Today we bring to
mind the words that resound out of the depths of earthly evolution's
mysteries:
Revelation of the
divine in the heights of being,
and peace to those on earth
who are of good will.
Especially this
year as Christmas approaches, we must think of the kind of feelings
that unite us with these words and their deep and universal meaning
— that deep meaning for the world experienced by countless
people in such a way that the word peace resounds through it, the
word peace in a time when peace is utterly absent in the widest circles
of humanity. How do we think of these Christmas words in this time?
Nevertheless, it
is a thought that, perhaps in connection with these words resounding
through the world, touches us ever more deeply in the present than in
other times. One thought! Nations confront one another full of
animosity. Blood, so much blood saturates our earth. We have
witnessed and must feel countless deaths around us in this
time. Infinite suffering weaves around our inner atmosphere of
feeling. Hate and antipathy race through spiritual space and can
easily show how far human beings in our time still are from that love
spoken about by the One whose birth is celebrated at Christmas. One
thought, however, is especially predominant. We think how enemy stands
against enemy, opponent against opponent, how human beings can bring
death to each other and how they then can go through the same portal
of death with the thought of the divine leader of light, the Christ
Jesus. We think of how, all over the earth, where there is war and
pain and discord, those who are otherwise in such discord can be
united. Within their deepest hearts they carry their connection with
Him who entered the world on the day we celebrate at Christmas.
We think how
through all animosity, through all antipathy, through all hate, a
feeling can impress itself into all human souls everywhere in these
times, can impress itself in the midst of blood and hate: the thought
of the innermost link with the One, with Him who thereby united
hearts through something higher than what is able to separate human
beings on earth. And so it is nevertheless a thought of infinite
greatness, a thought of infinite depth of feeling, this thought of
the Christ Jesus who harmonizes human beings no matter what their
discord might be, no matter what goes on in the world.
If we take hold of
the thought in this way, we will want to grasp it even more
intensely, especially in our time. Then we will have an intimation of
how strongly this thought is connected with what must become
great and strong and powerful within human evolution. If this
were to happen, much that must still be fought for in such a bloody
way at this time could be achieved in another way by human hearts, by
human soul.
That He
makes us strong, that He strengthens us, that He
teaches us all over the earth really to feel in the truest sense of
the word the Christmas verse, transcending everything that separates
us: those who truly feel themselves connected with the Christ Jesus
must promise this to themselves on Christmas night again and
again.
There is a
tradition within the history of Christianity that arose repeatedly in
later times and was a custom in certain Christian regions over many
centuries. Already in far distant times in various regions, mostly
emerging from Christian churches, there were presentations for
believers of the mystery of Christmas night. Especially in these most
ancient times, the presentation of the mystery of Christmas night
began with a reading, yes, at times even with a presentation of the
story of Creation, the story of Creation as it is presented at
the beginning of the Bible. Especially around the time of Christmas
it was described how, out of the depths of the cosmos, the universal
Word resounded, how out of the universal Word creation arose gradually,
bit by bit. It was described how Lucifer approached the human being
and how human beings thereby began earthly existence in a different
way from what would have been the case had Lucifer not approached,
in a way different from what was originally destined. The entire story
of the temptation of Adam, and Eve was presented, and then it was shown
how the human being was integrated, as if were, into ancient,
pre-testamental history.
Only as time went
on do we find what was presented in more or less detail in the
various plays that developed in the fifteenth, sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in Central Europe, of which we
have seen a small example just now.
At the Christmas
festival, an infinitely great thought originally drew together the
beginning of the Old Testament with the mysterious story of the
Mystery of Golgotha. Very little indeed has remained of what it was
from this thought that drew together the two sacred stories. Only a
little of this insight has remained, one contemporary example being
our calendar, in which the day before Christmas Eve is called the day
of Adam and Eve. This has its origin in the same thought. In more
ancient times, however, there were those with deeper thoughts, with
deeper feelings, a deeper knowledge received from their teachers who
taught them how they were to grasp the mystery of Christmas and the
mystery of Golgotha. For them a great, encompassing symbolic thought
was always being presented: the thought of the origin of the
Cross.
The God who is
presented to us in the Old Testament gives one commandment to the
human being, represented by Adam and Eve: “You may eat from all
the fruits of the garden; only the fruits that grow on the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil must you avoid, because they who have
eaten of that fruit would be cast out of the original scene of their
existence.”
