LECTURE 1.
(23rd May, 1912.)
[Growth, Decay, Reincarnation]
IN
these two lectures I should like to speak to you from the point of
view of Spiritual Research, on the question so frequently and
urgently put: What is the meaning of life? If in these
two evenings we are to get anywhere near this subject we shall have
to create first of all a kind of foundation or basis, on which to
construct the edifice of knowledge, and from this deduce the answer
in outline.
When we contemplate the things around us, those which exist for our
ordinary sense-perception and our ordinary experience, and then turn
to our own life, the result is at best the formulation of a question
the presentation of an oppressive, a painful problem. We see
how the beings of external nature arise and decay. We can observe
every year in spring how the earth, stimulated by the forces of the
sun and the universe, bestows on us the plants which sprout and bud
and bear fruit through the summer. Towards autumn, we see how they
decay and pass away. Some remain indeed throughout the year, some for
very many years, for instance, our long-lived trees. But of these
also we know that even though in many cases they may outlive us, they
also pass away at last, disappear and sink down into that which, in
the great world of nature, is the realm of the lifeless. Especially
do we know that even in the greatest phenomena of nature there rules
this growth and decay: even the continents on which our civilisations
develop did not exist in times past, for they have only risen in the
course of time, and we know for certain that they will one day pass
away.
Thus we see around us growth and decay; we can trace it in the plant
kingdom and in the mineral kingdom as well as in the animal kingdom.
What is the meaning of it all? Ever an arising, ever a passing away
all around us! What is the meaning of this arising and this passing
away? When we consider our own life, and see how we have lived
through years and decades, we can recognise there also this coming
into being and decay. When we call to mind the days of our childhood:
they are vanished and only the memory of them remains. This stirs
within us anxious questionings about life. The most important thing
is that we ourselves have progressed a little through it, that we
have become wiser. Usually, however, it is only when we have
accomplished something, that we know how it ought to have been done.
If we are no longer in a position to do a thing better, we still know
how much better it might have been done, so that actually our
mistakes become a part of our life; but it is just through our
mistakes and errors that we gain our widest experiences.
A question is put to us, and it seems as if that which we can grasp
with our senses and our intellect is unable to answer it. That is the
position of man to-day; all that surrounds him confronts him with the
problem, with the question: What is the meaning of existence
as a whole? and particularly Why has man his peculiar
position within this existence?
An extremely interesting legend of Hebrew antiquity tells us that in
those old Hebrew times there was a consciousness that this anxious
question which we formulated as to the meaning of life, and
especially as to the meaning of man, occurs not only to man, but to
beings quite other than man. This legend is extremely instructive and
runs as follows: When the Elohim were about to create man
after their own image and likeness, the so-called ministering angels,
certain spiritual beings of a lower grade than the Elohim themselves,
asked Jahve or Jehovah: Why is man to be made in the image and
likeness of God! Then Jehovah collected so continues
the legend the animals and the plants which could already
spring forth on earth before man was there in his earthly form, and
He gathered together the angels also, the so-called ministering
angels those who immediately served Him. To those He showed
the animals and plants and asked them what they were called, what
were their names? But the Angels did not know the names of the
animals and plants. Then man was created, as he was before the Fall.
And again Jehovah gathered around him Angels, animals and plants, and
in the presence of the Angels he asked man what the animals whom He
made to pass by in succession before mans eyes, were called,
what their names were. And behold! Man was able to answer: This
animal has this name, that animal has that, this plant has this name,
that plant has that, Then Jehovah asked man: And what
is thine own name? And man said: I must be called
Adam. (Adam is related to Adama, and means: Out of the
earth: earth-being). Jehovah then asked man: And what
am I myself to be called? Thou shalt be called Adonai,
man replied, Thou art the Lord of all created beings of the
earth. The Angels now began to have an idea of the meaning of
mans existence on the earth. Though religious tradition and
religious writings often express the most important riddle of life in
the simplest way, there are many difficulties in understanding them,
because we have to get behind their simplicity. We must first
penetrate into the meaning behind them. If we succeed in this, great
wisdom and deep knowledge are revealed. It may well be so with this
legend, which we shall just keep in mind for a moment, for these two
lectures will give us, in some sort, an answer to the question which
it contains.
