LECTURE II.
Yesterday we were considering
the successive moods of soul that have to be attained if human
thinking — if what is ordinarily called knowledge — is to
enter the realm of reality, and we came to a condition of soul that
we named surrender. In other words, a thinking that has risen to the
conditions of soul we described before — a thinking, that is,
which has become possessed of wonder, and has then learned
what we called reverent devotion to the world of reality and
finally what we called knowing oneself to be in wisdom-filled
harmony with the phenomena of the world — if such a
thinking be not able then to rise still further and enter the region
we have described as a condition of surrender, it cannot come to
reality. Now this surrender is only to be attained by making the
resolute endeavour again and again to face for ourselves the
inadequacy of mere thought. We have to take pains to stimulate and
strengthen within us a mood that may be expressed as follows. It must
be as though we were constantly saying to ourselves: I ought not to
expect that my thinking can give me knowledge of the truth, I ought
rather solely to expect of my thinking that it shall educate me. It
is of the utmost importance that we should develop in us this idea,
namely, that our thinking educates us. If you will really take this
point of view as a practical rule of life you will find that there
are many occasions when you are led to quite different conclusions
from those that seem at first sight to be inevitable.
I daresay there are not many of
you who have made a thorough study of the philosopher Kant. It is not
necessary. I only want here to refer to the fact that in Kant's
most important and revolutionary work,
“The Critique of Pure Reason,”
you will always find proofs adduced both for and
against a proposition in question. Take, for example, a statement
such as the following. “The world once had a beginning in
time.” You will find that Kant puts, perhaps on the other side
of the same page, the statement: “The world has always existed,
from all eternity.” And then he proceeds to adduce valid proofs
for both statements, notwithstanding that the one obviously expresses
the very opposite of the other. That is to say, Kant proves in the
same manner that the world has had a beginning and that it has had no
beginning. He calls this method of reasoning “Antinomy”
and thinks it is itself an evidence that the human faculty of
knowledge has boundaries, seeing that man is forced thereby to arrive
at contradictory conclusions. And, of course, he is right, so long as
one expects by thinking to come to conformity with some
objective reality. So long as we give ourselves up to the belief that
by thinking or by the elaboration of concepts or, let us say, by the
elaboration in thought of experiences we have in the world, we can
come to reality, so long are we indeed in desperate case, if someone
comes forward and shows us that a particular statement and its exact
opposite can equally well be proved. For if this is so, how are we
ever to arrive at Truth? If, however, we have learned that where the
situation demands a decisive pronouncement, thinking can come to no
conclusion about reality, if we have persistently educated ourselves
instead to look upon thinking as a means to become wiser, as a means
to take in hand our own self-education in wisdom, then it does not
disturb us at all that at one time one thing can be proved and at
another time its opposite can be proved. For we very soon make the
following discovery. The fact that the elaboration of concepts does
not, so to say, expose us in the least to the onset of reality, is
the very reason why we are able to work with perfect freedom within
the sphere of concepts and ideas and to carry on our own
self-education by this means. If we were perpetually being corrected
by reality, then the elaboration of concepts would not afford us a
means of educating ourselves in this manner in perfect freedom. I
would like to ask you to give careful consideration to this fact. Let
me repeat it. The elaboration of concepts affords us a means of
effective and independent self-education, and it can only do so
because we are never disturbed in the free elaboration of concepts by
the interference of reality.
