THE
EGO-CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SO-CALLED DEAD.
Lecture
by Dr. Rudolf Steiner
delivered
at LEIPZIG, on the 22nd of February, 1916.
[From
stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.]
Let us first
send our thoughts to those who are outside on the battlefields, where the
great events of the present are taking place, to those who must stand
for these serious events with their life, body and soul:
Geister ihrer Seelen, wirkende Wächter!
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Dass, mit Eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht!
(TRANSLATION)
Spirits of their Souls, working Guardians!
May your pinions bring
Our souls' beseeching love
To the human beings on this earth, entrusted to your care,
That, united with your might,
Our prayer may helpfully ray out
To the souls whom it lovingly seeks!
And let us remember those who have already passed through the portal of
death, as a result of these events:
Geister ihrer Seelen, wirkende Wächter!
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unsrer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Dass, mit Eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
(TRANSLATION)
Spirits of their Souls, working Guardians!
May your pinions bring
Our souls' beseeching love
To the human beings of the spheres, entrusted to your care,
That, united with your might,
Our prayer may helpfully ray out
To the souls whom it lovingly seeks!
And the Spirit Whom
we seek through our spiritual-scientific endeavours, the Spirit Who
passed through the Mystery of Golgotha for the welfare of the earth
and for mankind's freedom and progress, may He be with you and
with your difficult tasks!
*
The time in which we
live, reminds us daily and hourly of death, this significant event
in human life, it reminds us of man's passage through the portal of
death. For only in the light of spiritual science, death becomes
a real event, in the true meaning of the word, because spiritual
science shows us the eternal forces that are active within us, that
pass through births and deaths and take on a special form of
existence between birth and death, in order to assume another form of
existence after their passage through the portal of death. In
the light of spiritual science, death becomes an event,
instead of being merely the abstract end of life (only a
materialistic world-conception can look upon death as the end of
life), it becomes a deep and serious event within the whole compass
of human life. Even from our own ranks, dear friends of ours have
left us in order to pass through the portal of death, chiefly as a
result of the present historical events, but also for other reasons,
and so it may perhaps be particularly appropriate just now to say a
few things on death, on this great event, and on the facts of human
life that are connected with it.
Explanations have
often been given in our spiritual-scientific lectures on the life
between death and a new birth, so that we were able to gain many
essential facts, particularly in regard to this subject. The
course which spiritual science has followed up to now, will have
shown you that in every single case it can only speak of things from
one definite standpoint, so that a more accurate knowledge can
gradually be acquired by speaking of things repeatedly and throwing
light upon them from many points of view. To-day I shall therefore
add to the facts that you already know in connection with this
subject, a few things that may be useful to our comprehension of
the world as a whole.
Through spiritual
science, we consider, to begin with (and that is a good thing) the
human being such as he stands before us, here, in the physical world
as an expression of his whole being. We must depart first of all from
the manner in which the human being presents himself to us in the
physical world, and for this reason, I have frequently pointed out
that we obtain, as it were, a general view of man's whole being if we
contemplate him so that we first take, as a foundation, his physical
body, which we learn to know externally in the physical world through
our senses and the scientific-dissection of what we perceive through
the senses. We then proceed, by studying that form of organisation
which we designate as our etheric body: this already possesses a
super-sensible character and cannot, therefore, be contemplated with
the aid of the ordinary intellect, which is bound to the brain, and
is consequently also inaccessible to our ordinary science. The
etheric body is an organism having super-sensible character,
concerning which we may say that it was already known to men such as
Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the great thinker Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, to Troxler and others. Indeed, man's etheric body can only be
grasped through imaginative knowledge owing to its super-sensible
character, but as far as imaginative knowledge is concerned, it can
be contemplated externally, just as the physical-sensory body can be
contemplated externally through our ordinary sensory knowledge.
We then ascend in
our contemplation to the astral body. The astral body in man cannot
be contemplated in an external-sensory manner, in the same way in
which we contemplate the physical body through our external senses,
or in the same way in which we contemplate our etheric body
through our inner sense; the astral body is something that can only
be experienced inwardly. We must experience it inwardly and in
order to experience it, we must be within it. The same thing applies
to the fourth member which must be grasped in the physical world, to
the Ego. With these four members of human nature, we build up our
whole being.
Past lectures showed
us that what we designate as man's physical body is a very
complicated structure, formed during long periods of development that
passed through the stages of Saturn, the Sun and the Moon
[See Rudolf Steiner's
‘AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE.’];
also the evolution of the earth contributed to this development of
the physical body, from the very beginning of earthly existence up to
our time. A complicated process of development therefore built
up our physical body.
That form of
contemplation which is, to begin with, accessible to us in the
physical world, merely sees the external aspect of everything
that lives within the physical body. Even ordinary science merely
sees this external aspect. We might say: Our ordinary physical
contemplation and ordinary science, in the form in which it now lives
in the world, merely know of the physical body as much as we would
know of a house, if we would only go round it outside, without ever
going inside, so that we would never learn to know what it is like
inside, nor what people live in it.
Of course, those who
stand upon the foundation of ordinary science, in the usual
materialistic meaning, will argue: “We are thoroughly
acquainted with the interior of the physical body! We know what it is
like, because we have frequently studied the brain inside the skull,
when dissecting corpses; we have frequently studied the stomach
and the heart.” This interior, however, that can thus
be studied from outside, this spatial interior is not what I mean
when I speak of man's inner being. Even this spatial interior is
nothing but an external thing. Indeed, in the case of the physical
body, this spatial interior is far more external than the real
spatial exterior.
