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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Macrocosm and Microcosm
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Macrocosm and Microcosm
Schmidt Number: S-2200
On-line since: 7th July, 2002
THE INNER PATH FOLLOWED BY THE MYSTIC.
EXPERIENCE OF THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR
To obviate any possible misunderstanding, I want to emphasise that the
aim of yesterday's lecture was not that of proving anything in
particular but merely to point out that certain observations led
spiritual investigators of bygone times to designate by similar names
certain processes and objects in space and certain processes and
happenings in our own daily and nightly experiences. The main purpose
of the lecture was to introduce concepts that will be required in our
further studies. The lectures given in this Course must be regarded as
a whole, and the early lectures are in the widest sense intended to
assemble the ideas and conceptions needed for the knowledge of the
spiritual worlds that is to be communicated in those that come later.
Today, too, we shall take our start from familiar experiences and pass
on gradually to more remote realms of spirit.
We have heard in previous lectures that in respect of his inner being,
in respect, that is to say, of his astral body and Ego, man lives
during the sleeping state in a spiritual world and on waking returns
into his physical and etheric bodies. It will be evident to anyone who
observes life that when this transition from the sleeping to the
waking state takes place, there is a complete change of experience.
What we experience in the waking state denotes no actual perception or
knowledge of the two members of our being into which we descend on
waking. We come down into our etheric and physical bodies but have no
experience of them from within.
What does a man know in ordinary life about the aspects presented by
his physical and etheric bodies when seen from within? The essential
fact of experience in the waking state is that we view our own being
in the physical world from without, not from within. We view
our physical body from outside with the same eyes with which we look
at the rest of the world. During waking life we never contemplate our
own being from within, but always from without. We really learn to
know ourselves as men only from outside, regarding ourselves as beings
of the sense-world.
There is, of course, an actual state of transition from sleeping to
waking life. How, then, would it be if we were really able, on
descending into our etheric and physical bodies, to contemplate
ourselves from within? We should see something quite different from
what we see in the ordinary way: we should know the intimate
experiences sought by the mystic. The mystic endeavours to divert his
attention entirely from the outer world, to shut out the impressions
invading his eyes and other senses and to penetrate into his inmost
being. But leaving aside experiences of this kind, we can say that in
daily life we are protected from the sight of our inner being, for at
the moment of waking our gaze is diverted to the external world around
us, to the tapestry presented by the senses the tapestry of
which our physical body, when observed during waking life, is a part.
Thus in the waking state the possibility of observing ourselves from
within, eludes us. It is as though we had been led unknowingly across
a stream: while we sleep we are on this side of the stream,
when we are awake, on yonder side. If we were capable of perceiving
anything from this side, we should be able to perceive our
Ego and our astral body as we perceive outer objects in waking life;
but again we are protected from perceiving our own inner being in
sleep, for at the moment of going to sleep the possibility of
perceiving ceases and consciousness is extinguished.
Thus between our inner and our outer world a definite boundary is
drawn, a boundary which we can cross only at the moments of going to
sleep and waking. But we can never cross this boundary without being
deprived of something.
When we cross the boundary on going to sleep, consciousness ceases and
we cannot see the spiritual world. On waking, our consciousness is at
once diverted to the outer world and we are unable to perceive the
spiritual reality underlying our own being. The boundary that we
cross, the boundary that causes the spiritual world to be darkened at
the moment of waking is something that interpolates itself between our
Sentient Soul and our etheric and physical bodies. The veil that
covers these two members on waking, the veil that prevents us from
beholding the spiritual reality underlying them, is the Sentient
Body, which enables us to see the tapestry presented by the outer
world. At the moment of waking the Sentient Body is wholly concerned
with the outer world of the senses and we cannot look within our own
being. This body, therefore, constitutes a frontier between our life
of inner experience and what spiritually underlies the world of the
senses.
