THE
CONTRASTING WORLD-CONCEPTIONS OF EAST ANT WEST.
Lecture
by Dr. R u d o l f S t e i n e r.
Delivered
at D o r n a c h, 17th of June, 1922.
[From stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer]
To-day I feel called upon to explain to you a few
anthroposophical facts closely connected with the human
being.
We
are, to begin with, connected with the world through our
senses; we are connected with it — and this is clearly
evident — from the moment of waking up to the moment of
falling asleep. We perceive the various spheres of life through
our senses, and a certain soul-activity within us
constructs a picture of the world from these perceptions. I only
allude to this, in order to draw attention to the way in
which we can study our waking life and all that it
concerns.
Yet
we do not only live in the world during our waking condition,
but also when we are asleep. During our sleep, we live outside
our body with our Ego and our soul, in an environment, which
is, at first, unknown to the ordinary human consciousness.
All
that I am telling you now, applies to the present-day human
being; that is, to man and the way in which he has developed
his soul-life from the time which I have often indicated as an
extraordinarily significant moment in the evolution of
humanity — from the 15th century onwards. Yet we must ask
ourselves: How are we connected with a world which is closed to
our ordinary consciousness? How are we connected with it, when
we are asleep? When we ask this question, we immediately
encounter an obstacle, particularly in the present moment of
human evolution, unless we bear in mind the development
of humanity, and the fact that its soul-life has passed through
many stages.
If
we reflect upon the soul-life of modern man, we find that the
human being belonging to our so-called civilised world must
make the greatest effort to form his ideas and concepts.
Nowadays we frequently look back into earlier epochs of human
development without any clear thoughts. At that time
there was no educational system of the kind required to-day,
and we look back without really thinking about it into
that ancient culture which developed and flourished in the
East, when it was not necessary for man to have the education
through childhood upwards, that he has to-day.
In
Europe it is almost impossible at this time to imagine how
differently the men of earlier epochs regarded education in the
Orient. In those times, powerful Eastern teachings were
created, which uplifted heart and spirit, such as the
Vedas and all that is contained in the wisdom of the East.
To-day all that arises through the spirit is judged in
accordance with the way in which we have been educated and
taught from childhood upwards, and the way in which we have
developed through our education, and what we have learned
through our life in the external world. At first, it seems
obvious to our ordinary way of thinking that we must be
educated, for we must learn to form our thoughts on life. If we
were unable to do so, we should be helpless in the present-day
world. I might say, that at the present time, we have not yet
progressed very far in the art of forming thoughts. One of the
aims of education should be that of more and more perfecting in
us by our own effort this art of forming thoughts about the
things in the world.
This was prepared for in the Greek epoch. The Grecian life was
to a certain extent completely under the influence of the
Orient, and consequently the education there aimed only at a
very elementary development of the thinking forces. Oriental
influences streamed into Greek cultural life, and these did not
encourage thought-efforts, they did not induce man to form
ideas himself on the objects around him, if I may express this
trivially.
In
the spiritual life of the West, we now admire Socrates, and
rightly so, as one of the first who stimulated man to form
thoughts about surrounding objects. Yet it would be wrong to
jump to the conclusion that there was no thought-life in the
Orient, simply because in Europe man had to develop a
thought-life through his own effort. The Orientals had a
powerful life of thought, which we find all the more powerful,
the further we go back into the cultural life of the East.
A
rich spiritual life existed in the East, even before the time
of the Vedas and of the Vedanta philosophy. As I have
frequently explained, the Vedas and the Vedanta philosophy are
not the first stages of spiritual life of the East, for these
first stages were never recorded in writing. During the
last two or three thousand years before Christ, this powerful
Oriental life had already reached a decadent stage. What
the Oriental now admires, is but the last remnant of this
ancient spiritual life.
This life of thought was not like ours, which makes us (please
forgive the materialistic expression, which is only used as a
comparison) grow hot inwardly and perspire in our efforts to
bring it into being. The Oriental life of thought was an
inspired one.
For
the Oriental, the thoughts ordered themselves, as if of their
own accord. He obtained his world-picture in the form of an
inspiration. He always had the feeling: “My thoughts are
given to me,” and he did not know the inner soul-effort
which we must make in order to construct our thoughts. From the
moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, he felt
that his thoughts were gifts bestowed upon him. His whole
soul-life had a corresponding nuance. When he nurtured
thoughts, he felt grateful to the gods who gave him these
thoughts. When he was able to say: “Thoughts live in me,
who am a human being,” he felt in these thoughts the
instreaming of divine-spiritual powers. Thus it was quite a
different way of thinking.
