Life and Death
October 27, 1910 Berlin
If we take
note of many an observation which is made on the relation of
man to Life and Death to-day, we may be reminded of a
sentence which Shakespeare gives to the gloomy Hamlet:
“Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay,
Might stop a bold to keep the wind away;
O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!”
Such an utterance might be made by many an
one who is subject to the suggestive effect of the many
conceptions of the times which are acquired in the field of
natural science, and who, might feel himself moved to follow
up all the movements after death of the separate substances
which compose the human body. He might feel himself justified
in asking first of all: “What becomes of the oxygen,
nitrogen, carbon, etc., which build up the human body after
the death of man?” Quite apart from the fact that there
are many people to-day who are influenced by the suggestive
phrase: “the indestructibility of Matter,” there
are, again, others who entirely lose the ability of imagining
anything in the whole vast unending space other than matter
and its operations.
We can see
from many an observation on the nature of death, or one which
establishes the idea of an antithesis between life and death,
how much depends, in expositions of this kind, on
establishing conceptions and ideas in the most exact manner
possible. It happens again and again that no account is taken
of the fact that “death” and “life”
form an antithesis which depends on the nature of that to
which it refers, and that, one who makes a closer observation
dare not speak in the same way of the death of a plant or an
animal as of a man. To what extent this is the case shall be
explained in this lecture. How little we understand the
expressions used in this sphere may be shown by the fact that
in the physiology of the great naturalist, Huxley, for
instance, the following is to be found. It is there said,
that we must distinguish between the local death and the
death of the tissue in an organism, and it is expressly
stated that the life of man depends on the brain, lungs and
heart, but that this is a threefold condition which we could
really reduce into a twofold one; that, in fact, if we could
maintain the breathing by artificial means, we might quite
well remove the brain of a man and he would continue to live.
That means that life would continue, even if the brain were
taken away. That is to say, that when a man is no longer able
to form a conception of what is around him or of what is
taking place within him, and if life could be maintained
merely as a life-process in the organism through artificial
breathing, the organism would still continue to live in the
sense of this definition of natural science, and we could not
really speak of death, although no brain were there at all.
That is an idea which ought to make clear to anyone who
— though he might not care for a life without a brain,
at least find such a definition plausible — that this
explanation just shows that the definition of life given by
natural science is not at all applicable to man in this form.
For no one would be able to call the life of an organism
— even a human one — the life of man himself,
even if other respects the facts hinted at were quite correct.
Now to-day we
are, perhaps, somewhat further advanced even in the field of
natural science than ten years ago, when one was almost
embarrassed in speaking of life at all, and when all life was
traced back to the life of the smallest living creatures.
This life in the smallest organisms was looked upon as a
complicated chemical process. According to this view, if this
definition were extended to a conception of the universe, one
could only speak of the smallest parts of life as living on,
so that only a conservation of matter could then be spoken
of. Now, to-day, on account of the investigations on radium,
for instance, the idea of the indestructibility of matter has
become a more uncertain one.
I will now
only draw your attention to the fact that natural science
to-day is already attempting to speak of a sort of
independence, at least of the smallest living creatures. It
states that the smallest living creatures propagate
themselves by fission; one divides itself into two, two into
four, and so on. There we could not admit of a death, for the
first lives on in the second and when these die they both
live on in the next ones.
Now those who
wished to speak of the immortality of unicellular beings have
sought for a definition of death, and just this definition of
the nature of death is extremely characteristic. They have
found the main characteristic of death is that it leaves a
corpse behind, and as unicellular beings leave no corpse
behind, they, therefore, cannot really die. Thus the
characteristic of that which has to do with the deepest
foundations of life is sought in what life leaves behind. Now
it will be clear without further explanation, that what
remains behind of life passes over gradually into lifeless
matter. So lifeless matter now becomes in death the outer
organism of the smallest, most complicated living creature.
Yet if we wish to take into account the significance which
death has for life, we must not look at what is left, at what
becomes lifeless matter; but must seek the cause, the
principles of life, in life itself, while it is there.
