LECTURE 2 THE METAMORPHOSES OF THE SOUL-FORCES. Berlin, 13th February, 1917.
The Lecture given here a week ago had as its culminating point the
fact, well known to the Spiritual investigator, that although in the
outside world the very height of materialistic views and opinions
prevail we are nevertheless just entering on an epoch of the
de-materialising of thought and of the world of ideas, which, in the
course of time, must lead to a spiritualising and permeating of the
earth-life as such, by the spirit. That which is to lay hold of and
affect the external life on the physical plane must first be grasped
by a few and then by an ever-increasing number of persons, grasped and
understood Spiritually. Spiritual Science is in this respect to be a
beginning, a means whereby men can uplift their souls to that which is
today accessible to those who desire to raise themselves to it, and of
which the external physical life is not as yet a reflection, though
that is what it must become if the earth is not, in a sense, to be
swamped in the downfall of materialistic development. The situation of
present-day man can be described as follows. His soul is generally
speaking really very near to the Spiritual world; but the ideas and
especially the feelings produced by a materialistic conception of the
world and by a materialistic attitude towards it, have woven a veil
before that which is in reality very close to the human soul today.
The connection between the physical Earth-existence, in which man with
his whole being is involved notwithstanding many assertions to the
contrary made in other quarters the connection between this
materialistic earth existence and the Spiritual world can be found by
man, if he will endeavour to develop the inner courageous forces
necessary for understanding, not only what nature paints to his
external senses, but also that which remains invisible. We can unite
ourselves with this invisible essence and experience it, if we stir up
the inner force of the soul sufficiently to become aware that in this
force the soul shares in something super-human and Spiritual. This
connection must not be sought just as human connections and
relationships are sought, in the rude external sense-existence; for
the connection between the human soul and the Spiritual world is to be
found in the intimate forces which the human soul develops when it
evolves an inner, silent and quiet attention., Man must now train
himself to this, for he has become accustomed, in this materialistic
age, to pay attention only to what presses on him from without, and
which in a sense calls out to his capacities of perception. The spirit
that must be experienced within does not call out, we have to wait for
it, and we can only approach it by preparing ourselves for its
approach. Concerning the things belonging to the external world which
present themselves to our senses and press in upon our outer
perception, we can say that they come to us, that they speak to us;
but we cannot say anything of the kind as regards the way in which the
spirit, the spiritual world, draws near to us. The language of modern
times as I have often said is more or less coined for the use of
the external world, and it is therefore difficult to find words conveying
a real impression of that part of the spiritual world which stands
before the soul. But an attempt can be made to show approximately the
difference between that and the physical. We might say that the
Spiritual is experienced in the feeling of gratitude which comes
whenever one experiences the Spiritual; one feels: I am grateful to
it. Take special note of this: we owe gratitude to the spiritual
world. In observing the physical world we say: we see spread out
before our senses the mineral world, from which proceed the plant
world, the animal world, and our own, the world of man. In the
latter we feel ourselves in a sense at the top of an ascending
sequence of external kingdoms; but as far as the Spiritual kingdoms
are concerned, we feel ourselves at the bottom, while above and beyond
us stretch out the kingdoms of the Angels, Archangels, Archai, and so
on. We feel the whole time that we are being supported from these
kingdoms, continually called to life by them. We owe gratitude to
them. We look up to them and say: our lives and the whole content of
our souls flows down to us from the will-impregnated thoughts of the
Beings belonging to those worlds, and by them we are constantly being
formed. This feeling of personal gratitude to the higher kingdoms
should become just as alive in us as the feeling let us say
of the impressions received through physical perception. When
these two feelings are equally alive in our souls-one, that: The
external sense things react upon us, and the other, that:
We owe what lives in the very centre of our being to the Higher
Hierarchies, the soul is then in that state of balance in
which it can continually perceive aright the co-operative working of
the Spiritual and the physical, which indeed goes on unceasingly, but
which cannot be perceived unless the two feelings described above are
properly balanced.