We shall realise that this is necessary, for what a man would see if
he were to cross this stream consciously is something that must be
hidden from him in the course of his normal life, because he could not
endure it; he needs to be prepared for the experience. Mystical
development does not really consist in penetrating by force into the
inner world of the physical and etheric bodies, but in first making
oneself fit for the experience and passing through it consciously.
What would happen to a man who were to descend unprepared into his own
inner being? On waking, instead of seeing an external world, he would
enter into his own inner world, into that which spiritually underlies
his physical and etheric bodies. In his soul he would experience a
feeling of tremendous intensity, known to him in ordinary life in a
very faint and weakened form only. That is what would come over a man
if he were able, on waking from sleep, to descend into his own inner
being. An analogy without attempting to prove anything
will help you to have an idea of this feeling.
There is in man what is called the sense of Shame, the essence of
which is that in his soul he wants to divert the attention of others
from the thing or quality of which he is ashamed. This sense of shame
in connection with something he does not want to be revealed is a
faint indication of the feeling which would be intensified to
overpowering strength if he were to look consciously into his own
inner being. This feeling would take possession of the soul with such
power that it would seem to be diffused over everything encountered in
the external world; the man would undergo an experience comparable
with that of being consumed by fire. Such would be the effect produced
by this feeling of shame.
Why should it have this effect? Because at that moment a man would
become aware of the perfection of his physical and etheric bodies
compared with what he is as a being of soul. It is also possible to
form an idea of this by ordinary reasoning. Anyone who with the help
of physical science makes a purely external study of the marvelous
structure of the human heart or brain, or of each single part of the
human skeleton, will be able to feel how infinitely wise and perfect
is the arrangement and organisation of the physical body. By taking
one single bone, for example the hip bone, which combines the utmost
carrying capacity with the least expenditure of effort, or by
contemplating the marvelous structure of the heart or brain, it is
possible to have an inkling of what would be experienced if one were
to behold the wisdom by which this structure was produced and were
then to compare with this what man is as a being of soul in respect of
passions or desires! All through his life he is engaged in ruining
this wonderful physical organism by yielding to his desires, urges,
passions and various forms of enjoyment. Activity destructive to the
wonderful structure of the physical heart or brain can be observed
everywhere in life. All this would come vividly before a man's soul if
he were to descend consciously into his etheric and physical bodies.
And the soul's imperfection compared with the perfect structure of the
sheaths would have an overwhelmingly paralysing effect upon him if he
were able to compare what is in his soul with what the wise guidance
of the universe has made of his physical and etheric bodies. He is
therefore protected from descending into them consciously and is
deflected, on waking, by the tapestry of the sense-world outspread
around him; he cannot look into his inmost being.
It is the comparison of the soul with what it would perceive if it had
sight of what spiritually underlies the physical and etheric bodies
that would evoke the intense feeling of shame; preparation for this is
made in advance through all the experiences undergone by the mystic
before he becomes capable of penetrating into his inmost being. To
realise for himself the imperfection of his soul, to realise that his
soul is weak, insignificant, and has still an infinitely long path to
travel, is bound to arouse a feeling of humility and a yearning for
perfection, and these qualities prepare him to endure the comparison
with the infinitely wise structure into which he penetrates on waking.
Otherwise he would be consumed by shame as if by fire.
The mystic prepares himself by concentrating on the following
thoughts: When I behold what I am and compare it with what the
wise guidance of the universe has made of me, the shame I feel is like
a consuming fire. This feeling gives rise outwardly to the flush
of shame. This feeling would intensify to such an extent as to become
a scorching fire in the soul if the mystic has not the strength to say
to himself: Yes, I feel utterly paltry in comparison with what I
may become, but I shall try to develop the strength that will make me
capable of understanding what the wisdom of the universe has built
into my bodily nature and to make myself spiritually worthy of
it. The mystic is made to realise by his spiritual teacher that
he must have boundless humility. It may be said to him: Look at a
plant. A plant is rooted in the soil. The soil makes available to the
plant a kingdom lower than itself but without which it cannot exist.
