in the same way, man would be always a
child. He would not attain the full ego-consciousness. From within
his own being must proceed the motive power which previously worked
on him from without. But there is a more important reason which
explains still more clearly the mysteries of human life, and that is
the following:
It
is possible to learn through occult science, that the human body, as
it exists at its present stage of evolution, must be regarded as
having arrived at its present form under different conditions. It is
known to the occultist that this evolution was effected by means of
the working of various forces on the sum-total of man's being;
certain forces worked on the physical body, others on the etheric,
others on the astral body. Human nature has arrived at its present
form through the action of those beings whom we call the Luciferic
and Ahrimanic. By their means it has, in a certain way, become more
imperfect than it need have been if only those forces had been active
within it which proceed from the spiritual rulers of the cosmos who
desire to evolve man along straight lines. The causes of sorrow,
disease, and even of death are to be sought in the fact that, besides
the beings who are evolving man in a straight line forwards, there
are also the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits, who are continually
crossing the line of straightforward progressive development.
Man
brings with him at birth something which he cannot improve upon later
in life. This is so, because the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces have
little influence over man during early childhood; they are virtually
operative only in what man makes out of himself by his conscious
life. If he were to retain in full force beyond early childhood that
more perfect part of his being, he would be unable to endure its
influence, because his whole being is weakened by the opposing forces
of Lucifer and Ahriman. Man's organism in the physical world is
so constituted that it is only as a soft and pliable child that he
can endure within him those direct forces of the spiritual world. He
would be shattered, if during his later life there were still
directly working in him those forces which underlie the faculty of
equilibrium in space, and the formation of the larynx and the brain.
Those forces are so tremendous that, if they were to continue
working, our organism would pine away under the influence of their
holiness. Man must only have recourse to such forces for the purpose
of developing the power to make conscious connection with the
supersensible world.
But
out of this there arises a thought which is of great significance, if
rightly understood. It is expressed in the New Testament in the
words, ‘Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ What then becomes manifest as
man's highest ideal, if what has just been said be rightly
received? Surely this — the drawing ever nearer and nearer to
what we may call a conscious relation to the forces which work in man
unknown to him during early childhood, 0niy it must be borne in mind
that man would collapse under the power of those forces, if they were
at once to operate in his conscious life. For this reason, careful
preparation is necessary for the attainment of those faculties which
induce the perception of supersensible worlds. The object of such
preparation is to qualify man to bear what he is unable to bear in
ordinary life.
* * *
The
passing of the individual through successive incarnations is of
importance for the collective evolution of the human race. The latter
has advanced through successive lives in the past, and is still
advancing, and parallel with it the earth too is moving forwards in
its evolution. The time will come when the earth will have reached
the end of its career. Then the earthly planet will fall away as a
physical entity from the sum-total of human souls, just as the human
body falls away from the spirit at death, when, in order to continue
living, the soul enters the spiritual realm which is adapted to it
between death and re-birth. When once this is realized, it must
appear as man's highest ideal to have progressed far enough at
earthly death, to be able to reap all possible benefits which may be
obtained from earthly life.
Now
those forces which prevent man from being able to endure the powers
working upon him during early childhood come out of the substance of
the earth. When these have fallen away from a human being, the
latter, if he has attained the aim of his life, must have advanced
far enough to be able actually to give himself up, with his whole
being, to the powers which at present are only active in man during
childhood. Thus the object of evolution through successive earthly
lives is gradually to make the whole individual, including therefore
the conscious part, into an expression of the powers which are ruling
in him under the influence of the spiritual world — though he
does not know it — during the first years of his life. The
thought which takes possession of the soul after such reflections as
these, must fill it with humility, but also with a due consciousness
of the dignity of man. The thought is this man is not alone; there is
something living within him which is constantly affording him proof
that he can rise above himself to something which is already growing
beyond him, and which will go on growing from one life to another.
This thought can assume more and more definite form; and in that case
it affords something supremely soothing and elevating, at the same
time filling the soul with corresponding humility and modesty. What
is it that man has within him in this way? Surely a higher, divine
human being, by whom he is able to feel himself interpenetrated,
saying to himself, ‘He is my guide within me.’