Now you know that there is a religion which has put the question as to
the meaning and value of life by placing it in a wonderful form into
the mouth of its own founder. You all know the story of the Buddha,
how it tells us that when he left the palace in which he was born,
and came face to face with the real facts of life, of which in that
incarnation he had as yet learned nothing, he was most profoundly
dismayed, and pronounced the judgment: Life is suffering,
which as we know comprises the four statements: Birth is
suffering disease is suffering old age is suffering
death is suffering, and to which is added to be united
with those we do not love is suffering, to be separated from those we
love is suffering, not to be able to attain that to which we aspire
is suffering. We know then that to the adherents of this
religion the meaning of life can be summed up by saying: Life,
which is suffering, only acquires a meaning when it is conquered,
when it transcends itself. All the various religions, all
philosophies and views of life, are, after all, attempts to answer
the question as to the meaning of life. Now, we are not going to
approach the question in an abstract, philosophical way. Rather we
shall review some of the phenomena of life, some of the facts of
life, from the point of view of Spiritual Science, in order to see if
a deeper occult view of life furnishes us with something wherewith to
approach this question as to the meaning of life. Let us take the
matter up again at the point we have already touched the
annual growth and decay in physical nature, the life, growth and
decay in the plant world. In Spring we see the plants spring up out
of the earth, and that which we see there as germinating, budding
life, calls forth our joy and delight. We become aware that the whole
of our existence is bound up with the plant world, for without it we
could not exist. We feel how that which springs up out of the earth
at the approach of Summer is related to our own life. We feel in the
Autumn how that which in a certain sense belongs to us, again decays.
It is natural for us to compare with our own life that which we see
germinating and decaying. For an external observation based only on
what can be perceived by the senses and judged by the intellect, it
is very natural to compare the vernal springing up of the plants
with, let us say, mans awakening in the morning; and the
withering and decaying of the plant world in Autumn with mans
falling asleep at night. But such a comparison is quite superficial.
It would leave out of account the real events with which we can
already become acquainted through the elementary truths of occultism.
What happens when we fall asleep at night? We have learned that we
leave our physical and etheric bodies behind in bed. With our astral
body and our ego we withdraw from our physical body and etheric body.
During the night, from the moment of our falling asleep to the moment
of our waking, we are with our astral body and our ego in a spiritual
world. From this spiritual world we draw the forces which we require.
Not only our astral body and our ego, but our physical and etheric
bodies go through a kind of restorative process during our sleep at
night, when the latter lie in bed, separated from the astral body and
ego.
When one looks clairvoyantly down from the ego upon the astral, the
etheric and physical bodies, one sees what has been destroyed by
waking life; one sees that that which finds its expression in
fatigue, is present as a destructive process and is made good during
the night. The whole conscious life of the daytime is in fact, if we
look at it in its connection with human consciousness and in its
relation to the physical and etheric bodies, a kind of destructive
process as regards the physical and etheric bodies. We always destroy
something by it, and the fact that we destroy expresses itself in our
fatigue. That which is destroyed is made good again at night.
Now if we look at what happens when we have withdrawn our astral body and
our ego out of the etheric and physical bodies, it is as if we had
left behind us a devastated field. But in the moment we are out of
them, out of the physical and etheric bodies, they begin gradually to
restore themselves. It is as if the forces belonging to the physical
and etheric bodies begin to bud and blossom, and as if an entire
vegetation should arise on the scene of destruction. The further
night advances and the longer sleep lasts, the more do the forces in
the etheric body bud and blossom. The nearer morning approaches and
the more we re-enter our physical and etheric bodies with our astral
body, the more a kind of withering or drying up sets in as regards
the physical and etheric bodies.
In short, when the ego and the astral body look down from the spiritual
world on the physical and etheric bodies, they see at night, at the
moment of falling asleep, the same phenomenon which we see in the
great world outside, when the plants bud and germinate in Spring.
Therefore, to make a real comparison, we must compare our falling
asleep and the earlier part of the sleep condition at night with
Spring in nature; and the time of our awakening, the time in which
the ego and the astral body begin to re-enter the physical and
etheric bodies, with Autumn, in external nature. Spring corresponds
to our falling asleep and Autumn to our awakening.
But how does the matter stand, when the occult observer, he who really
can look into the spiritual world, directs his gaze to external
nature and watches what takes place there in the course of the year?
That which then presents itself to the occult vision teaches us that
we must not compare things in an outward, but in an inward way.