This must sound
strange. But our sense-organs — you know this from other
descriptions contained in our spiritual science — were formed
already during the Saturn period and we carry them on the surface of
our body. Spatially speaking, they are outside. Nevertheless,
they were built by forces that are far more spiritual than those that
formed our stomach, or everything that exists, spatially speaking,
inside our body. What is inside our body, is built up by the least
spiritual of forces. Strange though it may sound, I must nevertheless
point out that we really speak of ourselves in an entirely
mistaken manner — upside down, we might say. Since we live on
the physical plane, it is natural to speak in that way; nevertheless
the way in which we speak of ourselves is quite wrong. We should
really designate the skin of our face as our interior, and the
stomach as our exterior. This would lead us far closer to the
truth! It would lead us closer to the real truth if we were to say:
We eat in such a way that we send the food out of us; when we send
food into our stomach, we really send it out, we do not send it into
our body, as we generally say at the present time. The more our
organs lie on the surface, the more spiritual are the forces from
which they come; and the more they lie inside our body, the less
spiritual are the forces that gave rise to them,
The descriptions
that were given so far in our spiritual science enable you to grasp
this with a certain ease. If you carefully remember the
descriptions of spiritual science, you will no doubt remember what it
says in regard to the Moon stage of development, namely, that
something split off during the Moon stage of development, and that
something also split off during the Earth-development; it went out
into the world's spaces from the Saturn, Sun and Moon stages of
development. A very strange thing is connected with this
splitting-off process: namely, we were turned inside out! Our inside
became our outside, and our outside became our inside. During the
Saturn and Sun periods, our human countenance, that is now turned
towards the outer world, was really turned towards our inner being.
Of course, this was only the case during the early stages of
development; but even during a part of the Moon period, during the
Moon existence, the foundation of the inner organs which we now
possess was still formed from outside. Since that time, we have
really been turned inside out, like an overcoat that can be turned.
We should bear in mind that many super-sensible facts are connected
with our physical body; its whole structure is super-sensible; the
super-sensible world has formed it, and when we look upon the physical
body as a whole, it merely shows us its external aspect,
If we now come to
the etheric body, we shall find that it is neither visible nor
accessible to the physical-sensory contemplation. But when the human
being passes through the portal of death, it becomes all the more
important. The time through which the human being now passes, the
first days after his death, are particularly important as far as the
etheric body is concerned. But we must learn to think differently,
even in regard to the physical body, if we wish to grasp in the right
way all that we encounter after our passage through the portal of
death.
You already know
(for you can observe this even in the physical world) that when we
pass through the portal of death, we lay aside our physical body, as
we generally say. We lay aside our physical body. Through
decomposition or cremation (the only difference between these two
processes lies in the length of time that they take up) the physical
body is handed over to the elements of the earth. Now we might think
that the physical body simply ceases to exist for those who have
passed through the portal of death. But this is not the case, in this
meaning. For we can hand over to the earth only those parts of our
physical body that come from the earth itself. We cannot,
however, hand over to the earth that part of our physical body that
comes from the ancient Moon existence, nor that part which comes from
the ancient Sun existence, or from the ancient Saturn existence. For
those parts that come from the ancient Saturn existence, from the Sun
existence, from the Moon existence, and even from a great portion of
the Earth existence, are super-sensible forces. These super-sensible
forces contained in our physical body, of which only the
external part is accessible to our sensory contemplation, as
explained just now, — where do these super-sensible forces go
to, after we have passed through the portal of death? As stated, we
hand over to the earth, we return to the earth, only that part of our
physical body, of that most wonderful structure which exists in the
world, to begin with, as a form, — we return to the earth only
what the earth itself has given to the physical body. And where is
the other part, when we have passed through the portal of death? The
other part withdraws from the one that sinks down into the earth, as
it were, through the process of decomposition or cremation; the other
part is taken up by the whole universe.
If you now think of
everything you can at all imagine in the environment of the earth,
including the planets and the fixed stars, if you imagine this in the
most spiritual form, this spiritually conceived idea would give you
the place where the spiritual part of our physical body abides after
death. Only a portion of this spiritual part, a portion contained in
the element of heat, separates and remains with the earth. But every
other spiritual part of our physical body is borne out into the
spaces of the universe, into the whole cosmos.
Where do we go to,
when we abandon our physical body? Where do we dive down? Through our
death, we dive down with lightning speed into that which forms our
physical body, from out [of] all the super-sensible forces. Imagine that
all the constructive forces that have worked upon your physical body,
ever since the time of Saturn, were to stretch themselves into
infinity, in order to prepare the place in which you live between
death and a new birth. Between birth and death, all this is drawn
together, I might say, within the space enclosed by your skin; it is
merely drawn together.
When we are outside
our physical body, we experience something that is of utmost
importance for the whole subsequent life between death and a new
birth. I have often mentioned this. This experience is of opposite
character to the corresponding experience during our life here, upon
the physical plane. During our life upon the physical plane, we
cannot look back as far as the hour of our birth; we cannot look back
upon it with the aid of our ordinary cognitive power. There is not
one person who can remember his own birth, nor look back upon it. The
only thing we know, is that we were born; in the first place, because
we have been told so by others, and in the second place, because all
the other human beings that came to the earth after us, were also
born, so that we infer from this that we too, were born. But we
cannot pass through the real experience of our own birth.
Exactly the opposite
is the case with the corresponding experience after death.