What do I mean when I say we are
not disturbed? What sort of disturbance could reality make in the
free elaboration of concepts? We can picture to ourselves a little
what such a disturbance would be like if we contrast — purely
hypothetically for the moment, though, as we shall see later, it does
not need to remain entirely in the realm of hypothesis — our
human thinking with divine thinking. For we can say, can we not, that
it is impossible to conceive of divine thinking as having nothing to
do with reality. When we try to picture the thinking of the Gods, we
can only conceive of it — still speaking for the moment purely
hypothetically — as intervening in reality, as influencing
reality. And this leads inevitably to the following conclusion. When
a human being makes a mistake in his thinking, then it is a mere
logical mistake, it is nothing worse. And when, later on, he comes to
see that he has made a mistake he can correct it; and he will at the
same time have accomplished something for his self-education, he will
have grown wiser. But now take the case of divine thinking. When
divine thinking thinks correctly, then something happens; and when it
thinks falsely, then something is destroyed, something is
annihilated. So that if we had a divine thinking, then with every
false concept we should call forth a destructive process, first of
all in our astral body, then in our etheric body and thence also in
our physical body. If we had active divine thinking, if our thinking
had something to do with reality, then a false concept would have the
result that we should, as it were, stimulate inside us a drying up
process in some part or other of our body, a hardening process. You
will agree, it would be important to make as few mistakes as
possible; for it might not be long before we had made so many
mistakes that our body would have become quite dried up and would
fall to pieces. We should, in fact, soon find it crumble away if we
transformed into reality the mistakes in our thinking. We actually
only maintain ourselves in real existence through the fact that our
thinking does not work into reality, but that we are protected from
the penetration of our thinking into reality. Thus we can make
mistake after mistake in our thinking. If later we correct these
mistakes we have thereby educated ourselves, we have grown wiser, and
we have not at the same time committed devastation with our mistakes.
As we strengthen ourselves more and more with the moral force of such
a thought as this we learn to know the nature of the “surrender”
of which I spoke and we come at last to a point where we do not at
critical moments of life, turn to thinking, in the hope to gain
knowledge and understanding of external things.
That sounds strange, I know, and
at first sight it seems as though it would be quite impossible. How
can we refuse to have recourse to thinking? And yet, although it is
impossible to take such a line absolutely, we can take it under
certain conditions. Constituted as we are as human beings in the
world, we cannot on every occasion suspend judgment on the things of
the world. We have to judge and form opinions — we shall see in
the course of these lectures why that is so — we have to act in
life and cannot always wait to penetrate to the depths of reality. We
must judge — but we should educate ourselves to exercise
caution in accepting as finally true the judgments and opinions we
form. We should, as it were, be continually looking over our own
shoulder and reminding ourselves that where we are applying our
keenest intellect, just there we are treading on very uncertain
ground and are perpetually liable to make mistakes. That is a hard
saying for cocksure people! They think they will never get anywhere
at all if they are to doubt whether the opinion they form on some
event is conclusive. Observe a little and you will see that very many
people, when some statement is made, think it necessary at once to
say: “But what I think is this” — or when they see
something, to say: “I don't like that!” or “I like
it!” This kind of attitude must be given up by anyone who does
not rest content to go through life with easy self-assurance; it must
be given up if we want to set the course of our inner life in the
direction of reality. What we have to do is to cultivate an attitude
of mind which may be characterised in the following words: “Obviously
I have, of course, to live my life, and this means I must form
judgments and conclusions. I will, therefore, employ my power of
judgment in so far as the practice of life makes this necessary, but
I will not use it for the recognition of truth. For that I will be
for ever looking cautiously over my shoulder, I will always receive
with some degree of doubt every judgment that I happen to make.”
But how are we then to arrive at
any thought about truth, if not by forming judgments in the ordinary
way? We have already indicated yesterday the right attitude of mind,
when we said that we ought to let the things speak, let the things
themselves tell their secrets. We have to learn to adopt a passive
attitude to the things of the world, and let them speak out their own
secrets. A great deal of error would be avoided if men would do this.