I said that
one cannot speak in the same sense of death in plants, as in
animals and man, because an important phenomenon is not taken
into consideration there. It is also found in certain of the
lower animals, for example, in the ephemera; and consists in
the fact that most plants and lower animals have the
peculiarity that as soon as the process of fructification is
established and the possibility of a new living being is
created, the dying off of the old one then begins. In the
plant the backward process, the process of dying off, begins
the moment it has taken into itself the possibility of
forming a new plant. One can therefore say quite certainly of
those plants in which this can be observed, that the cause
which has taken away life from them lies in the new living
being or beings, which have left no life behind in the old being.
Through
simple reflections one could convince oneself that this is
so. There are certain plants which endure, which blossom
again and again and bear fruit; and on which ever new
plant-forms, like parasites, are, as it were, planted on to
the old stem. But there you can convince yourself that they
purchase the possibility of recreating themselves by
thrusting certain parts of themselves into the realm of the
lifeless, into death, — that is to say, they surround
themselves with bark. We are quite justified in saying of a
plant which can surround itself with bark, which can bear
lifeless matter and yet continue to live, that it has a
surplus of life; and because of this superfluity which it
will not give up — only giving up what is necessary for
the young organism — it must make itself secure by
thrusting death outside. Thus it can also he said that every
living being which possesses the possibility within itself
beyond the bringing forth of a new creation, is confronted
with the necessity of continually mastering life within
itself, since it takes up inorganic lifeless matter. This can
be adequately observed both in the animal and in man.
There we have
a separation between life and death in the being itself. We
have an exchange between a living member which develops in
one direction, and a continual sinking-into itself of another
member which is developing in the direction of death. If we
now wish to draw near to the inmost being of man from this
point of view, we must certainly bear in mind something of
what has often been said before, but which is never
superfluous, because it does not as yet belong to the
ordinary recognised truth.
If we rest on
quite ordinary conceptions — as we will to-day in the
first half of the lecture — and then proceed to the
question of life and death from the point of view of
Spiritual Science, we must remember that what is taken into
account here is certainly very little recognised to-day, for
it has to do with a truth which is just as new to the man of
to-day as another truth, which now belongs to the
trivialities, was new, and even unknown, to the world of
three centuries ago. I have often, pointed out that it is
taken for granted to-day by the natural scientist, or by one
who builds up his observations on natural-scientific
conceptions, that it is an acknowledged fact that
“everything living is born from the living.” (Of
course, I am speaking here with the limitation which this
sentence bears in the world of natural science. We need not
embark on the question of primeval generation for instance,
for it can be noticed right away that the analogous sentence
which is mentioned there is also made use of in the world of
Spiritual Science). Not long ago the great natural scientist,
Francesco Redi, had to fight for this sentence,
“Everything living is born from the living,” with
all his energy. For before the appearance of this Naturalist
of the 17th century, it. was considered quite possible, not
only in lay circles. but even in scientific ones, for new
organisms to generate from putrefying river-mud or from
decaying organic matter. This was believed of worms and
fishes. The idea, that the living can only develop from the
living is not yet old, for only a few centuries ago Francesco
Redi called forth such a storm of passion that he only just
escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. When we consider how the
“fashions of the time” alter, we can judge of the
fate of this truth that we must again proclaim here. For this
truth, “Life can only originate from life”,
called forth at that time a storm of anger. Those who feel
themselves impelled to draw from the well of knowledge
similar truths in other spheres, are no longer delivered to
the flames of the funeral pile to-day. That is no longer the
fashion. But they are made fun of; a man who communicates
such things is turned into ridicule; those who are impelled
to proclaim such things as relate to Spiritual, development,
are condemned to suffer a Spiritual death. But the fate of the
above-mentioned truth also consists in its having become a
self-evident fact, a, triviality, for him who is capable of judging.
That error,
then, was the cause of this truth, “Life can only
originate from life”, not being recognised? A quite
simple error in observation! The scientists looked at that
which was immediately before than, but did not try to
penetrate to the fact that the origin of a living creature
lies in a seed left behind by another living creature; so
that a new living organism of a certain kind can only
originate because a former living organism leaves behind it a
seed of a similar kind. That is to say, they looked at the
environment of the developing organism, but should really
have looked at that which was left behind by another living
organism which was developing within this environment. This
was done all through the centuries, up to the time of
Francesco Redi. Quite interesting details might be gathered
from books which had just as much weight in the 7th and 8th
centuries as the authoritative writings of the most modern
natural scientist of to-day, and in which was noted and
classified quite exactly how, for instance, hornets develop
from the decaying carcase of an ox; wasps from a donkey's
carcase, etc. That was all nicely set out. Exactly in the
same way in which mistakes were made in those times, mistakes
are being made to-day in regard to the soul and spirit of
man. How is this?