The tree, however
— which was now represented in the most varied ways —
came by some means into the sequence of generations that were the
original generations from which the bodily sheath of the Christ Jesus
proceeded. This came about in the following way (as it was presented
in certain periods of time): when Adam, the sinful man was buried,
this tree again grew out of his grave and was thus removed from
Paradise. In this story we see the thought suggested that Adam rests
in the grave, the human being who went through sin, the human being
who was misguided by Lucifer; he rests in the grave and he unites
himself with the body of the earth; but out of his grave the tree
grows, the tree that can now grow out of the earth with which Adam's
body has been united.
The wood of this
tree passes over to the generations to which Abraham also belongs, to
which David belongs. And out of the wood of this tree, which actually
stood in Paradise, which then grew again out of Adam's grave, out of
the wood of this tree, the Cross was made on which Christ Jesus was
crucified.
This is the
thought that was made clear again and again by the teachers of those
who were to understand the secrets of the Mystery of Golgotha out of
deeper foundations. There is a deep meaning in the fact that in
ancient times deep thoughts came to expression in such pictures, and
this meaning holds good for the present as well. It will become clear
to us that it still holds true for today.
We have also
acquainted ourselves with the thought of the Mystery of Golgotha that
says to us; the Being who has lived on earth through the body of
Jesus poured out over the earth what He could bring to the earth, He
poured it into the aura of the earth. What the Christ brought into
the earth has since then become united with the entire corporeality
of the earth. The earth has become something different since the
Mystery of Golgotha. What Christ brought out of heavenly heights down
to the earth is living in the earth aura.
If we consider
this spiritually in connection with the ancient picture of the tree,
this picture shows us the entire relationship from a higher point of
view. The Luciferic principle entered the human being when the
human being made his beginning on earth. The human being, as he is
now in his union with the Luciferic principle, belongs to the earth,
indeed he forms a part of the earth. And when we lay his body into
the earth, this body is not rust as anatomy sees it; this body is at
the same time the outer mold of what the human being is in his inner
being within the earthly realm. It can then also be clear out of
spiritual science that it is not just what goes through the portal of
death into the spiritual world that belongs to the being of man;
rather it becomes clear that the human being through all his activity,
through all his deeds, is united with the earth. He is really united
with it in the same way as those happenings that the geologist, the
mineralogist, the zoologist, etc., find connected with the
earth.
It is only when
the human being goes through the portal of death that one could say
that there is a termination for the human individuality of that which
unites him to the earth. Our outer form, however, which we surrender
in some way to the earth, enters the body of the earth. It carries in
itself the stamp of what the earth has become through the fact that
Lucifer entered into earthly evolution. What the human being achieves
on the earth carries the Luciferic principle; the human being brings
this Luciferic principle into the aura of the earth. It is not only
what was originally the intention of the human being that arises,
that blossoms out of human deeds, out of the activities of human
beings; out of human deeds there arises something that has the
Luciferic element mixed in with it. This then is in the aura of the
earth. And when we now look upon the tree growing out of the grave of
the human being Adam, who was led astray by Lucifer, if we look at
the tree that has become something different through the Luciferic
temptation — this tree that was originally the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil — we see everything that the human
being brought about by the fact that he left his original state of
existence, that he became something different through, the
Luciferic temptation and that something was thereby brought into
earthly evolution that had not previously been
intended.
We see the tree
grow out of what forms the physical body for the earth, which was
stamped in its earthly form by that which permits the human being to
appear on the earth in a lower sphere than he would have if he had
not gone through the Luciferic temptation. Something grows out of
man's entire earthly existence that has come into humanity's
evolution through the Luciferic misguidance, through the temptation.
When we seek knowledge, we seek it in a different way than was
originally predestined. This makes it appear that something different
grows out of our earthly deeds from what would have been the case in
accordance with the gods' original intention. We form an earthly existence
that is not as the gods originally intended for us; we mix something else
into it, and we must form very definite pictures of this if we wish
to understand it. Definite mental images are required if we wish to
understand, to understand properly.
We must say to
ourselves: I am placed into earthly evolution. What I give to earthly
evolution through my deeds bears fruit; it bears the fruit of
knowledge that has become muse by the fact that I have gained the
knowledge of good and evil on the earth. This knowledge lives in the
evolution of the earth, this knowledge is there. As I look at this
knowledge, however, it becomes something different for me, something
that is different from what it originally should have been. It
becomes something that I must change if the goal and task of the
earth are to be achieved, I see growing out of my earthly deeds
something that must become different. The tree grows forth, the
tree that becomes the Cross of earthly existence, the tree that
becomes something to which the human being must gain a new
relationship. For the old relationship allows this tree to grow. The
tree of the Cross, of that Cross which grows out of the Luciferically
colored evolution of the earth, grows out of Adam's grave, out of the
humanity that Adam has become since the temptation. The Tree of
Knowledge must become the trunk of the Cross, because the human being
must unite himself anew with the properly understood Tree of
Knowledge as it is now in order to achieve the goal and task of
the earth.