The plant can bow to the mineral kingdom, saying: I owe my existence
to this lower kingdom out of which I have grown. The animal too owes
its existence to the plant kingdom and if it were conscious of its
place in the world would in humility acknowledge its indebtedness to
the lower kingdom. And man, having reached a certain height, should
say: I could not have attained this stage had not everything below me
evolved correspondingly.
When a man cultivates such feelings in his soul, the realisation comes
to him that he has reason not only to look upwards but to look
downwards with thankfulness to the kingdoms below him. The soul is
then filled with this feeling of humility and realises how infinitely
long is the path that leads towards perfection. Such is the training
for true humility.
What has been described above cannot of course be exhausted by
concepts and ideas; if that were the case the mystic would soon have
mastered it. It must be experienced, and only one who
experiences such feelings over and over again can imbue his soul with
the attitude and mood necessary for the mystic.
Then, secondly, the would-be mystic must develop another feeling which
makes him capable of enduring whatever obstacles may lie in his path
as he strives towards perfection. He must develop a feeling of
resignation in respect of whatever ordeals he will have to
endure in order to reach a certain stage of development. Only by
proving himself victorious over pain and suffering for a long, long
time can he develop the strong powers needed by his soul to overcome
the inevitable sense of inferiority in face of what a wise World-Order
has incorporated in the etheric and physical bodies. The soul must say
to itself over and over again: Whatever pain and suffering still
await me, I will not waver; for if I were willing to experience only
what brings joy, I should never develop the strength of which my soul
is actually capable. Strength is developed only by overcoming
obstacles, not by simply submitting to conditions as they are. Forces
of soul can be steeled only when a man is ready to bear pain and
suffering with resignation. This strength must be developed in the
soul of the mystic if he is to become fit to descend into his inner
being.
Let nobody imagine that Spiritual Science demands that a man living an
ordinary, everyday life shall undergo such exercises for they are
beyond his power. What is being described here is simply a narration
of what those who voluntarily embark upon such experiences can make of
the soul, that is to say, they can make the soul capable of
penetrating into their own inmost being. In the course of normal life,
however, the Sentient Body intervenes between what it is possible for
the mystic to experience inwardly and what is actually experienced in
the external world. That is what protects a man from descending into
his own inner self without preparation and being consumed by a feeling
of shame. In the normal course of life a man cannot experience what is
thus screened from him by the Sentient Body, for there he has already
reached the frontier of the spiritual world. A spiritual investigator
seeking to explore the inner nature of man must cross this frontier;
he must cross the stream which diverts normal human consciousness from
the inner to the outer world. This normal consciousness, while
insufficiently mature, is protected from penetrating into man's inner
self, protected from being consumed in the fire of shame. Man cannot
see the Power which protects him from this experience every morning on
waking. This Power is the first spiritual Being encountered by one who
is about to pass into the spiritual world. He must pass this Being who
protects him from being consumed by the inner sense of shame; he must
pass this Being who deflects his inward-turned gaze to the external
word, to the tapestry of sense-phenomena. Normal consciousness becomes
aware of the effect of this Being, but man cannot see him. He is the
first Being who must be passed by one who desires to penetrate into
the spiritual world. This spiritual Being who every morning stands
before man and protects him while he is still immature from sight of
his own inner self, is called in Spiritual Science, the Lesser
Guardian of the Threshold. The path into the spiritual world leads
past this Being.
Our consciousness has thus been directed to the frontier where we can
dimly divine the existence of the Being known to the spiritual
investigator as the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold. Here already is
an indication that in waking life we do not see our true being at all.
And if we call our own being the Microcosm, we must add that we never
see the Microcosm in its pure, spiritual form, but only the part that
our own being reveals in the normal state. Just as when a man looks in
a mirror he sees an image, a picture, and not himself, so in waking
consciousness we do not see the Microcosm itself but a reflected image
of it. We see the Microcosm in its mirror image.
