THE
WAY OF KNOWLEDGE
(THE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE)
Rudolf Steiner
Pforzheim 17 January 1909
Translated by Hanna von Maltitz
Supported by the Basil Gibaud Memorial Trust
After the opening of the Pforzheim branch we are together again
and will best fill our time by immediately entering into a
spiritual theme, a theme which, through Anthroposophy, shows
that we don't only absorb teaching and thoughts but that our
life of feeling and of experience is enriched, calmed and
protected. We do not dare imagine that teaching, imagining and
thoughts are unimportant in our life of feeling. It's like
this: in our time we will gradually come to say: Of thoughts
and science there is enough in the world and we only need to
take some or other book of instructions regarding the starry
worlds or whatever else, to fill our minds with enough science.
Theosophy however should be involved with mood or experience.
— That is definitely correct because science, as
encountered through popular lectures and publications, can
offer little for the heart and soul. We don't dare conclude
however that teaching, observation and knowledge are
worthless.
Spiritual scientific knowledge is quite different to teachings
of outer science. When we allow spiritual knowledge to really
work into us, it becomes transformed in us as feelings, as soul
impulses, as a way of thinking and in no other way can we
acquire courage, certainty and power than through the deepening
of this knowledge. It is quite different to merely recognise
and know sense perceptible things and pioneering events, how
things come about, than it is to penetrate behind the sensual
things into the preceding spiritual events. When we allow
spiritual events to work through the soul, we become warm,
healthy and strong. We recognise the connections between us and
that which weaves throughout the entire world as spirit and
soul, the originators of all appearances. Consequently we want
to come to grips with the relationship between the outer
sensual world, outside, and our soul. On looking at our own
souls, we find so to speak those things closest to us —
suffering, joy, pain and pleasure — and now the question
arises: When spiritual sciences says that everything in the
world is spirit-penetrated, then we can argue that suffering,
joy, pain and pleasure can also be found in those things which
surrounds us, as well as in those things which we also meet as
being callous, painless and insensitive. — We need to
acquire the right way of thinking about things around us,
through Anthroposophy.
We
see for instance the various plants, animals and minerals
around us. Not only do animals equally give us joy and
suffering, pleasure and pain; that no one doubts. With plants
and the apparently lifeless world of stones we can come to
doubt that feelings, pleasure, joy and pain can be inherent in
them. It is exactly this, which we acquire as experiences
related to the entire surrounding world, that all beings are
not only physically linked to us but that these beings link to
us in such a way as to have soul content, just as we have soul
content. Now we need to deepen within us, in the right way,
what spiritual research and spiritual knowledge has to say
about it. It is even understood in our time, from more sensory
thoughts, that the plants could posses something spiritual,
yes, one may be tempted to admit that an apparently lifeless
stone could contain something spiritual.
When you consider you can still easily make mistakes if you
don't take into account spiritual scientific research, you can
easily say: If I cut the physical body of a person then I cause
hurt, the same with animals; but when I cut a plant, will it
also feel hurt? — Hence I can infer that if I crush a
stone, I'm hurting it also. As a result, when people think
about these things they come to believe that everything
happening to other beings is experienced in the same way as to
human beings, and because of this belief, they find it so
difficult to enter with their thoughts into knowledge of
spiritual knowledge. Occult science offers us quite a different
way of recognising the soul nature of plants and stones, for
instance. It appears, when we contemplate the plant, that
certainly, when the plant is partly damaged where it grows out
of earth towards the heights, no feeling of pain penetrates the
plant, that it doesn't hurt but that the opposite is the case.
That which comprises the actual soul of the plant feels
pleasure, almost joy, when over the surface of the earth
sensitive parts of plants are destroyed. Pain only starts for
the plant soul when the plant is pulled out of the earth,
uprooted; a similar pain is experienced when we or animals for
instance have hair pulled out. This is something which a soul
can gradually experience when on the so-called way or path of
knowledge.
These things only allow us to experience them in our own souls
when we transform our souls in such a way as to wake the
slumbering, true powers of knowledge. Then the ability begins
for the soul not only to feel compassion towards other people
but to have compassion for the whole of the rest of nature, and
the rest of nature becomes understandable in a wonderful way.
Now
we could say: what do we get from spiritual scientific research
if we ourselves can't feel such things? — It is an
incorrect objection if we believe Anthroposophy has no meaning.