Let us ask
ourselves — and here we touch on a significant mystery of
spiritual science — what is really the situation with the
members we have come to know as the members of human nature? We know
to begin with that the highest member of human nature is the
“I.” We learn to express our “I” at a
definite moment in childhood. We gain a relationship to this
“I” at the point to which we have memories in later life.
We know from the most varied spiritual scientific
considerations that until this point in time the
“I” itself was active in forming and structuring us. This
remains the case until the point at which we begin to have a
relationship, a conscious relationship, to our “I.” In
the child, this “I” is there also, but it works within,
its first task is to form our body. To begin with it creates the
super-sensible forces in the spiritual world. When we have gone
through conception and birth it still works creatively on our body
for a period of time that lasts a few years, until we have our body
as a tool so that we can consciously comprehend our self as an
“I.”
A deep mystery is
connected with this entry of the “I” into the human
bodily nature. When we meet a person we ask him, “How old are
you?” He gives his age as the years that have passed since his
birth. As has been said, we touch here on a certain mystery of
spiritual science that will become more and more clear as time
passes. Today, however, I will only touch on it, will only share it
with you. What a person gives as his age at a definite time of his
life is connected with his physical body. He says nothing other than
that his physical body has been developing for so-and-so long since
his birth. The “I” does not go along with this
development of the physical body. The “I” stays
there,
This is a
difficult mystery to grasp, that the “I” stays at the
point of time to which we can recollect, the point at which we
remember ourselves. It does not change with the body, it stays
there. For just this reason we always have it in front of us so
that, as we look, it can mirror our experiences for us. The
“I” does not take part in our earthly
journey. Only when we have gone through the portal of death must we
take the path that we call Kamaloca backward again to our birth in
order to re encounter our “I” and then to take it along
on our further journey. The “I” remains behind. The
body pushes itself forward in years while the “I”
remains behind, the “I” stays there. This is difficult
to comprehend because one cannot imagine that something remains
standing in time while time keeps moving. Nevertheless this is so,
the “I” stays there, and it remains there because the
“I” does not actually unite itself with what approaches
the human being from earthly existence. It remains united with
those forces we call ours in the spiritual world. The
“I” remains there, the “I” fundamentally
remains in the form in which it has been conferred on us, as we
know, by the Spirits of Form.
This
“I” is retained in the spiritual world. It must be held
in the spiritual world, for otherwise we would never be able to
achieve again the earth's original goal and aim as human beings
during our earthly evolution. What the human being underwent here
on earth because of his Adam nature, you could say, of which he
takes an impress into the grave when he dies as Adam — this
clings to the physical body, etheric body, and astral body, this
comes from these. The “I” waits, waits with everything
that is in it, waits the entire time undergone by the human being
on the earth. It looks only toward the further development of the
human being as he repeats it for himself when he has gone through
the portal of death and follows this path in reverse. This means
that we remain with our “I” back in the spiritual world
(this is meant in a specific sense). Humanity ought to become
conscious of this fact. And humanity is only able to become
conscious of this fact because at a certain time the Christ
descended out of those worlds to which the human being belongs, out
of the spiritual worlds. In the body of Jesus He prepared for
Himself, in the way we know, in a twofold way, what was to
serve Him as body on the earth.
If we understand
ourselves correctly, we always look back through our entire earthly
life, back to our childhood. Our spiritual element has remained
back in our childhood. We always look toward this if we wish to
understand things correctly. And humanity ought to be instructed to
look toward what the spirit out of the heights can say: “Let
the little children come to me.” Not adults, who are
connected with the earth, but rather the little children. In having
been given the festival of Christmas in addition to the Mystery of
Golgotha, humanity ought to be instructed in this. Otherwise the
Mystery of Golgotha would only need to have been conferred on
humanity in relation to the last three years of Christ's life, when
Christ was in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Christmas
festival shows how Christ prepared the human body for himself
during childhood. This is what should lie at the basis of the
Christmas experience: to know how the human being has actually
always remained connected with what is approaching now
through what remained behind during growth, remaining in the
heavenly heights. In the form of the child, the human being should
be reminded of the human-divine element from which he has distanced
himself on descending to the earth but that now has returned
to him. The human being ought to be reminded of this childlike
element in him. He ought to be reminded of Him who brought back the
childlike element to him again. Though it was not easy, one can see
the force that works so wonderfully to carry this precisely in the
way in which the festival of the World Child, the Christmas
festival, was developed in areas of Central
Europe.