Whereas, during our physical life, the immediate contemplation of our
birth can never rise up before our soul, the moment of death stands
before our soul throughout our life between death and a new birth, if
we only look upon it spiritually. We must realise that we then
look upon the moment of death from the other side. Here, on earth,
death has a terrifying aspect only because we look upon it as a kind
of dissolution, as an end. But when we look back upon the moment of
death from the other side, from the spiritual side, then death
continually appears to us as a victory of the spirit, as the spirit
that is extricating itself from the physical. It then appears as the
greatest, most beautiful and significant event. Moreover, this
experience kindles that which constitutes our Ego-consciousness after
death. Throughout the time between death and a new birth, we have an
Ego-consciousness that not only resembles but far exceeds that which
we have here, during our physical life. We would not have this
Ego-consciousness, if we could not look back incessantly, if we would
not always see — but from the other side, from the spiritual
side — that moment in which our spiritual part extricated
itself from the physical. We know that we are an Ego only because we
know that we have died, that our spiritual has freed itself from our
physical part. When we cannot contemplate the moment of death, beyond
the portal of death, then our Ego-consciousness after death is in the
same case as our physical Ego-consciousness here upon the earth,
when we are asleep. Just as we know nothing of our physical
Ego-consciousness when we are asleep, so we know nothing concerning
ourselves after death, if we do not constantly have before us the
moment of death. It stands before us as one of the most beautiful and
loftiest moments.
You see, even in
this case we must set about thinking in an entirely different way of
the spiritual world, than of the sensory-physical world. If we
indolently remain by the thoughts which we have in connection with
the physical-sensory world, it will be impossible for us to
grasp the spiritual in any way more precisely. For the most important
thing after death is that the moment of death is viewed from the
other side. This kindles our Ego-consciousness on the other
side. Here, in the physical world, we have, as it were, one side of
Ego-consciousness; after death, we have the other side of
Ego-consciousness. I explained just now where we should look for the
super-sensible part of our physical body after death. We should seek
this physical body in the shape of a relation of forces, of an
organism of forces, as a cosmos of forces, within the whole world.
This physical essence prepares the place through which we must pass
between death and a new birth.
Within our physical
body, which is so small in comparison to the whole world, our skin
really encloses a microcosm, something that is, in reality, a whole
world. Trivially speaking, I might say that this world is merely
rolled together and that afterwards it unrolls again and fills out
the universe, with the exception of one tiny space, that always
remains empty.
Between death and a
new birth, we really exist everywhere in the world; we live in it
with that part which, here on earth, lies at the foundation of our
physical body in the form of super-sensible forces. We are
everywhere, except in that one place. This remains empty. It is the
space enclosed by our skin, the space which we take up in the
physical world. This remains empty.
Yet we constantly
look upon this empty space. That is to say, we look upon our own
self, from outside; we look into a concavity. This remains empty. It
remains empty to such an extent that a fundamental feeling rises up
in connection with it. Namely, we do not contemplate things in an
abstract manner, we do not simply stare at them, but our
contemplation is connected with a powerful inner life-experience,
with a mighty experience. It is connected with the fact that when we
contemplate this emptiness, a feeling rises up in us, a feeling that
accompanies us throughout our life between death and a new birth and
constitutes a great deal of what we generally designate as our life
beyond. It is the feeling, that there is something in the world
which must again and again be filled out by us. And then we acquire
the feeling: “I exist in the world for a definite purpose,
which I, alone, can fulfil.” Thus we learn to know our place
within the world. We feel that we are building stones, without which
the world could not exist. This is what arises through the
contemplation of that empty space. When we gaze at it, we are
overcome by a feeling telling us that we stand within the world as
something that forms part of it.
All this is
connected with the further development of our physical body. The more
elementary forms of description only enable us to explain
schematically as it were, a reality of the spiritual world that
really requires to be explained in the form of images. In order to
rise gradually to those concepts which penetrate more deeply into the
reality of the spiritual world, we must first have those images.
We know that our
next experience is a kind of retrospective memory, that lasts for
days. But this retrospective memory is inappropriately designated
(but nevertheless with a certain right) as a retrospective memory,
for we have before us now, for a few days, something that resembles a
tableau, or a panorama, woven out of all we have experienced during
our past life. It does not, however, rise up in the same way in
which an ordinary memory rises up in our physical body. You see, the
memories that live in our physical body are of such a kind that
we draw them out of our memory. Memory is a force that is connected
with our physical body. Our recollections rise up in the form of
thoughts; through the power of memory, we draw them out successively,
within the stream of time. But the retrospective memory after death
is of such a kind that everything that occurred during our earthly
life, now surrounds us simultaneously, as if it were a panorama. Our
life-experiences now rise up in the form of imaginations. We can only
say that we now live, for whole days, within our experiences. What we
experienced just before death, and what we experienced during our
childhood, stands before us simultaneously, in powerful pictures. A
panorama of our life, a life-picture stands before us and it
reveals, simultaneously, in a woof woven out of the ether,
what normally occurs successively, within the stream of time.
Everything that we now see before us, lives in the ether.
We feel, above all,
that we are now surrounded by something that is alive. Everything
within it lives and weaves. And then we experience that it resounds
spiritually, that it shines forth spiritually and gives warmth
spiritually.
We know that this
life-tableau disappears after a few days. What makes it cease and
what is the essence of this life-tableau?
If we study the true
essence of this life-tableau, we must really say: Everything that we
have experienced during our life, is woven into it. How did we
experience these things? — In the form of thoughts, connected
with our experiences. Everything that we experienced in the form of
thoughts and concepts is contained in this picture of our life.