It already has an account of spiritual-soul facts of great
value. When such knowledge for example speaks about the
relationship of plant suffering to plant joy then we really
need to think about this knowledge and should allow such
thoughts to work on us. Through our mere reflection regarding
this knowledge we lure out contained forces and we will soon
feel that it is indeed so, what is said by spiritual science.
We learn however through knowing that when we look into the
wisdom of nature, the plant soul experiences pleasure when we
pick it. From this we can get the notion that we can think what
is going to happen should the plant have been able to
experience pain. Just think about it, what a large part of the
earth's beings are nourished through plants, and how, through
the nourishment of people and animals the pain could
increasingly be spread over the earth. That isn't the case, but
pleasure and joy spreads over the earth when an animal grazes
in a pasture. Whoever has knowledge about this, feels entire
streams of joy weave over the earth when in autumn the sickle
cuts through the blades of grain. When the young animal sucks
milk from its mother it does not mean there is pain, but a
definite feeling of pleasure. Thus we see into the wisdom of
nature when we go through life this way.
Against these things one should never turn your back: yes, it
can appear gentler under the circumstances when a plant is dug
out with its roots and replanted, instead of picking flowers.
— Certainly, but this doesn't change the facts that
uprooting causes actual pain to the plant soul. Deliberate
ripping off blossoms can naturally from a certain point of view
be rebuked, but even that changes nothing about the plant soul
undergoing pleasure. From various points of view it looks
different. A person may consider for example, from a standpoint
of beauty, that pulling out the first grey hairs seems quite
justified, even though it causes pain. Something else comes to
our notice when we take this comparison of the uprooting of
plants and the uprooting of human hair. We start to understand
what it means when spiritual science considers not a single
plant, but so to speak looks at the plant growth over the
entire earth. Just as hair belongs to all human beings, so
plants and earth create a unity, and we understand and can also
think that, what we call the “I” (Ich) in spiritual
science regarding a person, we can't find in a single plant but
in the central point of the earth. The plant is absolutely not
a single being, but becomes part of the great living being,
existing out of many single living beings, but which has their
“I” in the centre of the earth.
No
one dares ask the question: Is there a place for this
“I” everywhere? — Certainly, because it is
spirit and can penetrate all. So our earth becomes a living
being. So every single plant becomes something which grows out
of a large supersensible being and, on the surface, becomes
what nails or hair is to the human being. When we take such a
fact seriously then we no longer argue about dry cerebral
concepts regarding a physical planet on which we are living but
then we feel that not only are we living beings but that we are
linked to a great living being which is our planet. We learn to
take cognisance of this spiritual being and we learn that it
concerns more than just a comparison, when, in the sap flowing
through the plant something happens similar to when blood
courses through the human body. We learn to transform these
things in our feelings by understanding them spiritually.
When we touch a plant we experience the soul-spiritual, we feel
safe within the soul-spiritual. Gradually it becomes possible
to add the thought given in spiritual science: The earth has
gone through divers metamorphosis. We discover, when we go back
in the most distant past, that the earth appeared quite
different, that for example such solid rock masses as we have
today, were not present then. There had been a time when the
earth existed of only air and water and a certain condition of
warmth. Only gradually solidity developed from the fluid and
soft conditions. On contemplating this whole development, the
activity within the entire development appears to us as one of
growing and thriving. At one time the earth was young and in
time it will become old and aged.
If
we apply all imaginings which we relate to ourselves, to the
earth, then we will understand that during our earth
development certain extraordinary important stages were
reached. We will bring such important stages in our earth
development before our souls when we contemplate the following:
Already from our earth's plant growth we realize, by
considering the earth as a whole, that it is a living being.
Similarly various other heavenly bodies are living beings which
stand in a certain relationship to us. Let us look at our sun
and moon. Consider the sun. You all know what we owe to the
sun. You all know that when you have rested for the night, when
you had been in a state of consciousness which had brought
about the astral body and the ego (Ich) leaving the physical
and ether bodies — you know, when the astral body and ego
return, that it so to speak expects everything which the earth
owes to the sun. What would the earth be without the sun? The
sun surrounds our entire earthly mass with warmth and light.
But we have to consider the activity of such a heavenly body on
another not only as merely substantial and materialistic but we
need to be clear that this sun does not only have a physical
body floating in space but the sun is inhabited by spiritual
beings and that in each ray of sunshine not only physical light
but also spiritual activity streams to us.