Occult observation shows that just as the physical and etheric bodies
of man are connected with his astral body and his ego, so is there
connected with our earth what we call the spiritual part of the
earth. The earth also must be compared with a body, a widespread
body. If we consider it only as far as its physical part is
concerned, it is just as if we were to consider man with regard to
his physical body only. We consider the earth completely when we
consider it as the body of spiritual beings, in the same way in
which, in the case of man, we consider the spirit as being connected
with the body, yet there is a distinction. Man has a single nature
controlling his physical and etheric bodies; a single
psycho-spiritual nature belongs to that which is his physical human
body and etheric human body. But there are a great many spirits
belonging to the Earth-body. What in mans psycho-spiritual
nature is a unity, is, as regards that of the earth, a multiplicity.
This is the chief distinction. With the exception of this difference
everything else is in a certain way analogous. To occult vision is
revealed how in the same measure as green plants come forth from the
earth in Spring, those spirits whom we call the earth-spirits,
withdraw from the earth. Only here again they do not, as is the case
with man, absolutely leave the earth; they move round it, they pass
in a certain way to the other side of the earth. When it is Summer in
one hemisphere it is Winter in the other. In the case of the earth,
the spiritual part moves from the northern to the southern hemisphere
when Summer is approaching in the north. But that does not alter the
fact that to the occult vision of a man who experiences the Spring on
any given part of the globe, the spirits leave the earth; he sees how
they rise and pass out into the cosmos. He does not see them move to
the other side, but he sees them go away, in the same way as he sees
the ego and the astral body leave man at the moment of his falling
asleep. In the Autumn the earth-spirits approach and re-unite
themselves with the earth. During the Winter, when the earth is
covered with snow, the earth-spirits are directly united with the
earth. In fact something similar then begins for the earth to what is
found in man: a kind of self-consciousness. During the Summer the
spiritual part of the earth knows nothing of what goes on around it
in the universe. But in Winter the spirit of the earth knows what is
happening in the universe around, just as man, on waking, knows and
beholds what is taking place around him.
The analogy is thus complete, only it is the reverse of that which the
outer consciousness draws. It is true that if we wish to go into the
question fully, we cannot simply say: When, in Spring, plants
bud and spring from the earth, the earth spirits go away, for
with the budding and sprouting of plants there arise, as if out of
the depths, out of the interior of the earth, other and mightier
spirits. Therefore the mythologies were right when they distinguished
between the higher and the nether gods. When man spoke of the gods
who left the earth in Spring and returned in Autumn, he spoke of the
higher gods. But there were mightier, older, gods, called by the
Greeks the Chthonic gods. These arise in Summer when everything is
budding and flourishing, and they descend again when in Winter the
real earth spirits unite with the body of the earth.
Now, I should here like to mention that a certain idea, taken from
scientific and occult research, is of immense importance for human
life. For this shows us that when we consider the individual human
being, we have really before us something like an image of the great
Earth-being itself. What do we see when we turn towards plants which
are beginning to sprout and bud? We see exactly the same as takes
place in man when his inner life is active, we see how the one
exactly corresponds to the other. How single plants are related to
the human body, what their significance is for the human body, can
only be recognised when such connections are understood. For it is in
fact true that, on close examination, one sees how, when man falls
asleep, everything begins to sprout and bud in his physical and
etheric bodies: how a whole vegetation springs up in him: how man is
in reality a tree or a garden in which plants are growing.
Whoever follows this with occult vision sees that the sprouting and
germinating within man corresponds to what is germinating and budding
in nature without. Thus you can form an idea of what will be possible
when, in the future, Anthroposophy often considered as
foolishness to-day is applied to life and made fruitful. We
have for example, a man who has something wrong in his bodily
life-activities. Let us now observe, when he falls asleep, what kind
of plants are wanting when his physical and etheric bodies begin to
develop their vegetation. When we see that on earth whole species of
plants are missing, we know that something must be wrong with the
life of the earth. And it is the same with the deficiency of certain
plants in the physical and etheric bodies of man. In order to make
good the defect we have only to seek on the earth for the plants
which are missing in the man in question, and introduce their juices
either in the form of diet or medicine and then we shall find the
relation between medicine and disease. From this example, we see how
Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science will intervene directly in life,
but we are only at the beginning of these things.