In order to grasp
this concretely, let us now say: During our earthly life, we lived
together with another human being, we spoke with him and in speaking
with him, his thoughts communicated with our thoughts. We received
love from him, we allowed his soul to influence us and experienced
all this inwardly. In this manner, we shared the experiences of the
person we lived with. He lived and we lived, and through him we
experienced something. What we experienced through him, now
appears to us woven into this etheric life-tableau. It is the same
thing that constitutes our memories. Think, for instance, of the
moment, ten or twenty years ago, when you first met him and
experienced something through him. Imagine that this memory now rises
up before you, but that you do not remember it in the same way in
which you would remember things during your ordinary life. The
ordinary memories are grey and faded, but now you remember things in
such a way that they rise up within you as LIVING memories; you see
your friend standing before you in exactly the same way in which he
stood before you during the real experience.
Here, on earth, we
are often very dreamy and what we experience upon the physical plane
in a living and hearty manner, becomes dulled and loses its vitality.
But when we pass through the portal of death, when our experiences
rise up before us in the life-tableau, they are no longer dull and
lifeless, but exist there, in the original freshness and
vitality which they possessed when we passed through them, during our
earthly life. In this form they become inwoven with our life-tableau;
in this form we experience them after death, for whole days.
In regard to the
physical world, we have the impression that our physical body falls
away from us when we die; in a similar way we now have the impression
that also our etheric body falls away from us after a certain number
of days, but it does not fall away from us in the same way in which
our physical body falls away, for it becomes inwoven with the whole
universe, with the whole world. It lives in the world and stamps its
impressions upon the whole world, while we are experiencing our
life-tableau. What we thus have before us in the form of a
life-tableau, has now been handed over to the external world: it
lives in our surroundings and has been taken over by the world.
During those days,
we have an important and impressive experience in this connection.
For, after death, our experiences do not merely resemble the memories
which we have during our earthly life, but they are in every way
substance for new experiences. Even the manner in which we grasp our
Ego, through the fact that we constantly look back upon our death, is
a new experience, for our earthly senses do not enable us to
experience anything similar. This can only be grasped through
the knowledge of initiation. But even what we experience during the
days in which we are surrounded by this life-tableau, by this etheric
life that frees itself from us and becomes inwoven with the
universe, even what we experience in this manner, is impressive and
lofty, it is an overwhelming and powerful experience for the
human soul.
You see, during our
physical life on earth, we face the world: we face the mineral,
vegetable, animal and human kingdom. It enables us to experience what
our senses are able to experience, what our intellect, that is bound
to the brain, obtains through the sense-experiences, what are our
feelings, that are connected with our vascular system, experience: we
experience all these things, here on earth.
But in reality, and
from a loftier standpoint, we human beings are extremely great
dunces (excuse this expression!), gigantic dunces between birth and
death. In regard to the wisdom of the great world, we are fearfully
stupid if we believe that here on earth, when we experience something
in the manner described and bear it along in the form of memories,
everything is finished; we are fearfully stupid if we think that our
experiences are finished, when we take them up in this manner, as
human beings. For while we experience things, while we form concepts
and feelings rise up in our experiences, the whole world of the
Hierarchies is active within this process through which we acquire
our experiences; the Hierarchies live and weave in it.
When we face a human
being and, look into his eyes, then the Spirits of the Hierarchies,
the Hierarchies themselves, the work of the Hierarchies, live in our
gaze and in what is sent towards us through the gaze of the other
human being. Our experience merely shows us the external aspect of
things, for, in reality, the Gods work within our experiences. We
think, that we only live for our own sake; yet the Gods work out
something through our experiences; they obtain from them something
that they can weave into the world. We form ideas, we have feeling
experiences; the Gods take them up and communicate them to their
world. And when we die, we know that the purpose of our life is to
give the Gods the opportunity to spin out of our life this woof
coming from our etheric body and to hand it over to the whole
universe. The Gods gave us the chance to live, in order that they
might spin out something for themselves, thus enriching the world.
This is an
overwhelming thought. Every one of our strides is the external
expression of an event connected with the Gods; it forms part of that
woof which the Gods use for their plan of the world and which they
leave to us only until we pass through the portal of death. After our
death, they take it away from us and incorporate with the universe
these, our human destinies. Our human destinies are, at the same
time, the deeds of Gods, and the form in which they appear to us
human beings is merely their outward aspect. This is the significant,
important and essential fact which we should bear in mind.
What we acquire
inwardly, during our earthly life, through the fact that we can think
and have feelings, whom does this belong to, after our death? Whom
does it now belong to? After our death, it belongs to the universe.
We look back upon our death, and in the same way we now look back
with that part which remains to us, namely, with our astral body and
our Ego, upon that which has become inwoven with the universe,
with the world. During our earthly life, we bear within us
what thus becomes inwoven with the universe after our death; we bear
it within us, as our etheric body. But now it is spun up and becomes
inwoven with the world. And we now look upon it, we contemplate it.
After our death, we look upon it in the same way in which we
experienced it inwardly, here on earth. It now lives in the world
outside. Just as here on earth we see stars, mountains, rivers, so
after our death, we see, in addition to what our physical body has
become with lightning speed, also that part of our own experiences
which has become inwoven with the universe. That part of our own
experiences which now incorporates with the whole world-structure, is
reflected in those members which we still possess, in our astral body
and in our Ego; it is reflected in the same way in which the external
world is reflected, here on earth, in our physical organs and through
our physical being.