We have a wonderful example in Goethe, who, when he wants to
investigate truth, does not allow himself to judge but tries to let
the things themselves utter their own secrets. Let us suppose we have
two men, one who judges and the other who lets the things tell their
own secrets. We will select a very clear and simple example. One man
sees a wolf and describes it. He finds that there are other animals
besides which look like this wolf, and he arrives in this manner at
the general concept “wolf.” And now he can go on to form
the following conclusion. He can say to himself: In reality there are
many individual wolves; the general concept of “wolf”
which I make in my mind, wolf as such, does not exist; only
individual wolves exist in the world. Such a man will easily state it
as his opinion that we have really only to do with individual wolf
beings, and the general concept of wolf which one holds as an idea is
not anything real. There you have a striking example of a man who
merely judges and forms opinions. This is the kind of conclusion he
develops. And how about the man, on the other hand, who lets reality
speak for itself? How will he think of that invisible quality of wolf
which is to be found in every single wolf and which characterises all
wolves alike? He will look at it in this way. He will say to himself:
Let me consider a lamb and compare it with a wolf. I am not going to
formulate any judgment on the matter, I am simply going to let the
facts speak. And now, let us imagine this man has the opportunity to
see with his own eyes how the wolf eats up the lamb. He sees the
event take place before him. Then he would have to say to himself:
“The substance which before was running about as lamb is now
inside the wolf, it has been absorbed into the wolf.” It needs
no more than the perception of this fact to see how real the wolf
nature is! For if we were to rely on what we can follow with our
external senses we might easily be led to the conclusion that if a
wolf were deprived of all other food and were to eat nothing but lamb
he must gradually — for the metabolism that goes on inside him
will produce this result — he must gradually come to have in
him nothing but lamb substance. As a matter of fact, however, he
never becomes a lamb, he remains always a wolf. That shows quite
unmistakably, if one judges the matter rightly, that the material
part of the wolf has been quite erroneously assumed to constitute
“wolf” as such. When we let ourselves be taught by the
external world of facts, then it shows us that besides what we have
before us as material substance in the wolf there is something else,
something we cannot see and that yet is real in the highest degree.
And this it is which brings it about that when the wolf eats nothing
but lamb he does not become lamb but remains wolf. All of him that is
merely perceptible to the senses has come from lambs.
It is difficult sometimes to
draw a sharp line of demarcation between judging and letting
ourselves be taught by reality. When, however, the difference has
once been grasped and when judgment is only employed for the ends of
practical life, while for an approach to reality the attitude is
taken of allowing ourselves to be taught by the things of the world,
then we gradually arrive at a mood of soul which can reveal to us the
true meaning of “surrender.” Surrender is a state of mind
which does not seek to investigate truth from out of itself, but
which looks for truth to come from the revelation that flows out of
the things, and can wait until it is ripe to receive the revelation.
An inclination to judge or form opinions wants to be continually
arriving at truth at every step; surrender, on the other hand, does
not set out to force an entrance, as it were, into this or that
truth, rather do we seek to educate ourselves and then quietly wait
until we attain to that stage of maturity where the truth flows to us
from the things of the world, coming to us in revelation and filling
our whole being. To work with patience, knowing that patience will
bring us further and further in wise self-education — that is
the mood of surrender.
And now we must go on to
consider the fruits of this surrender. What do we attain when we have
gone forward with our thinking from wonder to reverence, thence to
feeling oneself in wisdom-filled harmony with reality and finally to
the attitude of surrender — what do we attain? We come at last
to this. As we go about the world and observe the plants in all their
greenness and admire the changing colours of their blossoms, or as we
contemplate the sky in its blueness and the stars with their golden
brilliance — not forming judgments but letting the things
themselves reveal to us what they are — then if we have really
succeeded in learning this “surrender,” all things in the
world of sense become changed for us, and something is revealed to us
in the world of the senses, for which we can find no other word than
a word taken from our own soul life.
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
Suppose this line (a—b)
represents the world of the senses as it shows itself to our view.
Suppose you are standing here (c) and you behold the world of the
senses spread out before you like a veil. This line (a—b) is
intended to represent the tones that work upon your ear, the colours
and forms that work upon your eye, the smells and tastes that work
upon your other organs, the hardness and softness, etc., etc. —
in short, the whole world of the senses. In ordinary life we stand in
the world of the senses and we apply to it our faculty of judgment.
How else do all the sciences arise? Men approach the world of the
senses and by many kinds of methods they investigate the laws that
prevail there. You will, however, have gathered
from all that we have been saying that such a procedure can never
lead one into the world of reality, because judgment is not a leader
at all; it is only by educating one's thinking, it is only by
following the path of wonder and of reverence, etc., that one can
ever penetrate to the world of reality. Then the world of the senses
changes and becomes something entirely new. And it is important that
we should make discovery of this if we would gain any knowledge of
the real nature of the sense world.