A
spiritual exchange between sun and earth was always there, but
it has essentially changed in the course of earthly
development. While no great difference in the physical exchange
between sun and earth has come about during many, many millions
of years, a spiritual and meaningful stages were reached. High
beings these are, who live in the light and warmth of the sun
and who work into the earth from there, flooding us with light
and warmth.
A
Sun Being, who had up to a specific moment in time his stage in
the sun, which man could through long, long earthly cycles only
observe clairvoyantly, this Being descended at a specific
moment from the sun down to the earth. This is something which
allows us to see in depth into spiritual development: through
the event which we call the Mystery of Golgotha, or in other
words, through the passage of Christ on earth, the spiritual
Being who had been up to that point on the sun, united himself
with the earth. He connected himself with the earth. Humanity's
division of earthly time into pre-Christian and post-Christian
has its origin in this: that this living being, which we call
the earth, underwent through this deed an important development
through the appearance of Christ on earth. What was previously
only found in the sun, since then can be found in the astral
body of the earth. The astral body of the earth changed through
the Mystery of Golgotha: at the very same moment the blood
flowed out of the wounds of the Redeemer, at that moment the
Christ-Soul felt itself uniting with the body of the earth.
This has to be understood in order for us to consider the
reported story of Christianity in the correct light. We can ask
ourselves: what then was one of the most important events with
reference to the spreading of Christianity? When one looks at
the propagation of Christianity one can say: firstly more had
been accomplished by Paul than those who were the physical
companions of Christ Jesus in Palestine; Paul who was no
physical companion of Christ Jesus, who had even persecuted the
Christ. Paul didn't become a believer through sharing the life
and suffering of the Christ, but he became a warrior for Christ
through the Event of Damascus.
In
theology much dust is raised over the Event of Damascus. Yet no
one comes to an understanding of the Events of Damascus but
through spiritual science. Let's try to bring this into harmony
in only a few words — which will be uttered now. The
moment Paul's reasoning consciousness changed into the higher
consciousness, what did he see? He saw in that moment this
spirit in the astral world, who had become the earth spirit; he
saw the living Christ, who since the Event of Golgotha had
united with the earth. One can well ask: what was this light
which he saw, which people could not see before? — Paul
first learnt to know the Christ from the time Christ united
with the earth. Thus we may point out this important moment of
the earth by saying: the earth prepared itself for this, to
become a worthy body for the Christ-Spirit and while the earth
was preparing for the uniting of itself and the Christ-Spirit,
during this time the Christ-Spirit worked into it. Christ said
according to the St John's Gospel: “Whoever eats my
bread, treads me with their feet.” People who walk on
earth step on the earth with their feet. “Whoever eats my
bread, treads me with their feet,” is an expression for
the mystery which lies in this important stage of earthly
development.
How
endlessly profound this becomes with the inauguration of
Communion with this in mind, that the earth became from then on
the body of Christ! How meaningful this becomes with reference
to the words: “This is my body” and that which
flows through the plants: “This is my blood.” We
learn to take literally what we only dared pronounce in words.
So we come, when we consider the earth as alive, as a living
being which gradually matures, to the right moment, ready for
the acceptance of the Christ-soul.
So
from all sides it appears that we encounter the physical planet
as spiritual; it appears penetrated by spirit. We then learn to
understand connections between that which we meet daily and the
super-sensible. When we turn our attention from the plant
kingdom to the stone realm then it will not appear through
clairvoyant consciousness that we inflict pain when we crush a
stone to dust; by contrast, when a stone is turned into dust,
what we could call the stone-soul, experiences pleasure and
joy. Those who have the sight know that with crushing the stone
world, joy streams out of the rock. When, for example, salt is
dissolved in a glass of water, pleasure spreads through the
water as the salt particles move apart. The opposite is the
case when through cooling the solution of salt crystallizes;
through the crowding together of the stone particles pain takes
place. We look again deeply into the way in which the Initiates
speak to us, when they want to tell humankind something like
this.