For
this reason, the Oriental life of thoughts of remoter
epochs was not so severed from the life of feeling and from the
life of the heart, as it is to-day, for the normal human
consciousness. Just because man could feel that thoughts
were given to him, he felt uplifted as a human being, and a
religious feeling was connected with every one of his
thoughts. Man felt that he must meet the divine powers who gave
him his thoughts with a kind of religious piety, and he
experienced these thoughts more as a united whole, than as
single thoughts.
But
what was the objective external cause of this? It was caused by
the fact that in these ancient times man's sleep was different
from ours. When we are asleep now, we are forsaken
especially in the head by the Ego and the soul. The
metabolic organs and the extremities do not become separated so
completely from the human being. Even when we are asleep, our
soul and our Ego still penetrate into the extremities of the
body and into its metabolic organs. We should not think that
during sleep the Ego and the soul forsake our whole being, but
instead we should picture to ourselves that the head is the
most forsaken part.
I
have often explained this, and now I would like to put it
before you schematically. In the waking human being, the Ego
and the soul permeate the physical and the etheric body. Now
it would be wrong to draw the sleeping man so as to indicate
here the physical and etheric bodies lying on the bed, and the
Ego and the astral body just there, beside them. Instead, they
should be so drawn that if the physical organs and the
extremities, including the arms, which are also extremities,
are indicated here, then the Ego and the soul which are outside
the human being would have to be drawn outside it only in the
vicinity of the head. Strictly speaking, when we are asleep,
the Ego and the soul are outside the physical and the etheric
body only as far as the head is concerned.
If
we now return to those remoter times to which I have alluded,
we find that when the human being was asleep, the organs of
the head — that is, principally the nervous-sensory
system and a part of the respiration which permeates the head
— were the field of action used by the divine-spiritual
beings connected with the earth.
If
we refer quite seriously to realities, it can indeed be said,
without speaking metaphorically, that in the most remote epochs
of human evolution the divine-spiritual beings on earth
withdrew from the human being when he was awake. But when
he was asleep they took up their abode in his head. The human
Ego and the human soul abandoned the head: and there, the
divine-spiritual beings directed their activities. When the
human being woke up in the morning, he once more dived
into his head, and there he found the results of all that had
taken place under the influence of the deeds of the
divine-spiritual beings.
These beings ordered man's nervous processes in accordance with
their laws, and they exercised an influence even upon the
circulation of the blood and penetrated into the organic
processes in the etheric body and in the physical body. Yet
this was not clearly realised; only those men who were
schooled in the Mysteries had an insight into such things. The
great majority of men did hot realise this, yet they
could EXPERIENCE it.
On
waking up, the human being thus found in his head the deeds of
gods. And when he then lived through his waking life and was
able to perceive the structure of his thoughts, this was due to
the fact that the gods had been active in his head while he was
asleep. The ancient Oriental thus discovered within him every
morning the heritage of the gods, the results of what they had
done in him while he was asleep. He perceived this in
thoughts, in the form of an inspiration. The divine-spiritual
beings did not inspire him directly, when he was awake.. They
inspired him when he was asleep, while they were active in his
head.
In
those ancient times, everything that led to man behaving
socially in this or in that way, was really inspiration. It
might be said: At that time, the divine-spiritual beings still
had the possibility of ordering earthly affairs in such a way
that while human beings were asleep, they arranged the trust
men felt in one another, and they brought about the obedience
of the large masses to their leaders, etc. etc. In that ancient
Oriental epoch there was still cooperation between the
divine-spiritual world and the earthly world. But this was only
possible, because the whole human organisation was
different from the present one
I
have often mentioned that now people imagine that everything
connected with man as he is to-day has always been the same;
that the physical part of his physical organism, the psychic
part of his soul, the spiritual element of his Ego, were then
as they are now. When a modern historian writes about ancient
Egypt and unriddles its documents, he believes that the
Egyptians may not have been as clever as he is, but that
essentially speaking, they had the same thoughts, feelings and
impulses which we have to-day.
One
generally thinks that if we go far back into time, man was a
kind of higher ape, and that from this stage he passed on to a
condition which they only imagine. And when the time began
which interests them from the historical standpoint, then they
have to admit that man was more or less what he is to-day, with
the thoughts, feelings and impulses which he now possesses.
Yet
it is not so. Even in the course of history, man underwent
considerable changes. You only have to remember how the Greek
viewed the world, quite physically. The Greek did not see the
colour blue, as we see it now. He only saw the reddish tones of
colour. If a modern man contemplates the beautiful blue sky and
thinks that the Greek, who was steeped in beauty, must have
loved it, he is mistaken. The Greek saw the warm, reddish and
yellow tints, and could not distinguish green from blue.