Do we ever see the Macrocosm in its reality? Again we can take our
start from familiar experiences, leaving aside for the moment what a
man undergoes in the course of the twenty-four hours of the day. We
will think of the very simplest experiences that come to a man in the
outer world of the senses. In that world he perceives an alternation
between day and night-how the Sun rises in the morning and sets in the
evening; he perceives how the sunlight illumines all the objects
around him. What is it, then, that man sees from sunrise until sunset?
Fundamentally speaking he does not see the objects themselves at all,
but the sunlight which they reflect. In the dark we cannot see an
object without illumination. Let us take the eye as representative of
the other senses. What we see during the day are, in reality, the
reflected rays of the Sun. This is how things are from morning until
evening. But man has only a very imperfect perception of the cause
which enables him to see objects in the outer world at all. If we look
at the Sun directly, our eyes are dazzled. The very cause to which we
owe the faculty of perceiving the outer sense-world, dazzles us. Thus
during the day it is the same with the Sun outside as it is on waking
with our own inner self. The forces within ourselves enable us to live
and to perceive the outer world, but our attention is diverted from
our own inner being to the outer world. It is the same with the Sun;
it enables us to perceive objects but dazzles us when we attempt to
look at it. Nor during the day can we perceive everything that is
connected with the Sun. We see what the Earth reveals to us in the
reflected sunlight.
Our solar system is composed not only of the Sun but also of the
planets. By day the sight of them is denied us; the Sun dazzles our
vision not only of itself but also of the planets. We look out into
space knowing that although the planets are there, they evade our
observation. Just as by day we are prevented from seeing our own inner
self and by night the sight of the spiritual world is denied us in
ordinary sleep, so, by day, when our gaze is directed outwards, the
causes of our sense-perceptions are hidden from us. What lies behind
the Sun and connects it with the other bodies belonging to the solar
system, with the Beings whose outer manifestations we call Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and so on whatever living
co-operation there is between the Sun and these heavenly bodies is
hidden from us by day. What we perceive is the effect of the
sunlight. When we compare this state with the state in which the world
around us exists by night, from sunset to dawn, we can perceive in a
certain way what belongs to our solar system. We can look up to the
starry heavens and among other stars behold the planets at times when
they are visible; but while we can see them in the night sky, the Sun
itself is invisible. We must therefore say what by day makes the
sense-world visible to us, by night takes from us the possibility of
seeing it. At night the whole of the sense-world is invisible.
Is it possible to discover, in connection with the nocturnal state,
something analogous to the State of the mystic when he descends into
his own inner world? In the modern age there is little consciousness
of this analogous state, but there is something of the kind. It
consists in the fact that, like the mystic, a man develops certain
qualities of humility and resignation and other feelings too, the
nature of which we can grasp by picturing the simplest of them. Man
has these feelings in normal life-in a weak form, like the sense of
shame, but nevertheless he has them. By enormously enhancing these
feelings he prepares himself to have experiences by night which differ
entirely from those of normal consciousness.
We all know that our feelings in spring are different from those we
have in the autumn. When buds are bursting in spring and giving
promise of the beauty and splendour of summer, the feelings of a
healthy soul will not be the same as they are in autumn; with the
approach of spring we feel the awakening of hope. The feeling is only
slightly developed in an ordinary, normal man, but it is present,
nevertheless. Towards autumn, the mood of hope and awakening connected
with spring will be transformed into one of sadness, of melancholy;
when we see the leaves falling, when we see bare, skeleton-like
branches instead of the bright flowering shrubs of summer, our souls
are steeped in melancholy; there is sadness in our hearts. In the
course of the year, if we move in step with the phenomena of outer
Nature, we can experience a cycle in our life of soul. But as these
feelings are faint and feeble in normal life, man's sensibility to the
transformations that take place from spring to summer and autumn and
from autumn to winter is only slight.