In the future from now on, evolution will have to proceed in such a
way that through the presence of these two feelings in the human soul
additional forces will be super-added, forces which are not able to
grow therein in the present materialistic age. It is of course
understood that what is here meant refers to something which has
greatly altered in the course of the development of mankind. Only at
the early primeval stages of man's development was there a connection
with the Spiritual world, and that indeed was but dim, and
unconscious. At the primeval time of his development man had not only
the two states be now has, of sleeping and waking and between these a
chaotic dreamy state; there was then a, third state, in which reality
was present This was not merely a state of dreaming, for in it man was
able, although his consciousness was damped down, to see pictures and
to learn by them, for these pictures were true to spiritual reality.
Now, as we know, in order that man should develop the full
Earth-consciousness, this method of perception had to be withdrawn. If
it had persisted, man would never have gained his freedom, he could
not have become free if he had not been subjected to all the dangers,
arguments and temptations of materialism; but he has to find his way
back again to the Spiritual world, and must now be able to grasp it in
full Earth consciousness. This is in connection with very far-reaching
and complex conceptions, which have altered with all else that has
undergone change in the evolution of humanity, in the manner just
indicated. In the primal ages it was quite natural to live in constant
communion with the souls departed from this physical life; no proof of
this was then necessary; for in that state of consciousness in which
man perceived the Spiritual world in pictures, he lived in the company
of those with whom he was in any way connected by karma and who had
passed into the Spiritual world through the portal of death. It was
personal knowledge to man that the Dead existed; he knew they were not
dead but alive, living in a different form of existence. A
thing need not be proved if one knows it! In those early times there
was no need to discuss immortality or to wonder about it, for one had
personal experience of the so-called Dead. This communion with the
Dead had moreover other and far-reaching results. It was then easier
to the Dead themselves to work through men; I do not say this cannot
be done now, it can still be done in this way; but I do say it was
then easier for the Dead to find means of working through men here on
earth, and thus to participate in what goes on here. In those primeval
ages the Dead were active in the impulses of will of the people; in
all that men understood and did, the Dead took part; thus helping to
bring about what took place on earth. Materialism has not only brought
in materialistic ideas, that would be its least harmful
accomplishment; it has also brought about a completely
different form of union with the Spiritual world. It is now only
possible in a much more restricted measure for the so-called Dead to
take part in the evolution of the earth through the so-called living;
but man will have to get back to this connection with the Dead. This,
however, will only be possible when to some extent he learns to
understand the language of the Dead, and this language is none other
than that of Spiritual Science. It may certainly appear, at first
sight, as though Spiritual Science tells us only more or less of
Spiritual erudition; of evolving worlds, of the evolution of man, of
the different principles composing the nature of man; things in which
perhaps some people are not interested, wishing rather for something
calculated to set their hearts and feelings aglow. Certainly it is a
good thing to want that, but the question is how far the satisfying of
that demand will take us. It may seem as though Spiritual Science only
teaches how the earth evolved and developed through old Saturn, Sun
and Moon, how the different epochs of civilisation developed on the
earth and how the different principles of man were added; but while we
devote ourselves to these seemingly abstract though in reality quite
concrete thoughts, endeavoring to think in such a way that these
things really remain in our minds as pictures, we are really learning
in a definite way to form certain thoughts and ideas which we could
not have brought into our souls in any other way. If we have the right
feelings and realise how our ideas have changed since we busied
ourselves with the subject of Spiritual Science, the time will come
when we shall consider it just as absurd to say that these things do
not interest us, as it is for a child to say it has no interest in
learning the A.B.C. but only wishes to learn to speak! What the
child must go through in its physical existence in learning to speak,
is abstract compared with what the living language can communicate,
just as the ideas pertaining to Spiritual Science are abstract
compared to the thoughts, ideas and feelings aroused in the soul under
the influence of these concepts. Of course this requires patience, and
it is also necessary that we should not merely consider what,
Spiritual Science has to give in the abstract, but should take whole
life into account. That, however, as regards what we are now
considering does not suggest itself to the man of the day. In
other respects, however, it may appeal to him; for he is accustomed to
be more or less satisfied when he has once seen a work of art or a
landscape, or has once listened to some scientific explanation. He is
very apt to say, if the matter is brought before him a second time:
Oh! I know that already I have seen or heard that
before! Such is life in the abstract. In other domains, where
life is judged according to what is to be found in it,
according to its actuality, that is not the method of
procedure. For one does not often meet a man at dinner who excuses
himself from eating because he has eaten the day before. At meals one
repeats the same process over and over again. Life is a constant
repetition. If the Spiritual is indeed to become real life to us
and unless it does, it cannot bring us into touch with the
universal Spiritual world, we must imitate in our souls the
laws of life in the physical world, which world, although now grown
torpid, was yet created by spirit. In particular, shall we become
aware that a good deal is taking place in our soul, if, with a certain
rhythmic regularity we allow such impressions to enter our souls as
necessitate a certain freedom of thought, a certain emancipation from
the mode of thought usual in the physical world. The salvation if we
may use so sentimental a word the salvation of the Spiritual
development of man depends upon our not giving way as regards
Spiritual things to that idle habit common today, of saying, Oh!