What we have
seen today was only a small example of the Christmas plays, of
which there are many. It comes from olden times and is one of the
kind of Christmas plays that I have already pointed to. Only a few
of these so-called Paradise Plays have remained, which were
performed at Christmas and in which the story of Creation was
presented. It has remained connected to the Shepherds' Play and
with the play of the Three Kings, who bring their gifts. Much of
this used to live in numerous Christmas plays, but to a large
extent they have now disappeared.
These plays
disappeared even in rural areas in approximately the middle of the
eighteenth century, but it is wonderful to see how some remained
alive. A man about whom I have spoken, Karl Julius Schröer,
collected such Christmas plays in the area of western Hungary in
the 1850's. He searched for them in the area around Pressburg, and
then further beyond Pressburg into Hungary. Others collected such
Christmas plays in different areas, but what Karl Julius
Schröer was able to find at that time of the performance of
these Christmas plays and the customs connected with them can enter
our hearts deeply. These Christmas plays, handwritten,
remained in the hands of certain families in the villages and were
treasured as something especially sacred. When October came around,
people began thinking about having to perform these plays during
the Christmas season for the people of the village. Then the best
behaved boys and girls were selected, and they began to prepare
themselves: they were not permitted to drink wine or any alcoholic
beverages, nor were they permitted — which could well happen
in such places, as we know — to be rowdy and rambunctious on
Sundays, and they were not permitted any other transgressions. They
really had to “lead a holy life,” as is said. Thus
people were aware that a certain moral mood of the soul had to be
assumed by those who were to devote themselves to the performance
of such plays during the Christmas season. Such plays were not to
be performed out of ordinary worldliness.
They were
performed with all the naïveté with which the peasants
could perform something like that. And yet the whole performance
was permeated with deepest seriousness, with infinite seriousness.
The plays gathered by Karl Julius Schröer and others in the
most varied areas have in common this deep seriousness, the
seriousness with which one approached the Christmas mystery. But
this was not always the case. We only need to go back just a few
centuries to find something different, to encounter something most
curious. In looking at how these Christmas plays arose and
gradually developed in areas of Central Europe, we are able to see
especially clearly how overwhelmingly the Christmas thought was
active.
But this thought
was not immediately taken up in the way I have just described it,
approached with a certain kind of sacred modesty, with great
seriousness and awareness of the significance of the event that
lived in the feeling. No indeed! In many areas it began by simply
placing a manger in some kind of side altar in this or that church.
(This was still the case in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
but it goes back to still earlier times.) A manger was placed
there, and therefore a stall, in which were placed an ox and an ass,
as well as the Child and two dolls representing
Joseph and Mary. At first they used a very naive sculptural
technique, but then it was desired to bring more life to the
figures. This came first from the side of the clergy. Thus priests
dressed themselves up, one as Joseph, the other as Mary, and they
then represented these figures. They played these roles instead of
using the dolls. In the earliest times they even presented the
scene in Latin, because in the old churches, if the performance was
to present a deep meaning it was considered important that those
who saw or listened understand as little as possible, that
they only see the outer mimicry.
After some time
this was no longer tolerated. The people also wanted to understand
what was performed in front of them. Gradually there was a
transition to presenting portions of it in the local language
spoken in those regions. And finally the people awoke to a feeling
of wanting to participate, to experience it themselves. Yet it
remained foreign to them, quite foreign. We need only consider that
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for example, familiarity
with these holy mysteries of Christmas night, for example, did not
exist. Today we take these things for granted, but at that time it
was not there. You have to keep in mind that year in and year out
people heard the mass, also hearing it at Christmas (held at
midnight during the holy night), but that they did not hear the
Bible — the Bible was only there for the priest to read. Thus
they knew only single fragments of the sacred story. The initial
attempts by the priests to present these things dramatically were
really in order to acquaint the people with what had once taken
place. In this way the people learned to know what was written in
the Bible.
I must say
something now that I beg you not to misunderstand. It can be
mentioned because it corresponds to purely historical truth. Some
kind of mystery mood or something similar did not immediately
emanate from these presentations once people wanted to participate
in the Christmas plays. This is not how it was. Rather the longing
to take part in what was presented to them, to be more active
participants, was what brought people closer to the situation. And
finally they had to be permitted to participate to some extent;
things had to be made more comprehensible to the people. By making
it more comprehensible, things moved forward step by step. For
example, people did not understand initially that in the manger
lay the Child. They had never seen that, they had never seen a
child in a manger. Certainly earlier, when they were not permitted
to understand anything, they just accepted it, but new that they
wanted to participate it needed to be made completely comprehensible
to them.
