IN the course of the two lectures already given, we have become
acquainted with certain spiritual beings which occult vision can
encounter when it is directed towards the spiritual life of our
planet. Today it will be necessary for us to follow another path in
order to ascend into the spiritual world, for we can only form a
correct conception of the nature of the spiritual beings of which we
have spoken, even of the Planetary Spirit itself, when we have
observed them from another side. It is always extremely difficult to
describe in the words of any language these spiritual beings visible
to occult perception, because human languages at least those of
the present day are only suited to the facts and phenomena of
the physical plane. It is therefore only by a description from various
aspects that one can hope to arrive at anything approaching what is
meant when allusion is made to spiritual beings. It will be necessary
for this purpose to begin to-day from the nature of man himself and to
make clear certain attributes of human nature, and we can then proceed
to describe the higher beings we meet with in the higher worlds. One
attribute of human nature shall be brought into very special
prominence to-day, and that can be described in the following way. Man
is endowed with the possibility of leading an inner life which is
quite independent of his external life. This possibility confronts us
every hour of our waking life. We know that as regards what we see
with our eyes or hear with our ears, we have something in common with
all other beings which also use their senses. As man we have a common
life with other men, and perhaps also with other beings. Everyone, as
we know only too well, has his own special sorrows, his special joys;
his troubles and cares, his hopes and ideals; in a sense these form a
special kingdom not immediately visible to the physical sight of other
men, and this a man carries through the world as an independent inner
life. When we are in the same space as another man, we know what he
sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. We may even perhaps have
an idea of what takes place in his soul by what is expressed, in his
face by his gestures, or his speech; but if he wishes to keep his
inner life as a special world for himself alone, we can penetrate no
further.
Now if we look with occult vision into the world hidden behind the
first veil of the external world, we meet there with beings quite
differently organized, particularly with respect to these qualities.
We meet with beings not able to lead such an independent inner life as
man leads. We meet as a first group with those which, when they lead
an inner life, are immediately transferred through this inner life
into a different state of consciousness from the one they possess in
the life they lead in and with the external world. Let us try to
understand this. Suppose a man so lived that should he desire to live
in his inner being and not to direct his gaze to the external world,
he would, simply by means of his Will, immediately have to pass over
into another state of consciousness. We know that man, without his
will, does pass over into a different state of consciousness in his
normal life when he is asleep. We also know that sleep is the result
of his astral body and his ego separating from his physical and
etheric bodies. Thus we know that something has to take place in a man
if he is to pass over into another form of consciousness. For
instance, if a man says, Here before me is a meadow covered with
flowers; when I look at it, it gives me joy, he does not simply
on that account enter another state of consciousness; he experiences
his joy in the meadow and the flowers together with his association
with the outer world. Now those beings which occult vision meets with
as the next category in a higher world change their state of
consciousness each time they turn their perception and their action
from the external world to themselves. Thus, in them there need be no
separation between the different principles of their being, they
simply bring about in themselves just as they are, by means of their
will, another condition of consciousness. Now the perceptions of these
beings, of which we are speaking as the next category above man, are
not like the perceptions of man. Man perceives, because an external
world appears before his senses. He surrenders himself, so to speak,
to this external world. These beings do not perceive an external world
in the same way as man does with his senses; they perceive it (though
this is only a comparison) rather as man perceives when, for instance,
he speaks, or makes a movement of the hand, or in any way externalizes
his inner being in mimic art; when, in short, he gives expression to
his own nature. Thus in a certain sense for these beings of a higher
world of whom we are speaking, all their perceptions are at the same
time a manifestation of their own being. I want you to bear in mind
that when we ascend to the higher category of beings no longer
perceptible to man externally, we have before us beings which perceive
whenever they manifest, when they express what they themselves are;
and they really perceive their own being only as long as they wish to
manifest it, as long as in any way they express it outwardly. We might
say they are only awake when manifesting themselves. And when of their
own will they are not manifesting themselves, not entering into
connection with the world around them, another condition of
consciousness arises for them in a certain sense they sleep.