While this is
reflected in us, we acquire something that we cannot acquire during
our earthly life, something that we shall only acquire later on,
during the Jupiter period, in the form of a more external, physical
impression. Now we acquire it spiritually, through the fact that our
etheric being, outside makes an impression upon us. The impression
which is thus made upon us, is, to begin with, a spiritual one; it is
made in the form of images; in its image-character it is, however,
the prototype of what we shall one day possess upon Jupiter: namely,
the Spirit-Self.
A Spirit-Self is
therefore born to us, through the fact that our etheric part becomes
inwoven with the universe; this Spirit-Self comes to birth
spiritually, not in the form in which we shall have it later on, upon
Jupiter.
The etheric body has
now detached itself, so that we now have the astral body, the Ego and
the Spirit-Self.
The astral body and
the Ego therefore remain to us from our earthly life.
You already know
that our astral body, in the earthly form in which it was subjected
to us, remains with as for a long time after death. The astral body
remains with us, because it is permeated with all those things that
only pertain to the earthly-human life, and because it cannot
immediately expel this. We now pass through a time during which we
can only cast off little by little what has become of our astral body
as a result of our earthly life.
You see, here on
earth, we can only experience, in regard to the astral body, one half
at the most of everything through which we pass. We really experience
only half of what takes place in every one of our experiences. Let us
take an example: Imagine — this applies, both to good and to
evil thoughts and actions — but let us take as an example an
evil action: Imagine that you say something bad to another person and
that your words hurt him. When we say something unkind, we only
experience that part which concerns us personally; we only experience
the feelings that prompted us to say those evil words: This is the
soul-impression which we gather when we say bad and unkind things.
But the other person to whom we addressed our unkind words, has an
entirely different impression; he has, as it were, the other half of
the impression and feels hurt. The second half of the impression
lives in him. What we ourselves experience during our physical life
on earth is one thing, and what the other person experiences is
another thing.
Now imagine the
following: After our death, when we pass retrogradely through our
life, we must once more live through everything that other
people, outside, have experienced through us. As we go backwards
through our life, we experience the effects of our thoughts and
actions. Between death and a new birth, we therefore pass through our
life by going through it retrogradely. And when we have gone back as
far as our birth, we are ripe for the moment when also that part of
our astral body may be cast off, which is permeated with earthly
things. It abandons us, and a new state of-existence begins for us
when we have cast off our astral body.
The astral body
always kept us connected, I might say, with the earth; it maintained
this connection in all our experiences. When we pass through our
astral body — not in a dreamy condition, but by living through
our earthly experiences backwards — we are still connected with
our earthly life; we still stand within our earthly existence. Now
that we have cast off — but this is not the right expression; it
is, however, impossible to use another one — now that we have cast
off our astral body, we are quite free of all that pertains to the
earth, and we live in the real spiritual world.
A new experience now
sets in. This casting-off of the astral body is, again, merely
one aspect of the whole experience; the other aspect is an entirely
different one. When we have passed through our earthly experiences
and no longer have our astral body, we feel, as it were, inwardly
filled and permeated with — we cannot say with material — but
with Spirit; then we really feel that we are in the spiritual world
and the spiritual world rises up within us. In former times, it rose
up before us in the outer world when we contemplated the universe and
saw our own etheric body inwoven with the universe. But now it rises
up within us; we now experience it inwardly. And our Ego rises
up within us, as a prototype of what we shall possess physically only
upon Venus; our Ego rises up as a prototype of the Life-Spirit.
We now consist of
Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Ego.
Just as here on
earth, we live in a rather dreamy state from our birth until that
moment of our childhood in which we acquire self-consciousness, which
is the earliest moment of life that we can recall, so we now lead a
form of life that is fully conscious, indeed more conscious and
higher than our earthly life. However, we experience a purely
spiritual life, only when we have detached ourselves from our astral
body, from our astral life, retaining only that part of our astral
which permeates us inwardly. Consequently, we are, from that time
onwards, Spirits among Spirits.
Now another
important and essential experience rises up. During our life in the
physical world, we carry on our work, do this or that thing and
[have] experiences in connection with all these things. (We just
spoke of this). Our experiences are, however, not limited to the
physical world; simultaneously and in connection with them, we
also experience something else. Although the expression which I shall
now use for these simultaneous experiences is just an ordinary,
more general expression, let me nevertheless use this word:
while we experience these things, we grow tired, we get used up. This
is constantly the case: we grow tired. Although our weariness is
eliminated for our next state of consciousness through the fact that
we sleep, or rather, through the fact that we rest during our sleep,
this elimination, or adjustment, is nevertheless only a partial one,
for we know, of course, that during our life we gradually become used
up, we grow older, and our strength gradually dwindles. Consequently,
we also grow tired in a wider sense. When we grow older, we know that
we cannot adjust everything by sleeping. Thus we wear out our
strength, we grow tired, during our life on earth.
Indeed, we are now
able to view this problem from another aspect. After our preceding
explanation, we can now advance this problem in a different way; we
can ask: Why do the Gods allow us to grow weary? The fact that here
on earth we get tired and wear out our strength, gives us something
that is really most significant for our whole life. Let us, however,
grasp the idea that we get tired, in a wider sense than the usual
one. Let us place it clearly before our soul.
You will grasp it
best of all if you imagine it in the following way: Ask any one of
those present: Do you know anything concerning the interior of your
head? — Probably only a person who is suffering from headache
would answer that at the present moment he does know something
concerning the interior of his head. He alone would feel what the
inside of his head is like; all the others would not feel it.
