The Nature of Eternity
RUDOLF STEINER
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Public lecture given in Berlin, 21 March 1912.
Translated from a shorthand report unrevised
by the lecturer. The original German text is included in
the volume of the Complete Edition of the works of Rudolf
Steiner, entitled: Menschengeschichte im Lichte der
Geistesforschung. (Bibl. No. 61).
This English translation of the following lecture is published
by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung,
Dornach, Switzerland.
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In a brief outline of philosophical
thought Lessing alluded once to the only doctrine he
considered worthy of the human soul — the doctrine he
then expounded, in a form suited to Western consciousness, in
his masterly treatise, ‘The Education of the Human
Race’. He speaks there of reincarnation, of the
repeated earthly lives experienced by the human soul, and
continues somewhat as follows. Why, he asks, should this
doctrine, so obvious in primeval days to the soul of man and
one of its earliest treasures, while the soul was still
uncorrupted by all kinds of theorising — why should
this doctrine be less true than many other doctrines which in
the course of time have been accepted as the result of
philosophical speculation? After plainly indicating how this
theory of repeated earthly lives is the only reasonable one
for the human soul, Lessing says we might well expect that
any unprejudiced man, willing to let the true nature of the
soul work upon him, would grow accustomed to the doctrine
— were it not for two things. We are certainly eager to
know what Lessing meant by these two things that hindered the
human soul from accepting the doctrine of repeated earthly
lives. Lessing, however, never finished his sentence, having
presumably been disturbed. He breaks off with the words:
‘were it not for two things’, and a colon.
Nowhere in his writings, moreover, do we find anything to
tell us what he considered these two things to be, although
all kinds of speculations have been advanced by scholars who
have made a special study of his work.
Now perhaps
our conscience may allow us to assume that Lessing was most
probably thinking of two things generally repellent to people
when reincarnation is mentioned — two impulses rising
up in the soul against the idea. One impulse may be expressed
thus: whatever may be maintained by any form of spiritual
science in favour of reincarnation, one thing is certain
— that in normal consciousness we have no recollection
of having lived before on Earth. Therefore, even should
repeated earthly lives be in accordance with truth, they
would seem to be of no significance for human consciousness
and must therefore appear to it as an arbitrary hypothesis.
That, for many souls, is certainly one of the objections to
the idea of reincarnation. The second arises from a sense of
justice towards oneself. Repeated earthly lives require an
acceptance of destiny — whether we are fortunate or
unfortunate, gifted or not in worldly affairs — as a
consequence of what we have done in previous lives; so that,
to a far greater extent than is generally believed, we
ourselves would be the makers of our good fortune and
abilities, or the reverse. Many souls may well exclaim:
‘If I have to accept my destiny, if my earthly
existence is indeed burdened with that, have I got to accept
also that I myself — the Ego within me — has in
earlier lives on Earth created the destiny in which I am now
involved?’ This is what could be called a man's sense
of justice towards himself.
Anyone who
delves more deeply into Lessing's ways of thinking and into
his whole nature, making it part of his own soul will not
doubt that this pioneer of the reincarnation theory meant to
indicate these two objections to it. In the course of our
study of eternity and of man's soul in connection with it, it
will be well to pay attention to the facts just described. So
now we will once again call to mind something said by the
German philosopher Hegel about eternity — how if
eternity belongs by nature to the human soul, it must
certainly not reveal itself only after death, but must be
capable of being experienced during life on Earth. Hegel puts
it like this: Eternity cannot begin for the soul only at
death but must belong to it already during earthly life. If
we seek it in man's soul, if we seek to know how eternity
lives in us and how we can investigate it by looking into our
own depths, why should it not reveal itself at once, if, in
the sense of Spiritual Science, it is so intimately bound up
with the soul?
Former
lectures have shown that this close connection holds good
between what we may call the outgoing activity of the soul
during its existence from birth to death and everything
contained in the idea of reincarnation and in that of karma
— the working of causes from earlier lives into the
present one, and of the causes we are now creating to take
effect in our next life on Earth. We must think of the human
soul as enmeshed in this whole web of causes, bound up during
its present life with all it has experienced in earlier
stages of existence, and with all it has still to experience
in future lives. Hence a study of the present life of the
soul can lead to an outlook on the past and also on the
future. If we do not take eternity as an abstract idea, but
consider the human soul perceiving in itself its own being,
then we come to something which could lead us to a true
perception of the nature of eternity. For — to take a
comparison — are we not more likely to discover what a
chain is by examining it link by link rather than in its
whole length? This latter method would mean tackling directly
the study of eternity as such, whereas with the first method
we consider the single life of a human soul as just one of
the links in a whole chain representing for us the complete
life of the human being throughout earthly existence.