Only, their sleep is no unconscious sleep like that of man, it
signifies for them a sort of diminution, a sort of loss of their
feeling of self. They have their feeling of self so long as they
manifest themselves externally, and in a certain sense they lose it
when they cease to manifest. They do not sleep then as men sleep, but
something arises in their own being like a manifestation of spiritual
worlds higher than themselves. Their inner being is then filled by
higher spiritual worlds.
Thus, mark well: When man directs his gaze outwards and observes, he
lives with the outer world; he loses himself in it. In our planet, for
instance, he loses himself in the various kingdoms of nature. But when
he diverts his gaze from outside, he enters his own inner being and
lives an independent inner life, and he is then free from this
external world. When these beings of which we speak as a first
category above man, are active externally, they then manifest
themselves; they have their feeling of self, their actual
self-expression in this manifestation; and when they enter their inner
being they do not enter into an independent inner life, as does man,
but a life in common with other worlds. Just as man enters such a life
when he perceives the external world, so do they perceive other
spiritual worlds above them when they look into themselves; they then
enter this other condition of consciousness, in which they find
themselves filled with other beings higher than themselves. So, as
regards man we say that when he loses himself in the external world,
he has his perceptions; when he withdraws from the external world, he
has his independent inner life. The beings belonging to the next
higher category we call them, speaking generally, the beings of
the so-called Third Hierarchy instead of perception have
manifestation, and in this manifestation or revelation they experience
themselves. Instead of an inner life, they have the experience of
higher spiritual worlds, that is to say, they are filled with Spirit.
This is the most essential difference between man and the beings of
the next higher category.
Third Hierarchy: | Manifestation: | Being filled with Spirit: |
Man. | Perception. | Inner Life. |
We might, by means of a crude comparison from life, define the
difference between man and these beings. When a man is in a position
of having inner experiences which do not coincide with what he
experiences or perceives externally in the crudest case the
result is a lie. In order to make this clearer, we can express a
possible peculiarity of man by saying: He is capable of perceiving
something and yet of arousing contrary ideas in his inner being and
even of giving vent to them externally, although they do not coincide
with the perceptions. Through this peculiarity man can contradict the
external world by means of an untruth. This is a possibility which
as we shall hear later in the course of these lectures
had to be given to man, in order that he might come to the truth by
his own free will. When we consider man as he really is in the world
we must, however, fix our attention on this quality, namely, that he
can form ideas in his inner life and also externalize them, which do
not coincide with his perceptions or with facts. This quality is not a
possibility to the beings of the higher category spoken of here, so
long as they retain their nature. The possibility of untruth does not
exist in the beings of the Third Hierarchy, if they retain their
nature. For what would be the result if a being of this Hierarchy
wished to lie? Then, in its inner being, it must experience something
which it transmitted to the external world differently from the way in
which it experienced it. Then, however, the being would no longer be
able to perceive this; for everything these beings experience in their
inner life is revelation, and it immediately passes over into the
external world. These beings must live in a kingdom of absolute truth
if they wish to experience themselves at all. Suppose these beings
were to lie, that is, had something in their inner being which in
their revelation they would so transform that it would no longer
coincide with it; they would then not be able to perceive it, for they
can only perceive their inner nature. They would, under the impression
of an untruth, immediately be stupefied, transferred into a state of
consciousness which would be a darkening down, a lessening of their
ordinary consciousness, which can only live in the revelation of their
inner life. Thus we have above us a class of beings which must of
their own nature live in the realm of absolute truth and sincerity.
Every deviation from truth would render these beings less conscious.
If they are to be observed by occult vision, the occultist must first
of all find the right way in which he can meet them. I will try to
describe how the occultist can find them.