From
such a point of view, it is not long before we arrive at the thought
that by all the means in our power we should strive to be in harmony
with that within our being which is wiser than conscious
intelligence. And we shall be referred on from the directly conscious
self to an enlarged self, in the presence of whom all false pride and
presumption will be extinguished and subdued. This feeling develops
into another which opens the way to accurate understanding of the
nature of present human imperfection; and the consciousness of this
leads to the knowledge that man may become perfect, if once the
larger spirituality ruling within him is allowed to bear the same
relation to his consciousness which it bore to the unconscious life
of the soul in early childhood.
If
it often happens that memory does not extend as far back as the
fourth year of a child's life, it may nevertheless be said that
the influence of the higher spirit-sphere, in the above sense, lasts
through the first three years. At the end of that span of time a
child becomes capable of linking its impressions of the outer world
to the ideas of its ego. It is true that this coherent ego-
conception can only be reckoned as existing as far back as memory
extends. Yet we must say that virtually memory extends to
the beginning of the fourth year, only it is too weak at the
beginning of distinct ego-consciousness to be perceptible. It may be
granted that those higher powers which dispose of a human being in
the early years of childhood can be operative for three years;
therefore man, during the present middle period of the earth, is so
organized that he can receive these forces for only three
years.
Supposing
a man now stood before us, and that some cosmic powers could cause
his ordinary ego to be removed. For this purpose we must assume that
it would be possible to remove from the physical, etheric, and astral
bodies the ordinary ego which has passed through successive
incarnations with the human being. And now suppose that into the
three bodies could be introduced an ego which works in connection
with spiritual worlds, what would happen to a person thus treated? At
the end of three years his body would necessarily be shattered,
Something would occur, through cosmic karma, which would prevent the
spirit-being which would be in connection with higher worlds, from
living more than three years in that body.
[The vitality of the human organism is maintained
at the transition from childhood to later life, because the
organism is capable of change at that period. Later in life, it is
no longer susceptible of change, and on this account cannot continue
to exist with that other Self.]
Only at the end of all his earthly lives will man have that within
him which will enable him to live more than three years with that
spirit-being. But then, it is true, man will be able to say to
himself, ‘Not I, but that Higher One within me, who was always
there, is now working in me.’ Till that time comes, he is not
able to say this. The most he can say is that he feels that higher
being, but has not yet progressed far enough with his real, actual
human ego, to be able to bring that higher being to full life within
him.
Supposing
then that, at some time in the middle earth-period, a human organism
were to come into the world, and later in life be freed from his ego
by the action of certain cosmic powers, receiving in exchange the ego
which usually only works in man during the first three years of life,
and which would be in connection with the spiritual worlds in which
man exists between death and rebirth: how long would such a person be
able to live in an earthly body? About three years. For at the end of
that time, something would arise through cosmic karma, which would
destroy that human organism.
What
is here supposed is, indeed, a historical fact. The human organism
which stood in the river Jordan at John's baptism when the ego
of Jesus of Nazareth left the three bodies, contained, after the
baptism, in complete conscious development, that higher Self of
humanity which usually works with cosmic wisdom on a child without
its knowledge. At the same time, the necessity arose that this Self
which was in connection with the higher spirit-world could only live
for three years in the appropriate human organism. Events had then to
take place which brought the earthly life of that being to a close,
The outer events in the life of Christ Jesus are to be interpreted as
absolutely conditioned by the inner causes just set forth, and
present themselves as the outward expression of those causes.
We
are now able to see the deeper connection existing between that which
is man's guide in life, which streams in upon his childhood
like the dawn and is always working below the surface of
consciousness as the best part of him, and that which once upon a
time entered the whole of human evolution and was able to dwell for
three years in a human frame.
What
then is manifested in that ‘higher’ ego, which is
connected with the spiritual hierarchies, and which in due time
entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth, this entrance being
symbolically represented by the sign of the Spirit descending in the
form of a dove, and by the words; ‘this is my well-beloved Son,
to-day have I begotten him’ (for so stood the words
originally)? If we fix our eyes upon this picture, we are
contemplating the highest human ideal. For it means that the history
of Jesus of Nazareth is a statement of this fact; the Christ can be
discerned in every human being. And even if there were no Gospels and
no tradition to tell us that once a Christ lived on earth, we should
yet learn through knowledge of human nature that the Christ is living
in man.