A human being
enters into existence and his individual development, begun
at birth, is observed. on into later life. It is seen how the
form, the different capacities and talents develop. (We will
speak more exactly of this development in a later lecture).
But if the scientists wish to know the nature of the human
form, the nature of that with which we are dealing, they ask
the question: “What are the hereditary relationships?
From what sort of environment was the man born?” That
is just the same method as when they look at the mud
surrounding the worm which is coming forth from it, and not
upon the egg. In what is formed as disposition, as different
capacities in man, an exact distinction must. be made between
what is characteristic, what is brought over from parents and
grandparents and so on, and a certain kernel which he who
observers truly will not fail to recognise. Only he who
approaches the spirit and soul-element as did the naturalists
before Francesco Redi will be able to deny that there is a
kernel in man which presents itself clearly and which cannot
be referred back to what is inherited from parents and
grandparents, etc. In what is developing in a man we therefore
have to distinguish that which comes from the environment from
that which can never be produced from that environment.
As regards
the exterior of a living plant or animal, we shall always
find that the new being coming forth is in reality concerned
with developing according to the species of its predecessors.
Take the highest animals. How far do they carry that out? As
far as is in accordance with the species, and for this they
are planned. Certainly many will say: “Has, then, a
horse, a dog or a cat no individuality?” And they will
suppose that one might just as well describe the
individuality of a cat, a horse and so on — perhaps
even write their biography — as we could that of a
human being. If anyone likes to do this, let him do so, but
we should not take it as real, but only as symbolical, as
when, for example, a school task is set for pupils, such as
was set for myself and my school-fellows, for which we had to
write the biography of our pens! One could, then, even speak
of the biography of a pen: But where truth is concerned it is
not a question of attending to analogies and comparisons, but
of laying hold of the essentials. What is individual in man
is not that which makes him one of the species, but that
which makes of him the quite distinct individual that every
man is. Every man is working towards the formation of what is
individual in him, just as the plant works towards the
formation of the species. Every development, every advance in
education or in historical evolution, rests on the fact that
man goes a stage further than the mere species, in the
development of the individuality.
If there were
in each man no individual spirit and soul kernel which
develops in a Spiritual way, as the animal develops in his
species, there would be no history. One could then only speak
of an evolution of the human race, but not of a history or of
a cultural development. Therefore, natural science speaks of
the development of the species, of a kind of evolution in the
horse, but not of a history.
In the
development of every man we have to see a spirit and soul
kernel which has the same significance as the species for an
animal. The species in the animal kingdom corresponds to the
individual in man. Now in the animal kingdom every creature
which tends towards what is according to species, repeats the
species of his ancestors and can only originate on the basis
of the physical nature of the seed of his ancestors; so the
individual part of each separate man cannot originate from
anything which is here in the physical world, but solely from
something which is of a Spiritual nature. That is to say that
a Spiritual kernel, which enters into being at the birth of
man, does not merely refer back to the species
“man”, in so far as man goes back to a Spiritual
ancestor, to a being who has progressed, who does not belong
individually to the species “man”, not, indeed,
to any “species”, but to this same human
individuality. If then, a man be born, there is born with him
an individual kernel which is not attached to anything else
than to this individual human substance. As the animal seeks
his species so does man seek his own individual human being.
That is to say that this individual kernel when it appears at
birth has been here before, just as the germ of the species
was there for the animal. We must look in the past for the
spirit and soul-substance, which is the Spiritual — not
physical — kernel of this individuality which is
developing Spiritually. Only a man who cannot see that the
soul and spirit do not develop from within the general human
organism, will deny that the conclusions just drawn are correct.
Every
individual human life thus carries within itself the proof
that it already existed before. We are, therefore, led back
from an individual human life to an individual Spiritual seed
and from this again to another Spiritual seed; that is, we
are led from our own individual life back to a former
individual life — and then, of course, to our next
life. An unbiased observation of human life proves this to be
just as much a necessity as the truth proclaimed in the
sphere of natural science. Suppose anyone with an
unprejudiced mind were to say: “Nothing can be known
about that”, then if he draws this conclusion again and
again he might end by saying: “I cannot do otherwise
than accept this conclusion; if I do not I am sinning against
all observation and logic.” In spite of this, however,
this truth about the repeated earth-lives is still but little
recognised; but this truth that the Spiritual can only
originate from the Spiritual, will certainly make its mark in
human cultural life and will be more quickly accepted than
the other truth which has been
characterised. The time will come when men will realise that
beliefs have changed in this respect, just as we do not now
believe that lower animals, fish, etc., could originate from
river-mud.