The first inner experience which one who goes through an occult
development must have, is the striving, in a certain sense, to subdue
the inner life of ordinary normal consciousness. What we experience in
our inner being we describe as our egoistic experience, as that which
we wish to have from the world for ourselves alone, so to speak. The
more the occultly developing student can bring himself to be passive
with regard to what only concerns himself, the nearer he is to the
entrance to the higher worlds. Let us take an obvious case. We all
know that certain truths, certain things in the world, simply please
or do not please us; that certain things affect us sympathetically, or
antithetically. Such feelings with regard to the world which we only
cherish for our own sake, must, by him who would develop himself
occultly, be rooted out of his heart; he must, in a certain sense, be
free from all that concerns only himself. This is a truth which is
often emphasised, but which, in fact, is more difficult to observe
than one usually thinks; for in normal consciousness man has extremely
few footholds through which he can become free from himself, and
overcome what concerns himself alone. Let us consider for a single
moment what it actually means to be free from oneself.
Probably to become free from what we call usually egoistic impulses is
not so difficult; but we must remember that in the one incarnation in
which we live, we are born at a certain time and at a certain place;
that when we direct our gaze to what surrounds us, our eyes rest upon
quite different things from those seen by a man, for instance, who
lives in a different part of the world. There must be quite different
things in his surroundings to interest him. Thus just because we are
born as physically embodied human beings at a certain time and at a
certain place, we are surrounded by all sorts of things which call
forth our attention, our interest, which actually concern ourselves,
and are different for other men. Because we, as men, are differently
distributed over our planet, we are, in a certain sense, placed under
the necessity of each having his separate interests, his special home
upon the earth. In what we are able to learn from our direct
environment we can never, therefore, in the highest sense, experience
that which sets us free from our special human interests and
attractions. Thus, because we are human beings in physical bodies, and
in so far as we are such, we cannot possibly through our external
perception, reach the portal which leads into a higher world. We must
look away from all that our senses can see externally, all that our
intellect can connect with the things of the external world,
everything that belongs to our own special interests. But now, if we
look at what we generally have in our inner being, our sorrows and
joys, our worries and cares, our hopes and aims, we shall very soon
become aware how dependent our inner world is on what we experience
externally; and how, in a certain way, it is coloured by our
experiences. Nevertheless, a certain difference exists.
We shall be willing to admit that each one of us carries his own world
in his inner being. The fact that the one is born in one part of the
earth at one time, and another in another at a different time does in
a sense color our inner world; but we also experience something quite
different besides, in regard to this inner world. It is certainly our
special, in a sense, our differentiated inner world; it bears a
certain coloring; but we can also experience something quite
different. If we go from the place where we are accustomed to be
active through our senses, to a distant place, and there meet with a
man who has had quite different experiences and perceptions from our
own, we can nevertheless understand him, because he has passed through
certain troubles which we similarly ourselves have passed through;
because he can take pleasure, in a certain sense, in the things which
please us. Many people have experienced that they may perhaps find it
difficult to understand someone they encounter in a distant region or
to agree with him about the external world to which they both belong,
yet it may be easy to sympathize with one another concerning what the
heart feels and longs for. Through our inner world, we human beings
are much nearer one another than we are through the external world,
and truly there would be little hope of carrying our spiritual science
to the whole of humanity, were it not for the consciousness that in
the inner being of every man, no matter to what part of the earth he
may belong, lives something which can bring him into sympathy with us.
Now, however, in order to arrive at something quite free from our own
egoistic inner life, we must lay aside even that coloring of inner
experience which is still influenced by the external world. That can
only be when a man is able to experience something in his own inner
being which does not in any way come from the external world;
something which corresponds to what we may call inner suggestions,
inspirations and which grows and thrives only within the soul itself.
He can so transcend the special inner life that he feels something
revealed in his inner being which is independent of his special
egoistic existence. This is felt by men who assert again and again
that over the whole earth-sphere there can be mutual understanding of
certain moral ideals, or certain logical ideals which no man can
doubt, and which can illuminate every man; for they are imparted to
humanity, not by the external world, but by the inner world.