I know that already, I have heard that before! Rather should we
take these things as being like life itself, which is ever connected
with repetition, with what I might call the return of the same action
at the same place. As soon as we are interested in letting our soul be
permeated by the life of the spirit, our inner attention increases. It
becomes so acute that we are able to grasp inwardly in our soul those
important moments in which the connection with the Spiritual world
nearest to our heart can best be developed. For instance, the moments
of falling asleep and that of awaking are very important for the
communion with the Spiritual world. The moment of falling asleep would
be less fruitful to most people at the beginning of their Spiritual
development, because immediately after one is asleep the consciousness
is so dimmed that it cannot take in the Spiritual; but the moment of
passing from sleep into the waking state, if we do but accustom
ourselves, not simply to let it pass by unobserved but to pay
attention to it, may be very fruitful for us, if we try to wake up
consciously, yet not allowing the outer world to approach us at once
with all its crude brutality. In this respect there is a great deal of
good in the folk-customs of olden times, much that is quite right and
today but little understood. Simple people who are not yet plastered
over, as one might say, with intellectual culture, often say:
When you wake, you ought not at once to look at the light;
that is, you should remain awhile in a state of wakefulness
without allowing the brutal impressions of the outer world to press in
upon you immediately. If this be observed, it is possible at the
moment of waking to see those Dead that are karmically connected with
us. That is not the only time when they approach us, but it is then
easiest to perceive them. At such a time we can see what takes place
between us and the Dead, not only at the moment but beyond it; for our
perception of the Spiritual, world is not bound up with time as is the
perception of the physical world. This indeed constitutes one of the
difficulties attached to the grasping of the Spiritual world in its
essence. At the moment of perception something may momentarily reveal
itself to us out of the Spiritual world, something extending over a
very great space of time; the difficulty is to have the Spiritual
presence of mind to grasp this far-reaching something, at the moment;
for that moment may, as indeed is generally the case, pass away
in status nascendi. It is forgotten as soon as seen. That
constitutes the great difficulty of grasping the Spiritual world. Were
it not for this, many, many people, especially at the present day,
would already be receiving impressions of the Spiritual world.
There are also other moments in life when as I might say it is
possible for the Spiritual world to penetrate to us. Each time we
develop a thought in such a way that it springs from ourselves, when
we take the initiative, when we are confronted with a decision to be
made by ourselves even in quite small things, that again is a
favourable moment for the approach of the Dead karmically connected
with us. (Of course if we simply yield ourselves up, allowing life to
take its course, carrying us along with the stream, there is but
little likelihood of the real, true, inwardly living Spiritual world
working into us.) Such moments need not necessarily be
important ones, in the sense we attach to the word in
external material life, for very often, what is really important as a
Spiritual experience, would not seem important to the outer life; -but
to one who is able to see into these things, it is extremely clear
that such experiences, perhaps outwardly unimportant yet inwardly
exceptionally important, are profoundly related to our karma. So it is
necessary to notice even very intimate soul-occurrences if one desires
to attain an understanding of the Spiritual world. For instance, it
may occur that a man sitting in his room or walking in the street may
be startled by an unexpected sound, perhaps a crack or a bang. After
his fright he may have a moment of musing, during which something
important is revealed to him out of the Spiritual world. It is
necessary to pay attention to these things; for as a rule a man is
only concerned with the fright he had; be only keeps on thinking of
the shock he had. That is why it is of such importance to acquire
Inner Balance in the manner indicated at the end of the
book
Theosophy
and in
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.