These things are not simply said. We must go through them in a
spiritual way to reach an understanding of the great religious
documents. It has already been said that originally no hard
rock kingdom existed, that the earth was fluid. Its solidity
came into existence through the gathering of parts and by
hardening. What does man and animal owe to the earth's
condensing? Surely so man and animal can live in the present
state? Without solid ground and land the earth couldn't offer a
base for man and animal. Now bring this imagination into our
souls as actual spiritual history. This is hardly understood
when only considered with the mind of a physicist. Only when
we, with our hearts and minds, explore the earth's coming into
being, then we can become conscious of what lies in the stone
kingdom, that soul processes are at play, while the was earth
solidifying. Pain and suffering was involved — through
this, man and animal owe the possibility to live on the
earth.
These are the facts that lie at the basis of Paul's words after
his Initiation and perception into these things: “All
creatures suffer and sigh under the gradual solidification, all
creatures sigh and wait for the spiritualisation.” He
points with these deep words to the innermost, to the soul of
the earthy beings. Now we may en-soul everything, by looking
through the eyes of spiritual science, and only through
glimpsing the soul and spirit in everything, will we gradually
find the world around us becoming more and more comprehensible.
We come to an understanding that the world which surrounds us,
as in physiognomy, is an outer expression of an inner life.
Then we will learn to grasp that the world looks exactly as it
appears to people. Further we will learn to understand that
behind all physicality is the soul-spiritual which has to be
the origin of everything physical, and when the spiritual
researchers take us back they show us how in the far, distant
past, everything gradually developed out of the spiritual. The
human being gradually descended from the spiritual world into
the physical, and we must not imagine this descent as something
as materialistic as is usually done these days, but rather ask:
where does this actual material world which surrounds us,
originate from, which is spreading ever more around us?
Mankind were for some time through and through spiritual,
embedded in the soul-spiritual. Mankind developed only
gradually out of this soul-spiritual. If we glance back to a
relatively short time ago — when the realms of time were
long, but for the spiritual researcher they are short to name
— we find that our earth didn't appear as it does today,
that her countenance has thoroughly changed, above all things
through the event of the Flood, which in spiritual science goes
under the name of the Atlantean Flood. Under this Atlantean
flooding we may consider that through air and water activity
the face of the earth was completely transformed. Previously
the people lived in an area of the earth where the Atlantic
Ocean is today. Land existed and there our souls actually lived
in previous embodiments in Atlantean bodies. If we look
spiritual scientifically at these people at the beginning of
this Atlantean time, they appear quite differently to our souls
from today. They appear in the early Atlantean times as if they
perceived everything in a different way to later. Today, when
one of us, during our waking hours glances around, we perceive
objects in colour and light. When in the night, the physical
and ether bodies are released from the ego and astral bodies,
this world disappears. We call this unconsciousness.
During early Atlantean times it was not the case that
unconsciousness surrounded people when they entered into
another condition during night time. Everything emerged at that
time that was soul and spirit in the physical world. People for
instance saw flowers before they fell asleep. During sleep they
perceived the soul-spiritual of the flower in the soul-spirit
world. Therefore these things were, what we call physical outer
objects today, not sharply defined as today, because the people
saw these as if in a mist surrounded by edges of colour. So we
see how the soul too has gradually changed its look. When we go
back even further, we will find that the souls only perceived
the spiritual, because the physical had not solidified out of
the soul yet.
Now
the people on our earth were subject to an important point in
their development and this moment lay in the middle of their
Atlantean development. At this midpoint the people would, if a
certain achievement hadn't already been reached, not have
ceased perceiving the spiritual world with their nocturnal
consciousness. If a certain event hadn't intervened, the people
of the middle Atlantean time would for instance not have seen
some or other object, like a flower, as yellow, but as it were
the spirit of the plant would have appeared to them. That this
happened differently was due to people allowing Lucifer and his
supporters to exert their influence earlier. The Atlantean was
so to speak unaware of the outer physical world; it would have
appeared transparent. He had perceived the spiritual world
behind everything.
What now happened for the physical world to be not spread under
a transparent crystal blanket but to become opaque? Through the
spiritual world becoming concealed, yet another possibility,
the influence of Ahriman, or as Goethe called him,
Mephistopheles, could be expressed. As a result this spirit,
which we call the ahrimanic, could penetrate, and after a
certain time error and illusion stepped in. That which we call
Maya, illusion, could mix into the conception of the world. So
behind everything which we take as the physical world, stand
the principals of this world, as we call them in the Bible.
Their influence penetrates everywhere. Without these
influences, matter would appear transparent and reveal the
underlying spiritual. As a result an enormous change came about
through these events within the souls of people. When we
consider how human beings developed on the earth, we see how at
a certain time the luciferic and at another time the ahrimanic
influences made themselves effective.