Let us suppose that a man who
has developed this feeling, this attitude of surrender, in a rather
high degree, looks out over the fresh bright green of a meadow. At
first sight he cannot distinguish the colours of any individual
plants; the whole presents a general appearance of fresh green. Such
a man, if he has really brought the attitude of surrender to a high
degree of development, will perforce feel within him at the sight of
the meadow an inner sense of balance; he cannot help being moved to
feel this mood of balance — a balance that is not dead but
quick with life, we might compare it to a gentle and even flow of
water. He cannot help but conjure up this picture before his soul.
And it is the same with every taste, every smell and every
sense-perception; they inevitably call up in his soul a feeling of
inner movement and activity. There is no colour and no tone that does
not speak to him; everything says something, and says it in such a
way that he feels bound to give answer with inner movement and
activity — not with judgment or opinion but with movement,
active, living movement. In short, a time comes for such a man when
the whole world of the senses flings off, as it were, its disguise
and reveals itself to him as something he cannot describe with any
other word than will. Everything in the world of the senses is
will, strong and powerful currents of will. I want you to mark this
particularly. The man who has attained in any high degree to
surrender, discovers everywhere in the world of the senses ruling
will. Hence it is that a man who has developed in himself even a
small measure of this quality of surrender, feels pain if he suddenly
sees a person coming towards him wearing some startling new fashion
of colour. He cannot help experiencing this inner movement and
activity in response to what approaches him from outside; he is
sensible of will in everything and he feels united with the whole
world through this will. The world of the senses thus becomes, as it
were, a sea of infinitely differentiated will. And this means that
while other-wise we only feel it as spread out around us, this world
of the senses begins to have for us a certain thickness or depth. We
begin to look behind the surface of things, we begin to hear behind
the surface of things — and what we see and hear is will,
flowing will. For the interest of those who have read Schopenhauer I
will here remark that Schopenhauer divined this ruling will in a
one-sided way in the world of sound; he described music as
differentiated workings of will. But the truth is that for the man
who has learned surrender, everything in the world of the senses is
Ruling Will.
And now when a man has learned
to detect everywhere in the world of the senses this ruling will he
can go further, he can penetrate to secrets that lie hidden behind
the world of the senses and that are otherwise inaccessible to him.
If we would understand aright
the nature of the next step we must ask ourselves the question: How
is it we gain any knowledge at all of the sense world? The answer is
simple: By means of our senses. By means of the ear we acquire
knowledge of the world of sound, by means of the eye knowledge of the
world of colour and form, and so on. We know the sense world through
the medium of our sense organs. A man who confronts this world of the
senses in an ordinary everyday manner receives impressions of it and
then forms his judgments. The man who has learned surrender receives
impressions in the first place through his senses; and then he feels
how there streams across to him from the objects active, ruling will;
he feels as if he were swimming, together with the objects, in a sea
of ruling will. And when a man has come to this point and feels the
presence and sway of will in the objects before him, then his own
evolution drives him on of itself to the next higher stage. For then,
having experienced all the previous stages leading up to surrender —
the stages we have called feeling oneself in harmony with the wisdom
of the world, and before that reverence, and before that wonder —
then, through the penetration of these conditions into the last
gained condition of surrender, he learns how to grow together with
the objects with his etheric body also, which stands behind
the physical body. He grows together with the objects with his
physical body, that is with his sense organs, in the active ruling
will. When we see, hear, smell, etc., then as men of surrender we
feel the ruling will streaming into us through our eyes and ears, we
feel ourselves in true correspondence with the objects. But behind
the physical eye is the etheric body of the eye, and behind the
physical ear is the etheric body of the ear. We are filled through
and through with our etheric body. And just as the physical body
grows together with the objects of the sense world when man
penetrates to the ruling active will, so too can the etheric body.