One province it is, to be sure, but an arid, prosaic province
all men have in common as regards such inner manifestation. It
is the province of numbers and their relation; in short, of
mathematics, numbers and calculation. The fact that three times three
makes nine we can never experience from the external world, it must be
revealed to us through our inner being. Hence there is no possibility
of disputing this in any part of the globe. Whether a thing is
beautiful or ugly can be very greatly disputed all the world over; but
if the fact has once been revealed to our inner being that three times
three is nine, or that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, or
that a triangle has 180 degrees as the sum of its angles, we know that
it is so, because no external world can reveal this, only our own
inner being. In dry, prosaic mathematics begins what we may call
inspiration. Only as a rule, people do not notice that inspiration
begins with dry mathematics, because most people take dry mathematics
for something dreadfully tedious, and are therefore not very willing
to let anything be revealed to them by this means. Fundamentally,
however, the same thing applies to the inner revelation of moral
truths. If we have recognized something as right, we say, This
is right and the contrary is wrong, and no external power of the
physical plane can make us see that what is revealed to us as right,
could be wrong in our inner being. Moral truths also reveal
themselves in the highest sense, through the inner being. If a man
directs his spiritual gaze to this possibility of inner manifestation,
with feeling and receptivity, he can educate himself in this way.
Indeed education through mere mathematics is very good. For instance,
if a man constantly devotes himself to the thought: I may have
my own opinion as to whether a thing is good to eat, but someone else
may be of a different opinion. That depends upon the freewill of the
individual, but mathematics and moral obligations do not depend on
such freewill. I know of these that they may reveal something to me
which, if I refuse to accept it as true, I prove myself unworthy of
humanity. This recognition of a revelation through the inner
being, if accepted as feeling, as inner impulse, is a powerful
educative force in the inner life of man, if he devotes himself to it
in meditation. If he first of all says to himself, In the
sense-world there is much that can only be decided by freewill; but
out of the spirit, things are revealed to me as to which my freewill
has nothing to say, and which yet concern me and of which I, as a man,
must prove myself worthy; if he allows this thought to
become ever stronger and stronger, so that he feels overpowered by his
own inner being, he grows beyond mere egoism, and a higher self, as we
say, gains the upper hand; a higher self which recognises itself as
one with the Spirit of the World conquers the ordinary arbitrary
self. We must develop something of this sort as a mood if we wish to
succeed in reaching the portal which leads into the spiritual worlds.
For if we frequently devote ourselves to such moods as have just been
described, they will prove fruitful. They prove especially fruitful if
we bring them as concretely as possible into our thoughts and
especially if we cherish and accept the thoughts which reveal
themselves to us as true, and which nevertheless are in contradiction
to the external sense-world. Such thoughts may at first be nothing but
pictures, but such pictures can be extremely useful for man's occult
development.
I will tell you of one such picture. I will show you by such a picture
how a man can raise his soul above himself.