We can feel our
organs only when they are not quite in order; we are then to some
extent aware of their existence through our feelings. As a rule, we
only have a more general feeling of our physical body, and this
feeling increases when anything is out of order. But when we only
have this general feeling, we know very little concerning the
interior of our body. Those who suffer from bad headaches know a
little more concerning the inside of their head than an anatomist,
who is merely acquainted with the head's vessels. I explained this
just now. In growing more and more tired, during the course of our
life, we acquire an ever stronger feeling in regard to the body's
interior, its spatial interior.
Consider the fact
that the more weary we grow, the more the infirmities of life arise,
for instance the infirmities of old age. Our life consists therein
that we gradually begin to feel and to sense our physical body. We
learn to sense this physical part of our being, because it becomes
hardened within us and because it pushes itself, as it were, into our
being. Just because it develops so slowly, we regard it, I might
say, as an insignificant feeling. Its real significance could be
gauged, if we could feel (excuse this trivial expression, but it
conveys what I wish to say) in the pink of health, like an
exuberantly healthy child, and immediately afterwards, for the
sake of comparison, like an old man of 80 or 85, whose limbs have
grown fragile. This would enable us to experience that feeling more
strongly; simply because it develops so slowly and little by
little, we do not notice the fact that we gradually spin ourselves
into the feeling experience of our physical part, while we grow
weary; we do not notice this feeling simply because it develops so
slowly. Yet growing weary is a real process. At first, it does not
exist at all, for a child is full of exuberant vitality. But later
on, fatigue gradually begins to drown the vital forces, and then the
process of getting tired breaks through. We have the possibility of
growing weary, and during this process (even though it only gives us,
let us say, a dim feeling of our body's inner structure), during this
process, something takes place within us, something really takes
place within us.
Our life in the
physical world only shows us the outer aspect of deep, significant
and lofty mysteries. The fact that this dim, insignificant feeling of
growing weary accompanies us throughout our life, so that we are able
to feel the inner structure of our body, is merely the outer aspect
of something that becomes inwoven with us; it is wonderfully woven
out of pure wisdom, a complete woof of pure wisdom.
While we thus grow
weary during our life and begin to experience ourselves inwardly, a
delicate knowledge becomes inwoven with us, a knowledge of the
wonderful constitution of our organs, of our inner organs. Our heart
grows tired, yet this weariness means that a knowledge of the heart's
structure becomes inwoven with us, a knowledge of how the heart is
built from out the universe. Our stomach gets tired — most of
all, when we spoil it by eating too much — yet during this
process that tires the stomach, an image of wisdom from out the
cosmos is woven into us, and this image shows us how the stomach is
built up.
The lofty, wonderful
structure of our organism, of this great work of art, arises within
us in the form of an image. But this image only comes to life when we
cast off that part of our astral body which is bound to the earth.
What now lives within us, what now fills us as LIFE-SPIRIT, is the
wisdom connected with our own being, it is the wisdom connected with
the wonderful structure of our inner being and this wisdom now lives
in us.
Now begins a time in
which we compare, as it were, what fills us in the form of
Life-Spirit from out the wisdom of our inner being, with the etheric
woof that has already been woven into the universe. Our task is now
to compare how one thing fits in with the other, and we then build
up, in the form of an image, our inner being; we give it the shape
which it should have during our next incarnation.
This is how we
begin, but little by little our life approaches the World-Midnight,
which you will find described in one of the Mystery Plays, in “The
Souls' Awakening”. Particularly after the World-Midnight, we
are engaged in a work that consists therein that we now participate
in the world's creative work; we call into life what we afterwards
enjoy here, DURING OUR LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND A NEW BIRTH, WE SHARE
IN THE WORK, WE PARTICIPATE IN THE WEAVING OF THE GODS' IMAGES. We
have the privilege of sharing in a divine task, in what the Gods
aimed at, when they placed man into the world. We are allowed to
prepare our next incarnation.
Of course, this is
not only connected with processes that exclusively and egoistically
concern our own being, for all manner of other processes take place
as well. This may be evident particularly from the following:
If we gradually
succeed in experiencing, in spiritual contemplation, this
wonderful process — which is, above all, far higher than the
one which takes place on earth, when summer and winter alternate, or
when the sun rises and sets — and when all that takes place
which occurs in the form of earthly work, then something occurs
in the spiritual world finally leading to our earthly incarnation, to
human existence. This is a lofty, heavenly process, which has not
only an external significance, but a deep significance for the whole
world.
We also encounter
something else, when we contemplate this process. It may sound
strange to say this, but you see, the higher mysteries at first
necessarily appear strange in the light of a physical-Sensory
contemplation. What rises up before our soul in connection with these
mysteries must move us. The more it moves us, the better it is, for
these things, the very nature of these things, should not approach
our soul so that we remain dry and indifferent. They should not be
taken up in such a way that we remain indifferent, dry and cool; but
they should, instead, give us a soul-impression of the loftiness and
greatness of the divine spiritual world.
We can say: If
anybody would undertake to present spiritual science in such s
dry way that it does not take hold of our WHOLE being, and so that
we do not gain an impression of the loftiness and greatness of the
divine-spiritual that pulses and weaves through the world — if,
after all these descriptions, we would live on indifferently and
dryly, then we would be born without heads, in accordance with the
present conditions of the world and in spite of everything we know!
We would be born without heads! The structure of our head is
something that we are unable to build. In its whole structure, the
human head is such a lofty image of the universe, that the human
being would be unable to form it, even with the aid of that
life-wisdom which is woven into him; he would be unable to prepare it
for the next incarnation. All the divine Hierarchies must cooperate
in this work. Your head, this slightly irregular and somewhat
transformed sphere, is a real microcosm, a true image of the great
world-sphere. Within it lives, within it is collected everything that
exists outside, in the universe. All the forces that are active in
the different Hierarchies cooperate in order to produce the head. And
when we begin to shape our next incarnation, from out [of] the
wisdom, which we collected during the process of growing weary, all
the Hierarchies cooperate and influence this activity, in order to
embody in us, as an image of the whole wisdom of the Gods, what
afterwards becomes our head!