And when this takes place man finds that he has an altogether new way
of beholding the world. The world has undergone a still greater
change for him than was the case when he penetrated through sense
appearance to the ruling will. When our etheric body grows together
with the objects of the world, then we have the impression that we
cannot let these objects remain as they are in our ideas and in our
conceptions and thoughts. They change for us as soon as we come into
relation with them. Suppose a man who has already experienced the
mood of surrender in his soul is looking at a green leaf, full of
sap. He turns the eye of his soul upon the object before him, and at
once he finds he cannot leave it as it is, this juicy green leaf; the
moment he beholds it he feels that it grows out beyond itself, he
feels how it has in it the possibility to become something quite
different. You know that a green leaf, as it grows gradually higher
and higher up in the plant, turns at last into the coloured
flower-leaf or petal. The whole plant is really no more than a
transformed leaf. You may learn this from Goethe's researches
into nature. So when the student beholds the leaf he sees that it is
not yet finished, that it is trying to grow out beyond itself; he
sees, in short, more than the green leaf gives him. The green leaf
stimulates him to feel within him something of a budding and
sprouting life. Thus he grows together — quite literally —
with the green leaf, feeling in himself, too, a budding and a
sprouting of life. But now suppose he is looking at the dry and
withered bark of a tree. If he is to grow together with that he
cannot do otherwise than be overcome with a feeling of death. In the
withered bark he sees — not more, but less than is there in
reality. If anyone looks at the bark from the point of view of
external appearance alone he can admire it, it can give him pleasure,
in any case he does not see in the dead bark something that shrivels
him, piercing him, as it were, in the soul and filling it with
thoughts of death.
There is nothing in the whole
world that does not, when the etheric body grows together with it,
give rise to feelings either of growing, sprouting, becoming, or of
decaying and passing away. Everything shows itself in one or other
aspect. Suppose, for example, a man who has attained to surrender and
has then progressed a further step turns his attention to the human
larynx. He will have a strange impression. The larynx will appear to
him to be an organ that is quite in the beginning of its evolution
and has a great future before it. From what the larynx itself tells,
he will feel that it is like a seed, not at all like a fruit or like
a withered object, but like a seed. He knows quite clearly from what
the larynx itself brings to expression that a time must come in human
evolution when the larynx will be completely transformed, when it
will be of such a nature that whereas now man only utters the word,
he will one day give birth to man. The larynx is the future organ of
birth, the future organ of procreation. Now man brings forth the word
by means of the larynx, but the larynx is the seed that will in
future times develop to bring forth the whole human being —
that is, when man is spiritualised. The larynx expresses this quite
directly when one lets it tell what it is. Other organs of the human
body show us that they have long ago passed their zenith, and we see
that they will in future times be no longer present in the human
organism.
Such a vision is compelled to
behold everywhere on the one hand a growing, a coming into being, and
on the other hand a dying away. It sees both as processes going on
into the future. Budding, sprouting life — death and decay;
those are the two things that we find intermingled with one another
all around us when we attain to this union of our etheric body with
the world of reality. In connection with this power of vision man has
to undergo, when he is a little further on, a very hard test. For
with each single being that he meets and that makes itself known to
him he will always find that while some parts of the being arouse in
him the feeling of budding and sprouting life, other contents or
parts give him the feeling of death. Everything that we see behind
the world of the senses makes itself known to us as proceeding from
one or other of these two fundamental forces. In occultism what we
behold in this way is called the world of coming into existence
and of passing away. And so, when we confront the world of the
senses we are looking into the world of arising and passing away, and
what lies behind is Ruling Wisdom.
Behind Will is Wisdom! I say
expressly ruling wisdom, for the wisdom man brings into his
ideas is as a rule not active at all, but a wisdom that is merely
thought. The wisdom man acquires when he looks behind the active will
is united with the objects; and in the kingdom of objective things,
wherever wisdom rules, it does really rule and the effects of its
working find actual expression. When it, so to speak, withdraws from
reality, then begins the dying process; where it flows into reality,
there you find a coming into existence, there you find budding,
sprouting life. We can mark off these worlds in the following way
(see diagram 1).
We look at the sense world and we see it
first as A, and then we look at B which is behind the
sense world — the world of ruling wisdom. From out of this
world is taken the substance of our own etheric body, what we behold
outside us as ruling wisdom — that we behold, too, in our
etheric body. And in our physical body we behold, not merely what
sense appearance shows, but also ruling will, for everywhere in the
sense world we see ruling will.
Yes, the strange thing is that
if we have attained to surrender, then when we meet another man and
look at him, his colour, whether it be inclined to red or yellow or
green, does not seem to us merely red or yellow or green, but we grow
together for example, with the rosy-cheekedness of his countenance.