When that has been acquired we are no longer so perplexed after a
shock as to think of nothing else, for we shall have the mastery over
ourselves, and may be able to call up, though perhaps but very
faintly, what we experienced in such apparently unimportant, but
really extremely important moments. Such things are of course mere
beginnings, and must develop further. When we develop the two
capacities: that of attentiveness at the moment of
waking and attentiveness at the moment when we are shaken
by some outer occurrence, we shall be able once more to find the
connection with the great Cosmos, which is composed of both substance
and spirit, of which we are a member and from which we came forth-came
forth indeed for the purpose of becoming free men but from
which we certainly did come forth. In reality, the belief of primeval
man was correct; we do not wander about the earth like hermits, as is
now believed. What primeval man believed is true: Man is a member of
the whole great Cosmic Connection, as each one of our fingers is a
member of our whole organism. People no longer possess this feeling
today at least the great majority no longer feel themselves members of
the great World-Organism, in so far as they as Spiritual beings are
living in a visible world. Yet ordinary scientific reflection might
teach a man, even today, that he and his life are part of the whole
cosmic ordering in which he as organism is placed. Let us take a very
simple example, which only needs a very simple reckoning. We all know
that in the Spring, on the 21st March, the sun rises at a definite
point in the heavens. This we call the Vernal Point. We know too that
this Vernal Point is not the same each year, but that it progresses.
We know that now the sun rises in Pisces. Up to the fifteenth century
it rose in Aries (Astronomy continues to say in Aries
which is not correct, but this remark does not apply at the moment.)
Thus the Vernal Point progresses; the Sun rises a little further on in
the Zodiac every spring, and it is easy to see that in a given time it
will have moved through the whole Zodiac; the place of sunrise will
have moved through the whole Zodiac. Now the approximate time required
for the Sun in its journey through the Zodiac is 25,920 years. Thus,
taking the Vernal Point of any given year, it will be further on the
year following, and the year after will have progressed again. When
25,920 years have gone by the Vernal Point will be back again at its
original place. Thus 25,920 years is an exceptionally important space
of time in our Solar System; the sun has accomplished what I might
call a cosmic step when at the vernal ascent it returns to the same
point. Now
Plato,
the great Greek philosopher, called these 25,920
years a cosmic year the great Platonic Cosmic year. Now if one
has not gone into all this deeply, what I am about to say will seem
only remarkable; it is indeed remarkable; but at the same time
full of profound significance.
In his normal state a man draws eighteen breaths a minute. This
varies, because he breathes rather quicker in childhood and more
slowly in old age but of a normal man it is correct to say: he
draws eighteen breaths a minute. It is easy to reckon that 18 times 60
make 1,080, which is the number of breaths to the hour: multiply this
by 24 the number of hours in the day and you get 25,920 breaths
in the day. Thus you see, my dear friends, that the same number
regulates the human day as regards a man's breathing as regulates the
passage of the Vernal Point through the great cosmic year.
This is a sign which shows that we are not just talking in a general,
vague, dimly-mystical way when we say that the Microcosm is an image
of the Macrocosm, but that man is really governed in an important
activity, upon which each moment of his life depends, by the same
number and measure as the course of the sun, in which course he is
himself placed.
Now let us take something else. The patriarchal age, as it is
called, is seventy human years. Of course seventy years is not a
hard-and-fast rule for the duration of a man's life; a man may live
much longer; for man is a free being and sometimes goes beyond such
limitations. We will however keep to this, and say that the normal
life of man is seventy or seventy-one years, and let us see how many
days these contain. Well now, we have 365.25 days in a year; to
begin with, we will multiply this number by 70, and we get 25,567.5;
then we multiply by 71 and we get 25,932.75 days. This proves that
between the ages of 70 and 71 comes the point of time when a man's
life includes exactly 25,920 days that is, the patriarchal age.