Now it is true
that anyone who looks for an assurance about eternity
generally concerns himself with the present time. The
lectures previously given here have shown from manifold
aspects how, when a man surveys his life of soul, he
repeatedly finds that all that takes its course there
converges ultimately towards one central point which he calls
his ego. Indeed, when we look around, at the philosophical
thinkers of today, we meet with frequent indications that the
only way of coming to any conclusion about our own being is
by considering the nature of our ego; for it is the ego that
holds together, as at a central point, everything experienced
in our soul. Does it not seem, therefore, that all we
experience in our heart, in our soul, in our thoughts,
feelings and impulses of will, might simply arise and then
pass away again? What, then, remains? To whose destiny do all
those thoughts, feelings and will-impulses belong? It is this
ego that proves itself to be the enduring central point. We
are quite aware that if the experiences of our soul are not
related to this enduring point, we can no longer speak of
being an individuality. Yet, whatever fine things may be said
about the ego by philosophers and thinkers, especially in
quite recent times, their speculations about its nature are
all open to one fatal objection. Intimately as we may come to
know how this centre of our soul-life remains the same in all
our conceptions, feelings and will-impulses, yet there is
something able to wipe out this experiencing of the ego in
normal consciousness; and this something is a constant
reminder of how easy it is to refute all philosophical
speculation about the endurance of the ego as normal
consciousness knows it. This refutation consists in something
we experience repeatedly every twenty-four hours: sleep. It
is not only our thoughts, sensations and will-impulses that
sleep obliterates, but also this central point, the ego.
Hence, we cannot with truth speak of permanence in connection
with the ego known to normal consciousness.
Nevertheless
— as we have seen in previous lectures — it is
possible for anyone to speak of the ego, not by focusing his
attention on this central point to which he is at the moment
relating his conceptions, moods of soul and will-impulses,
but by considering something quite different. Here the
question arises: Do we meet the ego among all the things
experienced in the external world from morning till night?
Anyone who asks this question without prejudice can say to
himself: No, in all the experiences that come to me from the
external world and make their impress on my conceptions,
feelings and will impulses, no ego can be found. From nothing
in the outer world can I derive the idea of the ego, yet it
is there from the moment I wake until I fall asleep. What
then can it be that lives in the flow of our concepts, states
of feeling and impulses of will and is always to be found
there, until sleep wipes it out? Since it is not to be found
outside in the world, it must be sought in our own inner
world. But our inner world is so constituted that we
obliterate what we have in normal consciousness as our ego.
Among the innumerable concepts a man is able to form, not one
will really throw light on a fact of this kind, except the
idea that the thought of the ego arising in normal
consciousness and not received from any external source, is
not a reality; for realities do not vanish as the idea of the
ego vanishes in sleep. If, then, it is not a reality, what is
it? Well, there is only one way of understanding it —
by assuming it to be an image, a picture, but one outside the
world of our experience and comprehensible only by comparing
it to someone confronted by his own reflection.
Now suppose
someone had never had an opportunity of seeing his own face;
he would then be in the same position regarding his outward
appearance as he is to his ego, which normally he always
experiences as an image, never discovering its true nature. A
man cannot see his own face from outside. Standing before a
mirror he sees his face, but it is only the image of his
face. If he looked around him what other reflections would he
see? Tables, chairs, objects of that kind; but not everything
around him would be reflected. Yet if he can say that there
is something not in his surroundings, something which is a
reflection for him alone — for nothing out there can be
reflected in our consciousness in the way the ego is —
it is then our own being which must experience the ego as a
reflection, although in ordinary consciousness it is never
directly perceived. Since it is a fact that nothing can be
reflected that is not there, so, if a reflection of the ego
is produced, the ego must be there, for the cause of the
reflection cannot be anything else. A glance at general facts
is enough to show the truth of that. We then have to say: As
the ego is given to man only as a reflection, it may vanish
in the way our face vanishes when we no longer look into the
mirror. An image can disappear whereas reality endures and is
still there, whether perceived or not. Anyone who wanted to
question the truth of that would be forced to maintain that
only what a man perceives exists in reality; but on following
up this assertion he would soon be convinced of its
absurdity.