We feel the ruling will there, and all that lives and weaves in him,
as it were, shoots across to us through the medium of the colour in
his cheeks. People who are naturally inclined to observe and note
rosy cheeks will say that a rosy-cheeked person is alone healthy. We
approach our fellow-man in such a way as to see in him the ruling
will. And we may now say, turning to our diagram, that our physical
body, which we will denote by this circle here, is taken from the
world A, the world of ruling will. Our etheric body, on the
other hand, which I will denote with this second circle, is taken
from the world of ruling wisdom, the world B. Here you have,
then, the connection between the world of ruling wisdom that is
spread around us, and our own etheric body — and the world of
ruling will that is spread around us, and our own physical body. Now
in ordinary life man does not know of these connections, the power to
do so is taken from him. The connections are there all the time, but
they are, as it were, withheld from man, he can have no influence
upon them. How is this?
As a matter of fact there are
opportunities in life where our thoughts and whatever we develop in
the way of judgments and opinions are not so harmless for our own
reality as they are in everyday existence. In the ordinary everyday
waking condition, good Gods have seen to it that our thoughts have
not too bad an influence on our own reality; they have withheld from
us the power our thoughts might otherwise exercise upon our physical
body and etheric body; and it would really go very hardly with us in
the world if it were not so If thoughts — let me emphasise once
more — were to signify in the world of man what the thoughts of
the Gods do in reality signify, then man would evoke inside him with
every error in thought a slight death process, and little by little
he would be quite dried up. And as for an untruth! If with every lie
he told man had to burn up the corresponding bit of his brain —
as would have to happen if man had power to work into the world of
reality — then we should soon see how long his brain lasted!
Good Gods have withheld from our soul the power over our etheric body
and physical body. But that cannot be so all the time. For were we
never to exercise any influence from our soul upon our physical and
etheric body then we should quickly come to an end of the forces that
are in these bodies, we should have a very short life. For in our
soul, as we shall see in the course of these lectures, are contained
the forces that must flow ever and again into the physical and
etheric body, the forces we need in our etheric body. This inflow of
forces takes place at night when we are asleep. In the night there
flow to us from the universe, coming to us by way of our ego and
astral body, the currents that we need to dispel fatigue. There you
have in actual fact the living connection between the worlds of will
and of wisdom and the physical and etheric bodies of man. For
into these worlds vanish during sleep the astral body and ego. They
enter into these worlds and build there centres of attraction for
substances which have then to flow out of the world of wisdom into
the etheric body and out of the world of will into the physical body.
This must go on in the night. For if man were present in his
consciousness, this instreaming could not happen rightly. If ordinary
man were conscious during sleep, if he were present with all his
errors and vices, with all the bad things he has done in the world,
then this would create a strange apparatus of attraction in those
other worlds for the forces that are to stream in. Then tremendous
disturbances would be set up in the physical and etheric bodies by
the forces man's ego and astral body would send into them out
of the world of ruling wisdom and the world of ruling will.
Therefore have good Gods made
provision that we cannot be present when the right forces must stream
into our physical and etheric body by night. For the good Gods have
dulled the consciousness of man during sleep, that he may not be able
to spoil what he undoubtedly would spoil by his thoughts were he
conscious. It is on this account that we have to undergo great pain
when we are on the path of knowledge and are making the ascent into
the higher worlds; if we are in real earnest it must necessarily
bring us great pain. You will find in my book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment,
a description of how the life
of man by night, the sleeping life, is, so to speak, made use of, to
help man to rise from the world of external reality into higher
worlds. When man begins from out of the world of Imagination to light
up his sleep consciousness, when he begins to lighten it with
knowledge and experiences, then it is important for him to make sure
that he himself gets out of the way and so shuts out of his
consciousness all that might cause disturbance to his physical and
etheric bodies. It is an absolute necessity, in making the ascent
into higher worlds to get to know oneself thoroughly and exactly.
When we really know ourselves we cease as rule to love ourselves.