While all this
occurs, our physical, hereditary stream is being prepared generations
ahead, here upon the earth. Just as after our death we can only hand
over to the earth what comes from the earth, so our parents and
grand-parents only give us that part of our being which pertains to
the earth. Our earthly part is merely our exterior, it is merely
the external expression within this earthly part. Woven into it, is,
in the first place, everything that we ourselves are able to
weave in the manner described, and what all the Hierarchies of the
Gods weave, before we gain a connection (through conception)
with that which enwraps us and clothes us about, when we enter the
physical plane.
I explained to you,
that the more of this lofty knowledge we take up in our feelings, the
better it will be for us. Just consider the fact: We use our
head. In so far as we live in materialism, we generally have not
the slightest idea that whole Hierarchies of Gods are at work in
order to produce our head, in order to mould that which lies,
spiritually, at the foundation of our head, so that we are able to
live. If we grasp this, in the meaning of a spiritual-scientific
knowledge, it will spontaneously be filled with feelings of gratitude
and thankfulness towards the whole universe.
Consequently, what
we acquire through spiritual science, should incessantly continue to
increase and raise our feelings. In the sphere of spiritual science,
our sentient life should more and more hold pace with our cognitive
work. It is not good to remain behind with our feelings. Whenever we
learn to know a new and higher portion of spiritual science, we
should be able to unfold, I might say, more and more reverent
feelings towards the world's mysteries, which finally lead to the
mysteries of man. A true progress in spiritual science really lies in
this purifying, spiritual, warmth of our feelings.
Let me mention one
more thing because it completes all that we have contemplated in this
lecture. Here, in the physical world, we gradually grow accustomed to
life by having, to begin with, the dull consciousness of childhood.
At first, we only recognise our mother and little by little we learn
to know other people. As we grow accustomed to life in the physical
world, we believe that we are constantly coming across new people. As
far as our physical consciousness is concerned, this is, in fact,
true. But when we pass through the portal of death, we have a real,
true connection with all the souls that we encountered during
our earthly life. They rise up again before our spiritual eye. The
souls with whom we were connected during our earthly life and that
crossed the portal of death before us, we find these souls, as it
were. The word “to find” really applies to physical
conditions, but we may use it here, to define that living way in
which souls approach other souls. This “finding” of the
souls that crossed the portal of death before us, should, however,
be imagined in such a way that we approach them, as it were, in an
opposite manner from the one in which we approach human beings, here
on the physical plane.
On the physical
plane we encounter human beings so that we first
approach them physically, and then we gradually become acquainted
with their inner being. Their inner being unfolds only when we
penetrate into their inner life. Hence, what we experience inwardly
in connection with a human being, is the result of that which
develops from out [of] our own inner life. When we ourselves
have crossed the portal of death and encounter the souls that have
passed through the portal of death before us, we know to begin with:
There is that particular soul. We can feel it, we know that it is
there. Now we must, however, surrender our whole inner being to the
first impression that arises, to the first most abstract impression.
Here on earth we should allow other human beings to exercise their
influence upon us; but in the spiritual world we must SURRENDER OUR
INNER BEING and we must now build up the image, the imagination,
ourselves. The imaginative element, what we can look upon, this we
must gradually build up. You may have an idea of the soul's
experiences after death if you imagine that you do not see it, but
that you TAKE HOLD of it ... and as you gradually ENCOMPASS IT
WITH YOUR GRASP, you, form an image: you build up an image for
yourself. You must therefore build up in inner activity the image of
the soul whom you encounter. You realise, as it were: “I am now
facing a soul ... What soul is it? It is the soul ...”, and
this knowledge rises out of your own soul ... “towards whom I
had the feelings of a son towards his mother.” And you begin to
feel: “I experience myself together with this soul”. Now
you begin to build its spiritual form. You must be active within it,
and then it develops into an image. Through the fact that you build
this image together with the other soul, you are united with that
dead person, even before you begin, to form its spiritual shape. In
this manner you are united with everything with which you were united
during your earthly life; that is to say, you now experience these
things in their own world. You must discover them, by awakening
within you the power of vision, so that you may look upon yourself,
but this requires activity on your part.
It is not the same
with souls that still dwell in their physical body, with souls that
are still alive when we die. Even here on earth, we encounter them in
the form of images. Thus we look down upon the earth, and do not need
to build up their image, for they already face us as images. Of
course, we may weave into these images something that can become
spiritual warmth and nourishment for the dead, namely the image
which we are able to form through our thoughts for the dead, through
our lasting love and memory, or — we know this, as spiritual
scientists — by reading something to them.
You see, all this
extends the human gaze, so that it penetrates, really penetrates into
the real world. If this rises up before our soul, we begin to realise
how little we know of the spiritual world. This was not always the
case. Only the completely materialistic people of modern times
boast of the great extent of their knowledge. But we know that in the
past the human beings were clairvoyant and that this ancient,
atavistic clairvoyance was lost only because certain qualities had to
be acquired, which disappeared in the midst of an existence connected
with a materialistic world. If a real materialist, a thoroughly
materialistic thinker, approaches us, he will, of course, say: “It
is nonsense to speak of an ancient clairvoyance, or that people had
a special knowledge in the past”. But if we would only open our
physical eyes a little as we pass through the world, we would very
soon discover the confutation of such an argument! It is not even so
long ago, that people used to know more than they do at the present
time.