At that time
only a rocking cradle was placed in front of them, and people began
to take part by walking by the cradle, each person rocking the
Child in it for a little while. Gradually similar moments of
participation developed. There were even regions where first a
person approached the manger very seriously and then, on finding
the Child there, incredible noise erupted and everyone screamed and
pointed and danced, indicating the pleasure they now experienced
because the Child had been born. This was taken up entirely in a
mood emanating from the longing to participate themselves,
the longing to experience a story. In the story, however, there was
such grandness, something so powerful, that out of this completely
profane mood — for it was initially a profane mood —
there developed gradually, bit by bit, the holy mood about which I
have just been speaking. The situation itself poured its holiness
out over a reception that initially could not have been called
holy. Especially in the Middle Ages, the holy story of Christmas
first had to conquer the people. And the story conquered them to
such an extent that while they were performing their plays they
wanted to prepare themselves morally m such an intensive
way.
What was it that
conquered human feelings, the human soul? It was the tow of the
Child, the view of what has remained holy in the human being while
the three remaining bodies unite themselves with earthly
development. Although in certain regions and during certain periods
the story of Bethlehem took on grotesque forms, it was inherent in
human nature to develop this holy view toward the nature of the
Child, which is connected with what entered into Christian
evolution from the very beginning: the consciousness of how what
remains behind in the human being when he begins his earthly
development must enter into a new bond with that which united
itself with earthly man. He gives over to the earth the wood out of
which the Cross must be made, through which he establishes a new
bond.
In older times
of Christian development in Central Europe, only the Easter thought
was present among the people. Only in the way in which I have
described it has the Christmas thought gradually been added. What
we find written in the Heliand, or similar works, was
recorded by individual poets, but it did not become popular. The
popular aspects of Christmas arose in the way I have just
described, which shows in a truly grand way how the thought of the
bond with the childlike, with the pure, truly childlike element
that appeared in a new form in the Jesus Child, has conquered the
human being. If we bring the power of this thought together with
the fact that this thought can live in souls so as to unite all
people (and to begin with it is the only thought in our earthly
existence that can do so), we come to the true Christ thought. The
Christ thought therefore becomes great and must gradually become
stronger in us if the further evolution of the earth is to take
place in the right way.
Just consider
how far removed the human being in present earthly existence still
is from what is concealed in the depths of the Christ thought. A
book has just recently been published — perhaps you have read
it — written by Ernst Haeckel, World War Thoughts About
Life, Death, and Infinity and Religion. A book by Ernst Haeckel
is certainly one that proceeds from the most serious search for truth.
This book by Ernst Haeckel points to what is now taking place on the
earth, how people are at war with one another, how they hate one another,
how countless deaths result every day. Haeckel mentions all these
thoughts that obtrude upon people so painfully. Certainly he always
mentions these thoughts with the background of looking at the world
as he sees it from his standpoint. We know about his standpoint,
having often spoken about it and about how we can recognize in Haeckel
one of the greatest scientists. This standpoint leads also to other
things, but it leads to something that can be observed in the newer
phases of Haeckel's development.
Haeckel offers
some thoughts about the World War. He also remarks on how much
blood is flowing now, how many deaths surround us, and he asks
himself, “Can the thoughts of religion survive next to these
events?” As Haeckel asks it, “Can one believe that
there is in any way a wisdom-filled providence, a beneficent God
who rules the world, when
every day one sees that by mere chance,” so he says,
“so many people's lives are ended, that they die by no cause
that can be proven to be related in any way to some kind of wise
world rulership? Instead, by chance” he says, “this one
or that one is struck by a bullet, suffering either death or
injury. In the face of all these events, do thoughts of wisdom,
thoughts of divine providence, have any meaning? Must not just such
events as these prove that the human being must stay in one place,
that he is nothing but what the outer, materialistically conceived
history of evolution shows us, and that fundamentally
everything in earthly existence is ruled not by divine providence
but by chance? Is it possible in the face of all these events to
have another religious thought” says Haeckel, “to do
something other than resign oneself, saying that a person simply
surrenders his body and dissipates into the
cosmos?”
One can ask
further, however — Haeckel no longer asks this question
— “If this cosmos is nothing but the play of atoms,
does human life really provide a meaning for earthly
existence?” As I said, Haeckel does not ask this question
anymore, but he does give an answer in his Christmas book:
“Precisely events such as those that touch us so painfully
now, just such events show that there is no justification for
believing in any kind of beneficent providence or wise guidance of
the world or anything like it; it is impossible now to maintain
that anything like this weaves through and guides the world.