In what I have just said I have given you, in a comparison drawn from
nature, some idea of the composition of man and the connection of his
whole being with the environment in which he is placed. We shall now
look at the matter from a spiritual point of view. Here I would like
to call attention to a matter that is of great importance, namely,
that our anthroposophical outlook on life, while letting its gaze
range over the evolution of mankind from the point of view of
occultism, in order to decipher the meaning of existence, gives no
preference to any one special creed, or any one view of life over any
other. How often has it been emphasised in our occult movement that
we can point to that which our earthly humanity experienced and
developed immediately after the great Atlantean catastrophe
the Flood. We passed through, as the first great post-Atlantean
civilisation, the sacred civilisation of Ancient India. Here, at
Copenhagen, we have already spoken of this old sacred Indian
civilisation, and we laid stress upon the fact that it was so lofty,
that that which has survived in the Vedas or in written tradition is
only an echo of it. It is only in the Akashic Records that we can
catch glimpses of the primeval teachings that issued from that time.
There we gaze on heights which have not been re-attained.
The later epochs had quite a different mission. We know that a descent
has taken place since then, but we know also that there will be again
an ascent and that, as already mentioned, Anthroposophy or Spiritual
Science has to prepare this ascent. We know that in the seventh
post-Atlantean age of civilisation, there will be a kind of renewal
of the ancient, holy Indian civilisation. We do not give preference
to any religious view or creed, for all are measured with the same
measure, in every particular they are described: in each the kernel
of truth is sought.
The important thing is that essentials be kept in view. We must not allow
ourselves to stray in the consideration of the nature of each
separate creed, and if we keep this in mind, in approaching the
various points of view, we find one fundamental difference. We find
views on life which are of a more oriental nature, and others which
have permeated our Western civilisation. Once we make this clear to
ourselves, we have something which throws light on the meaning of
existence. We then find that the ancients were already in possession
of something which we have to regain with difficulty, viz., the
doctrine of reincarnation. The oriental stream possessed this as
something springing from the profoundest depths of existence. You can
still realise how the oriental mind shapes the whole of life from
this doctrine, when you look at the relation of the oriental to his
Bodhisattvas and his Buddhas. If you keep in view how little it
concerns the oriental to select a single figure with this or that
definite name, as the ruling power in human evolution, you see at
once how he attaches much more importance to tracing the
individuality which goes on from life to life. Orientals say that
there are such and such a number of Bodhisattvas, high beings who
have sprung from men, but who have gradually evolved to a height
which we can describe by saying: A Being has passed through many
incarnations, and then has become a Bodhisattva, as did Gautama, the
son of King Sudhodana. He was Bodhisattva and became Buddha. The name
Buddha, however, is given to many, because they passed through many
incarnations, became Bodhisattva, and then ascended to the next
higher stage, that of Buddhahood. The name Buddha is a generic name.
It denotes a degree of human attainment, and has no sense apart from
the spiritual being who goes through many incarnations. Brahmanism
fully agrees with Buddhism in regarding the individual who goes
through the different personalities, rather than the single person.
It comes to the same whether the Buddhist says: A
Bodhisattva is destined to ascend to the highest degree of human
attainment, and for this he has to go through many incarnations; but
for me the highest is the Buddha. Or whether the adherent of
Brahmanism says: The Bodhisattvas are indeed highly developed
beings, who ascend to Buddhahood, but they are inferior to the
Avatars, who are higher spiritual individualities. You see,
consideration of the persisting spiritual entity is what
characterises both these oriental points of view.
But now let us turn to the West, and see what is the thing of greatest
importance there. In order to enter a little more deeply into this
connection, we must consider the ancient Hebrew point of view, where
the personal element enters. When we speak of Plato, of Socrates, of
Michelangelo, of Charlemagne, or of others, we are always speaking of
a person: we place before men the separate life of the personality
with all that this personality has done for mankind. In our Western
life we do not direct our attention to the life which has gone from
personality to personality, for it has been the mission of Western
civilisation to direct attention for a time to the single life. When
in the East the Buddha is spoken of, it is understood that the
designation Buddha is an honourable title which may be
applied to many personalities. When, on the contrary, the name
Plato is uttered, we know that this refers only to a
single personality. This has been the education of the West.
Let us now turn to our own day. In Western civilisation, mankind has been
trained for a time to direct his attention to the personality, but
the individual element, the individuality has now to be
added to the personal element. We stand now at the point where we
must reconquer the individual element, but strengthened, vivified, by
the contemplation of the personal.