Take two glasses, in the one is water, in the other none. The glass
with water should he only half-full. Suppose you observe these two
glasses in the external world. Now if you pour some of the water from
the half-filled into the empty glass, the latter will be partly
filled, while the other then has less water in it. If a second time
you pour water from the glass which was half-filled into the glass
which was at first empty, the first glass will have still less water
in it; in short, through the pouring-out there is always less and less
water in the glass which was at first half-full of water. That is a
true presentation as regards the external physical sense-world. Now
let us form a different conception. By way of experiment, let us form
the contrary idea. Imagine yourself again pouring water from the
half-filled glass into the empty one. Into this latter there comes
water, but you must imagine that in the half-filled glass by means of
this pouring out of water there is more instead of less, and that if
you poured from it a second time, so that again something passed over
into the previously empty glass, There would again be more and not
less water left in the glass that was at first half-filled. As the
result of the out-pouring, more and more water would be in the first
glass. Imagine yourself picturing this idea. Of course everyone who at
our present time counts himself among the thoroughly intelligent,
would say. Why, you are picturing an absolute delusion! You
imagine that you are pouring out water, and that by so doing more
water comes into the glass from which you are pouring! Of course
if one applies this idea to the physical world, then, naturally, it is
an absurd idea; but marvelous to relate it can be
applied to the spiritual world. It can be applied in a singular
manner. Suppose a man has a loving heart, and out of this loving heart
he performs a loving action to another who needs love. He gives
something to that other person; but he does not on that account become
emptier when he performs loving actions to another; he receives more,
he becomes fuller, he has still more, and if he performs the loving
action a second time he will again receive more. One does not become
poor, nor empty, by giving love or doing loving actions, on the
contrary, one becomes richer, one becomes fuller. One pours forth
something into the other person, something which makes one fuller
oneself. Now, if we apply our picture (which is impossible, absurd,
for the ordinary physical world), if we apply our picture of the two
glasses to the outpouring of love, it becomes applicable; we can then
grasp it as an image, as a symbol of spiritual facts. Love is so
complex a thing that no man should have the arrogance to attempt to
define it, to fathom the nature of love. Love is complex; we perceive
it, but no definition can express it. But a symbol, a simple symbol
a glass of water which, when it is poured out becomes ever
fuller gives us one quality of the workings of love. If we thus
imagine the complexity of loving actions we really do nothing else
than what the mathematician does in his dry science. Nowhere is there
an actual circle, nowhere an actual triangle, we must only imagine
them. If we draw a circle and examine it a little through a
microscope, we see nothing but chalk or small specks; it can never
have the regularity of a real circle. We must turn to our imagination,
our inner life, if we wish to imagine the circle or the triangle or
something of that kind. Thus, to imagine something like a spiritual
act such as love, for instance we must grasp the symbol
and hold fast to an attribute. Such pictures are useful for occult
development. In them we perceive that we are raised above ordinary
ideas, and that if we wish to ascend to the spirit, we must form ideas
just the opposite of those applicable to the sense-world. Thus we find
that the forming of such symbolical conceptions is a powerful means
towards ascending to the spiritual world. You find this treated fully
in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and How to Attain It.
By this means a man succeeds in recognizing something like a world
above him, a world which inspires him, one which he cannot perceive in
the external world, but which penetrates him. If he devotes himself
more and more to these conceptions, he finally recognizes that in
him, in every man, lives some spiritual being higher than he himself,
the human being with his egoism in this one incarnation. When we begin
to recognizes that there is something above us ordinary human beings,
that there is a being guiding us, we have the first form in the ranks
of the beings of the Third Hierarchy, those beings we call Angels, or
Angeloi. When a man goes out beyond himself in the manner described,
he first experiences the working of an Angel-Being in his own being.
If we now consider this being independently, so that it has the
qualities which have been described as revelation, and spiritual
enfilling: if we consider this being which inspires us, as an
independent being, we rise to an idea of the beings of the Third
Hierarchy, standing immediately above man. We may therefore describe
these beings as those which lead, guide, and direct each individual
human being:
In this way I have given you a slight description of the way in which
man can raise himself to begin with to the first beings above him, so
that he can gain an idea of them. Just as each individual, in this
way, has his guide, and when we rise above ourselves, above our
egoistic interests, occult vision draws our attention to this fact:
Thou hast thy Guide so it is now possible to direct
our vision to groups of men, to races, and peoples. Such groups of men
who belong together have also a guidance, just as individual man has
his, in the manner described. These beings, however, who lead whole
peoples or races, are even more powerful than the leaders of
individual men. In western esotericism, these leaders of peoples or
races, who live in the spiritual world, who have revelation as their
perception, and spiritual enfilling as their inner life, and who find
expression in the actions performed by whole peoples or whole races,
are called Archangels or Archangeloi. When a man progresses further in
occult development, not only may the Angel who specially leads him be
revealed to him, but also the Archangel who leads the common group to
which he belongs. And then when our occult development goes still
further, we find beings as leaders of humanity who are no longer
concerned with individual races and peoples, but are leaders in
successive epochs. If the occultly-developed man studies, for
instance, the period in which lived the ancient Egyptian or Chaldean,
he will see that the whole stamp, the whole character of the period is
under a definite leadership. If he then looks with occult vision upon
what follows the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and directs it to the age
in which Greece and Rome gave the tone to the western intellectual
world, he will see that this leadership changes and that above the
individual peoples, mightier than the Archangels who are leaders of
the peoples, rule Spirits who direct whole groups of peoples connected
with each other at a particular time, and that these beings are then
relieved after a definite time by other Time-leaders. Just as the
individual realms of the Archangeloi who guide contemporary but
individual groups of men, are distributed in space, so do we find, if
we allow our vision to sweep over passing time, that the different
epochs are guided by their definite Spirits of the Age, more powerful
than the Archangels and under whom many different peoples stand at the
same time. This third category of the Third Hierarchy we call the
Spirits of the Age, or Archai in the terminology of western
esotericism.