He therefore saw the sky quite differently from the way in
which we see it, with our normal consciousness. Even the eyes
have changed completely in the course of human evolution,
although this only applies to the more intimate and finer
traits. The whole sense-organisation has changed in the course
of history. During those ancient Oriental times of which I have
spoken, the organisation of the senses did not prevent man from
surrendering to that which came from his organism when he was
awake, as the result of what remained to him from the activity
of the gods in his body, while he was asleep.
Gradually, man's sense-organs changed; his senses
connected him with the external world in so living a way,
that when he awoke, this connection prevented him from noticing
what might still remain in him as a heritage from the gods,
left there while he was asleep.
Even if the gods were still to be active in his head during
sleep (they are no longer active in it, for man's
organisation has changed, and this would no longer have a
meaning for the development of mankind), man's progress and
further development would not profit by it. On the contrary, he
would not be able to perceive this heritage which comes to him
from his sleep, because on waking, his fully developed senses
immediately attract him strongly to the external world.
What remains from his sleep, would therefore pass over
into his body, instead of being taken up by his
consciousness. To-day man would not be able to experience
himself through the inspiration of the gods in his sleep, and
were they still to use his head-organisation as a field
for their activities, these inspirations would retreat into his
body and prematurely age his organism.
In
older times, man's sleep-experiences could be assimilated
during his waking condition, because his senses were not
directed so strongly towards the external world as they
are to-day, and man could at that time live in union with the
world of the gods.
This existence was a real LIFE in union with the world of the
gods. The gods cannot be perceived through the senses, and in
ancient times, man had to rely on being able to experience at
least the deeds of the gods. He could do this, because his
senses were not yet so strongly turned towards the external
world as to-day.
Now, however, a time came — speaking generally, in the
thousand years preceding the Mystery of Golgotha — when
in the Eastern countries man's senses, especially the
eyes, first began to be receptive to the impressions of the
outer world; this receptivity developed as time went on. Man
gradually developed the sense organisation which he now
has, adding it to the nerve organisation, which still remained
from former times and which enabled him to experience the
divine-spiritual deeds.
Earlier he had experienced these divine-spiritual deeds in
their purity, without mingling them with sense experiences. At
that time, the human being could still, experience something,
because the gods had not as yet completely forsaken him, but
these experiences were immediately absorbed by the
sense-organisation, with the strange result that among the
great majority of men, the gods, the spiritual beings, were, so
to speak, drawn into the sense organisation. I might
express this by saying that out of the former purely spiritual
contemplation of divine-spiritual beings a belief in ghosts
arose.
This belief in ghosts does not reach back into very
ancient times in man's history, but the contemplation of
divine-spiritual beings is very ancient. The belief in ghosts
only arose when sense perceptions were intermingled with the
contemplation of the divine. When the Mystery-culture of the
East came over to Europe and was taken up, for instance, by the
wonderful spiritual life of Greece, flowing into Greek art and
Greek philosophy, then the great masses of men coming from the
East brought with them also the belief in ghosts.
So
we may say, that during the last thousand years before the
Mystery of Golgotha, the Oriental conception as such was
already becoming decadent and a kind of belief in ghosts became
widely prevalent among the masses of mankind. This belief came
over into Europe from the East, and it was the
transformation into sense-perception of the former,
purely contemplative spirit of the East. We may therefore say
that the belief in ghosts is the last ramification, the end of
a lofty, though dreamy spiritual vision, which had once
constituted a high stage of culture in the evolution of
man.
All
that has been described to you, how that during sleep the
ancient Oriental felt his head to be the earthly field of
action for the world of the gods, this could only be
EXPERIENCED by him as man, but the initiate of the Mysteries
KNEW it. This contrast can already be seen to-day, in the
development of a new culture.
This culture is still in its infancy, and the further West we
go, the more does it make itself felt. For an ancient Oriental
it would have been meaningless to say, for instance, that human
thoughts do not pulsate through the human will, for he knew
that what lived in his will, and even in his blood, came to him
from the gods. The gods made his thoughts and during his sleep
condition the gods developed a mighty power in his head. This
he felt as inspiration.
Even to-day, when we look across to the East and view the last
remnants of Eastern culture, still existing for instance in
Solovieff's philosophy, we find, particularly in Solovieff,
that he would have been quite unable to understand it, if he
had been told that thoughts bring no impulses to man and have
no bearing on his will.