The
recognition of the forces working in human nature during childhood is
the recognition of the Christ in man. The question now arises, does
this recognition lead to the further perception of the fact that this
Christ once really dwelt on earth in a human body? Without bringing
forward any documents, this question may be answered in the
affirmative. For genuine clairvoyant knowledge of self leads the man
of the present day to see that powers are to be discovered in the
human soul which emanate from the Christ. These powers are at work
during the first three years of childhood without any action being
taken by the human being. In later life they may be called
into action, if the Christ be sought within the
soul by inner meditation. Man was not always able, as he is now, to
find the Christ within himself. There were times when no inner
meditation could lead him to the Christ. This again we learn from
clairvoyant perception. In the interval between that past time when
man could not find the Christ in himself, and the present time when
he can find him, there took place Christ's earthly life. And
that life itself is the source of man's power to find
the Christ in himself in the manner that has been pointed out. Thus
to clairvoyant perception the earthly life of Christ is proved
without any historical records.
It
is just as if the Christ had said; ‘I will be such an ideal for
you human beings that, when it is raised to a spiritual level, you
will be shown that which is fulfilled in each human body.’ In
his early childhood man learns from the spirit how to walk; he is
shown by the spirit his way through earthly life. From the spirit he
learns to speak, to form truth; in other words, be develops
the essence of truth out of sound during the first three years of his
life. And the life too, which man lives on earth as an
ego-being, obtains its vital organ through what is formed in the
first three years of childhood. Thus man learns to walk, to find ‘the
way’; he learns to present ‘truth’ through his
physical organism; and he learns to bring ‘life’ from the
spirit into expression in his body. No more significant
interpretation seems possible of the words ‘Except ye become as
little children ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.’
And momentous is that saying in which the ego-being of the Christ
comes into expression thus, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life.’ Just as, unknown to a child, the higher spirit-forces
are fashioning its organism to become the bodily expression of the
way, the truth, and the life, so the spirit of man, through being
interpenetrated with the Christ, gradually becomes the conscious
vehicle of the way, the truth, and the life. He is thereby
making himself, in the course of his earthly development, into that
force which bears sway within him as a child, when he is not
consciously its vehicle.
This
saying about the way, the truth, and the life, is capable of opening
the doors of eternity. It sounds to man out of the depths of his
soul, if his self-knowledge is true and real.
Such
reflections as these open up, in a double sense, the vision of the
spiritual guidance of the individual and of collective humanity. As
human beings we are able, through self-knowledge, to find the Christ
within us as the guide Whom, since His life on earth, we can always
reach, because He is always in man. Furthermore, if we apply to the
historical records what we have apprehended without them, we discover
their real nature. They express something which is revealed of itself
in the depths of the soul. They are therefore to be accounted as
guiding humanity in the same direction as the soul itself is
proceeding.
If
we thus understand the suggestion of eternity in the words, ‘I
am the way, the truth, and the life,’ we cannot feel ourselves
justified in asking, ‘Why does a person who has passed through
many incarnations always re-enter life as a child?’ For it
becomes evident that this apparent imperfection is an ever-recurring
reminder of the Highest that is in man. And we cannot be reminded
often enough — at any rate each time we enter earthly life is
not too often to remind us — of the vast importance of man's
connection with that Being Who underlies all earthly existence,
untouched by its imperfections.
It
is not well to make many definitions or summaries in spiritual
science or theosophy, or indeed in occultism generally. It is better
to give a description, and to try and call forth a feeling of what
really exists. On this account we have attempted to induce a feeling
of what distinguishes the first three years of human life, and of the
way in which this is related to the light that streams from the cross
on Golgotha. The meaning of this feeling is that an impulse is
passing through human evolution, and that through this impulse the
Pauline saying, ‘Not I — but the Christ in me,’
will become a fact. We have only to know what man is in reality, in
order to be able to proceed from such knowledge to insight into the
nature of the Christ. When once, however, we have arrived at the
Christ-idea, through true observation of humanity, we know that we
discover the Christ in the best way if we first look for Him in
ourselves; and if we then return to the Bible records we value them
rightly for the first time. And no one prizes the Bible more, or more
consciously, than one who has found the Christ in this way. It is
possible to imagine a being, let us say, an inhabitant of Mars,
descending to earth, without ever having heard of the Christ and His
work. Much that has taken place on earth would be incomprehensible to
the Martian; much that interests people nowadays would not interest
him. But it would interest him to discover the central impulse of
earthly evolution, the Christ-idea as it is expressed in human nature
itself.