All the beings belonging to these three classes of the Third Hierarchy
have the attributes described to-day; they all have what has here been
described as manifestation or revelation and being inwardly filled
with the Spirit. Occult vision becomes aware of this when it is able
to raise itself to these beings. Thus, we may say that when we observe
what surrounds man in the spiritual world, and is, as it were, around
man as his own individual leader; when we there observe what lives
spiritually and rules invisibly, instigating us to impersonal actions
and impersonal thinking and feeling, when we see this, we have there
first of all the beings of the Third Hierarchy. Occult vision
perceives these beings. To the occultist they are realities; but
normal consciousness also lives under their, sovereignty, although it
does not perceive the Angel, it is under his leadership, even though
unconsciously. And so do groups of men stand under their Archangel, as
the age and the men of the age stand under the leadership of the
Spirit of the Age.
Now these beings of the Third Hierarchy described to-day are found in
our nearest spiritual environment. If, however, we went back in the
evolution of our planet to a definite point of time, about which we
shall learn more in the following lectures, we should find more and
more that these beings, who really only live in the process of man's
culture are continually bringing forth other beings from themselves.
Just as a plant puts forth seed, so do the beings of the Third
Hierarchy, which I have just described, bring forth other beings.
There is, however, a certain difference between what the plant brings
forth as seed if we may use this comparison and the
beings which separate themselves off from the beings of the Third
Hierarchy. When the plant brings forth a seed, it is, in a sense, of
as much value as the complete plant; for out of it can again arise a
complete plant of the same species. These beings put forth others
which are separated from them just as the seed from the plant, they
have offspring, so to speak, but they are, in a sense, of a lower
order than themselves. They have to be of a lower order because they
have other tasks which they can only accomplish if they are of a lower
order. The Angels, Archangels, and Spirits of the Age in our spiritual
environment, have put forth from themselves certain beings, which
descend from the environment of man into the kingdoms of nature; and
occult vision teaches us that the beings we learnt about yesterday as
the nature-spirits, are detached from the beings of the Third
Hierarchy, of whom we have learnt to know to-day. They are offspring,
and to them has been allotted other service than service to mankind,
namely, service to nature. Indeed, certain offspring of the Archai are
the beings we have learnt to know as the nature-spirits of the earth;
those separated from the Archangels and sent down into nature, are the
nature-spirits of water; and those detached from the Angels we have
recognized as the nature-spirits of the air. With the nature-spirits
of fire or heat we have still to become acquainted. Thus we see that
in a sense, through a division of the beings which represent as the
Third Hierarchy our union with the world immediately above us, certain
beings are sent down into the kingdoms of the elements, into air,
water, earth into the gaseous, fluid, and solid in order
there to perform service, to work within the elements, and in a sense
to function as the lower offspring of the Third Hierarchy as
nature-spirits.
Thus we can speak of a relationship between the nature-spirits and the
beings of the Third Hierarchy.
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