Therefore resignation, seeing one's own way, is all there
is.”
Haeckel's
book is also a Christmas book! It is a Christmas book meant very
sincerely and honestly. But this book is based on a significant
prejudice. It rests on the prejudice that, it is not permissible to
seek in a spiritual way for the earth's meaning, that humanity is
prohibited from looking for a meaning of the earth in a spiritual
way.
If it is only
the outer course of events that is considered, one does not see
this meaning. This is what happens to Haeckel. Then the situation
must remain with the recognition that this life has no meaning.
This is what Haeckel means. Looking for meaning is not permitted!
But is it not so that another might come and say something further:
that if we look only at these contemporary events externally,
pointing out that countless bullets are destroying human lives, if
we look only at these events and no meaning results, then precisely
because of this we must seek for this meaning in a deeper way. It
is precisely events such as these that show us we cannot amply look
for and believe in meaning by looking just at what is going on now
on the earth — by seeing only that these human souls vanish
like their bodily natures. Instead we must look at what they are now
beginning as they pass through the portal of death. In short, another
person could come and say that precisely because no meaning can be
found in the outer events, the meaning must be looked for outside
the outer, the meaning must be looked for in the super-sensible.
Is this any
different from looking at the same matter in a completely different
realm? For one who thinks the way Haeckel thinks today, Haeckel's
science can become a refusal to recognize any meaning in earthly
existence. It can happen that a person wants to prove out of the
events that are taking place so painfully today that earthly life
as such has no meaning. But, if one takes hold of the problem in
our way — we have done this frequently — precisely this
same science takes as its starting point the deep and great meaning
that can be unraveled by us in world phenomena. For this to happen,
however, something spiritual must be active in the world; we must
be able to unite ourselves with the spiritual, It is impossible for
people to find a meaning for the earth, a real meaning, because our
educated people do not yet understand that it is necessary to
permit the power to work upon them that once so wonderfully
conquered hearts, souls: the power that arose on looking at the
Christmas mystery, from which a profane comprehension evolved into
a sacred comprehension. Scholars are unable to grasp this
yet; they cannot yet unite the Christ impulse with what they see in
the outer world, and thus it is impossible for them to find a
meaning for the earth.
Thus one must
say that science, for all its great progress of which people are so
proud today — and justifiably so - is not in a position out
of itself to lead to a view that satisfies the human being. As it
goes its way, it can lead in the same way either to meaninglessness
or to the meaning of the earth, just as in any other domain.
Consider this outer science so proudly developed in the last few
centuries, especially from the nineteenth century until today, with
all its wonderful laws. Consider everything that surrounds us
today. It has been brought forth by this science. We no longer burn
light at night in the same way that Goethe burned his. We burn
light in a completely different way, and we illuminate our rooms in
a completely different way. Consider everything that lives in our
souls today out of our science; it has arisen through the great
progress of science, of which humanity is justifiably proud. What
is the effect of this same science? It is a blessing if man
develops it as such. But today, especially since it is such a
complete science, it produces indomitable instruments of death. Its
progress serves destruction just as well as construction.
Just as the science acknowledged by Haeckel can lead to either
meaning or meaninglessness, so the science that can achieve such
great things can serve either construction or destruction. Arid if
the main thing is this science, science will bring forth evermore
horrible and frightful works of destruction out of the same
source that leads to constructive ends.
Science does not
directly have an impulse to bring humanity forward. If only this
were seen once, this science would be evaluated in the right way!
Only then would it be known that something else must be an integral
part of humanity's evolution than what the human being can achieve
through this science. For what is this science, after all? In reality
it is nothing but the tree that grows out of the grave of Adam.
And the time is fast approaching when people will recognize that
this science is the tree growing out of Adam's grave. And the time
will come when people will recognize that this tree must become the
wood that is the Cross of humanity. This wood can lead to a blessing
only if that which unites in the right way with what lies beyond death,
but lives already here in the human being, is crucified on the Cross:
that which we behold on the holy Christmas night if we experience it
in the right way, in its true mystery, that which can fee presented
in a childlike way but that bears the highest mysteries. Isn't it
actually wonderful that in the simplest way it can be said to the
people: something entered which is active through human life on
earth, something that actually may not go beyond childhood. It is
related to what the human being belongs to as a super-sensible
being. Isn't it wonderful that this super-sensible-invisible
element, in the most eminent sense, can come so near to human souls
in such a simple picture? Simple human
souls!