Once upon a time and it is still so today a pupil of
spiritual knowledge who was to take the opposite path to that of the
mystic was trained in such feelings; in contrast to the mystic's
descent into his own inner being, he was taught to live with the cycle
of outer Nature. He learnt to feel with great intensity, no longer
faintly as in ordinary life, the awakening of Nature and the sprouting
of vegetation in spring; then, when he was able to surrender himself
wholly to this experience, the feeling of dawning hope in spring
became one of joyful exultation in summer. He was trained to have this
experience of exultation. And again, when a man was so far advanced as
to experience in complete self-forgetfulness the melancholy of autumn,
he could pass on to experience a feeling of winter, intensified into a
feeling of the death of all Nature at midwinter.
Such were the feelings awakened in the pupils who had undergone
training in the old Northern Mysteries, of which only the external
side is still known and that merely as tradition. The pupils were
trained by special methods to accompany in their own life of feeling
the cycle of Nature throughout the year. All the experiences which
came to these pupils, for example on Midsummer Night, were indications
of the crescendo of hope to exultation shared with Nature. The
festival of Midsummer Night was intended to portray the enhancement of
the feeling of awakening in spring to that of joyous exultation in the
superabundant life of summer. And at the winter solstice the pupil
learnt to experience as an infinitely enhanced feeling of
autumn the decline and death of Nature.
Such feelings can hardly be felt with equal strength by a man today.
As a result of the progress of his intellectual life during recent
centuries, present-day man has become incapable of undergoing the
intense, overpowering experiences which the best representatives of
the original peoples of Middle, Northern and Western Europe were able
to endure.
Having undergone such training, the pupils who had thus intensified
their inner experiences found themselves possessed of a particular
faculty however strange this may sound the faculty of
seeing through matter, just as the mystic is able to penetrate
into his own inner self. They were able to see not merely surfaces of
objects but they were able to gee through the objects, and above all,
through the Earth.
This experience was called in the ancient Mysteries: seeing the Sun at
Midnight. The Sun could be seen in its greatest splendour and glory
only at the time of the winter solstice, when the whole external
sense-world had so to speak died away. The pupils of the Mysteries had
developed the faculty of seeing the Sun no longer as the dazzling
power it is by day, but with all its dazzling brilliance eliminated.
They saw the Sun, not as a physical but as a spiritual reality, and
they beheld the Sun Spirit. The physical effect of dazzling was
extinguished by the Earth's substance, for this had become transparent
and allowed only the Sun's spiritual forces to pass through. But
something else of great significance was connected with this beholding
of the Sun. The fact of which only an abstract indication was given
yesterday, was then revealed in all its truth, namely, that there is a
living interplay between the planets and the Sun inasmuch as streams
flow continually to and fro from the planets to the Sun and
from the Sun to the planets. Something was revealed spiritually that
may be compared with the circulation of the blood in the human body.
As the blood flows in living circulation from the heart to the organs
and from the organs back again to the heart, so did the Sun reveal
itself as the centre of living spiritual streams flowing to and fro
between the Sun and the planets. The solar system revealed itself as a
spiritual system of living realities, the external manifestation of
which is no more than a symbol. Everything manifested by the
individual planets pointed to the great spiritual experience just
described, as a clock points to the time of occurrences in external
life.
All that man learns to experience by enhancing his sensibility
withdraws, as the spiritual aspect of space, from the ordinary sight
of day. It is also concealed by the spectacle presented at night. For
what does man see at night with his ordinary Faculties when he looks
up to the heavens? He sees only the external side, just as he sees
only the external side of his own inner being. The starry sky we
behold is the body of spiritual reality lying behind it. Wonderful as
is the spectacle of the starry sky at night, it is nothing but the
physical body of the cosmic spirit, manifesting through this body in
its movements and in its outward effects. Once again for ordinary
human consciousness a veil is drawn over everything that man would
behold were he able spiritually to see through the spectacle presented
to him in space. Just as we are protected in ordinary life from
beholding our own inner being, we are also protected from beholding
the spirit underlying the outer, material world; the veil of the
sense-world is spread over the underlying spiritual reality. Why
should this be so?