If we follow,
in the further course of its life, this individual kernel of
the human being which one can see, as it were, come into
being at birth, it appears to a certain extent in a. two-fold
aspect; and this more especially in the growing human being,
in youth. It appears there as something which requires a
progressive development of the whole man. And he who can
truly observe the intimate life of youth, who has learned to
observe the child, not only from the outside but also from
within, who remembers what he himself experienced in this
respect, will admit that what is in him now was not there up
to a certain age, but only showed itself later as a feeling
of power, as a feeling of life, as a content of life which
works in an extremely elevating way. What we carry within us
as the individual core of our being works not only on the
outer living form, but continues to work even into the most
elementary formations and functions of life. When man arrives
at a certain maturity and has the opportunity of taking up
many things in the outside world, then this individual kernel
of his being works so that he enriches himself, adapts
himself to the outer world and gathers experiences. When,
however, we observe this correlation between the individual
core of man's being and what comes to pass in the course of
his life — not only through what he learns and hears
but also through experiences such as happiness and sorrow,
pain and joy, we shall then see in this Spiritual life itself
the same correlation on a higher plane, to that between the
new embryo of the plant which develops in the blossom of the
old one and the old plant whose life is taken away from it by
the new seed.
If we extend
this observation to the tree, we shall be able to say:
“There, also, life is ever taken away, in that the tree
turns into wood in the plant kingdom, but in its place
certain things in the tree change into dead lifeless
products: inorganic bark surrounds the tree.” In the
same way we see, when we look at human life more closely, not
only a progressive development but one which allows the
Spiritual being of man to advance and grow, allows it to
unite itself to the outer world; and as it grows ever more
and more, we see it coming into conflict with the old
condition; that is to say, it comes into conflict with its
own self. That happens because it could in its youth build up
and form organs according as it required them, while now in
the further course of life this process is no longer
possible; it must now go on living in a hardened life
condition. So we see that when our life enriches itself by
development in the course of time, when we take in what is
new and thereby enrich the individual core of our being, we
come into conflict with what envelops this kernel, with what
we have built around it, and which is in process of growing.
As long as we grow, and in so far as we thus grow, we do not
take up into ourselves any Spiritual process of death. Only
when we receive what is exterior to ourselves do we take in
the Spiritual process of death. That is really the case
throughout the whole of life, though it is less apparent in
childhood than in later life. So we can say that in the realm
of the spiritual, a Spiritual growing and dying takes place
in the inner being of man. But in what does that process
which takes place there consist? We can understand it well if
we look at it for once in a lower form and take under
observation anything from the realm of ordinary life, in
order to form, as it were, conceptions and ideas concerning
the higher realms of being. Let us take fatigue, for
instance. We speak of fatigue both in the animal and human
being. We must first gain an idea of the nature of fatigue. I
cannot now go into all the ideas which have been collected on
the subject, but we will observe the whole process of fatigue
in relation to the life process. We can say that man becomes
tired because he uses his muscles, and therefore fresh forces
must be carried to the muscles. In this case we might say
that man tires because he uses up his muses through work of
some kind. Such a definition appears very plausible at first
sight, only, it is not true. But it is the case to-day that
we work with ideas which just merely touch the surface of
things lightly, we do not wish to penetrate to the depths,
For just think, if the muscles could really become fatigued,
how would it be then with the muscles of the heart? They do
not tire at all; they work day and night continuously, and
the same is the case with other muscles in the human and
animal bodies. This gives one the notion that it is not
correct to say that in the relationship between work and
muscle there is anything which can explain fatigue.
When does an
animal or a man become tired? When their work is not
occasioned through the organism nor through the life-process,
but by the outer world itself; that is to say, by the world
with which a living being may come into relationship through
its organs. Thus, when a living being carries out work by
means of it consciousness, the organs concerned becomes
fatigued:. In the life-process itself there is nothing which
could occasion fatigue. So that the life-process, the whole
of the life organs„ must be brought in contact with
something which does not belong to them, if they are to
become fatigued.