When we look back at that time when the human being was still
spiritual, when solidity hadn't crystallized, we see how the
forces of nature and humanity were not as separate as they are
today. They were in that time much closer while the earth was
still penetrated by the watery element. The softer the earth
was, the more spiritual were the people — human thoughts
and human feelings influenced forces of nature. When we go even
further back behind the Atlantean times, we find: As human will
impulses turned to anger it had quite a definite influence on
fire, and thus a large portion of the earth was destroyed in
order for the human being to go through the luciferic influence
and stimulate evil instincts, through which in an alternate
hindsight mankind acquired his freedom and independence. Thus,
what we call forces of nature, were linked to human thinking
during the Atlantean time.
Now
it happened, through humanity's so called luciferic influence
granting them independence, that it was given the possibility
to influence the forces of nature through the will. Gradually
human beings withdrew from the influence of nature forces. This
went hand in hand with the influence of Ahriman who wanted to
mask the spiritual world from the human being. People who could
still see the spiritual world were able to influence nature's
forces. Single people were able to withdraw from these
influences, the majority of mankind not. Even today actually
very few individuals have a direct influence on the forces of
nature, in comparison to humanity as a whole, and when we
consider humanity in its entirety then we will see accordingly
that besides individual karma there exists earth karma for the
whole of humanity.
This is a result of what once were a luciferic and then an
ahrimanic influence. This being we call Ahriman stands in a
mysterious connection to the powers of earth fire which goes
back to the direct influence of a few single people. These fire
powers of the earth is a life element of ahrimanic spirits and
through the ahrimanic influence the collective karma of the
whole human race is bound in a certain extent to Ahriman. When
specific soul attitudes of mind and events enter into human
development, then again the relationship between people and
Ahriman is valid, and that, which enabled people to influence
forces of nature, still takes place today through Ahriman and
his spiritual horde.
Every time Ahriman stirs, it indicates nothing other than that
something had happened in human history which attracted Ahriman
and brought him into turmoil and rage. In the soul of man
something happens, something which for instance lets the
largest part of mankind fall into materialism. This enables
Ahriman to work in his own element — he then has a living
element — because human materialism attracts him more
than people who become spiritual. Ahriman awakens storms,
volcanic outbursts and earthquakes. Here we really have
something which shows how nature and spirit are connected.
Nothing happens on earth without a spiritual connection. Our
soul is connected to its good and evil deeds as a result of
what is going on, on earth. When the earth rages during an
earthquake, we will never say it is as a result of a single
person's karma, but mankind's karma. Everyone can thump his
heart and say his individual karma is included here, the single
must perish, because right here the valve of the earth had to
open up. He will be recompensed in future. — A
materialistic point of view will say this is superstitious but
whoever says this doesn't realise how childishly the argument
is. How can a flower grow without a spiritual basis, how can it
be an expression of spirit and soul, just so no earthquake, no
volcanic eruption can be without a spiritual origin, without a
spiritual cause. When we, as we said, stare karma in the face,
then we make it valid for the entire life of humankind.
Only when we don't bring spiritual scientific teaching into
movement, it appears cold and calculated by the mind. When we
however allow our feelings, our attitude of mind and our
experiences to be penetrated, then we will see the earth as a
living being, through and through soul and spirit, and then you
will see that this earthly body is bound to spiritual beings of
the most various kinds and that a very important event has come
to the fore, whose effectiveness is only beginning: the
appearance of Christ on earth. Through Christ alone are the
consequences of Ahriman's power driven out.
As
a result of spiritual science's infusion into the human heart
with this Christ-Spirit, that which spreads out on earth as the
entire spirit of humanity, now enables the earth right into its
nature elements to come to peace and harmony.
When all human hearts in the true sense experience the
Christ-Spirit then the power which will stream from this will
be so strong, it will calm fire and water. Then the
Christ-Spirit would bring peace and harmony into the elements
of nature, and the earth itself become an expression of the
spirit. The earthly body, which is a living being, would become
soft and mild and rise with the human spirit and human soul
towards its spiritualisation. To a higher spiritual existence
the earth will rise. We can place this as a higher, further
ideal and can allow this to penetrate us each moment. No moment
is lost in the development of humanity which is applied in such
a way that knowledge and will impulses are inter-penetrated by
spirit.
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