If a man were to have direct vision of the spiritual Macrocosm without
the preparation that has been described it is the opposite
process to that undergone by the mystic a feeling of the most
terrifying bewilderment would come over him, for the phenomena are so
mighty and awe-inspiring that the concepts evolved in ordinary life
would be quite incapable of enabling him to endure this utterly
bewildering spectacle. He would be overcome by a tremendous
enhancement of the fear he otherwise knows only in a weak form. Just
as a man would be consumed by shame if, without preparation, he were
to penetrate into his own inner being, he would be suffocated by fear
if, while still unprepared, he were to confront the phenomena of the
outer world; he would feel as though he were being led into a
labyrinth. Only when the soul has prepared itself through ideas and
thoughts which lead beyond the realm of ordinary experience can it
prepare itself to endure the bewildering spectacle.
Man's intellectual life today makes it impossible for him to undergo
what could at one time be undergone by individuals belonging to an
original population of Northern and Western Europe through an
intensification of the feeling of spring and autumn. Intellectuality
was by no means as general in those times as it is today. Men's
thinking is utterly different from what it was in those olden days,
when it was far less developed. But with the gradual evolution of
intellectuality, the capacity for this experience of Nature was lost.
It is, however, possible for man to have it indirectly, as if in
reflection, when these feelings can be kindled, not by actual
experience of the happenings in external Nature but by accounts and
descriptions of the spiritual aspects of the Macrocosm.
At the present time, therefore, it is necessary for descriptions to be
provided such as those contained, for example, in the book,
Occult Science an Outline,
which has just been published. I say this without boasting, simply
because circumstances make it necessary. Such descriptions are of
realities which cannot be outwardly perceived, which underlie the
world spiritually and can be seen by one who has undergone the
requisite preparation. Let us suppose that such a book is not read in
the way that books of another kind are read today, but that it is read
as it should be in such a way that the concepts and
ideas it presents in an unpretentious form induce in the reader
feelings which are experienced in the very greatest intensity. Such
experiences are then similar to those that were induced in the old
Northern Mysteries.
The book gives, for example, an account of the earlier embodiments of
the Earth, and if read with inner participation, a difference of style
will be recognised in the descriptions of the Old Saturn, Old Sun and
Old Moon conditions. By letting what is there said about Old Saturn
work upon us, we shall induce a feeling consonant with the mood of
spring, and in the description of the Old Sun-evolution there is
something analogous to the emotion of exultation once experienced on
Midsummer Night. The description of the Old Moon-evolution may evoke
the mood of autumn and the whole style of the description of
Earth-evolution proper will induce a mood similar to that prevailing
when the time of the winter solstice is approaching. At the right
place in the description of Earth-evolution an indication is given of
the central experience connected with the mood of Christmas. [* See
pp. 216-18 in the 1962-3 edition of
Occult Science an Outline.]
This knowledge can be given today in the place of experiences which
man is no longer capable of undergoing because he has now risen from
an earlier life in feeling to intellectuality, to thinking; hence it
is through the mirror of thinking that feelings originally kindled by
Nature herself must be influenced. This is how writings should be
composed if they are to convey what it is the aim of Spiritual Science
to convey, and the moods they generate must be consonant with the
course of the year. Theoretical descriptions are quite senseless for
they simply lead to spiritual matters being regarded just as if they
were recipes in a cookery book!
The difference between books on Spiritual Science and other kinds of
literature lies not so much in the fact that unusual things are
described but mainly in how things are presented. From this you
will realise that the contents of Spiritual Science are drawn from
deep sources and that in accordance with the mission of our time,
feelings must be quickened through thoughts. You will realise then
that it is also possible today to find something that can lead again
out of the prevailing confusion.