I can only
draw your attention to this important fact, in the
development of which some extremely fruitful points of view
can be found. Thus, only that which is brought to a living
being by way of a conscious process, of an incitement to
consciousness, can occasion fatigue. It would consequently be
absurd to speak of the fatigue of plants. We can, therefore,
say that in everything that can fatigue a living being
something which is foreign to it must really be present,
something which does not belong to its own nature must be
introduced into it.
We, can
therefore, say that every disturbance of the life-process
which comes about though fatigue, points to the fact, even in
a quite inferior realm, that that which we have in our
soul-life is not born simply from our physical life, rather
does it stand positively in contradiction to the laws of that
life. The contradiction between the laws of the life of
consciousness and those of life and the life-process alone
explains what is present in fatigue — of this you can
convince yourselves if you consider it more exactly. For this
reason we can say that fatigue is an expression testifying
that that which comes to a life-process must be foreign to
it, if it is able to disturb it. Now, the life-process can
really equalise what is used up through fatigue, by sleep and
rest. What is used up is compensated for by something new,
which enters in place of the life-processes.
Now, an inner
process of exhaustion appears in the individual human life,
for the reason that man enters into relationship with the
outside world. The old, which was present in the germ, enters
into an exchange with the new. The result is expressed in
that the individual life-kernel is transformed during
individual life, but it must also for this reason throw off
what has become wooden, as it were, what it has itself formed
from its birth onwards. The cause of death is the calling to
a new life within the human soul, just as in the animal
organism the disposition to fatigue can only be caused by its
entering into exchange-relationship with what is new and
foreign to it. We might, therefore, say that the process of
death, of gradually dying off, is one which is better
understood if one takes its opposite into consideration, in
which the soul stands in relationship with the organic, and
which expresses itself in fatigue. Hence, we really have the
seed of death in our innermost being during the whole of our
individual life. We could not develop further, however, we
could not possibly carry what we already are at birth a step
further, if we did not in ourselves associate death with
life. As fatigue is connected with the execution of exterior
work, so is the thrusting off, the killing of the outer
covering, with enrichment and higher development of the
individual life-kernel. The psychic and Spiritual process of
life and death — represents with great clarity what we
might express thus; “We purchase the higher form, the
further development of our life, by the beneficial act of
thrusting off from us what we were before. No development
would be possible if we could not thrust-off the old, for we
advance through, and together with what we have worked into
the new of our soul and spirit. What forces are in that? Such
forces as are the fruits of our past life! We certainly can
experience the seeds of these fruits, and can experience our
observations of life, we can do much else in life, but we
cannot organise these into ourselves nor really carry them
over into our external covering. For we do not build our
covering of what we learn in one life — or at most only
to a limited extent — we build it according to what we
have become in our last life. We can, therefore, only build
up our life by making use of what we have acquired in our
past life, and we can continue to develop by thrusting off
the old from us — as the tree does its bark — and
passing into death. With what we then take with us through
death, we are able to build up our next life, for it contains
in itself the same forces as have built up our Spiritual
growth when we develop freshly and happily in our youth. It
is of the same nature as these. We have absorbed it from our
life experiences and with it build ourselves a future living
organism, a future bodily covering, which will carry within
it as the germ of a future blossom, what we have gained in
one life. With regard to such things as these the question is
always asked, over and over again: “What help is it,
after all, to man, to hear about repeated earth-lives, if he
is not able to remember his former lives, if the memory of
his former lives is not present?”
It lies,
indeed, in the nature of the Spiritual culture of to-day that
we are not yet in a position to meditate and reflect upon
questions of the soul and spirit life as freely as over the
things of natural life. But we must make it clear to
ourselves that it is possible to develop ideas and
conceptions on these questions of the soul and spirit life,
in exactly the same way. We can only do this if we really
observe it more exactly, if we ask ourselves what must be the
position of the human memory in general; what is the nature
of the human memory? There is a point of time in the personal
human life, which can lead very easily to the gaining of
opinions on these questions. It is the following:
We all know
that there is a time in the normal life of man to-day, of
which there is no memory in later life. It is the time of his
earliest childhood. In the normal life of to-day man
remembers up to a certain point of his childhood, then memory
disappears.