Thus we have defined a human day by saying that it contains
25,920 breaths; and we define the period of a man's life by saying
that it reckons 25,920 days.
Now let us investigate something else which is not so difficult
now. We shall easily see that, if we divide the 25,920 years which the
sun's vernal point requires to pass through the Zodiac, by 365.25, the
result is something like 70 or 71. That means that if we consider the
Platonic year as one great year and divide it till we bring out a day,
we find the proportion of a day to a Platonic year. What is
that? It is the course of a human life. A man's life is to a Platonic
year as a human day to a man's life.
The air is all around us. We breathe it in and breathe it out.
According to the law of numbers it is so regulated that when we have
breathed in and out 25,920 times, our life is spent. What then is a
day of our life? It is comprised in the outgoing and incoming of our
ego and astral body, in and out of our physical body and etheric body.
So that day after day the ego and astral body go out and return, go
out and come in; just like our breathing. Many of our friends will
remember that to make this subject clear, in public lectures I have
compared the alternation of waking and sleeping to deep breathing.
Just as in breathing we breathe the air in and breathe out, so, when
we fall asleep and awake, the astral body and ego go out and in. This
implies that a being exists, or can be presumed to exist, which
breathes in and breathes out just as we do in the eighteenth of a
minute, and the breathing of this being signifies the out-going
and in-coming of our astral body and ego. This being is none other
than the living being of the earth. As the earth experiences day and
night, it breathes; and in the process of its breathing it bears our
sleeping and waking on its wings. It is the breathing process of a
greater being. And now let us take the breathing process of a
still greater being; of the sun, in its circuit. Just as the earth
accomplishes a day by the releasing and drawing in of the ego and
astral body into man, so does the Great Being corresponding to the sun
bring human beings forth; for the 70 to 71 years are one day, as we
have shown: one day of the sun-year, the great Platonic Year. Our
collective human life is an out-breathing and in-breathing of this
great Being, to whom is appointed the great Platonic Year. You see how
it is; we draw one small breath in the 18th of a minute, which
regulates our life; our life is lived on the, earth, the
breathing of which comprises day and night: that corresponds with the
out-going and in-coming of the ego and astral body into the physical
and etheric bodies: and we are ourselves breathed in by the great
Being whose life corresponds to the course of the sun, our own life is
one breath of this great Being. Now you see that as Microcosms we are
actually part of and subject to the same laws, as regards the
Universal Beings, as the breath we draw is subject to our own human
being. It is governed by number and measure. It is a great and
wonderful thing, and in its significance must cut deeply into our very
hearts: that number and measure regulate the great cosmos, the
Macrocosm, exactly as they regulate us, the Microcosm. This is not
merely a figure of speech, it is not merely mystically felt; but the
wisdom-filled contemplation of the world teaches us that we, as
Microcosms, stand within the Macrocosm. When we make such simple
calculations as these which can of course be arrived at by the
most ordinary scientific methods of reckoning then, if our
hearts are sensitive to the secrets of cosmic existence and not mere
blocks of wood, the saying we are placed in the Universe
will cease to be abstract words, for we shall be fully alive to the
fact. A knowledge and a feeling will spring up within us the fruits of
which will be borne in the impulses of our will, and our whole being
live in unison with the great Life, Divine Cosmic Existence. That is
the path along which we find to some extent our way into the Spiritual
world, which way must be found at the time alluded to in the last
lecture, when Christ will walk the earth in His etheric form. I even
indicated the very year in which He began to move etherically over the
earth; it must be found! Only people must accustom themselves
to realise the connection, the very intimate connection already being
established from cosmic existence, which will, when it is felt and
realised, bring about a need, an intense longing to seek this union
with the Spiritual world. For before very long, people will be
compelled to realise at any rate one thing; which is the following:
If a man be deadened by materialism, he may indeed deny the existence
of a Spiritual world, but he cannot kill out in himself the forces
which are able to seek a connection with the Spiritual world. He may
delude himself as to the existence of a Spiritual world, but he cannot
kill out those forces in his soul which are intended to bring him in
touch with the Spiritual world. This has very significant
consequences which should be taken into account, especially at the
present time; forces are there and they work, whether their existence
is believed in or not. The materialist does not forbid the spiritually
inclined forces in his soul to work, he cannot do so; and they
do work. You may say; Is it then possible for a man to be a