Now when guided by such principles, a man sets out along the path
leading into the labyrinth of happenings in the spiritual Macrocosm,
this is something that was prophetically foreshadowed among the
original peoples of Northern Europe. The faculties enabling them to
read the great script of Nature were still active in these peoples at
a time when the Greeks had already reached a high stage of
intellectuality. It was the mission of the Greeks to prepare what we
today must bring to an even more advanced degree of development. A
book such as
Occult Science
could not have been written in the days of ancient Greece, but Greek
culture made it possible, in a different way, for one who ventured
into the labyrinth of the spiritual Cosmos to find a thread that would
guide him back again. This is indicated in the legend of Theseus who
took the Thread of Ariadne with him into the labyrinth. Now what is
the Thread of Ariadne today? The concepts and mental pictures of the
super-sensible world we form in the soul! It is the spiritual knowledge
that is made available to us in order that we may penetrate safely
into the Macrocosm. And so Spiritual Science which, to begin with,
speaks purely to the intellect, can be a Thread of Ariadne, helping us
to overcome the bewilderment that might come if we were to enter
unprepared into the spiritual world of the Macrocosm.
So we see that if a man wishes to find the spirit behind and pervading
the outer world, he must traverse with full awareness a region of
which in normal life he is unconscious; he must traverse consciously
the very stream which in everyday life takes consciousness from him.
If then he allows himself to be affected by feelings kindled by the
cyclic course of Nature herself or by concepts and ideas such as those
referred to, if, in short, he achieves real self-development, he
gradually becomes capable of fearlessly approaching that spiritual
Power who is at first invisible. Just as the Inner Guardian of the
Threshold is imperceptible to ordinary consciousness, so too is this
second Guardian, the greater guardian of the Threshold, who stands
before the spiritual Macrocosm. He becomes more and more perceptible
to one who has undergone due preparation and is making his way along
the other path into the spiritual Macrocosm. He must fearlessly and
without falling into bewilderment pass this spiritual Being who also
shows us how insignificant we are and that we must develop new organs
if we aspire to penetrate into the Macrocosm. If a man were to
approach this Greater Guardian of the Threshold consciously, but still
unprepared, he would be filled with fear and despair.
We have now heard how with his normal consciousness man is enclosed
within the frontiers marked by two portals. At the one stands the
Lesser Guardian of the Threshold, at the other, the Greater Guardian
of the Threshold. The one portal leads into man's inner being, into
the spirit of the Microcosm; the other portal leads into the spirit of
the Macrocosm. But now we must realise that from this same Macrocosm
come the spiritual forces which build up our own being. Whence comes
the material for our physical and etheric bodies? All the forces which
there converge and are so full of wisdom, are arrayed before us in the
Great World when we have passed the Greater Guardian of the Threshold.
We are confronted there not by knowledge only. And that is another
point of importance. Until now I have been speaking only of knowledge
that can be acquired by man but it does not yet become insight into
the actual workings and forces of the Macrocosm. The body cannot be
built out of data of knowledge; it must be built out of forces.
Once past the mysterious Being who is the Greater Guardian of the
Threshold, we come into a world of unknown workings and forces. To
begin with, man knows nothing of this realm because the veil of the
sense-world spreads in front. But these forces stream into us, have
built up our physical and etheric bodies. This whole interplay, the
interactions between the Great World and the Little World, between
what is within and what is without, concealed by the veil of the
sense-world all this is embraced within the bewildering
labyrinth. It is life itself, in full reality, into which we enter and
have then to describe.
To-morrow we shall begin by taking a first glimpse into that which man
cannot, it is true, perceive in its essence, but which is revealed to
him as active workings when he passes through the one or the other
portal, when he passes the Lesser and the Greater Guardians of the
Threshold.
Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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