Although it
is quite clear to him that it is his own Spiritual I, or ego,
which has built up his life, yet he lacks the power of
stretching his memory beyond this point. He who examinee many
children's lives, will be able to make one observation from
them. It can of course only be substantiated in external
life, but notwithstanding this, it is correct. From the
observation of the soul of a child we discover that
remembrance goes back just as far as to the point of time
when the idea of “I,” the conception of his own
Ego, arises within him. That is an external important fact At
the moment when the child, of his own accord, no longer says:
“Charles: wants this,” or, “May wants
that,” but says “I want this,” from the
point of time when the conscious conception of the Ego
begins, remembrance also begins. Whence comes this remarkable
fact? It comes because something else is necessary for
remembrance, besides the coming into contact, as it were,
once or always with an object. We can come into contact with
an object ever so often without any recollection of it being
necessarily called forth. Remembrance rests, namely, on a
quite definite soul-process, a quite definite Spiritual inner
life-process, of which we can become aware if we take the
following into account.
One must
distinguish between the perception of an object or
experience, and the conception or idea of this
object or experience. In the process of perception we have
something that can always recur if we stand before the object
again; but in the experience we have something else besides.
When we come into contact with something, and have taken in
an impression of it through the eye or ear, we have then
taken into ourselves something more than an inner impression
of it; what we take with us is that which remains in the
conception or idea and which can embody itself in the memory.
That, however, must first come into being. I know that what I
have just said will be very much doubted by valiant followers
of Schopenhauer, by those who assert that our conception of
the universe is only our idea of it. But that lies in the
confusion of perception with idea. Both must be emphatically
differentiated. The idea is something which is reproduced. No
matter how often the outer experience can arise, if it does
not receive the inner impression of the idea, it cannot be
incorporated in the memory; when, on the other hand, it is
stated that the idea is nothing more than what presents
itself to the perception, we need only bring to notice that
the idea of a hot piece of steel, no matter how hot,
will quite certainly not burn any one; but the
sense-experience of it will. There we have the difference
between idea and sense-perception. Therefore we an say that
the idea is a sense-experience turned inwards. But with this
turning inwards, with this outer rebound of the object, which
is in reciprocal relationship with the inner being of man,
and through which the inner impression is occasioned,
something else comes into consideration. Whatever is
experienced inwardly in our sense-life is embodied in our Ego
by every sense-impression, and by everything that we can
experience in the outer world. A sense-perception can even be
there without being incorporated in the Ego. In the outer
world it is impossible for an idea to be kept in the memory,
if it be not received inwardly into the realm of the Ego. So
that in every conception we form from a sense-experience and
which can be retained in the memory, the Ego stands as the
point of departure. An idea which comes into our soul-life
from outside, can in no way be separated from the Ego. I
know, indeed, that I am speaking figuratively; but all the
same these things signify a reality, as we shall see in the
course of the next lectures.
We can
imagine that the experience of the Ego presents something
like the inner surface of a sphere, seen from outside; then
the sense-experiences come along and the self-mirroring of
these experiences within the sphere give rise to the idea.
For that, however, the Ego must be present in every single
sense-perception. The Ego-experience is in everything which
can be embodied in the memory; it is actually like a mirror
which rays back the experiences to us within; but the Ego
itself must be there. From this we learn that as long as the
child does not receive the perceptions of ideas in such a way
that they become conceptions, as long as they only approach
the child from the outside as sense-perceptions, and are only
experienced externally between the Ego and the outer world
without being transformed into an Ego-experience, as long as
the child has no conception of the Ego, then no Ego-mirror,
as it were, veils from him what is round about him. Just as
long as that lasts, one notices that the child imagines into
the surroundings many things which adults do not understand.
Only through the memory of what is past, can that emerge
which the Ego has already taken up, so that it is thereby
pressed into the memory. When the Ego-perception appears, the
Ego places itself before the ideas as a mirror; but what lies
before the time of the Ego-perception can not be called forth
into the memory. Therefore man always comes into touch with
the outer world in such a way that his Ego experiences all
the events with him, his Ego is always there. This does not
imply that everything must enter his consciousness, only that
his experiences do not remain merely as sense-perceptions but
are transformed into ideas.