Let us take a definite case. In this connection we look back to the old
Hebrew civilisation, which preceded that of the West. Let us turn our
attention to the mighty personality of the prophet Elijah. To begin
with, we may describe him as a personality. In the West he is seldom
regarded in any other way. If we leave aside details and look at the
personality from a wider point of view, we see that Elijah was
something very important for our evolution. He gives the impression
of a forerunner of the Christ-Impulse.
On looking back to the time of Moses, we see how something had been
proclaimed to the people; we see that the God in man was proclaimed.
I AM the God Who was, Who is, Who is to come. He has to
be comprehended as in the ego, but among the ancient Hebrews He was
comprehended as the Folk-soul of the race. Elijah went beyond Moses,
though he did not make clear that the ego dwells in the single human
individual as Divinity, for he could not make clear to the people of
his time more than the world was then able to receive. While even the
Mosaic Culture of the old Hebrews was conscious of the fact that the
Highest lies in the Ego, and that this Ego found expression in
the time of Moses in the Group-Soul of the people, we find Elijah
already pointing to the individual human soul. We see a forward leap
in evolution. But a further impulse was needed, and again a
forerunner appeared, whom we know as the personality of John the
Baptist. Once more it was in a significant expression that the
quality of John the Baptist as a Forerunner found
expression. A great occult fact is here indicated that man, as
primeval man, once possessed ancient clairvoyance, so that he could
look into the spiritual world into Divine activity
but he gradually approached towards materialism; the vision of the
spiritual world was cut off. To this fact John the Baptist alludes
when he says: Change the attitude of your soul; look no longer
at what you can gain in the physical world: be watchful, a new
impulse is at hand (he means the Christ-Impulse). Therefore I say
unto you, seek the spiritual world that is in your midst; there the
spiritual element appears with the Christ-Impulse. Through
this saying John the Baptist became a forerunner of the
Christ-Impulse.
Now we can direct our gaze to another personality, to the remarkable
personality of the painter Raphael. This remarkable personality
presents itself to us in an unusual way. In the first place, we need
only compare Raphael to let us say Titian, a painter
of a later period. Whoever has an eye for such things, even if he
look at the reproductions, will find the distinction. Look at the
pictures of Raphael and at those of Titian! Raphael painted in such a
way that he put Christian ideas into his pictures. He painted for the
people of Europe as Christians of the West. His pictures are
comprehensible to all Christians of the West, and will become so more
and more. Take, on the other hand, the later painters. They painted
almost exclusively for the Latin race, so that even the schisms of
the Church found expression in their pictures.
With which pictures was Raphael most successful? With those in which he
was able to demonstrate the impulses that lie in Christianity. He is
at his best where he could represent some relationship of the
Jesus-Child to the Madonna, where this Christ-relation appears as
something that is an impulse to feeling. These are the things which
he really painted best. We have for instance, no Crucifixion of his,
but we have a Transfiguration. Wherever he can paint the budding and
germinating aspect, that which is self-revealing, he paints with joy
and there he paints his greatest and best pictures.
It is the same with the impression which his pictures produce. If some
day you come to Germany and see the Sistine Madonna in Dresden, you
will realise that that work of art of which it is said that
the Germans may rejoice to have such a celebrated picture among them,
Yes! that they may even regard it as the flower of the painters
art you will realise that this work discloses a mystery of
existence.
When Goethe in his time traveled from Leipsic to Dresden, he heard
something quite different about the picture of the Madonna. The
officials of the Dresden Gallery said something like this to him: We
have also a picture of Raphaels, but it is nothing particular.
It is badly painted. The look of the Child, the whole Child itself,
everything to do with the Child, is common. The same with the
Madonna. One can only think that she is painted by a dauber. And then
these figures down below of which one does not know whether they are
meant for childrens heads or angels! Goethe heard this
coarse opinion, so that at first he had no right appreciation of the
picture. Everything which we hear about the picture at the present
time only came to be understood later on, and the fact that Raphaels
pictures made their triumphal march through the world in
reproductions, is a result of this better appreciation. We have only
to call to mind what England has done for the reproduction and
circulation of these pictures. But what was effected in England by
the trouble which has been taken for the reproduction and circulation
of Raphaels pictures, will only be recognised when people have
learned to look at the matter from the point of view of spiritual
science.
Thus through his pictures, Raphael becomes for us the forerunner of a
Christianity which will be cosmopolitan. Protestantism has long
regarded the Madonna as specially Catholic; but to-day the Madonna
has penetrated everywhere into Protestant countries and we are rising
more to the occult interpretation, to a higher inter-denominational
Christianity. So it will be more and more. If we may hope for such
results as regards interdenominational Christianity, what Raphael has
done will also help us in Anthroposophy.