materialist and yet to have forces at work within him which are
seeking the Spiritual? Yes, that is the case. These forces are at work
within him; no matter what he may do they work within him. What effect
do they then have? Well, wherever there are forces present, their own
original activity can be suppressed, but they then transform
themselves into something else, into different forces. You see, my
dear friends, if we do not employ the Spiritually tending forces for
gaining understanding of the Spiritual world, I only say
understanding, for that is all that is required at first,
these forces will transform themselves into the forces of
illusion in human life. Their activity then takes the form of inducing
a man to be subject to all kinds of illusion, illusions regarding the
external world. It is not without significance that this should be
realised in our time, for never have people indulged their imagination
as they do today, although they do not care for imagination: as their
imagination only works along certain definite lines. If it were
desired to give examples of this, of the fanciful weavings of people
who entirely desire to be realists, materialists, light could be
thrown on all sorts of things, there would be no end to it. We might
perhaps begin were it not heretical by glancing at what
statesmen have prophesied even a few weeks ago as to the probable
course of events in the world and at what has occurred since, and we
shall see that the capacities of illusion have played no small part
for some years. We might investigate many of the departments of life
in the same way, and it is quite remarkable to note that everywhere we
find these strongly developed capacities of illusion. Indeed they
sometimes even lend a childlike I might almost say a childish
character to the opinions and attitude to life of materialistically
inclined people. When one sees what is required today to make men
understand each other, or to try and make them see what is before
their very nose, one can understand what I mean by saying
childlike or even childish. Well, my dear
friends, it is even so. When people turn away from the Spiritual
world, they must pay for it by becoming subject to illusion, by losing
the capacity of forming accurate concepts concerning external physical
reality and the course of events therein. They are then compelled to
exercise their imagination in another direction, because they refuse
to hold by the truth; whether the truth concerns the Spiritual or the
physical life, it comes to the same thing, they turn away from it. I
once gave you an example which can be applied to this, for it is
typical of it: there are plenty of discussions and arguments to be met
with as to the Spiritual Science advocated by me. Those persons
reasoning against it base their arguments on their own statement that
everything given out here is mere fancy. It has all been
imagined, they say, and such flights of fancy cannot
seriously be admitted! So these people will not accompany us
into the true Spiritual world because they believe it to be imaginary,
and they despise such fanciful imaginations. They then proceed to add
all kinds of arguments which have just as little likeness to the
reality as black to white and they proceed, (this indeed is a typical
example) to speak of my family descent and the way in which I did this
or that in my life. There they develop a bold imagination! Here
we can see, side by side, the turning away from the Spiritual world,
and the capacity for illusion! These people do not notice this, yet
they are following an absolute law. A certain amount of force in them
tends towards the Spiritual world; a certain amount of force tends to
the physical world. If the force tending to the Spiritual world is not
used for that purpose, it turns towards the physical world; not in
order to study and grasp the truth and actuality there, but to drive
people into illusions concerning life. This cannot in each single case
be so observed that one can say: Ah! This man has been driven
into illusion through having turned away from the Spiritual
world. Examples of this can certainly be found, but they have to
be looked for; they cannot be discovered straight away, because life
is complicated, and one person influences another. It is ever the case
that a stronger soul influences the weaker, so that even when we find
some of that capacity for illusion in one person, it certainly may
come from a hatred for, a turning away from, the Spiritual world; yet
this dislike may not be in the soul of the person subject to the
illusions; it may have been suggested to him. For in Spiritual
domains the danger of infection is infinitely greater than in any
physical domain.
In our next lecture we shall consider how this is connected with the
general karma of man; how these things when observed in the light of
the important law of the metamorphosis of the soul-forces from the
Spiritual into forces of illusion work in the whole connection
of life, and their connection with the conditions of development of
our present time and those of the near future. We shall then carry
further what we have begun today and connect it with the Christ and
the Mystery of the present age, so as to obtain some light on the
significance of the Spiritual outlook in general.
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