Hence we must
say: In the idea of the ego there is no reality, but the idea
enables us to assume the reality of our ego. But how do we
gain certain knowledge of the ego in ordinary life? We can
acquire this knowledge by living not only in the present but
also, through memory, in the past. If, on looking back to
preceding days, weeks, years, even decades, to the point of
time in our childhood where memory can take us, we could
never link in one chain, as it were, all the experiences of
our own inner life; it would indeed be impossible to speak at
all of ego. What certain psychologists have said is quite
correct: a man loses his ego, or at least consciousness of
it, to the extent that the recollection of his experiences up
to the time in question is wiped out. In so far as our memory
fails, our ego breaks up.
We have
frequently pointed out that a man is able, especially by
thinking, to increase the backward stretch of his
memory. Today, however, we will consider what effect it has
when anyone experiences in memory not just a picture, of his
ego, but his ego in its true reality. Were we simply to
remember our experiences back to early childhood, there would
be no great difference between that and the emergence of the
idea of the ego at the present moment. Ultimately it is
immaterial whether we experience the reflection of the ego
while relating to this single point our present conceptions,
sensations and impulses of will, or whether we draw them from
the past. In both cases the ego with which we connect these
experiences is but an image. Were we merely to relate our
experiences to our ego, we should never, even in memory,
discover its reality, for we arrive at that only by learning
to know the ego in its activity, in its creative impulse; and
this experience proves to us that this creative element,
unaffected by the external world, maintains its activity even
during sleep. What then is it that continues to live and
weave within us while we are asleep?
Anyone who
practises this looking back in memory seriously and without
bias will say: In life I have gained knowledge of my
experiences in a way that not only enables me to relate them
to my ego, for it is undeniable that I have worked inwardly
on my experiences, quite apart from anything external, and by
so doing I have enriched them. Whoever is alive to the
ripening and enhancement of life going on in his own depths
knows that this cannot be due to any external reality, but to
something at work within himself. Moreover, anyone who
surveys life as a whole will realise that if we are to
succeed in this enhancement of life, in this inner evolution,
sleep is needed. We know quite well how lack of sleep creates
havoc in our ideas, and to some extent lays waste our states
of soul. We realise our need of sleep as a creative element,
if what we experience and perceive in the outer world is
really to contribute to the ripening of our inner life. By
this means we become certain how it is not the ego we observe
during the day that works upon us, but that behind this image
stands its reality, always at work in us, even when we are
asleep, for lack of sleep proves indeed to have a disturbing
effect on the soul's progress. Thus, in the enhancement, the
ripening, of the life of soul, we recognise the working of
the ego. By acknowledging how disorganised we become if we do
not sleep at the appointed time, when the ego should be
released from its connection with the bodily nature and
enabled to work in freedom — by knowing the lack of
sleep to be an obstacle to the ripening of life, we come to
be aware of the true ego working within us. We do not then
perceive it as an image but as an inner force, ceaselessly at
work in our life — whether we are awake or asleep.
There we have
the first indication — penetrating straight to the
reality — of the force that lives and weaves within us,
quite independently of the world outside. On going more
deeply into this inner experience, what do we find? Many of
the details to be referred to today — including the
following important fact — have been mentioned in
former lectures. For it is a fact that we make a certain
progress in life, that we become increasingly mature. But a
remarkable thing comes to light: that all that is best in
this maturity — everything that enables us to make the
most progress in life and by means of which we can best
observe the nature of the ego — is something that we
can learn from our faults and shortcomings. When we have
failed badly in some matter, or have done something
which shows us how imperfect, how incapable we are, our very
failure teaches us what we should have done. We have become
more mature. By means of such opportunities in life —
whether our thinking, feeling, willing or acting is concerned
— we develop our wisdom, our maturity. But we should go
on to say: Through the wisdom and maturity gathered from
life, which become an ever stronger inner force, we learn how
— because we never meet the same situation a second
time to learn once more from our faults — we must store
up this all-important force, for we shall never by able to
use it in this life again.