So we can now
say that the inmost kernel of man, from whose centre has
developed that which has now been described as passing on
from incarnation to incarnation, is veiled by the
Ego-conception, as is usually found in man. Man places
himself before his memory with his Ego-development of to-day.
It is thus quite explicable that his memory only extends as
far as the sense world.
Now, can a
proof be offered, through experience itself, that this can
become other than it is? Can we speak of an “Extension
of Memory” back into former incarnations? That is
self-evident from the mere definition, if it is grasped, of
what lies behind the individual Ego centre, which we
ourselves cover over, as it were. If we begin to grasp it we
met also perceive our inmost nature and being, we see what
man does in human life; — not only what he does in
common, but in his own individual life. Is there a
possibility of looking behind the Ego, as it were? Yes,
certainly there is. This lies in that inner soul-life of
which I have already spoken, in the introductory lecture. If
a man really undertakes to develop his Soul, by a severe and
methodical training, in such a way that the slumbering forces
within it begin to germinate, and the soul stretches out
beyond itself, he can only do so by appropriating, with a
certain inner renunciation, ideas which are not such as those
in which the ego-experience is immediately present. The
Ego-experience places everything in which it takes part
before the kernel of one's being. For the training of the
soul man must therefore appropriate ideas in which the
Ego-experience is not present. For that, reason the inner
soul exercises which a man undertake must be done in a quite
definite way. What he embodies in his soul-life depends on
the content of the meditation, and he must embody something
that certainly in acceptable to the inner nature of the soul,
but which does not, relate to anything external. What is
there that is not related to anything external? Only
meditation; but meditation is as a rule applied to the outer
world, therefore it is not serviceable to him who wishes to
rise to the higher worlds. A life of idea must therefore be
developed which calls forth, in pictures and symbols which
are continually placed before the soul, such an activity in
the Ego that it would form ideas it never could have formed
before when it wished to acquire the truth of the ordinary
sense-world. The soul must therefore incorporate into itself
pictures and symbols which do not appear when we survey the
external through out Ego-experience.
When we
observe this, we have the following experience, about which
we can only say something definite by pointing to that
condition into which men enters again and again, namely, the
condition of sleep. Through felling asleep, all ideas, all
pain end sorrow, and so on, which man has experienced during
the day, sink into indefinite obscurity, The whole conscious
life of man goes down into indefinite obscurity and returns
when the man wakes up again in the morning. Compare the life
of consciousness in waking-up and in going to sleep. So long
as man obtains only conscious impressions from the external
life of the senses, he brings back with him in the morning,
only what he had in his consciousness in the evening. He
wakes up again with the same content in his consciousness; he
remembers the same things, thinks the same thoughts, and so
on. But when a man undertakes, in the specified manner, an
inner training in which the Ego is not present, the position
is different. He then notices, certainly, that his first step
in progress consists in feeling on awaking, enriched through
sleep; he feels that what he had taken up before going to
sleep comes back to him with a richer content. So that he can
now say: “Now I have looked behind the Spiritual world
which the Ego does not cover up and, as a fruit of that, I
embody into the life of my consciousness something that I had
not gained from the sense-world, for I have brought it with
me out or the world of sleep.”
Such are the
first steps of progress in one who is leading a Spiritual
life of the soul.
Now, the
further possibility steps in that he may now, even during the
waking-day life, fill himself with a content not permeated by
the Ego-experience, although the Ego is there. The
Ego-experience must take its place beside this content, just
as it does with the content of all physical experiences. If.
we take this into account we must say that he alone who is
able to look behind the Ego can gaze into the Spiritual
content of a human being — he who treads such a path
will often come near to developing certain feelings. The
nature or these feelings will also show the nature of the
way. Thus we must learn: — to be free from desire and
especially to overcome fear and anxiety as regards coming
events. We must learn to say in a calm and passionless way:
“No matter what comer to me, I will accept it.”
and we must not only put this to ourselves as a dry abstract
conception, but must make it part of our innermost feeling.
We need not become fatalists on this account (a fatalist
thinks, that everything happens of itself), but we must use
this means of intervening in life. If we are able to instil
into the Ego this absolute balance as regards feeling and
sensation, it drives with such force towards the Spiritual
being of man that it separates the Ego from the perceptions
which are already in our consciousness. So we remain standing
within the Ego-world, yet receive a new world of inner
soul-experiences. These make it alone possible for us to see,
in its true individual form, the inmost kernel of man's
being, which certainly develops from birth onwards as that
which springs from a former life, but which could not be
recognised before in its true reality. We must first see it
as it is, as it really is in the present, and how it works.