Yet
Western people, particularly the Americans, have this
view. Americans describe what lies immediately before them; even
their physiology and biology are represented in this way. If we
penetrate into its more intimate fundamental character, we
shall find that American science greatly differs from European
science. The Westerner portrays how little significance
thoughts really have for the human will, for he is far too
strongly aware of the fact that it is man who forms the
thoughts. Nevertheless he cannot form them out of the blue, and
so the modern American declares it to be of far more importance
than his actual thoughts, how a man is rooted in a certain
family or political party through his social
life-conditions, or in the way he has grown into a
certain sect. All this, he declares, stirs up emotions in him
and determines his will. It is really impossible to influence
the will through thought. The will is determined by such life
foundations as family, political party, nationality, sect, etc.
The American and the Westerner in general argues that thought
is not the real ruler in man, but is only the Prime Minister of
the ruler, an expensive minister, as Carlyle expressed it. This
ruler is the human organism, which is will, instinct, passion,
and thought is only the executive organ.
We
really have to admit that this is the way of thinking of the
great masses of people to-day, who rush forward to assert their
own views in the face of old traditions in the world. This is
why men like so much to study the ways of primitive man,
because they think that he followed his instincts and passions,
and that his thoughts were merely a kind of reflexion of these
instincts and passions.
Consequently, regarding man in this way, the Westerner says he
is driven by his instincts and passions. Why? — Because
man is not yet organised in a way which enables him to perceive
the spiritual behind these instincts and passions, he can only
see an instinct or a passion and nothing spiritual behind
them. Yet when an instinct or a passion rises up in man, evil
though it may be, and no matter in what form it may appear in
this or in that man, the SPIRIT lives behind this instinct or
passion, even behind the most brutal ones. But to-day man
cannot as yet perceive this spirit, for the human race is still
in a state of development. It must gradually approach a
spirituality which enables man to perceive the spirit
whenever he looks within his own being and beholds his
instincts and passions. In the future this will be possible. It
is a matter of indifference whether a man has good or evil
instincts. When he has evil instincts, then Ahrimanic or
Luciferic beings lie hidden within him, but these are spiritual
beings!
In
advancing the view that instincts and passions are the driving
powers, we have before us the same case as that of the ghosts
in comparison with the spirituality of the past. You see, an
ancient spirituality existed in the Oriental conception. This
spirituality continued to develop, and as I have already said,
during the last thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha
the final product was the belief in ghosts, in seeing
ghosts.
We
now stand within the evolution of the world in such a way, that
on the one hand we see how the belief in ghosts arose out of an
ancient spirituality; but at the same time, we see that in the
future a purely spiritual contemplation will once more arise.
To-day, however, there is still an inner belief in ghosts. Just
as those who believe in ghosts think that ghosts are sensory
things and look like something which the eyes can see, so a
man of to-day, a Westerner, does not yet discern the spiritual,
when he looks into himself; he only sees something spectral,
something ghostly.
All
passions, instincts and desires are ghostly spectres, which
to-day precede the spirituality of the future, whereas the old
ghosts in which people believed succeeded the spirituality of
the past. It might be said that the old pure spirituality
developed from East to West, then came the belief in ghosts,
and the last traces of this belief are still among us. From
West to East a future spirituality is developing, which
is gradually drawing near, and which will become a reality in a
distant future. The first traces of this spirituality,
however, appear to be just as spectral as the ancient ghosts,
namely the instincts, passions, etc, such as we see them
to-day. The scholar of to-day must necessarily from his own
point of view attribute to man himself his instincts and
passions, yet he regards with contempt the general belief in
ghosts. He does not realise that this belief of the masses in
ghosts has just as much cognitive value and substance as has
his own belief in human desires, instincts and impulses. He too
is a believer in ghosts, but they are the ghostly spectres
which are only now beginning to appear, whereas the great
masses believe in ghosts belonging to a time now coming to an
end. That is why our European civilisation has become so
chaotic, because the old and the new spectres collide with one
another.
There is a brief description in one of my “West-East
Aphorisms” showing how humanity has been influenced
for a long period by an ancient traditional Oriental
spirituality on the one hand (a spirituality which had
condensed itself into a belief in ghosts), and on the other hand
in the belief in the spectres of instincts and passions, which
is only now beginning to spring into life and which has not yet
lost its sensory character. Ghosts, as they are generally
called, are spirits which have acquired a sensory-physical
character (or have become tangible) through the human
organisation, whereas impulses, instincts, desires and passions
are modern spectres pointing towards the future, spectres which
have not yet been raised to spirituality.