We see
therefore that throughout our earthly existence we are
continually storing up forces that find expression in our
maturity. If a life has been well spent, these forces will
have gathered their greatest strength by the time the gate of
death is reached. We see that we have something living in us
that cannot find an outlet in the external world. We live in
our souls by being able to look back on the past: it is
memory that holds together the threads of the soul. But out
of this memory comes forth something that lives and weaves in
us as inner ripeness of life; something appearing in earthly
existence as a surplus force. The spiritual scientist need
only apply a law that is valid for all ordinary science: the
law of the conservation of energy. Any scientist, any
physicist, will accept this law for the external world. It is
universally recognised that, when a finger is drawn lightly
across the surface of a table, even this slight pressure is
transformed into warmth. Hence we say that energy can be
transformed, can go through a metamorphosis, but can never
vanish away. Once we have consciously experienced that in the
ripe content of our life we have stored up forces which at
first cannot be used but are tested to their utmost when we
pass through the gate of death, then it should not be
difficult to understand that these forces, brought about by
the activity of the ego independently of the body, can never
be annihilated. Hence the bodily sheath, which contributes
nothing to our ripeness in life, can be cast off and revert
to its elements, but these forces remain intact. Because in
them we have the active ego as powerful centre, the ego is
present also in the ripened forces of life when the human
being passes through the gate of death. This may be contested
by those disinclined to apply to the spiritual life the laws
of ordinary physics; but they should be aware that they run
into an inconsistency directly they rise from the truths of
ordinary physics to the reality of the spirit. We only need
common sense in order to follow what Spiritual Science tells
us, that when we go through the gate of death there lie, deep
within us, stored up forces acquired in life, forces which,
exerted to their utmost, in a world differing from that of
the physical body, have then to work with the greatest
intensity. After death these forces have to work on in a
world which must obviously be presupposed, and there these
forces, that is, the inner nature of man, permeated and
strengthened by the ego, continue to live when man is free of
the body. Thus our ordinary intelligence gives us some idea
of life after death — not only showing in general terms
that there is such a life, but also describing the forces
which play into it.
When, however,
Spiritual Science goes on to speak in more detail about life
between death and rebirth, this naturally causes laughter
among those who believe they are standing on the firm ground
of ordinary science. This can well be understood by the
spiritual scientist, for he knows that neither their laughter
nor what they say depends upon reason and evidence but upon
the way they think, which makes it impossible for them to
acquiesce in what the spiritual scientist, as a result of his
researches, is able to say about life after death. They are
bound to find it ridiculous, or altogether fantastic, the
figment of a dream. You know how Spiritual Science shows that
a man, having passed through the gate of death, meets first
with a phenomenon only occasionally arising in life —
though this does sometimes happen and has, in fact, been
repeatedly observed. This first experience is a quite
unemotional looking back over the course of his earthly life.
I say expressly that in this survey neither feeling nor
emotion has any part; the whole panorama of his last life on
earth passes quickly before him as if in pictures. This can
be experienced in ordinary life if anyone has a shock, such
as being nearly drowned, but without losing consciousness
— for if that is lost the phenomenon does not occur.
Those, however, who have had some great fright, endangering
their life, have experienced this backward survey. That much
is conceded even by the natural scientist whose research is
confined to the external world. I have already reminded you
how the distinguished criminologist and anthropologist Moritz
Benedikt, having been nearly drowned, spoke of experiencing
this backward survey of his past life. From such a natural
scientist the spiritual scientist can learn a good deal, and
willingly, although today in this sphere his kindly feeling
will not be reciprocated.
Now what
occurs when anyone experiences this sudden fear of losing his
life? For a moment, though retaining consciousness, he ceases
to use the external organs of his body. During the experience
he loses the power of seeing with his eyes, of hearing with
his ears; he is torn away, as it were, by his inner being
from the physical body and from ordinary life, but without
loss of consciousness. The fact that he is able to have this
backward vista of his present life is proof that, when he
thus looks consciously into his own depths, all that arises
in his memory must be attributed to his inner being. For he
retains his memory when thus torn from his physical body.
Anyone experiencing a violent shock of this kind must realise
that whatever it is which fills him with memories goes with
him all through life but has no connection with his outer
sense organs. Hence we must say that man is united with some
more delicate soul-vesture that is the bearer of his
memories, although at such a moment it is lifted free from
his bodily organs. Obviously he cannot be asleep, for then it
would be the usual thing in sleep to have this backward
survey. So it follows that during a fright of this kind he
has within him something not present in sleep.
This confirms
what Spiritual Science has to say — that in sleep a man
goes out with his soul from the physical body, leaving behind
the bearer of memories, the vesture upon which he is working
throughout his life, so that his memory-pictures can be
preserved. In sleep he is outside the physical body, and also
that external vesture of the soul, called in Spiritual
Science the etheric body, which in ordinary sleep remains
bound to the physical body. At the moment of death, however,
this etheric body, which is also the activator of life,
leaves the physical body, and only this outer physical shell
of the human being remains. Death indeed comes because the
etheric body, though present in ordinary sleep, is no longer
there.