Now can we remember something towards which we had never
turned our eyes? Just as the child has not that in his
consciousness which took place before the development of his
Ego-perception, so can man not keep in his memory those
experiences of his former births which are not based on a
knowledge of the inner kernel of man's being, on the feelings
and sensations of the soul and spirit kernel, which is in
every man.
He who really
goes through this, who learns above all to purchase for
himself a retrospect into former lives by looking towards the
future with equanimity and resignation, will see that the
former earth-lives are not merely a logical sequence, but
that they prove to be a reality through a newly-born memory,
which is really called forth. For that, however, one thing is
necessary. The possibility of looking into the past can only
be purchased by desirelessness, equanimity and passivity
towards the future. To the extent to which we are prepared to
experience the future in our feelings and sensations and are
able to shut out our Ego with regard to the experience of the
future, so far are we in a position to look into the past.
The mere man develops this equanimity, the more nearly does
he approach the point of time when the past earth-lives will
become a reality for him. Thus we can give the reason to the
objection often made, that for the ordinary human life no
remembrance is there. This objection is just as if a child of
four were brought to us, with the remark: “This child
cannot count”, concluding from this that consequently a
man could not, wither count! To this one could only reply:
“Wait till the child is ten years old, he will then be
able to count; therefore, man can count.” The
recollection of former lives is a question of
development! Therefore is it necessary that one
should learn to think over what, through the force of logical
conclusion. has been taken as the point of the lecture
to-day. It will then he found that a living spiritual
soul-kernel may be present in man and that we carry it
through death into a new life, as we have carried it through
birth into this life.
So Spiritual
Science points in no simple way, yet in a way that is
substantially correct, to what, is eternal in man as regards
“life” and “death.” And we may say
that the logical conclusion about death and life in regard to
the human being informs right away that in this human
individuality the possibility is also present of gaining the
memory of past lives. Then people need no longer say that
unless we can remember our past lives they are of no use! Is
only that which we can remember of use to us? We bear in us
the fruits of past lives; we develop in ourselves in the
present life without our knowledge, what we have brought over
from former lives; and when we begin to look back into former
earth-lives, the memory of them is certainly there. We can
then say to ourselves what a good thing it was that in former
times we were unable to remember back. This memory of the
past can only be won in the way I have characterised as
regards feelings and sensations towards the future life, but
that is not all; it can only be made endurable by an attitude
of soul such as has been described. Should it be aroused by
artificial means and should man at the same time lead a life
of desires and appetites permeated by egotism, then his soul
and spirit-life must lose its balance and he must become
unhinged. For certain things belong together, and others
repel each other.
What is
eternal in man, what comes into life through birth, that goes
over from life into the Spiritual worlds through death and
reappears in new embodiments; and bound up with that is the
fact, that we can only evolve higher in new embodiments if we
make use of the fruits of the former life. To-day I wished to
point out the relations to the kernel of man's being and
these two ideas. When we have this in view we shell no longer
give as our answer to the question as to the nature of life
and death; “The nature of death is to be learnt from
the corpse”. Rather shall we say: We sought in the
innermost being of man that which must bring forth new life;
but in order that new life may come into being, the old must
gradually die off and finally be quite extinguished, just as
the old plant when it is one year old dies off, so that the
new plant may take life from it. He who observes the world of
death in this manner will not consider that which remains
behind as a corpse, but will look in every being for those
characteristics of life which are carried over into a new
life. Although Shakespeare may make the gloomy Danish Prince
utter that which to many appears evident from the absolute
facts of the science of to-day:
“Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;
O, that the earth; which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw.”
If such a
remark applied to the process of dying, we will yet turn,
while observing man from the point of view of Spiritual
Science, to the Spiritual kernel of man's being which goes
through birth and death and through ever new life. We then
gain the assurance, if we do not follow the ways of Oxygen,
Carbon, and Nitrogen, but seek the ways of life by
considering what the real kernel of Man's being experiences,
that we may place opposite the words of Shakespeare this
other point of view.
The humblest man on Earth,
Is a son of Eternity,
And overcomes in ever new life
The ancient death.
|