It is remarkable that the above three personalities confront us in this
manner: all three have the quality of being forerunners of
Christianity. Now let us direct occult observation to these three
persons. What does it teach us? It teaches us that the same
individuality lived in Elijah, in John the Baptist and in Raphael.
However impossible it may seem, it is the same soul which lived in
Elijah and in Raphael.
When it is revealed to occult vision which searches and
investigates and does not merely compare in a superficial way
that it is the same soul that is present in Elijah, in John the
Baptist and in Raphael, we may ask how it is possible that Raphael
the painter becomes the vehicle for the individuality which lived in
John the Baptist? One can conceive that this remarkable soul of John
the Baptist lived in the forces which were present in Raphael.
Occult research comes in here again, not merely to put forth theories, but
to tell us how things actually are in life. How do people write
biographies of Raphael to-day? Even the best are so written that they
simply state that Raphael was born on Good Friday of the year 1483.
It is not for nothing that Raphael was born on a Good Friday. This
birth already proclaimed his exceptional position in Christianity and
shows that in the deepest and most significant way he was connected
with the Christian Mysteries. It was on a Good Friday that Raphael
was born. His father was Giovanni Santi. He died when Raphael was
eleven years old. At the age of eight years his father sent him as a
pupil to a painter, who was, however, not of any special eminence.
But if one realises what was in Giovanni Santi, Raphaels
father, one gets a peculiar impression which is further strengthened
when the matter is investigated in the Akashic Records. There it
appears that there lived in the soul of Giovanni Santi much more than
could be expressed in his personality and then we can agree with the
duchess, who at his death said: A man full of light and truth
and fervent faith has died. As occultist, one can say that in
him there lived a much greater painter than appeared outwardly. The
outer faculties, which depend on the physical and etheric organs,
were not developed in Giovanni Santi. That was the original cause why
he could not bring the capacities of his soul to full expression; but
really a great painter lived in him.
Giovanni Santi died when Raphael was eleven years old. If we now follow what
takes place, we see that man certainly loses his body, but that the
longings, the aspirations, the impulses of his soul continue to
exist, and continue to be active where they are most closely
connected.
There will come a time when Anthroposophy will be made fruitful for life,
as it can already be made fruitful by those who have grasped it
vitally and not merely theoretically. Permit me here to interpolate
something before going on with Raphael. What I tell you in the
examples I give is not mere speculation; on the contrary, it is
always taken from real life. Let us suppose that I had children to
educate. Whoever pays attention to the capabilities of children can
notice the individual element in every child, but such experiences
can only be made by those who educate children. Now if one of the
parents of a child dies while the child is still young and the other
parent is still living, the following may be noticed: Certain
inclinations will show themselves in the child which were not there
before and which consequently cannot be explained. But one who has
charge of children has to occupy himself with these things. Such a
one would do well if he said: People generally look upon what
is in Anthroposophical books as mere folly: I will not take this for
granted, but will try whether it is right or not. Then he will
soon be able to say I find forces at work which were already
there and again there are other forces playing into those which were
already there. Let us suppose that the father has passed
through the gates of death and there now appears in the child, with
some strength, certain qualities which had belonged to the father. If
this assumption is made and if the matter is looked upon in this way,
the knowledge which comes to us through Anthroposophy is applied to
life in a sensible way, and then, as is soon discovered, we find our
way in life, whereas before we did not. Thus the person who has gone
through the gateway of death, remains united, through his forces,
with those with whom he was connected in life. People do not observe
things closely enough, otherwise they would see more often that
children are quite different before the death of their parents from
what they are afterwards. At present there is not enough regard for
these things, but the time is coming when they will receive
attention.
Giovanni Santi, the father, died when Raphael was eleven years old; he had not
been able to attain great perfection as a painter, but powerful
imagination was left to him and this was then developed in the soul
of Raphael. We do not depreciate Raphael, if, while observing his
soul, we say: Giovanni Santi lives on in Raphael, who appears to us
as a completed personality, as one incapable of higher attainment
because a dead man gives life to his work.