Having
grasped this, a man is able for the first time rightly to understand
the Bible, for he finds expressed there in a marvelous way what he
has previously observed in himself, and he says: It is unnecessary to
have been brought up with any special reverence for the Gospels; by
means of what I have learned through spiritual science, they need
only be presented to me, a fully-conscious human being, to stand
revealed before me in all their greatness.
Indeed,
if it is not too much to say that in the course of time people
who have learned through spiritual science rightly to appreciate the
contents of the Gospels, will value them as guides of the human race
more justly than hitherto. It is only through knowledge of human
nature itself that humanity will learn to see what is latent in those
profound records. It will then be said: If there is to be found in
the Gospels that which forms an integral part of human nature, it
must have come from the people who wrote these documents on earth,
Therefore what genuine reflection brings home to us about our own
lives — the more so the older we grow — must hold
especially good with regard to those writers. We ourselves have done
many things which we only understand years afterwards, and in the
writers of the Gospels may be seen people who wrote out of the higher
self which works in man during childhood, so that the Gospels are
writings emanating from the wisdom which molds human nature. Man is a
manifestation of spirit through his body, and the Gospels are such a
manifestation in writing.
On
this assumption the idea of inspiration regains its true and loftier
meaning. Just as higher forces are at work on the brain during the
first three years of childhood, so there were higher forces from
spiritual worlds impressed on the souls of the Evangelists, under the
influence of which they wrote the Gospels. The spiritual guidance of
humanity is expressed in such a fact as this. For the human race must
surely be guided, if within it people are writing records
under the influence of those same powers that are at work on the
molding of man in profound wisdom. And just as the individual says or
does things which he only understands at a later period of life, so
collective humanity has produced in the Evangelists means of
revelation which can only be understood by degrees. The farther
humanity progresses, the greater will be the understanding of these
records. The human being can feel spiritual guidance within himself;
and collective humanity can feel it in those of its members who work
as did the writers of the Gospels.
The
idea thus gained of the guidance of humanity may be extended in many
directions. Let us suppose that a man finds disciples — a few
people who follow him. Such a one will soon become aware, through
genuine self-knowledge, that the very fact of his finding disciples
gives him the feeling that what he has to say does not originate with
himself. The case is rather this — that spiritual powers in
higher worlds wish to communicate with the disciples, and find in the
teacher the fitting instrument for their manifestation.
The
thought will suggest itself to such a man: when I was a child I
worked on myself by the aid of forces proceeding from the spiritual
world, and what I am now able to give, of my best, must also proceed
from higher worlds; I may not look upon it as belonging to my
ordinary consciousness. Such a man may in fact say: something
demonic, something like a ‘daimon’ — using the word
in the sense of a good spiritual power — is working out
of a spiritual world through me on my disciples.
Socrates
felt something of this kind. Plato tells us that he spoke of his
‘daimon’ as of the one who led and guided him. Many
attempts have been made to explain this ‘daimon’ of
Socrates, but it can only be explained by supposing that Socrates was
able to feel something like that which results from the above
reflections. Then we are able to understand that throughout the three
or four centuries during which the Socratic principle was
active in Greece, a state of feeling permeated the Greek world, which
prepared the way for another great event. The feeling that man, as he
now is, is not the whole of what comes through from higher worlds —
this feeling went on working. The best of those in whom it was
present were those who afterwards best understood the words, ‘Not
I, but the Christ in me.’ For they could say to
themselves: Socrates used to speak of a being working as a ‘daimon’
from higher worlds; the Christ-ideal makes clear what Socrates meant.
Socrates could not as yet speak of Christ, because in his time no one
was able to find the Christ-nature within himself.
Here
again we feel something of the spiritual guidance of man, for nothing
can be established in the world without preparation. Why was it that
Paul found his best disciples in Greece? Because the ground had been
prepared there by the teaching of Socrates and the state of feeling
that has been described. That is to say, what happens in human
evolution may be traced back to events which operated previously, and
made people ripe for what was afterwards to be brought to bear upon
them. Do we not feel here how far the guiding impulse passing through
human evolution extends and how at the right moment it places people
where they will best be used to further that evolution? In such facts
is manifested the guidance of mankind.
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