You know, for we
have often considered this matter — but let me mention it again
at the conclusion of this lecture — that Lucifer and Ahriman
have a share in our spiritual existence. We also know that in the
Bible Lucifer is symbolized as a Serpent, as the Serpent on the Tree.
The physical serpent, such as we see it to-day, and as modern
painters always paint it when they depict the Paradise Scene, is not
a real Lucifer; it is only his outer image, his physical image. The
real Lucifer is a Being that remained behind during the Moon-stage of
evolution. He cannot be seen upon the earth, among physical objects.
If a painter wishes to paint Lucifer's real aspect he would have to
paint him so that he can be grasped as an etheric form, through a
kind of inner clairvoyant form of contemplation. He would then appear
in the shape in which he works upon us; he would show that he is not
connected with our head or with our organism in so far as these are
exclusively formed by the earth, but that he is connected with the
continuation of our head, with the spinal cord. A painter who
knows something through spiritual science, would therefore paint Adam
and Eve, the Tree, and on the Tree the Serpent, but this serpent
would only be a symbol and it would have a human head. If we would
come across such a painting to-day, we would assume that the painter
has, of course, been able to paint this picture through spiritual
science,
Probably such a
painting may even be found here in Leipzig; but people do not go
about with open eyes, they go through the world with bandaged eyes.
In the Art Gallery of Hamburg there is a painting of the Middle Ages
by, Master Bertram, setting forth the Paradise Scene. In that
painting, the Serpent on the Tree is painted correctly, as
described just now. That picture can be seen there. But other
painters have also painted the Paradise Scene in that way. What may
we gather from this? That in the Middle Ages, people still knew this,
they knew it to the extent of being able to paint it. In other words:
It is not so long ago, that human beings were pushed completely
on to the physical plane.
The course of man's
spiritual history, as related by materialistic thinkers, is, after
all, nothing but an outer deception, because they think that man
always had the aspect which he assumed in the course of the past few
centuries, whereas it is not so long ago that he used to look into
the spiritual world with the aid of his ancient clairvoyance. He had
to abandon the spiritual world, because he was not free, and in order
to acquire full freedom and his Ego-consciousness, it was necessary
that he should leave the spiritual world. Now he must once more find
his way into the spiritual world.
Spiritual science
therefore prepares something very important and essential:
namely, that we may once more penetrate livingly into the spiritual
world. Again and again let us conjure up in our soul the necessity of
feeling that this small number of men that is now living in the very
midst of a materialistic world and is led through its Karma to the
possibility of grasping mankind's most important task for the future,
that this small number of men is called upon to fulfil important,
most important tasks, through its soul-life. We should realise
without any pride, we should realise modestly and humbly the great
difference between a soul that is gradually finding its way into the
spiritual world, and all the people outside, who have not the
slightest idea of this, who are, above all, NOT WILLING to have any
idea of it. This fact should not merely arouse in us discouraging and
painful feelings, but produce feelings that incite us to
continue our work with increasing energy and to work faithfully
within the stream of spiritual science, to which we were led through
our Karma.
When we were
together last, I also mentioned that when a human being passes
through the portal of death before having lived through the whole of
his life, then that part which is given to him in the form of an
etheric body has not been used up completely. When a human being
passes through the portal of death in his youth, then his etheric
body might still have worked for years upon his physical body. But
these forces do not go lost; they are still there. I also mentioned
that in the present time, through the fact that every day and every
hour death so numerously approaches mankind, many, many etheric
bodies that might still have worked for a long time upon their
physical body, here on the physical plane, are handed over to the
spiritual-etheric world and hover in it. The forces that might, for
decades, have provided for the physical body, become spiritual
forces, that cooperate in the spiritual development of humanity. Thus
a time will come, when these forces that constitute these etheric
bodies, can be used for the spiritual progress of humanity; but this
time will only come, if here on earth there will be human souls who
are able to understand this.
When the terrible
events of the present shall have passed over the earth and there will
be peace once more, then the souls of those who are still living on
the earth in human bodies, will have the possibility of grasping
something of the fact that all those who have gone into the spiritual
world before their time have their etheric bodies in that world and
that they can ray their forces into the earth. It will be necessary
that this fact be grasped by these souls. These souls can then
cooperate in that spiritual progress which is rendered possible
particularly through the many deaths of self-sacrifice.
Imagine what it
would mean if spiritual science were to disappear, and if no one were
to have any comprehension for all that is being prepared in the
spiritual world through these deaths of self-sacrifice! Imagine what
this would mean! In that case, all those forces would become the
property of Beings who would use them for other purposes than those
for which they should be used, in accordance with the plan and
resolution of the Gods who follow the right course of development.
This is an
admonishment that also comes from the events of our time, an
admonishment to the effect that we should stand fully within all that
which constitutes the spiritual world. For even these events of our
time have their spiritual aspect. What they reveal outwardly, in the
form of blood, death and sacrifices, is the external expression of an
inner spiritual course of events, which should, however, be grasped
in the right spirit.
Of this I wish to
remind you again and again, with the words that conclude our present
considerations:
Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Leid Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten,
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht,
Lenken Seelen Geist-bewusst,
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.
(TRANSLATION)
From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the sufferings of the abandoned,
From the nation's deeds of sacrifice,
Shall grow out a spiritual fruit,
If souls lead, in Spirit-consciousness,
Their heart and mind into the Spirit-realm.
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