Self-love comes to an end when we begin to have self-knowledge;
and this self-love — which is always present in a man who
has not attained to self-knowledge, for it is an illusion to imagine
we do not love ourselves; we love ourselves more than anything else
in the world — this self-love must have been overcome if we are
to be able to shut ourselves out of our consciousness. We must, in
actual fact, come to the point where we say to ourselves: As I am
now, I must eliminate myself. We have already gone a long way in this
direction in that we have attained to self-surrender. But we must now
not love ourselves at all. We must have the possibility at every
moment to feel — I must put myself right on one side; for if I
do not shut out completely all those things in me that otherwise I
quite like to feel in me, errors, trivialities, prejudices
sympathies, antipathies — if I do not put these right away then
my ascent into higher worlds cannot be made aright.
Because of these errors,
disturbing forces will mix with the inflowing stream from higher
worlds that has to enter into me to make clairvoyance possible. And
these forces will stream into my physical and etheric bodies, and as
many as are the errors, etc., so many will be the disturbing
processes set up. As long as we are not conscious in sleep, as long
as we are not capable of rising into the world of clairvoyance, so
long do good Gods protect us and not let these currents from the
world of will and the world of wisdom flow into our physical and
etheric bodies. But when we carry up our consciousness into the world
of clairvoyance, then no Gods are protecting us — for the
protection they give consists in the very fact that they take away
our consciousness — then we must ourselves lay aside all
prejudice, all sympathy, all antipathy, etc. All these things we must
put right away from us; for if we have anything left of self-love, or
of desires that cling to the personal in us, or if we are still
capable of making any judgment on personal grounds, then all such
things can work harm to our health — namely, to our physical
body and etheric body — when we follow the path of development
into higher worlds.
It is exceedingly important that
we should be clear about these things. And it is easy to perceive the
significance of the fact that in ordinary day life man is deprived of
all influence upon his physical and etheric body, his thoughts, in
the manner in which he grasps them when he is within these bodies
have nothing whatever to do with reality, they are quite ineffective
and consequently unable to form any judgment about what is real. By
night they would be able to do so. Every false thought would work
destructively on the physical and etheric bodies. If we were
conscious in the night we should see before us what I have just been
describing to you. The world of the senses would appear to us as a
sea of ruling will, and behind it would appear the wisdom — the
wisdom that builds the world, beating through this will, as it were
lashing it up and down into great waves, and with every beat
of the waves evoking continually processes of coming into existence
and of passing away, processes
of birth and of death. That is the true world, into which we have
ultimately to look, the world of ruling will and the world of ruling
wisdom, and the latter is also the world of perpetual births and
perpetual deaths. That is the world that is our world, and it is of
immense importance for us to recognise it. For if we once recognise
it we begin to discover in very truth a means for attaining to a
greater and greater height of surrender; because we feel ourselves
interwoven in perpetual births and perpetual deaths, and we know that
with every deed we do we connect ourselves in some way with a coming
into existence or with a passing away. And “good” will
begin to be for us not merely something of which we say: That is
good, I like it, it fills me with sympathy. No, we begin to know that
the good is something that is creative in the World-All, something
that always and everywhere belongs to the world that is arising and
coming into being. And of the “bad” we begin to feel how
it shows itself everywhere as an outpouring of a process of death and
decay. And here we shall have made an important transition to a new
world-conception, where one will not be able to think of evil in any
other way than as the destroying angel of death, who goes striding
through the world, nor of good in any other way than as the creator
of continual cosmic births, in great and small. And it is for
Spiritual Science to awaken in man a sense of how through this
spiritual world-conception he can deepen his whole outlook on life,
as he begins to feel that the world of good and the world of bad are
not merely as they appear to us in external maya, where we stand
before them with our power of judgment and find only that the one is
pleasing to us and the other displeasing; no, the world of good is
the creative world and the bad is the destroying angel who goes
through the world with his scythe. And with every bad thing we do we
become a helper of the destroying angel, we ourselves take his scythe
and share in the processes of death and decay. The ideas that we
receive from a spiritual foundation have a strengthening influence
upon our whole outlook on life. This strength is what men should now
be receiving that they may carry it into the evolution of the future;
for indeed they will need it. Hitherto good Gods have taken care of
man but now the time has come in our fifth Post-Atlantean epoch when
destiny, and good and evil will more and more be given over into his
own hands. Therefore it is necessary to know what good and evil mean,
and to recognise them in the world — the one as a creative and
the other as a death-dealing principle.
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