Hence, for a
short time after death, the same phenomenon occurs as during
a terrifying shock in ordinary life — a backward survey
in memory.
Now, as the
facts show, this survey experience is bound up with something
so closely connected to the physical body that not even sleep
can break the link. After death a man takes with him
something that belongs not to his innermost soul but,
in a certain sense, to his physical body. Spiritual Science
shows that within a relatively short time — a few days
only — after the discarding of the physical body, the
human being becomes free of the etheric body and is then
constituted in the main as he is during sleep. But Spiritual
Science goes on to show how the inner soul-being is then in a
situation different from its situation during life, when
every morning a man has to return to his physical body and
etheric body. He is closely bound to his physical body, to
everything that enfolds him, and this does not specially
belong to what we recognise as the real content of his life
of soul.
If we are
clear that during the whole of a man's waking life he is
wearing out his physical body and that life in the daytime
has fundamentally a destructive effect — as indeed we
realise when we get tired — it will be evident that
since in the morning we are able to go on consciously with
our work, the destruction can be made good during the night.
So, whereas in our waking state we are working all the time
destructively on our bodily organism, at night, on the
contrary, we are engaged in repairing the damage by
replenishing our bodily vigour. We are then carrying out an
activity beyond the range of consciousness. Directly we
revert to any degree of consciousness, there arise those
strange dream pictures that are so closely related to life in
the body. We need remember only how bodily ailments may
sometimes find expression in these pictures, showing
where consciousness is involved. Since after death the
physical body disappears, no effects of exhaustion have to be
made good. Hence the forces expended during sleep on the
physical body withdraw again into the soul after death,
enabling it, free of the physical body, to use them for
itself; and between death and a new birth they become the
soul's consciousness. In proportion as the soul is freed from
the physical and etheric bodies, with everything belonging to
them, so does another consciousness arise, one that is not
engaged in work on the physical body and for that reason
unable to be aware of itself.
All this will
seem to be nothing but a set of assertions. However, apart
from the fact that reference can be made to the methods given
in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, life itself can
draw attention to those things. For how does a man's life
take its course in face of death? If we follow up the way in
which thoughts and memories arise in us, what has been said
becomes evident to the soul. We can precisely and repeatedly
recall our past experiences as memory-images, but we remember
very little of all we have gone through in the way of
feelings and sensations, and in the exertion of our will. Who
would deny that, when some painful experience comes back to
him in memory, he recalls the pain in his thought but without
feeling over again the pain itself? Many other things there
are, too, experienced in our heart and soul, which are not
felt again. But they live on withal us in a different form,
to the point of making themselves felt in our whole
disposition, so that afterwards this is made up of everything
we have experienced in pain and sorrow, or in times of joy
and pleasure. Who can fail to realise, on looking with
inquiring sympathy at someone of an obviously despondent,
melancholic disposition, that the experiences he has gone
through in heart and soul have been drawn down deep within
him, there to remain, though perceptible to an observer in
this particularly melancholy guise? It is the same with the
sanguine man and his joyful response to life. It can be said
that our experiences are divided between those we can always
recall and those that remain below, working on us and
ultimately appearing in the very life of our body. If we look
thoroughly at this, we become convinced that our thoughts and
concepts are so weak, so lacking in colour and life, because
the emotional shading, the particular mood of soul pervading
the thought as it was experienced at the time, has been
suppressed and is working below the level of consciousness,
leaving thought empty of feeling.