We now realise that in the soul of Raphael are reborn the vigorous
forces of John the Baptist and in addition, there live in his soul
the forces of Giovanni Santi; that together these two were able to
bring to fruition the result which confronts us as Raphael. It is
true that to-day we cannot yet speak publicly of such extraordinary
things, but in fifty years time this may be possible, because
evolution is progressing quickly, and the opinions held to-day are
rapidly approaching their decline. Whoever accepts such things, sees
that in Anthroposophy our task is to regard life everywhere from a
new point of view. Just as in the future people will heal in the way
to which I have referred, so they will reflect on the strange miracle
of life wherein men attract to their assistance, from the spiritual
world, the achievements of those who have passed through the gates of
death.
I should like to draw your attention to two things, when speaking on
the riddles of life; things which so truly can illuminate the meaning
of life. One is the fate that has befallen the works of Raphael.
Whoever looks to-day at the reproductions of his pictures, does not
see what Raphael painted. And if he travels to Dresden or to Rome, he
finds them so much spoiled that he can hardly be said to see the
pictures of Raphael. It is easy to see what will become of them when
we consider the fate of Leonardo da Vinci's Last
Supper, which is falling more and more into decay. These
pictures, in times to come, will fall into dust, and everything which
great men have created will disappear. When these things have
vanished, we may well ask: What is the meaning of this
creation and decay! We shall see that really nothing remains
of what the single personality has created.
Still another fact I should like to put before you, and that is the
following: If when to-day, with Anthroposophy as an instrument, we
desire to understand, and must understand, Christianity as an Impulse
that works for the future, we have need of certain fundamental ideas
through which we know how the Christ-Impulse will continue to work.
This we require. And we can point to a development of Christianity
for which Anthroposophy is necessary. We can point to a person who
presents Anthroposophical truth in special form namely, that
of aphorisms. When we approach him we find much that is significant
for Anthroposophy. This person is the German poet Novalis. When we
study his writings, we find that he describes the future of
Christianity from out of the occult truths it contains. Anthroposophy
teaches us that we have here to do with the same individuality as is
in Raphael, John the Baptist and Elijah.
We have here again to glance into the further development of
Christianity. That is a fact of an occult nature, for no one reaches
this result by reasoning. Let us once more put the different pictures
together. We have the tragic fact of the destruction of the creations
and works of single personalities. Raphael appears and allows his
interdenominational Christianity to flow into the souls of men. But
we have a foreboding that some day his creations will be destroyed,
that his works will fall to dust. Then Novalis appears to take in
hand the fulfilment of the task and continue the work he had begun.
The idea is no longer now so tragic. We see that just as the
personality dissolves in its sheaths, so the work dissolves, but the
essential kernel lives on and continues the work it had begun. Here
once again it is the individual to which our attention is directed.
But because we have kept firmly in mind the Western view of life and
therewith the personality, we are able to grasp the full significance
of the individuality. Thus we see how important it is that the East
directed its attention to the individuality, to the Bodhisattvas, who
go through many incarnations; and how important it is that the West
first directed its attention to the contemplation of the single
personality, in order, later on, to grasp what the individuality is.
Now I think there are many Anthroposophists who will say: Well,
this is something we have just to believe, when Elijah, John the
Baptist, Raphael and Novalis are mentioned. For many the main
thing is that they must just believe. It is essentially the same as
when from the scientific side some fact is asserted that many people
have to believe, such as that this or that spectrum appears when
certain metals are examined by spectrum analysis, or when for
instance, the nebula in Orion is so examined. Some people have
certainly investigated it, but the others, the majority, have to
believe. But that is after all not the essential point. The essential
point is that Anthroposophy is at the beginning of its development,
and will bring souls to the point of examining for themselves such
matters as we have discussed to-day. In this respect, Anthroposophy
will help forward human evolution very rapidly.
I have put before you a few instances, which I submit as resulting from
the occult point of view regarding life. Take only the three points
which we have considered and you will see that by knowing in what way
life is related to the Spirit of the Earth, the art of healing can be
given a new direction and supplied with new impulses; how Raphael can
only be understood when not only his personal forces are taken into
account, but also those forces which came from his father. The third
point is that we can educate children when we know the interplay of
forces acting on them. Outwardly people admit that they are
surrounded by numberless forces which incessantly influence them,
that man is continually influenced by air, the temperature, his
surroundings and the other Karmic conditions under which he lives.
That these things do not interfere with his freedom everyone knows.