Yes, those who
are educated must also undertake the path taken by those simple
human souls. There was a time when the Child was not presented in
the manger. The Child in the manger was not presented, but instead
the Child sleeping on the Cross was presented. The Child sleeping
on the Cross! A wonderfully profound picture, bringing the entire
thought to expression that I have wanted to let arise before your
souls today.
And is it not
basically very simple to express this thought? Yes, it is. Indeed,
let us look once for the origin of those impulses that oppose each
other in the world today in such a horrible way. Where do these
impulses originate? Where does everything originate that makes the
life of humanity so difficult today? Where is the origin of
all this? It lies in everything we become in the world only after
that point of time at which we can recollect ourselves. If we go
back beyond this point of time, if we go back to the point in time
at which we are called the “little children who are able to
enter the kingdom of heaven” — this is not where it
originates. At that point nothing of what today is in battle and
dispute resides in human souls. The thought can be expressed this
simply, but spiritually we must consider the fact that there is
something so original in the human soul that it goes beyond all
human strife, beyond all human disharmony.
We have often
spoken of the ancient mysteries that wanted to awaken in human
nature that which permits the human being to look up into the
super-sensible. And we have spoken of the fact that the Mystery of
Golgotha, perceptible for all human beings on the stage of history,
has presented the super-sensible mystery. There is something that
fundamentally unites us with the true Christ thought. We
have this by virtue of the fact that we are able to have moments in
our life (I am now speaking directly, not in a pictorial way) in
which, despite everything we are in the outer world, we can bring
alive in us what we received as a child. We can do this by going
backward, feeling ourselves back at the child's standpoint?
we can do this by looking toward the human being as he develops
between birth and death, so that we are able to sense within us
what we received as a child.
In the public
lecture about Johann Gottlieb Fichte which I gave last Thursday, I
could have added something, but at the time it would not have been
understood. I could have said something that would have clarified a
great deal that lives in this devout man in such a peculiar way. I
would have spoken about why he actually developed the very
particular way he did, and I would have had to say that this was
because, more than other people, he retained the childlike quality
in himself despite growing old. He retained more of the childlike
quality in himself than other people do. Such people actually grow
less old. It is really true that what existed in childhood remains
more in such people than in others. This is generally the secret of
many great human beings, that right into their oldest age they are
able to remain children in a certain way; even when they die, they
die as children, though this must be expressed only partially,
since one must be connected with life.
The Christmas
mystery thus speaks to what lives in us as a childlike quality, it
speaks with a view to the divine Child who was selected to take up
the Christ, it speaks with a view to the one who was already
overshadowed by the Christ, who went through the Mystery of
Golgotha in reality to heal the earth.
Let us become
conscious of the fact that when we surrender the imprint of our
higher self, when we surrender our physical body to the earth, it
is not a merely physical process. Something spiritual is also
taking place. But this spiritual aspect takes place in the right
way only by virtue of the fact that the Christ being has streamed
into the earth aura, the Christ being who went through the Mystery
of Golgotha. We cannot see the earth in its completeness if we do
not see that since the Mystery of Golgotha the Christ has been
united with the earth. We can bypass the Christ, just as we can
bypass everything super-sensible, if we feel ourselves
constituted only of earthly matter and only able to relate to
it. But if the earth is to have a real and true meaning for us, we
can not bypass Christ. For this reason everything depends on our
being able to awaken in ourselves something that will open the view
into the spiritual world.
Let us make our
Christmas festival into something that it must be especially for
us. Let us make it into a festival that serves not only the past
but the future, the future that little by little is to bring to
birth the spiritual life for all humanity. We want to unite
ourselves with the prophetic feeling, the prophetic intimation,
that such a birth of the spiritual life must be brought to
humanity, that presiding over humanity's future a great holy night
must be active, coming to birth out of what gives meaning to the
earth from human thoughts. The earth received this meaning
objectively through the fact that the Christ being united Himself
with the earth aura through the Mystery of Golgotha. In the holy
night let us think of how, out of the depths of darkness, light
must enter human evolution, the light of spiritual life. The old
light of spiritual life that was there before the Mystery of
Golgotha had to pass away, gradually it had to be extinguished. The
light must arise again, must be reborn after the Mystery of
Golgotha through the consciousness in the human soul, that this
human soul is connected with what Christ became for the earth
through the Mystery of Golgotha,
If there are
more and more people who come to know how to conceive of Christmas
in such a spiritual scientific sense, this Christmas night will
develop a force in human hearts and human souls that will have its
meaning in all times. It will have meaning in times in which people
surrender themselves to feelings of joy but also in times in which
people have to surrender themselves to the feelings of pain that
must penetrate us today when we think of the great misery of our
tune.