The
inner soul-life of a modern European lives in this particularly
chaotic co-operation of old and new spectres and a
spiritual conception must be found which throws light on
both. These questions are not only connected with man's
conception of the world, but with the universal human life upon
the earth. How can it be otherwise, seeing that not only
the spiritual life, but also the juridical, political and
economic life depend on such questions, since they all proceed
from the particular constitution of man. What, then, is the
origin of this whole development? — we must ask
ourselves.
I
have said that the divine-spiritual beings have their earthly
concerns in the human head. In man we distinguish a threefold
being: The nervous-sensory being centred chiefly in the head,
the rhythmical being which lives in the middle part, and the
metabolic limb being, which is contained in the extremities and
in their inner ramifications, that is to say, in the real
metabolic organs.
Now
we know that the gods ordered their earthly concerns during the
sleeping condition of the older type of humanity; that they
opened their workshop, as it were, in the head of man while he
was asleep. What takes place in the man of to-day?
It
happens also at the present time that the gods open their
workshop in man while he sleeps, but they no longer work in his
head, they work now in his metabolic system. But the
limb-metabolic organism — and this is what is now
most significant and fundamental — remains unconscious
even when the human head is awake. Remember how often I have
told you that man is awake in his thoughts and ideas; but when,
for instance, the thought comes to him, “Now I will raise
my arm, I will move my hand,” he does not really know
what takes place below, so that the muscle may carry out these
movements. This is not known to the man of to-day through his
normal consciousness. The whole way in which his thought-life
influences his organism remains in the dark. This leads to an
unconscious life even when man is awake. The gods' field of
action upon the earth to-day is therefore of such a kind that
during his waking life man's own natural development no
longer enables him to receive this inheritance of the gods when
he wakes up.
However, there is a divine-spiritual activity at work in man
to-day, from the time of falling asleep to the moment of his
awakening, but his surrounding natural conditions no longer
enable him to gain an impression of the gods' activity. In the
past, man's organisation was so constituted that he felt
inspired by his thoughts. To-day, man forms his own thoughts,
but in this activity the divine spiritual deeds do not yet
work. This capacity must first be developed in
mankind.
This is the task — I might call it a cosmic task — which
spiritual science must set itself. It must bring man forward in
his development, and even pedagogy must be encompassed within
such development, enabling him to recognise out of his own
inner being and in full consciousness the divine-spiritual
deeds. At the same time it will come about that he will no
longer see these inner spectres. Pacing man's real inner
being, the instincts and passions, as they are imagined to-day,
are nothing but spectres, even as ghosts are seen outwardly,
though these ghosts are not merely fragments of :he
imagination; they are divine-spiritual forces which have
become- delusively perceptible to the senses and which are
incorrect, untrue imaginings. Similarly the divine-spiritual
forces which are active in man's inner being are. thought of in
the wrong way to-day if we think of them as instincts and
passions.
External ghosts are now despised, but what is regarded as
so-called science is but a collection of spectres, of inner
spectres, and these must be transformed with man's co-operation
during the course of cosmic development. Our whole culture must
be permeated by impulses which go in this direction. Therein
will lie the possibility of breaking away from the forces
of decay, or from the chaotic interplay of such decadent
forces with constructive forces (though mankind still
struggles against the latter). Then we can advance to future
stages of human development inspired and driven by the spirit.
All this is essentially important.
What I wished to explain to you to-day is even a kind of
East-West contemplation, but expressed, I might say, more
esoterically. These East-West contemplations are to-day quite
in harmony with the times, and this is not meant trivially.
Only by such thoughts and considerations can humanity attain a
certain degree of consciousness.
We
must therefore say: In past times of earthly evolution, man was
even in sleep (for he is a human being when he is asleep, even
though he does not carry his body about with him) connected
with the gods in such a way, that he could perceive with his
soul's eyes, with spiritual eyes, how the gods took up their
abode in his head, but when he woke up, only the echo of these
feelings remained. Man gradually withdrew from this
divine-spiritual world, although he could still perceive it
dreamily.
The
gods descended deeper into the human physical form, and man is
connected with them at the present time in such a way that they
have now chosen his metabolic system and his extremities as a
workshop for the earthly being. But man does not completely
abandon this earthly being during sleep. And because this
abandonment is not complete, he will once more be able to
experience, from the world of the gods will-impulses, impulses
for his social life, and these he will experience not only in
sleep, but also as a complete human being, when he is awake. In
other words: Man must acquire mere and more CONSCIOUSLY the
knowledge of the spiritual world.
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