They are the factors with which we have to reckon to-day. But that
man is continually surrounded by spiritual forces and that these
spiritual forces must be investigated is what Anthroposophy has to
teach men: they will have to learn to take these forces into account
and will have to reckon with them in important cases of health and
disease, of education and life. They will have to be mindful of such
influences as come from without, from the super-sensible world, when,
for instance, some ones friend dies and he then shares those
sympathies and ideas that belonged to him. What has been said does
not hold good for children only, but for all ages. It is not at all
necessary that people should know with their ordinary consciousness
in what way the forces of the super-sensible world are active. Their
general frame of mind may show it, even their state of health or
illness may show it. And those things which signify the connection of
mans life on the physical plane with the facts of the
super-sensible worlds have a still wider bearing.
I should like to put before you a simple fact which will show you the
nature of this connection, a fact which is not invented, but has been
observed in many cases. A man notices at a certain time that he has
feelings which formerly he did not know; that he has sympathies and
antipathies which formerly he did not know; that he succeeds easily
where before he found difficulties. He cannot explain it. His
surroundings cannot explain it to him, nor do the facts of life
itself give him any clue. In such a case it can be found, when we
observe accurately (it is true that one must have an eye for such
things), that now he knows things which he did not know before and
does things which he could not do before. If we examine matters
further and have had experience of the teachings of Anthroposophy, it
may be that we shall hear something like the following from him: I
do not know what to think of myself. I dream of a person whom I have
never seen in my life. He comes into my dreams, though I never had
anything to do with him. If we follow the matter up it will be
found that till now he had no occasion to occupy himself with this
person. But this person had died and now first approaches him in the
spiritual world. When he had come near enough to him he appeared to
him in a dream which was yet more than a dream. From this person,
whom he had not known in life, who, however, after death, gained
influence on his life, came the impulses which he had not known
before. It is not a question of saying: It is only a dream.
It is far more a question of what the dream contained. It may be
something which, although in the form of a dream, is nearer to
reality than the outer consciousness. Does it matter at all whether
Edison invents something in a dream or in clear waking consciousness?
What matters is whether the invention is true, is useful. So also it
does not matter whether an experience takes place in
dream-consciousness or in physical consciousness; what is of
importance is whether the experience is true or false.
If we now summarise what we are able to understand from what has just
been said, we may say It is clear to us when we learn to apply
Anthroposophy, that life appears to us in quite a different light
from before. In this respect people who are very learned in
materialistic ways of thought are but children. We can convince
ourselves of this at any time. When to-day I came here by train I
took up the pamphlet of a German physiologist in its second edition.
In it the writer says that we cannot speak of active
attention in the soul, of directing the attention of the soul
to anything, but that everything depends on the functioning of the
various ganglia of the brain; and because the tracks have to be made
by thoughts, everything depends on how the separate brain cells
function. No intensity of the soul intervenes, it depends entirely
upon whether this or that connecting thread in our brain has been
pulled or not. These learned materialists are really children. When
we lay our hands on anything of this kind one cannot help thinking
how guileless these people are! In the same pamphlet one finds the
statement that lately the centenary of Darwin was celebrated, and
that on that occasion, both qualified and unqualified people spoke.
The author of the pamphlet thought himself of course quite specially
qualified. And then follows the whole brain-cell theory and its
application. But how is it with the logic of the matter? When one is
used to considering things in accordance with truth and then sees
what these great children offer people concerning the meaning of
life, the thought occurs to one that after all it comes to the same
as if someone should say that it was simply nonsense that a human
will had any part in the way the railways intersect the face of
Europe! For it is just the same as if at a given time one considered
all the engines in their varied parts and functions, and said that
these are organised in such and such a way and run in so many
directions. But the different roads meet at certain junctions and
through them the engines can be turned in any direction. What would
occur if this were done would be a great disarrangement of trains on
the European railways. Just as little, however, can it be asserted
that what takes place in the human brain cells as the life of human
thought depends only on the condition of the cells. If such learned
people then happen, without previous knowledge, to hear a lecture on
Anthroposophy, they look upon that which is said as the most utter
nonsense. They are firmly convinced that a human will can never have
anything to do with the mode and manner in which the European engines
run, but that it depends on how they are heated and driven.
So we see how at the present day we stand confronted by questions
regarding the meaning of life. On the one side there is darkness, on
the other the spiritual facts press in upon us. If we grasp what has
been said to-day we can, with this as a basis, put the question
before our soul in the way in which it has to be put in
Anthroposophy, namely: What is the meaning of life and existence, and
especially of human life and human existence?
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