When the whole
course of life is observed impartially, however, this
relationship between feeling and will on the one hand, and
thought on the other, can be seen to change. Thus at a
certain time of life a man will repress the feelings and
impulses connected with his thoughts, whereas at another time
he will keep them more together. Youth is the period when we
are most apt to yield over our joys, sorrows and impulses of
will to our subconscious. It is then that we are most easily
inclined to send down to the subconscious the experiences of
heart and soul that will eventually work into our whole
disposition — even into our bodily condition. But as
the body becomes more firmly knit, the elements of our
consciousness come to be less and less like what they
were, with the result that we are less and less able to work
on the subconscious, and our feelings and will impulses come
by degrees to remain bound up with our thoughts. When with
genuine self-knowledge a man observes life, he feels, as he
grows older, how in youth a person sends down most of his
moods of feeling, so that they live on in the make-up of his
body. But the more rigid and dried-up a man becomes later on,
the more do these experiences and the impulses of will not
exhausted in action, remain united with his thoughts. Thus we
see how, in this respect, the inner life is enriched as we
approach death. We see how the bodily organism gradually
dries up and becomes less capable of absorbing the soul's
experiences, whereas, if we continue to learn from life as
though from a school, the soul will become more alive, more
mature. For this reason all that in youth is connected with
ideals, ideas, even with mere concepts, flashes through our
unconscious being, lays hold of our blood, our nervous
system, and settles there, in order later to emerge as our
capability for living — or the reverse. Later on we
feel that our blood will no longer be, is no longer in
harmony with our enthusiasm for ideals. Because of our wrong
methods of education this feeling is now to some extent
repressed, but in future it will belong increasingly to the
best things and blessings of life. For when we are
approaching the winter of life, the feelings and impulses
that in earlier years we gave over to our bodily organism
will add to our strength of soul, no longer being able to
pass down into the body on account of the resistance they
meet with there.
Bearing this
in mind, we shall say: If we look into our own inner being we
find how, on approaching the gate of death, it becomes ever
richer. The contention that a man weakens with age is not
valid; it originates in materialistic habits of thought and
prejudices. In proportion to the decline of the body, the
inner life of the soul gains vigour, becoming inwardly more
childlike; we see a kind of approach towards those forces
which are at their highest tension when we are nearing the
gate of death. This is particularly true of people who are
enabled, through the training indicated in the book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds to have some perceptive
experience independently of their bodily organs. It is also
described there, how, by means of meditation and
concentration, we can so school ourselves that experience and
knowledge of the spiritual world can become absolute reality
for our souls. At the same time the soul knows with certainty
that this experience is acquired with no help from eye or
ear, or from any bodily organ, for it is then outside
the body. In a case of this kind, feeling and will-impulses
must permeate livingly a person's meditation and
concentration: thought alone is not enough. In
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
there is an exact account of how
the person must not lose touch with his feelings and
perceptions — with everything, indeed, that in youth
withdraws into the depths of the soul. He has to meditate and
concentrate with his mind, but his thoughts must be fired by
his heart and soul, and infused with life by those impulses
of will that are then not transformed into action but into
thinking.
When a human
being has developed the genuine clairvoyance appropriate for
our times, he wins through to what otherwise would be
experienced only after passing through the gate of death. All
such clairvoyance, however, is experienced by him in such a
way that he is aware of the following distinction: ‘I
can certainly experience’, he says to himself, ‘a
spiritual world, a world where men live between death and
rebirth, for I live with them there. But all my knowledge of
it I gain by simply perceiving it. The difference between me
and these souls is that I perceive all this without being
able to work and create in it.’ The soul is aware of
this distinction, but it derives only from being closely
linked to the physical body, for directly the clairvoyant
consciousness is freed from it and from the etheric body,
there follows a release of those forces which, while they are
held in tension by the physical body, permit the seer to gain
perceptive knowledge of the spiritual world beyond the gate
of death. It is these forces which are pre-eminent in a man
during the time between his death and rebirth. What the
clairvoyant experiences is like the force of a drawn bow. He
can use it only for perception, but directly the tension is
released the bow springs at once into movement. So it is for
the clairvoyant when he goes over from life in the physical
body to life in the world after death. And he can say to
himself: ‘I am able only to perceive the spiritual
world, only to see what is going on there. But after death,
the body having fallen away, forces are set free, just as
they are with a bow when the arrow is shot off.’ These
forces are available in a man's soul for other activities
after his death until he is reborn. This is the period when
he can look on his past earthly existence, and can then work
upon his next incarnation, when he will wake to a new life on
Earth. It is not only by looking at the matter in this light
that we can furnish evidence for it. We can obtain satisfying
evidence — though not a mathematical proof — by
turning to nature. In the growth of a plant we see how leaf
after leaf develops until the blossoms unfold: how these
blossoms are fructified and seed develops from the fruit.