Since looking up
to the spiritual gives meaning to the earth, I would like to share
with you today the words of one who expressed this so
beautifully:
What
gave my eye this force,
That all misshapen forms have dissolved.
That the nights become like brilliant suns.
Disorder becomes order, decay life?
What intricate weaving through time, through space,
Guides me surely to the eternal well
Of the Beautiful, the True, the Good, and of all delight.
And in destroying immerses all my striving?
It is this: into Urania's eye, the deep,
Itself clear, blue, still, pure
Lightflame, I myself have quietly gazed.
Since then, this eye rests in my depths
And is in my being — the eternal
One, Lives in my life, sees in my seeing.
And in a second small poem:
Nothing
is but God, and God is nothing but life,
You know it, you and I know it together,
But how would knowing be there
If it were not knowing of God's life?
“How gladly would I surrender myself to this,
Yet where do I find it? Somehow it flows
Into knowing, then transforms itself into seeming,
Mingling with it, surrounded by its sheaths.”
Quite dearly the sheath rises up before you,
It is your I, what is destructible dies,
And henceforth only God lives in your striving.
See through what survives this striving,
Then the sheath becomes visible to you as sheath.
And unveiled you see divine life.
Certainly people
do not always know what they ought to do with those who point to
perceiving the spiritual that gives meaning to the earth. It is not
only materialists who do not know what to do. Others who believe
they are not materialists because they are always saying,
“God! God! God!” or “Lord! Lord! Lord!”
often do not know what to make of these individuals who guide us to
the spiritual. For what can one do with a person who says.
“There is nothing but God! Everything is God! Everywhere,
everywhere is God!” He was seeking for God in everything, the
one who said:
See
through what survives this striving,
Then the sheath becomes visible to you as sheath
And unveiled, you see divine life!
An individual
who wants to see divine life everywhere could be accused of not
allowing the world to exist, of denying the existence of the world.
Though one could call him a world-denier, his contemporaries called
him a denier of God, and they therefore chased him away from the
colleges and universities. The words I have read to you are those
of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. If the Mystery of Golgotha continues to
live on in the human soul through earthly existence — amid
what is connected with this Mystery of Golgotha in the Christmas
mystery — it can serve as an impulse resounding in the soul.
Fichte is a perfect example of how, when this is the case, a path
is opened on which we can find the consciousness in which our own
“I” flows together with the earth “I”
— for this earth “I” is the Christ. Through this,
we develop something in the human being that must become greater
and greater if the earth is to move toward the development for
which it was destined from the beginning.
Therefore we
especially wish, out of the spirit of our spiritual knowledge
renewed in the sense it has been today, to let the Christmas
thought become an impulse in us. By looking up to this Christmas
thought, we wish to attempt to see from what surrounds us not the
meaninglessness of earthly evolution; rather, in the suffering and
pain, in the strife and hate, we hope to see something that
ultimately helps humanity forward, something that really brings
humanity a bit forward.
It is not so
important to look for causes, which anyway are so easily concealed
in partisan strife. It is much more important for what
happens today to focus on the possible effects, those effects that
we must picture to ourselves as healing, as bringing healing for
humanity.
The nations and
people who are in a position to shape something that can be healing
for humanity of the future out of what is able to sprout from the
blood-drenched soil will be led to the right approach. What can be
healing for humanity, however, can develop only if people find the
way into the spiritual worlds, if people do not forget that there
was not only one Christmas but that there must be an everlasting
Christmas, an everlasting coming-to-birth of the divine- spiritual
in the physical, earthly human being.
Especially today
we wish to enclose the sacredness of this thought in our souls, we
wish to hold it for the time surrounding Christmas, which can he a
symbol for the evolution of light also in its outer course. In
these days, at this time of year, darkness, earth darkness, will be
here to the greatest degree possible on earth. When the earth lives
in this deepest outer darkness, however, we know that the earth
soul experiences her light, beginning to awaken to the highest
degree.
The time of
Christmas, then, is connected with the time of spiritual awakening.
And with this time of spiritual awakening, the memory of the
spiritual awakening for earthly evolution through the Christ Jesus
shall be united. We therefore have the institution of the Christmas
festival especially at this time.
Let us unite the
Christmas thought with our soul in. this cosmic, and at the same
time earthly, moral sense. Then, reinforced and strengthened with
this Christmas thought as best as we can, let us look upon
everything surrounding us to want what is right for the progress of
events, also wanting what is appropriate in the development of
deeds of the present time.
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