Then the plant withers away. But does its force then come to
an end? No, on the contrary: at this very time the forces
which call the whole plant back to a new cycle of life are at
their strongest. They are now inwardly concentrated at one
point, as it were, and they appear again in a new form when
the seed is sown in the earth. We then watch the whole plant
being renewed; the beginning and the end of its life are thus
united. In like manner the highly concentrated forces in
ourselves when we pass through death are united with those
seen at the outset of life on Earth. We see how the human
being as an infant sleeps through a sort of twilight
condition into life. This condition gives free play for work
on the body, and this is carried out in such a way that the
bodily organs harmonise with the life of the soul. It would
be a sad pity if anyone wanted to maintain that the ego is
not active until self-consciousness begins. No, its activity
begins long before that, and afterwards the human being has
only to turn its forces to the building up of consciousness
and memory. Before this the forces of the ego are already
working on moulding the bodily organs so that the still soft
and pliable body shall be skilfully made ready to harbour the
coming consciousness. Hence we see how the ego is engaged in
its greatest work of art at the outset of a person's life,
and this shows that he is already in possession of active
forces when his memory begins to develop. if we observe the
human being quite impartially, we see how he comes to relate
himself to the world in his own individual way, and how his
undefined features and faculties gradually take form. Finally
we see how the force which had previously passed through the
gate of death in a concentrated form, in readiness for
building up a new body, is now actually at work on it, so
that the human being can enter his new body bearing with him
the fruits of his former life. In this way the ego proceeds
from one earthly life to the next. By actively enhancing the
life of a soul, it proves to be endowed with those potent
forces which — after continuing to increase until death
— maintain their activity during the time between death
and rebirth in such a way that the ego can imprint them on
another earthly incarnation.
Hence we see
how we ourselves are responsible for the causes which take
effect in our next life, since this life is the continuation
of the one before; and we see how each link in the chain
joins on to the next. We have only to compare this with
Buddhism to see how modern Spiritual Science, speaking from an
evolutionary standpoint based throughout on clairvoyance, can
accept the good thought in Buddhism while rejecting the
other. Buddhism is the last fruit of a primeval culture
dating from the times when primitive clairvoyance was a
natural gift, directly experienced, and when therefore the
idea of repeated earthly lives held good. At the same time
Buddhism maintains that everything working over from a man's
former life, and gathered together as the ego of his present
life, is merely a semblance. Fundamentally, Buddhism knows
nothing of the true ego, but only of the ego we have spoken
of as an image. Hence it says that our ego passes away like
our body, like our sheaths, and our former experiences. All
that the Buddhist recognises as playing over from the
preceding life into the present one, are deeds — Karma.
According to Buddhism, these deeds combine into a pattern
which, in each new life, evokes the semblance of an ego, so
that no real ego, but only a man's Karma works on from one
life into the next. Hence the Buddhist says: the ego is mere
semblance, Maya, like everything else, and I must endeavour
to overcome it. The deeds of my former life, now forming a
pattern as though round a central point, seem to be an ego,
but that is an illusion. Therefore I have to wipe out all
that Karma has thus brought into my life.
Spiritual
Science says the opposite: that the ego is the concentrating
deed of Karma. Whereas all other deeds are temporal and will
be compensated in time, this karmic deed, that makes a man
conscious of his ego, is not temporal. With ego-consciousness
therefore, something enters in that we can describe only by
saying — as we have done today — that its
existence is rising continually to a higher level; and that
when we re-enter earthly life we form ourselves again round
the ego. The Buddhist, on the other hand, obliterates the ego
and recognises nothing but Karma, which, working on from one
life to the next, creates a fresh illusion of an ego.
Adherents of modern Spiritual Science, however, for whom
Karma and ego do not coincide, say: ‘My ego passes on
from its present stage on Earth, with the enhancement thereby
gained, to re-appear later in a further incarnation,
when it will unite itself with the deeds then performed. When
as an ego I have done something, it remains with this central
point, and goes on with all my deeds from incarnation to
incarnation.’
That is the
radical difference between Spiritual Science and Buddhism.
Although they both speak in a similar way of Reincarnation
and Karma, it is the ego itself that progresses from one life
to another and shapes our inner life of soul. When we
contemplate this progress, we find it leading us back in each
existence to some point in early childhood before which we
recall nothing, relying on what is told us by parents and
others. Then, at a certain point of time, memory awakes, but
we cannot say that the forces of memory were not previously
in us; they were definitely there, at work on our inner life.
Evolution itself depends upon our memory arising at a certain
point in our early life. Moreover, Spiritual Science shows
that, just as memory awakes at a certain time in
childhood, so it is possible for a man, by raising his
consciousness to ever higher levels, to remember not only his
immediate past but also his previous lives on earth. This is
a fact of evolution which is at present evident only to
clairvoyant consciousness. It is in full agreement,
however, with what can be learned by other means. When a
justifiable objection to reincarnation is said to be that
people cannot recall their previous lives the answer is: Just
as our ordinary memory is a reality, although we cannot
recall our past experiences from the time before that faculty
developed, so a memory that can look back to earlier lives
must also be first developed. In this way memory becomes an
ideal of evolution, and we have to admit: As a child I had to
develop a memory for my present life: I must now go on to
develop memory for previous earthly lives. Thus we arrive at
the comforting fact — though narrow-minded people will
certainly not be in sympathy with it — that many ideals
lie ahead still for mankind, besides those derived from
ordinary consciousness; and these others include a striving
for the power to recall past earthly lives. But I repeat that
this is not a matter on which philistine souls can be in
accord with Spiritual Science. Only recently I was reading a
statement by a man held in great esteem today, in which he
advanced the opinion that it would never be possible for
human reason to solve all the riddles of the universe —
nor would this be desirable, for if all the riddles were
solved there would be nothing left for us to do on Earth.
Evidently he cannot conceive of evolution progressing beyond
its present stage, bringing men new faculties for new tasks,
nor can he imagine that what is for people's
‘good’ changes with the enhancement of their
consciousness.
One of the
blessings flowing from Spiritual Science is that it opens out
a perspective which does not lead off into vagueness. We have
no occasion to complain of looking ahead into empty time. All
eternity lies before us. We can see how each link of the
whole chain joins on to the next link and we can say to
ourselves: You bear in you now the forces acquired in this
present life, and with them you are building a future
existence when there will be opportunity for you to develop
these forces further. Thus, little by little, we experience
how real the thought of eternity becomes, how it
spreads out before the soul as a vast, everlasting
perspective. One of our gains from Spiritual Science is that
we no longer ask the abstract question: What is eternity?
— nor do we receive a merely abstract answer, for by
truly studying human life we see how eternity arises, how
each link in the whole is formed, and all abstract
considerations are thus driven from the field. The reality
then shows — as reality always must — how
everything is built up out of single parts, member by member.
Thus Spiritual Science points to the nature of man's soul as
throwing light upon the nature of eternity and on the way
these two are connected.
If now we turn
to the second objection, to which perhaps even a personality
such as Lessing gave credence, someone might say : ‘On
these lines my destiny becomes clear to me, but if I am to
suppose that I prepared it for myself through my Karma, this
makes it even more painful, for then I would have to blame my
shortcomings on myself.’ In the light of Spiritual
Science, however, this idea can be transformed. Before our
last birth we chose to have the misfortune that now befalls
us: by seeking it, and especially by overcoming it, we
acquire full capability of which, previously, we could not
realise our need. In our disembodied state we became
convinced of our need, and only by steering our way to this
misfortune do we fit ourselves for rising to a higher level.
Thus, through karmic law, the school of life proves to be the
bringer of good fortune; and misfortune is seen to add
strength to the ideal of eternity.
There is no
time now to show how our earthly bodies are continually
changing their original form; and how, when the Earth comes
to an end, it will be succeeded by another kind of existence.
Hence our present lives on Earth do not cover the whole of
human existence; they too have had a beginning. Whatever a
human being has acquired during repeated lives on Earth will
avail him for other forms of existence. In studying the
earthly it is enough to consider the essence of the human
soul. That is how we can learn that eternity does not begin
only after death, for it can be discerned already in the
nature of the embodied soul.
Spiritual
Science, therefore, raises from the past to a new and higher
level something that was foreseen to a certain extent
and even investigated by searchers after the spirit in days
gone by. Hegel was right in saying, that eternity could not
begin for the soul only at death, but must be inherent there
during its earthly existence. Here is something on
which Spiritual Science will throw more and more light, with
a clarity so permeated by feelings and impulses of will that
it becomes the very elixir of life — something that has
always been thought of as an essential part of the being, the
nature, of the human soul. So I can now quote an old saying
which, though not summing-up the content of this lecture, is
in harmony with its character. It was uttered in the third
century after Christ by the great mystic and philosopher,
Plotinus, who meditated deeply upon the nature of time and
eternity — upon everything, in fact, that forms the
basis of what we have been considering today:
Eternity is not bound up with the soul
and spirit of man's essential being as a merely
fortuitous characteristic, but is a necessity for the
nature of the human soul. Neither is Eternity a
fortuitous characteristic of the spirit.
Eternity belongs to the spirit, is in
the spirit, comes forth from the spirit.
Eternity lives through the spirit.
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